Today's the Day

No picture with this post. Far too foggy out here on the wet coast. We spent the night at friend Lucille's fab place outside Port Moody - close to the water, close to nice hikes, the potential of nice views (when the fog lifts)..... and she drove us to the airport! So we're sittin' here, just sittin' here, waiting until it's time to go through security, find something to eat and wait until boarding time.

So far, the trip excitement was the snow we had to drive thru just to get to Vancouver. The mountain passes are snowy already. Paulson pass west of Castlegar had snow, just not quite enough to ski on. The day after, we ran into new snow and slush on the road not far from Summerland in the south Okanagan. As we got further west, the roads improved, although it did rain harder.

Air New Zealand had lots of agents at their ticket counters, checkin went fine and now we're taking turns hiking around the terminal building just to keep the blood flowing in the extremities. It's going to be a long flight in sitting position. Fortunately I can pace up and down and around the aisles of the plane.....don't expect to be sleeping much.

Next stop.....Auckland.

No Room at the Inn...er..woodshed

I should have been packing today, or at least getting organized to pack, but when opportunity knocks....

There's been a fire interface (fuel management) project on some crown land just to the north of our little subdivision. This is where a crew comes in and removes all the dead or dying trees and lots of the little stuff in the hopes that if there ever is a fire, there is less chance of it spreading, or perhaps spreading as fast.

This project is generating lots and lots of firewood, as you might imagine. Our woodshed is full, because we've spent the past month or so hauling and chainsawing dead trees and Catherine has been splitting. We finished filling the woodshed just the other day. This new wood was just so easy to get - back a trailer up to the pile, chainsaw off the pieces and throw them in. Drive down the road about 200 meters to our place and stack the wood ..... well, where, exactly? I ended up piling it up outside the woodshed and covered it with a tarp. It can stay there until spring.

I guess tonight and tomorrow morning, early, I really should get packed.

Goodbye Fall, Hello Spring

The past week or so has been pretty busy. We're mostly working to get the estate here ready for winter, driven mostly by the realization that we will soon be away for about 7 weeks. By the time we get back home, it will be winter.

We've been collecting leaves, horse manure and soil, working on the various garden beds around the place, cleaning the house, splitting wood and just generally finishing off the fall season.

Fall is usually quite pretty here in the Koots. We can look up to the hills above us and across the lake and see many, many golden larches in their fall splendor. The leaves in town might not be quite as nice as they are some years, but the sight of a large maple in full fall regalia is quite pleasing to the eye and the camera.

Today is one of those foggy, cloudy, rainy, soggy days that we get around here on occasion. There is even some snow mixed in with the general precipitation. A good day to work inside.

We're heading off for New Zealand in a few days, where spring is under way already. The packing is close to completed, just the travel to Vancouver and the looooong plane flight (14 hours). One oddity is that we will miss October 31 completely. We leave on the 30th and arrive in Auckland on November 1. October 31 will just disappear.

It should be possible to update the blog once in awhile and pictures will be posted to Picasa as usual. Watch for them.

Pork - Canadian Style

A Canadian institution without doubt, but why do Canadians keep putting up with it?

The recent news seems to highlight how inequitably the present government is handing out infrastructure grants. Reports are that Conservative ridings are receiving a disproportionate share of this funding. In case after case, across the country, Conservative ridings are receiving significantly more money than others.

Conservatives, having been caught out, are claiming that they are justified in receiving credit for funding and that "their" people are just working hard for their ridings. As if anyone would seriously believe this bull. This government was in denial about the approaching economic crisis in the first place and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into developing any infrastructure plans at all, so I'm not sure where they deserve credit. Besides, it's not their money, it's ours.

This is a government that swore they would improve transparency and end the pork-barrel politics that has been a feature of Canadian life since the days of John A. They promised a few other things as well, but apparently that's another sacred Canadian tradition.

The Conservatives have been denied a majority a couple of times now. Analysis believe it's because voters don't really trust them. Considering what the Conservatives under Mr Harper are doing with a minority, that fear could be well founded.

It would also help if the other parties would find some leaders who aren't such duds. Sorry, but the alternatives to the Tories are pathetic.

I've got a novel idea that might resolve this. In the next election, voters should give the Tories their majority and let's see just how bad they are when they have enough seats to do what they "really" want to do. Then the Canadian electorate (should they actually remember or care enough come the next election), can relegate this regressive crew to the dustbin of Canadian politics where they so justly deserve to be.

It's More Than Just American Unreason

The family librarian brings me a steady stream of fiction and "good literature", for which I am grateful, but recently she brought home this book, an excellent example of non-fiction, and a genre I tend to select when left to my own devices in the Library. It made for an excellent read, even though it certainly leaves one shaking one's head at the benighted state of today's store of knowledge, whether that's knowledge of science, of geography, or whatever. And, despite the title, it's not just Americans who suffer from this.

If I can paraphrase Bart Simpson, the prevailing state of mind seems to be: "Ignorant and proud of it".

I also happened to hear Richard Dawkins being interviewed on CBC Radio's The Current, back on September 29, where you can listen to the whole interview. Mr Dawkins quotes surveys that indicate 44% of Americans deny evolution and believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. In Britain, 28% believe that humans co-existed with dinosaurs and 19% believe it takes one month for the earth to orbit the sun. A short clip was played where an Arizona state legislator was recorded as saying that the earth was only 6000 years old, a statement equivalent to, according to Dawkins, believing the distance across the USA is only about 50 meters.

CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks from last January had a program segment about what the new American President should know about Science (Physics, especially), from a new book, Physics for Future Presidents. Just to remind ourselves, we're only a scant year after the 8-year term of George DubYa Bush, who rejected pretty much all scientific advice. Some of the comments made in this program segment were later attacked by some listeners; these were categorized by another listener as "What you're saying conflicts with what I believe, therefore you can't say that". There's a lot of this going around.

As Dawkins pointed out, we wouldn't want to fly in a plane where the pilot didn't know anything about flying, or go to a surgeon who didn't know anything about anatomy, but we seem to elect politicians who don't know anything about science, or geography, or world history, or economics, and who seem to be proud of it.

When you hear these stories, you need to remind yourself that we live in the 21st century and are surrounded by the results of much applied science (for better and for worse). It's almost inconceivable that so many people could be so poorly educated and in such a state of complete denial of so much of of our natural history. It's time, according to Dawkins and Jacobs, to stop accepting such ignorance as "other valid opinions" and start standing up for the knowledge we've gained in science. Evolution does happen, genetics is real, the earth is much older than 6000 years, dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years before humans appeared....

Monica Meadows

We've been planning a quick hike to Monica Meadows to see the fall larch color and have been waiting for an opportunity in conjunction with the height of fall color in the alpine. Monica Meadows is possibly one of the most scenic areas around here. Last fall we had a glorious day hike at the end of September with beautiful color in the larches, a blue sky and warm temperatures. This year we weren't so lucky.

We've been having a cold spell recently and some rain which almost always translates into snow up higher. As you can see from the photo, there was certainly snow up where we hiked. In some places, it would have been over my boots if I hadn't had my gaiters on. Did I mention that it was also pretty cool? Fortunately, there were blue patches in the sky and spots of sunshine here and there. The drive up Glacier Creek was, as always, very scenic, and the hike in and out of Monica Meadows was pretty fast, helping to burn up some calories on the day before Thanksgiving day dinner. This was also Andrea and Demitri's first visit to this area, although I have this feeling they were looking at the snowy slopes trying to figure out how they could get in here for some skiing this winter.

The photo looks out across some of Monica Meadows to the south, towards the Horseshoe Glacier which is just west of Jumbo Pass, the place where they still (thankfully) don't have another ski resort. For more pictures, visit http://picasaweb.google.ca/dave.mcc51/Summer2009#