Trail Maintenance

    I have been lucky this year to have hiked a lot of trails in the Robson Valley.  During the hikes, one tends not to spend a lot of time thinking about how the trail got there and who takes care of them, but around here somebody has to.  Just in the short trail near our house that Joan, Skye, and I hike every day, I am surprised at how often trees blow down across the trail and have to be cleared away.  Late every spring I have to go down the trail with a lawn trimmer to keep the bushes from encroaching on the trail.

    Last Thursday, I joined a small crew who cleared part of the Lower Goat River Trail.   In the photo above you can see the heavy duty mower that was used to clear small brush from areas that were accessible.  Someone always has to lug a chainsaw and gas along with them, up and down slopes and along kilometers of trails, to clear the trees that have blown over and blocked the trail.  Other volunteers swing machete-like tools to clear the brush.  All of this has to be done every few years or soon nature takes over and the trail becomes impassible.

    The photo at the very bottom shows part of the work crew standing beside a big Douglas Fir tree along the trail.

See my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

A Truce

    The world is so full of horrible news lately that I was happy to see the little scene you see above.  Skye, our dog, is terrified of Lucifer, our cat.  When we are walking around the pond, if the cat gets out in front of the dog and sits down, poor Skye also sits down, afraid to walk around the the cat.  No matter how much we call and plead, Skye won’t move, not until we come and pick up the cat, or the cat, after showing her power, decides the point has been made, and moves.

    It’s good to see that they can co-exist, and sometimes do it voluntarily.  If only the world would do the same.

Check out my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Fungus Photos

    With the recent rains, and cooling temperatures, I have been noticing lots of examples of mushrooms and fungus that have suddenly erupted into the world above.  Most of the fungus plant is down beneath the surface, and it is only the fruiting body that sticks its head up for the world to see.  The fact that they don’t need sunlight, allows them to live in dark nooks in the forest, that are usually inhabited by mosses and the few other plants that can tolerate very low light.  Here are a few of the fungi I have spotted over the last few days. 

See my paintings at: www.davidmarchant.ca

Late Bloomers

    Here we are in September, on the verge of autumn, and finally the geraniums that we have in our window boxes have decided to bloom.  Its not like we started them from seed, they were in my bedroom window all winter.  Like every other year, I cut them back when I put them in the window box and usually they give us lots of flowers all summer, but not this year.  They are fairly protected right beside the house, so hopefully they will have a month to continue to show their stuff.

Take a look at my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Lens Cap

   Way back in the early 1990’s, Joan and I went on a vacation to Costa Rica.  We wanted to experience the jungle and the many plants and animals that lived there.  We spent a couple of days hiking in the Monte Verde Cloud Forest.  

    On one of our hikes, we found ourselves on a jungle trail, that ran beside a river valley.  I stopped to take a photo.   As I stood beside the barrier erected to prevent people from falling down the slope, I fumbled around trying to change lens on my camera.  I got the new lens on, but when I took the lens cap off, it dropped from my hand, and over the edge of the slope.

    I saw where it landed, it was only about 10 foot (3 m) below me on a ledge.  It didn’t seem like it would be to dangerous to retrieve it, so I climbed over the barrier, and climbed down to get it.  When I got down there and reached for the lens cap I got a surprise-- just a couple of feet (60cm) away from it sat another lens cap that someone else had dropped from exactly the same outlook.

You can see my photo-realistic paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Yellowing

    Yellow is the predominant fall color in our section of BC and even though we are still weeks away from the full impact of those yellowish hues, some of the plants couldn’t wait to try on the shade.  A few of the trees have started to show on the tips of some of the branches, and these sarsaparilla are not at all shy about advertising where they are heading.

Take a look at my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Labor Day

    Since today is Labor Day (actually, in Canada its ‘Labour Day’), I thought I would do something unusual for the holiday, I am actually going to talk about labor, more specifically unions, and how they have benefited me.   Most people seem to have a negative view of unions, because strikes cause disruption to their everyday life, many are jealous of union wages and benefits, and media always like to emphasize how much it is going to cost, if unions get their way and workers get a higher wage.

    I believe that everyone who has to get up in the morning and spend the day doing a boring job, should at least make enough money to live on.  Unfortunately, this is not the case, many people have to work a couple of jobs to get by.  Multi-billion-dollar Walmart is happy to depend upon government relief programs to make up the slack, so their workers can survive day to day on the low wages they pay.

    Anyway, in my own life, I owe a lot to the union we had when I worked for the BC Forest Service.  By the time I started working there, the government was starting to put restrictions on employees, in order to save itself money.  They needed a full time worker to do a specific job, but instead making an applicant a regular employee, they would hire them as an “Auxiliary” worker.  They worked the auxiliary worker the same as a regular employee, but without giving them all of the benefits of the regular employee.

    During one of the labor contracts, the union was able to negotiate a clause that said that any auxiliary worker who had worked more than two years without break, had to given status as a regular employee.  Luckily for me, I had worked steadily for more than the two years, and as a result, I became a regular employee, with regular benefits.  (Of course, once that clause was in the contract, the government made sure that auxiliaries employees were laid off just before the two years elapsed, then immediately they hired them back to continue their old job until the next two years came up, thus the workers never got the regular benefits.)

    I still profit from the contracts signed long ago by the union, concerning retirees.  Because of the the union, I have a pension and can live a comfortable life (not an extravagant one), and I don’t have to struggle for my day to day existence.

    I think all people deserve such treatment, the only way poorer people can achieve a decent life (short of winning the lottery) is to be unionized, because most businesses no matter how profitable, won’t voluntarily pay workers higher wages unless they have to.  If things end up costing me a bit more, that’s okay, if people can make a livable wage, besides it would stimulate the whole economy.

    One hundred years ago, Henry Ford doubled the wages in his factory to $5 a day, because he wanted to give his workers enough money so they could afford to buy one of his car and that move began to build the American middle class.  I’m sure that part of his reasoning was to make things so good for his workers they wouldn’t be interested in forming a union.  Until more employers follow his lead, unions will be the only way for workers to improve their lives.

See my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca