Summer heat and summer blooms

The past few weeks on the left coast have been exceedingly hot, at least by our standards. Temperatures, "near the water" as the forecast always says, approach thirty on most days, sometimes more, and nights, especially in second floor apartments facing west, have been difficult. We complain, and will again when the cold winds and rain come.







The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot.
- Natalie Babbit






When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.
- Georgia O'Keefe

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower. There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
-Matsuo Basho

Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2014.

Crows at lunch

Some people have no sense. A young boy doesn't eat the sandwich ordered at our nearby golf club and his parents let him order a different one, which he also leaves unfinished.

Most of us take our plates in to the kitchen, to assist the often busy and short staffed crew in the club house restaurant. But not these people.

We watched as the crows arrived just as the family of four departed. The crows looked over at us and sensing no rivalry for the food, began to help themselves.

It was a feast, until Sherry couldn't take anymore of it, and took the dishes in herself and the crows gave us the cold shoulder.

As for the crows in our tree, it would appear the nest was attacked by a raccoon some weeks ago. Perhaps a hawk might have been involved as we saw one lurking about. In any event, we haven't seen the crow family for weeks, and never did see the fledglings, if indeed they ever reached that stage.

Sometimes it isn't easy being a crow.

Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2014.

The long light of the summer sun and the cool of a summer breeze

The heat of these recent summer days has been exhausting. In the furnace of the late afternoon we seek out water and shade and sometimes drift asleep on the cool and slightly damp grass.

Summer breeze, 
makes me feel fine,

Blowing through the jasmine 
in my mind.

See the paper 
laying on the sidewalk,

A little music 
from the house next door...

A gentle respite comes, sometimes, in the cool of the evening and a gentle breeze. The long light at sunset is soft and rich and the shadows linger, the colours fading quickly as the sun disappears.

Feel the arms that reach out 
to hold me,

In the evening 
when the day is through.

Summer breeze, 
makes me feel fine, 

Blowing through 
the jasmine in my mind.

Lyrics by Jim Seals & Dash Crofts (1972)
Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2014.

Smoke test at KPU Richmond

Fridays during the summer can be quiet at the Richmond Campus of KPU. Extremely quiet.

On this particular Friday, July 25, the atrium was to be filled with smoke as part of a smoke evacuation test as one of the final parts to the six million dollar refurbishment of the campus.








A small crowd gathered, including architects, engineers, consultants of course, the general contractor and KPU's own Facilities Services. For a moment it seemed oddly like waiting for contact in Close Encounters of the Third Kind; waiting for something to happen.








The Fire Marshal was on hand, ready to put out a blaze with a fire extinguisher, or quite possibly to start one with the tank of propane beside her.












At the appointed hour, a non-toxic artificial smoke was ignited by a trained professional, thus replicating the smoke of an actual fire. The smoke would trigger the automatic opening of exhaust louvers and start the roof-top exhaust fans.

The thick cloud lasted only moments and the louvers and fans started exactly as designed. The sunlight streaming through the skylights created interesting patterns and colours in the haze.

At the end of it all, no students or faculty were harmed during the test. Only one lone bookstore guy appeared to have been overcome by the excitement.

Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2014.

The best place on earth or how the richest 85 have more than 3.5 billion

Well. We know this stuff already... but now it's official. The richest 85 people in the world earn more than the bottom 3.5 billion. Is it really possible? That the income of less than one hundred can  somehow equal that of 3.5 billion?

The information is according to the UN in its most recent report on human development. Parts are encouraging though generally we seem to be slipping on the planetary scale. The CBC provides a useful and accessible summary.




Canada has improved on the UN's Human Development Index; we find ourselves back in the top ten again, after several years in the teens. Many of us remember being at the top of the pile during the 1990s. For the current year, the top nation is Norway, which isn't all that surprising given its continued stewardship of resources. What is surprising is that for some bizarre reason, the USA is ahead of Canada on this index. The writer and I have visited the Excited States twice this year, and that certainly wouldn't be our observation. The divide between the American rich and the nation's underclass is ever more obvious than it is in Canada, though we are doing our part in the race towards the bottom.


Perhaps the wonderful policies of Our Dear Leader in Ottawa and our less-than-dear leader in Victoria are finally working in concert; the rich get richer and the rest of us...

According to Stephen Harper and Christy Clark their enlightened economic policies put more money into our pockets, and as consumers we get to decide how to spend it, but that mainly benefits the rich. The rest of us are squeezed with cuts to the very services that used to lift up all of us, rich and poor alike.


The Government of BC used to promote the province as being "...the best place on Earth." For some reason that slogan has quietly disappeared, though it still pops up now and then. Having the highest rates of child poverty in Canada and seeing a doubling of homelessness in the past year alone might be reason enough to change the slogan.

Maybe we are winning the race after all. This is not good.

Photo of local street person by Jim Murray. Copyright 2014.