In Canada
Herewith some snaps of plant-life in our garden – enjoying the early summer weather. From what I hear Europe (and the UK) is currently burning up in an unexpected heatwave. Our sympathies. We do feel even more blessed than usual at simply enjoying normal May/June style weather.
I do hope that everyone is doing alright…
“In our frenzied attempts to catch up with life, we run right past it. Once we have run past it, what we are in reality attempting to catch is ourselves.”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Looking back through the archives for this almanac I note that I have gotten into the habit of posting – during the late spring/early summer of each year – a succinct gallery of photographs taken in our garden here at the southern end of Vancouver Island.
As one might imagine, these analogous offerings look remarkably similar year on years. Given that much of the garden is furnished with mature shrubs, perennials and ancient (relatively speaking!) trees, this should come as no surprise. The true beauty of the garden in spring-time is that it is at once the same as it ever was – whilst also being ever new.
And how cool is that?!
The title of this post, however, is “Playing catch-up” – so there is clearly something going on here other than the mere uploading of a fresh instalment of an old favourite.
As indeed there is…
Those who follow these things closely might notice (should they care to put any effort into the thing) that we are almost at the start of June and – as yet – no garden images have appeared for this year.
Some reasons for this tardiness have been hinted at in earlier posts, but these reflect only a small part of the whole story. Whereas Mother Nature has been powering ahead with her usual vim and vigour, our attempts at getting the grounds of our abode into shape have been running well behind. These factors have been in play:
As you can see – the start of the year has gone considerably less smoothly than we would have hoped and we may be excused if some normally essential tasks have had to be delayed.
I will see what (if any) images I might have to hand from the world outside our windows…
Herewith a follow-up to my last post… on the subject of the recent tree-work that we had carried out ‘chez nous’.
There follows a brief hiatus to allow for the cracking of any lumberjack jokes – as in:
“Paddy and Mick are walking along a logging road in British Columbia…” – and so forth!
All done? Thank you. Onward!…
The photos that I posted last time out should give an idea of just how much extra light we get at the front of the house as a result of the removal of the self-willed spruce. The images also suggest, however, that planting something more to scale is definitely in order to define more appropriately the interface between house and garden at that point. The search for the right arboreal embellishment may well take some time.
These photos show how the raised bed that had accommodated the spruce was left after the felling of the tree.
The photos also give an idea of just how much stump remains in the ground when a tree is removed. In other instances we have left the the protruding stumps as a feature (almost). In this case, because we want to plant another tree in the bed, we were obliged to hire the service of our arborist’s stump grinder, who – in command of his impressive array of machinery – made short work of the remains of the spruce.
This thing is definitely a bit of a beast!
One sizeable hole – tree-planting for the use of…!
“Time says hush: by the gong of time you live. Listen and you hear time saying you were silent long before you came to life and you will again be silent long after you leave it, why not be a little silent now? Hush yourself, noisy little man. Time hushes all: the gong of time rang for you to come out of the hush and you were born. The gong of time will ring for you to go back to the same hush you came from. Winners and losers, the weak and the strong, those who say little and try to say it well, and those who babble and prattle their lives away, time hushes all”.
Carl Sandburg
This is my very favourite time of the year. I love how verdant are the woods – how lush is the undergrowth and how still are the trees once the winter winds have abated. These images from Centennial Park in Saanichton here on the peninsula.
I love that someone took the time to turn this fallen tree into a little piece of art. I love that they did so again when the first version slowly decayed and returned to nature.
On the east coast of the United Kingdom – and particularly in Scotland – it is not uncommon throughout the summer season for otherwise pleasant days to be afflicted (or enhanced, according to your predilection) by dense mists that roll in from the ocean.
Of these phenomena the UK Met Office offers the following explanation:
“Coastal fog is usually a result of advection fog which forms when relatively warm, moist air passes over a cool surface. In the UK, the most common occurrence of coastal fog is when warm air moves over the cool surface of the North Sea towards the east coast of the UK.
When this happens, the cold air just above the sea’s surface cools the warm air above it until it can no longer hold its moisture. This forces the warm air to condense, forming tiny particles of water which forms the fog that we see.”
In Scotland such cold sea fogs go by the name ‘Haar’; in the north of England they are called ‘Sea Frets’.
The west coast of Vancouver Island is well known for its sea fogs in summer, the which lead to the month of August being renamed ‘Fogust’.
Here on the east coast of the island these events are perhaps less common, but they still do take us by surprise from time to time…
…as did this one last weekend.
From our vantage point on the lower slopes of Mount Newton we can see over the top of the fog to Sidney Island and to Pender Island. The sea mist lies in between over the Haro Strait…
…or might that be ‘Haar’ – or ‘Sea Fret’?
“Contrariwise . . . if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”
Lewis Carroll
We are – it should be self-evident – now truly into the depths (or heights, according to your preferences) of summer.
Further – should you not have been aware of the fact – 2023 is an El Nino year. This regular but unwanted visitor – when added to the already serious effects of climate change – results in the sort of world-wide craziness that we have not encountered in my lifetime. Climate records are being broken daily – whether that be in terms of the world-wide wildfire season or of the equally world-wide highest recorded temperatures. These over-heated events seem to alternate with with vicious storms which cause flash flooding.
On the west coast of Canada it has been dry and sunny, but we have been blessed thus far in avoiding such unpleasant phenomena as ‘heat domes’ and ‘atmospheric rivers’. The wildfire smoke too is – for now at least – blowing in the other direction. I gather that it is raining in parts of the UK, though the southern European nations are currently broiling.
It is somewhat difficult, therefore, not to feel guilty when one is seated in comfort, with one’s supper, surrounded by good and friendly folk, listening to the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park of a summer evening. The crew of Victoria luminaries pictured above are last week’s offering – the long running local Steely Dan tribute act – the ‘Pretzel Logic Orchestra’. Their number includes excellent musicians who turn out for various different ensembles and they are all seasoned pros.
Don – The guitarist in the centre of the attached image – can more frequently be found running the sound at Pioneer Park, for other visiting acts. I had a quick word with him after the show this week to congratulate him on his lead guitar work – and in particular on the note perfect rendering of the Larry Carlton guitar solo from ‘Kid Charlemagne‘ (perhaps my favourite ever guitar solo).
In return he told me about the time that he met Larry Carlton!…
Dude!
“I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy”
C. S. Lewis
This post should have featured wild animals in their natural habitats in the Botswana bush – though perhaps not quite: “Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plains”… as John Cleese would have it.
Instead, here are some photos of the flora in our garden:
“Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January”.
Hal Borland
As gleefully explained in my last post – some form of summer appears at long last to have arrived on the west coast of Canada. It may not last long, but it is most welcome whilst it is here.
That aforementioned post also referred to the Summer Solstice – the longest day and, of course, the shortest night! At the southern end of Vancouver Island that looks like this:
10:00 in the evening. Not fully dark yet:
4:00 in the morning (us older folk often have to get up in the middle of the night):
Of course – if it is summer then it must be time to entertain folk in our garden. We duly did so over the weekend – with an impromptu invitation to dearest friends to come over an to cook their dinner on our BBQ. ‘Twas really most pleasant to be able again to sit out of an evening enjoying the balmy BC climate with good friends – even if it meant something of a canter down the home straight of making the garden look presentable – the which it finally very nearly does.
On the Sunday we bobbed across the Saanich inlet on the Mill Bay ferry and once again headed up island to have lunch with The Girl’s mum and another long-standing friend. These summer pursuits are most pleasant, though there is a slight feeling of squeezing things in over this next short period, before we set off on our travels.
I took these shots as we bobbed our way back over to Brentwood Bay at the end of the day:
Whoo-hoo!
Today – the very day after the summer solstice – the weather in Victoria BC has finally turned summery! What is more – rumour has it that the hot spell may stretch through the weekend and into next week…
Who knows – we might even get to try out our new air-conditioning unit sooner than expected!
The only downside to this most pleasant development is that it will probably simply encourage those annoying souls who will insist that the solstice is the first day of summer, in much the same way that they insist that the March equinox is the first day of spring.
Er – no! The summer solstice is mid-summers day. From now on the days are getting shorter…
Sorry – I don’t mean to depress anyone.
It is true of course that all the seasons at these latitudes tend to lag behind the movements of the sun. That does mean that September is very often seen as part of the summer, instead of marking the middle of autumn (fall). Nature very obligingly goes along with such errant notions – and it is in our nature (for most folk, anyway) to want to extend the summer months for as long as possible before winter sets in.
So… enjoy the sunshine (those who are blessed with it). I know we are going to!
I gather that the UK is currently experiencing something of a heatwave. Lucky you, say I to those that reside there. Of course, excessive heat – brought about by climate change – is not a good thing at all, but then neither is an extended, unfulfilled wait for summer.
Long-time followers of these postings may recall a missive that I uploaded at about this time last year (entitled ‘Head for the Hills‘) the which contained a description of the unprecedented ‘heat dome’ under which the west of Canada was then suffering. The Girl and I retreated into the basement of our residence for a week or so to avoid the worst of it, but it was not a pleasant experience.
In a second post, a month later, I reported that we had decided to have an air-conditioning unit added to our forced-air heating system – to protect ourselves against future such weather events. In these strange times all such projects seem to take an inordinate amount of time to be effected. We finally ordered the system at the very start of this year, but the first installation date that we were offered was not until June.
Well – I can now report that we have enjoyed the required visitation, the work has been most efficiently carried out and we are now the proud possessors of equipment necessary to enable us to keep our cool in any future such events. The installation was rendered much easier by our having considered this as a possible option when the furnace was installed back in 2017 – the necessary spacing and services having been left intact should we decide to go this route.
Inside the house there is nothing new to see – unless one looks really closely at our furnace room. Outside there is a small and elegant compressor, tucked away in a part of the estate that we normally only see when cutting the grass.
Now – of course – we are eagerly awaiting an opportunity to try it out! Here we are in the middle of June and the weather has still not caught up with the season. There are few cloudless days, temperatures are still struggling to get up to seasonal norms and – though I have fired up and checked out our garden irrigation system – it is still not running to its normal schedule because there has been no shortage of rain!
I have no doubt that this will all change abruptly in a couple of weeks, when we have set out on our travels and are no longer in residence.
Sigh!