A Row of Problematic Willows

     I love having deciduous trees around our house, because of the cool shade they provide during the summer.  However, the willow saplings we transplanted when we bought our house almost fifty years ago, have grown so huge and tall, that they now create a threat for the house if they blew over.  Several times now I have had the willows topped when they got to tall, but the trees grow so vigorously with new limbs, that the upper limbs of the trees that sprouted from the cut top, make the trees as high as they were before they were initially topped.

    Sadly, it is now time again to get them topped once again, and this time I want to get the trunks shortened way down, so they don’t create such a threat to the house.  I also want to get those trunks that lean toward the house removed.  Next week the arborist will be coming over to take a look at the project.  

    Topping a tree is one of the worse things you can do to a tree, because cut allows the fungi to get into the trunk, which cause rot that will weaken the trunks and eventually kill the tree.  Like I said, they have already been previously topped a couple of times, and if I get them topped lower, hopefully the trees will once again sprout out new branches, and having the trunks considerably shortened will at least, not threaten the house if they do begin to rot.

    I also have to think about the threat of forest fires.  Most fire prevention plans urge all trees close to the house to be removed, but deciduous trees with their moist leaves, do not burn as readily as conifer trees, and willows grow in moist places and I think the cool shade they provide to the area will help hamper a fire.  At least that is my hope.

You can view buy paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Yesterday's Prince George Trip

    I always hate to have appointments in Prince George during the winter.  The two and a half hour drive there is long and dangerous enough during the long days of summer, but it always scares me more during the winter.  When an appointment is made, we never know what the winter driving conditions will  be when we have to go:  Icy highway?  Big trucks causing whiteouts in front of you during snow?  Rocks thrown up by passing cars from the “sand” on the highways? and of course, there is always the danger of wild animals darting out in front of you.

    I started yesterday’s trip, leaving the house in the dark, at 7:00.  As I was going down our road headed for the highway, I was delighted to see the moon, just a narrow crescent, rising over the Cariboo Mountains.  (photo above).

    On Highway 16 just west of McBride, I saw, in the distance, the lights of several vehicles parked along the highway.  I slowed, and when I got closer, saw that there had been an accident.  There was a car completely turned upside down in the snow-filled ditch beside the highway.  The accident must have just happened, because there were no first responders, just people who had stopped to help.  Beyond the turned over car, I noticed fresh blood on the highway.  I assume a deer or moose was hit causing the driver to loose control.  I don’t know anything about the condition of the driver.

    Yesterday fortunately, the highway to Prince George was clear of snow and ice, so I was happy that I didn’t have to deal with that along the way.

    When I approached the Slim Creek Rest Area, I notice that the rising sun, just coming up behind me, was illuminating the mountain slope to the west of me, while still leaving the lower trees in the valley shaded.  It was really interesting light, with the orangish light on the treed slope and gray-green trees in the foreground.  I had taken a photo of the same color phenomenon years ago, but couldn’t help but take another shot yesterday:

    Upon arriving in Prince George, I scrambled around doing shopping, eating lunch, then going to the periodontist.  it was 2:00 when that appointment was over, so I immediately started my drive back to McBride.  About an hour outside of McBride, I noticed some nice light hitting a snow-covered peak in the Park Range of the Canadian Rockies, so I pulled over and took the photo below through my windshield. 

    Upon finally getting back to our house at 4:30, I unloaded the car, wondered where to put all of the foodstuffs I had purchased, then had a bite to eat, and tried to relax for 30 minutes, before putting on my western shirt and going to square dancing.

    It had been a long and exhausting day with all of the driving and activities, and I really hadn’t been able to unwind, so I was happy when I was finally be able to crawl into bed.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Flicker, A Blast of Winter Color

     I have a short section of log that I drilled some holes in which I hung on a tree, and fill with peanut butter every morning.  All of the local birds love the peanut butter, especially the woodpeckers.  A few days ago, there was a beautifully colored Flicker that came for some peanut butter.

    Flickers are certainly a distinct and visually striking bird, and I was happy that even though it saw me through the window, it hung around long enough for me to take the photo above.   I really like those orange tail feathers and the polka dot chest.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Memorable Bike Home From Wor

             Whenever the conditions in our mountain community were tolerable, I used to bike to work.  We lived on a country road without much traffic, and the only real dangerous part of the trip was biking on the highway with the big tractor trailer trucks zooming by as you were on the Fraser River bridge.

    One day in June of 1996 I was biking home after work.  I had safely crossed the bridge and was on our road, just past what used to be Dettling’s house on Moccasin Flats.  I was beginning to quicken my pace to help give me some momentum for the upcoming climb up the Mennonite Church hill.  Suddenly  when out of nowhere, two aggressively barking dogs appeared behind me on the road, and began chasing after me.

    I slammed on my brakes thinking I would stop, and get off the bike to shake my fist and yell at them.  Unfortunately, I must have pressed the front brake lever too hard, and that, along with my fast momentum, caused me to flip over the front of the bike, landing me on the edge of the road.  

    Fortunately, no cars were coming.  The barking dogs quickly turned and hightailed it back to the house, no longer wanting to be part of the episode.  Luckily, my bike wasn’t damaged, I was shaken up, but managed to I pedaled slowly home.  I survived the accident with just my left wrist hurting, and my left leg was sort of “rope burned” from my jeans.

            After that I was always a bit wary when approaching Dettling’s place on my bike, and while the dogs still barked at me, they allowed to go by without the chase.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Hey, That Was My Truck

         This story gives me an excuse to show off one of my favorite paintings.

        The 1980’s and 90’s were the golden age of social activities and friendships for us, living in McBride.  Several times a week we would visit friends to socialize.  It seemed that all of us we busy building on our houses, and labor as well as tools and equipment were freely shared.

    One Saturday we drove our car up to Prince George for a shopping trip in our.  Along the way we saw a lot of wildlife grazing on the side of the road.  There were a couple of moose, a caribou (not a common sight), and a mother black bear with a tiny little cub.

    When we got back to McBride and were driving up our road headed for our house, a GMC truck that looked a lot like mine, passed us coming in the opposite direction.  I didn’t notice the driver, but saw it was carrying a load of old railroad ties. 

    When we drove into our driveway, I was surprised to discover that my GMC truck was gone, but I didn’t panic, because there was another vehicle parked in its place.    I assumed that one of our friends must have borrowed it.

    A few hours later my old GMC truck came down the driveway driven by our friend John, and the story unfolded.  Earlier in the day John had come over to borrow the truck, and discovered that the truck was there with the keys in it, but we weren’t at home.  He then drove up to Margaret’s house, (another friend) and ask her if she thought it would be okay for him to borrow our truck.  She figured we wouldn’t mind him borrowing it, so John took it to pick up some old railroad ties he had heard about. 

    I certainly didn’t have any problem with John taking the truck, but it would have been helpful if he would have left a note, so we would know that the truck hadn’t been stolen. 

    The incident does show what a close and sharing relationship we had among our friends.

View my other paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

My Failings in High School Freshman Football, Conclusion

      My lack of what to do when the play was called didn't really matter much, because I wasn't on the first team, whose members were made up of the guys that had been on the pre-high school team the year before.  I always was assigned the position of sitting on the bench during the games, which was alright with me.  But during one game, I was suddenly thrown into a real panic, when the coach motioned for me to come over, then told me to go in for one of the first string players.  

    Luckily, when I entered the game, our team was was on defense, so I didn't have to interpret any of the numbered plays.  In defense all I had to do was just keep the other team from scoring.  I did okay, I was even able to divert a pass, so I felt pretty good, when, a minute later, the first stringer came back in and I reclaimed my place on the bench.

    "Boy, I really dodged that bullet," I thought to myself with relief, as I settled back to watch the game.  But soon, I was seized by panic again, and this time in earnest, because the coach once again began to motion to me to come to him, and this time our team was on offense.  I grabbed my helmet, put it on, and made myself scramble over to see what the coach had to say.  

    "Go in, tell Carter to come out, and tell the quarterback to run ’73-47-2” or something akin to that; whatever it was, it meant nothing to me.  I knew that I was supposed to give the message to the quarterback and then stay in, taking Carter’s place and help with the play.  I was really stressed out, because I didn't have a clue as to what I was supposed to do as my part of the play.

    "Okay, coach," I said, trying to sound as confident as I could, despite being terribly insecure.  I turned and ran onto the field, where our team was in a huddle.

    I knew I had to come up with a plan, and decided the best one would be just to play dumb, so I ran up to my teammates and gave them the message: "Run: 73-47-2", then I immediately I turned and ran back to the security of the bench and sat down.  In retrospect, leaving our team on player short.

    My team ran the play, then went on to run the next one.  When the coach turned around he noticed me sitting there on the bench.  He said, "Hey Marchant, you were supposed to stay in there and play,"  I hunched my shoulders, conjured up an expression of confusion and replied, "Oh,"

    I don’t recall playing in any other games, maybe the coach had mercy on me.  I finished off the year of freshman football, but I had suffered through enough insecurity, and so I didn’t go out for the high school football team any more.

            The photo above shows our freshman football team.  I was surprised to see how many players there were on the team.

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

My Failings in High School Freshman Football, Part 2

 

      For me, the hardest part of the freshman football experience were the different "plays".  They were something I was never able to keep straight in my head.  Early on in our training, we were each handed a “playbook”, which was a many-paged mimeographed series of diagrams, made up of circles and arrows.  Each play was named and identified by a series numbers that we were supposed to memorize. 

             I was never very good at remembering gibberish, random numbers, or letters, and looking back, it doesn’t surprise me that hearing the quarterback spout out a series of numbers didn’t translate into anything meaningful in my befuddled brain.  

    Listening to the numbers of a play supposedly told everyone where they were supposed to run and what they were supposed to do, but it just always left me very insecure, because I didn’t know what the series of numbers meant for me to do

    I have always been more visually oriented in everything.  Before each play, what I really needed were the diagrams that I could see.  When we played neighborhood football at Neal’s, we would kneel down, then using a stick we would sketch out in the dirt what we were going to do, like a marking the play on a chalk board.  When everyone had the play, we would rub out the drawing in the dirt, so that the other team wouldn't see it (not that they ever could).  Sometimes we would go really high tech, and instead of using the dirt, we would just sort of draw out the play with our finger, on the palm of our hand.

    However with these high school numbered plays, I was having a terrible time converting the numbers into actions, and it didn't help my situation any, when they repeatedly changed which position I was going to play.  Because I could run, I was usually put, playing one of the back field positions, but then would suddenly switch me over and make rattled off a bunch of numbers anyway.

    

Tomorrow:  What will I do when I was taken off the bench and put in a game?

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

My Failings in High School Freshman Football

             I had always loved to play “sandlot” football with my neighborhood friends.  We played whenever we could on Neal’s front yard.  We normally played “tag” football, where instead of tackling the carrier, we had to just tag him below the waist.  The other fundamentals of the game were the same;  there was running, passing, catching the ball, kicking the ball, etc.  I was good at it.

        Fortunately as a kid, I had a lot of innate athletic abilities.  I was fast, agile, coordinated, and strong.  One time a few of us went over to play tackle football, a more rough and tumble style of football, with some friends from another neighborhood.  I always felt bad that during one play I tackled the runner, and he ended up with a broken leg.  I never went back to play with those guys anymore.

        Anyway, since I was good playing neighborhood football, when I was about to enter high school, I thought I would try out for the Freshman football team.  Upon inquiring about doing so, I was a little surprised (and dismayed) to discover that we had to start football practice ridiculously early ( 7:00 AM) in the morning, and that was in August, a whole month before school started.  The reason we practiced in the morning was because of the intolerable heat and humidity that blanketed the dog days of summer, in Indiana.

    I was also surprised upon going to that first football practice to learn that a lot of the other guys there, had already played organized football on a pre-high school team that I wasn’t even aware, existed.  I, of course, knew the basics of the game, but I discovered that high school football was a whole lot more technical than the front year football that we always played at Neal’s yard.  

    The practices were pretty exhausting, having to run around during the quickly warming mornings, with the shoulder pads, helmet, and padded pants on.  We ran lap after lap, we sprinted out, faked one way,  then cut sideways and tried to catch passes.  We had to run across old tires on the ground and not trip and fall, wearing the clunky cleated old football shoes.  Needless to say, we adolescent boys were always much in need of that shower, by the time the practices were over.

More on the story tomorrow.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Winter Birches

     This photo of snow-covered birch trees was taken on the mountain slope across the road.  Birches are my favorite deciduous tree.  I have always found their characteristic white bark attractive and have for decades appreciated the heat that birch firewood has provided to us.  Once we had gotten a wood stove, I quickly learned of the advantages of birch firewood.

    Birch wood splits cleanly and easily (unless it contains branches) with a splitting maul, an axe-like tool with a wedge-shaped head.    It usually takes only one good swing of the maul to split new birch in two.  Birch bark contains oils that catch fire quickly and burn vigorously, so I always start my fires with newspaper, topped with a piece of birch bark, that has kindling lying above it.  The birch wood burns slowly and hot, and I save birch firewood to use on those really cold days.

