Waiting. Watching. Wondering.

Plant lust. What can I say. One of the people who lives in this house has a bad case. Never met a plant he didn’t like, or at least want to like. All manner of things follow him home. After years in Calgary, where gardening can be a heartbreaking proposition things are so different here. In fact, out here in the country gardening is less a genteel pursuit and more a case of constant fending off.

However. Two years ago Wilf brought home a plant that was suggested for areas of light shade. He planted it, lost the tag with its name and carried on. Year one – a flurry of large heart shaped leaves, but nothing more and it died back. Year two – repeat performance. So – nothing very exciting, but something green to look at, we thought. And then…… this year in March the plant took a deep breath, heaved up and started to grow. Like Jack and the beanstalk, it started to grow!

March 31, 2010 – nothing is visible behind a flurry of daffodils:

May 5, 2010 – it grew 18” while we were in Winnipeg:

Looking at the top (for the last time):

Around about this time we were at the Farmer’s Market, and saw a pot full of familiar leaves. ‘That’s it!”, we cried. The tag said Cardiocrinum giganteum, and a consult with Mr. Google revealed the common name of Himalayan Lily. Turns out after the seed is planted it sort of moseys along for four years, at which stage it gets a bit bigger and starts with the big leaves. For two years. And in year seven up shoots a stalk, heading for a floral display. After which it will die back, leaving us with daughter bulbs and seeds for the next go round.

May 16, 2010

June 5, 2010

June 18, 2010

We’re finally getting some sun, and you can see that the cluster of buds has opened and the flowers are spreading out. I don’t think it’ll be blooming by the time we head south, but I’ve got a friend lined up to take pictures.

I tell you, plants with a last name of giganteum really do provide much entertainment!

Geophysical – a quilt show

I’ve had a couple of questions, mainly through Facebook, if I’m still quilting. And yes, lack of pictorial evidence withstanding, I am still quilting.

The Canadian Quilters Association has a big convention/quilt show/extravaganza every other year. It moves about the country – the 2010 show was in Calgary last month. As well as the National Juried Show there are various invitational shows as part of the event.

I belong to The Fibre Art Network , a group of Western Canadian based fibre artists. We applied to the Canadian Quilters Association to have a show as part of  the Calgary event. Of course there needs to be a theme or organizing principle behind such a proposal, and there was much discussion about what would be appropriate. One day the email arrived with the parameters for the show. In my distracted state I read ‘Get Physical’, and immediately began thinking about Olivia Newton-John and head bands and leg warmers and….. I managed to get my attention back and read further:

‘GeoPhysical’, pays tribute to geology, and the scenic and economic riches it provides to western Canada. FAN members are challenged to interpret, in cloth and thread, “the earth and the forces that shape it” without reference to subjects man-made or currently living.

Well. That, of course, made much more sense.

I’ve been working in a series for some time now, looking at lines, working within a restricted range of fabrics and colours. Thinking about this project I was thinking about underground structures, and layers and fractures. I looked at stratigraphic depictions of what’s under the ground in areas of Alberta, and while I love the lines and colours of those depictions (i.e. this) I decided that I didn’t want to go the representational route, choosing instead to continue with the lines that have held my interest. I did feel the need to expand a bit colour wise, so those of you who have been used to seeing me work through all the variations of gray/gray violet/black and more gray…..

Drop Fault machine pieced, hand stitched and quilted. 18”x26” 2010

Drop Fault detail

I wasn’t able to get to Calgary to see the show, but both the big show and the Geophysical show were apparently a big success. Part of the mandate of The Fibre Art Network is to document group shows, so I’m happy to report that you can view all the pieces in the exhibition over here: Geophysical.

I’d also like to thank Colleen Peake and Gay Walker, the Calgary FAN members who co-ordinated the show. They managed all the complicated communications and arrangements to pull the show together – all of our hard work creating art would have come to naught without them. And thanks also to Kristin Miller who administrates the FAN website and makes our work look so good.

Okay – all this writing, thinking and looking at quilts makes me want to get to work!

I Love a Parade

Oh yes, I do. And today was Victoria Day here in Victoria, so to the parade we went. Along with 65,000 other people, it is said.

Parade attendance involves strategy – where to park? Where to sit? Fortunately this town doesn’t get up very early and we were able to whistle on down to the View Street parkade, get settled on Douglas Street and get the all important breakfast in hand well before the parade showed up.

Growing up in Calgary, where attendance at the Stampede Parade is practically mandatory I have certain expectations regarding parades. There should be horses. And pipers. And lots of audience participation. Things are different here. Light on horses, heavy on pipers, and needing serious encouragement for the audience participation part. Wilf has gotten used to me hollering and clapping and whoohooing and no longer pretends that he doesn’t know me.

As I mentioned, the parade is woefully light on horses. There were only three. But three beauties they were:

They were part of the Victoria Fire Department Historical Society  display.

