Capturing Spring

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At the beginning of May, as spring was starting to explode here in coastal British Columbia and the mood lightened with each opening blossom, I decided that after such a winter of angst and disruption it was high time to turn my attention fully to the natural world and go live there and try to record some of that, both in image and memory. So (once again) I went into total news blackout, grabbed my camera and each day went out to see what was what. There was a lot.

I didn’t have to go far. Our garden transformed from late winter resting and early spring bulbs to a vibrant jungle by the end of the month. Each day there was something new, a new shoot, a new bloom and a patch of garden could change from morning to night. By the end of the month, there is now blooming honeysuckle, peony, iris, lupin, valerian, poppy, aquilegia, lily of the valley, sage, chive, rosemary and more. By tomorrow, something else will open up.

Further afield, as it were, I’d walk past the farmer’s field, where I’d been watching 7 lambs, born in February.

One day I stood and watched for a long time as the lambs played a game. One little lamb would take off at full speed, running from one side of the field to the other, round one of the trees and head back to where it started from, jump up on a concrete platform, then leap down off the other side. All the other little lambs would follow so there would be seven little lambs running back and forth across the field as fast as they could, sometimes bumping into each other. But they weren’t just running. Little lambs leap. They run some steps and then they jump vertically, all feet off the ground, and then keep running. It was a riot.

I was reminded of the time in New Zealand when we went on a visit to a sheep farm and had a demonstration of the sheep dogs in action, herding the sheep up and down the field, to precise directions from the farmer. These little lambs I was watching this day were herding themselves! They were hilarious.

Queenstown NZ Sheep Herding 2016

The lambs weren’t the only members of the herd of assorted animals in this field worthy of a portrait:

A little further down the trail, there’s a pond worth checking out for frogs this time of year. Instead I came across another family:

The forest at the end of our road is a noisy place these days, now that the songbirds have returned and it’s canoodling season. In winter I often notice and remark on the silence of the forest, the almost total lack of bird song, other than that from the ravens flying above. They’re never silent.

In spring, when there are so many birds in the forest and the owls are also very active if they have owlets in the nest, I sometimes find the owls just from the noise of other birds or squirrels. This happened three times in a week this month, when I noticed the sounds of stressed out birds above, quite high in the canopy. They were yelling and swooping and clearly extremely pissed off. I checked it out with my trusty binoculars (my walking necklace) and sure enough, there was Owl, pretending to take a nap, obviously much too close to someone else’s nest. The interesting thing about it is that there were a number of different species of birds who had come flying in from wherever to help harass the owl. As well as yelling loudly, some were flying back and forth, close in front of him/her, and some were even dive bombing. The owl completely ignored them.

On May 26th the total eclipse of full moon was visible from where we are. I didn’t get much sleep that night as the eclipse started at around 1:30 a.m and ended around 4:30. I dozed, waking up every half hour or so to sit up and look out the window.

Accompanying this full moon were the lowest tides I have seen on our beach:

And here’s what I found on the beach that day:

An eagle feather. In pristine condition, it must have just lost it (I wonder how). I take this as a gift and a reminder to always look, always see, always notice. This is a beautiful world.

Road Trips and Red Dresses

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The expression “road trip” now has a whole new meaning for me. Once upon a time, in the Before Days, a road trip meant a trip to Tofino on the west coast, or down to Victoria, or by ferry across to the mainland to Vancouver or Whistler or the Sunshine Coast or even into the interior to the Okanagan. Not anymore. Sigh. Nowadays, a road trip is more likely to mean taking a car full of yard waste bags to the dump, 15 minutes away. This now counts as an exciting day’s outing.

In the past year, I can count on one hand the times we’ve actually left our community. In the winter, when cabin fever finally pushed us out of the crib and into the car, we drove up the coast to Courtenay (a 40 minute drive) for a daring raid on Staples to buy printer ink. The first time we did this we pre-ordered and used curbside pickup. The second time, we lived dangerously (ha) and masked up (double) and actually went inside because let’s face it, that warehouse-sized big box office supply store never has anyone in it; you could fire a cannon down the aisles and not hit a single person.

Once upon a time a trip to Courtenay would likely have included a walk along the river or a trail hike, lunch in one of our favourite restaurants (some have now permanently closed), a stroll up the main street, walking in and out of the shops, and browsing in the independent bookstore. These trips for printer ink were an excuse of course, as you can certainly order online; an excuse to get out of the house and neighbourhood and take in that beautiful drive up the coast. It raised the spirits to see the sun shining on the ocean and the snow, bright on the tops of the island mountains and across the Strait on the mainland coastal range. From the passenger seat I got to take a good look at other details – roadside shrines where accidents had occurred, new construction since I was last there, a roadside restaurant now closed and a new outdoor food truck on the side of the road open for business.

What else is missing along this familiar drive? For many years the sea lions used to hang out in winter on a raft off the dock at Fanny Bay on Baynes Sound opposite Denman Island. They are gone. I haven’t seen them for several years now and their disappearance seems to coincide with the big increase in shellfish farms along the Sound. Hmmm. Now how does one get a bunch of massive sea mammals to move their winter hangout so as not to interfere with the human sea farms?

There seemed to be some signs of life at the Qualicum scallop farm that closed some years ago when the scallop crop failed, probably because of warmer water along the coasts of Washington State and lower and mid Vancouver Island from climate change. They lost it all and I heard at the time that they were going to have to bring in a different scallop species to raise instead but that was going to take years to get that established and to start producing for market again. There appear to be a few new large tank buildings now that weren’t there before, so maybe.

There was something else I noticed from my window. Something new. In two different places, hanging from tree branches beside the road, were bright red dresses, swaying in the breeze. I had never seen this before but I knew what it was.

