The Spring Azures have emerged now with a spell of hot weather we are having. These little butterflies are pale blue or lilac on top at this time of year and they dance around the meadow of sweet vernal grass that we have in front of the house. They are joined at this time of the year only by the Cabbage Whites which are a little bigger.



The Azures actually hatch in two broods over the summer, with the later brood being a lot paler. No one seems to know why this is so.



The butterflies are just one more sign that spring is drawing to a close and that the really warm weather will be here soon. Over the last few days it has been hot, with temperatures in the 20s, which is about as hot as it ever gets in the spring. Funny to think that we had snow on Monday last.



Overnight we have had a low pressure systems move in from the coast bring south easterly winds and rain. The wind blew a large number of blossoms off our cherry tree and covered the driveway with them like snow. Our dogwood tree, sitting next to the cherry, burst into flower, but it does not look well. The leaves are very small and the flowers are misshaped.



That air smells incredibly sweet at this time of the year, from the alders I think. It's like a perfume, especially in the rain. The garden is loving this soaking this morning

Okay...we think that spring has finally arrived here. Yesterday there was a few inches on snow on the ground in North Vancouver and an ever so slight flurry here, but today was beautiful. Aine and I went over to Tunstall Bay on the west side of the island after supper to peer at the sunset, collect quartz and watch the planetary alignment shape up.



Tunstall Bay is my new favourite beach. It is a wide bay with a long beach cut into three by two piers. The heart of the beach is an old seawall and the brick remnants of an explosives factory that operated there in the early part of the century. It blew up three times, and the third time, the blast could be felt across the Strait of Georgia in Nanaimo, some 12 or so miles away. Following the demise of the factory, the land was bought by MacMillian-Bloedel and in the 1960s the company started to subdivide it. There is now an active Tunstall Bay Community Association which maintains a couple of tennis courts, a pool, a clubhouse and a private wharf.

It’s been a busy month.



I travelled to Alaska and Williams Lake for work and missed a whole lot of spring arrive here n the coast. Our garden is starting to bloom, with the daffodils and cherry tree leading the way. Rock daphne and tulips, lavender and rhododendrons are also flowering now. We have started a new flower bed kind of as an experiment nto see what the deer will eat and what they won’t. So far it has been planted with heather, yarrow, chrysanthemum and swan river daisies. The scent of wild plants like the sweet elixir of laurel and alder and the sharp tang of skunk cabbage fill the air.



Aine and I joined the Bowen Nature Club and went to hear a talk on the black tailed deer. We discovered that the reason they like to eat garden plants is the fact that these plants contain so much nitrogen. Nitrogen is critical to maintain a community of bacteria in the deer’s rumen, their first stomach, which allows them to process all kinds of food. Without these bacteria, the deer will die, and several have been recorded dying from malnutrition with a full stomach because they couldn’t digest what was in there.



We had a taste of summer this week. A high pressure ridge parked off the coast, bringing our typical summer weather pattern to us. We had clear sunny skies with temperatures in the 20s and no wind. We have all spent time at the beach and are already starting to tan. Down at Deep Bay the other day the tide was so low that Aine crossed the bay on foot and dug for small clams and heart cockles with her friends.



Today the clouds have moved in and we have had a little rain. The cooler wetter weather is good for the new plants, but lousy for the stargazing that we could do. There is a rare planetary alignment right now and the sky is awash with interesting things to see, including a naked eye comet which Aine and I glimpsed from Hood Point.

Well the snow is gone, the weather is a little warmer and the birds have resumed their spring songs. We still have juncos hanging around, but they should be gone soon. For some reason there has been a bald eagle circling over the house.



Other signs of spring include daffodils and a hyacinthe that has blossomed under the protection of a rose bush, which means the deer haven't clipped it to the ground. Down at the hatchery they are getting ready to release coho fry this weekend, and a big Easter egg hunt is planned for the picnic ground in the Cove. I get the sense that Easter picnics are somethign that have always gone on on Bowen, and I recall seeing pictures at the library of Edwardian women in long dresses doling out crustless sandwiches from wicker hampers.

