It is that time of year when I customarily release into the wild a couple of postings – one looking back to the year recently ended and the other looking forward to that just beginning. This is a device that I use to measure the accomplishments of the past twelve months against the aims that were set out in the equivalent missives of a year ago – before setting new targets for the year ahead.

In the light of all that has happened over the last two years (most of which has been completely without our control) I have decided to write but a single post this year. This reflects the fact that the pandemic has prevented us from doing many of the things that we would have like to have done, whilst also rendering pointless the pursuit of many flights of fancy in an era which promises to continue to be as uncertain as it has proved thus far.

Here was our basic wish-list from last January – with progress reports in red:

• To get to see family and friends – face to face! – Well – we did manage some, but always with the now usual restrictions
• To be able to entertain again – just a couple of (admittedly most pleasant) summer occasions in the garden
• To dine out – again – just a couple of times and with the now customary precautions
• To see some live theatre – nothing! – zilch! – zip!…
• To enjoy some live music – one event only – Barney Bentall’s Cariboo Express in November
• To attend a live sporting event (preferably Rugby!) – you are – as they say – having a laugh!
• To be able to travel… anywhere – a fraught over-nighter in Kamloops and four nights in Vancouver!…

You might be able to detect the tone of disappointment in my words…

In addition – this time last year I mooted the idea of carrying out some major renovations to our basement. That idea – apart from some relatively minor upgrades (replacing the remaining windows – replacing the alarm system – purchasing a new TV) were killed off by the ridiculous hike in the costs of building materials caused by pandemic-related shortages.

“But what of 2022?” – I hear you cry. Well – let us start out with the same list as last year – and see if we can do any better this time around.

In addition:

• It is our fervent wish that we get to travel to the UK during the coming summer. Whether or not this happens will depend entirely on the course that the pandemic takes on both sides of the pond over the coming months. We are not holding our collective breaths.
• We will carry out some further domestic upgrades – air-conditioning to guard against future ‘heat domes’ – a new hot water system so that we can console ourselves with even longer baths when things don’t work out as we would wish.
• Normalised work! The Girl would like to be able get back out into the wider world and to visit clients face to face again – not to mention paying a nostalgic visit to her office! I would like to teach students who can actually see my face as I do so.
• More music! One positive over the last year is that I have been able to write more than enough new songs for the Chanteuse and I to put together another ‘album’. We are currently recording her vocals on these tracks and we are making good progress. Look for further pronouncements in the coming months.

In general – we both hope that 2022 at least starts to see a (safe) return to some sort of normal.

We wish the same for all gentle readers also…

No sooner has the cold snap moderated itself and the snows begun to melt than we are subjected to yet another ‘atmospheric river’. We are in for another five days of solid rainfall. Who knows if there will be anything left to wash away!

I find myself – slightly to my surprise – teaching once again… though this time a different course (albeit covering similar ground) at the College’s other campus in teaching rooms that I have not previously experienced.

I had seriously hoped that the burgeoning increase in Omicron infections – for which Canada and BC are doing their best to match what is happening in other parts of the world – would result in the College being forced to go back to online only teaching in the short term. Who knows – that might yet happen – but, sadly, we are currently face to face in the classroom.

Like most teachers I much prefer to teach face to face, but these are not ordinary times and I fear that the provincial government has reached the point at which it throws its hands in the air, stands well back and lets the pandemic rip. The hope seems to be that Omicron will cause less destruction than previous variants and will pass through more quickly – leaving us (if all goes ‘well’) with our disease status downgraded from ‘pandemic’ to ‘endemic’.

I sense a great deal of finger-crossing and wood-touching here and not a lot of truly informed scientific opinion involved, but it is what it is. After all – I don’t have to do this!

I am, of course, taking all the precautions that I can. I am double-vaccinated and boosted and I am now wearing only N95 respirators in the classroom. These I have had to source myself (not easily done!) as the powers that be have decreed them not strictly necessary. I am taking no chances! It doesn’t help that all my teaching is now on a single day a week, meaning that I have to keep the respirator on for a straight five hours and more. I can already tell that my poor nose is going to take a pounding – to say nothing of my voice!

To make matters even more complex we are having to accommodate students who can’t – or won’t – come into College. I am thus streaming and recording the classes as I teach them. This adds yet another layer of complexity to something that is already quite a stretch for me.

Oh well! I like a challenge – but there may be limits…

“Either you take in believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.”

Henry Miller

The recent spell of icy weather and concomitant snowfall has made us once again even more aware of our tiny avian friends – the hummingbirds.

Now – hummingbirds are migratory creatures… except when they aren’t!

Every year each of the many species of hummingbird summons up its minuscule amount of energy and sets off on the oft-thousand mile journey to Latin America (lucky things!)… except when they don’t!

The exceptions are the Anna’s Hummingbirds – common and much loved on the west coast of the North American continent – which seemingly can’t make up their mind if they are migratory or not!

Now – many folk who put out feeders for these beautiful but tiny birds will pack them away in the autumn – not to be in demand again until the following spring. Not so those of us who have Anna’s for company. We have to keep up the nectar production year round (unless the birds decide that this year they really will fly south).

There are some who say that the reason that Anna’s have become confused as to their species characteristics is that they have been so fooled by all these year round feeders providing them with quick shots of energy that they don’t get the message that it is time to head south. In other words – it is all our fault for feeding them.

Others say that this is an urban myth – that hummingbirds know when it is time to fly by the diminishing daylight hours and that it would make no difference if we fed them or not. These knowledgeable folk point out that hummingbirds are a lot hardier than we think they are, that they are quite capable of feeding themselves through the winter on insects and grubs living in the bark of trees and that when it gets really cold they slow their heartbeats right down and enter a state of torpor (no jokes please!).

Either way round tender-hearted folk such as we try to provide nectar for the Anna’s throughout. This entails bringing the feeders in at night and even – when it is particularly cold – every few hours during the day so that they can thaw out again.

On very cold days I will frequently find one of these tiny creatures sitting in a bush below the hook outside our kitchen window on which I hang one of the feeders. If they are very hungry they may make a dart for the feeder even as I am trying to get it onto the hook. At other times the bird will just sit un-moving below the feeder, making no attempt to drink from it. It is not that the bird is too weak to fly up to the feeder; it is, rather, watching out for competitors. Should another bird get anywhere near to the feeder our tiny friend will chase it away vigorously, before returning once again to its perch.

Many people love hummingbirds, but I do wonder if those of us for whom they were only ever exotic and mysterious creatures from another world don’t do so with a particular fervour.

…and washed the snow away.

But not before we went for a walk in a very snowy Centennial Park in Saanichton.

Just a few snaps – which were not that easy to take given that I was wearing two pairs of gloves to protect my aging hands against the icy wind-chill. Walking is fine; standing still is a mistake!

e“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer

The turn of the year not infrequently engenders in one a certain degree of trepidation… this one perhaps more than most. One may adopt a variety of approaches; bravado – blind optimism – pessimism – denial – timorousness – indifference…

My feeling for 2022 is that it might best be approached obliquely – as serenely as possible – but with a healthy dose of humility. Maybe we will all get lucky. It would certainly greatly assist that cause were we to behave responsibly, thoughtfully and with the maximum possible care and consideration for others – both those whom we love and those who we know not, but with whom we share this fragile planet.

With that in mind – Happy New Year to you and yours.

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you

Hmmm!

Yesterday I posted some photos of the recent snowfall here on the Saanich peninsula in BC. Anyone who accesses this blog directly will have been able to view them as expected.

I am extremely fortunate in that there are also a decent number of good folk out there who subscribe to these meanderings and thus receive the latest updates routinely by email. The digest that was sent out automatically yesterday – however – for some reason contained no content at all (I send myself a copy just to ensure that all is working smoothly and I too was the recipient of an empty message).

I am sending this post to check that all is in fact well – and I offer my apologies to anyone who sat scratching their heads after yesterday’s episode, wondering what the heck was going on.

This also gives me a chance to post a couple of further photos taken this morning after yet another night of snow. I am just waiting for the flakes to stop falling so that I can go out and clear our drive (once again!).

I should also take this opportunity to correct an egregious error in yesterday’s post. The Girl pointed out – in the strongest possible terms – that I made myself look like an idiot my miss-spelling ‘tuke‘. It is – of course –  ‘tuque‘… or ‘touque‘… or ‘toque‘…

…but definitely not ‘tuke‘!

Sorry!

In my last post I promised further and better snow images – should the Arctic Outflow oblige by providing the requisite white stuff as it threatened to do. Yesterday evening it duly delivered. Herewith the evidence:

The inclement weather produced by the outflow led to a number of record low temperatures across the province, a notion which – given that large tracts of Canada are already notorious for bitterly cold winters – should cause the mind to boggle somewhat. Fortunately the worst of these records were set in parts of British Columbia to which right minded folk do not venture, should they be able at all to avoid so doing. Here in Victoria we reached a mere -5C yesterday – though the wind chill factor dropped that to a much less balmy -13C.

The Girl and I went for a swift walk around our neighbourhood yesterday and that gave me an opportunity to try out what has already become a favourite amongst her Christmas gifts to me – this fetching and most excellent tuke (for non-Canadians a tuke is a beanie!). This thing is awesomely warm which is clearly achieved by the appliance of some wonder of science or other… or possibly of magic. Either way it is a life (and ear) saver when the temperatures dip below -10C.

…a white(ish) Christmas!

Well – on the night of Christmas Eve there was fairly widespread snowfall here in western Canada. Naturally it wasn’t that widespread here at the southern end of Vancouver Island – because it usually isn’t. We did – however – wake on Christmas morning to enough of a dusting that we could officially declare it a White Christmas (though possible not the one of which Bing was dreaming!).

No need to be disappointed though. We are apparently trapped on the edge of yet another Arctic Outflow (I do love this modern weather terminology, which appears to come to us courtesy of the worlds of film or TV drama). It is so much more dramatic than simply saying ‘cold weather’. Anyways – this Arctic Outflow will doubtless dump a bunch more snow on us over the next week at some point and when it does I will take bigger and better (and much more dramatic!) snow pictures for your delectation and edification.

In a fit of supreme prescience I popped down to Sidney Tires (or ‘tyres’ should you prefer UK spelling) on the night before Christmas Eve and had them pop on our snow tires (or ‘tyres’ should you… etc, etc) – so we feel well prepared for anything that Mother Nature might care to throw at us.

That – and the fact that we intend remaining steadfastly indoors in the lovely warm over the coming days, rather than venturing out into the Arctic… well – that’s quite enough of that!

Hoping that all gentle readers continue to enjoy their Christmas (and/or other) holidays – and are getting in some serious relaxation.

…Not so sure about the ‘jolly’ though!…

Who would have thought when I was writing this last year:

“There is no getting away from the fact that this is a Christmas unlike any that we have known. In fact, unless one is old enough to remember the Second World War it is highly unlikely that such a level of disruption to the normal cycle of celebration will have been experienced before. None the less, we will persevere – because that is what we do. And come next year – when much has returned to a state considerably closer to the ‘old normal’ – we may find it difficult to recall just how weird this one was.”

…that a year down the line I could easily have found myself writing exactly the same thing!

Funny old world – ain’t it?

Still…

…to friends, acquaintances and gentle readers…

…from the Kickass Canada Girl and the Imperceptible Immigrant…

we wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas and a Happy Hogmany!

Christmas piccies…!

One of the dubious ‘pleasures’ of ‘getting on a bit’ – and in particular if one takes a diuretic (for hypertension or suchlike) – is that it is much harder to sleep through the night. The call of nature is loud, clear and impossible to ignore.

Thus it was that I was up at 4:00am this morning, availing myself of the facilities!

I had just got back to bed and was drifting off into much appreciated slumber when – all of a sudden – I heard through the quiet of the night a rapidly growing bass rumble. I felt the bed move under me as the crescendo ended in a loud-ish thump and all manner of things on walls and in cupboards rattled vigorously. Then all was at once quiet again.

In my sleep be-fuddled state two thoughts made it though to my consciousness. The first was that a truck had hit the front of the house; unlikely because it was the middle of the night and we live in a place where trucks are not wont to go. The second thought was that there had been an earthquake!

Now – one’s first response to such an eventuality is meant to be to leap from one’s bed and to take shelter underneath some well-reinforced structure. My first thought was to grab my iThing and to look up ‘earthquake‘ on Google. There it was – within 30 seconds of the thing occurring – an entry much like that at the top of this jotting.

“Goodness me…” – thought I – “that’s jolly efficient!”

I guess I really should do some more work on my priorities.

It has been more than six years now since we moved to the part of the Pacific Rim that forms the North Cascadian subduction zone – one of the well-known hot-spots for tremors that make up this part of the ‘Ring of Fire’. I figured that at some point I would experience a quake – even if it were a small one like this (for those who wish to know the details this one registered 3.6 on the Richter scale, with the epicentre some 10 miles beneath Galliano Island – about 15 miles north-west of us here. To The Girl – who is, naturally, an old hand at such things – it was hardly worth waking up for. To me it was an experience…

…which – having had – I wouldn’t mind not having again!

By a strange co-incidence this quake occurred on the same night that a very different (metaphorical!) quake shook the folks back in good old Blighty! I am referring, of course, to the Liberals defeating the Tory candidate in the North Shropshire by-election… which seat had been held by the Tories for more than two hundred years! As a judgement on the performance, record, behaviour and character of Prime Minister Johnson I find it hugely encouraging that the electorate has finally spoken with such eloquence and clarity.

Let us have much more of the same, say I…

It is, arguably, a little bit sad that if I look back over the years that I have been churning out entries for this journal, a regular subject of the December offerings has been just how busy everything has been, how tired we are and how much we are looking forward to some quiet downtime over the Christmas break.

I didn’t actually look back to the archive of any previous December’s postings before making that statement. I didn’t have to. I just know that it is true!

The reason that it is a little bit sad is because The Girl and I are notionally retired and should thus probably have time on our hands rather than finding things a bit of a grind. Let’s face it – we are clearly not tuckered out because of our wild round of pre-Christmas socialising. The pandemic has seen to that!

Oh well!

For me the term at College has just finished, the final exam has been sat and marked, term projects have been submitted and assessed and I am just in the process of wrapping things up and recording grades and suchlike. At the point at which in days of yore I might have been enjoying a little post-term social relaxation I am instead contemplating the next term (what here in Canada is pessimistically – if realistically – called the Winter term). The course that I was scheduled to teach has – for the second year running – been heavily under-subscribed (wonderful to be so popular… not!). My Chair has offered me a different course; one which I have not taught before and which would – once again – require that I mug up afresh on another curriculum and set of practices.

Am I getting too old for this sort of thing? Feels as though I might be.

The Girl (who is of course but a youngster) is also finding work something of a grind and – though she has been able these past two years to work almost exclusively from home – there are threats from her volunteer  service that everyone might be dragged back into the office for the New Year.

The Omicron variant may, of course, have a considerable say in how things actually pan out for either or for both of us. How will it all end up? In truth – nobody knows!

So my message to good and gentle readers out there is this: Take good care of yourselves, stay safe and don’t take any foolish risks (in particular not for misguided ideological reasons)…

As Bette Davis didn’t quite say in ‘All About Eve’ – “Buckle up – it’s going to be a bumpy ride“…

Ever since arriving in Canada (more than six years ago now) I have – twice a week – taken part in a fitness class for those over 55 years of age. I do not do so because I enjoy this particular form of exercise but because I am determined to keep everything going for as long as possible. If that means doing some work – so be it.

The majority of of the group are ladies, with whom – naturally – I now have reasonably good relationships. We often go for a coffee after the class, to the delightfully named “Fickle Fig” farm shop on the outskirts of Sidney. We sit outside around a huge table – for the (by now) usual COVID protection reasons.

Sometimes we are not alone. Sometimes the wildlife wants to join in – as with this cheeky chappie!

He – or she – doesn’t seem to care for coffee but does quite like the pastries (which, of course, I can’t eat).

He – or she – cared not a jot that I was taking pictures of him/her!

Antony Sher

1949 – 2021

RIP

It is, sadly, that time of year when those who are elderly or infirm – or who have been fighting against illness or disease – are perhaps at their most vulnerable. It should come as no surprise that amongst the number of those who pass at this time there will inevitably be found great men and women whose loss – though no more profound than those less known – may touch a greater number of those of us who remain.

It is but a few days since Stephen Sondheim was mourned in these jottings – and of course in many other fora. Now comes news of the passing of the great Shakespearean actor – Antony Sher. Sher was born and brought up in South Africa in the 1950s and 60s, before fleeing to London to train to be an actor. His record as a great Shakespearean – with the Royal Shakespeare Company and with other prestigious companies – is detailed splendidly in many other places and one could do worse than to start with Wikipedia.

Sher also wrote a number of books and his memoir of the year in which he played Richard III at the RSC – a role that cemented his reputation – was published in 1985 as “The Year of the King“.

Sher was married to Greg Doran – the Artistic Director of the RSC. I had the very great fortune to meet both men whilst working at my penultimate school. Doran had – as I recall – been invited to judge one of the School’s many competitions and Antony Sher accompanied him. At the dinner that inevitably follows such events I found myself sitting beside the latter for a while. I had just read his autobiography – “Beside Myself” – in which he wrote movingly about his relationship with his late father. At that point (in the early 2000s) my father had also recently died and we had a conversation about the effect that this has on one. He was entirely gracious and thoughtful and I was most grateful that he had been prepared to be so open with someone that he had not previously met.

Regular patrons of these marginalia will doubtless greet as old friends those posts that recur – in some form or another – on a regular basis. Into this distinguished category fall the annual November reports of our most recent outing on the Cariboo Express, courtesy of the engineer in chief – Barney Bentall.

We enjoy these evenings (in support of the Sidney Lions Foodbank) so much that we are quick to purchase tickets each year as soon as they become available. This we did as per usual last year (2020).

On that occasion, of course, the concert did not take place – for reasons that require no further elucidation. The dates were once postponed – and then postponed again. This was deeply sad but necessary. The run-in to Christmas just wasn’t the same without this jolly evening out, but we were not prepared to take any risks that might endanger our (or other people’s) health and well-being.

The final postponement of the event resulted in us being offered the chance to let the tickets spill over to become valid for this year’s equivalent pageant – and fortunately this time the precautions were deemed to be adequate (vaccine passports and photo IDs thoroughly checked) and we were able once again to gather at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney – well be-masked and well-behaved – for a most welcome live performance.

It really was quite moving to suddenly find oneself once again in the proximity of real live musicians and singers – and, of course, in a real audience. An object lesson – I think – in the need that we all (many of us anyway!) have to experience live performance… something else of which we clearly need a regular shot! A good evening was quite clearly had by all!

At this juncture we do not have anything much else of a similar nature in the calendar and – with new COVID variants looming – who knows how things will pan out or when we will next get to sit in a theatre watching a live show.

We are (said he through gritted teeth) determined to remain optimistic…

Stephen Sondheim

1930 – 2021

RIP

Sad news yesterday of the passing of the last of the four iconic creators of what is almost certainly the best musical ever conceived – West Side Story. Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents were all in their late thirties at the point at which the show was created in the late 1950s, whereas Sondheim was the baby of the quartet at just 26 years of age.

I was slightly (though entirely unreasonably) shocked to learn that Sondheim was 91. Time really has flown! West Side Story has been with us for pretty much all of my life and – though I have not myself been involved in a production – I have been close to those who have on numerous occasions.

Sondheim is also, of course, renowned for many other groundbreaking productions in music theatre in addition to West Side Story (Company, Follies, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, A Little Night Music etc). Others far more qualified will write far better valedictions than can I; and I commend them to you.

Way back in the mid 1980s I saw Sondheim give a most erudite platform at the National Theatre in London, to accompany the National’s production of Sunday in the Park with George. If ever I find myself musing that his work tends to be rather too cerebral (and clever!) and not to carry a sufficiently direct emotional charge I remind myself that he also wrote the immortal ‘Send in the Clowns‘.

‘Nuff said. Respect!

I am still sometimes caught out by the differences that I find living in a new land. Mostly such surprises are positive, but in times of stress and difficulty they may be less so.

When it comes to sudden and excessive rainfall (and any concomitant flooding and damage) you might think that a native of Great Britain would be pretty much inured to any eventuality. We are all too familiar with the possible outcomes and take such things in our stride. Further,  Canada is a huge country which is full of outsized natural features. There is a sense of solidity that suggests that the land (and its people) can handle anything that is thrown at it. Looks can sometimes be deceptive.

I was taken aback by just how quickly and easily Vancouver and other parts of BC were sundered from the remainder of the country by the Atmospheric River in which we have of late bathed. Other implications did not register at all.

When I set off for College last Wednesday – after the rains had ceased – I idly noted that I would need to get some petrol (gas) on the way home. As I drove down the peninsula on the Pat Bay Highway I found myself wondering why there was such a long queue of cars on the opposite carriageway tailing back from the first gas station there. Following a comedy cartoon moment the truth landed like a lead balloon. They were panic buying!

Sure enough it rapidly became clear that the only gas stations not to be inundated by desperate motorists were those that had already run out of gas. It turns out that all of Victoria’s petrol arrives by tanker down the Trans Canada Highway from the direction of Nanaimo – or it did until half of the Malahat Drive was washed away. I was forced to call upon The Girl to meet me after my class and to bring me the jerry can that we keep full of gas for our lawn mower, so that I could make it safely home.

The next problem was – of course – how to get some more petrol over the next few days. The police quickly started escorting convoys of tankers across the remaining Malahat carriageway after  the road was closed for the evening repairs, so we had to keep an ear to the ground as to where deliveries were being made. One station in Sidney had a delivery but by the time I got there there was already a queue of more than a hundred cars.

I swapped into The Girl’s Mazda to go shopping but as I reached our local grocery store I saw another tanker pulling up at the adjacent station. I scurried back home to get the Lexus and – after a relatively brief wait in the queue – came away with a tankful; the which should last for couple of weeks…

…which is a good thing because gas stations are now rationing gas, limiting motorists to thirty litres on any fill up.

We are hearing reports of shortages of other essential goods and foodstuffs also, though thus far we have not been inconvenienced. The forecasts are for further heavy rains in days to come, however, so we must continue to be on our toes.

Never a dull moment here in the ‘new’ world!

Monday’s post – whilst touching on a serious subject – did so in a manner which might, on reflection, seem to some to be a little on the flippant side.

When I wrote that post I had certainly been looking at some of the images from the interior of BC and checking in on the news coverage – but there had at that stage been no reports of injuries and certain none of fatalities.

A day and more later the situation is slowly becoming clearer and the extent of the flooding and damage to property and to the transport infrastructure is becoming more apparent.

There have also – of course – now been the first reports of fatalities and of missing persons. The tone of this post is accordingly considerably more sombre and our thoughts and best wishes go out to those affected.

British Columbia has come in for yet another climate related battering. Mud slides and washouts on major routes have effectively shut Vancouver off from anywhere further east in Canada. We watched the news reports come in as each of the major routes was cut one by one. Some of the damage is significant and will take many months to repair.

The lower Fraser valley at Abbotsford is badly flooded and there have been many evacuations in that area. On Monday the entire town of Merritt was evacuated as the flood waters rose. Those who are familiar with Merritt will understand entirely how this happened. Merritt lies in a bowl surrounded by mountains and the runoff from two days of rain had nowhere else to go.

Victoria was cut off from the rest of Vancouver Island on Monday as the Highway 1 route over the Malahat mountain was flooded. A single lane has since been reopened but it will take a week of night-time closures for the damage to the formation to be repaired sufficient to re-open the whole road.

We are blessed here on the peninsula. There had been no shortage of surface water in our neck of the woods (it runs off Mount Newton behind us) but the water cascades down the slopes in all directions and into the sea – so within 24 hours most local routes were once again navigable.

