Let the mudslinging begin!!

Mudslinging? No, it's not raining . . . although soon it will be raining political ambitions in Fort St. John, as City Council, the Regional District, and the School District 60 Board of Trustees positions are all up for grabs this fall. If the last municipal election is anything to go by, not to mention some of the items in the media in the past year . . . there will be a certain amount of mudslinging going on in our previously civilized municipal election.

Again, as in the last municipal election, I suspect much of the mudslinging, disparaging personal comments etc., will surround the race for mayor. Certainly, the last election was not too bad, in this respect, but there were some bad feelings on both sides during the campaign. This time around, largely as a result of accusations leveled at our mayor in the past year, there will be some people who may want to point out these perceived short-comings as a reason not to re-elect him.

I really hope it doesn't come to that. It's not a popularity contest, although it may seem like it at times. It's an opportunity for change, if change is needed, and a chance for residents of Fort St. John to make sure that those running our city are the best ones for the job. We need to elect a mayor and council who will best represent the city, at all times, regardless of any personal baggage they may be toting. You know, put their best face forward, at all times. For the betterment of the city they are representing.

With rumours of four potential candidates for Mayor of Fort St. John, I'm looking forward to this campaign, and to hearing the candidates visions for our community.

Of the possible "known" candidates for Mayor, we have the current mayor, Bruce Lantz. Also possibly running are incumbent councillors Lori Ackerman and Don Irwin. Both have served the City well on council for a number of years - at least two terms for each, I think. I must say, however, that in spite of his years on council, I don't actually know much about Councillor Irwin, the issues he stands for, or his vision for the City. Councillor Ackerman has been more vocal - most notably on the issue of handicapped accessibility to all facilities in the City.

So, come October 4th, we will know who is running for which positions, throughout the region. Best of luck to all candidates, and may those who will be represent the City, the Region and the students of Fort St. John, win.

For the love of . . .

. . . black & white photography!!

I said my next post would be about my initial creative love - before I discovered that writing could actually be a career, albeit not a lucrative one! Once I realized that I could not draw for peanuts, even though I loved to draw, and following the brief creative dry period, when I focussed on school work, band and other things like learning to sew, I got my hands on a camera.

My first forays were, as one expect from a 16-year-old who had never had the opportunity to even touch a camera before, nevermind actually take photos, pretty bad. But even way back then, I was not really interested in taking pictures of things that were "happening", but in making something interesting. And when I had the opportunity to observe a friend of mine developing photos in his make-shift darkroom (I believe it was the bathroom in his brother's house), I discovered how much better black & white was.

Okay, better is a matter of opinion, I know. And don't get me wrong, colour can be fabulous - but usually in other people's photos. My personal preference is for black & white or sepia. Call me old-fashioned, but that's the way it is. Photos of my children look awesome in colour, but by turning them into black & white, they just seem to gain a whole other dimension or quality, that's not in the colour photos.

So, with all the children now at school, all day - our youngest started Kindergarten on Wednesday - I have more time to shoot things other than the kids or my garden!

Here are a few samples of my latest work, in both black & white, and colour.

As you can see, the combine just doesn't look as good in colour, as it does in black & white. The old fence at the back of the corral is the same - it just doesn't look right in colour.

I have taken some photos recently, of knarly dead trees and stumps, which look equally good in colour or b&w - in fact, there's one, that looks better in colour! Yes, I can have an open mind - not everything has to be devoid of colour!

How beautiful is that sky? If only the combine wasn't parked in the trees, I could've had some similar shots of that . . . but I didn't. Trees do make a good background - provided they're blurry, so they don't detract from the main image.

Oh yeah, that's another thing. In addition to loving b&w, blurry backgrounds or foregrounds are features I enjoy incorporating. After years of taking pictures for the newspaper, where the subject matter (no offense to news, I love news, but those photos are not artistic in the least) was often-times boring, and where everything had to be crisp and clear, I am so happy to be able to shoot what I want, the way I want. Yes, I've been able to do that with the kids for the last decade or so, but going out and looking for fun subject matter, is vastly different from going out to look for something for the front page. You know? And it's also vastly different from taking pictures of the kiddos on their birthdays, Christmas and first day of school.

This is art. Different art from that created by my friends Bernice and Diana - they are painters (although Bernice is a master of several mediums, not just painting), and their work is awesome! Different also, from my friend Julie, who does landscape photography and close-up/macro photography. Again, her work is awesome, absolutely beautiful . . . and in colour! Some of the photos she's taken, I could only dream of creating!

Thanks, once again, for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed the selections of my work posted here today. I'll also update my links to include the work of those friends mentioned in this posting, so you can see for yourselves how fabulous they are, and how beautiful their work is.

Real Summer or Indian Summer?

It's an absolutely glorious day, again, in Fort St. John. After one of the worst summers of all time, weather-wise, it seems that now that school has started up again, summer has arrived. But since it's September, is it really summer, or Indian Summer? I wonder, but I'm not complaining - this weather is fabulous! How often do you get 29C temperatures in September, up here? Umm, let me think . . . never!!

This fantastic weather is giving my garden a chance to catch up - I have more peas ready to harvest, the beans are actually getting a chance to grow . . . but my greenhouse, alas, is done for the year. I cleaned it out a few days ago, there's only 5 tomato plants left in there now, but as soon as I finish picking the ripe ones, they're going too. The leaves are turning yellow, despite daily watering and tons of sunshine, so I think that's it for 2011. That's okay though, gives me a chance to finish with the garden - I have a ton of carrots to put up - and plan the whole shebang again for next spring.

This was the garden, in all it's mostly weed-free glory a couple of weeks ago. Everything is bigger now, except the potatoes, as I've pulled up some, as well as some carrots. The Buttercrunch lettuce got away on me, while I was waiting for heads to form, the plants decided to bolt instead - I'll try it again next year, but at least the Romaine turned out awesome. I just planted a little too much. My planting plan was based on an expected 50% death rate, but I don't think even 25% of the plants died. So unless we had salad every single day, there's no way I could keep up with my lettuce crop.

Remember, one-third of this garden is an experiment! A very successful experiment, if I may be allowed to brag!

Must go and weed now, and harvest more carrots, beets and peas. Next blog post, I'll share some of the other stuff I've been doing this month . . . a departure from gardening, and back to one of my earlier loves, before I'd really discovered writing as an art form.

Hopefully, you'll love what I've come up with!

Thanks for reading!

Weird s&%t for sale

Sometimes, you just gotta laugh at the weird stuff people advertise for sale in the classifieds. I think there should be a new section entitled: Weird Stuff To Buy or Sell. Seriously.

Take one of the recent free publications that arrived in our mailbox this week. In the For Sale, Misc column, in addition to log loaders, an ATV sprayer and a skidoo trailer, someone is selling an 8-year old gas furnace and hot water heater. All pipes included. Wouldn't that thing be, well, old and inefficient? I understand that perhaps the previous owner wants to recoup some of his money when upgrading to a newer, more efficient model . . . but with the price of utilities these days, who's going to buy an old furnace? Unless, of course, their furnace is 18 years old. Then that would be an upgrade.

It gets better.

In the Wanted column, we have someone looking for used portable outhouses. Ewwwwww! Pre-cleaned? Doesn't say. This guy also wants some old school bus seats . . . perhaps he's going to build a better outhouse? With padded seating for those times when you're all bunged up and need to sit awhile? Or perhaps, he just has an old bus with wrecked seats and wants to install some nicer ones?

Nah, I think I like the idea of using the seats in the outhouses better! Sometimes, you just gotta laugh. I did.

Whew! That was close!

By the grace of God, or Mother Nature, the predicted frost for last night didn't materialise . . . which was really good, since I hadn't found anything to cover up all my plants with!

Yes, I still have bean plants with no beans on them - flowers, yes, but no beans as yet - I have pea plants with only the tiniest, flat pea pods on them, and the weatherman was predicting frost. In August. This has been a truly terrible summer, horticulturally speaking. Snow in June, rain throughout July, and then frost before the end of August. Man, I hope next year is better!

On the positive side . . . I pulled up 2 potato plants the other day, and the spuds are awesome! So delicious. I also pulled half a row of carrots, most of which I'm going to freeze for the winter, but I have some of them in the fridge, scrubbed, leaves removed and ready for peeling. Yummy. Oh yeah, these are the Nantes Scarlet Core carrots. I haven't picked any of the Imperators yet.

The Diva cucumber I had growing in the greenhouse is done, in spite of watering etc., its leaves are turning pale green and there's no more cukes on it, so I'll have to remove it in short order. The other cukes are still growing well, regardless of the lower nighttime temperatures.

But the peppers have still not been harvested. They're not very big, I'm not sure if they're ready . . . and now, they're infested with Aphids. Just the peppers, both green and red. And one broccoli plant, but the broccoli is about done now too, I think.

All in all, I think it's been a fairly successful summer in the garden, in spite of the crappy weather. Clearly, there are some things that I need to change for next year - but that's okay. It's a learning experience, and I learned what not to do in the greenhouse! Number one - bigger pots for the tomatoes right from the beginning; and two - set up the irrigation system as soon as the plants are in their bigger pots. Watering them automatically, twice a day seems to work far better than at high noon. More fertilizer would be good too.

Next year, I will have a bigger garden - my husband is going to build a proper fence (no more corral panels) for me, enclosing the greenhouse in the garden, and giving me a fresh new large spot for planting. It should be fabulous! I'm already plotting what veges to plant!

The Ultimate Deer Repellent

Last night, I was digging through boxes in our garage, looking for my binders of clippings for a job interview I have this morning. Discovered a whole pile of other treasures in the process -- like my university transcript (I was wondering where that was!), all the essays I wrote at university, letters from my mother, every day-timer I'd ever had since becoming a reporter in 1994 . . . the list goes on.

As I was putting some of the boxes away, my children, who were lurking in garage, wanting to dig through my boxes of stuff themselves (I think not, kiddos!) happened to look out the window in door, which faces the front yard.

"MUM!!" our son  yells, "There's deer in your garden!"

I've been fighting the deer of late, after leaving my flower gardens alone all summer, they have now decided that I must've put up a salad bar for them, because they're in there every night. I've been forced to put "hats" on all my flowers - up-ended plant pots - to protect them, which seems to be working.

But since I hadn't put the hats on my plants yet - it was barely 9 p.m., I had to take other, more drastic measures, immediately. I gave our daughter the papers I had found, and sprinted for the door, grabbing our son's hockey stick on the way.

Out the door and across the lawn, I ran, in my slippers, brandishing the hockey stick and hollering at the top of my lungs - ARRRGH!!!! Get OUT of MY garden!!!!!

Those three deer didn't even stop to look at me, they took off as though the hounds of hell were after them! Probably wondering exactly what the hell kind of dog we'd gotten! Of course, the neighbours are probably still wondering what we were up to!

The kids brought me the hats for the plants and together we covered them up, while my husband went looking in the bush, to make sure the deer weren't trying to sneak back into the yard. They were long gone.

Did I find my box with all the clippings? Nope, it's still in the seacan, I guess. It's certainly not in the house, so I guess I'll just have to wing it. And make up one of those deer repellent potions after my interview. I can't spend every night running around in the yard, in my slippers, screaming and waving a hockey stick!

FSJ prepared for a flash flood? Think not!

Apparently, our mayor thinks the City of Fort St. John is now adequately prepared to withstand a flash flood. What, they have a fleet of vac trucks on standby in the event of another downpour??

Grow a flipping brain, man.

The situation is no different than it was this past weekend, or two weeks before that. The city has an inadequate sewage system. God knows when it was last upgraded - certainly not recently, in the Matthew's Park area. Clearly, the city planners didn't either anticipate the possible future growth of the city; or they figured it would never rain that much.

Add to that, the fact that many of the flooded properties and streets are located at the bottom of a hill (water runs downhill, in case you were wondering), and on the site of a former swamp. Obviously, the natural drainage properties of the land are going to compromised when said land is a swamp.

And the newer houses which got flooded at the other end of town? Okay, they're on top of a hill. But, the by-pass road is higher than the properties. Again, the sewage system needs upgrading and how many of these properties were properly graded by the builder when they were completed? Do the yards actually slope away from the houses, or were they just made nice and flat by the builders and left?

When we built our house, we made sure the land sloped away from the house. We even have two shallow drainage ditches (which are still soaking wet) to direct water away from the house, and out to the edge of the backyard. Our old house, was also properly graded. But unfortunately, not our next door neighbours. Every spring, they had water coming in their basement when the snow melted and headed straight for their foundation. I remember one spring, they sandbags out, just to keep the water out of the basement. Pretty extreme for a house in town, on top of a hill, with no river in sight. They've since built a berm of earth and grass around their foundation and it seems to have done the trick.

Perhaps this is what our mayor means, when he says the City is prepared for another flash flood?? He's laid in a supply of sandbags? To go with the army of vac trucks? Or perhaps he has a large supply of porta-potties in his backyard, ready for when people are told not to use water, and therefore not flush their toilets to avoid putting further stress on the inadequate sewage system?

Of course, you know, that no matter what he says, it's all political-speak and actually has no substance or meaning that the people can count on. Full of hot air, I believe my parents would say! Maybe enough hot air will evaporate the rain as it falls, and then there will be no further issues?

I'm not holding my breath, but it will be interesting to see what measures he will trot out, come the next flood. I'm guessing that will be August long-weekend?