Back-yard surprise

 

We've never seen this guy before, but all the birds in the neighbourhood knew he was bad news. Photo by John Denniston.

We’re used to a certain set of characters in our back yard – Steller’s jays, Northern Flickers, robins, crows, hummingbirds and LBJs (little brown jobs) – all congregating and quarrelling around the bird feeders and bird baths.

A couple of days ago, we were surprised by something altogether new – a big, substantial bird with a hooked bill, a glittering eye and a patient, brooding air. Barely moving, it sat for more than an hour on a mossy branch of the apple tree, focused on our bird feeders, waiting, waiting.

For what? Clearly not a turn at the dangling suet, the seed cylinder, or even the bird bath, which were all deserted and his for the taking. It took us awhile to figure out our visitor was not looking for bird food, but birds as food. It was a raptor, which the neighbourhood birds knew before we did. And fled.

When our regular birds timidly began showing up again, we didn’t know what to do. Who had priority? We didn’t want a backyard massacre, but maybe the newcomer was really hungry. Could we sacrifice a sparrow or two? As it turned out, we didn’t have to worry. John’s camera scared it off, and nobody died.

We learned later it was a Cooper’s Hawk, also known as a chicken hawk because it likes meaty, medium-sized birds like chickens and pigeons. Also bats and squirrels. Our hummers and LBJs were likely safe.

Cooper’s Hawks are fairly common in urban areas, according to the bird websites, and known for their “ability to hunt large and evasive prey using extremely well-developed agility.”  They squeeze their prey to death with powerful talons, or hold them underwater until they die. 

If you want to attract them to your yard, here’s what to do: Set up a bird feeder.

https://birdfeederhub.com/facts-about-coopers-hawks/

No!

 

A barrage of discouragement stands between dogs and their need to answer the call of nature in the great outdoors.

Poor dogs! Anyone who has ever watched the apology on a dog’s face as it does its business in full public view has got to feel some sympathy. Dogs are trained to go outside, but when they do, they’re treated like they’re performing an anti-social act. Owners avert their gaze, pretending not to know them, passersby scoot past, sniffing, and then there’s all those signs:

“No Poop & Pee. Be respectful.”

“Please keep dogs out of garden.”

“Woof! Please clean up after your pet.”

Physical barriers are popular, too – wire fences strategically placed to keep dogs away from plants, or even, in one yard near me, an odd assortment of closely placed sticks tight along the sidewalk.

My own hedge is apparently something of a local stopping-off point. Not being a dog-owner myself, it took me awhile to connect the seemingly lengthy lingerings of dog-walkers in front of my house and the dead brown spots– just at prime leg-lifting height – on the front hedge that lines the sidewalk.

I’d sooner have a pristine hedge, of course, but in the great balancing act that is urban life, a few brown spots aren’t the end of the world. Between the rules and the signs and the barriers, the dogs who brighten the lives of my neighbours don’t have many chances to go off-piste. I hope they enjoy peeing on my hedge.

The brown spots on my hedge were a puzzlement until I figured out that dogs were likely lifting their legs there. 

Here's a neighbour's answer to the dilemma: create a barrier out of old sticks.

Somebody else chose a more elegant solution, with a low wire fence just far enough away from the boxwood hedge.

Eye-catching and specific -- no euphemisms here!

And plentiful. There were at least six signs along the front of this property.

A little more polite, appealing to the best sides of both dog and owner.

Even institutions get into the act. Brock House in Point Grey would hate to see its neatly planted garden bed despoiled.  

Notice the official Vancouver Park Board insignia at the bottom right, and the hint at the lower left that a misbehaving dog might merit a 3-1-1 call.

,

This well-worn sign makes an attempt at humour....

Under the drawing of the dog with a cocktail glass are the words, "Please do not be...." What? A party pooper, perhaps?

I call this the ghost sign. In contrast to the well-articulated figure that began this post, it's a simple white cutout, minus any words. But I think the message is clear.

The Travelling Burn Pile

 

When you can haul your garden debris uphill or downhill for burning, which would you choose? All photos by John Denniston. 

It's a big dilemma with a property as steep as ours. Here's a view from the very top corner.

A lot of weeds can grow in half an untended acre of Saltspring. Broom, English ivy, blackberries, holly, curious trees that seem innocuous until you realize they’re six feet tall and their thorns are glove-penetrating. Plus the non-weeds – periwinkle, rosa rugosa, St. John’s Wort – that you may have even planted yourself, but have begun gobbling the garden.

My first solution for all the inevitable plant material that would have to be cut down, dug up and disposed of, was to toss it all into a kind of dip in the lowest part of our very hilly yard. A wild corner, I liked to think, a refuge where rabbits, snakes, and mice could hide, snack, and burrow, happy companions to the decomposing garden litter.

After a few years, the dip in that part of the yard began to fill up. John did not think this was good. It should be used for compost, he thought, and what wasn’t compost should be burned. At first this was fine. He built a burn pile close to the dip, and we had some fine fires. Composting didn’t go so well, as we don’t have much soil and a hot dry climate doesn’t lend itself to compost.

Then the trouble began. For reasons I’m still not clear on, John decided that composting would go better if the litter was piled beside the garage, which was located three-quarters of the way up the steep hill that is our property. Later, when he tore the garage down, he decided that its level, bare-earth floor was the perfect spot for a new burn pile.

These decisions meant that instead of hauling litter down the hill, we would always, always, be hauling it up. Gravity would no longer be my friend.

The predictable conversations ensued, but John, whose West Vancouver background prepared him for a lifetime of hill-climbing, prevailed. He didn’t mind hauling stuff up the hill, he said, so mostly I left him to it.

Years passed, and the annual burning of the summer’s litter on the old garage site became routine. Until one day – the Day of the Terrifying Inferno – it wasn’t.

 This time, the burn pile was unusually high and the flames quickly began looking dangerously exuberant.  As we watched them leap upwards, we realized that nearby trees had grown a lot since the pile was established, and their branches were now frighteningly close to the flames. The potential of setting 30-foot cedars ablaze was real.

Okay, no panic. The required hose was right there. But when John turned it on, the smallest little dribble we’d ever seen came out. The water pressure, as sometimes happens on Saltspring, was virtually nil.

So then we panicked. Frantic raking and smothering and shouting ensued, and we finally got the fire out.

There were more fires after that – not so big and never again without a good check of the water pressure. But this February, as we hauled more dead branches and debris up the hill to add to a stupendous pile, John began reconsidering.

Maybe, he thought, there is a better place for the burn pile. Maybe down the hill, with no high trees overhead. Maybe, in fact, at the old location. Near the dip in the lowest part of the yard.

So he spent an afternoon hauling all the debris he’d trundled up the hill back down again. It made a fine blaze; the hose worked and no trees were in danger. But I couldn’t help thinking it was awfully close to where I’d started out. How long, I wonder, until I start rebuilding my wild corner refuge? The rabbits and snakes are waiting….

Way down at the bottom of the property is this little corner where I began tossing my branches, leaves and brambles many years ago. No uphill work required!

Here's the opposite -- the location of the old garage nearly at the top of the property. The debris piles have begun!

So neat and tidy, unlike my toss-'em-and-leave-'em handiwork. In the background, there I am, on a downward trek.

A well-behaved fire at the top of the hill burns out. Unfortunately, we have no photos of the Terrifying Inferno. We were otherwise occupied.

Me again. Up the hill!

On our latest trip to Saltspring, we moved the debris pile back to the lower part of the property. This view from the balcony shows the burn pile in its original location, with my old "wildlife refuge" in the background.

The debris pile back in the old burning location.

John keeps a close watch, hose in hand. Hopefully, there is some water pressure if needed.

Here I am, piling on more debris for the next big burn pile. There's always more to come.

Waving goodbye

 

Leaving and Waving, a new photo show at the Polygon Gallery, brought back memories of farewells with my own parents.

For 27 years, U.S. photographer Deanna Dikeman took photos of her parents at the end of her visits to them, starting in 1991.

There was always a moment at the end of my parents’ visits when I didn’t quite want to say goodbye –they were old after all, and what if this was the last time? Stretching things out a bit, I’d walk them to their car and stand there waving them off.

Those moments came back to me Thursday night at a Polygon Gallery show recording 27 years of just such waves. Over all those years, Deanna Dikeman snapped photos of her parents waving goodbye after her periodic visits to their home in Sioux City, Iowa.

In 1991, her parents look cheerful and strong. In 2009, there are a curious number of goodbye waves: Many visits? Some problem?  And then there is only one parent – her mother – waving farewell from the open garage. As the years go on, her mother’s face gets sadder – it’s worse and worse to let her daughter go.

In 2017, the photos are taken in a care home, her mother surrounded by the flowery brightness intended to leaven the sadness of such places. The final photo of the series is of the family home, garage closed. There’s nobody left to wave goodbye.

After my father died in March of 1995, my mother drove herself out to our place for lunch in dad's familiar car. It was when she was leaving, one person walking alone to that car when there had always been two, that I truly felt the departure I’d always dreaded. But there was my mother, bravely carrying on alone.

 I waved.

This is the last photo of Dikeman's parents waving her goodbye together. Her father died in 2009, aged 91.

Now her mom says goodbye alone.

She looks sadder as the years go along.

Finally, she says goodbye from the door of her care home, where she moved in 2017. She died the same year.

There's no one to wave farewell at the family home anymore.

The sequential photos of 27 years of visits were set out on a shelf at the Polygon Gallery. You could walk from 1991 to 2017 and see the seasons and people change.

Treats

 

When life gives you lemons, go to a West Vancouver pastry shop and order coffee and cake. 

Then tour the West Vancouver seawall, where if you're John Denniston, you'll get a photo like this. 

When John and I have had enough – of medical stuff, of being in the house too much, of the routine, of the relentless bad news on our news sites – we look at each other and say: “Cake!”

Off we go to Temper Chocolate and Pastry in Dundarave for coffee and hazelnut and chocolate cake, our first treat. Our second is a walk along the West Vancouver seawall, where the people promenade, the birds bob, and an eagle often keeps watch.

Sometimes our treats work out better than others: the bridge traffic can be horrendous, our favourite cake can be gone, the seawall can be lashed with cold rain. This Sunday, the traffic was clear, the cake was plentiful, and the seawall beautiful, with a high tide that brought the ducks within a few feet of our faces.

Here are some photos from our day of treats:

The high tide brought the ocean right up to the seawall on Sunday. Photo by John Denniston.

A row of ducks floated just feet away, cleverly keeping in single file. Photo by John Denniston.

A little drive took us to Pilot House Road in West Vancouver, where a freighter seemed to float within swimming distance. Photo by John Denniston.

Back to where we started; a closeup of that hazelnut cake.

Once a newspaper photographer...

When John spotted this man clipping a neighbour's plants, his old newspapering instincts kicked in.  Photos by John Denniston. 

 

Even though John challenged him and was obviously photographing him, the man kept clipping away.

John has been a patient patient, abiding strictly by the “no-exertion” rules laid down for his recovery from ear surgery on Saturday.

 But on Tuesday, minutes after leaving the house for one of the few breaths of fresh air he’s taken so far, there he was, in full confrontational news-photographer mode.

 Sharper-eyed than myself, he spotted a man chopping away at a neighbour’s underbrush with a pair of red secateurs. The back story is that for the past year, Dunbar residents have been flummoxed by mysterious attacks on trees, shrubs and other plantings along local sidewalks. Sometimes the foliage was growing over sidewalks, so there appeared to be a reason. But sometimes it wasn’t, and beloved trees well away from the sidewalk were inexplicably lopped.

 John’s newsman instincts kicked in in a flash. “Stop that!” he yelled, dashing toward the crime scene, cellphone camera at the ready. “You’re the guy whose been cutting people’s trees!”

 “I’m cutting these,” the white-haired man, wearing a baseball cap and a bag slung over his shoulder, said as he continued snipping away. Barely looking up, he almost posed for the series of photographs that John began taking. Then, after a heated exchange between him and John, he drifted away across the intersection.

  “I’m doing this for disabled people and seniors and strollers,” he called back. “Sidewalks are supposed to be clear.”

 We still don’t know who the man is, whether he’s responsible for the previous clipping work, or what to do about him. But we do know that a retired newspaper photographer, even an under-the-weather one, can go from zero to 120 in a couple of seconds if a good story pops up.

Of magic and cats

 

My desk mementoes include a stuffed knit cat (forefront) made by my friend Linda. My grandniece got another one, and thereby lies a tale.

Several years ago, my friend Linda was knitting little stuffed cats – three inches tall, with cunning little tails that curled up or curled down – and giving them away as gifts. Mine, which lives on my desk with other mementoes, is green, white, and blue stripes, with orange eyes and tail-tip.

One of the other recipients was my grandniece Emi, now 8, who I recently learned had a sad story concerning her cat. Apparently, she’d become extremely attached to it – her mom said it was the perfect size to carry around in her jacket and backpack, and it kept her company wherever she went. But one day the cat disappeared on the school bus and couldn’t be found.

Emi, whose world view includes the real potential of magic, thought that might be the solution. Every so often, her mom said, she’d ask whether “magical characters” might be able to find her cat.  Then with Christmas approaching, she seized on another possibility. Could Santa (who after all can fly all over the world distributing presents to every girl and boy) find the kitty and bring it back?

Well, he missed his chance at Christmas, but when Emi’s mom told me the story, I passed it on to Linda.

 “But I have cats!” she said. “I made some extra who never found homes and just tucked them away. I can give both Emi and her sister their own cats!”

The news made Emi’s day, her mom reported. Not only does she get a cat, but now she knows for sure that magical characters (who knit tiny cats) do exist.

Linda's extra cats – one tail up, one tail down – will go to Emi and her sister.

John van Gogh

 

John can't resist taking a picture of his bandaged ear after dermatological surgery on Saturday. Photo by John Denniston. 

Look familiar? Vincent van Gogh painted Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear in January 1889.

When John came home from dermatological surgery on his ear, what’s the first thing he did? Photographed himself with a bandage covering it so completely that his ear appeared to have vanished.

One hundred and thirty-four years ago, to the month, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh produced an eerily similar portrait of himself. His 1889 bandage is bigger and clumsier, covering the side of his face from hat to chin, as well as the ear that he’d mutilated. Stories about the incident differ – it was a fit of mania, a fight with his housemate Paul Gauguin, or anxiety over financial support. He either lopped off his ear lobe only, or nearly his entire ear; and he gave the appendage to either a maid or a prostitute.

John’s story lacks the drama of a century of myth-making; the doctors were just excising some questionable tissue, and did a fine stitching job under that skin-coloured bandage.

But it’s interesting to look at the similarity of these pictures 134 years apart. Two visual artists, two damaged ears and what’s their response? Make a self-portrait.

2022: Done!

 

Just resting after a trying year. Photo by John Denniston.

Apparently, I’m not the only one happy to see the end of 2022.

According to an early-December Leger poll, 31 percent of respondents thought 2022 was even worse than plague-fraught 2021; only 21 percent said it was better. The main reasons: inflation, soaring costs of living and the war in Ukraine.

Those aren’t quite my reasons, but count me among the Canadians happy to rip the 2022 calendar off my wall.

There were bright spots – a siblings’ get-together in the spring, the production of three community newsletters, several perfect summer weeks on Saltspring. But the downsides were many. I’m among the many Baby Boomers gaining a new understanding of why our aging parents talked so much about medical issues and dying: Now it’s our turn.

That sad reality was brought to the fore by the death of my youngest brother in June, just months before his 67^th birthday. The five “little” Volkart kids are now four senior citizens.

Add the continuing COVID crisis, which cuts down on activities and family connections; crazy weather that sounds the alarm on climate change, and a fall civic election that drew only one-third of voters to the ballot box despite the many crucial issues at stake. 

The Leger poll found  a hint of optimism among its respondents: 34 percent believe 2023 will be better than 2022, while only 22 percent think it will be worse.

My only prediction for the year ahead is that I will probably spend more time with my feet up.

One of the good times from 2022: My sister Betty from Quebec, me from Vancouver and my brother Brian from Alberta together in Victoria. Photo by John Denniston.

My younger brother Larry, who died this year, would have been about 16 when John photographed him on the family farm in Alberta.

Another photo of Larry, loading grain on the farm, in 1971. Photo by John Denniston.

Betty, Larry, Diane, me and Brian in 1995; the five siblings are now down to four. Photo by John Denniston. 

A little Christmas cheer to end this post on a happier note: John and me with our Christmas tree, made out of a garden obelisk wrapped in Christmas lights. Hopefully, it will be supporting sweet peas this  summer -- something to look forward to in 2023!