For these small mercies we are infinitely grateful.

Is it really – I wonder – an inevitable effect of apparently unavoidable climate change… or does the west coast of Canada just suffer from wacky weather as a matter of course?

I ask because – as gentle readers may (or may not) recall – back in the summer we here in British Columbia suffered the most unpleasant and tragic effects of a ‘Heat Dome‘.

I will be completely honest here – I had never heard of a Heat Dome. As a climatic phenomenon it was a complete unknown. As it turned out I would have been happy to have made it through this existence without ever having encountered such a beast.

Why do I bring this up now? Because as I write we are heading towards (hopefully) the tail end of another weather phenomenon of which I have never heard. This one is called an ‘Atmospheric River’.

A what!?!

What the heck is an Atmospheric River? Well – Wikipedia can, of course, give us all the details – and here they be! To be honest, however, you will not really need to read up on this unpleasantness to have a good guess at what such a thing entails. It is wet… very wet… and it is in the atmosphere – until it falls on your head!

So – since sometime yesterday morning the rain has been hammering down pretty much constantly – and doing so with the sort of fierce determination that ‘gets things done’ (in this case flooding, mud slides, road closures, accidents and so forth). We have essentially been living on the inside of a cloud for the last forty eight hours and it is getting difficult to tell where the cloud ends and we begin. The situation is what might best be described as… wait for it… fluid!

Anyway – I have to drive down to College later to deliver a class and I am not really looking forward to that too much. it may be a bit of a hazardous journey.

Wish me luck!

Even during the wettest autumns there usually comes the occasional bright interlude. An alternative to getting out into the garden to slog one’s way through the many outstanding tasks there is to go for a nice walk instead.

To Gowlland Tod for example:

…of the year?

It is quite a responsibility – owning an expanse of lawn – and I am not at all sure that I am qualified for the job. Certainly I have discovered that I am far better at growing moss and mushrooms than I am at tending grass… and I am not sure that that is anything about which to brag.

This is a crucial time of the year for us lawn owners in the Pacific North West. If the grass is to get its best chance for next year then it must be tended correctly now. Nervous lawn guardians who lack the necessary knowledge (that would be me) naturally turn to the InterwebNet for advice and guidance.

The InterWebNet is agreed upon the following. Winter preparation involves a final close cut, clearance of leaves and other detritus, the addition of lime (almost always necessary here in the damp northwest where the firs and pines do their level best to swing the soil balance to the acid end of the spectrum) and then some slow-release fertilization to ensure that the grass has something on which to chew when it reawakens in the spring.

Most helpful – except that as soon as one tries to dig a little deeper – to get into the details – the advice becomes less certain.

When should one carry out the final cut? Some give vague guidance derived from the phases of the moon. The more down to earth say: “When the grass stops growing”. That’s all well and good in theory, but ascertaining that something is not happening is considerably more difficult than that it is. “What do you think? Has it stopped?” – “Dunno – looks like it might be about to have another spurt“.

Then there is the question of sequencing. Does one cut and clear before applying treatments? Should the liming occur before the fertilizing – or is it the other way around? Or can they be done at the same time? And if not, how long should one wait between treatments?

Apparently (according to the InterWebNet) the answer to all of these question is “Yes“… or “No“… or even “Maybe!“…  Or – most helpfully of all – “It depends!“…

None of this would matter too much except that this is wet season on the west coast of Canada. It is also ‘First storms of the winter‘ season. It is also ‘The sun’s shining – better get out in the garden – what shall we do first – oh no! too late – here comes the next downpour!‘ season.

It is little wonder that some years some of this stuff simply doesn’t get done. I’m not doing too badly this year. The lawn has had two final cuts already (“I hadn’t finished!“) and been limed. Autumn fertilizer awaits – as do other important garden tasks (clearing the gutters – cleaning up the last bunch of crap that was blown out of the trees) but at the moment the rain is mounting a major offensive. Who knows when next I will get the chance to venture forth onto the estate.

I will probably keep you posted…