    I grew up in southern Indiana, and surprisingly, we had a birch tree (looking more like a tall birch bush) that my father had gotten somewhere and planted in our back yard.  Birch trees weren’t native to southern Indiana, but that tree did continue to grow, but it never really thrived in our back yard.  Birches, like all plants, grow best in the conditions that they need.  Here in the Robson Valley they thrive in areas that have cooler aspects and moist soil.  

    These birch across the street, do well because of the moisture beneath the ground that flows down the mountain slope.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Jam Party; An Enjoyable Start to a New Season

     Last night Barb and Ray hosted a pot luck dinner for our Tuesday Night Jam.  It was the first jam of the year, and I was eager to get together with the group to play some music again.  After everyone stuffed themselves with all of the good food, I was beginning to wonder if we would be able to lift ourselves from our chairs to play some music, but everyone sacrificed their laziness, and picked up their instruments.

    It felt so good to be playing again and Barb and Ray’s home had wonderful acoustics.  It was quite enjoyable to be able to hear all the different sounds as everyone played and sung.

    I guess next week we will be back playing in the Train Station Lobby.  There has been construction going on at the station, and I don’t think they have finished, so our surroundings will not be a nice as last night, but being the hardcore musicians that we are we will tough it out.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Ball of Cat

     Since I featured Kona our dog in yesterdays’s blog, I thought I’d better give equal time to Lucifer our cat, on today’s blog, so we don’t have any antagonism between our pets.   I have always admired the way that cats are able to curl up and relax, and Lucifer certainly has it down to a science.   Now in her dotage, she spends about 90% of her time snoozing in her “nest,” the padded seat of two folding chairs with a blanket over it.  (Photo below).

    Strangely in her old age, she has developed the unusual habit of beginning a series of pleading/haunting sounds every time she jumps up into her nest, and begins to circle around as a precursor to her naps.  Her pitiful whiny sounds are somewhat disturbing in nature, but I am pretty sure it is not the result of any pain.  I hear her do it several times during the night, after she gets up prowls around the sleeping house then jumps back in her nest.

    Lucifer was one of several abandoned cats who lived behind the hardware store in McBride.  I was able to pick her up and bring her home when I saw her wandering around Main Street in McBride.  She was going to be a “barn cat”, but somehow all the barn cats we adopt, always end up being a “house cats”. 

    We have had Lucy for 16 years.  She is now basically skin and bones, but still has energy to leap, jump, and dart around, when the mood hits her. 

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Love Fest With Kona

     Our poor crippled dog Kona, has a lot of faults.  She is extremely strong-willed, she lets her “hunter” instincts get her into trouble, and she loudly and suddenly erupts into barking, scaring the wits out of us, upon seeing some movement outside.  While being a hybrid of two of the most intelligent breed of dogs (Border Collie and Poodle), she is not really all that smart.  We thought she was supposed to be hypoallergenic, but she sheds a lot.

    Despite all those rather negative traits, she does have one characteristic that overwhelms all of those problematic ones:   She is extremely affectionate.

    The other dogs that we have had would tolerate some petting and affection, then after tolerating it for five minutes, they would be happy to scuttle away, but not Kona.  She can never get enough cuddling. 

    When I am sitting on the couch, Kona wants to be up there beside me.  Because her back end is so crippled up, I have to lift her onto the couch.  She has a hard time supporting herself when she sits, but manages to scoot and maneuver her rear end next to me for extra support, then leans backward onto me and loves to put her head against my neck and under my jaw while I pet her stomach.  If I stop, she paws my hand back into position by her stomach so I will continue.  

    It is all very endearing.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Philomena Book Totally Different Than the Movie

         The theme for our next Book Club is “Read a Book and Watch the Movie”.  We had the same theme back in 2015, and at that time, I chose “Philomena” and that was an amazing choice, because the book was totally different from the movie based on the book.

The movie:

           While both based on a true story, the movie focused on the yearnings of Philomena, the Irish woman who became pregnant in her teens, back in the 1950’s.  Being unmarried, she was forced into to an institution, for “fallen women”, which was run by Catholic nuns.  There she gave birth to a son, who she adored for 3 years during those brief periods when she was not being forced into near slavery, in the money-making laundry run by the Church.  The nuns then sold her son to a Catholic family in America who wanted to adopt him.

       The loss and longing to be reunited with her son, was kept secret and tore at Philomena’s the heart, until very late in life when finally she told the story to her daughter.  The daughter told Martin Sixsmith, an author about her mother’s story, and  he and Philomena, fly to America to piece together clues in an attempt to try and find Philomena’s long lost son.   

        It was a very touching story, that really doesn’t end well, since her son, a lawyer who had risen to a high rank in the Republican party, had died a few years earlier of AIDS.  He had spent his whole life trying to find his birth mother, who he vaguely remembered, but was always stonewalled by the Irish nuns at the orphanage.

The book:

        Philomena the book, takes a totally different direction than the film.  It starts out with the Philomena giving birth at the orphanage, her love for her young son, and her devastating grief at his removal, but then the rest of the book follows the life of Mike, that son, as he is whisked away to a new country, a new family, and then documents his life, growing up in the turbulent last half of the 20th century.  

        Mike struggles with being raised in the Church, after discovering that he is gay.  He finally accepts his sexuality and secretly lives a gay lifestyle, while becoming a lawyer, then even though he hates the Republican platform, especially its attitude about homosexuality, he ends up working for GOP.  He  helps them gain power, while rubbing elbows with President Reagan and Bush.  All the while, longing to find his real mother in Ireland, even as he begins dying of AIDS. 

        Reading the book and watching the film was fascinating, because it really rounded out the whole story, seeing it from both sides--Philomena’s and then Mike’s, her son.  I enjoyed the story in both media, although it bugged me how Philomena continued to be so loyal to the Church after what they had done to her, and how Mike, her son, could work for the Republican Party, while watching their deadly attitude toward gays, refusing to do anything during the lethal outbreak of AIDS.  It also really bugged me that Mike’s work with the Republican Party focused on how to best gerrymander areas to enable the Republicans to win elections.

You can look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Tracks to the Waterhole

     My pond is frozen and covered with snow.  Because there is some flowing water coming out of the pond’s outflow, the small area you see in the photo has remained unfrozen, and there is just a bit of open water that can be seen.

    The other day when I was walking around the pond, I noticed the open water, and then upon taking a closer look, I saw all of the tracks around it.  I suspect it was a squirrel that had been attracted to the open water and took advantage of it by having a drink or two.

    I have always been in awe of how animals survive during the winter in these northern climes, with the freezing temperatures, and all of the sources of food and drink covered with snow and ice.  Access to the much needed food and water becomes a lot more difficult.  I know you can eat snow to give your body some water, but you have to eat a lot of snow just to get just a little water.   I imagine the critter that came here for a drink was happy for some easily gotten liquid water for a change.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Surprising Range on my New Phone's Camera

     The battery on my old iPhone 8 had developed a serious problem.  It would just unexpectedly die.  The phone even gave me a message that something was very problematic with the battery and I should get it changed.  Well, fat chance of that in tiny McBride, and when I did inquire with the talented local computer technician, he said the batteries on my iPhone where glued in, and really couldn’t be replaced.

    That being the case, I decided to get a new iPhone.  I checked the online Apple Store to see what was available and considered the available models.  I liked the small size of my old phone, and the phone that was closest to being the same size was an iPhone 16, which was just a tad  bigger.  The rest of the phones were much larger.  I ordered the 16, then waited a couple of weeks for its arrival.

    When I was checking the information on the various phones, I didn’t really pay much attention to the camera on the phone.   I did notice that it had two lenses on the back, but didn’t really pursue it any further.  The 16 wasn’t really one of the high-end models, but I figured for as much as I use a cell phone, it would work well for me.

    My new phone arrived and since its operating system was a lot newer than on my old phone, I spent a bit of time just figuring out how to use the various new functions.  

    Yesterday, disgusted with myself for spending so much time sitting on the couch, I forced myself to go trudging around the pond, through the snow.  While it really wasn’t a spectacularly photogenic day, while I was out there, I decided to try out my new phone’s camera.   I stopped at the near end of the pond, and took the photo above.  It gave me a nice view of the sky.  

    My sister had told me that one of her grandkids had a 16 model phone and she was amazed at how well it’s camera’s zoom function worked, so I gave it a try on my camera.  

    I was blown away at how much it allowed me to zoom in.  See the blue rectangle in the photo above, while standing in the same place, I was able to use my phone camera to zoom in and capture that area.  (photo below).

    Practically all of the still photos you see on my many blogs were taken with my camcorder.  I bought it because of the amazing range it has to zoom in close or far-away for a photo.  I was very excited to see that I am now able to do much of the same thing with my new phone.

    Like I said, my new phone is not really a top-of-the-line model,  I am sure those offer more advanced technology to take even more amazing photos, but I was very surprised to see what my new phone camera can do, and very happy with the results.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

2026 Cartoon

    I think everyone has their fingers crossed; I sure do.