The Winter Solstice: The Sun at its Lowest on the Horizon

     Today is the Winter Solstice, which in the Northern Hemisphere means that during the day, the sun’s arc is at its lowest position on the horizon.  At our house for a month or so we have only been able to see the sun through the trees, it never rises above them.  I am always happy when the Winter Solstice occurs because it means that not only will the length of the days gradually get longer, but also, the arc that the sun travels, will slowly get higher, and eventually the sun will shine over the top of the trees.

    While the Winter Solstice means longer days, officially it marks the beginning of winter, so most of the cold days are still in front of us, which in my mind, doesn’t jive with longer days and more sunlight.  I always overlook the fact that there is a lot of lag time between the Winter Solstice and when the warmer weather starts to happen.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Lingering Fascination With An Old Gas Pump

    Back in the early 1970’s, my mother wanted to do a needlepoint of my grandparent’s farm where she grew up.  It was also the place where I spent a lot of my childhood playing.  I had no photos to go on so I sketched out things as I remembered them.  The farmhouse had been torn down decades before, but the other building were still standing.  

     Months ago, my cousin sent me a photo that she had taken of the needlepoint.  While I was looking it over, I noticed the red gas pump jutting up there on the right hand side.  It had also long disappeared, which made me wonder why it had been so important to me that I had included it in my sketch for my mom.

    During my early days, I did find the old gas pump fascinating.  Even then, it was an antique, probably manufactured in the 1920‘s, but in the 1950‘s and 60‘s, it still worked and was used to fill up the tractors, and the family car. 

    There was a large underground tank that stored the gas.  It would periodically be filled by a fuel truck when needed.  I remember my grandfather unscrewing the cap above the buried tank to lowering a stick down into the gas storage tank to measure how much gas was left in the tank.

    The old gas pump was an interesting relic.  It had a long removable lever on its side, which when moved back and forth, pumped gas from the underground tank, up into the glass container on the top of the pump.  Inside the glass container and in the middle was an upright ruler-like structure that allowed you read how many gallons of gas you had pumped.  When you reached the amount you wanted, you stopped pumping the lever and lowered the attached gas pump hose.  Gravity caused the gas in the glass container to flow down the hose, allowing you to fill up the vehicle.

    Below is a photo showing how my grandfather’s old gas pump looked.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Disappointing Christmas Present & The Stupidity of Childhood

     I think I must have been about six years old back in the 1950’s,  when Christmas approached and I was asked what it was I wanted for Christmas, I told them, “One of those big tin toy airplanes.”  (similar to the one in the photo.)   A friend of mine had one, and I was really hot to have one of my very own.  I could hardly what until Christmas day to find the model airliner under the tree.

    Thinking back, I wonder what it was I was going to do with it.  I guess maybe hold it at the end of my moving outstretched arms, while making the sound of an engine, as I soared it around.  Now, that plane sounds like it would be a very limited item of play, but at that time of my youth, that airplane was what I wanted.

    When Christmas day came, I quickly wiped the sleep from my eyes as I excitedly headed for the living room and the Christmas tree, to see the model airplane.  I hurriedly scanned the floor under the tree, and then scanned it again; where was the airplane?  It wasn’t there.  I was crushed, totally crushed.  

    My parents then wheeled out a shiny new bicycle out to the living room as my Christmas present.  “Why are they giving me that?”  I thought, I wanted an airplane.  I looked at the bicycle as something totally useless.  Bicycles were something totally off of my radar, none of my friends had bicycles.  It was hard to hide my disappointment.

    My despondency began to lessened bit by bit later during the day after calling some of my neighborhood friends, who excitedly told me they had also gotten bicycles for Christmas.

    It took a while for me to see what a wonderful and amazing thing a bicycle was.  My father helped me learn to ride it.  At first I had to wheel the 24 inch bike beside the front porch steps, so I could stand on the first step so I could get my leg over the bicycle to the pedal on the far side, but soon I learned to do a wobbly ride, then balance, and finally successfully maneuver the bike all over our front yard.  

    Riding that bicycle opened up a whole new neighborhood world to me and I was always on it.  It allowed me to get to my friends’ houses quickly, and really expanded the range of friends I could visit.  Soon my friends and I were biking to places we never dreamed we could go on our own.  I was on that bicycle just about every day.  

    Even now in my dotage, I still have a bicycle that I wheel out every summer to sometimes ride to town.  I am so thankful that my parents went against my wishes and gave me a bicycle for Christmas instead of a tin model airliner.

View my paintings at davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: A Night Excursion to see Sea Turtles

       Certainly one of the main reasons that we signed up for the group tour was the chance of seeing the sea turtles come to the beach at night to dig a hole and lay her eggs.  We were full of anticipation when the night to do that arrived.  The whole group gathered with high hopes at 8:00 to hike to the beach to see that happen.  The night was incredibly dark (really dark) for our walk through the bush to the beach.

    The tour group was divided into smaller groups according to language.  The English speaking group was too large, and for some reason, Joan and I were put in the Italian speaking group.  No lights allowed, and everyone had to wear dark clothing, so as not to spook the sea turtles. Because of the darkness of the night and so no one got lost, we had to walk single file, hold hands to the beach.  

    It was a long trek to through the jungle to the beach.  The length of walking on our night expedition, prompted one of the Italian girls to joke, “Pretty soon, we will be in Nicaragua.” We couldn’t understand anything our Spanish-speaking naturalist told us, but fortunately, the Italians could understand Spanish and translated the important commands to us.

    The beach was just as dark as the bush we walked through, but once there, we could hear the surf and just faintly make out the waves.  Our group trudged through the sand along the beach looking for a turtle.  We missed out on seeing a mother turtle laying her eggs, but we were able to make out a large  sea turtle crawling back to the surf in the blackness of the night after she had done the deed.  Her shell was about two feet across.  

    While initially we were disappointed at not seeing the turtle dig a hole in the sand and lay her eggs, our attitude soon changed and we began to consider ourselves lucky upon hearing that ours was the only group that even saw a sea turtle.  The other groups just stumbled back and forth along the beach in the dark, seeing nothing.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Crocodiles and a Jesus Christ Lizard

      Lunch was chicken, chickpeas, rice and salad with a fruit cocktail of fresh passionfruit, pineapple, and watermelon.  They made a wonderfully tasty combination.

    In the afternoon, we decided to fork out $20each to take the optional tour to the Cano Palma Biological Station.  This meant another boat ride, down the Cano Palma River, but in a smaller, motorized canoe-like craft.  The trip turned out to be a highpoint when it came to seeing wildlife.  We traveled down a narrow river, enclosed on both sides with thick tropical jungle.  We spotted a Green Amazonian Kingfisher, and giant gray one, as well as herons, cormorants, and egrets.

    We also floated by several troops of monkeys.  One White-Faced monkey mother sported a baby hanging on her back.  At one point along the rive, the leader pulled us over close to the shore and proceeded to throw pieces of bread onto the water, it didn’t take long for a group of small crocodiles, (between one and two feet long) to suddenly appear to feast on the floating bread.

    Our boat scared a “Jesus Christ” lizard, named because of their ability to run across the surface of the water on their hind legs.   We watched it scramble on top of the river to shelter in the plants on the shore.  We felt very lucky to see it demonstrate its unique method of travel.  

        Our trip ended at the small Cano River Biological Station settlement where my wife bought some posters and I got myself a T-shirt.

    Back at the lodge, our evening meal consisted of spaghetti along with passionfruit slices with a crème filling.

        I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough to photograph a Jesus Christ Lizard, but I found the one below on of the internet.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

The Christmas Bird Count

    This time of year, birders in locations around North America are participating in the Christmas Bird Count.  In McBride, we have been doing it for decades.  Volunteers go out, or keep an eye on the bird feeders in their yards, then record the species of birds they see and their numbers.  The survey gives biologists an idea of the ebb, flow, and migration of bird populations on the continent.

    During the count, I am always hopeful of seeing some rarer bird that what is usual.  The usuals in my yard for the Christmas Bird Count Black Capped Chickadees. Red Breasted Nuthatches, Downy Woodpeckers, and Hairy Woodpeckers, which I report every winter.  This year there were some changes; I had no Hairy Woodpeckers, but did have a few new birds.  I saw a White Breasted Nuthatch, which usually don’t live around here, and a Northern Shrike (photo above) down by my pond.

    I have been noticing a pair of Shrikes during the last two summers, but this was the first time I have seen any in the winter. 

    A week ago, I did see a Brown Creeper, a relatively rare bird, that shows up once or twice a year, but unfortunately, never appears during the Christmas Bird Count.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: A Muddy Hike Up "The Mountain"

      One of that first day’s activities included another boat ride, this time to take us to the “Mountain”.  It was a forested 100 meter high “bump” at the edge of a the beach.  The trail up the mountain was extremely muddy and slippery.  We had gotten tired of lugging our “gum boots” all the way to Costa Rica from the Robson Valley, but we were happy we had them on this hike. 

        My wife and I were among the last ones to make it up the slope, second only to the group of Italians, who also spent a lot of time taking photos.  Their interest was all of the various insects and spiders they saw along the way.

    The jungle on the mountain different from the other jungles we had visited.  We saw our first Howler Monkeys and another tiny orange poison dart frog.  There were beautiful tall trees with buttress roots covered with green lichen and vines.  

    During our boat ride back to the lodge, it began to rain.  my wife chose to sit outside in the rain during the trip, wearing the poncho and her hat.  We got back to our room just in time, because suddenly the clouds let loose with the heaviest rainfall I have ever witnessed.  I will never forget the huge gushes of water pouring off of the trunk of some of the palms in the yard.  The torrents of water cascading from the base of the trees looked like the forced flow from a large fire hose with out a nozzle.  

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: At An Eco- Lodge

      During the cruise I went up to the front of the cabin to watch the river in front of us.  The boat captain, a native Indian-looking guy was steering the craft and he ask me where I was from.  In our conversation he asked if I had any Canadian coins he could look at, saying he was interested in foreign coins.  I dug into my pack and showed them the coins I had, and just gave them to him.  I was never sure if he was really that interested in coin collecting or just wanted to add to his income.  Either way, it was okay with me.

    Elin-Elin, the lodge where we stayed provided us with a nice room and serving up delicious food.  Before we went to bed, Claudia one of the nature guides told us we should get up at 5:30 for a bird walk.  She offered to wake us, but we told her we could wake ourselves, which we did, and we were ready to start at 6:00.  Surprisingly by that time, Claudia still hadn’t made the rounds to wake the others, but I suspect it was because of the heavy morning rain that was falling.   Fortunately the rain slowed, and it became very light by the time the group started off.

    Bird and nature walks don’t worked well with big groups as they do when it is just my wife and I on our own.  Big groups make a lot of noise and disturbance, and as a result we saw only a few birds, but were very happy to finally see one of those tiny orange, poison dart frogs.  At one point on our trek, my wife stepped in some mud and sank up to her knee.

    The group was back to our hotel by 8:00, in time for breakfast.  It included:  orange juice, toast, fruit slices, rice and beans, with eggs.  During our breakfast, Claudia made some announcements to the group.  The communications on the tour were pretty bad.  It was very difficult to hear what Claudia says, and her announcements never seem to give all of the details we need to know, like the time of the activity and what exactly the activity is.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Snow Day

     I have always loved snow and looked forward to snowfalls.  I assume those feelings have something to do with the “snow days” I experienced when I was a kid.  

    I grew up in Southern Indiana, where we didn’t get a lot of snow during the winter.  We would get maybe five of six snowfalls, a few of which dumped enough of the white stuff on the ground (and roads) to bring things to a halt.  When that happened, a “Snow Day” was declared by the School Board.  That meant that the school buses didn’t run, and schools were open only for those kids that could get there. 

    Since we relied on the school bus, we didn’t have to go to school, and with all that fresh snow on the ground, we would bundle up in our warm winter boots, gloves, coats, and hats and pull our sleds over to nearby Clearcrest Country Club, to spend hours zooming down the best hills around.  Being a golf course, the snowy fairway hills were bare of trees, but outlined with small groves of tall pine trees along the edges. 

    On one particular snow day when I was in the sixth grade, a group of all my neighborhood friends headed for the golf course with our sleds.  After many of runs straight down the best hill at top speeds, we got bored and sought more adventurous runs.  We continued to start down the hill from the top, but then mid-slope, we would swerve to the left, over toward the fringed edge of the grove, where we began weaving back and forth between the scattered trees on its edge.  It was probably dangerous, but we found it exciting fun.

    The next day when the snow day ended, we were anxious to get back to school to tell our friends and  brag about the exciting day we had sledding.  However our sledding stories fell flat when we heard the much better stories told by those kids who had made it to school on the snow day.  Since there were so few kids that had come to school, instead of having to go to their regular classes, they were allowed to go down to the gym and play basketball all day.

    I was green with envy, having missed the fun of getting to play basketball all day in the gym.  I made up my mind that on all of the upcoming snow days I would find someway to get to school, instead of staying at home.

    Following that, whenever we had a snow day, I would ride with my father when he drove to work, and get out at the school, so I could spend the day playing basketball.  Snow day, after snow day, I made sure I got to school, but every single time, instead of spending the day playing basketball, we had to spend the day in our regular classes.

    I was a fool clinging to the never occurring hoop dream, when I could have been outside at the golf course on my sled, zooming down the hills. 

View my paintings at:   davidmarchant2.ca

I Often Don't Know What It Is That I Am Painting

     The other day I read a news article about “secret things” in famous paintings.  One of those “secrets” was the image of the artist in the reflections of a shiny object in the painting. “Wow,” I thought, “I have done that.”

    My paintings are based on photos I have taken.  I download the photo onto my computer, then place a 2 by 2 inch grid over that image.  I paint just one of those squares created by the grid at a time, and so when I am going to paint that square, I zoom in on it on my computer, so I don’t see anything else.  I then just try to paint the corresponding square on the canvas (that also has a grid of two inch squares) what I am seeing in that square on my computer screen.  

    Because I have zoomed in on just one square, I often can’t tell what it is that I am painting.  I just paint what I am seeing in the square.  Later on, when more squares have been painted, I am often surprised at what it was I was painting.  This happened to me the other day, after painting a couple of squares with different shades of blue.  I discovered it was some mountain slopes.

    The photo above is taken from my painting “Chrome” which shows the chrome vertical strip on the side of the grill of my old 1977 GMC truck.  If you use a bit of imagination you can make out my distorted reflection on that strip.  (photo above).

     The flesh-colored blob in the top is my head, and the blue color below it is the blue shirt I was wearing.  The two vertical areas in the middle are my hands, which are holding my black camcorder.  The darker blue in the lower section are my jeans.  Can you make all that out from the distorted reflection on the side of the truck’s grill?

    Below is the whole painting.

View my other paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: A Cruise Down a Jungle River

      The bus then took us to a river, where we boarded a nice-sized river boat with a large enclosed cabin for passengers.  The vessel took us on a comfortable and interesting voyage down a 70 kilometer long tropical river to the resort.  

    At the beginning of our voyage we had passed through recently cleared pastures with the odd dead naked tree, remnants of the jungle that had once occupied that space, but once the boat got to Tortuguero Park, the scenery we were passing through became even more jungle-like, with the thick growth of plants and trees forming a thick wall of green that came straight up from the river.  We could not see any river “bank”, just a solid solid wall of tropical foliage. 

    The boat traveled slowly along the river which snaked its way through the visually exciting jungle.  A lot of exotic birds flew from their perches on the tall trees that lined the river as our boat approached, and monkeys gave us the eye as we passed by.  A girl on the trip who had lived in Brazil told us the scenery we were passing through looked just like an Amazon River trip she had gone on.  Floating down a tropical river was sure a relaxing and memorable way to view the jungle.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: A Banana Factory

      While back at Infotur in San Jose, we booked ourselves onto a group tour, something we had never done on a vacation before.  Generally we just take buses to the places we want to go, then wander around on our own.  This tour was to take us to Tortuguero s to watch sea turtles crawling out from the ocean up to the beach at night, to lay their eggs.  The tour included transport (bus and then a cruise on a boat), meals, and a room at Hotel Ilan-Ilan (an eco-resort) for three days and two nights.  It cost $189 each plus $40 a night.  

