Dailyish Pictures: August 2008 Archives

These grapes were just beginning in early August on the farm. I imagine they're ready to be picked and pressed for wine by now. Speaking of wine, I'm going to go have some. Being Friday and all.

I'm a little exhausted, but I'll try to write a few inspirational words before I nod off. Perhaps I'll mention the intriguing support structure for the delicate little blooms, the scaffolding of a flower.  I find it so facinatin........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wispy white and neutral beige. A calming picture for this crazy first week.

Ahhhhh.

Buried amongst the hay in the barn on my parents farm is this old scale. I love the 'NO SPRINGS, HONEST WEIGHT' epithet on the bottom. Brings forth images of trading posts or country fairs, men in hats with straw between their teeth and their sleeves rolled up.

Kyna starts school tomorrow. Summer is all but a memory, lingering behind the anticipation of a new and bustling first grade social life. We went out for dinner at her favorite restaurant, packed up her new school supplies and put her in a warm bath. Chris and I taking it in turns to wipe  tears from our eyes and bravely squeeze each other's hand. First grade.  Our little bike riding, swing champion, fish. Summer was a complete success, with cherries along the way.

This little crab managed to escape the keen eyes of all the kids dredging tide pools on Salt Spring Island. I snapped a few pictures, then helped it skidaddle under a ledge.

This is the door to the wash house on the farm. The colors are at least four deep and have created a gorgeous cracked, flaking, pastel patina.

Another portion of the Denman Island swamp. Is it just me, or is that a partially submerged radiator, bottom center?  The surprises I find when I scroll through my photos. What a quintessentially island-hippie  relic.  My dad  keeps his old radiators stashed around the barn in the 'VW Graveyard'. But the swamp! That's inspired.

The pier at Ocean Beach during sunset. Kyna went swimming while we sat on the beach and huddled in our sweaters against the wind. Life with a blond haired fish.

A little bee I caught in silhouette while gathering her morning pollen.

At the end of a delicious meal, the tomato salad left this pattern in the mix of oil and vinegar. A heart composed of two chemically distinct substances, intertwining and sharing a liquid state, yet remaining true to their underlying nature. A subtle finale to a dinner with loved ones and perfect for Love Thursdays over at Shutter Sisters.

This is home grown garlic hanging in the garden shed on my parents farm. The biggest downer of my visits from here in the States is the fact I can't bring home all the fresh farm treats like I used to when I lived in Canada. Drat. My brothers were mockingly unsympathetic to my grief and loaded up their trucks with farm bounty. Too bad it isn't like the old days where I could pin them down and tickle them to death. When you're a girl, being the oldest loses all its benefits when everyone hits puberty and grows bigger than you.

My 6'2" brother, John, and his girlfriend Deanna:

I had no idea that june bugs  loved figs.  But they do.  A lot.  When we came home last night I did a very quick turn around the garden to see what survived my three week neglect, and to my delight just about everything made it. As well as the cats, mice, fish, and lawn, I had a ripe orange heirloom tomato and an abundance of figs hidden amongst large leathery greenery. My corn has shot up too (I have a total of four plants in the front bed randomly scattered through the other flowers) and the guava bush looks like it might flower.

You are reading one very smug and self satisfied gardener.

However, as with all periods of neglect, others have moved in to fill the gaps. Weeds are flourishing self righteously, and a new crop of Very Interesting Fauna has put up little territory claiming flags everywhere. The june bugs are the finest example of this rampant colonialism and have laid claim to every ripe fig on the tree. Then they brought over their women and children. The evidence:

They haven't yet advanced beyond the archipelago of the fig tree, and although some mysterious june bug disease has wiped out all the indigenous fauna, they did import significant amount of tobacco and alcohol to compensate, so I may let them stay for a while. Being the American Immigrant that I am.

I've counted eight mosquito bites on one foot and proportionately more than that on the rest of my leg (since the other leg was carried off by the little blighters I couldn't get an accurate count on that one). I know I mentioned this last post, but they still itch like crazy, so the topic is still fair game.  My grievous injuries didn't happen due to negligence, I was only exposed while I pitched the tent, a total of fifteen minutes tops, I'm just that tasty. Or I'm reaping the rewards of extreme stupidity. If I recall correctly, it was me who voted to camp next to the swamp.

"Ooooh a swamp! Let's camp here! Where is my camera? Just look at all that green lushness!"

 Kyna is covered too. Poor dear. Chris, they avoided like he was made of Deet. Sometimes the genetic trail is painfully obvious.

The past three nights we spent in Calgary, Alberta with Chris' mom. Calgary is a cozy town of 1.1 million people. From what I have seen so far there are no scummy neighborhoods. None. No ghettos, no transients, no slums, no drunks, nothing but friendly people and clean sidewalks. The whole city is chock full of cute little houses with big backyards and pretty parks. Disturbing really. On the upside it is too cute to tolerate mosquitoes and they spray liberally. I was only attacked once. It actually tried to bite me through my jeans.

Overall our vacation was everything it could possibly have been, in every way we didn't expect. We swam in every conceivable body of water; sea, lake, river, pool, and puddle. The weather went from 104 degrees in Osoyoos to a 45 degree pelting deluge of rain through Roger's pass. We crossed mountains and wandered through meadows, tasted wine and roasted marshmallows. Three marshmallows into our extra large super-sized bag of marshmallows we realized that none of us actually like marshmallows, raw or roasted.

