The Final Inspection

As of today, the house construction project is officially over. (I say officially because I suppose in some ways, you're never completely done...)

However, the Building Inspector visited today, the building permit is finished and the house is "officially" done. We (as in my contractor) started in the spring of 2004 with the foundation work. Framing, roof, windows and siding were done by later in the summer and I started on the inside that fall by myself. It took about another 3 years to finish everything. I've been a bit sidetracked for the past 2 years with rock walls, gardens, traveling and such, but I decided about 2 weeks ago that it was time to bring this project to a close. So today was the day.

It's been an interesting experience but I'm not sure if I'd want to do it again. I suppose the biggest issue was getting work done from 1300 km away, while we were still living on the Prairies. It was easier once we moved out here. That said, it's a nice space and we enjoy it very much.

I think I'm going to have a beer for lunch just to celebrate!

When You Can't Say (or Do) Anything Good....

I don't watch TV much, especially in summer, so I only recently had a chance to see the attack ads that the Federal Conservatives have been running against Iggy.



This seemed kinda dumb. I mean, it's not like everyone just spends their entire lives in the town they were born in these days, although maybe that's one of the "good 'ole values" the Conservatives often talk about....

So the Liberals respond:



Fair enough. Iggy doesn't really have to respond to such complete nonsense, and he is pretty mild (so far).

But then the humourists get their oar in (and here I'm assuming that this response wasn't written by the Liberals....).



So Mr Harper: doesn't your government have anyting "useful" to do? I'm thinking economic crisis, isotope meltdown, unemployment, voter cynicism, US protectionism... I dunno, there are just so many that come to mind. Unfortunately, I'm reading Obama's second book right now. I'm glad I'm Canadian, but I just long for some real leadership from our Federal government, not more of this tired, silly, crap. I guess when you don't have anything good to say or do, partisan nonsense is what the feeble minded always have to fall back on.

The Courtship Dive

The hummers have been back for a couple of weeks now. Most of the time it's been the Rufous Hummingbirds; just the other day we also had a Black-Chinned make an appearance. It's almost impossible to get a picture of these little guys, so I found one of a Rufous on World of Hummingbirds.com.

One of several interesting aspects of their behaviour is called the "courtship dive". The male will fly up about 60 feet or so and then plummit earthward, slamming on the air brakes at the bottom of the dive. There's a peculiar sound associated with the very end of the dive and, since they're traveling so fast, it's hard to tell exactly what's making it. It could be some type of vocalization or it could be from the feathers as they brake at the end of the dive. It sounds like a kind of chirpy squeak, kind of like the noise you'd get from a rubber duck toy that you might have used in the backtub (or perhaps still do). I've also seen the male flying rapidly back and forth in a horizontal line in front of a female sitting in a nearby tree.

I guess everyone has to make an impression somehow!

Free Range?

Catching up on some of CBC Radio's As It Happens podcasts in the middle of the night, I heard two stories related to modern-day child-rearing.

The first was an interview of a Mississippi mother who let her 10-year-old son walk to soccer practice (less than a mile through a residential area). Police arrived to chastize her after neighbours called 911 and reported the child alone walking on the sidewalk. To the credit of the town's police chief, the mother was reassured that it really was a safe neighbourhood (er... neighborhood).

The next was a repeat of a 2007 interview with a London-based researcher on what he called "Generational Roaming". He recounted how successive generations of one family had less and less opportunity to go anywhere, any distance, from their home, unless they were being driven or accompanied by an adult. This increasingly short leash is, in his opinion, doing harm to children and depriving them of learning opportunities.

These two stories reminded me of another interview I heard a few days ago on CBC Radio's The Point about "Free Range Kids". The mother being interviewed here was trying to allow her kids some of the freedom that modern-day kids are being deined.

Remember the days as a kid when you went out with your friends for the day and were told to be back for supper? Despite the increasingly irrational fear of everything that our society seems to be developing, it's good to see that at least some parents are bucking the trend.

You Know You're in BC...(part II)

When you can have a magnolia blooming in your front yard.

For those of you unfamiliar with this floral delight, it's a tree/large shrub with flowers somewhat reminiscent of tulips. In fact, I often call it the tulip tree. In any case, it's a Magnolia, and it's large blooms appear early in spring just before the leaves appear on the tree. This is our tree's first spring and it's showing us 5 large blooms.

I can happily report that it's been warmer lately and after the 1.5 inches of rain we a few days ago, things are growing very nicely. Catherine's flower beds are starting to look very attractive with more and more blooms on things I still don't recognize. Needless to say, I've been working on reinforcing the fence - the main line of defence between us, the flowers and the deer!

You Know You're in BC....

When part of the May Day Weekend is devoted to "Logger Sports".

I usually stay far away from weekends like this, but Catherine wanted to support the local volunteer fire department by buying me a burger and a beer for lunch. That made seeing some of the logger sports pretty much inevitable!

During our wait in the lineup for the burgers we were treated to tree climbing (y'know - spurs, rope, a tall pole...tree) and how fast contestants could cut off the end of a log with their chainsaw. I gather there were others - axe target throwing, tree felling, log carving, log rolling....

