Last Day of 2019

    On this last day of the year everyone on the Media is filling the airwaves looking back at 2019, so I thought I would put my two cents in.  Worldwide 2019 has been a disaster with Mother Nature demonstrating Her displeasure at what humankind is destroying.  Politically, countries around the world are increasingly being ruled with uncaring right-wing bullies who thumb their noses at the natural world, human rights, honesty and compassion.  

    Locally things were better, despite the wettest summer and fall I can remember.  On the personal side 2019 was the year we got our new dog Lexi.  She was a rescue dog that originally lived in a First Nation’s Reserve in Saskatchewan.  Despite her old age (7-10), Lexi is full of contagious energy and has brought a lot of joy and love into our home.

    I hope for the best for all of you in 2020.

Take a look at my paintings:   davidmarchant2.ca

A Body At Rest

    One of the perks of being retired is being able to take an afternoon nap.   Yesterday after I had finished taking advantage of that perk, I threw off the covers and got up.  Lucifer our cat who was sleeping beside me, stayed where she was and as a result was pretty much completely covered up by the duvet I had flipped off.  I noticed her, but since she seemed not to mind being covered I let her be and left the room.

    An hour later when I returned to the room I noticed that she was still snoozing away under the duvet, so I took this photo.  Looking at it, I can’t really identify much of Lucifer, but I think maybe on the right side is one of her rear paws.

    She remained this way for another hour when she finally came down stairs.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Tile--A really Helpful Technology

    Let me start out by saying that if I recommend or say something positive about an item on my blog, it is because it has really been helpful to me and not because of any financial gain for me.  That being said let me put a little praise on Tiles.  See the white square thing in the photo, that is a Tile, and I think it is an amazingly helpful technology.

    Several years ago I saw a small article in some magazine that told about developers who were trying to create a small thing called a Tile, that would allow people to track down something they had misplaced.  They were doing some crowdfunding.  In return for I what I think was $60 they would send each investor one of the Tiles they were trying to create.  

    Since my wife was always misplacing her keys, I sent them the money and waited for them to create the thing.  They did finally get the Tile developed and I gave it to my wife.

    Here is what it does.  You put the TIle on something that you want to keep track of:  your keys, your bicycle, or maybe your dog.  If that thing goes missing, you can open an app and if it is far away you are shown a map with a dot indicating where it is.  If your lost item is close, it shows a target-like image with colored rings that enlarge as you get closer to the lost item.  You can also press a button on the app to  make the tile chime, which helps you find it.

    The other day my wife couldn’t locate her wallet which luckily had a tile on it.  She got out her phone, opened the Tile App, and saw that her wallet was somewhere fairly close.  By moving around in the house and watching the circles enlarge or shrink, we finally found the wallet in a closet.  We couldn’t really hear the chiming because it was inside her purse, but the circles were enough to find the wallet.

    Below you can see the app and the circles.  The price of a tile has dropped a lot since I got that original one.

You can view my photo-realistic paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Peeking Through the Clouds

    As we took our afternoon walk the other day, the mountains were slowly making theirselves known as the clouds slowly dissipated revealing McBride Peak.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Under the Christmas Tree

    We were thrown into a bit of a panic last night when we realized we didn’t know where our dog Lexi was.  We knew she must be inside the house somewhere because the door had been shut.   As I have blogged before, Lexi often sleeps in unusual places:  on a pile of shoes, under the desk on a pile of old padded envelopes, or on top of upright cushions on the couch.  We checked all of those places and more, but couldn’t find her.

    We didn’t call her because we figured she must be sleeping and didn’t want to wake her up, we just wanted to know where she was.  I was sitting on the couch and thought I heard breathing sounds behind me, so I checked and re-checked at the end of the couch and on the bay window a couple where she sometimes sleeps, but didn’t see her.  When I heard the breathing sounds again I checked for a third time and finally saw her under the Christmas tree.  She was wearing her red striped shirt which blended in the red and white checkered blanket covering the base of the tree.

    I have no idea why she chose that particular spot for her nap, but she seemed pretty contented snoozing away there.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Frosted Branches

    Here is a photo I took yesterday that is extremely simple, but that I really like a lot. The dark forest and low gray clouds in the background create a nice gradient that nicely amplifies the backlit frost on the branches.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Lawrence of Arabia

    I had an opportunity to re-visit the movie Lawrence of Arabia, and was again amazed at the epic spectacle of the film.  I guess the first thing that struck me was just how beautifully it was filmed.  The stark desert landscapes were spectacular, and I was in awe at just how much trouble and money the producers must have gone through to come up with such a film.  

    To see the thousands of actors riding across the desolate topography was mind-blowing, and must have been a nightmare to film.  The music too was powerful.

    T.E. Lawrence lived an extraordinary life and the film not only covered his part in World War I, but also touched on the historical missteps in the Middle East that are still causing the world so much trouble today (the jealous tribal factions of the Arabs and the scheming and betrayal of the Arabs by England). 

    Re-watching “Lawrence” also awakened some personal memories for me.  Because I have a birthday very late in the year, all of my classmates had their driver’s license before I finally turned 16 and could get mine.  Once I had it I could finally go out on a date with my girlfriend at that time.  I loved movies and didn’t know anything about Lawrence of Arabia which had just opened at a local theatre.  

    Got to drive our family’s 1961 station wagon, pick up my girl friend and drive to the Ross Theater for that first date where we watched the Lawrence of Arabia epic.   It was an enjoyable experience to watch it then, and it was good to see it again a couple of days ago.

You can view my photo-realistic paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

The Winter Solstice--Finally Longer Days

    If you look closely at the photo above you can see that the Sun is starting to set behind a mountain.  I took the shot at 1:30 yesterday afternoon.  Yep, 1:30 and the Sun is disappearing.  Of course we still had daylight until 4:00, but that is the worse thing about this time of year, the short amount daylight we get during the day.  

     The Winter Solstice has now arrived, which officially marks the beginning of Winter, which is depressing, but it also marks the start of lengthening days.   Just that fact makes it an event I look forward to.  Even though we won’t notice any change for a while, just knowing that the days are getting longer makes me very happy.

    I’ve often thought that the Winter Solstice should mark the beginning of the New Year, instead of Jan. 1st, which really is unrelated to anything natural.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Pushing the Freedom Envelope

    We have to keep a really close eye on Lexi because she is continually trying to push the “Freedom” envelope.  At her base, she is a wild dog, and she has a very strong tendency to totally follow her nose and wander off, despite our loud objections.  We like to give her a bit of controlled freedom so that she  can think she is off on her own and getting away with something.

    The other day at Horseshoe Lake Lexi followed her nose toward the gazebo so we just let her go.  The walkway and gazebo are both fenced in, so we didn’t worry about her getting into trouble.  She walked to the gazebo, proudly on her own she sniffed around, away from her “controllers” who were far away.  Once she had sampled all of the smells available, she turned and walk back toward us on the walkway.

Check out my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

An Amber Alert

    If a child disappears or is kidnapped, an “Amber Alert” is sent out to all cell phones in that area in hopes that someone will see something that might help the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in finding the child.  The most obnoxiously terrible noise you can imagine blasts through the phone to get your attention and the alert message appears on the screen.

    Months ago such an alert when out in Ontario in the middle of the night, which awoke many people who were sleeping.  There was much criticism about sending out an alert while most everyone was asleep.  It did sound like a questionable move by the police to me and I wondered how effective it was.

    Well a similar thing happened to me the other night.  I was sleeping deeply and at 2:45 AM, my cell phone which was laying on my nightstand, screamed out the obnoxious sound of the alert and my phone lit up with a message.  Mostly asleep, I automatically groped for my phone to see what the message was.

    Upon peering at the very bright screen in the dark bedroom, I rapidly discovered that I could not read the blurry message without my reading glasses, so as I felt around on the nightstand for my glasses with one hand, I swiped the alert screen with a finger from the other hand, (something I do to read a text message).  However, when I swiped the screen, the alert message totally disappeared from the phone.  

    Once I had my glasses on and my room light turned on, I tried to search through the phone to see if I could find the message somewhere.  I couldn’t.

    So I was awakened by the noise and light from the alert, but I had no idea of what it was about, and there really wasn’t any way of finding out.  The emergency system didn’t seem to be very efficient to me.

    The next morning while listening to the radio, I heard that an amber alert had been sent out in Alberta (I live in BC) about a young boy who had been kidnapped by his father.  Later that day the man was caught and his young son was okay.

    Because Alberta is just over on the other side of the mountains, emergency messages bleed over and for some reason come to my phone.  I don’t think that happens to everyone in McBride, but on tests of the system I always get the test from Alberta, and then an hour later, the test from BC.

    I still question the value of sending out an amber alert in the dead of night.  Surely announcements on the radio and TV stations would suffice, since most everyone else is sound asleep.

You can view my photo-realistic paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Pre-Dishwasher Plate Cleaning

     Before we put our dirty dishes into the dishwasher we have them pre-cleaned.  We give that work to Lexi who does an amazingly good job of it.   Lexi is a good sport about her extra chore and she never complains about having to do it.

Take a look at my photo-like paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Sweetheart of the Rodeo-An Album That Opened My Eyes

    I have had a lot of music go through my ears during my lifetime, but one of the albums I still love after I first heard it 51 years ago is “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” by the Byrds.  I was a big fan of The Byrds years before they released Sweetheart of the Rodeo.  I loved their tight harmonies, the chiming electric 12 string guitar, and the whole folk rock genre they had introduced back in 1965.  “Mr. Tamborine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn” became Top 40 Hits, but I also loved their lesser known songs as well.

    They were a group that couldn’t seem to stick with what they had already achieved.  From their “Folk Rock” period, they ventured into into “Psychedelic” rock with “Eight Miles High” (which was actually about an airplane flight) and “Fifth Dimension”.  Whatever kind of music they drifted into, I followed along, but then in 1968 they released “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” where they unexpectedly ventured into “Country”  music.  Had I known it was full of “Country” music I would have been frightened.

    Back in those days there were really distinct cultural differences between rock fans and country fans.  I had a strong dislike for the sappy tear-jerker country music that couldn’t be avoided where I lived in Southern Indiana.  I was not a fan.  I did though like the older country music, and really liked Bluegrass.  

    I bought “Sweetheart” because it was the latest Byrd album, and put it on the turntable.  The Byrds must have arranged the songs in the album to slowly seduce me.  It started out with the Bob Dylan song, “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” and since I was a big Dylan fan, I loved it, even with the heavy steel guitar.  Then the next track was “I Am A Pilgrim” a bluegrass song with fiddle and banjo, of course I liked that one too.  Slowly the tracks on the album slid into more pure country, but by then I was hooked.  They still had their beautiful vocals, strong rhythms, and I was beginning to love the steel guitars.

    “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” really changed my view of country music.  Some of the songs feel like they are “tongue in the cheek” because of their severe “heartbreak”  and “Honky Tonk” sentiments, but the music is rhythmic and beautiful.  The studio musicians were Nashville regulars.

    When they began to record the album, the studio steel guitar player told them that he usually just would come in and play at selected spots on a song, then he asked when he should play on their songs.  The Byrds told him just to play all the way through the songs, which made the steel guitar player very happy.   The Byrds even got to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, but despite their music the appearance of “Hippies” turned off the Opry fans.

    “Sweetheart” is still a solid and relevant album that still holds up fifty years later.  It is listed in Rolling Stone’s Top 150 Albums of all Times, and is one of my all time favorites.  I have introduced our Tuesday night jam to many of the songs from the album (“You Ain’t Going Nowhere”, “Hickory Wind”, “You’re Still On My Mind”, “You Don’t Miss Your Water”, “I Am a Pilgrim”, and “The Blue Canadian Rockies”.

    If you subscribe to Apple Music or Spotify, you should give “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” a listen.

Take a look at my photo-realistic paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Pioneer Horse Logging

    Local photographer Matthew Wheeler enlarged this old photo of winter logging, which now adorns the side of the Elk’s Hall in McBride.  I have always found it fascinating to look into the faces of these now deceased forest workers, all bundled up for long days of cold labor, and wonder what it was like to spend long days out among the snow laden trees horse logging.  I am always surprised at how many people it took to do the work.

    During my time working for the BC Forest Service I did spend many a winter’s day out in the forests, but usually just checking on things rather than doing hard physical work, but it does give me some sense of what it is like to spend winter days far from civilization, surrounded by snowy trees.

    While I have driven past this image many times, yesterday with the snow on the ground, the old photo  seemed more relevant.

View my photo-realistic paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

   Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

           This novel follows struggles of members of a Korean family from 1910 through to 1989.  

            Sunja was the daughter of a well-liked Korean man who had a harelip and a crippled foot.  He felt lucky to be married to a peasant girl because of his disfigurement.  Sunja’s family rented a house which they ran as an inn. Because of hard times during the Japanese occupation they struggled, but remained honest in their business which resulted in a good reputation for the inn.

      When the father, who was still relatively young, died of TB, the mother with the help of Sunja and her sisters, continued running the Inn.  Sunja innocently began a relationship with Hansu, a wealthy Japanese fish broker, and although both loved each other, when she discovered she was pregnant and that Hansu was married with a family, she broke off the relationship, even though he wanted to provide for her and her mother.

      Isak, a handsome young pastor traveling to Japan, arrived at the inn’s door near death from tuberculosis.  He was taken in by the inn, and cared for until he recovered.  In Isak’s thankfulness for their care, he decided to spare the family from the shame that would result from Sunja’s pregnancy becoming known, and when he recovered, he married her.  They then moved to Japan where Isak had been promised a job in a Protestant church.  In Osaka, they lived with Isak’s brother, Yoseb.

       In Japan, Koreans faced racial discrimination and were forced to live in ghettos of poverty.  Yoseb and his wife had a very small dwelling in a crowded Korean ghetto.  The Korean church was very poor and Isak’s job paid practically nothing, so life became a struggle.  

        Sunja sold a very expensive watch that had been given to her by Hansu, so she could pay the debt Yoseb had incurred by paying Isak’s and Sunja’s passage to Japan.  The expensive watch enabled weatthy Hansu to discover where Sunja’s and his child, a baby boy were living, and he secretly tries to make their lives better.   Sunja later had another boy by Isak who was named Mozasu.

       The storyline follows the lives of these two brothers, as well as the other members of the family, first with their struggles with poverty and discrimination, and then with the wealth they began to generate by the businesses they created.  Pachinko, as in the title, is a Japanese form of pinball gambling.   It is extremely popular and generates more money per year than all of the Japanese auto companies combined.  It became the main source of this family’s wealth.

      I found this novel very engaging.  It touched all of the high and low points of conflict that most families confront. The storyline is punctuated with unexpected events that change the dynamics of the family.  

       The novel spends a lot of time describing the difficult conditions Koreans living in Japan had to contend with.  I was completely unaware of the number of Koreans who, during the 20th Century, moved to Japan and how, even after several generations born there, Japan still considered those people immigrants and discriminated against them. 

       Pachinko was a very enjoyable novel to read.  The storyline had me rushing to the end, then I found myself kicking myself for having read so fast because it was over.

Take a look at my photo-realistic paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Icicles

    Here is the view out of our bathroom window.  The icicles hanging down from the eaves are catching some of the morning sun.  Icicles off the roof can mean the roof isn’t very insulated, but I think in this case the roof was warm from the weather when we got a lot of insulating powdery snow, so the snow kept melting underneath.

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Old Man's Beard and Snow

    Yesterday I spotted this very thick clump of Old Man’s Beard lichen, topped with a layer of snow growing on a Larch tree in our yard.  I thought it was beautiful with it fine tendrils and subtle coloration.  I thought the image had a real northern Canada feel to it.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Rear View Cameras

    Once I got used to looking at the rear view camera in our car when I back up, I found it really helpful.  However now that winter is upon us, it becomes pretty useless, unless I remember to wipe the lens before I back up.  Above you can see what it looks like, if I forget.

    The whole back end of our car gets very dirty with all of the wet slush flying up, and since that is where the camera is, it to gets covered with debris.  If I had a dime for every time I forgot to wipe off the camera before I backed up, I would be a rich man today.

    The photo below shows how dirty the camera (and back of the car) gets.

Take a look at my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca

Winter Scene

    I had to make another trip to Valemount yesterday to take Lexi to the vet.  Driving is always frustrating for me on days when the lighting in nice, because I keep seeing things that are photo-worthy, but at the same time I feel a responsibility to keep driving and as a result, I feel bad at missing some good shots.  That was the case yesterday.  

