On the way home from getting a few groceries in south Burnaby, BC, I spotted a patch of Himalayan Blackberries. I found a place to park, and checked them out. Seeing that about half were ripe and juicy, I emptied a water bottle so I could pick some to take home.
While considered an invasive species here, they are pervasive, next to impossible to get rid of. . . and taste delicious :-).
Fill ‘er up!
UPDATE: Later the same day.
When Yumi finished work, we headed back down the slope to the flats and picked nearly two gallons of berries in about half an hour :-).
After checking out the instream work being done on Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby, BC (see previous post), I headed down Southridge Drive all the way to the spawning habitat and back up the ravine trail.
Major instream work is happening on Byrne Creek in SE #Burnaby near where it daylights around 17th.
An old culvert is being replaced with a fish-friendlier box culvert with greater flow capacity, and the streambed is being dug out, with mud being replaced with spawning-size gravel and cobble.
Whether or not salmon would get up that high to spawn is debatable, but trout certainly use the entire creek.
I was chatting with one of the workmen and he said they trapped a 10cm coho smolt way up there, when they were dewatering.
There’s been a lot of chat about the anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I have visited Hiroshima several times and Nagasaki once. I have read many accounts of the horrors. I lived in Japan for 14 years and loved it.
But I always was uncomfortable with Japanese denial of any horrors that they perpetrated in the war.
There was never any mention of Japan’s imperialistic invasions of east and south Asia. Or the thousands of so-called “comfort women” of several Asian countries forced into servicing the Japanese army every place it invaded.
Any call for such recognition was met with threats of violence from right-wing Japanese groups, and that continues to this day.
While accurate numbers are hard to establish, the Japanese Imperial Army likely raped, tortured, and killed more civilians in the Nanjing Massacre alone than combined civilian deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The conventional battles of the Pacific at places like Okinawa were also horrific, with a pervasive “fight to the last man” blindness by the Japanese army and marines. The Japanese military pressed local civilians into service, and it’s documented that civilians were forced to commit mass suicide by the Japanese military instead of being allowed to give up.
History is complex and complicated. Times and attitudes are always changing. Is there any point in debating the degree of horror of this massacre, to that genocide, to this bombing, to that. . .
I don’t know. But I believe that mass amnesia and denial is a slippery slope.
We got our first fresh corn on the cob today, and of course Sora the Rascally Cat had to try it. She’ll try pretty much anything, I don’t think she knows she’s supposed to be a carnivore.
About the only thing she’s turned her nose up at is carrots.
