The Wood Comes Today

I can hardly wait to see this movie. It’s made by the people who made Coraline, another animated film that I loved (even though animation is not a passion of mine). I’m chuffed that I learned how to get this vide onto my post. I’ve not been able to do this for a long time.

•

First thing yesterday morning, I had a spa. I got out just before a pathetic rain shower began. I came in, did a laundry and I contacted Gabriola Disposal to come and take all the stuff I’ve amassed in the studio to the landfill. When I take all the garden furniture out and put it into the yard, the studio will be largely empty and very clean and tidy.

I feel bad about the two sofas and all the crap going to landfill, but I do not want to be like the previous owner who lived here and left me with mountains of crap to remove from the property. When it comes time to sell, I want the yard and the house to be in order.

Our morning walk yesterday was under cloudy sky and in cool air (12°). Still, it wasn’t raining and it was lovely to be outside. When we were done, we went into the village to pick up a prescription (that wasn’t ready), and then we came home. I had chores to do, including vacuuming hundreds Fir caps from inside the house. They are everywhere. Sheba brings them in every time she goes outdoors. You should see my bed cover! 

I had to bake something to take to a tea our dog walking group is having this afternoon, so I baked a baclava tart. It’s quick and easy to make, and people love it, but all baking fills me with tension. I worry it will not look good and/or that something will go wrong. And it did. The syrup boiled over and it burnt on the burner, and a dreadful/delicious smell filled the house. However, the tart looks fine and there was enough syrup left to do the job.

Once it was baked, Sheba and I went for our second walk while the tart cooled. The sky had brightened considerably, and it had warmed up (16°). It was lovely to walk leisurely through the 707 Park, and when we arrived back at the car, my phone rang and it was Bob Rooks telling me that my wood arrives today. Yay! I have the tea party to go to, so I won’t start stacking until tomorrow, and I’ll be keeping at it through the weekend. I have three cords to stack.

Once off the phone, we went back to the pharmacy to get the prescription I needed, and I stopped at Colleen’s to fetch a plate onto which I will put the tart. I love these baclava tarts, and now I have a perfect pan in which to serve them. They are drenched in syrup, so I need a pan with a raised edge. When we got home, I put the tart into the new dish, and it fit perfectly! I poured the syrup over it and overnight almost all of it was absorbed into the filo dough with which it is made. I think it will be a big hit at the tea this afternoon.

Pete came by. He betrayed an interest in moving again. I shall be truly sorry if he and Ali move to another home on the island. I feel deeply for Pete. He looks after me. He’s already offered to help me stack wood when he gets back from his birthday trip. He is so kind and warm, and he’s been so incredibly generous, I couldn’t help myself. I love him.

There are six of them, people whom I love on Gabriola. Eoin and François, Kris and Steve, Pete (I don’t know Ali, his wife, as well) and Nancy. And Kris’s sister, Stacy, is another person whom I deeply love. She is a treasure. She has a place here, but she lives in Vancouver. I see her whenever she is on the island. I also adore my dog-walking friends, but I’m not as close to them because we trail walk together. We walk in a long line and having meaningful conversations is impossible. Only on some trails can we walk side by side. 

I don’t see any of these wonderful people often, except for my fellow dog walkers and Pete. Pete drops by all the time, and love seeing him because I feel liked. I can feel it when I am with him, and he says such nice things to me. It’s always casual when we’re together, and we laugh a lot. Early last evening he dropped by and he does what he always does, he cruises through all the garden beds. He notices everything, and he likes what I’ve done with the yard. We are brother gardeners.

All my strawberries are doing well. It helped, I reckon, that we had showers and clouds while they settled into their new home. I think I’m going to make another gutter garden and fill it with wild Strawberries; part of my yard is full of them. I love the small, but delicious berries they yield. They grow wild all over the island, but I’ve never seen their berries for sale anywhere, even at farmers’ markets. I’d love to put them in a salad.

I’m so on top of things that the hummingbird feeder and two seed feeding stations are all operational. It’s the fountain, however, during this drought, that is the big draw. Putting in the fountain was the smartest landscaping decision I made. I got it for the sound it makes, but I love that it’s a bird magnet. You can’t see most of it. Just the top pool and the spout at the top are visible. The rest is covered with Ivy. I need to prune it.

Right beside the fountain is my trellis where it doesn’t get much direct sunlight. I planted a Climbing Rose and a Climbing Hydrangea. I’m certain I asked someone knowledgeable what I should plant to grow on it, because all the plants have thrived. There are two Climbing Hydrangeas, and a shrub I can’t identify that grows well, but it’s had only one blossom in each of the past two years, and that’s sad because they smell like Jasmine (and isn’t Daphne).

I look around me. The log home, three beds, two baths, and the grand room that is living space, a generous dining space and the kitchen, and the landscaping, including a generous number of plantings of things to eat. It’s heaven. I absolutely love it and I’m proud of what I’ve done.

But none of this was foreseen. It was not my plan to live here. I didn’t really have a plan. Ten years ago, I was doing then what I’m doing now: living my life as best I could. The sudden and violent onset of symptoms of my neurological disorder threw that life into chaos. Struggling to tolerate anything and everything in hardcore downtown Vancouver was overwhelming me. 