    Finally in frustration I made myself stop and took this shot of a snowy peak.  It is not spectacular, and not the best photo I could have taken yesterday, but it is typical of what we Robson Valley residents see around us during the winter.  

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Waiting by Ha Jin

               The opening of this novel takes place in 1983 in China.  Twenty-one years earlier, Lin, a young man being trained as a Red Army doctor, got a letter from his parents asking him to return home so he could be married to a girl they had selected.  Her photo seemed okay, so he agreed.

       Upon his arrival home, he found that the girl looked more like a forty year old woman, rather than the young woman in the photo.  She had bound feet, which was something that was no longer considered “cool” in modern China.  Even though he tried to get out of the marriage, his parents insisted it happen, so Lin married, and the couple did then have one daughter.

       Lin spent the whole of every year working in a distant military hospital, only returning to his wife and farm for ten days.  Each year during those ten days, he tried to get a divorce, which Shuyu would always at first agree with, but when they went to the village judge to sign the divorce paper every year she would back out of getting the divorce.

       There was no hostility between the two, Dr. Lin was always civil and sympathetic to Shuyu, but he just didn’t love her.  She accepted her role as his wife and tried to always do things that would please him. 

       For the seventeenth time the divorce was rejected by the judge, and Dr. Lin returned unhappily to the hospital to tell Manna, his girlfriend, of the judges ruling.   Manna was of course was also unhappy, but Dr Lin convinced Manna, that he was sure he would be able to get the divorce the following year.  Dr. Lin and Manna kept their relationship plutonic in the meantime.

       The story flashes back to the 1960’s and tells of Dr. Lin’s work in the hospital and how the relationship between he and Manna, a nurse, slowly developed, despite the very restrictive government rules against any, even non-sexual, interactions between men and women of the medical profession.   These chapters give a good description of life in China under Mao. 

        For eighteen years Dr. Lin and Manna lived as friends, in the strict Communist hospital setting, despite their deep heart-felt feelings for each other, and every year Dr. Lin would visit his wife in an effort to get her to give him a divorce.   Each year he failed because Shuyu’s brother, who was against the divorce, would sabotage Lin’s effort.   Manna became ever more frustrated with the static nature of their relationship.

       Eventually Dr Lin got his divorce and married Manna, but his new marriage was not as idyllic as they had dreamed, because of a lot of self-doubts that arose in both of them and the impact of their aging.  I guess I expected a bit more from the novel’s ending after all of the struggles and sacrifices that had been made in getting there.  The ending seemed flat to me, nevertheless it was an interesting book to read.

Take a look at my photo-realistic paintings:   davidmarchant2.ca

It's Time For Paths

    Every winter we reach a time when the snow becomes so deep that walking in the yard becomes so burdensome that it is easier to make a few paths through the snow so we can get to where we want to go.  Usually I make the paths by pressing down the snow with snowshoes.  Once you snowshoe over an area a couple of times the resulting path becomes firm enough to allow you to walk on it with just regular winter boots.

    I made the path you see Lexi on by shoveling the snow.  She’s so short and the snow is so soft that without a path, she wouldn’t be able to go anywhere in the yard.  This path for Lexi circles the house.  Normally I only make three winter paths, one to the woodpile, one to the barn and a third one to the compost pile.  We can access the shop via our driveway, which I keep clear.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Lexi: One Indignation After Another

    We are feeling so sorry for our little dog, as she slowly plods through the house confused and wondering what is going on.  Not only is she feeling the effects of the medicine she has to take, but she is also forced to wear these outlandish costumes.  

    We are suffering with you Little Dog, and are hoping for that soon the day will come when you can once again run like a rocket.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Foot of Snow Overnight

    Last year we had a very unusual ‘Green” Christmas because of the lack of snow on the ground.  I don’t think we are going to worry about not getting a “white” one this year, because overnight we got 12 inches (30 cm) of snow on top of the 7 inches we already had on the ground.

    I am not getting much painting done because of the snow.  Painting is usually the first thing I do after breakfast, but snow removal always takes priority over painting, and that is what I had to do today. 

    I used to always shovel my driveway, but a few  years ago, I broke down and bought a snowblower.  It sure makes life a lot easier.  Of course, now that the snowblower is beginning to age, things are starting to break on the machine.  Last week it was one of the cables that directs the snow chute either to the right, center, or left.  With that function now disabled, I have to stop all the time and manually turn the chute to the direction I want to throw the snow.  I keep it in place with a bungy-cord.

    Even with my handicapped machine, it is still a whole lot easier and quicker than shoveling.  I did do some shoveling, making a path around the house so that we would have a place to walk Lexi for her peeing.  Even doing that bit of shoveling made my back complain, so I sure depend on my snowblower.

You can view my paintings:   davidmarchant2.ca

Valuable Newspapers

    This time of year we need newspapers every morning to start the fire in our wood stove.  In the past getting newspapers was not much of a problem.  The library always had old ones to give us, and other friends who got the Prince George paper saved them, plus we received the two local weekly newspapers.  Now however the newspaper industry has fallen on really hard times; the daily Prince George paper no longer exists, and locally we are down to one small weekly paper, so we find ourselves burning through more newspapers than we can collect.

    Fortunately, one of our friends who had been to Banff, happened upon a pile of newspapers at their recycling center, and remembering our problem, grabbed them and brought them back to McBride for us.  It was a total surprise, when Al came up to me after our jam and handed me the stack of papers he had gotten for us.  It was a much appreciated gesture, and we are already putting them to good use.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Day in Valemount

    I didn’t sleep very well Monday night.  Lexi has swellings around her nipples and whenever an old dog is spayed, it is quite common for breast cancer to develop (Who knew?)   The vet  who comes to Valemount from Jasper two days a week, was scheduled to remove the tumors on Lexi yesterday.  Beside the personal mini-trauma caused by the operation on our dog, there were snow warnings out on the eastern leg of our drive.

    We didn’t know if we should cancel the vet appointment because of the dangerous driving, or just grit our teeth and make the drive.  We weren’t sure if the vet would be able to arrive in time for the early morning procedure because of the snow, and we couldn’t really communicate with anyone to find out.  In the end we decided to make the one hour drive.

    As it turned out, the weather wasn’t nearly as bad as what I expected from hearing the predictions on the radio, if fact, Valemount didn’t really have any snow falling at all.  The vet was there on time.

    We dropped off Lexi at the Vet’s, then had to figure out what we would do for the next five hours.  First we went to A & W for some breakfast.  They feature a plant based sausage/egg breakfast sandwich (I am really like the taste of the plant based “meats”).   Once we had eaten, we visited with a friend who had just had a house built in Valemount.  We were impress with the attractive dwelling she had built.

    After that visit, we did a hike at the Cranberry Marsh Bird Sanctuary (above), but of course there were no waterfowl to be seen this time of year.  After the hike it was time to eat again, so we returned to A & W and had one of their Beyond Meat burgers.

    We still had a lot of time to kill before we could pick up Lexi, so we went to the Valemount Library.  I had planned to take the book I am reading along for the day, but had forgotten it at home.  Luckily the library had the same novel, so I was able to just pick up reading where I had left off in the book.  I got two chapters read before it was time to return to the vet’s.

    Lexi was still pretty drugged-up when we picked her up.  She feels and looks pretty miserable and was making her high pitched moan from the pain.  She slowly seemed to feel a bit better toward nightfall.  We are going to have to keep a close eye on her so she doesn’t do something to strain her stitches.  

    It was a long and stressful day, but fortunately I had our music jam Tuesday night and that got rid of the stress for me.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Lucifer's Purr-Fect Place

    Our cat Lucifer knows how to relax and the other day I spotted her snoozing in the perfect spot.  She was stretched out on her soft fleecy pad next to the warm wood stove, with the morning sun streaming in from the bay window, giving her even more warmth.  Cat’s know.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Fraser, Gazebo, and Mt. Lucille

    Here is another shot I took from Koeneman Park on one of our cold morning walks.  I photographed the view looking across the Fraser River.  The gazebo is in the park on the West side of the Fraser, with snow-covered Lucille puncturing the cloudless blue sky.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca