A Walk in Two Voices

... the engine appears on the tracks ...

Bonnie pulled out one of the many maps of LaRue’s 60 acres saying that she was going to chart all of the walks around the property that she was planning to take.

Looking at the map, I imagined that she would plot trails along the 66 foot road, mark paths along Pilling’s Road, along the Grandfather’s Trail, walk the section down old Sicamous Road, trod a beach walk along a ¼ of a mile of loose gravel, and, perhaps take the hardly known trail from the Ramp Camp past Shady Beach, cross on top of the three wooden planks over a stream, and into Sandy Beach.

But when I looked at that map, I thought about a lecture I had gone to where Indigenous mapping had been done on the back of a bear hide.

That trail started in central Alberta, went down through the Porcupine Hills and into the US.

The presenter had followed the trail, that wasn’t measured in the length of miles, but more in terms of which landmark preceded the one before and after it.

... Arta rests in the forest ...

I began to wonder what a page would look like if I were to do mapping in my fall walks in this fashion.

On today’s walk I started giving my own names to places; the spot where a five-clump birch had fallen over, all file boles still attached to the roots, but it had fallen across the path where we were walking.

I could see where the trail maintenance people had cut out four foot lengths of wood to let us by. 

I look at how the birch boles stretched out on the other side of the trail, past the cuts.

Another spot, one might be familiar with, is the fork in the trail behind David and Shawna’s house, the one where a person can easily go straight ahead instead of turning left, and thus miss that trail altogether, and just end up walking the steep embankment of that first creek, the one where LaRue has a walking easement now for its Lot Licencees.

A shame to miss that fork, since there are charming landmarks along the trail that leads to Shady Beach.

... Greg on his way to Sicamous ...

I don’t have a good name for one of the spaces where previous holiday-ers left the debris from their parties where they were practicing shooting their guns: pierced plastic 4 litre jugs, a bull’s eye ring now deteriorating on the ground, pellet pock-marked pop cans.

No sin in using them as a target. 

A case to be made for at least laziness in leaving the debris behind. 

I always have the impulse to bring a bag and clean the forest up in that spot, but one wiser than I has told me to leave it alone so that all can witness what happens when others don’t take care of the forest.

A spot that would be on my metaphorical bear skin map is always the place that leads south down to the creek where there is a chance to cup my hands and get a cool drink of water.

... mushrooms as a fried egg ...

Along the steep embankment, is a fir sapling, whose branches were twisted back and forth among its other boughs, none of them cut, but instead braided out of the way of passers-by. 

A couple of years have passed now and that bowed bole is crescent shaped, and I enjoy the interlacing pattern of the boughs in that space.

I’ve walked this trail with others, for some reason Cindy (Crabtree) Bowe and Ria Meronek came to mind as I walked the trail today.

I thought about how memories of other loved ones are imprinted along the trail, not just the actual walks that I have taken with them, but photos I have studied of other families as they have walked that trail.

Bonnie is the one who spotted mushrooms.

I was treading on them, not really seeing them. I was walking three feet behind her and on occasion I wanted to have her stop and take a picture with her superior camera, pictures of the tiniest of mushrooms once I saw them, far smaller than a baby finger fingernail.

But what good would a picture have been, I thought. 

There was no other forest measurement to let viewers know how really tiny those mushrooms were.

... an eagle soars by ... now only a smudge on a photo ...

We were walking under the forest cover of many tall Douglas fir trees.

I had to position my legs and my cane in a three-point stance and hang on to another tree so I could run my eye along the bole to the very tip of the tree.

I used my camera to get a picture, but was laughing at myself for I had to take a picture of the top third, the middle third, and the bottom third.

I wanted to touch the bark, because it’s crevices were so brown and dark and deep, and I wondered if anyone else will take that tree as a marker in the forest.

If you do, you’ll find the tree still standing, just where you leave LaRue’s property and walk up the steep incline of Crown Land that takes a person to the end of Old Sicamous Trail. 

That tree has been there a long time, but probably not 200 years. 

 

... Annis Siding ends ...

When I first came to the property in the early 1960’s I would walk through the forest with Doral and on occasion we would come to a pile of deteriorating garbage, old cans now rusted away so that only half the can was left. 

I have a three-sided glass bottle at my house that I picked out of this pile.

I cleaned it up and still use to put fresh flowers in.

