Wednesday 27 March 2024

Signs of Spring


    Living where I do in the rural interior of British Columbia, where winter is such a dominant season, makes me pay a lot of attention to the signs of spring.  Even though we experienced an extremely mild winter this year, it  hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm of watching the changes in the environment as the spring season develops.  

    Here are a couple of those signs of spring that I have noticed over the last couple of days.  Above is a  branch sporting some fluffy pussy willows.  Below is a shot I took of my pond, which you can see, is now half free of ice.



View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Tuesday 26 March 2024

The Book of Rain by Thomas



When most people are surfing through the television channels seeking something to watch, if they come upon a terrible looking movie with bad acting, bad dialog, and a bad plot, they quickly move on to a different channel.  Sometimes when that happens to me, and the movie is incredibly bad, I become fascinated with it, and like watching a train wreck, I can’t look away and have to watch it to the end.  I found Thomas Wharton’s novel, The Book of Rain, similar to one of those incredibly terrible films, and I couldn’t help but read it to the end, just to see if any redeeming qualities accidentally appeared.  None did.

I am a realist, and I have mentioned before in the Book Club, that for me, one of the most important things in a novel, is believability.  I can stretch my imagination a bit by thinking, “Well, that might happen, but it is pretty far fetched.” but there is a limit to what I am able to swallow.  This novel went way beyond my believability, and my acceptance. 

It’s storyline is a mixed up convoluted jumble of ridiculous situations which didn’t take me long to hate.  I couldn’t work up any attachment or empathy for any of the characters, and although I am extremely concerned about global warming and the loss of livability in our planet, which is the underlying theme of the novel, the ecologically deteriorating world the characters in this novel lived in, just didn’t didn’t make sense.

The story is set in Canada, where a family traveling to a live in a new community where a relative owns a business,  makes an overnight stop in this small town in the middle of nowhere to overnight.  While eating, an atmospheric “wobble” travels through the restaurant and the community.  This  periodically occurring wobble effects the consciousness of people, some more than others, and is caused by a mysterious ore, called “Ghost” that is being mined nearby.  Later on in the novel, one victim of the wobble was doubled into two people, by the effects of the wobble.

Alex, the boy in the family is somewhat effected by the wobble, while Amery his young sister is put into a four day coma by it.  So what do you think this family, that is just passing through town, decides to do?  They decide to live in that community.

When those kids grow up, Alex, the boy, becomes a maker of imaginative games, working for a high tech game-making group in a large urban area.  The grown up Amery, remains in the small town that now has a large restricted area nearby, caused by the problematic, wobble-producing Ghost mineral that was mined there.  Amery keeps sneaking into the restricted area to save the wildlife there.  She then disappears in the restricted area, and so Alex returns to the town to try to find her.

Not satisfied with the already convoluted plat, the author creates another storyline for the enjoyment of the reader.  It concerns Clare, another former resident of the town, who now earns her living as an illegal animal trafficker, who smuggles rare and threatened animals for collectors .  She is in a big city on some developed touristy, rainy, island that is about to get blown to bits by a volcano.  While there, waiting to learn what her next smuggling job will be, an almost extinct heron, the last female of the species, lays an egg on the balcony of Clare’s hotel room (What a coincidence!)  Although Clare tries to keep it’s existence quiet, hoping to steal the precious egg, the hotel staff discover the rare bird, and Clare is then visited by the adolescent Dala lama-type king of the island, who seems to know about her, and urges her to rescue the egg, if anything like the erupting volcano, starts to destroy the island.  The reader is then left hanging, never knowing for sure what happened.

The novel then skips ahead many decades and the reader enters a time period where humankind has pretty much been wiped out by the ecological collapse of life on earth, but Amery, now a grandmother, along with her grandson, hike to one of the last life-supporting areas for birds. By this time, birds have learned to talk to each other.  Fortunately Amery, while lost in that old restricted area long ago, also learned to talk to birds.  

Then in the last 50 something pages of the novel, the reader is treated to the story of what happened in those skipped over years, which is relayed by a talking raven.  Yes, the talking raven tells the rest of the story.

I could use more colorful words to describe my opinion of this novel, but I will restrain that urge and only say it wasn’t my cup of tea.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca
 

Monday 25 March 2024

Scene From Jervis Road


    I have always found big blocks of solid color appealing, so it was no surprise that on Saturday evening at 7:00 as we drove down Jervis Road on our way to visit friends, that I just had to stop and take this photo.  There is the solid mass of dark blue of the Cariboo Mountains, the large area of yellowish-tan of the hay fields in the foreground, the uninterrupted baby blue of the sky and even the white-capped peaks jutting upward in the Raush Valley are showing areas of solid color.

    This area just east of McBride is one of my favorite scenes,  I have always loved the agricultural valley nestled in between the two mountain ranges (Cariboo and the Park Range of the Canadian Rockies).


 You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Sunday 24 March 2024

Kona Gives Herself A Job


    I have mentioned this before in a blog, but I am still surprised every time I see it.  Our dog Kona has some kind of strong compulsion to carry firewood back to our house.  It is something she just feels that she needs to do.  Sometimes I just stand there in awe at the big and heavy chunks of wood she lugs all the way to the yard, in her mouth.

    Yesterday, I spent some time falling, and cutting up some of the dead alder trees growing on the dam of my pond.  I bucked them up, piled them, and will use them as firewood.  Later, when we took a walk around the pond, I went on one side, while Kona decided to walk down the dam on the other side.  When I got around the pond and started walking down the dam toward the house, there was Kona with a big piece of firewood in her mouth, already heading for the house.

    She, of course, doesn’t leave the wood by the woodpile, but just drops them on the lawn, so I still have to stack it, but it does save me some work, because I don’t have to go down to the pond to get it and carrying it.



View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Saturday 23 March 2024

Bleeding Money


            We have always been very conservative with our money.  Getting a mortgage for our house was extremely scary for us since we were both so scared of debt.  Getting our first credit card also filled us full of fear, and we still only use it if we have the money to pay off the purchase.  We generally paid for our vehicles with money that we had saved, but of course, sometimes life catches us off guard.

         In 1989, just as I was completing finishing the balcony on the end of the addition I had built on our house, I started drawing up plans for another addition for the opposite end of the house.  That addition was for a laundry room, a darkroom/office for my wife, and a carport. 

            I called Allen Baer, a local contractor to prepare the site, put in forms for the foundation, and pour the cement for the foundation. 

            A couple of days after he completed the foundation, my wife drove up to Prince George in our eight year old Subaru, to do some shopping and get a haircut.  I was working at my desk in the Forestry Office when at 10:00 my phone rang.  It was my wife.   On her way up to PG, the Subaru’s transmission failed.  She had to get it towed to the Subaru Dealer, and there she found out that it was going to cost between $700 and $1,700 to get it fixed.

        This created a real dilemma for us because that was quite a lot of money for us at the time, and we began to wonder if it might be wiser just buy a new car, because our 1981 Subaru was beginning to show its age and was really starting to rust out.   

        After receiving the call, I immediately booked off of work and caught the Greyhound Bus up to Prince George so we could better figure out what to do.  We were able to spend the night with our neighbor’s  parents who live in PG.  

        The next day was a memorable one.  We wavered back and forth about what to do:  Buy a new car, or sink more money into repairing our rusting 1981 Subaru.  In the end we bought a brand new 1989 red Subaru Station wagon, and spent several hours in the dealer’s office committing ourselves to pay $300/month for the next five years, after handing over a $4,000 down payment.

        After nervously assuming the debt, we drove our shiny new car to the Bonanza Steakhouse to eat, wind down, and get our mind off of the big step we had just taken.  After our meal and reducing our stress level, we drove our new car back to McBride.

        Driving our brand new car was both fun and enjoyable.  However, upon reaching home, our fun quickly evaporated. 

        I discovered that while we were gone, my herd of Angora goats had escaped from the paddock, eaten up some willow trees, and then finishing off their moveable feast by eating the vegetables from our garden .

    Once I had rounded up the goats and herded them back into the barn, more bad news appeared  when I discovered that Allen Baer had left a $1,600 invoice for the foundation and carport work he had done.  I had assumed that that invoice wouldn’t arrive for couple of weeks, but there it was.

    When I called Allen to tell him I wouldn’t be able to pay him until I got my next bi-monthly paycheck, he said that was okay.  I was greatly relieved, but then he mentioned that I also owed Harley Bratton, the backhoe man, for the work he did digging the trench for the foundation. That was an unexpected surprise because I had mistakenly assumed Harley’s work would be included in Allen’s estimate.

    Suddenly, money got to be really tight for us.

    Luckily when I did get my next paycheck, it included not just my basic salary, but also pay for all of my fire fighting overtime hours.  Our checking account had climbed to $1,800.  Unfortunately, by the time I paid for the foundation and groceries, our checking account had shrunk back down to a meager amount that would have to keep us for the next two weeks.

            The 1989 photo shows our red Subaru parked in front of the foundation for our addition.  That pickup truck is parked in the area of where the carport would eventually be.  This photo was taken later, after I had purchased the old pickup from my neighbor.


Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca






Friday 22 March 2024

Graying Ice


    The snow has melted and the ice in the pond is starting to deteriorate.  As it does, it shows off some beautiful shades of gray and blue that I always find interesting.  Here is how the pond ice looked yesterday under an intensely blue sky.   


View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca 



 


 

Thursday 21 March 2024

Need A Toilet?


    On Saturday we drove out to the Dunster Schoolhouse for the potluck lunch and discussion about the possibility of the Integris Credit Union setting up in McBride.  As we approached the door of the schoolhouse, I was surprised to see this row of toilets sitting on the porch.  I found it so unexpected that I couldn’t help but take a photo.  They look like they have water in them, ready to use, but don’t.

    The toilets are free for the taking.  The sign says they all work and don’t leak.  If you need a free toilet, here is your chance, drive out to Dunster.


Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca