Outdoors Galore

In a manic effort to enjoy our six days of summer and avoid smoking, I was physically active for about five or six hours from Tuesday through Wednesday afternoon.  Tuesday evening I tried paddling in a dragon boat...though 'paddling' hardly begins to describe the exertion nor does this idylic view of Minnette Bay:

It was the most perfect of all evenings to be on the water though I had to leave my camera behind since it would have gotten thoroughly soaked.  Always nice to grab a glimpse of our sometimes bee-hee-ootiful surroundings.

Wednesday morning, I went on a 3 hour hike around upper and lower Clearwater Lakes and their connecting stream.  The light was perfection so I snapped over 80 photos hoping to find a painting composition or two in the batch.

We discovered newest Biggest Mushroom I've Ever Seen, with my bruised and wrinkled hand in there for scale.  The way this year is going I expect that record's liable to be broken weekly.

Bonus spectacle!!  When we returned to Onion Lake we noticed tadpoles the size and colour of black olives swarming by the shore.  We surmised that this was for the dual purpose of stirring up silt to feed and soak up some warmth from the sun.  They gradually gathered around any branches or rocks sticking up out of the water; the early maturers equipped with their complete set of legs perched right on top and below them, various stages of development descending into the water, looking like an evolution chart.
Those big kids with their legs, they get all the cool stuff!

Monster Mushrooms

It's been wet this year which is light years different from the past two summers where the woods became dusty and even the moss turned crispy and dry.  I find this weather far more reassuring though we're all relishing the warm sunny weather of the past 3 days, which so far represents our entire summer.
Mushroom season has arrived early and it probably shouldn't be a suprise that I encountered what may very well be the biggest mushrooms I've ever seen.

Tulips!

It's a new painting!  Three feet by four feet,acrylic on a crappy warped canvas bought at the dollar store (never doing that again) completed just before all the death and uncertainty of the past week or so.  I'm not normally a floral painter, or if I am I've found an extreeemely narrow niche because:
a.  I only paint tulips (more rarely poppies or other cup shaped flowers)
b.  apparently I wait for this precise moment in the life and death of a tulip.  Found a sketch from several years back which looks like this very composition.  But it's not.
Even stranger is the fact that another artist I know through the art club, likes to paint tulips in this same state. 
Maybe I's more common than I thought?

Memorial #1

The Rod & Gun was filled to capacity this afternoon with coworkers and students who had appreciated Betty's passion for music and teaching.  Many of us hadn't realized that she was essentially a very quiet and reserved person...she must have found her niche in Kitimat because we knew her for her exuberance, sarcasm and dry humour.  She's seen here in the late 60s with her beloved clarinet which she went on to play professionally in several smaller city symphonies before turning to teaching.  The high school band program quadrupled in the 7 years under her direction.

There is a Memorial #2 pending with a possible 3rd following a fatal highway accident on Saturday that took the life of another high school teacher.  Her husband, also a high school teacher, has since been in a coma.  She was on my facebook since we have that special bond as Mothers Of Crazies.  TwinB sent a message of condolence to one of her daughters; they dealt with many of the same issues at the same time.

I discreetly mentioned to a good friend at the memorial that I felt a little paranoid at the moment - that it felt like we were being stalked by an invisible force.  She told me that everyone felt the same way, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Hope we're done with death for the summer.

Today the Music Died...

Betty the Band teacher was a member of the group organizing the Arts Festival and she energetically coached her many students and attended concerts through the end of June.
Now she's suddenly gone.
Last Wednesday - one week ago - she was taken to emergency where she was diagnosed with cancer and we knew she didn't have long but who could expected her death on the Wednesday following?
I keep seeing her face at one of the recent meetings we attended. 
Doesn't seem real and it sure isn't right.

Huckleberries! Hurray!!

There is no plant/tree/shrub that is more West-Coastie than the huckleberry.  They're the first thing to send out their incredibly delicate blooms in spring; hummingbirds count on it and this bush is so pretty in every season.  Spotted these on a walk today and harvested a few.  Prematurely it turns out.  They were almost good so I guess they'll need a few more days.  I noticed some ripe looking raspberries in my oh so neglected raspberry patch so will check that out now.

Evidence of Heading North

See the feast laid before me?? This is the cuisine that Air Canada dishes out for their short haul flights.  A 14 gram bag of mini pretzels (half an ounce for those still in pound mode) delivering a whopping 60 calories worth of energy.  Fork out $6 for a crisp white wine to wash it down and you have a lovely pairing to occupy your restless self for about...15 minutes if you really stretch it out.

Then...what to watch...what to watch...
Apparently the only thing 'on' right now is an episode of The Dog Whisperer.
Cartoon curtesy of TwinB
I wasn't even aware that airplane seats normally come equipped with media screens until about 2 years ago when I finally flew east on a standard plane rather than just south to Vancouver.
And we get to pay about twice as much too.