Since 7:00am yesterday morning the snow has been falling. The hints of spring we have received over the past few weeks are distant memories now. Altogether we got about a foot of snow. All day there have been fog horns coming up from ships in the Channel. Today is sunny and cold with another Squamish wind battering the island.



We have had strange weather here this week. Over the weekend a Squamish wind veered a little east and ended up getting us. The cold literally blew through the house. The Squamish winds are caused by the high pressure air in the interior flowing out to the low pressure regions off the coast and that low pressure arrived yesterday with no winds, heavy snow and temperatures around zero.



We have a humming bird visiting us these days along with the little seedeaters who continue to feed off the front porch. With the snow today it’s been a rare treat to see all the birds, calling with their spring songs as they dipped in for a bite.



The temperatures are supposed to warm up over the next few days, ending this blast of winter. The old saying about march coming in like a lamb and out like a lion speaks to the really changeable nature of weather during this month, but with the snowfall and cold records that we have set this week, we have exceeded even the limits of that old saying.

Man is it cold here today. -3 with wind chills down to -20.



Here's what Environment Canada said happened this morning:



WWCN20 CWVR 061417

STORM WARNING

STORM WARNING ISSUED FOR THE COASTAL WATERS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA BY

THE PACIFIC WEATHER CENTRE OF ENVIRONMENT CANADA AT 6:17 AM PST

WEDNESDAY 6 MARCH 2002.



STORM WARNING ISSUED FOR

HOWE SOUND.



A STRONG ARCTIC OUTFLOW ON THE BC COAST THIS MORNING WILL DECREASE

SLIGHTLY IN INTENSITY LATER TODAY AS A STRONG ARCTIC RIDGE OF HIGH

PRESSURE BEGINS TO WEAKEN OVER THE BC INTERIOR. NORTHERLY OUTFLOW

WINDS HAVE REACHED SPEEDS UP TO STORM FORCE 50 KNOTS THIS MORNING

THROUGH HOWE SOUND. WINDS WILL EASE TO GALE FORCE THIS AFTERNOON.





Winds EASING to gale force. You get that? EASING. To GALE force. That's how windy it was here last night. A strong gale is a welcome relief. The water in the Queen Charlotte Channel looks like a river flowing south full of rapids and everything. There were some sailing cancellations on the Vancouver Island ferries this morning, but I've seen a couple go by recently.



No rain at least. Sky is turning blue now and the colour of the sea is following.

All day I have been watching the winds on the water in the channel. This morning, under a clear blue sky, the water was calm and blue and serene. Later a Squamish wind picked up and the water stayed blue but started churning, rolling great white waves southward to the Strait. This afternoon, the sea has calmed down and turned grey, under a sky of puffy cumulus clouds. There are only a few whitecaps out there at the moment.



We are bracing for another Squamish tonight which will affect us, if not because of the wind, then at least because of the windchills which are expected to drop as low as -20. All that cold interior air is being pushed down and out of the Shuswap by a big high pressure system. This conspired this morning to create an "Arctic outflow warning," which Environment Canada describes this way:



ARCTIC OUTFLOW WARNING FOR:

HOWE SOUND

SUNSHINE COAST

CENTRAL COAST - COASTAL SECTIONS

CENTRAL COAST - INLAND SECTIONS

NORTH COAST - COASTAL SECTIONS

NORTH COAST - INLAND SECTIONS.



OUTFLOW WINDS 50 TO 90 KM/H THROUGH THE INLETS COMBINED WITH

COLD TEMPERATURES WILL GIVE WIND CHILL OF MINUS 15 TO MINUS 25.



THIS IS A WARNING THAT COLD TEMPERATURES COMBINED WITH STRONG

WINDS TO GIVE HIGH WINDCHILLS ARE IMMINENT OR OCCURRING IN

THESE REGIONS. MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS..LISTEN FOR UPDATED

STATEMENTS.



As of right now that warning has been downgraded to a wind warning for Howe Sound, with cold wind chills, but more danger from the 70 km/h gusts themselves rather than the cold. Up the coast from us, in the Central Coast region, these winds have reached storm force, which translates as 50 knots or 93 km/h.



Spring is coming as evidenced by the crocuses in full bloom in the pots on our deck, but this wind, and the way were are going through our new pile of mill ends, suggests that winter still has us in its grip for now.