Our Sneaky Vegetarian Dog

     A couple of weeks ago I went into the crawlspace under our house that serves as our root cellar, to get some potatoes and beets out, for eating.  I took the tubers I had collected over to the outside faucet to wash them off.  After laying them out on the ground under the flowing water to soften the dirt on them, I busied myself individually brushing each one clean.

    I was focused on the brushing, and wasn’t paying any attention to what Kona was up to.  When I got all of the potatoes and beets scrubbed clean, I gathered them up to carry to the house.  It was then that I noticed that Kona was laying in the grass busily gnawing on something.  When I went over to investigate, I discovered that she had swiped one of the beets and was happily eating away on it.

    I am always amazed at Kona’s intense preference for veggies.  During the summer when I am in the garden, I sometimes spot her pulling peas or green beans off of the vines and eating them. She would rather have a dried sweet potato dog snack than a meat one.   I have seen her ignore the meat in cans of dog food, then go outside and chew away on an old stick instead.  Kona is one strange dog.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Nature Makes Another Attempt At Winter

     While the news reports have been full of the huge snowfalls blanketing and causing chaos down in the midwestern US states and in England.  We have been sitting in the middle of the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the Interior of British Columbia with only an inch of snow on the ground.  That was after the second year in a row of experiencing a very unusual Christmas with no snow at all on the ground.

    Well, last night Mother Nature did try to make our surroundings look a little more like a normal winter, by giving us about 3 inches (9 cm) of snow.  It was enough to encourage me to crank up the snowblower to clear my driveway.  That really wasn’t done to enable us to get our vehicles up to the road, but it was done to remove the snow from our slightly sloping driveway, so that the snow wouldn’t be compacted into ice when we drive over it, which does often cause us problems.

    I always like to have snow covering the ground to help insulate it, just in case we have an Arctic cold snap that could freeze our buried waterlines.  Plus we also need a lot of snow to alleviate us from the drought that makes the forest fire hazard so high during the summer.  

    I praise Mother Nature for her effort and encourage her to keep it coming.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Colorful Dawn

     When I first went outside this morning with Kona, it was dark, but there was a rosy-orange glow in the  East, so I figured it was a precursor to a colorful dawn.  Forty minutes later after eating our breakfast, we had to drive the car into McBride to get a service on it.  By this time, the sky was full color, and when I got down beside the Fraser River, I just had to stop to take the photo above.

    I also had to stop along the highway just outside of McBride, to take the photo below.  It was a beautiful start to the day, which was pretty miserable because of the cold cutting wind.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Bingeing TV

     When I was a kid, going to the movies were always a special event.  Sometimes it was at a theater, and sometimes it was at a drive-in, but it was always a treat.  When I was in high school and learned to drive and to go on dates, I waited patiently for the Thursday newspaper, so I could read the movie reviews and pick out the film I could take my girlfriend to.  

       Even when we immigrated to Canada, and I taught elementary school in a very remote lumber camp without radio or TV reception, whenever we got a magazine, I would always read the movie reviews, even though there was not chance of seeing them anytime soon.  My memory was pretty good at remembering the ones that sounded good and that I wanted to see.

    A few years ago, movie reviews changed.  Before, there was a chance of sometimes down the line of being able to see that movie, maybe on video tape, DVD, or on TV, but then came all of those movie streaming channels that you had to subscribe to.  I would listen to, or read a movie review which made me want to see the film, then when I got to the end of the review, it said it was playing on Netflix, Hulu, AppleTV+ or some other streaming channel that I didn’t subscribe to.  It bummed me out that I would probably never be able to see that movie.

    On Saturday, I read that AppleTV+ was opening their streaming to everyone for free, over the weekend.  Wow, I thought, this was my chance to see those three AppleTV+ movies I had read reviews of and really wanted to watch.  Yesterday was the last day left to watch those movies, so I pretty much sacrificed the whole day to watch them.  It took more than seven hours to do so, but I was able to see all three.

    The three I watched were:  “Blitz”,  “Coda”, and “Killers of the Flower Moon”.  “Blitz” is a very recent film about the London Blitz.  Like many London parents, a mother put her young son on a train headed for the safety of the countryside, to protect him from the Nazi bombs that were destroying London.  The boy didn’t want to leave his mother, and  mid-trip, jumped off of the train, then had to find his way back to London and his mother.  His struggle back was full of danger.  It was a very exciting film, and I felt the description of the blitz was well researched and accurate.

    “Killers of the Flower Moon”, is a drama that depicts one of the most shameful and ugly periods of American history.  The Osage Indian tribe had been forced from their home in the midwest and made to live in the bleak lands of a reservation in Oklahoma.  Suddenly their fortunes reversed because oil was discovered on their reservation land.  The Osage Indians became extremely wealthy.  They were of course, tricked, robbed, and murdered by the whites, to steal their wealth.  

    “Flower Moon” followed one such scheme to accumulate the wealth of a young woman, due to inherit oil rich land.   The film was a long one, three and a half hours long.  While showing a lot of disgusting and unconscionable behavior, I’m sure it opened the eyes of viewers to this little known part of American history.

    I have been wanting to see “Coda” for years, ever since I read a review of it.  It tells the story of a hearing teenage girl, with a beautiful singing voice, whose family members are all deaf.  They make their living on a fishing boat, and because the girl is the only family member who can hear, the family depends entirely on her to communicate with the public.   When she discovers that she is a talented singer, tensions in the family build, because they depend on her so much, and she wants to pursue her vocal talent.  

    “Coda” was a wonderful and emotional film, that was my favorite of the three.   I was so happy to be able to finally see it.

    Now you have read my short reviews, and if they sounded like films you might want to see, I guess if you don’t subscribe to AppleTV+, you are miffed just like I was, when long ago I read the reviews, and discovered that I would probably never be able to see them, because I didn’t subscribe to the streaming service.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Some Souvenirs

      We got another early start (5:00 AM) that next day, ready to catch the 6:00 bus from the Cahuita townsite to San Jose.  We were told that the Hotel Atlantida’s “Morning Man” would drive us into town to the bus stop.  It didn’t help our normal travel anxieties that by 5:50, there was still no Morning Man to take us to the bus stop.  Well, we thought, I guess we will end up taking the 11:00 bus to San Jose.

    Just as soon as we resigned ourselves to that scenario, the Morning Man showed up to drive us and drop us off at the bus stop.  

    Amazingly, the Morning Man did managed to get us to the bus stop at 6:00, but not that that did us any good, because there was no bus there waiting.  So we just hung around at the bus stop looking around and waiting.  Downtown Cahuita was not a very attractive place.  Around us stood a collection of decrepit buildings, a rundown dumpy-looking park, and about fifteen mangy dogs walking down the gravel-littered streets, sniffing each other.

    We waited and waited and it wasn’t until 7:30 that the bus to San Jose finally arrived.  The fare was $6.25 each and we got to San Jose at 11:00.  We headed straight to our usual accommodation at the Costa Rica Inn, where we had reservations.

    After dropping off our bags in our room, we headed to McDonald’s for lunch.  I settled for a chicken burger, fries, and Coke, while Joan went for the Big Mac Combo.  Our meal cost us $9.50 CAD.  Our appetites sated, we headed back out onto the city streets to checkout what souvenirs we might buy for friends and relatives back home, that gave us some idea about how many Traveller’s Cheques we should cash into colones. 

    We still had enough colones to buy a big Indian pot and a tropical wood sample plaque and an anti-Columbus T-shirt.  The big Indian Pot is shown above.  Because it was so big, we couldn’t carry it in or bags, so we had to mail it to McBride.  When it finally arrived, it was in pieces, and we had to glue it back together the best we could.  The tropical wood sampler wall hanging is shown below.

        We ate our evening meal at a buffet where I ate a lot of chicken and rice, then back to our hotel room and very tired, by 8:00.  As we pondered the day’s events, we were thankful that our vacation’s last chaotic bus ride, featuring wild drivers, speeding, and passing, was behind us.  Those rural buses were not a very relaxing way to travel.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Lost Keys

     On New Years Eve Day, we took Kona for a walk down Horseshoe Lake Road.  Overnight about an inch of new snow had fallen on the previously bare road.  My wife walked on ahead, as I hung around  with Kona, who was more interested in sniffing the weeds, rather than walking.  When my wife returned she told me she had found some keys and a fob on the road, with a dusting of snow on them.

    There was of course, no way of telling who the keys belonged to, but we knew how important the keys and fob would be to whoever owned them, and they would be very happy to get them back.  We took the keys home with us, and as soon as we got back home, I cranked up my computer, took a photo of the keys, and made a poster about finding them.

    In a small village in McBride, there are a few places that everyone eventually has to go to.  There is the Post Office, where everyone must go to get their mail, and there are the two grocery stores.  I printed up three posters, and drove back to town to put them up.

    I struck out at the Post Office, who now only allows posters of people who have just died, but I was able to post the notice at our two grocery stores, one outside on their bulletin board, and the other was hung right on the front door, where it was sure to be seen by everyone leaving the grocery.

    Yesterday, we got a call from the owner of the keys, and since I knew him, and was going into the library Friday afternoon, I told him I would drop them off at their house.  I did and they were relieved to get them back, and I was happy that we were able to help do that.

    Living in a very small community does have a lot of disadvantages, but it also has some benefits.  I doubt those lost keys would have ever found their owner in a big city.

You can take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Humanity Fails

      The following day gave us more positive feeling about Cahuita because the sun had come out.  We did have a strange start to the day, when we were awakened by a huge bang, followed by a power outage that effected all of Cahuita, at 5:30.  We never did hear what happened but we were left without water, and couldn’t get our breakfast until 8:00.

    After lounging around for a while in our room, we walked to the another beach to try to do some swimming in the waves.  We finally got to put in some good beach time, enjoying being pounded by the surf.

    After the swim, we walked to Cahuita to eat lunch at Defi’s, an eatery with unusual decor.  There was sand on the floor, driftwood and plants on the walls, and Weaver Bird nests hanging from the ceiling.  Their food didn’t match the fancy interior.  I had a tomato sandwich, and my wife was “treated” to a raw hamburger.

    As we were lounging on our porch back at our cabin, Charlie the Rastaman came strolling by and came over to see us.  He gave me a sob story about how he had gotten a job chopping bush with his machete.  Unfortunately, he needed to buy a file to sharpen it, and he had no money.  He asked me if I could loan him $5.  

    I felt it was probably a scam, but wanting to trust humanity, I opened  my wallet to give him the money.  There I found only a $10 bill.  When I explained that to Charlie I only had a ten, he said he would bring me back five dollars after he got the file.  My trust in humanity, again got the best of me and I gave him the ten.  Humanity failed the test.  Charlie the Rastaman, was never to be seen again.

    We got our laundry done at the hotel.  While there we petted the poor baby parrot with the clipped wings, and poor Emilio, the tied-up monkey.  It was so sad to see the lives animals have to lead for the amusement of mankind.

    Back in our cabin, we repacked our bags, ready for an early exit the next day.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca