After Snow, Mud

    The above freezing daytime temperatures we have been getting have given us a preview of what lies ahead in coming week for residents of the Robson Valley--mud.  When the ice on all those gravel roads  we have around here melts, they are going to turn into muck.  That has already happened on the road to the McBride air strip, where we have been taking Kona for a walk.  Once we make it to the runway everything is fine, but getting there and getting back home cannot be done without slipping and sliding as we go down, then up the hill.  

    I will leave the appearance of our poor car to your imagination.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

An Improvised "Wheel"

    In October of 1978 we were invited by my neighbor’s parents, who owned a cabin on Purden Lake to come for a visit and to pick up some birch firewood from trees that Severn, had fallen.    Purden Lake was a long way to travel for firewood, 152 km ( 94 miles), but it would also be a visit with Ebba and Severn, whose company we always enjoyed, and I was always eager to get Birch firewood.  I hooked up our utility trailer to the Scout, and drove through a snowstorm to get there.

After doing some visiting, sawing up and loading the wood, we were ready to haul the load back home, but Severn and Ebba insisted we stay for supper, so we didn’t get off until 5:30 which meant driving in the dark.  All went well until we pulled onto our road in McBride.   Just a few miles from our house, I heard a noise, and felt a jerk in the Scout which slowed us down, then I watched in dismay as one of the wheels from the utility trailer roll past us, to come to rest in a ditch.

I slammed on the breaks, stopped the car, got out and saw that the driver’s side trailer axil was wheel-less and sitting on the road.  Not having ever experiencing such a thing, I retrieved the runaway wheel and discovered that it’s lug bolt holes were damaged beyond use, so I would have to figure out some other means of getting the trailer home.  I was able to unhook the trailer from the car which allowed us to drive home, leaving the trailer where it was.

We endured a heavy rain overnight and into the next day, but it didn’t stop me from having to deal with my abandoned utility trailer which I had left on the side of the road.  First I emptied all of the birch from the trailer and hauled it back to our house in the Scout. 

       Luckily I came up with a novel idea for getting the trailer back to our house.   I lashed one end of a long thick pole to the front top of the utility trailer, then rested of it under the axle where the wheel had come off.  The bottom of the pole rested on the road, thus supporting the trailer on the wheel-less side.  So with the trailer supported by the good wheel on one side, and by the travois-like support on the other, I pulled/dragged the trailer back to the house.  It’s a good thing I didn’t have to go any further because the road-end of the pole was severely worn down by the gravel on the road by the time I got to my driveway.

    That trailer was the same one we had used to haul all of our possessions to Canada when we immigrated in 1973.  Of course, it had two wheels then.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

My Discombobulated Night of Movie Watching

    I remember a time in my life when I would would sit down and watch a whole movie uninterrupted, but those times have long disappeared.  I cannot recall the last time watched a movie straight through.  Now it seems things are always happening that cause me to stop the film to do other things.  Luckily, with satellite TV and downloading movies from the internet, it is no problem to pause a film or save it to continue watching later.  

    Friday night is always a good time for movies, so last night I sat down for an evening to watch.  A few days ago, I had started watching “In Tranzit,” a well done film about Nazi POWs in a harsh Russian prison camp immediately after World War II.  The camp, which had originally been set up to house women prisoners, was run by women staff and they were suddenly confronted with overseeing males.  As you might expect in a Russian prison camp, conditions were brutal and bleak.  It was winter, supplies were meager and both prisoners and prison staff were suffering.

    While the film was grim,  it was well made and well acted, and in the end, showed some humanity.  I finished the film; watching the last hour and 10 minutes, last night.

    Once that had finished, I went down to the living room to sit with Kona and watch some TV.  I noticed that the movie “August Rush” was on.  It is a film I had see a couple of times before and had always enjoyed.  The story is pretty fanciful, about an orphan boy who is a musical prodigy, a real musical genius, who runs away from the orphanage in search of his parents.  His mother, a world renowned Cellist, is out there seeking her child, who had been secretly put in the orphanage by her father.  The boy’s father, a rock musician, doesn’t know he has a son, but is desperately seeking his lost love-the cellist.  

    As you can probably guess it all turns out very satisfactorily in the end.  I have always enjoyed films about musically talented people, especially those with happy endings.  When I discovered “August Rush” was on it was already half way through, so I watched the last hour and 15 minutes of the film.

    After it ended I went back to check what other things I had recorded on the satellite TV and saw that I still had the last 25 minutes of “The Graduate” to watch.  I had watched most of the movie yesterday, but had to quit because Kona was demanding to go to bed, so I just recorded the rest of the movie, which I finished watching last night.

    “The Graduate” was very popular movie when I was in university.  When I saw it back then, I related heavily with the Dustin Hoffman character, who had just gotten out of university and was stuck, because he didn’t really know what to do with his life.

    “The Graduate” was the last of the three movies I completed last night.  I enjoyed them all and was happy to “clean the slate” of films I needed to finish.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Yikes, A Wolf

    Several decades ago on a Sunday afternoon in February, I got a hankering to go up to the rock bluffs above our house.  There was a lot of snow on the ground and for some reason, which I no longer remember, I decided to use cross-country skis instead of snowshoes.  Snowshoes would have been a lot easier, because I had to go up the steep slope to get to the bluffs.

    I had to do a lot of sideways steps with my skis up the slope to prevent myself from sliding backwards.  The whole climb was made more complicated because there was a lot of low brush that tangled with the long skis.

    I eventually made it to the bluffs and made my along the base of the rock slide, below the bluffs,  exploring the topography.  As I was looking around, I suddenly noticed a wolf laying on the snow-covered, flat top of a big boulder.  It looked like a big, mostly black, German Shepherd, but it’s eyes were yellow.  It didn’t seem to be at all concerned with my presence, it even got up on its forelegs, stretched, and yawned, but it kept its eyes on me, like I was keeping my eyes on it.

    I wasn’t really afraid being all alone in an isolated situation with the wolf, but I was wary and a little spooked, so after we watched each other for a time, I started backing away, until I had lost sight of the wolf, then started working my way back down the slope.  I did frequently turn my head around to see if it was following me, but it wasn’t.  

    Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera along and so I didn’t get a photo.  I took the photo above in 2014, when I spotted a wolf on the edge of the Fraser River.  There are not that many wolves around, so I rarely see them, but I was sure happy to experience that black yellow-eyed one up by the bluffs.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

A Spring Sky

    The tarmac at the McBride Airfield is now clear of snow so we have begun doing our afternoon walks there.  We can walk down the runway and let Kona off of the leash and she relishes the freedom to run and sniff around the open areas on both sides.  Yesterday on our walk, I noticed the confused sky.  It looked like the kind of skies that we get in the spring; a sky that can’t quite make up it’s mind what it should do.  Should it rain, or snow, or just be clear?

    In the end, it decided just to move the clouds around without any precipitation.  Spring weather is full of unpredictability.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

A Sharp-Shinned Hawk

    Yesterday I noticed a bird in the Lilac bush.  It was not any of the usual birds I normally see during the winter, and from the distance I couldn’t make out what it was.  It sort of looked like a Robin, with its rust-colored breast, but I was sure it wasn’t a Robin, this time of year.  I got out my camcorder, zoomed in, and took some photos.

    I didn’t really identify it until I downloaded the photo onto the computer and started leafing through my bird books.  It was a Sharp-Shinned Hawk (Accipiter, striatus)  I had often heard my birding friends mentioned Sharp-Shinned Hawks, but I had never seen one, or at least didn’t recognize one if I saw it. 

    Sharp-Shinned Hawks are Accipiters and are about the same size as a Jay.  They eat mostly other birds that they catch on the wing, but they also eat rodents and insects.  This one was watching the birds flying over to eat peanut butter that I put out.  I always have an urge to chase predators away, but then stop when I remember that they need to eat too, and they play an important part of the balance of nature.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Bone of Contention

    Kona can’t be trusted outside on her own.   Whenever we let her outside, she is with us and on a leash.  If she is not on a leash she takes off running like a banshee, after some animal scent or over to the neighbor’s place where she stands like an idiot, barking at Scout, their friendly Newfoundland dog, who seems always puzzled at why Kona is acting so uncivil.

    Yesterday afternoon I was up in my office, when my wife said,  “There is a dog in the yard.”  Then she added, “It is Kona.”

    How did Kona get outside?  Then I remembered that Lucifer our cat was outside and when she bumped the carport door open with her head to get back in, she probably left the door partially open.  Unbeknown to us, Kona the opportunist, took advantage of the open door and when off on a lark.

    When we saw her prancing back into the yard, my wife said, “She is carrying a piece of kindling.”  This made sense since every time we take Kona on a walk around the pond, she picks up a stick or piece of kindling I have piled beside the path, and carries it back to the house.

    I went to the carport door to let Kona back in and discovered that she was carrying, not a piece of kindling, but a nice big bone.

    That rat had quietly gone next door, stolen one of the Scout’s bones, claimed it as her own, and proudly carried the prize back home.

    Poor Scout is probably out searching the yard for his bone, figuring that a maybe a coyote stole it in the night.  No Scout, it was the thief that lives next door.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca