A Photo-Worthy Morning

     These are the images that welcomed Kona and I when we first went outside this morning.  It is finally looking like “Winter in BC”.   It is alright to look like winter, as long as it doesn’t “feel” like winter.  I probably am pushing my luck to say it, but so far we haven’t experienced any really cold temperatures.  They have been just hanging around the freezing point.

    I always call the photo below, “The View” because I have taken photos from that vantage point thousands of times.  Each one shows different colors, different weather, and a different feel.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

The Old Ballpoint Pen Finally Gave Up

     I don’t like to throw things away if they are still useful.  I guess that is why I still had this Province of British Columbia ballpoint pen.  I worked for the BC Forest Service for 23 years, and have now been retired from the job for 22 years.  I must have gotten that pen sometimes before 2003, and since then, while I certainly didn’t use it every day, periodically I would, if it was the first pen I saw when I needed one.  

    Today I was using it to write out a cheque for the local food bank, and suddenly my writing turned into a faint blue line; the pen finally ran out of ink.  

    I find it amazing living in a world of planned obsolescence, where things are made to become useless just shortly after you buy them or just after their warranty runs out.  I had to replace a battery for my pickup truck that quit just a few days after its warranty expired.  Days after the warranty on our hot water heater expired, our hot water tank quit working.  That is the way most things work these days, but not this old pen.  I don’t know what the lifespan of a ballpoint is supposed to be, but it is certainly before the age of 22.

    I have a story about another Province of British Columbia pen.  When my wife and I were traveling down in Mexico and we went to visit the enormous pyramids of Teotihuacan.  As we were wandering around, I was approached by a peasant who was secretly hawking “Aztec-type” artifacts.  He suspiciously looked around, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a dirt-smeared clay image and wanted me to buy it.

    I was pretty sure it was a fake artifact made by some local cottage industry, so I shook my head and tried to explain I didn’t have money on me, but old man was persistent.  I waved my hands to indicate I didn’t want it and started to walk away.   The man then pointed to the Province of British Columbia ballpoint pen that was sticking out of my shirt pocket and indicated with his hands that he would trade the clay image for the pen.  

    At that point, I thought, why not, and we made the trade.  I was happy to have the clay image and I guess he was happy to have the pen from the faraway Province of British Columbia.  I hope his pen also lasted 22 years.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Our Subdued Color Palette

     After the rich colors we experience from Spring to Fall, as we move toward Winter those brilliant colors we saw outside, become more and more subdued.   I certainly felt that this morning as I walked around the pond.  The thickly overcast sky that we have, added to the dullness of the surroundings.  As you can see, there is still some colors around, but they don’t have much punch.

    Our forecast for the week ahead, shows no sunshine, but only more overcast skies with either flurries or periods of snow.   Our forecasts are generally not very accurate beyond two days, so hopefully, we will get some sunshine peeking through sometimes during the week. 

    Our temperatures are warmer than usual.  Normal for this time of year we get temperatures of Maximum:  -4°C (25°F)  Minimum:  -12°C (!0°F), but it looks like instead, we will get maximums and minimums hanging  just a few degrees above or below freezing, certainly a lot milder than what has been normal.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Another Memorable Kid Quote

     On my November 14 blog I mentioned some memorable things the students in my one-room school had said.  Last night at our jam, we were telling humorous Christmas stories, and I remembered another funny thing that happened in our isolated rural school in 1973.

    It was my first year of teaching in the fly-in lumber camp and I was struggling to keep on top of things, in the start-up school that I ran in the camp’s recreation hall, because we didn’t even have a school building.  As Christmas approached I was starting to get unwanted pressure from some of the parents who wanted the school (me) to put on some kind of Christmas program for the camp.  I was not keen on creating another project and didn’t really know what to do, since our resources were pretty nonexistent.

    Although I am not at all religious, all I could come up with for a Christmas program was some sort of nativity thing, featuring the kids.  With the handful of students that made up our school, I figured that would probably give a part to everyone.  I explained to the class what I was thinking.  I told the kids that we would need a Joseph, a Mary, three Wise Men, and some shepherds.  I told them to think about which part they would like to play.   

    At lunch time as I was standing by the door of the Rec Center as the kids filed out to go home to eat,  Darwin, one of the kindergarten students stopped in front of  me, looked me in the eye, and seriously told me,  “I want to be a German shepherd.”

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Snow Shoveling, My Winter Exercise Regime

    For me, winter is generally a pretty laidback season.   During the rest of the year, I get exercise outside working on projects, maintaining the garden and lawn, and just puttering around, but with winter’s colder temperatures and snow covering the ground, there is not a lot of things that I can do outside, so I end up spending hours in the house, reading, doing things on the computer, or sitting in front of the television,  all things that don’t burn off much energy.

    All of that changes when we get a snowfall, and that is when my winter exercise regime kicks in.  Depending on the amount of snow that falls, I go outside and grab a snow shovel, or crank up the snowblower and clear the snow off of my driveway.   That job certainly qualifies as exercise, because my driveway is not a short stubby thing.  

    Our driveway is 255 feet long ( 77 m.).   The area I shovel, which includes the turnaround spot and the wide entrance up by the road, totals 2,200 sq. ft.  (200 sq. meters).  

    Overnight we got  about 4 inches (10 cm) of light powdery snow, and because that didn’t seem to justify getting the snowblower out I shoveled it.  It took me two hours.  We are lucky living in the Robson Valley because most of the snow we get is the light powdery kind, that doesn’t stick together and is easily pushed aside.  I didn’t have to lift and throw heavy shovelful.   I am always feel sorry to see the people on the news that have to deal with the wet heavy snow.  

    When we start getting snowfalls of more than 4 inches, I will start using the snowblower.  While that might seem easier, maneuvering the bulky machine around up and down and back and forth the driveway, also gives me exercise, and it does allow me to clear the driveway of a lot of snow, much faster than if I had to shovel it.

    I do have another source of exercise I get during the winter.  It is our weekly evening of square dancing, which is a lot more fun than shoveling or snowblowing the driveway.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Oh, I Forgot To Clean The Car's Backup Camera

     We bought our Subaru ten years ago.  We were impressed with all of the fancy electronic features it had, one of which was the backing up video camera that showed what was behind us.   Once I got used to looking at the rear view camera in our car when I back up, I found it really helpful.  However every winter I have to remember to clean off the camera before I back up, or else I can’t see anything.  (Photo above)

            Winter is really a dirty driving season for vehicles in the Interior of BC.  I drove up to Prince George last week, and while there was no snow;  the highway was wet and there had earlier been a bit of ice so the Highways Department had put down sand in a lot of places.   The water and very fine particles of sand sprayed up on the back of the car, coating the car and the video camera, thus rendering it useless for backing up.

            During the winter, I have to always remember to wipe off the backup camera every time I put the car in reverse.  That becomes a bit of a hassle, especially if I had forgotten to do it before I got into the car.

            I don’t know if other cars have their cameras in a different place, thus avoiding the problem, but the placement of the camera on our Subaru, sure isn’t very well thought out for our winter driving.     The photo below shows how dirty the camera (and back of the car) gets.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Ice Floes on the Fraser River

     I always feel like a real Northerner this time of year, when the temperatures get colder and I see ice floes starting to form and begin to float down the Fraser.    I noticed these floes a couple of days ago when we went over the bridge on our way to McBride.  What really caught my eye were the wonderful hues of blues reflected from the clear sky that were coloring the river.  I just had to pull over and take some photos.

    Seeing the floes indicates that with continuing below freezing temperatures, it won’t be long before the Fraser River is completely frozen over and then covered with snow.  Seeing a bit of color reflected in the flowing water is always a lot more interesting than seeing a frozen mass of white on the river for months and months, but what will be, will be.   

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1996 Arizona Road Trip: More Ancient Dwellings and a Blowhole

      After leaving Canyon De Shelley we did stop to see another site of Indian cliff dwelling.  It was Walnut Canyon, just outside of Flagstaff.  There were ruins all along the canyon wall, but they were not very impressive.  It seems that the site was a place where whites used go to have picnics, and while picnicking, they would dynamite the Indian ruins in order to let more light in so they could search for Native artifacts.

    At Sunset Crater National Monument, we saw the recent volcanic crater which erupted 800 years ago.   Along with the crater there were several Indian ruins.  One of the really interesting things we discovered at the Wupatki Pueblo ruins was a blowhole.  There was a square opening in the ground about the size of an open book, in the center of a rock platform.  The opening led to a huge unseen underground cave.   Air would either blow out or suck in to the cave through the hole, depending upon the barometric pressure the atmosphere.   Luckily for us it was blowing out forcefully, when we were there.  My wife held a scarf above the hole, let it go, and it blew straight up into the air.

    Back in Phoenix, we visited with Marcia and her family.  Marcia was an old friend from my early university days.  I hadn’t seen her for twenty-five years, and was a bit apprehensive knocking on her door, but we had a really wonderful visit and they took us out to eat at a fancy Mexican restaurant and then out to a touristy suburb where there was a craft sale.

    We had previously made a reservation at the La Quinta Inn for the night, but Marcia who was a psychologist, gave us coupons for the Wyndham Inn, an upscale motel.  We cancelled our La Quinta Inn reservation, and opted for the opulence of the Wyndham.  With Marcia’s coupon, the night only cost us $24.   Well that isn’t quite true, because the next morning at the free breakfast, my wife got herself a piece of toast, that wasn’t really part of the free breakfast cost us another $3.

    Our 1996 Arizona road trip had been an awesome experience for us and we were able to see so many beautiful and interesting things which left us with a myriad of wonderful memories.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1996 Arizona Road Trip: Canyon De Shelley's Spider Rock

     Certainly, one of the most memorable rock formations I have seen in my life is Spider Rock which is located in Canyon De Shelley.  When we stopped at an overlook along the rim of Canyon De Shelley and walked over to the edge, what we saw was totally unexpected and almost took my breath away.             

    Spider Rock is a 230 meter (750 ft) high towering sandstone spire jutting up from the canyon floor.   the formation appears to be smaller than it actually is because of the height of the canyon walls that surround it.   It’s shape looks like some rock formation you would see in the background of a Road Runner cartoon.

    The name given to the spire comes from Navaho mythology about their deity, the Spider Woman, who is said to have taught their people how to weave.  The Spider Woman is believed to live on top of the rock formation.

    I will always remember the wonderment I had in my mind when I first saw this amazing geological feature in Canyon De Shelley.

You can view my   paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1996 Canyon De Shelley: A Hogan

      As we hiked flat land in the valley bottom of Canyon De Shelley, we unexpectedly came upon a Navaho hogan.  During my life-long interest in Native American people, I had seen pictures of hogans, so I knew what they were and looked like, but to actually seeing a real, lived-in, Navaho hogan really cemented the feeling for me of being in Navaho land.  

            A hogan is a sacred home for the Navajo people who practice traditional religion. Every family even if they live most of the time in a newer home — must have the traditional hogan for ceremonies, and to keep themselves in balance.

            The Navaho people refer to themselves as Diné and speak Athabaskan .  That was of special interest to me, because as a Canadian, those are terms that I have often heard.  The Dene people are First Nations people in Canada, and “Athabasca” is a name given to both a river and a glacier in the Canadian Rockies.  

            The Navaho people migrated from Canada into the US thousands of years ago, finally settling in the US Southwest.  Native Athabaskan languages are spoken by Native people from Alaska to the Navahos in the desert areas of the United States.

Walking the trail in the flatland of Canyon De Shelley gave the hiker spectacular views in every direction.  Against the massive red/brown sandstone walls, the sky looked incredibly blue.  Wonderful.  The hike took us two hours.  

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1996 Arizona Road Trip: Into Canyon De Shelley

      The next morning after a very filling breakfast of Huevos Rancheros and Navaho fry bread, my wife spotted a really nice Kachina doll. The carved and painted image was quite stark and simple compared to most of the Kachina dolls we had seen.  We both liked it and couldn’t pass it up, spending $40.  

    We drove down the South Canyon Road stopping at all of the viewpoints points all of which were geologically spectacular.  At each of the viewpoints there were many Indian vendors hawking necklaces, rings, and other jewelry.  

    The only trail we saw which led down into Canyon De Shelley was the Whitehouse Trail.  It had a steep grade descending into the valley bottom, and once at the bottom, I was gobsmacked at just how massive and solid the red/brown sandstone sides of the valley were.  They dwarfed everything.

    In the undercuts on the lower sides of the immense sandstone walls, ancient indigenous people had constructed stone dwellings.   I couldn’t imagine how those people were even able to get up to those high dwellings, let alone build them.  Surely it was a hassle to constantly have to go up and down to the valley bottom every time they needed water or to gather food.

        You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1996 Arizona Road Trip: Canyon De Shelley

      For someone who loves both geology and Native culture one of the most memorable and spectacular landscapes we visited in Arizona was Canyon De Shelley (pronounced “canyon de shay”).  The Canyon is a National Monument that lies within the Navaho Reservation in the northeast corner of Arizona.  The closest local town in Chinle, and that is where we stayed while in the area.   There were a lot of Native vendors selling their wares at the Visitor Center, and my wife bought herself a ring from a silversmith who was working there.

    Evening was falling when we drove up the North Rim Road and at the first overlook, there was a poor Native woman and a boy trying to sell some geodes and crystals.  I bought two of the geodes and her 35 year old son Roy came along.  I thought it was another one of those pay for a guide situations, but it wasn’t.  I talked to Roy for a long time.  His parents couldn’t speak English.  

    He told me how some of his leaders wanted to have a nuclear storage dump and generator on the reserve.  He was against it, and I told him he was right not to harm their land.   I handed him the last dollar for the geodes, which made his mother looked distressed, when it looked like he was not going to hand the money over to her, but he did.

    He told me of how his grandparents had hidden in the valley from the Americans who were taking Indians to Fort Defiance.  Roy also said they live down in the valley during the summer, and now the Park Service is trying to take that land away.

    We walked to the canyon rim, and were amazed at the sight.  It was a spectacular sandstone canyon with a flat valley bottom, but the light was bad so I didn’t take any photos.  The old couple and Roy were packing up their things when we returned to the car, which was the only vehicle in sight, so I offered to drive them home, which we did.

        The next day we saw some of the canyon’s more dramatic scenery which I will show you tomorrow.

        

view my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Some Interesting JFK Trivia

         Yesterday marked the 62nd anniversary of the President Kennedy assassination in Dallas.  Everyone who was alive at the time can well remember hearing that news with shock.  I was in high school on that day, and as a member of the Concert Choir, we had traveled to Indianapolis to give some  concerts.  When we got to one high school, the students there told us that Kennedy had been killed, but I didn’t believe it.  I figured those city guys were just trying to pull a fast one on us country bumpkins.  Later, as we went to other schools, the assassination became real.  

    The photo above shows the headline of the Indianapolis newspaper that I bought later that day.

    For years, I produced a “Trivia” calendar that featured the historical trivia of things that had happened on each date.  To help me make the calendar I had collected a huge database of trivia that had happened on each day of the year.  Some of the trivia that I had collected had to do with JFK.  Here are three of the most interesting trivia I had in my database about JFK:

            

            On May 13, 1959 when Kennedy was in congress, he introduced a bill that would ban the type of rifle that eventually killed him.  That, I think, is really ironic coincidence.  The N.R.A. (the National Rifle Association, a very powerful lobby group for gun manufacturers and gun lovers), through its money and influence, managed to defeat Kennedy’s bill.  

            On January 21, 1961  The mother of Lee Harvey Oswald (Kennedy’s assassinator) wrote a letter to newly inaugurated President Kennedy asking him to help get her son out of the USSR.

            February 6, 1962,  President Kennedy had his aides buy him 1,000 Cuban cigars for future use, before he placed an embargo on all Cuban products.

            View muy paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Ambrosia Apples

     I have noticed that now you can find Ambrosia apples grown in many different countries.  That wasn’t always the case.   Here is a blog I wrote in November of 2011 about Ambrosia apples:

        One of my favorite stories to tell is about Ambrosia apples.  I am going to tell it again so if you are tired of hearing it, skip down several paragraphs. 

        Many years ago I was listening to CBC.  They were talking about BC apples.  It seems there was one orchard whose owner noticed that every year during the picker’s lunch breaks, the pickers would always gather under one particular tree and grab an apple off of it to augment their lunch.

        Curious about their behavior, the owner went to that tree and tried one of its apples and discovered how uniquely delicious they were.  He isolated and bred the tree and its apples became the “Ambrosia” apple.   (It is interesting to note that if you plant a seed from a really tasty apple, the tree that develops from that seed will NOT taste like the apple you liked.  To get the same taste you have to take a branch from the tree that gave you the tasty apple, and get the branch to root and grow into a tree.)

        Anyway to get back to my story:   I sat there by the radio wishing I could taste one of those Ambrosia apples, but I never did see any in the grocery store, and slowly the story slipped into the back of my memory.  Then a couple of years ago, my wife had bought some apples and put them in the fridge and one evening I grabbed one as I settled down in front of the TV.

        I bit into it and WOW!, what a delicious taste.  I got out of my chair and went to the fridge opened the door and read the label on the apples in the bag—AMBROSIA.

        The next time I was in the grocery, I told the story to Brenda, owner of the store, and thanked her for bringing in the Ambrosia apples.  She continues to do so every year.

        The other day I noticed that the Ambrosias were back again this year.  Brenda came by and pointed out something on the sign that I had over looked.  (Read the last line on the green sign in the photo.)

take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Eating At The Cookhouse

         In 1973, when we were young and adventurous, I took a job setting up and teaching in a one-room school that was being established in a isolated fly-in lumber mill camp at Takla Lake, which is in the center of British Columbia.  Because there had never been a school at the camp, it had no school building, or a designated place for a teacher to live.   Upon our arriving, we were given a small camping trailer to live in over our first winter in British Columbian (Photo above)

        While the small trailer had a tiny kitchen, its stove and fridge had never been hooked up because everyone in the camp ate at the camp cookhouse, so that is where we also ate. We quickly learned that  Isolated mills make a point of feeding their workers really well to keep them happy. 

        When we first ate at the cookhouse we opened the cookhouse door, and immediately took in the warm, delicious, and fragrant aroma of food.  We happily looked down the steaming counter to see a wide variety of offerings we could choose from.   We quickly learned that living in this remote corner of BC wasn't  going to be a year of total depravation.  There was so much delicious food available for the taking, and we could eat as much as we wanted—it was going to be a smorgasbord for every meal. Steaks, Chinese food, Yorkshire pudding, all kinds of fancy desserts.  It was wonderful.

        Over the years, I had forgotten many of the details of our eating arrangement at the Silvacan Camp, but recently I relearned some of them when I received some old letters I had written at the time, that my mother had saved.  My parents had asked us some questions in a letter they sent, and here is what I wrote in reply:

        Meals? 

            We have no meal tickets, everybody knows everybody.  Up here we are trusted to pay $150 for the whole month for the two of us.   That gives us three meals at day.  We haven’t paid yet because we are waiting for the bank to send us an account number.

        Meals, who cooks:  

            Harold and Nuella, (photo below) are our cooks.  They really are friendly people and very good cooks.  Tonight we had big, big steaks, peas, sauerkraut, wieners, potatoes, salad, fruit juices, and cake.  We are free to take all of the fruit and cookies we want.  It is a really good deal.

            The photo at the very bottom shows the Silvacan Camp where we lived for three years.  The cookhouse is the white building on the right, with the row of windows.

            

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1996 Arizona Road Trip: Meteor Crater

      Back on Highway 264 and headed toward the Hopi Reserve.  Not much selling of Indian Art was in evidence, but we did see an old Hopi woman beside the road herding some angora goats.  Since I had a herd of Angoras back home in BC,  I stopped the car to talk to the woman and I helped her herd her goats inside a fenced area.  

        At 87 we turned south and drove toward Winslow, Arizona.   We stopped at a painted desert county park and took some pictures.  We found a room at a Super 8 motel for $35 then drove out the interstate to the Meteor Crater arriving at 5:00 and found it closed, so turned around and drove back to Winslow, and ate at Taco Bell.  Mad Cow Disease is making headlines again in Britain.

Mar. 23/96 Fri.   Flagstaff.

        We drove east on Interstate 40 to Holbrook, then took 180 to the South entrance of the  Petrified Forest.  It was quite interesting to see the huge sections of rock that were once trees.  We especially enjoyed reading the sign showing the letters that were sent by people who were returning pieces of petrified wood that they had stolen from the park.  

        From the Petrified forest we drove I-40 west back past Winslow.  We ate at a terribly windy rest stop, then drove on to the Meteor Crater.  We were a little taken aback by the $8 admission fee, because we had assumed it was a National Monument.  We paid the fee, went inside, and took a guided tour along the crater’s rim.

            It was outrageously windy walking along the rim.  The crater was enormous, 570 ft. deep and 4,100 ft across the rim.  It was quite amazing, and we could only imagine what the explosion must have been like when the meteor slammed into Earth.  The history of the many failed attempts to dig down to find and mine the meteor was fascinating.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1996 Road Trip: Mesa Verde

         I have always held a special place in my heart for Mesa Verde National Park, so in our 1996 drive through Arizona, we did detour a bit and go into Colorado, so I could visit it again.  

        My love for Mesa Verde started the summer after I was in the third grade.  From a very early age, I had been fascinated and interested in American Indian culture.  When playing cowboys and Indians, I always wanted to be an Indian.  In the third grade our class did a unit on the American Indian, and that really cemented my interest in Native Americans.

        My parents couldn’t help but notice my interest in all things Aboriginal, and so that summer they took the family camping in Colorado, and one of the main destinations of the trip was Mesa Verde National Park, so I could see the ancient Indian ruins.  

        Mesa Verde contains the remains of some stone structures that cliff-dwelling Indians lived in.  It was so exciting for me to be in an area that had been inhabited by the ancient Indians, and visit the ruins of where they had lived for so long, before a severe drought forced them to leave and never return. 

            My sister and I were fascinated by the ancient adobe ruins tucked under the huge overhanging sandstone cliffs, and when we weren’t exploring them, we spent a lot of time in the park museum.   There we gazed in amazement at the intricate dioramas that portrayed the historical development of Mesa Verde. 

        We marveled and were were fascinated a by the small figurines with their tiny tools and utensils, in the realistic-looking dioramas.  I still vividly remember them to this day, more than sixty years later.

        Several years ago Natasha Boyd, an elderly friend who lived in McBride died and I went to her memorial service.  Around the hall were displayed pieces of Natasha’s art work.  When a speaker gave a talk outlining Natasha’s adventurous life, I was gobsmacked to learn that she had spent a couple of years working on those dioramas that had so fascinated me as a child. 

         I still wish I would have known that information while Natasha was still alive, I would have loved to hear what she had to say about them, and tell her just how much seeing those dioramas had meant to me when I was younger.

        Anyway, on our 1996 it was a treat to see those ancient ruins tucked under the massive walls of sandstone again.   I remember the excitement my sister and I had in our childhood visit to the place, when someone in our family discovered a rock with weaving imprinted on it.  My sister and I rushed to show it to one of the naturalists at the museum, thinking we had discovered some old treasure.  We were deflated upon learning it was just an imprint left by workers carrying cement in burlap bags, while they were re-constructing the Indian ruins.

    Below is a photo I took of the tower-like structure in the old settlement.  When I was there as a child, everyone was allowed to sit in the window and look up inside the structure.  I think maybe their was some drawings or something on its upper wall.  I am pretty sure with today’s massive upsurge of tourists, visitors are no longer to get that close and certainly not allowed to sit on the window and do that.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca