Revisiting My Tobacco Plant

    Few have hated tobacco as much as I do.  In the 1980’s I made enemies at our Forest Service when I submitted a written complaint to management complaining about the potential health hazards caused by  the cigarette smoke in our office.  That eventually led to a smoking ban.  Anyway, I never dreamed that I would some day grow a tobacco plant, but this summer I did.

    I was at the Dunster Yard Sale when I was surprised to find an acquaintance selling tobacco bedding plants.  I wasn’t, of course, at all interested in growing tobacco, but when she, seeing my resistance, told me they have really beautiful flowers, something I had never even imagined, I was curious, and bought a baby plant.

    I was really amazed at what happened when I planted it in my garden.   Excuse the pun, but it grew like a “weed,” and kept growing and growing some more, something I hadn’t expected and when the plant was over 6 feet ( 1.8m) it started to develop a cluster of flowers, and kept on growing.  Now the plant, decked out with flowers at the top, is 8 feet (2.4m) in height.  

    Thanks to our record breaking warm weather, it has survived a couple of frosts and is still green, although some of its giant leaves are starting to yellow.  It is really nice to have an unusual-looking vertical plant in the garden and so I have saved some of the seeds that developed from the flowers, and plan to grow some more tobacco plants next year.  

    I still don’t like the suffering and death that tobacco has done to people all over the world, and will not give the leaves to smokers, instead they will go on my compost pile with the other weeds.

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Dried Up Springs

    The other day I biked up the road a bit.  Because our road runs along a mountain slope, there are numerous springs that feed springlets that trickle down to the ditch beside the road.  Due to the severe draught the Robson Valley is experiencing, those springlets and the ditch are all bone dry.  As well, the thick pillows of moss that line the springlets have turned from lush green to a dead-looking brown. 

    All of this is very scary, and I am sure hoping that we get a heavy snowfall this winter so the hydrology of the area can start returning to normal.  The weather we have gotten this summer is not what a Temperate Inland Rainforest should be experiencing.

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Fall Colors Along Highway 16

    I had to drive up to Prince George on Wednesday for a periodontist appointment.  It is a 135 mile (217km) drive, which can be pretty monotonous, because there is really nothing to see except for forests on both sides of the highway.  For about 80 miles, there is not even a house along the road to look at, just trees, or cutblocks, where there used to be trees.

    Sometimes, bears, or moose can be seen, but mostly it is the green forests.  However during the Fall when the Cottonwood and Aspen leaves turn yellow, the additional color does makes the drive more interesting.  Here are a couple of photos I took of the fall colors along the highway.

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1987 Travel Journal: Flores, Guatemala

My flight to the jungle ruins of Tikal, landed in the closest city which is  Flores, Guatemala.  It was a big plane that was only half full, and the flight only took half an hour, so short we weren’t even offered a Coke.   The minute I stepped out of the plane, I was hit with suffocating humidity and heat.  At the airport we were serenaded by a marimba band playing in the terminal.  There was a mini-bus waiting there that drove us to the Hotel San Juan.

The room I got was quite nice room and had a feature I had never seen anywhere in a hotel room before.  Inside the shower stall there was what appeared to be an electric circuit breaker switch.  Yikes!  Seeing a component of the electrical system inside a shower stall was extremely scary, and I really never did figure out why it was there.  Surely anyone with any knowledge of electricity knows that electricity and water don’t mix.

The city of Flores is a bit schizophrenic.  The old original city was located on an island in Lake Peten Itza, the city has since expanded onto the shore across from the island and the two parts are connected by a causeway.  Once I got settled in my room, I walked across the causeway to old Flores, did a quick exploration around the original city, then trekked back across the causeway, stopping to snap a couple of photos of the sun setting across the lake.  

I stopped at a restaurant, ordering what I thought was some sort of tortilla, but when the meal was delivered, I discovered that my poor Spanish had really ordered fried potatoes, in an egg kind of thing.  That was not a problem however, because it was very tasty.

It is really hot here.  I mentioned that before, but it deserves another mention.  Even though it is evening, and all I am doing is laying on the bed, the sweat is pouring off of me.  Even while walking on the causeway with the wind blowing, you could feel the sticky humidity in the heat.

Talk about your global village; in my hotel room in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle, there is a TV set.  I turned it on expecting to watch some Guatemalan-made programing, but guess what is on:   No, you are wrong, it was the Disney Channel.  Incredible.  We don’t even have that in McBride.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1987 Travel Journal: Is This Guy Trying To Rip Me Off?

Despite the bus driver’s nod, my basic insecurity wouldn’t allow me any peace of mind.  I didn’t know where my airport was, and I wasn’t 100% sure the driver had understood what I was saying about where I wanted to go.  The bus driver got me to an airport, but I still wasn’t sure if it was the National one.  Once inside the airport, I started to think I was in the International airport when I looked around.   

The terminal was a very modern glass and stone structure, and when I glanced at the airline counters, my insecurity increased.  I saw counters for the big airlines, like Pan Am and Mexicana, but then was relieved to see the counter for Aviateca, the small airline my flight to Tikal was booked on, and I sighed in relief when the agent took my ticket without comment.  

Finally, I thought, everything seemed to suddenly be okay, and started to move away from the counter, however, when the agent then ask me for $2 US for the “Airport Tax”. I reached into my wallet and gave him the equivalent in Quetzales, but he stuck up his hands, refusing them and saying, “No, pay US dollars.”  That didn’t seem right that in Guatemala an airport agent would insist a fee be paid in US dollars instead of their county’s own legal tender.

I felt stuck, feeling that the guy as scamming me, but I reluctantly handed him a $5 US bill.  He sort of indicated that he would get me change and motioned me away.  I sat down on a nearby bench waited  waited and waited, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt like the agent was trying to rip me off.  After giving him some time, I went back to the counter and asked for my $3 US in change.

He told me he didn’t have it, so I said, give it to me in Quetzales and he relented.  He handed me 5 Q, which was another attempt at ripping me off.  My nose by this time was very much out of joint, and I told him firmly  that the exchange rate meant I should be getting 8Q.  He shook his head, “No”.

I then demanded that he give me my $5 US back.  Then, not wanting to draw attention to what was going on, he did finally give me the 8Q I had demanded.  This was the first time in my trip to Mexico and Guatemala that I recognized that I was being ripped off, and it wasn’t by some poor person who needed money.

 

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1987 Travel Journal: Leaving Antigua

Next morning I was out on the street at 8:00.  I had my breakfast (a hamburger and a Coke) with Martin and a guy from New Zealand.  Then after saying goodbye to Martin, who would be traveling elsewhere, I was again off to the bank to cash $25 US so I would have enough money in Tikal.  There were several lines to the various teller’s windows and as usual when I have to queue up, I picked the wrong line.  

The guy in front of me must have been a store owner depositing his weekly take.  Sadly, he had 10,000Q to deposit, all in a mixture of 5’s, 10’s, and 20’s.  The poor cashier had to count it all, which seemed to take forever, as I twiddled my thumbs impatiently waiting for my turn at the window.

Once that long ordeal at the bank was over, I walked back to my hotel room, packed my bags, then climbed onto a bus headed for Guate.  My green suitcase, now enlarged with souvenirs was a bit more bulky and  heavier to lug around.

Guatemala City was no more impressive when I arrived than it was on my first brief view of it a couple of days earlier.  It seemed chaotic, full of diesel fumes and noise.  I had to hike twelve block burdened by my suitcase and camera bag to catch the bus to the airport.  My guide book said Bus #20 was the one I should take.

Amazingly, I found it and boarded.  Like all of the other buses I had taken, it was over-packed and seething with passengers, and I was forced to join the mass of humanity already stuffed shoulder to shoulder in the aisle.  I soon realized that my bags and I had became an obstacle to all those other passengers in the aisle trying to make their way forward or back from the bus door.  

The bus helper worked his way to me and told me that I should get off the bus at one intersection and wait for Bus #6.  Although feeling very insecure in the thought that they might just be trying to just get me off of the bus and out of the way, I did as he said, and got off at the intersection.  I stood there on the sidewalk waiting for Bus #6 to arrive, but no Bus #6 did.  The longer I waited, the more worried I became;  was I going to miss my flight to Tikal?

Finally, I decided that I had better catch a cab to the airport, just to be on the safe side.  I started walking down the sidewalk, looking for a cab, which of course, was the cue for Bus #6 to finally came along.  I flagged it down and boarded, trying to make it known to the driver that I wanted to go to the airport.  This was problematic since there are two airports in Guate, an International airport and a National airport .  I needed the National.  The bus driver nodded that this was the right bus.

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Dirty Dog & Potatoes

    Our forecast called for showers today and actual RAIN on Tuesday, so yesterday I decided to dig a row of potatoes, because if the soil is dry, the potatoes come out cleaner.  While I was out in the garden digging the potatoes, Kona, inspired by my digging, decided to do some digging in the garden herself, hoping to find a mouse.   The photo above shows how she looked when we got back in the house.  The potatoes I dug, came out cleaner than Kona.

    Generally I plant six or seven rows of potatoes.  That always gives us more than we need.  In the spring I planted seven rows and figured I was done, then I discovered another bag of potatoes in the crawlspace where I store the potatoes over the winter.  I hated to see them just go to waste, so I planted 2 more rows of potatoes in the garden, making nine rows all together (way too many).  

    The potatoes in the row I dug yesterday, turned out really good, with lots of big potatoes, which was a surprise since it was so terribly dry this summer.    I had been digging some individual potato plants throughout the summer as we needed them.  All the rows did really well except for the red potatoes which were horrible.  Many were rotten, and most were deformed, so I probably lost all of those, which leaves me seven more rows of potatoes to dig.  That will certainly be plenty.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca