What just happened?

A week went by?
So, wow...it's Friday already.
Really?
Truly? I don't know where the week went...but it's gone. I think I took about five photos...and posted one entry.

Strange.

But, all in all, I think it's been a little quiet in Blogtown lately, don't you? I hope we're all having fun with whatever it is we're doing. I don't recall what I have been doing, but I hope I have been having fun, too.

This weekend, we plan to get the garden in shape, stake up the hops (which are growing like things possessed and willing to take over the planet.)... there was more, but my mind often goes blank when I try to remember chores.

Weird.

Well, um, yeah....I got nothing.

Not always a bad thing, is it?

Enjoy your weekends, everyone.

Er....

What's up?

aftermath

Well, it started melting pretty quickly but the damage was done. Many cherry trees around here lost large limbs and branches. Some just snapped entirely under the weight of all that wet snow. So sad. Apparently Beban Park lost some trees, too, but I haven't been to that side of town yet. I'll swing by later on my way home from the grocery store to look. Yesterday, we got down to the river for a walk and it seemed devastated. Trees and limbs down, shrubs and bushes and undergrowth lay flat on the ground. Two days earlier while walking there, we had found broken blue eggshells from newly hatched robins on the ground. In a couple of those spots, I don't even see the trees they might have come from anymore...nor do I see how the mamas could have kept 9 inches of snowfall from their tiny featherless babies with no leaves to help shield them yet sprouted....damn climate change. We did see a number of hummingbirds out and about yesterday, so hopefully there are enough blooms left on the trees and bushes to keep them fed for a while.

Two days earlier, in the warm sun, we saw multitudes of the little garter snakes I love so much sunning themselves in the warmest spots. Yesterday, we saw little dead snakes everywhere, frozen or drowned in the meltoff. I know you all don't love my little green garters like I do, but it really was quite heartbreaking for me. They always make my heart beat so fast and fierce. My Grandma used to catch them with me when I was a kid in her garden. We'd feel their smooth skin, talk gently, and lay them back down in the warm-turned earth and watch them slide away.

They are a little bit like Love to me, my little green garters. Love and warm-turned soil, dusty raspberries fresh from the vine, blue-veined, dirt-stained fingers showing me which are weeds to pull and which are the sweet carrot greens, the smell of roses....

Michael spent a fair amount of time gently lifting snow from my flower garden, hoping to save my blooms. He's so good, right? The tulips, daffies, hyacinths and bluebonnets faired pretty well....the leapard's bane, one of our favorites, may be toast.

Well, coffee is done now. I suppose I should get on down the road and get my groceries...

talk to y'all later, eh?

WTF?!?

So, um, yeah...this was taken two days ago of the yard out front around the pond we put in...two. days. ago. My viburnum is leafing, poppies coming in, bluebonnets and tulips and daffies all ablaze. Oh, and the lovely yellow flowers on one of the pond plants...it's Spring...really, truly Spring, despite the much lower than average temperatures for a month, the lack of bees to pollenate my blooming peach tree, the need to still wear four layers of clothing...it's Spring.... Oh, wait...I took this at 7am this morning....it's the same corner of the same yard near the same pond.

Last I looked out the window last night(this morning) at 1:30am after shutting off the light and finally putting my book down, it was raining. The roads were wet and it was raining....at 1:30am.

By this morning, there were 9 inches of snow outside. Nine. Effing. Inches. Of. Snow.

Please, somebody, anybody.....come pick up your weather and take it back where it belongs.

For real.

fawn lilies

Yup...that's all I got today. Hope you enjoyed it all the same. Have a good weekend everyone.

Put on your party hats!

Eem-er's special friend Julia turns five years old today! Julia and her family, our good friends, live in Kaslo where Michael and I spent a week last summer....where I fell in love with the idea of living there, too. With the bears. Julia and her sister and brother shared my overwhelming excitement and joy of the

bear-watching with me(shriekingly so!)...and Julia made a fast and devoted friend of Eem-er.

Happy Birthday.

Love from us all.

We'll celebrate everyone's birthdays when we see you in Sechelt?!? It'll be a grand party!

We'll bring some cupcakes!

socks and sandals

Feet that make me happy......

and my OH! so very happy feet.

And no, I will probably not continue wearing my wool socks with these. Who would do such a thing?

more stuff we did on my friend's kid's spring break

Also, while my friends were here, we headed up to one of my favorite places, the Coombs Old Country Market. So many renovations over the winter, and this was my first trip of the season since it opened again last month. I could stay all day and spend a fortune, if I had time enough and money. But, I don't. Have time enough and money, that it. So we stayed just for one afternoon, ate lunch there and spent too much money anyway. There is this old bus graveyard along the way. Must be 15 or 20 of these old double-decker sightseeing buses parked side by side by side. They might have once been used in Victoria or something. I don't know. But I can't seem to pass them up without stopping for photos. I don't know how many photos I have taken of these buses over the past four years. Too many to count.

I always have the wish to take one of these and make a guest house out of it. I would need a bigger yard, that's for sure. Maybe someday. Or? Maybe Michael and I will live in one someday...move out to the boonies, live on a converted bus in the trees near a river, never see another crackhead or deal with city planners with no insight. Never have to move a hooker along from working in front of my neighbour's six year old daughter again or have to throw up my hands in exasperation of the idiotic endeavours of yet another social service agency so focused on their idea of what is best for their clients(and their own paychecks) that they can't see the damage they are doing to the neighbourhood.

Maybe we could move so far away that....never mind...sorry. I digress.

I woke up grumpy today after dreaming all night about the 7-10 Club going in across the street.

And about seeing John Horn, our secretive, behind-closed-doors-kind-of city social planner, across the street, too...only that part wasn't a dream. That really happened. It's infuriating that the City, in any way, shape, or form, is looking to either condone another social service or help fund a social service in this neighbourhood (given every study the city has paid for says it's a bad idea), let alone in a building owned by one of the city's most criminally negligent and ethically corrupt landlords. The City should be walking the heads of every social service agency through the rest of Mr. Saroya's holdings so that they can see just what type of person they are dealing with...housing so filthy and gross nobody should be allowed to live in it, let alone PAY to live in it... direct deposit from the government, in most cases...and just how much does the city spend each year in dealing with his properties? Emergency calls? By-Law calls? Police? Health code violations? Etc., ad infinitum ad naseum. Blah blah blah.

Dangit....I digress again.

I am so tired.

Anyhow, it poured and snowed and sleeted and hailed on the day we went to the market, but the skies broke sunny and warm long enough while we were there to enjoy the whole touristy-kitschyness of the place.

The goats came out.....they live on the roof there, ya know? Well, not this one. He was in the yard. Isn't he a doll? Don't you just want to bring him home with you?!? Me, too!!! Me, too!!!

We also went on a new walk. One that I hadn't been on before. I was inspired by Olly.

It's not that easy to find directions to this place. Halsam Creek. And then, after you find directions? It's still not easy to find. The directions do not say that you have to go through a rock quarry and an active logging sight( not so pretty)... that there will be no signs pointing you towards something as nationally unifying as the Trans Canada trail.

We had to stop someone on the road, and he said "just go up this road...."

"Past that giant KEEP OUT sign?" I asked.
"That doesn't mean anything," he said. "Then you just head up the road and there's a place to park, some signs...you can't miss it."

"Thanks," I said.

He doesn't know me very well.

I guess he meant this 3 inch by three inch sign 15 feet up the tree, on a craptastic logging road and the place to park was the wide spot that barely looked like a pull-out.

Or maybe he meant this sign....no expense spared on the Trans Canada Trail markers, now. Is there? But we had to backtrack to find them at all cuz we did miss it....despite him telling us that we couldn't possibly miss it. So we took a wicked ride along some bumpy logging roads. My friend's kid was having a good time with it. I just kept praying we wouldn't be swallowed up by one of those potholes up there.

Eventually, we figured out that we had overshot the "well-marked trail" and retraced our route until we found the two-year old, winter and rainy-seasoned Sharpie Sign pointing out the trail.

Finally we found what we had to set out to find.

The suspension bridge.

Cool, eh?

Looking right from the middle.....

Looking left.

Turns out, once you have walked 1.5 Kilometres down the trail, there is a really nice signboard with a map that shows the way to walk all the way from the Sharpie Sign to here and then, eventually, here. Two of my favorite dog walking spots. Maybe we should try to make that whole hike one day...one very long strenuous day.....

So, okay, speaking of dog walks, I better get out of here...got to get a move on today so I can rest up before my running class tonight. Ugh.

And I better get out of here before I start ranting again, too.

I need to save all that up for my letters to the City Social Planner, City Council, the papers, VIHA, the 7-10 Club.....I don't want use up all my big words here, now, do I?

some of the stuff we did.....

So many photos to go through! Yikes. Get two shutterbugs together and watch out! You get nowhere in a hurry! So we got off to a slowish start...me dragging everyone around on sloppy, soggy, muddy dogwalking excursions. It never even occurs to me that this might not be fun for everybody. So, if you ever come to visit me? Be prepared. Bring your hiking boots, ok? I took them to Chase River Estuary and to Harewood Mines and countless times around the neighbourhood...we went to a new spot which I will tell you about later because I haven't worked on those photos yet. I hauled them up to Shady Mile Farm Market, where I go to get an endorphin boost by feeding the animals.

