happy spring!

"Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems." - Rainer Maria Rilke

I caught these blooms a few days ago, against the dark wood of our clubhouse.

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!

2012's foggy end

Though the sun was out in town, the Fraser River at Derby Reach was swathed in fog on Sunday when we took our walk. Still, we could see a little—this sea gull sitting on the roots of the giant tree that came down in spring's flood and is now beached on the gravel foreshore ....

these pilings, mirrored in the placid water

and this valiant little tugboat, dwarfed by the loaded barge of sawdust it's pulling.

tough

Fence in a headlock

(Don't let wisteria's delicate blossoms fool you)

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Thursday Challenge

Next week: MODERN (New, Up-to-date, Stylish, Avant-garde, Cool,...)

life's gifts don't stop at 1000 (1003-1015 of gifts unending)

"Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it." - John Hughes

Believe it or not, I've been missing the weekly ritual of reviewing my gratitude list and posting updates of my life! I was thrilled to reach my goal of 1000 a few weeks ago, but now ...  what? So I've decided like some others, to carry on past 1000. May finding things to be grateful for become my lifestyle!

Since I put up my last 1000 gifts post (almost a month ago) here are some blessings I've recorded:


1003. Dr. Charles Price visited our church on his publicity tour for Living Truth. Another couple joined us and we found seats in the second row. Dr.Price ended up sitting right in front of me. (I felt like reaching out and touching the hem of his garment—just kidding!)

1004. I took courage and set up a Facebook page to help me publicize my soon-to-release novel. The process was smooth. It's here, if you care to visit it. I'll be posting book events on it plus other writing-related stuff.


1005. On the subject of the book, I got the proof copy of Destiny's Hands last week, checked it over closely and found no typos, weird spacings, pages missing etc. Whew! So it's on to the print phase.

1006. I love spring's continuing flower show. My camera wants to own! Here are a few mementoes.

1007. We celebrated a couple of milestones. A sad one was my cousin's funeral. He died suddenly in his sleep one Saturday to Sunday in May. I didn't know him well so his memorial service was like getting to know him. What an incredible man who made a huge impact on many people. Memorials always get me thinking too... What will people remember about me?

1008. A happy milestone was a friend's 60th birthday party. He's taken to running triathlons, reflected in his beautifully decorated birthday cake.

1010. We've been enjoying spring scents on our walk—the sweet perfume of wild roses and the spicy scent  of Dame's Rocket.

1011. We pass a favourite dogwood every day on our walk. I've been documenting it in all its phases.

1012. The salmonberries are ripe. Here is one, photographed just before I ate it.

1013. And how about this curious bloom on a shrub (also seen on a recent walk)?

1014. Father's Day in Vancouver. Son lives just off Main Street where they were celebrating Car-Free Day. The street was a big party / stroll. We had a delicious Greek food at The Main. Happy Father's Day to the man in my life.

1015. This very handsome flicker posed for me this morning.

To discover who had the idea to start listing 1000 and more gratitudes, and to find links to many more such lists, go here.

best of 2011 - part 1

The theme for the Thursday Challenge for this week and next is "Best of 2011."

I'm going to cheat and present two series of photos. This week I'm offering three collages from our visit to the Vancouver Aquarium last February. What a fun place for my camera!

Vancouver Aquarium - February 25, 2011

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: Best of 2011 (part 2)

soft

Couldn't you just sleep on these?

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: DOOR (House, Barn, Gate, Entrance, Cellar, Car,...)

yellow

Yellowlegs 

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: CONSTRUCTION (Business, Residential, Street, Bridge, Sidewalk, Lego Bricks,...)

many

A constellation of starfish (Vancouver Aquarium)

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Thursday Challenge

Next week: METAL (Metallic, Steel, Bronze, Gold, Iron, Shinny,...)

movement

Caught

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: CARS (New, Old, Sedans, Convertibles, Station Wagons, Sports,...)

sheri's shop ( (#305 − 315 of 1000 gifts)

I arrive early for my appointment. While I wait, I flip through hair-do magazines and listen to the lady in the nearest chair as she converses with Sheri, our hairdresser. "Did I tell you about my granddaughter? She's in Thailand, working on an elephant reserve."

Sheri's questions keep the conversation about elephant girl going even as she snips, finger-measures, snips, finger-measures.

Meanwhile the lady in chair two who has been blow drying her own hair stands up, signifying she's done. "You like it?" she asks Sheri, tossing and flipping her variegated blond mane to view it in the mirror.

"It's nice, very nice!" says Sheri, leaving her station for the cashier desk.

On her way out of the shop, Sheri engulfs blond mane in a big hug. "You read your Bible," I hear her say. I can't help but think this is a carryover from an earlier conversation.

She returns to customer one and blow-dries the woman's auburn hair into a fashionable backsweep as they kibbutz back and forth. When she's done, customer one also gets a Sheri-hug before going out the door.

I've always come here before when there were few other customers around and thought of Sheri as my own little hairdresser find. (The first time I came, she told me,  "Jesus came to me in a vision. It was when I was still in the old country." She's from Iran.) Today I see that all her clients love her as much as I do.

Now she puts on music before she calls me to the sink. Last time I came a Maranatha singers-type rendition of worship music from the 70s was playing. Today she chooses something instrumental and soothing.

I show her the magazine photo of the style I've chosen. "Do you think I should?" I ask.

"Of course! Change is good. You'll regret it if you don't."

We're just the two of us in the shop now and we talk about life, church, Jesus. She even says yes to my hesitant request to help sell the lavender sachets I've brought with me — our women's group fundraiser to help the facially mutilated women of northern Uganda pay for reconstructive surgery.

Once my hair is done, she asks about my eyebrows - as always (I think she has an eyebrow fetish). I give her the go-ahead. This time she doesn't use only the thread that drapes around her neck and over her shoulders like tangled dental floss, but also grabs tweezers. After a few minutes of efficient threading and plucking by her, agony for me, she hands me the mirror. Two perfect little wings now sit where my shaggy nondescript brows used to be.

Before I leave I get my own Sheri hug. As I step from the mauve-walled room into the winter afternoon's gathering dusk, I say a little prayer of thanks for her. For I know that the warmth and light that emanate from Sheri's little shop aren't powered by electricity alone.

306. Big juicy navel oranges.

307. Blooming heather

308. Pussy willows.

309. The smell of new-worked earth. (Never mind that it might still snow, someone got the jump on spring and did a little digging in one of the plots I pass.)

310. Talking to three beautiful people on Skype.

311. How work gets done and things get stroked off my list when I focus.

312. Crunchy penut butter.

313. My Canada, where we do have our political tiffs, but nothing like what we've seen on the news from around the world in the last several weeks.

314. Snowdrops.

315. A wonderful man and best friend with whom to celebrate Valentine's day!

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If you'd like to join me and many others collecting One Thousand Gifts, please do. Some members of this gratefulness community post their gifts on blogs, while others list them in private journals. Instructions on how to join are here.

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell  what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by…) you. Feel free to write any which way… compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Click on the button below to find other On, In and Around Monday posts, or enter your own.

weather

Maple keys in the snow

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: BROWN (Animals, Soil, Coffee Beans, Trustees, Furniture,...)

wind chill

Just in case you're wondering how wind chill works...

(This is a repost from January 2008.)

If you live somewhere in Canada, the northern US, or anywhere there are frigid temperatures you're probably aware of something called wind chill. This is the colder temperature the weatherman will give when he tells you how cold it feels versus the actual thermometer reading.

The idea of wind chill has interested me ever since I heard about it as a kid. And so in keeping with the blogland focus on weather this January (thanks to Rebecca Writes, who lives in the Yukon, where wind chill is a big deal), I thought I'd check it out for myself. Here are some things I discovered.

A layer of warm air up to several millimeters thick surrounds human skin. In exposed skin wind thins that layer. The stronger the wind, the thinner the insulating layer of warmth guarding the skin.

We humans don't sense the temperature of the air, but the temperature of our skin. When the wind robs our skin of its layer of insulation it feels closer to the temperature of the air. That's why exposed skin feels colder on a windy day than a calm one and we experience the phenomenon called wind chill.

Wind chill is calculated by a complicated formula. It takes into consideration engineering correlations of wind speed and heat transfer rate, and used to be expressed in 1000 - 3000+ watts per square meter. But how cold is 1500 watts per square meter? In order to make the wind chill number meaningful, scientists found a way to convert it into an equivalent temperature.

Thus you'll hear your weatherman say something like, "Bundle up. It's -10 but the wind chill factor will make it feel more like -21" This simply means that your face when exposed to the 40 km/hr wind that is predicted along with the -10C temperature will feel like it would on a day when the temperature is -21C with no wind.

Well, not exactly no wind. The lowest measure on an anemometer is a wind of 5 km/hr and also factored into the calculation is the assumption that you are walking (into the wind) at 3 km. per hour.

Some wind chill facts:

*Wind chill doesn't affect objects to make them freeze. If, for example, the wind chill factor is -4C (25F), water will not freeze if the air temperature is 2C (35F).

*Wind chill controversies: Should the method for calculating wind chill be based on:
- whole body cooling while naked
- or whole body cooling while wearing appropriate clothing
- or on cooling of the most exposed skin, such as the face?

*The coldest wind chill in Canada was at Pelly Bay Nunavut, January 13, 1975 when 56 km/hr winds made the temperature of -51C feel like -92C (3,357 watts per square meter).

*Wind chill impacts life in many ways, as in deciding what to wear when going outdoors and whether kids get to play outside at recess.

*Frostbite comes as a result of skin freezing. Symptoms: swelling, redness, tingling, burning --> white and waxy skin --> infection and loss of extremities.

*Hypothermia happens when body temperature falls below 35C (normal is 37C). Symptoms: drowsiness, bad coordination, weakness.

*This wind calculation chart also gives frostbite risk. (The chart is from Environment Canada.)

*If you know the temperature and wind speed, you can calculate the wind chill where you live. (This is an English system calculator. For those using metric - here are links to conversion tables: Km. to miles & celsius to fahrenheit).

messy

Forest floor

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: CRAFTS (Supplies, Knitting, Crocheting, Woodworking, Pottery, Painting,...)

classic poem #2

Afterwards

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
'He was a man who used to notice such things'?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
'To him this must have been a familiar sight.'

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, 'He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.'

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
'He was one who had an eye for such mysteries'?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
'He hears it not now, but used to notice such things'?


Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)