BC Forest Service: Driving Around In Trucks

 Above is a painting I did of an old Forestry truck that I owned after it was sold.

       I sometimes question my masculinity.  I am not what is often thought of as a typical male.  I have absolutely no interest in sports, and I am not a motor-head.  I am not interested in loud powerful engines or going fast in vehicles.  All that being said, I must say that one of the things I really enjoyed during my 23 years of working at the BC Forest Service (or the Ministry of Forests, as it was later rebranded) was being able to explore the Robson Valley by driving around in trucks.

        Our district was huge, as big as the country of Belize.  It was made up of mountains and valleys.  Highway 16 went through one valley east and west, and Highway 5 went through another valley north and south.  The rest of the area could only be accessed through a few secondary roads, some well maintained “Forest Service Roads” and a lot of very poor logging roads.

        The jobs I often had to do were varied.  I had to sometimes go out to pristine areas that were slated for logging to do timber cruises.  I had to get fire fighting equipment to fires, ferry barrels of jet fuel for helicopters, take boxes of baby trees to tree planters, and to visit isolated side valleys to determine what kind timber types were growing there.

        Sometimes the remoteness of the places I had to go to meant that a helicopter, ATV, or snowmobile had to be used, but most often it meant driving a big 4 wheel drive forestry truck.  I really enjoyed slowly bouncing along unexplored roads, not knowing what lay behind the next bend.  

        Of course, driving in the trucks was just a means of getting where we had to go.  Once there, things often became much more physical.  Tromping up mountains, and spending the day, fighting our way through the Devils Club (a nasty spiky plant), fighting mosquitoes, or snowshoeing through heavy snow.

        What a glorious thing it was to finally return back to the truck after a hard day in the bush, and to be able to finally sit down again.  It was always a welcome reward at the end of an exhausting day, even if it still meant  a half an hour of bouncing along a logging road, then another hour’s worth of driving on a highway before I finally got back to the office.

        Because the Forest Service used to hire on a lot of extra people over the summer, it meant that we needed extra trucks for them to use.  One of the things I always looked forward in the spring, was being part of the crew that was driven up to Prince George, to pick up the brand new rental trucks, and driving them back to McBride.

        Not only was it enjoyable to drive a brand spanking-new truck, the trip always gave us some “city” time, and since we had a truck, we often took advantage of the situation by purchasing items that we couldn’t carry in our own personal vehicles.  I bought a rototiller once and hauled it home, and another time bought a fruit tree that wouldn’t have fit in my car.

        I will always have fond memories of those forestry trucks.  They were not only a means of exploration and adventure, but also a sign that a hard exhausting day was finally over.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Seeing Green

     The winter after our first summer living in the Robson Valley, I got out some of the slides I had taken over the summer.  I was surprised when I started looking at them:  Everything was so lush and green.  It looked like something you would see in the jungle.  I later learned that our area is classified as an  Interior Temperate Rain Forest.

    After our long winters and things warm up, the plants know their growing season is rather short, so they get down to rapidly growing, and explode into foliage.

    I took the photo above looking down from the balcony to the small pool I have beside our “shade” deck.   The plants have been busy elbowing each other out of the way, trying to get as much sun as they can, for themselves.

    Below you can see the view looking out from the balcony.  You can see that there are areas where I have forced my will onto the landscape, in a desire to have some “jungle-free” space that can be used for other things.   Even though those areas have been cleared, I think you would agree that there is still a predominance of green.  Can you spot the pool featured in the top photo, in the lower left corner of the photo below.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Pine Martin In My Bedroom

     I have been blogging about my first experiences seeing a Pine Martin in 2013.  Today’s blog is the exciting finale to the story:

        As you can no doubt tell, the photo above is fake.  It is a poor composite I constructed in Photoshop, but it does pretty much show what I saw this morning at 4:45, when I raised my head off of my pillow to see what all the commotion was.

        I was asleep and I heard some scratching noises.  I assumed it was the baby squirrels (I had discovered they had a nest up under the eaves of our house.  I figured they were venturing around up in the ceiling.  

        Since there was nothing I could do about it, I tried to go back to sleep.  Then I was roused by our cat, who was jumping around by the window, and knocking off papers and books that were sitting on the short filing cabinet below the window.  

        I raised my head off of the pillow once again to yell at the cat, who seemed mighty interested in the curtain, or what was behind it.  Surely, I thought, those baby squirrels hadn’t gotten in through the window.  At that point, a head peaked out from behind the curtain--it was the marten we had been seeing around the house.

        I usually have the window shut overnight, because when it is open, the train whistle that originates across the river and valley, over a mile away, sounds like it is coming from just outside our house.  Over the last few nights, despite the train whistle, I left the window open, because it has been so warm.

        We do have a screen on the window, but it is held by some slots, and the marten managed to slide it out of the slot and squeeze through the crack on the loose side.  Now, it was hiding behind the curtain, and Lucifer, our cat was stalking it, even thought it was a lot bigger than she was.

        I jumped out of bed, my mind racing through all the possible solutions of how to get the marten out of the house.  The marten, who by this time was feeling outnumbered, to his credit was trying to get back outside, but couldn’t get the window screen open.

       The cat jumped, and the marten responded by leaping down to my guitar case, then the floor and finally behind a dresser.  Lucifer followed, and as the marten vocalized various hissing and growling moans at the cat, I tried disparately to get the screen out of the window, so that if the marten got back on the windowsill, it could escape back outside.

        I yelled at the cat to get away from the marten, and finally got her out of the bedroom, at the same time I opened the door to our balcony, thinking maybe I could get the marten to go out that way.

        In the end that’s what happened.  Once the cat was gone, the marten came out from behind the dresser, and I herded it out into my office, and seeing the open door, it scampered out to the balcony, and I closed the door behind it.

        Needless to say, it was a while before, I calmed down enough to go back to sleep.  Life in the frontier is not always as relaxing and stress-free as urban dwellers often think.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

The Pine Martin Gets Closer

     A couple of days ago I blogged about seeing my first Pine Martin in 2013.  Well, that wasn’t really the end of my martin story.   A couple of weeks later, I had another blog about the martin:

          Some of the critters we have around here are sure publicity hungry.  On May 23, I wrote about spotting my first marten along our trail.  I took its photo and posted it on on my blog.  They are rather secretive creatures that you don’t normally see.  It wasn’t even in the type of forest where they usually live.  

            I suspect this one got hooked on the international publicity, because the other day, it had scampered  out of the woods, and was running around on the branches of the birch tree that sits 10 feet (3 m.) from our house.  I assumed it was interested in getting its picture taken again, so I obliged it.

Take look at my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

At The Whistlestop Gallery

     McBride is known as sort of an “Artist Town” because of the many talented artists that live in the area.  The McBride Train Station features The Whistlestop Gallery, where many of the paintings and other works of the local artisans are on sale.

    On Wednesday, a film crew from a Prince George television station traveled to McBride to film a piece about McBride and the Whistlestop Gallery.  I was asked to show up as one of the contributing artists to be interviewed.

    While one of the Whistlestop officials was being interviewed, I was standing out in the lobby awaiting my turn.  As I stood there, a tourist couple came in and were looking at some of the brochures on display.  Being a friendly local resident, I asked the lady tourist where they had come from.

    She replied that they lived on Vancouver Island.  She then told me that they had driven up to the university in Prince George to visit their daughter.  She added that now they were on their way to Clearwater, to see a friend who lived there.

    Then she said that long ago she had a high school teacher in Victoria who had inspired her to pursue an education in biology, who she thought had later moved to McBride.  

    I asked her what was his name, thinking I might know him.

    “Mr. Foster” was her reply.

    “Mr. Foster?” I surprisingly remarked,  “He was my next door neighbor for 35 years.”

    Then it was her time to be surprised, and we talked about the Fosters, who had just recently moved down to Victoria on Vancouver Island.

    The incident shows what a small world it is, especially for people who live in a very small community.

    My interview with the TV presenter, must have went okay, because I later learned that after I had left, he bought the print of my painting of Mt. Robson, I was holding up, as I explained my painting technique of painting just one two inch square every day.

    I also learned that the woman tourist who I was talking to, bought one of my art cards.

You can see my other paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Seeing My First Pine Martin

         The following is from a blog I posted in May of 2013.  It was after a day when I saw an unusual number of wild critters.

        Yesterday, was another one of those rare days, when all sorts of wildlife were out galavanting around in the woods.  I blogged about the black bear we saw on our morning walk, and when we started out on our afternoon walk, we were wary of coming across the bear again, so I thought I would make some noise as we walked so it could hear us coming.

        Usually the late afternoon walk, I take some oats and corn along to scatter where the trail runs beside our pond, to feed the ducks (and inadvertently) the deer.  After I had emptied the plastic jar of the oats and corn, I just drummed on it’s bottom and whistled a happy tune to alert any bear as we continued down our trail. 

        Shortly upon entering the woods, I saw some commotion, and watched as a mother moose, and calf retreated deeper into the bush.  When we got to the field where we had seen the bear, it was empty, but a big hawk or raptor took flight.  When we re-entered the woods at the far field, we scared off a spruce grouse (a chicken-like bird).  

        Like I was saying, I was trying to make noise kept vigil as we walked, and through the high brush I saw movement in a tree.  When I got a clearer view, I could see a dark furry animal, but wasn’t sure what it was.  It was bigger than a cat, and it had a really furry tail.  I took two photos, and when I got home I looked it up in my BC Mammal book.   I decided it was an American Pine Marten.

        Martens are pretty elusive animals.  I have never before seen one in the bush.  They eat voles, insects, squirrels, and have even been know to finish off an apple pie that had been left in a window to cool.

        Seeing a marten, was really a special treat for me.  They are usually only found in deep mature conifer forests.  This one was in a mixed forest mostly aspen, cottonwood, and birch trees, with only a scattering of spruce and balsam.   They are a sign of a healthy mature forest.

        Pine Martins are prized for their fur, and are sought after by trappers.  Hopefully, this one will have a long life in the neighborhood.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Merlin Bird ID App: Early Birds

     Last night at 3:45 AM, I was awaken when my wife fell, on the way to the bathroom.  Still very groggy from being suddenly awaken, I got up to help her.  I helped her get back on her feet, and supported her as she walked to the bathroom, then back to the bedroom.  

    This middle of the night activity, woke and excited Kona, and so I carried her outside so she could pee.  When I got outside, there was already a bit of light in the sky (we have very long days this time of year.)   What really surprised me when I got out there, was the number of birds that were tweeting and singing their songs.

    I am used to hearing this very early morning bird chorus in June, but it is usually during my half-sleep when I was in the bedroom.  Last night was different because all the songs were louder, since I was outside. 

    Instead of just waiting around for Kona to pee, I went upstairs and got my iPhone.  On the phone I have the Merlin Bird ID App, which, when you turn it on, identifies the different bird sounds going on.  I only had the app on for three minutes, and I was very surprised at how many birds were out their singing their hearts out in the early morning.  Above you see the birds the Merlin app recorded.

    I was especially happy to see the American Redstart and the Western Tanager on the list.  They are such beautiful birds that I hadn’t actually seen for a few years.  I am glad that they are still around.  

    Not being a hardcore birder, there are only a few birds that I can identify by their songs.  The Merlin app is wonderful for doing so, for you.  

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Satellite TV: Doing Everything Yourself

     We live outside a very isolated tiny rural village in the Interior of BC.  Because of our isolation and the small size of the Village, the services that are normally available to people are non-existent.  My wife and I have for decades, depended upon satellite TV for our entertainment.  

    Normally people who have satellite TV, just call and have a technician come to the house to aim and hook up the dish to the satellite.  Living where we do, with no satellite TV technician around, means that I had to set up and aim the dish at the satellite myself.  This was no easy feat.  A technician would have an instrument to make it easy to find the satellite.  I had nothing, I had to use trial and error to aim my dish.

    To do so, I had to get a TV set and the satellite receiver out there beside the dish, so I could hook them up to the dish and as I slowly moved the dish up and down and back and forth, I could tell on the TV, when I found the satellite signal.  The only area where I could place the dish to hit the satellite, was on the far edge of the paddock of my barn.  

    So to find the satellite, I first had to string out a long extension cord from the house out to the paddock to power the TV and my satellite receiver.   I had to put my big bulky TV (this was before flat-screen TVs) into my wheel barrow, and wheel it out to the satellite dish.

    I’m sure that it looked a bit ridiculous to those people driving down our road to see me sitting in the pasture with a big TV set beside me, as I scanned the skies.  

    I have had to go out there and readjust finding the satellite several different times over the years.  One time, after frustrating hours of searching for the satellite and finding nothing, I eventually discovered that the short cable I had used to connect the dish to the satellite receiver, was broken, which was why I never got any signal. 

     I am always amazed and so very relieved, when I have eventually found the signal up in the sky.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Weeding The Garlic

     Because of a soil infection in our garden, we are no longer able to grow garlic or onions.  Fortunately, we have good friends that allow us to grow garlic in a section of their garden.  This of course comes with a moral obligation; we feel obliged to keep our garlic patch looking neat and tidy.

    Last Saturday, while visiting, I took a look at our garlic and was embarrassed to see how weeds had taken over, so yesterday I spent two hours pulling weeds out of our section of their garden.  It was not a very pleasant job, since they seem to have a lot of mosquitoes around their place.  The whole time I was weeding I wore netting over my head and wore gloves, to keep the pesky insects  from getting their blood meal from me.

    Every time I have to do a lot of weeding, I think back to my childhood.  The task of weeding in our family garden often fell to me.  It was a job I hated.   Indiana summers are hot and muggy, and just spending an hour or so out weeding the garden was a miserable job.  The misery was compounded because within sight of our house was a country club swimming pool.   As I sweated pulling weeds in our garden, I could hear the kids at the country club, splashing, yelling, and having a refreshing swim.  

    Fortunately, the hatred towards gardens that I acquired during my childhood, diminished as I became an adult.

Take a look at my paintings"  davidmarchant2.ca

Elk At The "Golden Hour"

     How many Sundays have I shown you photos that I took the previous evening while driving down Hinkelman Road?  Well, here is another one.  

    Every Saturday evening we drive out to visit friends who live on Hinkelman.  Once winter is over and we start getting longer days, the sun is positioned very low at the far end of the Robson Valley.  This creates the “Golden Hour”, when the low positioned sun creates some beautiful and colorful lighting on the things it illuminates.

    I took this photo shortly after 8:00 PM, as we were driving back home.  The male elk was nicely standing in the sunlight with dark shadowed trees behind him.  It was also nice that Beaver Mountain was jutting up in the background.   You can also see some of the male elk’s harem scattered around behind him. 

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Resuscitating A Hummingbird

 This is something that happened in May of 2013:

        One Saturday night, when I returned home after working on the waterline, my wife told me there was a hummingbird trapped in the greenhouse.  It was fairly dark, but I went out to check.  I figured that since it was night, the hummingbird would be roosting on one of the wires or beams of the greenhouse, but I couldn’t see it, so I assumed it must have found a way out.

        The next morning, when I went out to the greenhouse, I noticed what looked like the corpse of a hummer laying on the ground.  I picked up the ruffled little body and it moved a little, so I realized that the tiny hummingbird was still alive.  It’s eyes were closed and I didn’t have much hope that it would survive, but I took it over and held it up to the hummingbird feeder.  I thought that maybe I could get it to drink some of the sugar syrup, and that would give it some strength.

        I tried to put it on the feeder with it’s needle-like beak in the syrup, but it couldn’t even stand.  I just positioned it, lying on the feeder, with its beak in the sugar water.  It was very inanimate, it wasn’t sucking the syrup, so I tried massaging its tiny body, and blowing on it.  It did sort of respond, but still wasn’t eating.

        My wife got a syringe without a needle, and we drew up some of the syrup into it.  I closed my hand around the hummingbird to warm it, and again put the syringe and syrup to its beak.  After about a half an hour of this, I noticed that it was sucking in the syrup.  It began to move more, and its eyes opened for the first time.

        Eventually, as its strength returned, the hummer began to struggle to free itself.  I let it try to fly, but it kept nose-diving to the ground.  I checked to see if one of its wings was broken, and discovered that one of its long wing feathers was, for some reason, stuck to the rear part of its body.  I gently unhooked it, and then the hummingbird tried to fly once again, and this time it was successful.  It buzzed into the air and flew away.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

My Latest Painting: "Hosta Flower"

     After buying a very rectangular canvas (15”  x  30”) I looked around through my photos to find an image that might fit the canvas, to paint.  I came upon a colorful photo showing the leaves and flower of a Hosta plant that I really liked and surprisingly, fit the canvas shape nicely.

    I started the painting at the beginning of February, and finished it this morning.  It took me 81 hours to complete.

    As anyone who has looked through my paintings knows, I really like Hostas with their dramatically textured leaves and their delicately beautiful blooms.  

You can view my  other paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca

A Delayed, But Sweet Revenge

     The night before last I woke up about 3:00 AM.  When I tried to go back to sleep, I was continually hampered by a mosquito in my room.  Every time slumber was just about to come, I would start to hear the mosquito starting to buzz around my head.  Numerous times I swatted it away with my hand, which of course, woke me up more.  This irritating situation continued throughout the night for hours and hours.  

    I hated that mosquito.  I considered turning on the light, and swatting it with my mosquito zapping racket, but I knew if I got up, turned on the light, and started walking around the bedroom looking for it, I would just wake up more, and never go back to sleep, so I just continued snuggling up in my bed, and of course, the persistent mosquito continued to buzz around and land on my head.  Eventually, sometime before dawn, I did fall asleep for a short while.  I did not feel very rested when I awoke.

    The next day after lunch, I went up to the bedroom to take a nap, and when I got in bed, who should appear but that pesky mosquito, looking for another blood feast from me.  As it buzzed around, I slowly reached for my mosquito zapper, and after several attempts:  ZAP, I fried that mosquito, enjoying the crackling spark that it made.

    The revenge I took on that irritating mosquito was sweet indeed.  

    Last night there were several new mosquitos in the bedroom, but I was able to despatch them before I turned out the lights.

    

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Get Those Potatoes in the Ground!

     Gardeners who grow potatoes have to store them in a cool place over the winter.  The best place to do so is a cold, well-built, root cellar.   Unfortunately most of us don’t have one, so we do the best we can.  I usually store my potatoes under the house in the crawlspace.   It stays pretty cool during the winter, so it does a pretty fair job of keeping the potatoes from sprouting.

    However, once spring starts warming the outside temperatures, our crawlspace also starts to warm up and the potatoes start to throw out sprouts.   Don’t jump to conclusions now, those outrageously sprouted potatoes in the photos aren’t mine.  The photo was taken in 2013, and the potatoes belonged to a friend, let’s just call him “David”.

    Unlike me, my friend “David” is one of those fastidious gardeners, who does everything correctly in his garden.  Whenever I see his garden, I am embarrassed, thinking of my untidy, weedy, garden.  Well, in 2013, I did feel a bit superior, when I saw the potatoes he had stored in his basement.  By the time I saw them, I had already had my spuds in the ground for weeks.  I had never seen such long sprouts on potatoes.

    If I remember correctly, that year David had been spending most of his efforts foolishly trying to eliminate the dandelions from his lawn.  That is just a useless and impossible job.  Instead of putting so much of his energy to that endeavor, he should have been planting his potatoes.  

    I am not sure what happened to the potatoes in the photo.  I don’t know if he ended up planting them with those incredibly long sprouts, of whether he just gave up on those sprouted potatoes, and just bought some new seed potatoes.

    In the spring, I usually have some sprouts on my saved potatoes, but certainly, nothing as sprouted as in the photo.  I do plant them, sprouts and all, and they always produce for me.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Man Against The WIlderness

     Because we live in the interior of BC, we often hear people who don’t live in Canada say, “I could never stand living up there with those winters.”   While I admit that our winters last too long, they do offer some advantages.  One of them is that because of the snow and cold, nothing is growing outside, leaving me with a lot of free time to myself to pursue other things.

    Once Spring arrives, everything changes and everything becomes a rush.  Outside, plants grow quickly, like in a jungle.  There are so many jobs have to be done quickly, especially yard maintenance and getting things planted in the garden.  I am currently running far behind in both those endeavors.  

    I do have the greenhouse planted (although the I haven’t been able to deal with the weeds that are coming up) and I have been able to get the garden half planted.  However, I am becoming overwhelmed with the lawn.       

    We have had so many rain showers of late which are causing the grass to grow very rapidly, and at the same time, because of the grass being wet, I can’t mow it.  I think in places, I will have to cut the grass down with a lawn trimmer, then rake up the pieces, before I can use the lawn mower on it.

    Hopefully with time, I will slowly be able to get on top of things, but at present, I am sure feeling discouraged and frustrated.  

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Sun Rising Over the Mountains

     In order to be healthy, I have been making myself do four laps walking/jogging around the pond.  If the weather is clear, I do it early in the morning.  If if is raining, I put it off until later in the day.

    The other day it was very clear, but there was a lot of dew on the plants, so instead of my running shoes, I wore my gum boots (rubber boots, “Wellingtons”).   They were not the most comfortable foot wear for jogging, but they did keep my socks dry.

    As I was rounding the pond, heading in the direction of our house, the sun was just starting to peer  above the mountain range behind our house, back-lighting all of the dew on the plants.  The horsetails looked nice coated with backlit dew and the star-shaped leaves of the lupine made for an interesting scene.   I had my phone in my pocket, so stopped my exercise long enough to snap this picture.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Epilogue: My Fainting Experiences

      I can find no rational explanation for why I suddenly “pull the plug” and pass out in those kind of situations when I fainted.  When I was a baby, one of my front baby teeth started to turn black.  The dentist said it should be pulled, and so the appointment was made.

            I was too young to remember any of this, but my parents told me that when the dentist began to pull the tooth, he had a really difficult time getting it out.  It turned out that that tooth was joined at the root to the tooth that was beside it.  I think it was a very traumatic experience for my very young self.  I often wonder if that bad experience in a medical setting when I was a baby had some kind of lingering effect on my subconscious.  

            In more recent times, I did have one experience that should have brought on a fainting spell, but didn’t.  It happened in 2021 when I was up on our waterline intake on Sunbeam Falls.  The creek running over the falls was running hard after a hard rain, and as I worked with a neighbor to clear debris off of our culvert, a rock came shooting down from the falls above, hitting and mangling the ring finger of my left hand.

            I had to lay on the ground for a long period of time, while my neighbor hiked down the slope to call an ambulance.  As I waited, I did remember to position myself so that my legs were above my head.  Maybe being in that position kept me from fainting.  

            I did loose my finger as the result of that accident, but I spent most of the time in those hours before the operation on my back on a hospital gurney or in the ambulance taking me up to Prince George for the amputation.  At any rate, I didn’t pass out during that whole ordeal.

    All this fainting really hasn’t done me any lasting harm.  The worst part of those reoccurring ordeals is the blow it does to my ego.  It’s so embarrassing for a seemingly big strong healthy masculine guy like myself, to be floored by an event as non-threatening as a chest X-ray.  Of course, the sight of a glowing paperclip sizzling through your toenail maybe more understandable.  At any rate, it’s a flaw that is lurking somewhere deep inside of me and I have come to accept the fact and try to warn doctors and dentists when I find myself in a situation where it might show itself.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

My Fourth Memorable Fainting Episode

         In the photo above you can see bundles of fence posts and rails produced by the mill where I was working.  I was standing on top of one of those kind of bundles when my accident occurred.

    The mill where I had borrowed the jack in yesterday’s blog, also played a part in my next fainting episode, which happened about half a year later.

            One of my jobs at this cedar mill, which made split rail cedar fences and posts, was to bundle and strap the posts into bundles.  To do this I had to climb up on top of the posts which where laying in a crib.  From this vantage point about 4 feet above the floor, I would insert the metal strapping that was strung around the bundle, into a manual cinching machine, crank the strapping up tight, and then clamp the straps, to secure the bundle of posts.

    I did this thousands of times, but on this one particular day, we had run out of the regular steel strapping we normally used, and I was told by the boss to use another type of strapping which was noticeably narrower. 
    “Go ahead and cinch it up tight,” I was told,  “This strapping is real strong,”

    I stood up on the bundle, my legs apart, bent over and put the strapping into the machine and started cranking the machine to tighten the strapping around the bundle.  The posts were being gathered together as the strapping squeezed around them.  I was bent over a pulling against the crank  on the machine when suddenly there was a snap, and the steel strapping broke.  The ends flew in opposite directions and suddenly the force that I was pulling against vanished, and I was flying through the air to the concrete floor waiting below.  

    My hard hat saved my head, when it bounced against the floor, but when I picked myself up, I noticed that I had broken my right arm at the wrist.  I remained  calm and a co-worker came over to help me.  I told him I thought I had broken my arm and I had to go to the office for some help.  Alone, I walked across the packed snow in the mill yard  (Photo below) to the trailer that served as the mill office. 

    “Bob, I need to go to the hospital,  I think I broke my arm.”  Bob asked me some questions about how it happened, then told me to get into the company pickup, and he would drive me over to the hospital, which was only a short distance away.  

            I remained calm, and in control, sitting in the truck.

    When we got to the hospital, Bob got out of the pickup and came over to open the door for me.  There was about six inches of powdery snow on the parking lot.  Bob was supporting me as we headed across the parking lot toward the hospital door, when suddenly, I fainted.   As he told me later; suddenly I was just “dead weight,” and he couldn’t hold me up, so I dropped to the snow below. 

    When I regained consciousness, I was being lifted out of the snow and unto a wheelchair. by a couple of nurses.   I was then wheeled through the snow in the parking lot, into the hospital.  My right arm was broken at the wrist, and I was patched up and spent the next month and a half with another chunk of plaster on my arm.  

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