"all work and no play … "

The Junior Canadian field hockey crew has been assigned a Sunday afternoon of "Lawn Bowls" - "bring your best all white outfit with a hint of colour!!!"  So Nikki and Rowan went off to the shops in search, returning with a fashion show for Meo and Doco.  The 'touch of colour' is provided by Doco's bone-bead-and-porcupine-quill necklaces from the Sitka band in the Fraser Canyon.  May be replaced by red scarves for the event, I suspect.

 P.S. There were no instructions about how much of you the white needed to cover!

Wiltshire Street blueberries

For the last several springs, the crows and raccoons have been making hash of many Vancouver lawns.  Their prey - the larvae of the chafer beetle - juicy, white, 1-inch, C-shaped grubs - munching on grass roots down a few inches.  The crows dig away with their beaks in broad daylight.  The raccoons move in at night.

Our lawns have been mostly spared, but this spring the front south patch - not really lawn, just bluebells and moss - got well dug up.  Fine.  Never mind grass.  Let's make it a blueberry patch.  The two-legged digger got to work.

After discussions with the planter, "Mr. Harris", the three little boys next door are already looking forward to blueberry picking, en route to collecting our mail while we are at New Denver.  With raspberries and now blueberries, we do seem to have a mostly-berry garden, all coming ripe when we aren't here.  Oh well.  As long as somebody enjoys them!

the roof is done!

Teagan departed for Ottawa on May 6th and Nikki Woodcroft took over his spot on the roof.  The sun shone and Nikki and Rowan finished the roof in short order.  A beautiful job, you four (Doco included).  Thank you all!!

pleased with themselves, I reckon

Then on to the next projects - much shorter, but very effective!  Doco tackled the ragged pile of cedar posts and boards that had gathered by the back fence.  After some hours sawing by hand, he even went and bought a powered skill-saw.

Meanwhile, Rowan and Nikki set to, sawing through one of two dead trunks of the vine maple by the garage, with their first cut (about 4 feet up) almost through but giving some resistance.  Doco: "Allow me to make a suggestion.  Maybe you should cut it off near the ground."  Girls: "We're cutting it in sections."  Moments later, Doco: "Allow me to make another suggestion."  At which point he walked over to the tree, took hold of the two trunks a few feet up and gently levered them to the ground.  They were totally rotted at the base!  I think Doco is still basking in his lumberjack skill.

all of us a bit amazed and chuckling

chickadees

Chickadees are back, nesting in our pear-tree box.  Susan Smith, my chickadee-expert friend, says that black-capped chickadees don't much like nest-boxes (they prefer holes in trees), but that they may accept a nest-box if it is half-filled with sawdust.  The chickadees need something they can excavate!  

For Christmas in 1988, Cole made for me a nest-box to Susan's specifications, and the chickadees have accepted it, half-filled with sawdust, most years since.  This year we had no sawdust, so Cole made a half-boxful of wood flakes and put the box up as usual in the pear tree.  Some days later, we looked from the back porch at a great clutter of bits (wood flakes) all over the back lawn, for 15 feet out from the pear tree and box.  The chickadees had been busy "excavating".  Bravo.

Now, 3 weeks later, there is little obvious activity.  But once in awhile, when working in the garden, we hear faint "fee-bee"s and look up to see a quick stop at the nest-hole (with food) or a bird emerging.  Then all is quiet again and we wonder "are they really there?"  It appears so.

sister and brother

I guess brothers aren't all that bad.

at a Doco "East is East" feast

on the job - sorting shingles mid-roofing

recovering in bed-central

on a last-day Granville Island expedition ... 

… for lunch ...

… and frolics.

one more lunch at Hachi Sushi before the plane

I guess he really has to go

Congratulations Haide Anne!

Doco found out from Aunt Susie that cousin Haide Anne James had several of her ceramic works in The Show of the graduating class at Emily Carr University, on Granville Island.  Also that she had won an award.  So on Teagan's last day in Vancouver, he, Rowan, Doco and I went in search.  With some help from the receptionist and a map, we found Haide Anne's three pieces among the 300 amazingly varied and interesting student works.  How do artists think of what to do?

Haide Anne's work often includes an animal.  In a wonderful Emily Carr piece a couple of years ago, a fox.  This time, rabbits.  "Lagomorph" (below) is the prize-winner, and I enjoyed her "Poor woman's Wedgwood".  A treat.

"Lagomorph"

"Poor woman's Wedgwood"

Vancouver marathon

9:30 am on a sunny Sunday May 3 morning and the Vancouver marathon is pouring along 49th Avenue at the top of our block.  Doco and I emerged just in time to see the three leaders go by, at about 8:45 at the 5 km point, looking so smooth.  The first five, at least, were black Africans.  Which one will win?  I missed a photo of the first woman (not black) but she came along amazingly soon.

 

Do you recognize these keen cheerers?  Jinny Sim and Kevin Song from next door and their FOUR boys (left to right) - Isaac, Theo, Lawrence and Orin.  Last year Jinny (pregnant) ran in the Vancouver half-marathon.  This year she's not running until the Toronto half-marathon in June.  The three older boys ran in the kids' "marathon" around Stanley Park yesterday.  Phew.

Then came the mob.  A moment later there were too many for one lane of 49th.  They'll be off around UBC about now.  All ages, genders, nationalities, sizes and shapes.  Quite marvellous.

……………………………………...
Next day:  Winners were the small front runner in black (above), Luka Chelimo from Kenya, and Lioudmila Kortchaguina from Thornhill, Ontario.

P.S. Rowan and Teagan headed off at 8am for the Stawamus Chief.  Doco and I walked home.