Had a fun time at the three-day Creative Ink Festival in Burnaby the last three days. Lots of good, inspirational speakers, who really got into the nuts and bolts of the writing life. While I’m more of an editor than a writer, I found all the sessions that I attended valuable.
Let’s refresh that daily word count target, and get writing!
If you’re a nature/wildlife photographer in the BC lower mainland, this looks like great fun!
Join Nikon and Broadway Camera on May 15th at Iona Beach Regional Park for a birding photo walk. Try some of Nikon’s most advanced camera bodies and high-performance telephoto lenses, ideal for capturing that perfect bird photo.
I was shocked to see Byrne Creek running a milky gray-green the day after volunteer streamkeepers and local schoolchildren released several thousand coho smolts (yearlings) into the creek.
I called the City of Burnaby, and neither City staff nor I saw any dead or distressed fish, but folks, please remember that NOTHING is to go down street drains other than rain.
We missed a bullet today!
Griffiths’ Pond near Edmonds Skytrain Station
Kids from Glenwood Elementary, volunteers from the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers Society, and DFO Community Advisor Maurice Coulter-Boisvert released coho smolts in Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby this morning. Great to have help from City of Burnaby staff, too!
A few shots of the fun:
DFO CA Maurice
Talking salmon life cycle
Netting smolts in the transport tank
City of Burnaby staff help fill baggies of fish for the kids
Handing out baggies of fish
Streamkeeper volunteers supervise releases
A lovely coho smolt
After the kids had to leave to get back to school, we released the rest of the salmon in the artificial spawning channel
Cleaning my office today I ran across some words of wisdom posted to the Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators (Japan) mail list back in 1996 by Fred Uleman, quoting “Hugh Gigante of MktgMavens”:
1. I never work free of charge
2. I never work cheap
3. I charge more than others because I am better than them
4. I never get paid based on performance, only deliverables
5. I define deliverables
6. I always have more of the client’s money than he has of my time
7. Rates go up every six months
8. People who want work free or on spec must first show that they are working on the same basis, and are a legal charity
9. Every client can be fired, any day
10. Repeat number 1.
I did a quick loop of Byrne Creek Ravine Park and Taylor Park this morning in anticipation of Easter lunch at an aunt’s place.
Byrne Creek Ravine Park trees
I’m thinking White-crowned Sparrow?
Family portrait using the “put the photo paper into the printer upside down” filter : -).
Burnaby MLAs Jane Shin, Raj Chouhan, and Kathy Corrigan, and MP Kennedy Stewart, toured Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby, BC, today. Volunteers from the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers Society led the tour, and talked about the importance of urban biodiversity, the salmon lifecycle on the creek, and shared some of the activities and data collection that streamkeepers have been conducting annually for many years.
When life hands you black bananas (from cleaning the fridge) you make banana, oatmeal, sesame, coconut, dark chocolate chip bread.
Took a two-hour walk along Fraser Foreshore Park in Burnaby, BC, today.
Turkey Vulture
Rockin’ Robin high five : -)
Peekaboo garter snake. Saw three today!
Rufous Humingbird
Sparrow
Busy bee
Burnaby skyline from Foreshore Park
Cranefly
Another garter snake
Damselfly
