I am by no means an avid fisherman, but I enjoy hiking, camping, nature photography, streamkeeping and other outdoor activities, so I like having the proper licences if the opportunity arises to wet a line. I have a couple of inexpensive rods and reels, and a small tackle box with an assortment of enough lures and accessories to be suited to most fishing in western Canada.
I have a cousin who loves fishing, and I’m always learning when I go out with him.
I have store-bought canned fish in the cupboard and frozen fish in the freezer, so I figure if I’m eating fish I might as well kill some myself. It’s a reminder that cans and plastic wrap do not insulate us from nature, though nowadays lots of folks have no idea where their food comes from.
Pamela Zevit and Tamsin Baker of SCCP provided introductions to their program and the speakers.
Then I spoke about citizen engagement in relation to the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers Society, and shared some thoughts on communicating about local watersheds to citizens, youth, and various levels of government and government agencies.
I didn’t bother with a PowerPoint, just blathered on with my Slavic passion : – ).
I took a Friday – Monday trip out to the Okanagan to visit some relatives from Saskatchewan who had booked a suite in Osoyoos for a winter break. I’ll gradually catch up with posts, but here’s a couple of shots of a goldeneye at Birch Bay State Park in Washington State. There were a lot of them hanging out just off the beach. (I came home through the US to take a different road, and do some shopping though the exchange rate isn’t nearly as favorable as it had been for the last few years.)
I attended a mason bee workshop sponsored by the City of Burnaby today. I’ve been to these before, but I always learn something new. Today’s speakers were bee expert Margriet Dogterom who runs BeeDiverse Products and bird box and bee box builder extraordinaire Joe Sadowski.
Margriet in action
Joe mentioned that he turned “83 years young” the other day!
When he saw me, he gave me a punch in the shoulder by way of greeting. I may have a bruise coming on 🙂
Realized that I’ve shot the same scene about half a year apart. While the scenes are not exactly lined up, you can recognize the fence posts and get a sense of how close I must have been standing for the two takes.
March 9, 2015
October 1, 2014
If you look closely, you can see that I was just a few steps to the right compared to the more recent photo. Cool!
I love the BC 5A between Merritt and Kamloops. The Nicola Valley and its string of lakes has a quiet beauty that changes with the seasons. In three or four hours of slowly touring up and back down, I saw at most a dozen other vehicles. The smaller lakes were still mostly iced over, with blue at the edges.
I tried many dozen shots of these Western Meadowlarks, but only these two were usable. They were very shy, and even with the monster Tamron 150-600mm maxed out, they were hard to capture.
Happy International Women’s Day to my late Mom, who taught me to respect women, to cook, to wash dishes, to wash clothes, to iron, to sew on my own buttons…
All while she pursued higher education and then held a professional job for over 30 years.
She shall remain one of my most important role models forever.
Lots of blossoms as I ambled along…
Morning dew