Of course, being lacking in the horse department meant that we were sadly deficient in the cowboy department, too.

But pipers and pipe bands – there were lots. Between the military and the American High School bands were were well taken care of:

 

We had saucy sailor girls:

and the kids from Reynolds High, on of our local schools

Once the parade was over we had a little lunch in the sun on Government Street, enjoyed some gelato while watching the people go by and went to see the newest sculpture in town – topiary Orcas!

Tourists in our own town!

2010 Times-Colonist 10k

Last year I got it into my head to enter the Times-Colonist 10k road race, as a walker. I signed up for a event preparation clinic through our local recreation centre, did the training and then did the race. It was great fun – I finished in 1hr35min. It was a great experience all around. In the Fall I entered the Royal Victoria Half Marathon as a walker, which was also great.

At some point along the way Wilf said the fatal words ‘If you can do it, so can I’. Uh-huh. And soon enough we were both signed up for the 2010 race and training clinics. And again, all went well. Some sort of miracle came to pass and for 14 Sunday mornings in a row we went for our walk with the clinic participants – and it didn’t rain! A few times it started as soon as we finished our cool down stretches, and one morning we left the house in the pouring rain, but it stopped by the time we got to Greenglade school. Race day was cool, lightly overcast – no  rain!

And here we are:

With over 13,000 registered participants this is the second largest 10k in Canada  - second only to the Vancouver Sun Run (with 60,000 participants). In the above pictures we were just moving into position for the walker’s start. The runners had already gone and we moving from our corral to the start line itself.

We tried to catch a picture along the way on Dallas Road – what you can’t really see is the line of people in blue shirts stretching off as far as we could see.

And then, after 1hr38min:

I’m clutching my chocolate milk and oranges – and amazingly enough we found Mom and Dad in the post race melee!

Other pictures are over here and here.

So – 2011 anyone?

I can see for miles and miles and miles and…..

Last month we were in Winnipeg. Usually our concern is whether or not we’ll run into winter and freeze to death. Living in lotus land means we’ve totally lost our acclimatization for winter. Turned out not to be a problem this time around. In fact, it was warmer in Winnipeg than it was in Victoria. In fact, it was 23 degrees. I mean – really? That’s a really nice summer day out here.

The good folks of Winnipeg were cavorting in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. And, while I applaud their desire to enjoy the warm weather, there’s one thing. There wasn’t a speck of green. Not a blade of grass. Not a bud open on a tree. They had vaulted straight from winter to summer temps without pausing for spring. The roads hadn’t even been swept of the dust and gravel.

From the 8th floor, Portage and Sherbrook, looking south:

Looking southwest:

If it weren’t for those pesky Rocky Mountains we might have been able to see all the way back to Vancouver Island.

We had a great visit with Wilf’s Mom, got her taxes sorted, ate at Stella's and then headed back to the green and flowery West Coast.

So – Where Have I Been At?

Well, mostly just around, in winter hibernation. Unusually for Wilf and I we stayed put this winter. And we picked a good one – mild temperatures, little rain – no snow! In fact spring came very early this year – the cherry trees were out in February, and we had our first daffodil blooms right at the end of the month. The early rhodos are out now and the garden looks good – lots to look at already.

We did take a quick trip to Seattle at the beginning of February – thought we’d get over and back before all the Olympic hoohah started. We shopped and ate and walked and had a nice few days. The bus tunnel that services downtown Seattle is back in service, which makes for some speedy moving about.

One discovery we made is that The Elliott Bay Book Company is moving. Okay, we may have been the last people to find out, but I’m glad we didn’t just show up there one day and find them gone. The actual move begins tomorrow –they’re promising a great location in another building with squeaky fir floors – and parking – so there’s that!

Well, now that spring has sprung and hibernation is over I’ll aim to update more frequently. And I’ll leave you with a picture that we took on our Seattle trip:

Yep those are four full grown Newfoundland dogs in the back of a pickup. We stopped for coffee at Sehome Village, Bellingham, as we usually do. Sitting in my chair by the window I had the sense of being watched. When I turned around I was eye to eye with a very large black dog. Being a Newf he had a ‘Wassup? Wanna play?’ look about him. His owner went out and tried to send him back to the truck, but no way, he wanted to be where the action was. It wasn’t until owner guy walked the dog back to the pickup and put him in the cab that we realized that there were four more in the back of the truck! That led to quite a buzz around the coffee shop - ‘Imagine the food for those guys! Food, shmood – imagine the poop situation!’ I wasn’t the only one out in the parking lot taking pictures of these beauties. (And yes, since we were in Bellingham in the winter it was drizzling, so those were five huge wet dogs….)

Brrr….

I was going to write about how cold it had gotten here, cold enough to open extra beds at the homeless shelters. Then I looked at what is happening in Calgary. So – never mind.

There is an upside to these arctic outflows  – sun, beautiful sun. Just cover up your tender bits!