Yup - a very definite skill set needed when you live in the forests of BC....!

Another Side Show is Over

The only appropriate picture I could think of for this post was a black armband and I couldn't be bothered to take or find one.

The outcome of the provincial election was pretty clear by the time I turned in last night - another 4 to 5 years of the "Liberals" and no chance of electoral reform. Today, all the pundits are examining the results and trying to explain what it all means. Since I'm not a pundit of any kind, I feel I'm on safe ground here....

The "Liberal" win means more attempts to sell off BC assets and resources. From our parks to our rivers, the government now has a mandate to pretty much do what it wants. Not even the "gas tax" was enough to defeat them. The NDP loss means that there will be no backtracking on the carbon tax and that's a good thing. I was very, very disappointed in the NDPs campaign tactic on this and I'm sure many people put their vote elsewhere because of it. Unfortunately, not a single seat was won by the Green Party despite, once again, almost 10% of the popular vote. Which bring me to the most significant loss.

The referendum question on electoral reform was defeated, overwhelmingly. I'm not sure if it was fear of the proposed system's supposed complexity or the prospect of larger ridings or the difficulty of ranking your vote....1, 2, 3, 4.... that scared people off, but it's done. My disappointment is that it won't likely surface again in the debate during my lifetime. So we go on with the composition of our legislatures not representing how the voters really feel. It was a chance to explore something different, but in the final analysis, the majority voted for the good old status quo.

Like hockey, politics is mostly an irrelevant side show in my mind. Out here in the Koots, spring is in the air, hiking and climbing season is nearing, plants are growing and there are more important things to think about. The double loss yesterday is unfortunate, but the world will continue to unfold as it will. We can go back to grassroots opposition to government dumbness where it affects us directly. The rest we might as well forget about.

Season Opener

Although spring has pretty much been here in the Koots for a few weeks, today was the first time we've really gone anywhere since we got back from our trip south. Today was sunny and warm, so after doing our various jobs this morning, we packed up the canoe and headed across the Lake.

Although the Lake had been quite calm earlier in the morning, by the time we crossed, it was getting quite a swell from the south and there were a few whitecaps. We pressed on despite this and finally got to the sheltered bay near Powder Creek. The main objectives were to lie in the sun on the beach and have a weiner roast. Feeling quite hungry by about 4:30, I got the fire going. Six weiners later I was feeling much better.

Fortunately, as the afternoon progressed, the wind began to die down and our paddle back across the Lake was easier. It's quite remarkable how accessible such recreational pursuits are: it took us 45 minutes to cross the Lake, load up the truck and get back home. Looks like the summer season is here.

Alien Life Forms

On our recent trip south through one of the several deserts we explored, I managed to collect a cutting of a Beavertail Cactus. These little guys are deceptive: they don't have the big spikes common to most cactus plants, but they do have these little nubs all over them that have very small spines that can get lodged in your skin and are very difficult to remove.

I potted the cutting when I got home (using BBQ tongs to manipulate it) and assigned it a place in the south window - it's new life as a house plant. It had the flower bud on it when it was collected but I wasn't sure what would happen to that. Yesterday the bud started to open and today it was in full bloom.

I haven't seen many cactus in bloom on our trips south - we're usually there well before the flowering season, but on this last trip I saw several blooming on one of our hikes down into the Grand Canyon. They are truly a colorful feature in the desert and I was constantly looking out for more of them as we traveled.

I'm hoping that this one will develop roots and thrive as several others have, all sharing space on my window ledge, looking south.

Search for Spring in Rossland

Since the snow is rapidly leaving and a gardener's thoughts can finally turn to the new season, I made a quick trip to Rossland to do the tilling in my daughter's garden. She and her hubby and myself got busy Friday evening about a week ago and tilled up most of their back yard. Given our gardening experience around our place, I can report that they didn't have a single rock or stone in the whole place. Completely amazing.

They also have these cute little iris flowers blooming just outside their back door. A number of other floral specimens were also showing their tops above the ground. All they need is a couple of weeks and some warmer weather.

One interesting note: as I was leaving their place Saturday around noon and driving down one of the residential streets in town, I met a young moose galloping up the street with his tongue hanging out, obviously not very happy about where he found himself.

BC-STV - Power Up Your Vote

British Columbia is in the final stages of a provincial election. That's probably the least interesting thing that's going on May 12th. Along with electing the next bunch of snake oil salesmen (er...salespersons), BC voters will be making a decision on a radically new way of electing our representatives. It's called the Single Transferrable Vote.

Predictably, there are dissenters, but the best they can come up with as a reason to defeat this referendum is that the proposed system is "too complicated".

As citizens in the 21st Century, there are many things in our lives that are complicated. Computers, modern vehicles, disease epidemiology, flying a modern jetliner, medical technology, balancing your bank statements....all come to mind. And yet, almost all of us embrace or at least use and often trust all of these and more. C'mon people. It's not like you have to completely understand the STV system just to recognize that it could be a big improvement over what we have now. It's really easy to use. "Too complicated" just isn't a good enough reason. And it's not really all "that" complicated....