Doral told me it was the debris from old work camps that I was looking at. 

Glen has explained to me that the property is an old-growth forest that has been logged, so I know that the remnants when the land was an ancient forest are now gone.

... bleached bones on the trail ...
Is one a scapula?

As we walked home along the shore a couple of days ago, Bonnie alluded to a story we found that had been written by early settlers.

A team of horses had broken away and for some reason had run into the water and the driver who had been hired by the farmer, instead of abandoning the horses, rode with them trying to save them, and all perished -- drowned.

The writer of that column hypothesized that sometimes you can see the horses and the driver galloping along the top of the water. 

I’m not that kind of romantic story teller.

I always think, too bad that fellow lost his life in the service of his master, rather than spending what years he might have had left enjoying this part of the earth as so many before him have done.

Arta

Photo Credit: Bonnie Johnson

Shopping at Wyona’s

 

Wyona Bates opened her jewellery shop on ETSY this week.

Apparently, all you have to do is go to ETSY, and type in NecklaceArtistryZoey

Moiya showed me how to go there when she was over for a visit.

Now I have to figure out if I can make it work on my own. 

I can do it.  I know I can!  And I will figure out a way to bring a few pics down for my readers.

Lapis Lazuli & Silver
chunky statement
 with kyanite, sapphire, and sodalite beads
of fascinating blues and silver.
$210

Vibrant Necklace of Natural Red Coral,
Natural white Onyx Chunky Nugget shapes,
white lava and red bamboo coral (imitation).
$120

Arta

Going from long hair to short

Who cut your hair?

... that was me ..

I am curious when someone chooses to cut their own hair.

I shouldn't be surprised, for lots of adults to it.

But when  seven year old cuts her hair, then I don't know the appropriate question to ask her, so that I can find out why the scissors took off her golden locks.

... Alice learned to love to read in Grade I ...

The best after-answer that I heard from Alice was that now she looks like Aunt Rebecca. 

Alice is right. 

Shorter hair at the back and something around the ears is a cut that Rebecca has worn for years.

And now Alice has it, and she cut it herself, much to the surprise of her parental unit.

Well, that saved a trip to the hairdresser.

Arta

Call the Plumber

 

... a bee enjoys the dying bee balm ...

I was doing dishes, and the large Mason insert lid made an airlock between itself and the plug and I couldn’t get the water to drain. 

I tried to lift it with the tip of a knife. 

That didn’t work. I finished up my dishes on the other side of the sink, and hoped that Bonnie would wake up in time to plunge her hand into the other side of the sink before the water got cold and greasy. That didn’t happen.

I finished making apricot and white chocolate muffins (no apricot jam so I used raspberry; no white chocolate so I used chocolate chips). 

After our morning repast, where the muffin papers didn’t release all that well from the side of the muffins, we went after the sink. 

That would be Bonnie who went after the sink.

... new mullein grows under my deck ...
The internet claims both fresh and dried leaves
of this plant make good tea -- after straining.

First, she emptied out the water with a bowl, something I would have called the plumber to do. 

Then she got the last ¼ cup of dirty dishwater out with a sponge. 

She, too, went after the mason lid with a knife. 

She could see that wasn’t going to work. 

She said she could feel some wobbling of the lid, so there was hope. 

She looked for something thinner than the tip of the knife, and since she had been sewing last night what came to mind was a needle and thread. 

She found space for the needle to slide between the mason lid and the sink ring, but the needle didn’t have enough strength to break that seal. Next she took the needle, and threaded it through the gummy seal of the mason jar thread in the eye of the needle.

Out popped the lid.

As I said, I would have called the plumber, not the seamstress.

Arta

Buy Bear Spray

Bonnie and I have new gifts from Rebecca -- 
planners to keep track of our lives.

Bonnie and I took an evening walk with a full wheelbarrow: one small Tupperware of triple ginger cookies; one pickle jar full of clean, cracked egg shells collected by Miranda during the summer; and one ½ bag (wheelbarrow size) of white wood chips that had been used in the chicken coop.

I was using my cane and concentrating on using the muscles on my left hip so I could strengthen them. Bonnie was concentrating on the stability of the wheel barrow, and at the same time worrying about bear scat we had seen on the road. Bonnie said the scat looked fresh. I wanted to know how fresh, so I hovered my hand close to the first pile to feel for heat. 

She said, “You can really tell?” and went to hover her hand over a second pile just up the road. I could hear Doral Pilling laughing.

David Pilling graciously accepted our wheelbarrow of gifts, and he showed us his autumn garden, telling us that next year he has new designs. For one thing, he is going to expand his hydroponic strawberries. He’s going to build a greenhouse for his tomatoes. When he said that he put his arms high in the sky to a point, so I guess it is going to be a very large greenhouse. He still has peppers on the vine, and gave us one, called “Fire Away” but he said it is not that hot.

When David Pilling answered his door, he had asked us, “Are you going for a walk?” and without pausing he said, “I’ll give you my bear spray.”

We said, “No, we are just dropping off a few things and going right back home.” He said, “Good. Because I will need my bear spray for work tomorrow.”

“Do you use bear spray?” I queried.

“Well, I carry it,” he replied, “but I haven’t had to use it yet.”

Bonnie said, “Since we only have a wheelbarrow, I had already thought through that it had room under it for one, and the other one of us would be the appetizer, that one would be Arta.”

David didn’t smile. He said, “They say your best bet is to intimidate the bear.” He went on, “Once I met a bear in the bush. I had an axe in my hand. When you meet a bear, there is an incredible surge of adrenaline that goes through your body. The options are fight, flight or freeze, but in the end, you face the reality that what happens is really up to the bear.”

Bonnie said, “Do you think we should buy some bear spray David?”

He said, “Well, it’s only $40 at Canadian Tire. You have to sign some acknowledgement. You wait for the bear to be about three feet from you, and then you spray.”

Bonnie said, “But Arta will have to make sure she doesn’t get it mixed up with her Nitro spray for her heart.”

At the same time, I was thinking, “Three feet. That’s Coronavirus distance.”

David said, I know the bear spray works. When I was really young, when we first moved out here, and all the visitors went home, me and my friends went through the cabins gathering up everything that said “flammable”, to test the canisters out. When it came to the bear spray, it shot out three feet but we went running back about twenty feet, stunned. The fumes get into your sinus and they don’t go away.”

When he said this, I wondered, it if stuns both me and the bear, will it come down to which of us decides to run and which decides to stay and fight after we both come to?

We plan to go to Canadian Tire.

You’ll have to guess what it is we are going to buy.

Arta

Come for Pho Soup

Moiya told Bonnie and me that she was making pho soup from scratch -- a new recipe to her. 

She was simmering the bones for hours and hours, and she made me think of a long article I had read about the popularity of this soup. 

I was interested for people were lining up for 10 minutes are so at pho fast food soup spots, just waiting for the soup. 

Then I thought no more of Moiya's experiment.

David Wood came over to clean out the gutters at my house. 

He was also screwing back into the house, some of the gutters that had fallen away. was his helper down below, emptying the buckets as fast as he could fill them

When it came to the dangerous spots of the house, the ones that were too high, he got a different ladder from his house, me carrying one end and he carrying the other. 

 

I had to put the ladder down half way and regain a bit of strength for the last leg of the trip over to my house. 

We put the ladder down by Miranda's plum tree. "Did you take the plums off of this tree?" I questioned Dave. "No, I didn't even know it was a plum tree," he answered.  

We checked the ground. Just one small purple piece of a half-eaten and now dried plum was all we could find. Bonnie has been watching that tree, and the plums were just perfectly ripe -- one day away from picking them. Must have been a racoon.

Well, no plums for us this year, and Dave and I continued on with the ladder.

Don't worry about safety, Dave said to me. I took a course with NavCanada about how to use ladders. 

Do you use the information you gained, I queried. 

He laughed. 

"Not all, but I do believe in getting the ladder level at the bottom. Let's go to the garage and bring out your level", he went on to say.  

We were just 10 minutes away from finishing when Moiya called to say, come over for pho soup. I was too tired from the morning's work. I took a pass and went to bed.

At least Moiya sent me the pictures of what I missed. 

 A good second best to eating it.

Arta

Photo' Credit: Moiya Wood

A Big Root and a Switch Back

 Glen tells me that he has fractured his scapula.

I wonder how.

He said, "Just be careful when you ride your bike over a big root on the switchbacks. Stand up and put your weight way back over your back tire."

I should be so lucky as to be able to ride a bike along the top of the Larch Hills Trails.

Arta