They had ducklings for sale. How cute are they? 2 for $20...

So we just fed the little ravenous creatures....who must not have had much company lately because they were aggressive and kinda rude this trip, not their usual overfed and complacent selves.

We went to Buttertubs Marsh.

We tried to photograph the redwing blackbirds, but they didn't really let us get too close. Neither did the towhees or the little finch-like birds we saw. Dangit.

Of course, the ducks were overly friendly until they saw we didn't have anything to feed them.

And in the weak heat of a pale sun, a little cave of snakes had awoken and were trying to warm themselves on the rocks. At first, they were afraid of our intrusion, but soon enough got used to us being there, even seemed to get a bit bold with the cameras, coming right up to look in the lenses...I won't try and post all the photos. You'd be here all day, and the weekend's coming! You all should have something better to do with your time! And if you don't, grab your hiking boots and head on over.

Anyhoo, that is all I got for you today. I will work on some more photos this weekend. Show you our trip to Coombs, and our trek along part of the TransCanada Trail.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

It's supposed to be sunny and warm here...woot woot.

Talk to you all later.

Oh hey....did you know

that today is national(does it matter which nation?) siblings day? I had never heard of it before...but it's about time. Ya think?

Here's to them, the ones who went before me, found the footing...and left their footprints for me to follow. It surely wasn't easy in our house...and thank you both for your great insights into music and books...but mostly, life.

Wait! Where are you going?

Well, they packed the car and headed home this morning...Eem-er and Fishbone will miss them so very much. My girlfriend came to visit and brought her 15 year old son who spoiled the stuffing out of them. I hope they don't expect me to play with them that much. I guess without a game system here, there was little else to do while we were home!!!
But we weren't home all the time, and I am not going through all the photos just this minute. I have to get my house back in order...and try and find some things I have misplaced that I need.
I joined a running workshop with Michelle during the chaos that was this visit and can't seem to find all my reading material or my online journal secret spy code....though I have my entry form for "the Twilight Shuffle Run" in Chemanus in June (technically this workshop is to train for this particular run, but I don't know if I want to do the run...I just want to run and find myself lacking in motivation by myself)...and the running shirt they gave me, so what gives? So I just finished my homework(running, duh) and can't log into my online journal....drat! They're gonna think I didn't do my homework...and I am such a suck up, that I actually did a little extra.
So, anyway, I got lots of photos, we were busy....we went on a few soggy hikes(the weather was a bitch while they were here, of course), ate too much, drank too much, shopped a lot, did all the touristy things, the boys went to a hockey game.... and at 6:30 am, they headed back down to Victoria to catch the Black Ball Ferry home...sigh.
Tomorrow is Friday already. Can you believe that? I will try to put together a little installment of what we did on my friend's kid's spring vacation....
It's good to be back.
I need the routine.
But I am going to miss them.

hey....

just wanted to say hi....back soon

Later days.....

friends from home in town....catch up later in the week.....like way later.....
so much good news lately though it's not my news.
peace out.
talk later?

Tod's Special Day.....

First of all, Tod inspired me to show you my kitchen with his photo a few days ago... In doing so, Tod also inspired me to clean my kitchen....including my kettle.....although I can see a dang dog hair in this photo!!!!! ARGH!!!!

Thanks, Tod.
Hope you are enjoying your special day so far.

Use it or Loose it, folks....

Er, what? Loose it? Really? Loose it?!? Did someone really take the time to sneak into Nob Hill Park with two cans of spray paint to leave us this important message...It's Our Park, Use It or Lose It...only to misspell lose? Reminds me of this.... But, whatever, they are right... Be prepared, folks. It's spring. Get dispatch on your speed dial. Be involved. Be a presence. Make some noise. It's ours...and I don't wanna lose it.

It's starting to get busy around here....

new working girls in from somewhere....

People trying to make Nob Hill theirs again, after months of work for us to take it back. Some kids made a little fort in the park the other day, it was so cute! The next day, the crackheads were squatting in it doing drugs. This morning I dismantled it. Sorry, kids. Maybe someday but not this day....maybe the parks department could come pick up all the fallen limbs and such soon? We'd appreciate it, thanks.

This guy is cooking up at the one picnic bench left in the park, bolted down out in a wide, bare patch of grass close to two streets and the swingsets. Didn't care. Didn't care that I harassed him either, at the time, though I haven't seen him back.

Deals are being made. Make a fuss. You know your neighbours will back you up!!!

Let's not lose this.

The peach tree we planted last year is blooming like mad....and I'd like to stay around long enough to enjoy some cobbler from my own tree.