Up in the air

That's where we were the other, walking through the tree canopy at UBC's Greenheart TreeWalk. Even though we were high up (several storeys at many points along the route), it mostly felt a bit 'swingy' though the rope handles on either side were reassuring enough for even a chicken like me. 

Something I thought about while I was making the walk was the Wallenda family, who made tightrope walking a multi-generational career. I kept trying to keep my feet walking a line that followed the centre of the walkway. This only convinced me I could never have learned to walk on a rope, especially not one that didn't have a catch-net below. Yikes!

The other thing the walkway reminded me of was Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, "The Swing" with its rocking rhythms, so evocative of actually being on a swing. I tried finding a video of a film based on this poem, but none of the ones on YouTube were the one I'd been looking for. A former student of mine made it some years ago. While I was lucky enough to see it once, as she visited and shared it, but sadly, I can't find it anymore. 

Nonetheless, I still like the poem, and I hope maybe you will too. Here's a link to the print version of it. Imagine yourself on a swing as you read it; you might even feel like 'pumping' your legs! And if you feel like taking a vicarious walk on the one out at UBC, click here for a video experience. 

Standard shift

Even though the peaches aren't quite ripe enough to pick, today no longer feels like summer. It's not even a matter of temperature, it's something about this afternoon's light. Maybe it's the angle of the sunlight dappling the boards of the deck -- whatever the cause, it makes me realize that autumn's on its way.  

The blackberries are thick on the vines, and we're still getting a few raspberries for our desserts. The plums down at Lee Street, where we're always encouraged to pick, are just about ready too. Another year with a bounteous supply of fruits. 

I suppose this overabundance may well mean a harsher than usual winter. We'll wait and see about that. 

For now, I'm heading back to the kitchen. Jars are sterilized and shiny, ready for me to make another batch of jam. 

Is there snow on Mars?

And no, I wasn't on Mars, though the light filtering through the smoky skies was eerie enough to feel like I was on the red planet. 

Even though we're far from the many forest fires currently burning in our province, the smoke made its way here, as if reminding us of our interconnectedness and vulnerability. 

The last time I remember this kind of dusting of ash was when Mount St Helens blew her top in 1980. Yes, that ash was thicker, but this had that same quality to it -- as if it were gritty snow. 

I'm washing the vegies and fruits as we pick them from the garden, not something I generally need to do. 

Nonetheless, considering the horrors going on across the world in Afghanistan, where people are not only losing their rights, but their lives as they try to escape, I can only be grateful for smallish annoyances as the ones I've been given.  

Coulda, shoulda

Once upon a time the City of Surrey had the opportunity to make a park. As you can see from the photo, it looks as though they already had one. 

In actuality, it was the site of a nine-hole golf course. But more importantly, the site had several ponds which served as a home to nesting ducks and other migratory birds who stopped by along their flightpaths.

There was also a salmon-bearing stream, now lost. 

Somehow the City Council decided it made more sense to turn it into a parking lot. Maybe they misunderstood Joni Mitchell's song, and thought that a parking lot meant paradise. 

The photo is from autumn of 2004, and those rolling green hills are long gone and paved, part of a shopping complex with a Walmart at its heart. If they'd moved that centre a mere one block to the east, and declared the site as parkland, the thousands of people who now live in the many nearby townhouses built since then, those families would have had a greenspace park. But no, instead they have a place for buying imported goods. No doubt useful in some respects, but hardly the place for a picnic. 

Surrey is once again planning to pave another environmentally sensitive area. And surprise, surprise, despite the fact that the 'public' meeting (which ran until after 2 a.m.) heard from many speakers who presented science-based reasons for opposing the proposed development, Surrey's Mayor McCallum and his four sidekicks on Council voted instead for construction of an industrial park there. And yes, that term has to be one of the most contradictory oxymorons of our time. 

The area where this construction is proposed contains a river where endangered salmon species still live, and is above an aquifer which feeds the wells of many residences. As one of the presenters put it: "Building a series of warehouses above an aquifer -- whose idea was that?!"

The Zoom meeting for public input began in the afternoon and then ran for just over 12 hours. Because I am a person who cares, I was present for the duration. Yet, as has been apparent at other such presentations in the past, it became clear that the elected officials had their minds made up in advance. 

When the five minutes allotted me for my presentation came up (at 10:30 p.m.), I had the unsettling experience of being interrupted by the mayor -- who basically told me to shut up -- an occurrence that rattled me, I admit. I can't help but think that's partly the reason I've had such a hard time getting around to writing this particular post. 

All that I -- and many others -- had hoped for was that the proposal as currently described would be rejected so that it could be revised in a way that would protect the sensitive areas from having warehouses built on them. Warehouses which are being touted as places for employment opportunities for the people of Surrey, despite the fact that more and more warehouse work is being performed by robots, and not people at all. 

So yes, I think this is yet another error in the making by our municipal government, one that will prove to be regretted in the not-so-distant future. All we can hope is that some higher level of government will pronounce the plan as folly and stop it from going forward -- and, with luck, will determine that it's an area worthy enough of protection to be declared as parkland.