Happy Holidays…

Another year has flown past, and nothing much has changed at all.

A Year in The Life…

I have been away for a while. Lost for words in the year of Covid-19. I really do not know what to say that hasn’t already been said.

Marching on….

January 2019: unseasonably mild and spring-like. February through March: nearly two months of cold, mostly clear weather and the ground frozen solid. Much snow fell on other islands, on other parts of the province, but here we’ve had hardly any precipitation at all for most of the winter. Not a good thing.

Farewell to Fine Friends…

Last  you heard,  I was rabbiting on about the new outhouse in the back garden. There has been a long silence since that episode, but I did not fall down the hole! As a good friend pointed out recently, there has been a dark cloud hanging overhead this year. This might explain why I have been feeling a little under par, a little short on creative energy, why I have not written for so long.

Twenty Seventeen…

Another year has come and gone; another year in the lives of a couple of west coast island dwellers…

Bored in Paradise…

November has never been my favourite time of year. The rapidly shortening days combine with deteriorating weather systems to create a cloud of doom that shrouds my days.

When in Doubt…

Christmas is over but the tree is still standing as I attempt to retain some sparkle during the continuing dark days.

So far, this New Year is off to a rough start. The dear old dog died and I am still not over that. I catch glimmers of her dark form shuffling here and there in the shadowy corners at the edge of the back garden. My mind is playing tricks on me.

The weather this winter has not helped to cheer me. Here, it has been hovering around freezing, or a few degrees below, for the past month or so. We have been burning through an extraordinary amount of firewood. I find it quite tiresome.

Already it is time to start working on the year-end taxes, again. Next week, that idiot to the south will step into the driver’s seat. Chaos seems to reign everywhere on earth. I find myself waking up in the darkest hours, fighting off the blasted mid-night terrors!

Old Friends…

December 31, 2016

Less than half an hour until the next year begins to unfurl. C. reminded me today that we first bumped into one another at a different New Year’s Eve celebration with old friends on another island 34 long years ago. It is already nearly 25 years since I came to live on this island with C. What I want to know is, “Where does the time go?”

Black and White…

Snow…

Winter has arrived. Snow covers the ground like a duck down duvet. Snow hangs from the boughs of the trees and snow is beginning to fall again. It is a winter wonderland out here on the islands.

C.’s brother N. is visiting from the city. He came up to the island to help butcher the big mule deer that C. brought home from the last hunting trip of the season. Three days ago it began to snow and now N. is stuck here for the moment, trapped by the snow-obliterated road on the next island that leads to the outside world. This morning I called the fellow who maintains the roads there. He cheerfully told me that he had just got the grader repaired, and that he probably would not be able to get plowing out to the end of the road until Monday; too much snow to be dealt with first on the south end of that island. He had already been part way out by truck and had removed a fallen tree that was also blocking the route.

The Hunter…

Yesterday afternoon I went down to the end of the road in the skiff to collect C. and his mountain of winter-camping gear. He was coming home from his annual hunting trip to the Interior of the province.

Ever since I dropped C. off two weeks ago I have been holding the fort here at home. The weather has been wet and mild, until a couple of days ago, when the season turned the corner to reveal winter coming down the pipeline. As I write, an icy wind is beginning to stir, a storm is brewing.

C. has been going off on expeditions like this every November since I came to join him on this island nearly 25 years ago. He has spent the last two weeks camping in a canvas wall tent, complete with a wood-fired heater, along with his brother and adult son, quietly hiking around the hills of the Interior of the province, looking for mule deer that live in that region.