These symbolize and are meant to raise awareness of the ongoing issue of the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada.

Originally the red dresses were part of 2010 Winnipeg art installation by Metis artist Jamie Black to honour indigenous women and girls who were lost to violent crimes. Since then the symbol has spread to communities and areas across the country. It has now reached Vancouver Island where someone has undertaken to have the dresses placed along the highway from the top of the island in Port Hardy down to the south in Victoria. Others have joined the project and I have now seen them on other roads as well. Catching that glimpse of red as you drive by, knowing that it represents a daughter/mother/aunt/sister and all those around her, is a very powerful image.

Then, this past week, ugliness once again raised its head. Not far from here, near Ladysmith, the image was obviously too powerful for the two men who were filmed along the side of the highway, removing several red dresses hanging from the trees and tossing them like garbage on the ground (as was the fate of many of the women), then turning and running away.

Stephanie Rivers Elickus of Campbell River, who has been a major force in the Red Dress Project on Vancouver Island, says that the dresses are a symbol “to call spirits home in our culture, to call missing women home.” She personally has suffered three immediate losses associated with missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and vows to continue her project to honour those who are gone. This desecration serves to re-break so many hearts that have already been so badly wounded from their losses.

How many times can a heart be broken?

Netclix, Family Mysteries and Hot Tips

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Happy Spring Equinox

There are so many new words and phrases that have come into English usage this past year, “social distancing”, “lockdown”, “flatten the curve”, “maskne”. “doom scrolling”, covidiot”, to name a few. Here’s another one: “Netclix” – constantly (compulsively?) refreshing the Netflix homepage to see if there’s anything new. Recently I noticed that the #1 Trending show was “Groundhog Day”, which seemed appropriate.

I’ve been watching more shows than ever this past year and I’m not alone in that. We cut the cable cord a few years ago once NFL started streaming but there’s lots of options. In addition to Netflix we subscribe (on and off) to Crave and HBO, Brit Box, Amazon Prime and MHZ Choice. A friend on the other side of the country and I touch base most weekends to exchange “what are you watching” Hot Tips. Here’s my very eclectic list of recent watches:

My Octopus Teacher – my absolute favourite film of the past year. The pure magic of inter-species communication and dare I say, friendship. It opens the heart and blows the mind.

This 8-part Danish police procedural series The Investigation was compelling – and the differences between it and the typical American cop shows was very interesting. This was on HBO but another recommendation for other European series is MHZ Choice, a streaming service available here that carries shows from a lot of different countries with English sub-titles, many (not all) in the mystery, suspense, cop show genre.

This weekend saw the drop of the third season of Formula 1 Drive to Survive, a behind the scenes series about the drivers and teams of Formula 1 racing. Three years ago I watched the first season, which immediately converted me into a huge F1 fan, following the races and players during the season – Race Highlights and Paddock Pass on the F1 website on race weekends. Last year the first race was scheduled in March but then all hell broke loose with the pandemic and everything got cancelled for a few months. They managed to save half the season once they figured out how to deal with masks, distancing, health protocols and no fans in the stands. But TV still works just fine to watch a race. This weekend the new race season starts again and I’ll be there.

Also starting up again for the season this past Equinox weekend was the weekly UK gardening show, Gardener’s World hosted by Monty Don, a huge favourite in this house (no surprise there) and a Friday night watching tradition during gardening season, streamed on Brit Box.

Other films that have kept my attention:

  • Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
  • One Night in Miami
  • The Kominsky Method Season 2
  • The Dig
  • Dancing With the Birds
  • The Trial of the Chicago 7
  • Lupin
  • Midnight Diner
  • The White Tiger
  • What Would Sophia Loren Do?

But the biggest Hot Tip of this month has to be a show streaming on CBC Gem, a documentary called For Heaven’s Sake. It’s about an unsolved missing person case from 1934 in rural Ontario. In October of that year, Harold Heaven walked out of his cabin, carrying his rifle, leaving the door open and the lamp on and was never seen again. Now his young great great nephew and friend have become amateur detectives to try to solve the case and created an 8 part series about their adventures looking into his disappearance.

Why this show? Well the Heaven family properties are just down the road from my family’s cottage property at Minden. I think it’s safe to conclude that foul play was involved and this is one of those shows that looks at a number of theories as to what could have happened. One of them was that Harold Heaven was murdered and his body was dumped in our lake. I say “our” but my grandparents didn’t buy the property till 1948, 14 years after the disappearance so it’s safe to say our family is in the clear as suspects. Last summer while filming the series, the film makers organized a dive in our lake ostensibly to look for the rifle Harold Heaven had with him the night he disappeared, so on one of the episodes I can actually see the bottom of the family lake on film and watch a scene filmed at our picnic table at the beach with the very distinctive raft in the background. It’s the story of the two young film makers’ quest to solve this 86 year-old mystery and at times they are very funny. It was a blast watching the scenes of places I’m so familiar with – a cemetery scene at a little church nearby (my aunts are buried there), a drone scene over a barn across the road that was once owned by people considered suspects and now owned by my cousin (that was her dog barking madly at the drone overhead), recognizing a friend in his boat in the background of a scene filmed at a nearby lake, and a glimpse of someone else we know in a scene filmed in the local bar.

Once I finished the last episode I was beside myself with excitement and called Cousin Sharon the next morning for a good chin wag as we talked about all the theories and scenes in the film, sharing memories of our childhoods at the cottage as well as – of course – discussing our own musings of what must have happened to Harold Heaven.

I went back to the family property 3 years ago after a very long absence and wrote about it. Check out that post At the Lake and when you look at those bright, beautiful shots of a sunny day at the lake, remember: you never know what may be lurking in those depths.