Over the Mountains to the Interior

7 Oct '07 1:58 pm

Hi, Jack-
I've never heard of any native helichrysums here, but you never know - It's a big country with lots of climate regimes and ecosystems! We DO grow them n gardens, however, so I know that they are hardy here, at least in the warmer areas.

And, yes, it IS odd how we all have those areas of measurement which personally are difficult to internalize! It's quite funny, really; I have friends who have no problem with the "litres per 100 km" thing but just can't figure out meat in grams!

The roofers managed to get my roof just over half done yesterday, so they put a huge tarpaulin over it all, weighed down with concrete blocks, until the weather will allow them to get back to it. Lucky for me that they did this, as overnight a southeastern storm blew in from the Pacific and today it's been very windy and rainy! The weather forecast has it like this for the next few days, so I've been hibernating all day today. I just spent most of the time in bed, sound asleep!! I took Joey out for a short walk, since he wouldn't go out of the door unless there was a promise of a car ride!

And now it's early evening, and given any excuse, I'd just crawl back into bed again and listen to the wind!

Have a good week, coming up!

Cheers!

gordonf

8 Oct '07 7:24 am

Hi, everyone- Well, while lying in bed last night listening to the storm, it popped into my mind that I gave you all incorrect information about the amounts of rain in Campbell River and in the dry area I visited on my recent trip. I wrote that we can get 80cm of rain in one day here. Well, i should have written 80mm, and in the dry area, I should have put "mm" instead of "cm" as well! Sorry about that!!

And I just noticed in one of the back posts that someone said that a lot of the southern-dwelling types might be wanting to come to BC as global warming heats up. She asked what a scary thought that was, and to that I must answer, "The more the merrier!!". I'm sure that we have the room and resources to handle many more residents than the 4 or 5 million we now have, and if we had more, we'd get more votes in the federal parliament, so they'd have to pay more attention to us! Very Happy

Cheers!

gordonf

8 Oct '07 4:49 pm

No, no, no, Gordon! There's a sod's law which states something like:

The more people you get to live in your area the less people actually bother to vote at all, cos they reckon more of the others will do it!

Glad to hear that someone else gets wind. No - that doesn't sound very nice at all! Have been clearing a toppled down pine tree for - let me think - seven hours - and honestly I can't see that I've done anything. I try and clean up the little stuff so the chainsaw can get a clean run through.

Cheers

8 Oct '07 5:29 pm

Hi, Moosey- Sorry to hear about the toppled pine tree. I sure hope it didn't land on anything very important! It's always a shame when trees are downed by the wind, isn't it? They become such a part of the landscape that it seems just as if someone lost a tooth in their smile! And it takes a while to get used to the gap on the horizon.

Good luck getting the rest of it cleaned up. I hope that the giant maple tree beside my home that had its taproot cut by my new neighbour doesn't topple on top of me! I'm off on Tuesday to buy insurance!

Cheers!

gordonf

8 Oct '07 7:32 pm

My sympathies with the wind-hit. I was just catching up last night with Pumpkin's post (who lost a tree in July, but I'd missed her post entirely) when a summer storm toppled our electricity. In our plantationess area (how's that for a word!) storms often topple trees, taking out the power, but - touch wood - my valley is pretty well protected from the strongest of any winds. I often hear the wind in the gums across the valley, but my garden remains relatively calm. Even black frosts, despite my comparatively cold location, have passed me by. Work on that NGP, Moosey!

13 Oct '07 2:35 am

Hi Gordon, sorry I haven't been by recently, but can I just add my own belated thanks for sharing your fantastic trip with us!

I loved all the wild flowers, berries and mushrooms and the gorgeous views (Snow-Capped Peak and East of the Mountains in particular), plus your story about the coyote was wonderful - I do believe you had a true connection there, even if just for a split second, but even so, what a fantastic experience! And poor old Joey - well done for managing to get a few pics of him too! Very Happy

Oh, and I just had to add my own twopennorth about the metric system! Recently, some European bigwig (no offense to my European friends there!) tried to ban our shops from using pounds and ounces to weigh food, but the good ol' British shopkeepers fought back and we're still allowed to order a pound of grapes, or whatever! Hurrah! You probably all think we're crazy old fashioned people over here, but we still use feet and inches to describe someone's height, we use miles for distance, we use stones for someone's weight, etc. etc. Some metric elements have crept in, e.g. Celcius/Centigrade for temperature (although some people like my Dad still use Fahrenheit) and, of course, our money went decimal long before I was born, but on the whole, we've kept ourselves stuck in the old ways and we're proud of it! Very Happy

Bambi
x

PS I'm sorry too, to hear about Moosey's lost tree - hope the clear-up's going ok.

13 Oct '07 3:17 pm

Hi, Bambi, and thanks for the comments. I suppose that eventually everyone will go metric, but sometimes it's great to hear of the little guy winning a battle, if not the whole war!!

Joey had a good trip, too, even though he didn't want any pictures to prove it. My friend, James, who I visited there was the first friend of mine to meet Joey when he was a puppy, and he hasn't seen James for 2 years. But he just went wild upon seeing him!! So he must have a pretty good memory!

The mountains on the trip were wonderful! It's too bad that the camera died on the way there or I would have taken many more mountain pics.

All the best!

gordonf

16 Oct '07 2:22 am

Hee hee, I'm sure you're right but we'll fight it 'til the end just for the sake of fighting it! Laughing

Glad to hear that Joey had a nice holiday too, but you don't surprise me about him remembering your friend James - that's the amazing thing about animals - our cats remembered the lady at the cattery when we took them there back in September and they'd only been there once before, and my parents' dogs always remember me when I go there - one of them always grabs my fingers in her mouth and leads me into the kitchen or wherever my Mum is, as if to say "look who I've found" but she doesn't do that with anyone else!

16 Oct '07 5:46 am

Go Britz ! Hold out against that metric master !
with metric there are only two ways to divide-5.2
The proper imperial system has a very good reason for being that way ~ the globe is divided into degrees-360 of them,and can be divided into combinations as with anything circular/global.And can go down into quarters,eighths,and so on...Not being a mathemetician,I am not explaining it well,but I understand the logic.
In fabric work which I do-the measurements have also been kept absolutely based on 12 inches...divided into precise imperial (is that the right term?)measurements of 3.4.6.2.8...so the old tape-measures are still being produced.
dixie.

Over the Mountains to the Interior

Helichrysum

Drat That Metric System!!

Toppled Tree

Wind!

"There'll always be an England . . ."

metric or not