Then I saw the ad for this house online. I wasn’t looking to move, but when I saw the ad, I jumped. And then, without thinking and without a plan, I built a fence and started landscaping a yard full of garbage, nothing but a sheet of sandstone in one place, and years of neglect. 

Landscaping was something to do. I have a half-acre lot, I’ve always loved gardens, so why not. I didn’t think about annual rainfall or watering responsibilities when I started making bed after bed of garden and planting trees and shrubs around the yard. I needed to keep busy. It was therapy.

•

Next on my plate, after weeks of gardening, comes stacking, toting and splitting wood. It’s a huge, huge job, all very physical labour. Splitting is last, and I’m going to ask Pete to help me with that. It hurts my back. With Pete, we might build a ramp and platform that will raise the splitter making it much, much easier to use. It cost $1,260 for three cords and taxes, and it’s worth every penny. I have a lot of wood already, and in the Fall, I’m having a tree taken down and that will yield a lot more wood.

I like being warm, and I’m home all the time, so I need a lot of wood. Having the fire not only heats the place, it’s also the soul of the living room. Everybody loves to sit round it during the cold months. My log walls and the fire make my place quintessentially cozy. And I have HBC blankets!

Starting tomorrow: loading, toting and stacking.

Plum Tree Protected

We walked under cloudy skies. It was 12° and humid, but it wasn’t raining as we walked, so it was very pleasant walking. The rain awakens many new fragrances. The wild Rose filled the air with a sweet perfume. The rain also deters many people from walking, so we saw no one on the trails. It felt good to see the wet surfaces, but I knew it is mere millimetres deep. It was not much of a shower.

It was nice to come home to a nice warm home. I’d lit a morning fire. The pets got me up at 4:15, and so breakfast was very early. Consequently, we had lunch at 10:45. After that, I finally, I had some time to read. But I only read a few pages when, instead, I had not a nap, but a sleep. I slept for two hours! When I wrote up, it was raining again and the branches of the Plum tree had been beaten down by the rain, and they were hanging over the deer fence.

I had to work in the rain, extending the fence around the tree by quite a bit. I’m glad it’s done! I can see some plums growing and I want them to mature in safety. Now, all my front yard trees feel safely protected. And the garden beds got a decent soaking yesterday. The morning shower was short but the afternoon one was much, much longer. 

I don’t have to water the beds today! I get the entire day to myself to putter around in the beds and to do some yard work. And, of course, Her Highness and I will enjoy two or three walks. It’s overcast but the cloud layer is very thin. We are likely to return to eternal sunshine again.

•

Further to my post about loving science, I read today that Trump’s administration has banned his CDC and other health officials from communicating with foreign nations about both Ebola and the Hantavirus. It’s as though we’re experiencing a reverse evolution. 

I feel lucky to have been born when I was. I missed the two world wars, the depression and the Spanish Flu epidemic, and I’m going to die before the stupids and the greedy seize control, or before there is civil war in America. We are such a smart species, but intelligence is not winning.

Thank God I moved here to a small island where I can feel removed from all the shit of the world. 

•

My speech is remarkably good right now. I believe it is because I am outside in nature most of every day and because I feel on top of everything. I’m feeling great about keeping up with all the work required to maintain Pinecone Park, and I’m feeling guilt-free about spending nearly all my time alone. 

I miss seeing Dr. S. more often, but I think once a month is all I need, especially now that I am speaking so well and I hardly ever have seizures. I still get long blocks when I speak, but when I can speak, it is going quite well. Miracles happen, and one of those miracles is Tezspire. Man-oh-man, that drug has made a huge and exceptionally positive impact on my health.

Life is good!

Bowls and an Extra B

Sunday morning’s walk was spectacular, but then I always say that don’t I? Everything is so lush and green, many of the wild plants have finished blooming and so now the grasses are thriving. It’s beautiful to see them all, so tall and laden with seeds, gently bending in the wind. And the fragrance of Summer is here. It’s the smell of dryness. It’s a delightful smell, because it is the smell of heat and Summer.

We went for a good long walk, and then we came home for a brief respite, and I fed the brood their lunch early. I wanted Her Highness to feel satiated while we were at the Fire Truck at Silva Bay for lunch with Kris and Steve. All the gardens are well watered, so I was looking forward to an entire day of pleasure.

It was 14° at Silva Bay. I was glad to sit in the sun to stay warm, and it is always fun to visit with Kris and Steve. There were lots of vendors at the market, and there is always music (that is sometimes terrible) and kids playing on the enormous grass field. I love eating at the Fire Truck in the Summer, and I enjoy seeing people having a good time.

When we got back, it was overcast and I chose not to work on the fence around the Plum¹ tree. Instead, I lit another fire and napped on self-indulgence day. I bought two nice bowls, and I’m going to get a third, from a local crafts couple. He turns wood, she burns designs into his products. I love them. They’re for two lovely young people, Ashlee and Alex, who are marrying in Summer. Ashlee is my long-time friend, Dianne’s, daughter.

I am giving Ash and Alex three bowls. I’ve asked for another in a different shape and with another avian creature as the design. And I’m going to get another two bowls for me. I love them!

It got quite dark in the late afternoon. It was My Day, so I had a low fire going. The cats love it. They always come to the chairs in front of the fire. Wood is my great indulgence. Fires have always brought me great pleasure. The smell of wood smoke in the garden is incense. The little sparks add life to the room. Televised fires burn on holidays. Fires brought people together. They are ritual to our species.

I went to bed hoping for rain. Yikes, it’s been a long time. I don’t think we’ve had a rainstorm here since Spring 2025. We’ve had showers that are light and few that were heavy. This, in a region of the world famous for rain.

•

1.    Beth kindly brought my ignorance to my attention. I’ve been incorrectly spelling Plum when referring to my tree. Dumb me added a b.

•

I loved biology in high school. I grew up with pets, pets that I needed. I took Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at UBC. I had ambitions that were thwarted by a profound squeamishness. The smartest person in the room was Wendy Taylor. She was beautiful and silly smart. When we had to choose a lab partner in our first lab class, I approached her. 

I told her I was very squeamish, but that I thought I might be the best illustrator in the room. I proposed that we partner, and she would do all the cutting, and I’d illustrate our papers and ace the course. She said yes and we scored in the 90s that year.

What I loved most in anatomy, was learning about the evolutionary history of parts of our body. In the history of our ears are the gills of fish. I found it incredibly interesting to learn about natural evolution and adaptive evolution. It’s the history of our biology and anatomy that used to help scholars date bones found by archaeologists before carbon dating.

I thought that the driver of evolution was betterment. I wrote a paper for my final paper for one course on evolution. We had to write about what we learned from our course. I didn’t do any research at all; I just sat down and wrote from my heart. He’d asked me to write about the part of the course I loved. I aced the paper and was very proud of it. 

It offends me that people reject science. I loathe the anti-vaxxers. I loathe a lot of things about contemporary life. We are living in the age of stupidity. 

•

We had one brief and light shower this morning, and now the sky is brightening. It was a big fail on rain for last night and today. That's what I thought would happen. Sigh. We have an open day. I may get the fence around the Plum tree done, I may not. But I will not need to water today except for one or two large plants.

These are bud caps. That's what I call them. Every little branch
on all the bigger branches on all the even bigger bracnes, etc., etc., 
develop these caps as tthe start of new growth. The caps are cast
off as the green branch begins to grow. There are billions and 
billions of them, Sheba brings scores of them in every time she
comes into the house. They stick to her hair.

Above and below: The bowls I bought at the artist fair on Sunday.

 Buttercups and tall grasses fill the field near P.P.

The Maple Trees are drenched with seeds.

Grasses wave in the meadows.

My Car Shines

First thing yesterday morning, I was out checking on the Strawberry plants that I moved from locations around the edible garden to the new suspended bed. They were in shock last night, but this morning they all look fully adapted. They should! They are in rich moist soil, whereas before I didn’t really care about them because slugs made growing them (on the ground) pointless.

Yesterday was another lovely warm and bright day. I love these endless days of sunshine for the benefits they give me—being outdoors all day. But I hope we get the rain that’s predicted for tonight and tomorrow.

We went for our morning walk at 7:15. That’s the earliest we’ve walked this year, but we’re you are up at 4:00, we’re ready at 7:00. Besides, it got me back early to get started on chores, and first up was watering all the beds that I did not water on Friday evening. Next up was going into the village to take stuff to GIRO (our recycling centre) and to get some more Strawberry plants for the new planter.

Then it was lunchtime and I’d already walked over 5,000 steps. After that came time for my siesta on the recliner in dappled sunshine. I don’t sleep, but I love the warmth of the sun and just chilling in the quiet of the afternoon. It lasted 15 minutes and then it got cloudy, so I got back to work. I planted the strawberries I bought into the new bed, and then I got busy cleaning the car. I started with the outside. Now I know why I never wash my car. It’s exhausting.

Once the outside was done, I took a break before tackling the inside. I brought her smelly blankets in with me and put them into the washing machine and then out on the line to dry. Then, I went out and realized that I had not washed the roof. So, that was first, then the inside. I even washed the wheels and cleared all the built-up dirt from the wheel wells. The whole job took 2.5 hours, but then I was thorough.

I abandoned plans to move my outdoor furniture from the studio to the garden patio. I figured it could wait for today. Instead, Her Highness and I went for our afternoon walk and then we came home and I got into the spa. As a reward for cleaning my car, I ordered a hammock and stand for the garden from Amazon. Steve and Beth will love it when they are here, as will I when they are not.

Our evening was like every other evening for the past couple of years. Me? A creature of habit? No!

•

It was 7° this morning and slightly overcast. It was cold inside the house, so I lit the fire to warm us up. It’s My Day. My only goal is to enlarge the fence around my Italian Plumb tree. I’m to meet Kris and Steve for lunch at the food truck in Silva Bay, so the work will be done this afternoon. Or not. I’ve accomplished so much of late, taking today off would not be a problem.