The Squamidian Report - Jan. 18/03

Hi All,

First of all, I'd like to welcome a cousin of most of us, Rosemary from Ottawa, to our little publication. It was a pleasant surprise to hear from her.

We drove Jackie back to the airport last Sunday, surrounded by our beautiful 3D scenery and weather. We stopped in Vancouver's Stanley Park to walk along part of the sea wall and watch the ships and boats. As usual, Sue drove so I could gawk at the surroundings. I had always liked looking at the Arbutus trees along the southern half of Howe Sound but I'd never noticed before just how many of them there are. This time of the year they have lost their bark and tend to glow a coppery colour. These trees keep their leaves but loose their bark each year. Here is a paragraph I copied from a web site about the Arbutus.

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The Arbutus is Canada’s only native broadleaf evergreen tree. The glossy dark green leaves and beautiful reddish-orange bark, which peels in papery flakes, revealing a yellow-green bark below, sets this tree apart from all others in the forest. The white-pink flowers bloom from April to June, and are followed by bright red-berries in the fall. Arbutus berries are an important source of food for birds. Typically growing heights of 15-20 meters (60 feet) with diameters of 25-50 centimeters (10-20 inches), Arbutus often has a twisted or multiple trunk, and normally lives for over 200 years. Arbutus trees are difficult to transplant, - more easily grown from seeds.

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I hope Jackie isn't too exhausted after her stop over. With only a couple of days available we ran her pretty ragged so she could get a taste of life out here. I guess she can get rested up now that she is back at work.

Sue was in Calgary this week, that city seems to be her home away from home lately. For someone who never liked to travel, she sure gets around. She used to get lost in Kitchener, now she can find her way around every major and minor city in the country. She has become an expert on air travel.

I had some time on my hands this week so I've been experimenting with building a simple web site. Used to have one back in Ontario but it got left behind with a lot of other unnecessary junk. Anyway, I can't seem to find the simple old HTML editor that I was using so I'm doing this one in PowerPoint. Unfortunately, it tends to create rather bloated files so it may take your browser a couple of seconds extra to bring it in if you are using dial-up. If you are interested, here is the URL. Don't expect too much in the way of content, I'm more interested in the process.

http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b

Oh, by the way, as I watch the weather channel and see how cold you guys in Ontario have it, I realize that all we have needed out here this winter is a sweater. If it rains we pull a nylon shell over top. That's it. The occasional night it gets down to the freezing point. If we want 'winter' we just head up into higher elevations.

I spent a day this week up at Warren's helping him make a sign. He wants to put it at the highway lookout down below his place so he can advertise his chalet. The frame for the sign is a cedar tree trunk that grew in a complete loop, and then some. Standing upright, it's about 10 ft high and 5 ft across. He will hang a slab of wood in the open center with his information embedded into the slab like a poster.

Speaking of Warren, for a time there I had him talked into coming along on my trip back to Ontario so we could spend some time in Ryan's recording studio. He decided against it when he realized that he'd have to pay for his own flight ticket. Too bad, we could have cranked out a nice little CD of our 'mountain music'.

And speaking of my trip to Ontario, I guess that happens next week. I'll be flying into Toronto on Friday the 24th. Ryan will be picking me up at about 7pm. We had to fit this visit around Sue's schedule. She will be in the office the week I'm away. She will therefore be home every evening to care for our old dogs. They are at the age where they need as much care as they did when they were puppies.

I'm not sure what I will do about the Squamidian. I might get something sent out just before I leave if I can think of anything to babble about. Or not, we'll see.

Sue and I went out for a walk after she got home yesterday evening (Friday). It was dark and the full moon started to rise over the ridge to the east. It started as a white glow in the trees and became brighter as the moon climbed, until the moon itself became visible. It was dazzling, with the trees backlit along the ridge top. Once it topped the ridge it illuminated the snow-covered peaks to the west on the other side of the valley. By the way, we were carrying our sweaters as it was too warm to wear them. You gotta love it!!

Have a good one, catch you later.

the doug