    We had to cash some more Traveler Cheques to pay for the package tour, and while we were flush with money, my wife bought a new umbrella, another big one.

    We began our Tortuguero Tour outside a McDonalds at 7:30.  The bus drove us through pouring rain, which caused the planned stop at a jungle park to be cancelled, and then a planned tour of a banana plantation to be cut short, although we did make a brief stop at the banana factory to watch the workers wash and put stickers on the bananas. 

        We were surprised (and somewhat dismayed) to discovered that when the bananas start to form on the trees, the whole growing bunch is enclosed in a pesticide-infused plastic garbage bag-sized sack, where they will continue to grow.  When the green banana bunch is starting to ripen, the sacked bunch is cut from the tree, suspended on a moving cable, which ferries them to the factory where the bananas are washed.  In the photo below, on the right side, you can see a woman removing the sack from a bunch of green bananas.

        We found the whole pesticide-laden sack thing rather disturbing.  Every day when we cut up a banana for our cereal, we never visualized that they were grown in pesticide bags.  I guess sometimes its better not to know how commercial things are grown.

    View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Last Day in the Cloud Forest

      At one point along the trail, we could hear fruit or nuts falling through the trees.  That excited us, making us think there was some exotic bird up there.  We scanned the foliage eager to see what was doing it.  We were deflated when we discovered it was just a squirrel.

    As we plodded on down the trail, my wife in the lead, I heard a flutter of wings, then she began cursing.  A blue and green bird had been on the trail in front of us which my wife hadn’t seen until it flew off in a rush.  It was a Resplendent Quetzal.

    When we got to the hummingbird gallery we were again fascinated by the unbelievably colored hummers, fighting and darting around at the feeders.  A heavy rain began to fall, so we paid $5 to stay and watch a fascinating slide presentation about animal coloration.  The leaf-shaped moths were hard to believe.  Some other moths looked like wasps and bees to avoid being eaten.

    By the time the slide show finished, the rain had also stopped, so we walked the three kilometers back to our hotel, watching the yellow sunset over the mountains.

    When we got back to the hotel we got a surprise.  The clerk informed us that InfoTur, back in San Jose had called us, and we were supposed to contact them when we got back to San Jose, because we had won a prize.  We were quite excited by the news, remembering being told that some of the prizes were tours.

    We forced ourselves out of bed at 5:00 AM the next morning, to organize ourselves before catching the 6:00 bus to San Jose.  We carried our luggage to the cheese factory where we caught the bus.  The road was again full of hills, twists, and turns, but much smoother than the one we had taken us to Monteverde.  There were a lot of beautiful views of the sun hitting the clouds as we traveled. 

    My wife was in a bad mood in San Jose.  The bus driver had broken our black umbrella which she had strapped to her bag.  We weren’t able to get the room we wanted at the hotel, and then when we walked down to InfoTur to claim our “prize”, it turned out to be a flimsy-thin T-Shirt, instead of a free tour.

View may paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: A Palm Viper and Morre Jungle

      Continuing on our way to the Reserve, we came upon a meter-long, slender snake with a cream-colored underside.  It had just started to cross the road in front of us, but then turned around, went slithering through some grass, then up a tree.  I struggled to get the telephoto lens onto my camera, but it was already up in the tree by the time I did.  I managed to take a photo of it from below, as it strung out across some branches above me.  

    When I described it later at a slide presentation, the naturalist thought it sounded like a palm viper, which is toxic.  I was happy it didn’t drop down on me when I was taking its photo.   We also watched a three inch lizard that seemed to hop instead of crawl.

    We paid another $10 each once we got to the Reserve entrance and took the el Camino, a 2 kilometer old road.  We saw a flock of birds the size of crows, that were blue like a Canada Jay, but they had a powder blue “cap’ on their heads.

