I woke Saturday morning to the news of the day – a devastating earthquake in Nepal and Bruce Jenner is a woman. At 7.8 the Nepalese earthquake was huge with much loss of life, unlike two others felt elsewhere the previous day, one further up the BC coast from us and the other near my fave rave town of Nelson in New Zealand. As a matter of fact there were 667 earthquakes on our planet in the past 7 days according to one of my geo geek sites – Earthquake Track. As for Bruce Jenner – well that was certainly not earthshaking news to those of us who keep track of current affairs by scanning the covers of the tabloids while waiting to check out at the grocery store. I checked in again last night for the expected update on the earthquake – sadly seems it is most often the case that natural disaster strikes those least able to cope with it.

So head back in the shell, I once again do my best to ignore the Rest of World and split my time between The Bunkie Studio and the garden which is looking glorious. The fuchsias, about 45 pots of them, are fully leafed out and The GreenHouse is packed. Very soon it will be time to bring them all outside and hang them up, where they will soon start to flower.. The brugmansia is blooming in there as well. In the perennial beds everything is growing like crazy and we’re getting rid of a lot of the lawn this year to expand them. I’ve planted everbearing strawberries in pots, more blue poppies, planted seeds on a heat mat under lights, planted pots and pots of Tigridia bulbs in memory of the trip to New Zealand, acquired another Full Moon Japanese Maple, divided the King Kong Canna in a pot to create 3 of them, planted sweet peas in 2 huge pots with an obalisk, thought about weeding, edged what remains of lawn. I’ve bought new cushions for the garden furniture, had a motorized awning installed to shade the patio outside the main house, divided perennials, enjoyed the dozens of pots of daffodils I planted last fall, spread compost, pitched underperformers and all in all have been having a Real Fine Time.

Back in The Bunkie Studio where I spend the other part of my days, I’m still painting. I’ve become intrigued by the way Malcolm Gladwell’s observation (in the book Outliers) that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become good at anything shows up everywhere, as though it is some kind of magic formula. Let’s see. Suppose I paint on average 4 hours a day –  (cue to sound of calculator firing up). That would be 2500 days. But I don’t paint every single day so suppose I paint on average 4 days a week. That would be 625 weeks. Or roughly 12 more years. My math may be off, no surprise there, but all of a sudden this starts to sound like work, which is something I don’t do anymore. Thanks Malcolm. So forget all that – my advice to myself is just to keep on doing something fun every day, and forget about getting “good” at it.

Back to the news of a more local nature. Last week at Columbia Beach, down the road from us, local residents found a seriously injured seal lying on the beach. They contacted the wildlife people and kept their eyes on it (fortunately the beaches are closed to dogs this month as migrating birds stop here at this time for a little R&R). Eventually the Vancouver Aquarium sent over staff to attempt a rescue. Big drama, wrestling this 300 pound animal off the beach and away to some kind of safety over on the mainland. In the end, all for nought, as the animal didn’t make it. The Aquarium folks have been over a few times this season, trying to catch and help the huge sea lions that hang out around here, that often become entangled in human debris – ropes, nets and such. Saving an animal like that is always a feel good story but the sea lions have other concerns as well. Like The Bikers of Georgia Strait…

One day last month when I was in town I heard that Orcas, the so-called killer whales, had been spotted the previous day off our beach in very shallow waters. “Maybe they are after the herring that have been spawning around here recently”, someone suggested. Yes, and maybe they’re after the animals that have been feasting on the herring. Which turned out to be exactly the case.

I am usually down at the beach at least a couple times a week – always with my bag with camera and binoculars, always scanning the waters for whatever’s out there especially whales, but unfortunately missed these ones. I had thought that this bay of ours, at Qualicum Beach, may be too shallow, but I guess not.

These particular whales are the transients that show up in Georgia Strait from time to time and these ones are “killers” that feed on sea mammals. They don’t travel in family groups, rather they are usually seen in 2’s and 3’s and occasionally just a solitary male. In contrast the resident whales, who live here for much of the year, eat salmon and other fish (they don’t eat seals or sea lions, and so don’t compete with the transients) and stay together in family groups – pods they refer to them as – as in J- or K- and L- pods of these Salish seas. Adult sons and daughters stay with their clans all their lives following Mom or Grandma on their journeys through these waters. This year the matriarch of JPod “Granny”, died at a very old age, estimated to be over 100 years old. But 4 new babies have appeared this year too, to the delight of their fans, so the cycle continues.

I see sea lions around here often – off our beach at this time of year during herring season, or beached on the float off Fanny Bay up the coast. They are huge, sprawled and ungainly (though at the same time powerful and beautiful) on the floats, out in the air, but fast and sleek underwater when they have to motor. The day after the transient Orcas were spotted off our beach, they were captured on video by a guy in a kayak (yikes)  hunting sea lions (the whales that is) from a large group hanging out on the rocks up the coast off Hornby Island. The video, picked up by a number of news sites,  shows just how immense and powerful these animals are, overwhelming these, what I used to think of as large, sea lions. In scale, think a cat and a mouse. (Although Dennis doesn’t eat the mice, just plays with them to death – then looks puzzled, wondering why they won’t wake up and “play” some more). I don’t think these guys were playing cat and mouse, they look like they were seriously after some lunch.

The still shot above of the breaching Orca was taken by Howard a couple of years ago from our landlord’s boat in Victoria – another group of 3 transients hunting seal sausages off the rocks. An unforgettable experience to watch from such a close vantage point.