The joys of planting

Photo: Kingsbrae Garden

This has been a garden year. One bed was like a wild meadow after it's been logged.

The first stage was to have those unsightly yew stumps taken out and replaced with a berm. Into this fresh bed we transplanted the waiting shrubs: a magnolia, two mock oranges, a beauty berry, the royal roses Lady Diana and Queen Elizabeth, and more.

As well as enabling me to plant out my "temporary" pots, this garden re-design provided a fantastic opportunity to go shopping for more bulbs. I made several forays to David Hunter and also a special trip to Art's to pick up my free orange tulip bulbs and buy an armful of autumn crocus, both plants and bulbs.

The planning and planting of the refurbished beds took place over a couple of months. After a row of astilbes had been put in place, I interspersed them with clumps of orange lilies along the berm that now flanks the driveway. Seeing that row of showy orange flowers was the fun of July, when the the berm was new. Other changes were subtle; the shrubs settled in and sent up some new growth.

As we rounded the front of this bed with an arc of lily of the valley, my friend suggested we flank these with a similar shape in King Alfred daffodils. We used some that had been dug up from another bed that was being redone.

I had many pink peonies repositioned, and a huge clump of overgrown bearded iris moved to the back. On his own initiative, my wonderful gardening neighbour created a graceful curved iris border. Meanwhile, near the door, I had the pleasure of creating a bed of fragrant oriental lilies, including Casablanca whites, Stargazer pinks, and the rare Salmon Stargazers, all with slightly different bloom times.

This week I planted the fall crocus. The potted ones are already in flower; they've relaxed into the ground and the waiting buds have opened. Between these clumps, I added some packaged bulbs -- the nursery tells me they'll be in flower within six weeks.

After the front was done, I took the old bulbs that had been dug up from various beds and tucked them into newly opened spaces in the back garden, where we've never before had bulbs. It was a great feeling to put the last of them into the ground, fed with bulb food and good vibrations. Next year, the space under several refurbished and replanted shrubs should be a carpet of varied colour through spring and summer.

A trip to the iris bed to see how much they've grown, now that they have space, was fortuitous. One fall crocus must have hitchhiked there with the iris: it was in full bloom among them. I scooped it up and replanted it in a bare spot in front that I'd felt needed one more crocus plant.

The joys of gardening are immense; one of these is the anticipation of waiting through the seasons next year to see the many plants we put in place this year flourish in their newly prepared spaces.

Betty Azar and Angus Wilson

 Betty Azar photo from ESL mini-conference 2002

The life of one who takes up the pen or computer to earn a living producing words is full of uncertainty. It was only when the great novelist Angus Wilson left his day job as a cataloger in the British Museum that he was able to turn to full-time fiction writing.

Literary giant though Sir Angus Wilson was (he was knighted for his literary work), his pocketbook did not reflect that status. Indeed, it was due to financial pressures that he began later in life to teach the craft of fiction. Yet that worked out very well, both at the then still-new University of East Anglia, where he and Malcolm Bradbury established the pioneering Creative Writing Program in 1970, and at the University of Iowa, home of the Writers' Workshop.

On the other hand, whether she intended to or not, great American grammarian Betty Schrampfer Azar has demonstrated that practicality pays. Azar kept to her teaching work while she produced several paper and cd editions of Understanding and Using English Grammar and other ESL-friendly texts. The other day somebody told me she owns an island.

Clothes line weather

Picture: CT 2012

Nothing smells like laundry dried on the line. Now is the time to take advantage of the fine fall weather and get that fresh scent while being green -- no dryer means no electricity used.

The only problem is, getting around to getting the clothes back in. Mine have been out there for three days now.

If left too long, they can fade in the sun. Or, this being Vancouver, it might rain and then they'd be wet again and I would be back to square one. I'll take them in soon!

Spraying the shoes

Picture: shoes sprayed for fall CT 2012

There comes a season when I suddenly feel it's time to spray the shoes for winter.

I set them all out on the front doorstep, close the door and spray them one by one to protect against water and stains. This has to be done outside, because the spray smells terrible.

Still, it's a pleasant ritual, a harbinger of autumn. Afterwards, I line the shoes up neatly in the hall closet. Old and new ones are ready for fall. This is the season for new shoes; as children, we always had them in September.

Old ones, no matter how comfortable, have to be discarded eventually. But why is it so hard to give them up, even when they are worn out?

A milestone: thanks to my first 25,000 visitors

Back in the fall of 2009, on a dare, I started blogging. If you will, I will. That sort of thing. After my first entry, I looked at my archives: empty. Posts: one. Much later, I sorted into topics, and quite recently I re-organized the posts and reduced the number of labels.

If I'd known then how persistent I would become at this writing and editing exercise, I would have been amazed. First it was only a couple of times a week. Then, at the beginning of 2011, I set myself the task of posting daily. I let myself off that hook earlier this year, cut back again. But apparently the habit of daily posts had become ingrained, so I've returned to that.

As of today, I've logged more than 25,000 visitors. Lots of readers are looking at multiple pages. Some visitors are new. Others return, and that's an honour. Some have left comments, and one or two have offered corrections. One missing zero had left the wrong impression about a meteorite, but that's fixed now, and I thank you.

And thanks, readers, for continuing to check in on my ramblings about everything from vegetables to volcanoes, from book reviews and writers and to Hudson's Bay Company forts. You are an eclectic group, from an extensive list of countries and every continent except Antarctica.

I love the idea that people who will never see my little corner of the world can read my words and see the pictures I take with my cellphone camera. Even twenty years ago, most people would have had a lot of trouble believing such things would so soon be commonplace.

Isn't the Web wonderful? Thank you, Tim Berners-Lee. And thanks too, to the many other web developers: those who made it happen, and those who kept it free.

Moving the canna to a more sheltered place

Photo: Canna Tropicana from Wilson Brothers Landscape

This year my canna didn't bloom. I have raised them before and I treated this one well; perhaps it was late developing because we had so much rain in June. It keeps growing, and they told me at the nursery that it has to reach a certain height before it will flower. I'm feeling hopeful; the current growth looks like it might be a flower spike rather than a leaf. But at the first sign of cooler nights, I'm going to tuck the pot it into a southeast corner where it will be sheltered at night and still get lots of sun by day.

The weather is still hot and summery but there is a fall feeling now. Lots of leaves are coming down, and evening comes noticeably earlier: when I sit on the back porch, I can no longer read past 7:30.

Tonight in the garden, I thought I saw a bat, a reminder of childhood summer evenings by the lake. It still feels like summer and it's supposed to be 26 degrees tomorrow. Hope my canna soon looks like the picture.

David Thompson, explorer and geographer

David Thompson monument photo: Roadside America

This granite monument stands at Verendyre, North Dakota. A globe marked with lines of latitude and longitude, it is dedicated to the great geographer, David Thompson. The worn inscription says Thompson passed near here during 1797-8 while preparing the first map of the state. The marker was placed by the Great Northern Railway in 1925.

David Thompson was born to Welsh parents in London in 1770. His father died when he was two and he was later enrolled in a charity school, where he showed great aptitude for mathematics. Studies in astronomy and navigation prepared him for a life in the Royal Navy.

Aged fourteen, he was apprenticed to the Hudson's Bay Company, and sailed for the new world. He served the company first at Churchill and York Factory. Then, at the age of sixteen, he traveled along the North Saskatchewan River to Manchester House, a fort located near today's town of Battleford. He spent the winter of 1787 camped with a band of Peigans on the Bow River near Calgary, and returned to the fort the following year.

An unfortunate fall resulted in a broken leg, and with the limited medical care available, it took Thompson a full year to recover. He was to be sent to York Factory, but got only as far as Cumberland House. His injury led to a lifelong limp.

It was during his long recovery that young David took lessons with Philip Turnor as he made plans to take a party to survey the Athabasca country. During his training, Thompson measured the latitude and longitude of Cumberland House with great accuracy. Unfortunately he also lost the sight of his right eye that winter, and was unable to accompany the survey party to Athabasca.

But by now Thompson was a surveyor. As J and A Gottfried mention, when he finished his apprenticeship with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1791, he asked for a brass sextant and other survey equipment instead of the customary suit of clothes. The Company gave him both, but it was another five years before Thompson's collection of survey equipment was complete. His kit included a telescope that allowed him to observe the moons of Jupiter, and he was nicknamed Koo Koo Sint, the stargazer, by native peoples, as Ray Mears mentions in his BBC program.

In 1797, Thompson left the strongly trade-oriented Hudson's Bay Company to join its rival, the North West Company. In the years that followed, he explored vast areas of the west. In the summer of 1807, he crossed the Rockies by way of Howse pass from Rocky Mountain House, and established Kootenae House on the Columbia River. He carried out extensive explorations in what is now British Columbia, and travelled as far south as Spokane and the mouth of the great Columbia River at Astoria, Oregon. A couple of years later, he re-crossed the Rockies eastward via Athabasca Pass.

As a geographer, David Thompson was unparalleled. In 2008, his achievements were celebrated with the Thompson Brigade, a 3300 kilometer canoe trip from Rocky Mountain House, Alberta to Thunder Bay, Ontario. The David Thompson Brigade 2011 celebrated the 200th anniversary of his exploration of the Columbia River.

In B.C. the North and South Thompson Rivers were named after him, and Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops was named in turn after these. David Thompson Secondary School in Vancouver was also named in honour of this early explorer of North America.

Canadian storyteller Stuart McLean has said that he considers Thompson one of the greatest geographers who ever lived.

A more personal achievement was Thompson's fifty-seven year marriage to Charlotte Small, his Metis wife.