The Squamidian Report - Jan. 24/03

Hi All,

This is coming out a day or so early to accommodate visiting Ontario. I don't know how I'll manage the temperature change. I'm used to the balmy west coast. In fact, I haven’t even needed to dig my winter coat out of it's packing box. And I can't even remember if I have any winter boots.

We took down our outdoor Christmas lights last Saturday. That's a bit of a record for me. I usually wait until about mid June. I couldn't have taken them down in January back on Hidden Valley even if I'd wanted to, they would be under about a foot of ice along the edge of the roof.

Would you believe we have flowers out. Little tiny violet type things, don't know what they are called. And the roses have new leaves and their buds are growing. They will be open soon.

Sue was in Calgary again this week, she got home Thursday, in time to drive me to the airport for Friday morning.

Our west coast version of the Blue Jay is called the Stellar Jay. They have dark blue bodies and black heads. They are similar to the Blue Jays but are even more noisy and pushy. They stand on our patio table and look in the window at us. As soon as they see us they start yelling and pecking at the tabletop, telling us they want more good stuff put into the bird feeder.

Sue put out peanuts, still in the shells for them. They went nuts. All of a sudden there was a couple of dozen there. Reminded me of that scary show about 'The birds'.

I have fixed up both my web site and Warren's web site. My first attempts were more aimed at working out the procedure for creating and uploading to the Shaw server. There are some rather strange behavior issues with their ftp site but that's another topic completely. I had started off with rather ugly and rigid green layouts that dictated a lot of the design. I've re-done both sites now, I think they are a lot easier on the eyes now.

Warren and Janice are placing way too much importance in having a web site. They think that just having one to showcase their rental chalet will cause vast amounts of money to fall from the sky and land on their heads. It is very difficult to explain to them that a small, personal site is not a magic bullet. Their web space is just part of my residential internet account, we can't have a store front commercial site set up.

http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b

http://members.shaw.ca/coastalcedarcreations

Warren is trying to get the 'perfect' photo shot of the chalet. We climbed the scree slopes across from his yard to get to a height that is level with the chalet. The scree slopes are rubble, made up of rock chunks that broke away from the cliffs above at some time in the geological past. They are very steep and not very stable. The only thing keeping them from sliding is that the various size rocks tend to lock together and the ever present moss forms a light covering. The view was worth it.

And just to let you all know that Lotus Land is still part of Canada, I had to shovel the driveway on Wednesday. We had about 6 inches of heavy wet snow, typical for this elevation. It was rain in town, lots of snow in the high country. I drove up to Warren's, just to see if I could get there. The highway was bad as wet snow tends to turn to that icy crap. The steep windy road up to Warren's can be tricky at the best of times. About 3/4's of the way up, where it is very steep, I lost traction and had to back down. The solution was simple, turn around and back up. Front wheel drive vehicles are not designed for traction. By backing up the hill the weight of the van is over the drive wheels and there was no problem. (Unless of course you have problems backing up a steep winding logging road in a snow storm). Anyway, by the time you read this the snow will be gone and we will be back to green grass again.

Infact, I was out for a walk on Thursday afternoon without even a sweater. Sort of like April rather than October. Mind you, I'm fully aware that there is still February to go through. (The first weekend in Feb is blossom counting weekend in Victoria over one Van Island. They are a bit ahead of Vancouver, which is a bit warmer than here).

Have a good one,

the doug