Kyna befriended the many winery dogs while Chris and I befriended their Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs. We fought, we froze, we sweated, we ran out of stove fuel. We discovered that Kyna is the biggest Stan Rogers fan ever and we sang sea shanties for three days straight. Interestingly, her hands-down favorite was The Maid On The Shore, which both pleased and disturbed me in equal measures. She can also sing verse by verse Barrett's Privateers, diplomatically excluding the 'goddam them all's' when grandma was in the car (but belting it out when it was just us three, which alternately pleased and disturbed me yet again).

I couldn't find Stan Rogers singing The Maid On The Shore, but here is an interesting harp rendition. If you've never heard this song, you need to listen until at least minute 2:45 (or so) to catch the twist.



Now we're looking forward to home. To the kitties, the mice, our lawn, it feels like we've been gone for years. Good years, alternate life years, wedged in a wrinkle of time that feels both fleeting and full. Stored away for those moments when we recall, in vivid clarity, the memories of summers past.

The guilt from missing two days of posting is crippling. I'm in the alpine town of Revelstoke, and up until now connected cafes have been as hard to find as a palm tree in the snow.

After Salt Spring we spent a couple nights catching up with friends in Vancouver and had the phenomenal good fortune to stay on my uncle's houseboat, The Rose Cottage, as seen above. It is, hands-down, the cutest little place I've ever spent the night.

In the morning I went trigger crazy and took many, many, many photos of things reflected in the marina water. Such as:

And:

This picture really should be viewed at it's full printable size, which I unfortunately don't have available here. There is so much more clarity and detail with a print. Ah well. I'm setting up a more extensive photography site and when I'm done I'll add a link from this site. In the background you can see downtown Vancouver.

After leaving Vancouver we started the road-trip camping portion of our adventure. We've been driving lake to lake through the Okanagan Valley. Last night I lost my right leg to a swarm of rabid mosquitoes. We're looking for a hospital and possible transplant after I finish this posting. See how great my guilt was?

To finish off here is a dragon fly:

I write this from the bustling metropolis of Vancouver, where it is sunny and glorious. Which is lovely. Not that our last couple days on Salt Spring weren't lovely, in fact, they kept getting more and more gorgeously summerish until I couldn't bear to leave. On our last full day we went kayaking. We saw two seals and a blue heron, and Kyna, who brought along a net, caught an impressive amount of seaweed.

After kayaking we swam in the lake. Then returned to our campsite in time for dinner and the communal marshmallow roast. Kyna ran feral with the other children until the sun set around ten p.m. Good times.

Then, due to our incredibly poor planning we had to get up to catch the first ferry off the island at the crack of dawn. Literally. I think the last time I saw a sunrise was thirteen years ago after staying up all night, however, you can't get much more 'morning light' than sunrise, so I snapped a few photos. It looks tranquil and gorgeous, but that's because you can't hear Chris honking the car horn for me to hurry up.

Well, it cleared up. Right in time for Chris' arrival. Lucky Bastard Lovely Husband. And, well, in the sun it is rather lovely. The picture above is the view from our tent. It could be worse (like raining). There is a mob of kids here in the campsite and with the sunny weather they all took to the beach in earnest. Tide pools were dredged, waves splashed in, and driftwood logs set adrift using a longish stick as a lever and a large rock as a fulcrum. Physics in action.

The pack of New Zealand kids a few tents down have started a slug colony which they carry around on sticks like little slimy pets. So far they've got four: Flash, Lightening, Zippy, and James. My mother requested a picture of a slug, so as soon as I find a suitably large candidate in its natural habitat I'll get some good slimy shots and post them.

Inspired by the blue sky we visited one of the two local wineries and after a glass of wine in the sun the memories of the rain faded somewhat and I found myself thinking that camping isn't too bad. Maybe I should make it a yearly habit with Kyna, we could do Yosemite next year, maybe go way up to Alaska and check out the Northern Lights even! Then a few sprinkles landed on my nose from a passing cloud and I came to my senses.

This is the winery's mascot. Eartha the Salt Spring Goddess in her gumboots.

Godrays from the top of Mt. Maxwell.

This is half of a little frog that lives in the pond on the farm. We left on Wednesday to begin the camping portion of our trip and arrived on Salt Spring with enough light to set up camp and make a fine dinner of ramen noodles. Quite the drastic fall from all the organic goodness we'd experienced on the farm, but hey, what's the point of camping if you can't have MSG?

I found a secluded spot with a picnic table and hiked the fourteen trips back and forth from the car to bring the cooler, tent, sleeping bags, clothes, cooking equipment, air mattresses, camera, etc.. etc.. and set up camp. It felt a little odd that no one else was camped up as far as we were, but then who wants to camp right next to other people? Why even bother leaving suburbia? Then it got dark. Kyna slept, at least a little, I, however, lay awake frozen to the bone listening to strange animals snorting outside our tent. Tents would be so much better if they were insulated, with walls, and maybe a roof.

The next day we drove straight into town for a massive breakfast of sausages and eggs. Feeling somewhat better we returned to the campsite in time to meet the nice park ranger who firmly told us that we were camping illegally and we had to move the entire campsite two hundred yards south to the beach and designated camping area. Then it started to rain.

Diligently I made the fourteen trips to the car then drove two hundred yards south and then made fourteen trips to our new legitimate camp site and set up camp all over again. This time I made a clothesline in the tent to dry out all our sopping wet clothes.

Then it rained all night.

Today Chris joined us. And since camping was his idea, I can't wait for him to experience some of this 'fun' first hand.

Oh. My. God.

I just looked up from my computer here in this cafe with wireless and it is POURING. And I mean P.O.U.R.I.N.G.

Oh the joy.