Yesterday when I was out weeding the garden, I couldn’t help but noticed the large blooms on the zucchini plants. Zucchinis are certainly not shy about advertising their desire to be pollenated. Below is a close-up of the inner part of the bloom.
Our previous two jam sessions have been played inside at the Legion Hall due to unpredictable weather, but last night we braved the sometimes strong winds and were back making music on the train station porch. We had to fasten our pages down with clothes pegs to prevent the wind from turning them mid-song, and as the evening proceeded, the jackets and hats came on, but it didn’t dampen our enthusiasm.
Last night was the first time that we had a trumpet in the mix. A young guy with a horn showed up and joined in. He didn’t do any flourishing with the trumpet, just played the base note of the chords we were playing, but it was a nice addition to our songs. He had to leave early so didn’t get in the photo, which was taken just before we broke up.
Take a look at my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
The photo shows some of the equipment we used while timber cruising.
One of my co-workers when I was working for the BC Forest Service was Barb Marshall. Barb was a petite, attractive, chain-smoking, independent woman with thick dark hair, who probably had a reputation as a “wild woman” largely I think, because she wore “leathers” when she roared around on her Harley.
Barb was often my workmate out in the bush when I was timber cruising and she never seemed very wild to me. At work she was always dedicated to the job and took the rain, snow, Devil’s Club, and mosquitoes in stride.
Of course, I only saw Barb at work and so didn’t really know what her life was like during the weekends. I know she was quite creative and did a lot of building, renovating her house, and dabbling in the arts.
One morning I arrived at the office on a day when Barb and I were supposed to work in the bush, I noticed that she hadn’t come to work. Shortly after 8:00, I got a call from her. She told me she couldn’t come to the office, but could just pick her up at her house and then proceed out to our work in the forest, where we were supposed to finish up a cruise.
Her behavior seemed a bit strange on the phone, but I agreed to swing by and pick her up at her place. When she climbed into the pickup, I understood why she didn’t want to go to the office: She sported a black eye, having been assaulted by her boyfriend. I, being naive, had never run into anything like that before and didn’t know quite how to react, except to try to be kind and understanding to her. She was quiet most of the day, but she persevered and did her work as usual.
Barb always seemed so slight and it always seemed so unexpected when, after work, she climbed onto her big Harley, and then loudly rumbled away. I always remember her telling me that one day, while riding her Harley, she had to come to a stop, lost her balance and the Harley tipped over sideways. She wasn’t strong enough to pick it up to make it upright, and had to rely on some help to do so, before she could continue her journey. That in itself seemed like a valid reason for her to find some other form of recreation, but of course she didn’t.
Another memorable story Barb told me had to do with her helping a friend move to Dome Creek. Barb and her roommate loaded her big blue pickup truck with the furniture and headed out. As they were roaring down the highway to Dome Creek, Barb was smoking. When she got to the end of her cigarette, she flipped it out of the window. A bit further down the road, when she happened to look in the rear view mirror, she noticed smoke blowing out from behind her truck.
She came to a stop and got out of the truck to check. I guess when she flipped the lit cigarette out of the window, the wind blew it back onto a couch, which then fanned by the wind, caught fire. They had to pull all of the furniture out of the truck to the side of the highway and put out the fire, before loading it back in and proceeding to Dome Creek.
Barb eventually moved away from McBride to Creston, BC. In the Fall of 2015, news filtered back to McBride that she had died, which saddened everyone that knew her, but she certainly remains alive in my memories.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
Even though I have taken so many photos and painted so many pictures of Hostas, I can’t seem to pass up glimpsing them every time I pass by the “Jungle” garden beside our house. I love the curl of the veins and leaves as well as their colors.
Yesterday I got down on my knees to take this photo of the Hosta stalks and the leaves from underneath. The photo has sort of a clean, freshness to it that I like.
You can see some of my Hosta paintings at: davidmarchant.ca
There is a reason why I often refer to McBride as “an isolated village”, it is because it is. There is only one highway that connects McBride to the rest of the world. As you can see by the sign, if you are traveling west, you have to travel 202 km (125 miles) before you come to another filling station.
Going east on Hwy. 16, you only have to travel 166 km (100 miles) to get to Jasper, Alberta for more gas, unless you turn off at Hwy. 5 and drive south to Valemount, BC which is only 84 km (54 miles) away.
There are no service stations (and little other signs of settlements) until you get to either Prince George, Jasper, or Valemount. If you have an electric vehicle, an are traveling to Prince George, you are able to plug in and recharge at the Slim Creek Rest area, which is only 85 km (54 miles) from McBride. On the drive to Prince George you don’t even see a house along the way until you get there.
Those of us who live here are used to living with the long distances between places, but visitors get the real feeling of being in the “middle of nowhere”.
Take a look at my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
When something happens in a small town that you don’t quite understand, eventually you will hear the rest of the story. I thought of that yesterday when I finally heard what was going on with Dr. Cowburn’s old Tiger Moth bi-plane that was once again flying around in the Robson Valley.
When Dr Cowburn owned the plane, I used to love watching the antique yellow aircraft sputtering across the blue sky of the Robson Valley. The vintage plane was the joy of the Valley’s only doctor and he would take it out periodically to fly it around. Before he died, he sold it to a person who grew up in Crescent Spur, a nearby hamlet. That new owner moved to Prince George, so we didn’t see the Tiger Moth again except once when the new owner had it doing cartwheels in the sky above McBride during one year’s Pioneer Day parades.
Over this past weekend, the Tiger Moth suddenly was all over the skies of the Robson Valley. It buzzed low over our house a couple of times, and each time I raced out with my camera in an attempt to get a photo. I didn’t really know why the plane was around again.
Yesterday when I was at the grocery, Pat the cashier, knower of all things local, told us that the plane’s owner was in town because he was getting married.
“Okay, now I know,” I thought, but there was more information to come later in the day.
At meal time, when I went to pick up some food at the Chinese restaurant, I ran into Charlie Leake, an aviator who used to live in McBride. From him I got more information about the Tiger Moth’s return to the Valley.
He was in town for the wedding and the ceremony was going to take place at one of the hangers at the McBride airfield. When I mentioned how I kept seeing the plane zipping around, flying low, and seemingly tearing around all over the place, Charlie told me that the pilot was practicing all kind of flying maneuvers because he was working toward getting a license so he he perform tricks at air shows.
After hearing Charlie, I was satisfied that I knew “the rest of the story” about the why the bi-plane was here again, and why it was buzzing around so much. Little by little I had been given the explanation.
View my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
Today is Canada Day. I have always been afraid of nationalism, but I have a profound appreciation of Canada, my adopted homeland. While I have always been happy with our difficult decision to immigrate to Canada, I am especially happy now, whenever I see what is happening in so many countries in the world. With the help of all the craziness and propaganda on social media they are able to manipulate enough public opinion to get elected, then once in power, they proceed to eliminate the free press and stack the courts to get rid of humanitarian and liberal ideals and practices.
I am not blind to Canada’s faults, especially when it comes to the environment, Canada always talks the green talk, but then doesn’t carry through, but on the whole, I am very happy to call myself a Canadian.
Happy Canada Day.
