Sunday, March 29, 2009

Go/No Go?

I am not one to miss out on a chance to take out my outdoor toys. So today I had the urge to take out Wessel my Kayak. From where I was situated it was a cool day but with not much wind. Cool weather with the right gear is no big deal. So I layered up and loaded up and headed off. I could not see the lake until I got close to it and when I did it was not as friendly as I had hoped.


Unfriendly Waters

By unfriendly I mean a solid wind blowing into the shore and large waves breaking. The shore at this point is a gravel beach with occasional boulders thrown in for good fun. WIthin meters of either side of where I was going to launch from were submerged boulders waiting to have my hull driven into them. The lake did not look any better farther out.

I gave up on launching from that point. I got it in my head to take a look at a few other launch points. I went to my old favour of Bayview estates, the snow pile was still blocking the way to the lake. The Nakusp boat launch was calmer but I could still feel the strong wind even if the waves were smaller. My last stop was the Arrow Park ferry, or rather the end of Rock island road, again the snow barred the way to the lake and I was stuck by how narrow the lake was at that point.

I had it in mind after I got back to the car as I was at Arrow Park to take some photos. To capture just how narrow things are at that point only to remember that I had left my memory chip for my camera in the house. My phone simply could not do the place good so I gave up and wend home.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Still More Progress

Its gone its really gone.

After years of nearly being left for dead by everyone but my father the old grey Subaru is retired. In its places is a newer Honda that shares its color but little else.



This ruins my long standing plan to photograph and blog about the large collection of Subaru's associated with family and friends. The post was to be about a non existent dealer ship.

Progress

This week has been crazy. For lots of reasons therefore I will focus on the sane things that took place instead. This week we got new counter tops and a new kitchen sink installed. It was a much needed job as I believe the counters were original to the trailer and the one baring the sink had absorbed too much water over the years. As an added bonus the new counter tops are 2.56cm deeper then the old ones. This adds a small but meaningful amount of work space.






Decay and repair.

Monday, March 16, 2009

So Say We All

So Say We All

We were witness to an unfortunate but expected event today. For perhaps slightly more then two years our cat Obo, named after a minor side character in a forgettable star trek book, has been less then well. His decline was slow and perhaps started in full with the passing of his adoption mate Savik, named after a less obscure star trek character. She died in I believe the fall of 2006. This was not the expected, we had always figured she would have the longest life, she played it safe being a home body, not taking the risks of going hunting. Obo was always heading off to go and kill small animals. He was pretty good at it, that life style choice lead us to feel that a coyote would get the better of him. This did not happen.




He may have been a good hunter, sharp both in mind and body, but one feature stood out and kept him a live, he was a coward. I say this with respect. In as much as a house cat can be self aware he was, and part of that awareness was a sense of scale. Obo knew he was smaller then many animals in the world and he was take approaches to be safe. I never did like traversing large open areas, when he could he would take cover in the tall grass and ferns. He also had a more interesting solution, on the occasions when he would follow me from the house to the cabin he would stay close, though still running a head or trailing behind, but I always got the feeling that he was using me as cover. I was figuring that he knew I was big enough to protect him from any thing that would likely eat him.




His cowardly nature was shown to me one spring. When we have kept chickens it was not uncommon to let them out of the run and have them have some freedom on the land. Obo, liked birds there has been countless piles of grey feathers on the lawn to attest to that. So one day with the chickens scratching about Obo sets out to have a look. He stops some where between 10 and 15 meters from the flock. He was sitting up right ears forward alert and watchful. I could almost imagine his thought process, Chickens=Bird. Bird = Food. Chickens = Big. Big = Trouble. But They're Birds Birds is Food. And he would just sit there. Considering that more then a few of the birds out weighed him and were armed with beaks and claws that could have put some big holes in his side his inaction shows a healthy degree of sense.



It would not be fair to talk about Obo without giving mention to his mate Savik. She may have been a stoner homebody and him the great hunter and protector of the land but they were close. They would groom each other play fight with each other and do the most important of all cat activities together, sleep. So with her passing he at once became more social, where for the majority of his life he had no interest in human women, he started to socialize with nearly every one of any gender. He was always a talker but he became more so, always either demanding something or saying thank you when a service was provided. In his decline his cries became sadder, he seemed to get lost in the bath room, he would cry out from the doorway just so he could be told we knew he was there.

Cattatude


Sleepy Savik


It was in the bath room where he was found this morning, seemingly stuck under the cabinet. For most of the morning I took his non moving as sign that he was tired and sleeping. It took some time to see that his attempts at moving has pushed him into that corner. I knew from the days before that he was getting weaker in the hind quarters but it was not until I tried to help him stand that I found that he could no longer do so. After a few calls and emails not all related to the cat I made up my mind to call the vet.

It was not a choice I would have wonted to make but the cat's ailing body made the choice for me. I made a nest out of a box and an old sheet and made him comfortable. I hated to leave him a lone but I had to go up to the cabin to get my car keys so I but the box and the barely moving cat on a sunny patch on the floor and walked up to the cabin for the keys. I did not realize it at the time but he died some time during my walk to get the keys. I mistook the last air leaving his lungs as breath and the faint twitch of a whisker for signs of life. I believe that was around 11:20 am this day.

Not being certain of his death and still faced with a frozen landscape where burying the body was not an option I took him to the vet. The box felt so light. In the end It was agreed to let his body go towards veterinary science. This both covered the cost of cremation and perhaps will let others have their pets get better treated in the future.

So let us commit his body to the earth from whence he came.



So Say We All

Friday, March 13, 2009

Random things

Greetings all 5 readers.


No real theme for this post. Mostly I took some good photos in the last day or two and want to share them. With the earlier daylight savings time shift we are now blessed with long bright evenings. It is also the time of year when the snow thanks to a freeze thaw cycle is hard and crusty able to hold my weight most of the time. Taking advantage of a sunny day I got some good shots in the woods.






I also took the best photo ever, well not really but it has its own greatness. It took some doing and little luck. I had seen the other night Orion hanging over the mountains with a nearly full moon lighting the sky. That got me in mind of photographing Orion. I know that if I did it on a night with the moon out that Orion would be washed out by the very bright moon. Last night the heavens worked in my favor. Orion was at the sweet spot just above the mountains and the moon was not yet up. I shot off the lights in the cabin, stet up my tripod, set my cameras ISO to 1600, very sensitive to light but grainy as all hell, I sent the shutter speed to 15 seconds which is as long as the G9 will let me. To get the best chance of a clear photo I put the camera on a ten second self timer to give the camera time to stop wobbling. I could not get the mountains in the background but the trees did make a good foreground. All in all it was a good shot. The second an third tries did not do as well as I tried to zoom in and use my telephoto lens, I lost the big picture and had too much wobble.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

A Road trip



As part of my ongoing job search I decided to get out of the office. With a need to have a change of pase and went out and knocked on doors hoping to learn a little more about the state of the industry. The results are mixed, but I came away knowing more then I did when I left and know how I will want to aproach things differntly.



In this trip I went from Kamloops to Vernon I got lost in leaving Vernon, missing the turn drifting down to Eastside Road. A nice winding ribbon of pavement along the neary empty side of Okanagan Lake that hides behind the ridge above Winfield. Sadly the road did not connect with any of the other eastside roads or any road that crossed over the ridge. So I stopped and took a few picks.

Today on the way home I was first on the Needles Ferry. I has taken a nap by the spruce grove cafe and that cost me twenty minuets causing me to be late for the 3:15 boat. The Arrow lake was choppy and the boat docked at a odd angle unverving me slightly. But it did look neat as ramped lowered on the final aproach.