First autumn storm

The first serious windstorm of the season hit last night, with winds gusting to 70km/h coming howling out of the southeast.  They built in steadily over the night, becoming strongest at about 5am and then the rain started, deluging everything.  This morning, taking a late morning ferry into town, the Sound was choppy with swells and whitecaps and full of logs that had been lifted by this week's 15 foot high tides and scattered hither and yon by the wind.

Respite from the fall rains

Fall rains have begun in earnest but not with heavy winds yet.  Lats night it poured straight down and this morning a northwesterly cleared the air and brought a chill to things.  Snow on Mount Brunswick today and a definite chill in the air.  The salmon should be home very soon, if they survived running the gauntlet of fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago two years ago when they went to sea.  Most of the salmon runs who pass by those farms have been decimated in the past few years.  Sea lice kill the young ones.  Our chum and coho both swim through there on their way to the sea.

So we'll start to keep a vigil for the chum that return in November when the conditions are right.  In the meantime, enjoying this beautiful day before the rains come for good.

Fall is trying to get in

Stormy weather last night and today. The rains and winds have returned and there was even a thunderclap or two this afternoon. The Channel was churning with great waves crashing against the Bird Islets. Still warm, but the odd scent of woodsmoke is on the air.

How much prouder of Bowen could I be?

This has just been a fantastic month of community. If you really want to get a sense of how this island celebrates itself, you need to spend the last two weeks of August here. We have been celebrating, visioning, playing and socializing a plenty this month, and as Sally Freeman said "I'm in love with my island again!"

A couple of weeks ago, Bowfeast ran down in the Cove. In front of the library, two dozen stalls were set up featuring food from local farmers, gardeners and kids. We had everything from veggies to preserves, flowers, bees, honey and books. There was live music courtesy of us buskers, a picnic in the orchard and across the road, the weekend market was in full swing. There was a great vibe in the Cove that weekend, and I WISH WISH WISH we could do that every weekend all summer long. A vision of some great possibility there.

Also last weekend, the OCP review (follow the link to fill in the survey) on the island got going with the first public meetings, including a well run visioning session. The process seems to be off to a good start, and so far it's meeting my prime criteria of increasing social capital while designing and plan that works. There is a long road to go, but all is good so far. Our Bowen Island Ourselves site has been made a part of the process, and a community gathering we're sponsoring on September 13 will have some contribution to make to the overall process.

Yesterday we had our traditional end of summer gathering in Crippen Park, Bowfest. IN the last three years, the community has really taken over the festival and it has been outstanding ever since, with renewed life and energy. This year, I think for the first time in years, ALL of the musical talent was Bowen based (including honorary lifetime citizen Corbin Keep!). This included an excellent songwriters contest and a variety of music entertainment on two stages with rock and roll, folk, jazz, jugband, and all kinds of interstitial musical genres besides. The weather was beautiful and dancing in the evening to the Bowen Divas and Tony Dominelli was great fun.

It has been a summer of good stuff happening, and now we begin to wind it down in earnest and start to welcome back the fall, with hope for good rains and salmon.

Turning

Certainly feels like things are turning...Ocean is cooling and the recent rains are distincly late summer. But, we have had a pretty strong El Nino this year, and if my interpretation of the North Pacific weather map is right the high pressure is building again and a long stretch of sun and warmth might be in the offing. For me, early signs of fall are the call of crickets and the way low cloud builds into the Sound, with a layer of it hanging at about 1000 feet against the wall of the Britannia Range. That signals cool and wetter air. We often get a spell like that in summer before it a last blast of heat returns to ripen the blackberries and shine on Bowfest (fingers crossed!). First week of September is rainy, then usually a nice stretch of cool nights and warm days for September before the Salmon Calling season begins, and the streams fill with rain.

Another season at the ball yard draws to a close

Spent the weekend down at the ball field in the Cove watching the 24th annual Bowen Island Men's Fastpitch Tournament. All six teams play three games each and the top four go through to a knock out round.

There weren't too many exciting games in the round robin, but the first game between the Diggers and the Celtics was fantastic. The lead kept switching back and forth and the Celtics won 8-7 holding on to secure the victory over the Diggers. The Diggers are a great young team, coming into their own with excellent defence. During the regular season they won their last nine games in a row to finish well. They are definitely the team to watch.

All of that youthful vigour however comes at a price, and in the semi-final they drew the Twins, a long standing and very experienced team. The Diggers were one out away from victory when an errant throw from third led to two runs scoring. Needing to bat again, the Diggers had the tying run on third with two out when the runner was called out for leading off, which is of course illegal in softball. The umps had no choice - he was at least two paces down the third base line, nut it was a heartbreaking way to finish their season.

The Firemen beat the tired Celtics in the other semi-final and a rematch of last year's final was set. The Twins put on a clinic, with their years of experience showing as they couldn't let the Firemen get started. Despite a late rally, the Twins won the Championship again this year making it two in a row and moving to an all-time record of 12 wins out of the 24 tournaments dating back to 1986.

So fastpitch on the dry field in the Cove wraps up for another season, and the first signs of the end of summer are upon us. Bowfeast next weekend, followed by BowFest two weeks after that. As if to foreshadow the change, a low pressure system has moved in today and it is cool and raining, heavily at times, and the southeast wind occasionally shakes the trees.

Summer and seals

The North Pacific high is well established bringing calm, hot and clear weather to the south coast of BC. This is turning out to be a massively dry summer, fuelling forest fires in the interior and creating drought conditions all over the place. It reminds me of 2003, when the salal in the forest margin behind our house dried up and died. The huckleberries are thin and mealy and the cedars are drying out.

Most significant of all, Bill Newport wrote yesterday that Terminal Creek has dried up for the first time in recent memory. Terminal Creek feeds the fish hatchery, and disaster could have struck the coho and the chum fingerlings, but the hatchery stewards got water pumped through in time. The note of alarm in Bill's voice is distinctive though, and I'm surprised we haven't yet heard of water restrictions on the Cove Bay system.

IN another note, the ocean has been stunningly warm and the swimming is excellent. Yesterday Finn and I went over to Bowen Bay and I swam out to the float to relax. While I was lying there with my legs dangling in the water, I felt a kid bump my foot and when I looked down I saw that it wasn't a kid at all but a seal pup bobbing in the water. I said hello, it looked at me for a few minutes, and bumped my foot with it's flipper again before slowly swimming away. It kept coming back to the float though, playing around with kids and adults who were swimming out there.

Cute and all, but remember that if you go out there, try not to initiatie contact with it. If this little seal grows to be curious about humans, it could create problems later in life if it approaches boats. So as with all seal pup events at Bowen Bay, give it it's distance.

Finally home for the summer

After a busy year of travelling, I'm finally back home on the Rock and learning to slow myself down. Yesterday was the first full day at home in a month and I had every intention of going berry picking - huckleberry and salal are ripe and some early Oregon grape - and working in the garden and going for a swim and instead I just lay out on the front porch at 1:30 to listen to some podcasts and I fell into a deep slumber, awaking at 6:30 in time to make some supper. I notice that I just need to sink in here.

While we were away in Atlantic Canada for the past month, the deer got into our garden and had their way with it. They stripped the strawberries of leaves and whatever fruit was left, ate all the peas, the beans and the squash plants. They also ruined the tomatoes, but they left potatoes, onions, garlic and beebalm alone. We have several crops growing under row covers - beets, carrots, lettuce, asian greens - and these all survived. The garden is now hermetically sealed and the deer are keeping a watchful eye on things, but so far they are unable to get in.

And speaking of deer, there are a couple of families around our place. Two handsome bucks and two does, one of whom has had her pair of fawns in the last couple of weeks.

We are having a divine summer here on Bowen - probably heading for a water shortage - but the sun and sea are glorious and I intend to soak it up as much as possible.

To the Cape

Finn and I went out on our first salmonberry picking trip of the year, and came back with a couple of pounds of fruit, some of which will be baked into a salmonberry cheesecake for my birthday this weekend! The bushes are good, heavy with berries and very healthy this year.

Last night Caitlin and I put the canoe in at Tunstall Bay and paddled to Cape Roger Curtis. I have never been down to the Cape by water before. Most of the shoreline is rocky cliff along the water, much higher than it seems from the land. There are only a couple of beaches but there are several little coves. Some of the trees are amazing. There is one shore pine that looks like someone has literally thrown it against the side of the cliff and it has stuck there. Next time I go, I'll take a camera.

The Cape is really the most wild and beautiful place on this island. We picnicked by the lighthouse watching tow boats and ferries lazily move by while overhead planes made their wide turn over the Strait to make final approach at YVR. Closer to the sea, there were four eagles out and about trying their luck at fishing but only a nearby heron was having any luck. We had an escort seal for the trip back who seemed also to be having some luck chasing salmon out in the channel.

We have high spring tides right now, and the beaches and reefs were completely submerged making for a leisurely trip back poking into the coves and caves on the way.

All in all a nice end to a summery day.

Smoke on the water

A most glorious weekend here on Bowen.  The weather has been amazing for the past week and our garden is in.  Saturday we went up to Tir na Nog to see Aine's latest performance, another retelling of The Neverending Story.  After seeing this play for the fourth time in about eight years, I think I finally get it, and the blur between reality and fantasy is a resonant trope for Tir na Nog families.

Later Saturday night I caught up with Corbin Keep, who moved over to Gabriola last year.  He was back for a performance at The Gallery in front of a small group of friends.  Most of the arts loving islanders were over in Vancouver at a concert that Alison Nixon put together to raise money for a therapeutic community she is helping to create for families living with mental health challenges.  Corbin's crowd was amused and amazed by his antics, songs, satires and sheer hubristic bizarreness.  Much ink has been spilled about Corbin's ability to wring a symphony of sounds out of a cello, but to see him is really to believe.  And to see him at home among friends is a lovely treat.

Sunday, I went with Aine down to the Pier for some tacos and sat in with some of Bowen's fine bluegrass players, including Murray Journeay, Bob Doucet, Jeff Scouten and Paul "One-Winged" Grant among opthers.  some soccer with Finn and Caitlin.  During Caitlin's scrimmage between her women's team and the U14 boys at the Bowen Island Football Club, she got caught in a hole in the field and tore her hamstring.  Poor one...she's laid up in a pretty peck of pain and her season is probably done.  

This morning, coming across to Vancouver with my friend Steven Wright, we noticed the smell of smoke on the wind.  Once we got to the Cove we could see why.  There is a 550 hectare forest fire burning up at Gold Lake near Lillooet and the light Squamish wind that had come up in the night had sucked smoke from there down to the Coast.  From Vancouver there is a brown smear across the horizon and the sun rose angrily through it this morning, promising a day of 30 degrees and probably more smoke to come.  

June always brings rains, so this taste of summer is usually shortlived, but by God, it feels like July out there already and one gets the feeling that a long hot summer is in the works.  

The rhythm of the morning

Another beautiful morning here: clear and still.  In the dawn chorus, there are a pair of chickadees nesting across the road from us that are the champion singers.  They are doing their little call which is a two note descending tweet-tweet.  One chickadee does it and the other follows on with the same song, but sung a note lower.  Their rhythm is steady, and when they get out of synch, they stop and start again.  

In the meantime, the crows and ravens are cawing, the flickers are drumming, towhees wheezing in the undergrowth.  The nature of spring means that everyone is repeating their various sounds on a regular interval, and the forest is full of rhythm.  Once in a while, warblers and wrens let loose with solos over top of the whole thing.  It's as if someone has sampled all of these birds and put them into a bed track.  You could rhyme over top of it easily.  The rhythm shifts and changes subtly but it is so engaging that I lay in my sleeping bag for a full hour listening raptly to the chorus, and feeling all of these beats beneath it.

Nicest day of the year

Sweet air today, the morning full of the piercing calls of Varied Thrushes and a sweet emergence of pollen from the alders. The sun is shining and it's near 20 degress is the sheltered sun - eating lunch on the back porch.

The Queen of Capilano is back in service, plying the calm blue waters of the Channel. All is well.

Geese have set off

One more sign of spring...the snow geese that travel annually between their Siberian breeding grounds and the Fraser River estuary were seen today heading north.  A couple of flocks over well over 200 birds passed high overhead in a ragged V formation, honking enthusiastically at the prospect of warmer weather and hot times on the tundra.

Welcome the vernal equinox

Spring arrived today. The dawn chorus is in full song, with winter wrens and robins singing their hearts out to attract mates and keep others at bay. Last night was the warmest night of the year, so warm that I had to kick off an extra blanket I had been sleeping with all winter. My three season sleeping bag is back in its zone again.

Signs of spring

The cool and rainy weather is continuing and last night there were high winds blowing cold from the southeast. Today the kids and I went for a walk around the lake, looking at the way that the forest was coming back to life. The ferns are still flat on the ground, and no fiddleheads have started to emerge yet, but the mosses are verdant and the rain forest is the most vivid shade of green. When a little weak sunlight seeps through the clouds, the yellows and greens and blues come alive, maples covered in moss, goats-beard hanging off the hemlocks and sitka spruce.

The mosqutos are out now, swarming around the water, and doing well with no swallows here yet, and no bats around either. There were buffleheads and scaups on the lake, Canada geese padding around on the ice still formed around the edges of the water and flocks of kinglets and chickadees staking out territory.

In the marshes, the skunk cabbage - ch'úukw' in Skwxwu7mesh - is just starting to come up, not flowering yet, but perhaps it will in a few weeks. No horsetails yet either, but you can feel things wanting to burst free. In traditional Skwxwu7mesh culture, this is considered the time when the winter dances draw to a close, and the longhouses close up. All winter, the energy and life that the earth has ceded is available to spirit dancers in the longhouse, but when the earth reawakens for the spring, that energy is no longer available, and the dances stop until the winter again.

The power is returning to the land.

Rains have returned

As Caitlin said, we have re-entered British Columbia. It is raining today and thick low cloud hovers in the Sound. It's colder and damper out than it has been since the fall.

We puttered in the garden today, looking for more places to build beds on our cliff face and contemplating this year's crops. Pulled some leeks that overwintered and threw them in a soup pot tonight. Lovely!

Daffodils are peeping up, but they'll hold off for a few weeks now I bet.

Birds of the midwinter

Even though it is technically midwinter, the spring migrations have started. Yesterday down on Mannion Bay I came across this flock of black turnstones hanging out with the mew gulls stopping off here to feast on crabs and sand fleas. They overwinter here on the south coast. preparing to make their way slowly to their breeding grounds on the Alaskan coast. These ones are all done up in their breeding plumage, ready to return to the breeding grounds, but they have a few more months before things thaw up there.

Also on this little walk, a great blue heron and our resident ornery but beautiful swan. Oh and for good measure, our resident fawn, who hangs out with the feral chicken we look after. We had two chickens, but one succumbed to the red tailed hawk that was hanging around here a few weeks ago. All that is left of poor Huckleberry is a pile of feathers and some well picked over shoulder bones.

It's funny weather right now. Along the beaches and exposed roads down low the smells of summer are wafting around - dry fir needles and dust - while in the forest and the low lying meadow in Crippen Park, there is still several inches of snow. There has been snow on that meadow since December 16, and we have had so little rain - less than 30mm this month - that it shows no signs of washing away anytime soon. Usually snow like that, even in great quantities is gone in a few days, but the extended snow falls of Christmas combined with a thaw/freeze cycle and the generally dry and sunny and cold weather has prolonged winter for an extended spell.

Spring is in the air

The dawn chorus this morning, while not exactly bursting with birdsong, had some minor changes in it. For one thing, on this clear calm morning, the birds were very active: Canada geese in the bay were constant, nuthatches going crazy and the juncos were making all kinds of noise. Ravens, crows, eagles, flickers, robins and mallards all joined in the fun. The towhees have started their trilling. All of this is preludes to things to come.

And another ritual has taken hold too, with the replacement of the Queen of Capilano for six weeks by the Bowen Queen. It used to be that the maintenance refits were an annual thing for the Cap, but it seems that they have become less scheduled over the past couple of years. At any rate, she's out for a spell, and the delightful little Bowen Queen is back in the fold. Commuter hell will follow, but I like her.

Midwinter brilliance

A beautiful day, bright and sunny and relatively warm. Finn and I spent the day together poking around hoe in the sun and then heading to BICS where he played indoor soccer for a bit. After that we headed outside and played together in a pick up game with some of our favourite island youth on the only uncovered spot on the field, a little strip at the north end - the rest of the field is still covered in deep packed snow.

While there we heard about a little event at Crippen Park, where a small winter festival was wrapping up. We headed down to the Bowfest field and joined the fun at a beach fire where the was chocolate fondue and stories and songs. We stayed for a couple of hours, as the sky darkened and Venus shone brightly in the western sky. The moon was low behind Apodaca Ridge and the stars popped out one after another, constellations taking shape all around us, a shimmering glitterworld above us reflected in the still water of the Cove on a low low tide. Looks like the sun will continue for the rest of the week.

A springish walk

Finn and I went for a walk down to the Cove this afternnon, turning over rocks at Mother's Beach finding crabs and gunnels. There were oystercatchers in the Bay, along with the regular flocks of mew gulls and Canada Geese and mallards. On Killarney Creek beneath ther Miller Road bridge there was a weird hybrid or escaped domestic duck. Didn't have my camera.

In the forest the ferns are all flat and emerging from the heavy snow that has squashed them for the past six weeks. The forest looks very strange - usually an undulating floor of hummocked fern piles, it's now all smooth and flat, and ready to green up for spring. Everything still seems to be wating though