Fall is drawing itself to a close with some wild weather variation. Over the last week we have had a little snow, a lot of rain and some very warm temperatures. On December 8 the temperature hit 13.3 degrees which was a record high and we got 26 mm of rain which is a good load.



The winds have been less strong than normal this year, although in saying that we are bracing tonight for a southeasterly storm. We have had more Squamishes than normal here at the house. A Bowen oldtimer tells me that this wind is changing too. She mentioned that 15 years ago, the Squamish would blow straight into Horseshoe Bay, necessitating the bolting of doors at Trolls. These days, it flows through the channel and further west, often cascading over Collins Ridge and through our house. She had speculated that this was the result of logging in the Squamish and Elaho River Valleys changing the flow patterns of the air.



The other day while we were gathering slitstone pebbles at Bowen Bay beach, Finn stood in the spray of the crashing waves and reported that th water was quite warm. He was right. If this balminess keeps up, the Polar Bear swim on New Year's Day will be a breeze.

Just in time for the Christmas Season comes another great compilation CD of Bowen Island musicians called "Snowin' on Bowen." It features 20 tracks in the usual Bowen electic aesthetic, with jazz, lounge, classical, folk, rock, pop and Corbin Keep being the gamut of genres. Proceeds from the album will go to building a performing arts centre and supporting Bowen Island Family Place.



I have the pleasure of appearing on two tracks, in wildly different styles. On one I am playing flute and siging with Alison Nixon (viola and voice) and Carol MacKinnon (voice) on an old carol called Myn Lyking. On the other I am adding didgeridoo to my friend Chris Coon's tabla beats on another very old carol along with a wild soundscape of guitar, cello, percussion and vocal arranged by Julie Vik.



We are launching the CD on December 3 and 4 at Cates Hill Chapel with two nights of live music. Alison won;t be joining Carol and I but instead, Bazil Graham will add his sonorous tenor and Moritz Behm will be stepping in on violin. Tickets available at Phoenix Photo, The Office and Family Place. See you there if you can make it!

Raining right now. Not unusual for the fall, but it's steady rain with no wind. I've just done a bunch of scouring around and discovered that there is a warm front crossing over us with high pressure to the west and south. No low pressure, no wind. Interesting. It's a new kind of rain.

After a few days of heavy rain, the creeks are swollen and the coho and chum salmon have the taste of their birthplace. They have started running on Killarney and terminal Creeks, part of the cycle that Finn helped to initate last spring.



This is a photo of a coho chum coming up the weir from Deep Bay into the lagoon.

The first snow appeared on the tops of the Brittania Range mountains last week. This photo was from October 19, when a chilly overnight rain at our elevation resulted in the first high level dusting of the fall.

Returning to Snug Cove last evening, the October sunlight filtering through a lemon sky.

As you may have heard, Mount St. Helens is erupting again. It's a long way from here, in southern Washington State, but back in 1980 when the mountain well and truly did her thing, there was some ash that fell in these parts. That was in the spring when southerly winds are not so prevalent. This time of year, it's not unusual for the wind to come out of the south, so hopefully, when the mountain does blow, we're not in the throws of a Pineapple Express or it will be ash, wind and rain we'll have to contend with.



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