    We were eager to go to the “Mirador” (overlook), but unfortunately but the area around it was totally clouded in, so we couldn’t see much on the self-guided trail.  It was however, very beautifully lush with all of the leaves of the jungle plants dripping with the condensed water from the clouds that surrounded them.

    We met some girls who also happened to be from BC.  They asked us where we were from and when we told them McBride, one said, “Oh, that’s where they are having the forests fires.”   That was not something we wanted to hear, but since they had just left Vancouver two days earlier, we could only assume that the Robson Valley was still having problems during our first week of being away.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Lucifer: "Where is the Good Stuff?"

     The photo above shows our cat Lucifer looking me in the eyes, questioning when will her special supper be served.  You can se in the photo, she already has a bowl of kibbles there, and twice a day she gets wet canned cat food, but she is waiting for something with taste, that she can eat throughout the night. 

    We feed Lucy upstairs on my desk.  That is the only place we can safely do it so that Kona doesn’t get to it and scarf down all Lucifer’s food.  Right before bed, I am scrambling around downstairs in the kitchen, trying to come up and prepare some kind of special treat food for Lucifer.  While I am doing that, she up on my desk waiting patiently at her feeding station, ready to be served.

    Her special food is made up of something relatively fresh;  like strips of cheese, little chunks of chicken or turkey left over from our meals, or maybe just a small puddle of milk or cream in a plate.

    We readily admit to spoiling our pets, but a year or so ago, I was sure Lucifer was about to die.  She was incredibly thin and urinating very frequently, making us think her kidneys were giving out.  That’s when we started really spoiling her with the special food.  While she is still incredibly thin, now she is more motivated, energetic, and healthy.

    Looks like she is getting cheese strips tonight.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmaarchant2.ca

I Loved Those Paper Drives

     During the 1950’s when I was a kid, local community organizations periodically held “Paper Drives” as fund raisers.  At our church the Boy Scouts would do it, and the elementary school’s “Community Club” would do it on the school grounds.  A big truck freight trailer would be pulled in and parked, with the rear doors unlocked, so people could bring in their old magazines, and stacks of newspapers to throw onto the paper pile in the trailer.

    Back in those days, there were plenty of newspapers.  Our middle-sized city had both a daily morning newspaper and evening newspaper, with a thick Sunday edition.  People would save stacks of the old newspapers, to donate to the paper drives when they happened.

    There were a lot of magazines around also.  My parents rarely got magazines, but being a Cub Scout, I did monthly receive “Boy’s Life”.   My grandparents often had copies of Life magazine, Look magazine, and Saturday Evening Post.  All in all, there was a lot of old publications that could be recycled to make more paper.

    My love of those paper drives had nothing to do with recycling paper, although that seemed like an intelligent thing to do.   What excited me was some of the other publications that could sometimes be found in the giant pile of paper:  Comic Books!  

    Although my sister and I loved to read comic books, my father took a dim view of them, and discouraged us from buying them.  “Don’t go wasting your allowance buying comic books” was a line we often heard.  We still did buy a few, but when I discovered that paper drives could be a readily available source of comics, I was excited every time I saw a paper drive trailer in our community, and could hardly wait to go rifling through the giant pile of newspapers and magazines looking for comics.

    I found comics of cartoon characters (Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, etc), super hero comics (Superman, Batman, etc), mythical character comics, like The Phantom, Turok, (Son of Stone, an Indian who fought dinosaurs),  and I always really treasured the Classics Illustrated Comics I sometimes found, that featured the classical stories by Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and Robert Lewis Stevenson.

    At one point in my paper drive searches, I came across a Mad Magazine, and when I got home and started reading through it, my life changed forever.  I loved the amazing comical art, the really clever humor, and the satirical social comment.  Mad Magazine put an end to my desire for comic books, and set me looking instead for more Mad Magazines.  Unfortunately, they were an extremely rare commodity in paper drive trailers, so much to the chagrin of my father, I started to spend my money buying new ones, as they were printed.

    Mad Magazine did have a profound affect on my life.  Not only did it give me a more cynical  and questioning view of the world and introducing me to a higher form of humor, it was in trying to draw some of the characters I saw in Mad, that I later in life, ended up as a local cartoonist.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca