Another Jam, Another Rainbow

     Every Tuesday evening, our Jam meets and plays music on the McBride Train Station porch.  We have experienced a lot of rain showers this summer, and just like on our Tuesday night jam in the middle of June, when we were there playing on the porch, a rainbow formed over McBride.  I guess we shouldn’t be all that surprised given the combination of the rain showers, the low position of the sun at the same time, and being at the same location, that we got to experience another rainbow over the town.

    The rainbow the other night was unique because it lasted for so long, arching over McBride for forty minutes.  

    Below is a photo of the summer’s previous Jam rainbow.  It looks like the pot of gold at the base of the rainbow must have changed locations.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Another Memorable Fire Callout

 Here is an account of another “fire callout” that I had to respond to in 1991:

    Toward the end of July, I was at home after work, but on fire backup.  Our Forestry officer got a report from the observation plane that circled our forest district looking for fires, that a small plume of smoke had been spotted curling up from the middle of a forested area east of the West Twin Creek.   I received a radio call to investigate and so I drove out Highway 16 to try to find it.  

            From an old logging cutblock on the opposite side of the West Twin Bridge that overlooked area on the east side of the creek,  I finally spotted a wimpy plume of smoke.  I figured that the only way I could locate it in the bush was to take a compass reading and hopefully compass my way to it.  I took whipped out my compass and took a reading, then drove back across the bridge and parked,  then with my compass in hand, I headed out through the forest.

    Evening was approaching and finding a small fire in the middle of the large forest by walking through the trees, seemed akin to finding a needle in a haystack, but following the compass I bushwhacked my way through the woods, and after an hour of walking, I was amazed in finding a lone smoking cedar that must have been hit by lightning.  The tree was hollow and smoldering inside.  Having no water or tools, there was really no way for me to put the fire out, and it did seem possible that the fire might spread, so I radioed back to the office and they told me just to hike back out since nightfall was at hand, and deal with the fire the next day.

    Since I knew that the highway was somewhere below me and made a curve around me, instead of hiking the hour in the direction I had come, I decided it would be an easier hike just to “shortcut” through the forest to the highway then walk along the highway back to the truck.  I figured that would be quicker.      

        Unfortunately, I was wrong.  I hadn’t realized that although the highway did make a curve, it was a very side curve that curved away from where I was, so instead of being a quicker route, it ended up being a whole lot longer.  

        It was just about near dark when I finally reached the highway, then it was a 2.5 kilometer hike along the highway, back to where I had parked the truck.  I tried hitchhiking, but no one would pick me up, so I had to walk the whole distance.  By the time I got to the truck, driven back to the office, and then back home, it was 11:00 PM.

    The next day I repeated my hike back to the burning cedar leading a crew of four firefighters.  They sawed down the smoldering cedar and extinguished the fire.  Having learned my lesson about taking a “shortcut”  back to the truck, we hiked out the same way we had hiked in.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Remembering a "Call Out" For A Forest Fire

     I worked for the BC Forest Service for 23 years.  Every spring Fire Protection, drew up a weekly schedule that assigned one staff member as the Protection Officer, and another employee scheduled to be “on call” if smoke was reported.  I was often “on call”.  That meant that I got a small amount of pay for being ready to respond in case I was needed.   I had to stay close to a Forest Service portable radio or to my home phone, in case of a call.  Other than that, I could live my life normally at home.  I also got to take Forestry pickup truck home, so I could respond to a “call out” from home.

    One evening I got a radio call from the Protection Officer, saying that a driver had reported .  I was told to drive out there and investigate.  That was all of the information that was given, so I didn’t really know what to expect when I got out there.

    It took me twenty minutes to drive to the West Twin Bridge and after crossing the bridge and starting the climb up the long hill, I got to an area where I did see a small whiff of white smoke drifting out from the trees on the right side of the highway.  I parked the truck on the side of the highway and made my way into the forest where the smoke was coming from.

    I didn’t have to go very far inside the trees, before I could see the source of the smoke.  It was a small campfire, and hunched beside it was a surprised man cooking his supper.  In talking to him I discovered that he was a bicycler, who had decided to pull over and spend the night camping in the woods.  (During the summer numerous long-range bike riders pedal up and down the hills of Highway 16 traveling from McBride to Prince George.  I always feel sorry for them because it is such a long, hilly, uninteresting endeavor without much rewarding scenery, just trees.  Doing that trip on a bike, always seemed to me like it would be torture.)

    I always hate to play the “Heavy”, but I needed to in this situation, given my job.  I told the biker that he couldn’t have a fire out there in the woods, and I pushed my authority and made him put the fire out, and not be doing it again.  The guy seemed chastened, and extinguished his small fire.  I am sure he was taken by surprise when I interrupted his supper in the middle of nowhere.  

    I radioed back to the Forestry Office to report what I had found and how I dealt with it, then I drove back home to resume my evening.

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

My Morning Search For Inspiration

     After I painted a square on my painting this morning, it was time to write my blog, but I didn’t really have anything to blog about, so I decided just to head outside, and walk around the pond, hoping for some kind of inspiration.  There were some nice clouds against a beautiful blue sky, so I took a photo of that.  

    As I walked the path around the pond, I did disturb a small frog, who leaped into the water.  I watched a handful of dragonflies circling and darting above the water, and the neighbor’s cat was walking down the path toward me, until she saw me,then turned, and silently retreated the way she came.

    Once my pond walk was finished I headed up to the garden to see what was happening there.  The pole teepee I had constructed for the scarlet runner beans, was colorful with its orangish blooms, and a couple of deep red poppies that were blooming, added a nice accent to the scene.  The pinkish-red hollyhocks made a nice photo.  The purple clematis climbing on the garden’s fence also made for a colorful sight.

    While my walk didn’t give me one dramatic inspiration, seeing all those various things did make me appreciate the beautiful things that I have around me.  All I needed to do is take the time to notice them.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Evacuation Legacy

     Sadly summers in BC now mean wildfires, and at present there is a horrific one going on in the southern third of the province.  In Summerland, BC twenty-two thousand people have been evacuated: forced to leave their homes without knowing if there homes will still be there once the fire has ended.

    Hearing about those fires, is a constant reminder for me of the forest fire hazard that surround our house.  Luckily so far this year, we have been blessed with periodic rain and showers, so our fire hazard isn’t very high, but who knows what the future will hold.

    When we had to evacuate in 2023 because of a forest fire that swept across the mountain slope across the road, we scrambled to pack up our valued possessions.  I am reminded of that daily, because a lot of those things still sit in crates, because we never put them back where they were.   Above you can see the crates that hold my diaries and old papers from my life.  In the blue container, I have old videos of family and trips we had taken.

    In the photo below are more containers of photos that still sit behind our couch in the living room.  They are ready to go in case of another evacuation call.  

    All this reminds me that I have taken the canopy off of my pickup truck in order to haul big chunks of unwanted willow chunks to the dump.  I really should get that job done, so I can put the canopy back onto the truck, just in case we need to load up all of our important things again in case of another  evacuation.

    

Take a look at my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

The Packaging Seemed A Bit Excessive

      This blog is about something that happened in 2016.  I had forgotten all about it, but I think it deserves another blog posting:

   The other day when I went to the post office to pick up the mail, I found a card in our post office box that said I had a parcel.  The previous week I had ordered a new electric toothbrush so I figured that must be what had arrived.  I gave the card to the postmistress and she walked into the back room and came out carrying a huge big cardboard box (see photo above).

     I wracked my brain trying to figure out what it could be in the big box.  It wasn’t heavy.  I couldn’t think of anything that I had ordered and I couldn’t imagine anything that anyone would send me that that could be so big.  I put the box in the back of the car and drove home.  At home I quickly opened it to see what was in it.

    Amazingly, it was my electric toothbrush.  Talk about excessive packaging. 

    Below is what was in the giant cardboard box, beside a lot of stuffing to protect it.

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Grave Robbery

    As a youngster, I developed a deep fascination and interest in American Indian culture.  I dreamed of being an archeologist discovering and digging up artifacts of ancient civilizations.  Of course, none of that ever happened, but even today that interest remains. 

    In 1982, I was told that my brother-in-law at the time, knew of a Native American gravesite.  If I remember correctly, some relative and his friends were over in Kentucky fishing in a river and a bone came sliding down the slope beside the river.  They investigated and found a hole dug in the hillside and more bones.  James had later gone out there with his relative and saw the site.

    My imagination was fired upon hearing the story, so the next time I went down to Indiana for a visit I asked if a trip out to the burial site could be arranged, and Jim took my mother and I over to see it.  We drove across the bridge to Kentucky, then down some country roads, walked through some old fields and woodlands, and got to the grave site.

    It seemed like a wonderful site to bury a loved one.  The slope of the hill overlooked a river below and in the distance, through the trees, you could see the Ohio River sprawling out in the west.

    But I was appalled at what I saw in the present day.   A small chunk of the slope had been carved away, and strewn around the area were human bones.  The grave robbers were only interested in the Indian artifacts which they could sell on the black market, and cared not at all for the human remains.

    My reaction to the Indian burial site was not at all what I had expected.  I thought it would be so interesting, but instead I found it depressing and disgusting, thanks to the tomb robbers, who cared nothing about the history or culture, only of money.

    I urged my brother-in-law to contact someone involved with Native American history to make them aware of the location of the grave, but I don’t know if he did or not.  Certainly, there wasn’t anything left of cultural or historical value on the hillside.

    I recently discovered some of my lost slides and these were among them.  They still generate a feeling of disgust after all these years.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Firewood Envy

     I was never an envious person.  I saw things that other people had, but I just accepted the fact that they had stuff and I didn’t.  I really didn’t spend time being envious of their possessions.  There was however, one exception-- Firewood.

    Back in 1977 when we bought our house and property, it was heated entirely by a wood stove and the BC winters were cold and long.  It was always a major priority of mine to cut, split, and stack enough firewood to get us through the winter.  That was a big time-consuming job that required a lot of physical exertion.  I was constantly on the lookout for trees that had blown down or left after logging, that I could get for firewood.

    I was always envious when I saw the huge stack of cut, split, and dried firewood that some of my neighbors had and wished that I could be in such a condition, instead of hunting wood, getting it to our house, splitting it by swinging a splitting maul, then stacking it.  It was always such a big operation that I had to carry out every year in preparation for winter.

    Lately getting firewood has not been such a major chore, and that’s a good thing, because at my age, I no longer have the strength and endurance that I had when I was a young man.   One of the reasons that getting firewood is not such a big job now, is that our winters have not been as cold as they used to be, and every spring I still have firewood, that I didn’t need for heat, left over from the winter.  

    I now have access to an electric wood splitter that is on loan from a friend, so splitting wood is now quicker and a lot easier than swinging a maul.    Another reason is that we now also use electric baseboard heaters in the house to keep us warm, so we don’t have to use so much firewood.

    This all came to mind yesterday, when I noticed just how much firewood I have stacked and ready to use this winter.  It is nice to be in the situation where I no longer envy those people with their big ready supply of firewood for the winter.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

God Speaks

     I think it must be because I saw so many religious movies when I was a kid, that now, whenever I see a break in the clouds, with with the sunlight beaming down toward earth, my first thought is that God must be speaking to someone.  The beaming light thing is a phenomenon that I notice quite often in the Robson Valley, so this part of the country must keep God pretty busy.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Birch Seedling: A Satisfying Discovery

     Although you can’t really make it out in the photo, this pot of flowers is sitting on the big stump of a birch tree that once stood by our house.  Years ago the tree died and I had it felled.  The wide dark object with the whitish rim is a large conk (fungus) growing out of the nutrients in the old stump.  The top of the stump is now covered with moss and small plants.

    The other day when I was watering the flowering pot, I discovered something that made me feel really good.  Among the mosses and small plants on the top of the stump, there were some bigger leaves that looks like a birch seedling that has sprouted and is growing in the mosses on top of the old birch stump.      

    Seeing that was very satisfying to me.  I loved that big old original birch tree that grew there, and to see young birch tree growing in the same spot was uplifting, like life was regenerating itself.

    There are of course, no guarantees that the seedling will be able to survive in this climate-changing world to become another large birch tree, but right now, it gives me hope.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Wow, A Mother Deer With Three Fawns

     First thing this morning, I walked out to the raspberry patch to pick some raspberries to put on our bowl of oats.  When I rounded the woodpile, I was a bit surprised to see a deer standing by the raspberries.  I had seen the deer there a couple of times before, eating the raspberries so that was not a total surprise.  As I continued to calmly walk toward the raspberries, the deer slowly walked away a bit, keeping her eyes on me, but then she just stood there watching me.

    It was then that I noticed, over by our satellite dish, there were three fawns.  I was amazed, I had never seen a deer with three fawns.  I have seen deer with two, and deer with one, but never a mother deer with three of them.  No wonder she was had been busy stuffing herself with raspberries.  

    I had forgotten my phone, so I wasn’t able to take a photo, but I wanted one, so I walked slowly back to the house and got my camcorder.  When I returned back out to the raspberries, I was happy to see the deer family still there, so I was able to take some photos.  

    Eventually, the mother deer saw that I was busy hogging the raspberry patch as I was picking them, and so she wandered over to be with her three fawns.  

Take a look at my paintings by going to:  davidmarchant2.ca

Stormy Weather

     As one storm after another rolls into the Robson Valley, I find myself rather subdued and needing sunlight, but realistically all our dark skies and rain showers are very much preferable to the sunny, hot weather south of us causing forest fires in those very dry forests of BC.  The storm that blew in yesterday with its heavy rain, lightning, and loud crashes of thunder, terrified Kona, who trembled and cowered, and couldn’t be calmed.

    As I usually do whenever we have a thunderstorm, I opened the Lightning app to see how close the electrical activity was, and I was surprised to see just how many lightning strikes has occurred in our neck of the woods.  

    In the screenshot below, the blue dot shows our house, and the red dots show the most recent lightning strikes.  I was confident that because of all of the rain coming down, the strikes would not cause any forest fires.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Our Trusty Old Wheelbarrow

     We bought our “hobby farm” back in the fall of 1977.  When the following spring arrived, we had a tremendous amount of work that we wanted to do outside, to make our five acre property into the way we wanted it.  We didn’t have any outdoor tools for the lawn or garden, so we had to buy them.  One of the first useful items we needed was a wheelbarrow.  That orange wheelbarrow is still with us today and it is in constant use every year.

    During its time with us, it has carried the firewood I have cut and split, the weeds I have pulled from the garden, potatoes I have dug, junk destined to go to the dump, construction materials and tools I needed when rebuilding our house, manure from the barn when I had Angora goats, and even the large TV I needed to use when I was trying to aim my satellite dish which was in the barn paddock.  I also used it to mix concrete in.  

    All of that work I used the wheelbarrow for could be exhausting, and as you can see from this old photo taken shortly after I bought the wheelbarrow in 1978, it could also be used for a bit of relaxation.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca 

Like Lions Waiting By The Waterhole

     Every morning lately, I find myself thinking about those lions laying around by the watering holes in Africa, waiting for the thirsty animals to come for a drink, so they can attack and eat them.  The reason I think about those lions, is because the first thing I have been doing lately  each morning, is walking out to our raspberry patch to pick some fresh raspberries to put on our cereal.

    As I slowly walk toward the raspberry patch, I know what will be waiting to devour me when I get there, not lions, but mosquitoes.

    After several years of having practically no mosquitoes, all of the rain and showers we experienced this year, have created a mosquito problem.  Their population is not as violently oppressive as it has been in during those really bad mosquito years, when I feared to even go outside, but they are certainly more noticeable this summer than they have been lately.  

    I can go out to work in the yard or garden, and not be overwhelmed by the pests, but if I go over to the raspberry patch, a thick cloud of the mosquitoes suddenly appear, waiting and ready to attack for their blood feast, just like those lions by the waterhole in Africa.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

McBride Peak's Halfway Lookout Cabin

     Halfway up the switchbacking road up McBride Peak, there is a small log hut that used to be the temporary home to the Fred(?) Koeneman, the lookout man.  When the forest fire danger was high, he would sleep in the cabin at night, then travel up to the alpine of McBride Peak to the Fire Lookout building, in order to spot any smoke from forest fires in the valley below or rising from the slopes on the sides of the Valley. 

    Anyway, starting in the 1980’s hang gliding became a popular pastime for adventurous people who would launch themselves off into the air from McBride Peak, in order to have the updrafts lift them high into the sky, to soar over the Valley.

    One year there was going to be a hang gliding competition in McBride.  The gliders would launch themselves off of McBride Peak and I think the point was to see who could stay aloft the longest.  I was working at the Forest Service at the time, and I was often given jobs that had nothing to do with my map-making position.  A few days before the hang gliding event, I was told to drive up to the Halfway and paint the rather rough-looking roof of the lookout man’s cabin, so it would look nice to all of the hang gliders who would be soaring above it.

    I enjoyed those unusual jobs that got me out of the office, and was happy to drive up the mountain with a paintbrush, ladder, and paint, to spend the day.

    I didn’t attend the hang gliding competition, but I later heard of a tragic accident that occurred during it.  One hang glider who was camped in the campground across the highway from McBride Peak, broke the rules, and instead of landing in Koeneman Park just below the slope, tried to land in the camp ground.

    On his descent, he hit a tree, fell to the ground, breaking his neck.  He was rushed to the hospital, but died.  A friend who was the X-ray technician at the hospital, told me the victim’s injuries were the worse she had experienced.

    I couldn’t find any of my photos of the Halfway Cabin.  The photo above is from Google Earth.  Below is the scenic view of the Valley from the Halfway Point of McBride Peak.

    

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You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Well, Maybe I Won't Be Wearing The Gum Boots Today

     The building I constructed to be my shop, mostly turned out to be our warehouse, where we store all those old things we might need to use again someday.  One day, I was looking for my old “gum boots” (also known as rubber boots or Wellingtons), which I figured would be upstairs in the shop.

    I saw them, but was puzzled because there seemed to be a lot of bee activity around them.  When I went to get a closer look, I discovered the reason:  The bees had built their nest in one of the boots.  Their nest came up about halfway in the leg of the boot.  

    Seeing that, I made a quick decision not to wear the boots that day.  Luckily, I did have a newer pair that I could wear.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Always Working Toward Winter

     I kept myself busy day yesterday doing various jobs.  First I loaded my pickup with big heavy rounds of willows to take to the dump.  They were all too big, heavy, or knotted, making them near impossible for me to split for fire wood.  I wanted to get rid of them out of the way so I could get to the pile of pieces that I could split.  When I got to the dump, I realized that I could have put that job off, because the large wood bin at the dump was already full, so I had to bring the load back home, to sit in the truck until the bin is empty again.

    After that, I picked another load of peas and de-podded them for freezing.  We went to the grocery and bought a nice small box of BC blueberries and froze them.  Then in the afternoon I picked another small bucketful of raspberries, also for freezing.

    As I was picking the raspberries, I suddenly realized that most of the jobs I had done, were in preparation for winter.  Of course, Canada is often associated with long, cold, winters, and for those Canadians, like us, who live in a Canadian rural setting, a lot of our summer is used preparing ourselves for those future months of winter.  Summer is our busy time, and things really slow down and give us a lot of free time, once winter is upon us.

    

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

My Fifteen Minutes of Fame-- Blown

         Back in 1977, the Cosmos seemed to be unwinding in my favor.  At the time I was very interested in nature photography, especially close-ups of flowers and any other small natural thing that caught my interest.  One day, while walking along a beach on Vancouver Island a big toad jumped to get out of my way.  I had all my camera equipment with me, so I set it all up to try to get a photo of the amphibian.

        I had a 200mm lens, which I attached to a bellows that was then latched onto my camera body, which was set on a tripod.  I had a small hand-held flash that was plugged in to an extension cable, so I could hold it close to the toad, which by this time was huddled down in some foliage.

        I pressed down on my shutter cable and the flash flashed, and my camera clicked.  I thought I had gotten a good photo, but in those days you never knew until you had sent the slide film away.  I waited for two or three weeks for it to be developed, and when I got it back, I was able to actually look at the photo that I had taken.  I was very satisfied--it was a great shot.

        The following summer is when we were looking around for a house and property to buy.  We were, for sure, going to live in BC, and we sought properties in the mountains and landscapes of the Robson Valley,  around McBride.  We found a small hobby farm with a tiny house on 5 acres of land, and bought it.

         We weren’t able to move in for a couple of months and in the mean time, we had been reading issues of a new Canadian magazine called “Harrowsmith” that was all about gardening and rural living. At the time, “Back to the Land” sort of articles were all the vogue.

        In one edition, I noticed that Harrowsmith was going to sponsor its first annual photo contest.  The categories were very garden oriented.  One category was “Garden Friends and Foes”.  I wracked my brain trying to think if I had any photos that I could enter, and decided that my toad photo just might fit.  Toads eat a lot of insects, and even though the toad in my photo wasn’t in a garden, it was sitting amongst some yarrow which is a herb, so maybe the Harrowsmith people would think it was in the garden. 

        I sent the slide in, and forgot about it.  Then, during November of 1977 a big envelope from Harrowsmith, arrived in the mail.   Inside was a letter, and the latest copy of the Harrowsmith magazine.  The letter said, ‘Congratulations, you have won the Grand Prize- a Nikon Camera, in our First Annual Photo Contest”, it went on to say they had used my photo in the centerfold of their upcoming magazine.    I was so excited, I could hardly get my fingers coordinated enough to leaf through the magazine for a look.  

        Finally, getting to the middle of the magazine, I opened it and there spread across the two pages was a big blowup of my toad photo.  

        “Wow,” I thought, “I am famous!”    My ecstasy lasted only until I happen to look down at the caption below the photo, which read:  “Grand Price Winner- Bob Marchant, McBride, BC.” 

        “BOB MARCHANT?”

         My name is David.  There it was--my 15 minutes of fame--Blown.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Look At My Willows Now

     The other day when I was in town, our neighbor Karen came up to me and told me that she couldn’t believe just how our willows were growing, after being so brutally cut off ten feet above the ground, six months ago.  I know she, and all of our other neighbors had been concerned after they saw how they had been topped, leaving just the trunks of the trees.  

    I knew willows were amazingly resilient trees because we had had them topped once before and it didn’t take them long to grow back to their same pre-topping height.  All that said, I too was surprised at just how quickly their tops were re-growing.  In fact I will have to get out there and take off some of those new branches,  just so the trees don’t get so out of hand again.  

   

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca