GANGES, The Village

My friend Pat has asked to see what Ganges looks like. I have delayed doing this, because I knew how difficult it would be to photograph it well enough to show it in its finest light. I'll try for Pat.










When I first heard the name "Ganges," I thought of Shiva letting down his hair to soften the impact of the mighty waters hurled down by the great goddess Ganga to create the Ganges River. But no ...

Actually, the village of Ganges was named after the HMS Ganges, ship of the Royal Navy. Oddly, to me anyway, there were two ships named HMS Ganges. One ended up being a training ship and then a stone frigate (landed training ship, if you will). Whichever one of them patrolled these waters for the Royal Navy left its nameplate which is mounted on a stone in Centennial Park in downtown Ganges.

Here are some photos of the park in winter.

























This island has a Coast Guard unit -- you see the boats patrolling and the ensigns, or whatever they're called, parading around in very handsome professional waterproof gear. (There are Royal Canadian Mounted Police here, but not in the red coats and riding pants -- they look just like regular cops on foot and in SUVs.) I've seen the CG guys patrolling in my inlet a couple of times, so I feel safe from Russian subs and Sarah Palin who I hear has gone rogue. I'd like to ask them to take me on patrol, but I think they would tell me to go kayaking.


The town looks fairly commercial, with banks, grocery, hardware store, art galleries, several good book stores, health food store, The Village Cobbler who is called The Village Robber, restaurants and coffee houses (no Starbucks, no trailer tacos). As you can see, the Mouats own pretty much everything but the banks. My feeling is that the Mouats arrived, grabbed anything that wasn't tied down and called it their own. Don't quote me on this; I've sort of demonized them, don't ask me why. Maybe that's why there are so many churches here, some people needing a lot of forgiveness and all.






















When you go into town, you are close to the docks, and so they draw me in. I can't resist taking a look to see if the water taxi is in or out, if the seaplane is taking off or landing, if there's really fresh crab at the Centennial dock.



















Here's the grocery store where you can buy a small carton of yogurt for $9.00.




A cute beanery, but don't order the burgers or the enchiladas or -- there's other restaurants in town.



Good restaurant.



Green belt.



Where the roast beef sandwiches are.



The Village Cobbler and health food store.



Where I knit with friends.



More book stores.



Spring springing out on my road.



Then I'm home around low tide.

MONDAYS, MONDAYS

I love Mondays! All day Monday is filled with these activities:

SALT SPRING ISLAND CONSERVANCY


“The Salt Spring Island Conservancy (SSIC) was formed to help the community preserve natural habitats on Salt Spring Island and in surrounding waters. Its core functions are public education, holding conservation covenants, acquiring ecologically valuable land and helping land owners become good stewards of their own land.” This is a major understatement of what the Conservancy does to preserve and protect the marine birds and wild animals and to steward the land of this island. www.saltspringconservancy.ca/

In addition to donating time to the Conservancy on Mondays, I have bought 3 Western bluebird nest boxes for Conor, Joe and Mac to sponsor for the building and upkeep of the boxes in the year 2010 in order to attract these birds back to the island. These birds are successfully breeding in the San Juan Islands (only 25 km away), and the Conservancy is trying to woo these birds so they will breed here again. These boxes will be put up in the Andreas Vogt Nature Reserve. www.saltspringconservancy.ca/andreas_vogt.html
Hike, anyone?

This is a photo of Linda, Robin and Kisae who work for the Conservancy. Just before taking this photo, Robin, a biologist, jumped up and down in her chair and said, “Yea, the Snails & Slugs At Risk Identification Workshop” is coming up soon!” Linda retorted, “Well, I can tell you, any slug in my yard is at risk!”

All the people I have met here do such good work and are much more a gift to me than I am to the Conservancy.

LIVING STRONG STUDIOS


Living Strong Studios is a fitness studio on the island where I work out with this darling young lady in the photo, Valri. She puts me through the paces and is encouraging and always positive, and I complain and whine. The workouts are a gift from the two friends I'm house sitting for and is greatly appreciated by me, even though I complain and whine. In Stephenville, I called the trainer “Osama bin Donny” but I haven’t thought of a terror name for this sweet girl. I’ll show you my pecs when I get back to Texas. www.livingstrongstudios.ca/

KNITTING AT STITCHES FIBREARTS STUDIO















Every other Monday I go to the knitting group at Stitches, a beautiful shop in Ganges. The owner gets very talented people to give great workshops on knitting, quilting, felting, et cetera, and they travel to other Gulf Islands for these workshops -- what a great way to see these islands! www.stitchesfibreartsupplies.ca/

The ladies who come to the knitting group are darling, helpful and so much fun. They are very talented and experienced knitters and knit not only for themselves, but also for others -- I just love them! I have started a scarf but don’t seem to knit in between time, so we’ll see if I finish before summer -- it’s a winter scarf and a complicated pattern, of course.

Have you heard of the "Midnight Knitter"? Check this out: www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/10/us/AP-US-ODD-Midnight-Knitter.html

CAT'S PAJAMAS STUDIO


This is Anna, dancer and teacher of Bones for Life, Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement, and dancing. She has a beautiful studio overlooking St. Mary's Lake. I take her Bones for Life and ATM classes and have met some great women who are interested in keeping healthy bones and aging gracefully. I'm also going to take her Sounder Sleep workshop to even out my sleeping patterns. www.bonesforever.com/

I met Anna at the Kentucky convent where Ruthy Alon came to teach Bones for Life. I remember her, but she doesn't remember me. She is a mover and shaker in the Feldenkrais/Bones community, and I am fortunate to benefit from her expertise.

And this is the end of my Monday, a full day of fun.


THE WEDGING

There are many hilarious things about this adventure that I am not telling you, mostly for the reason that you would laugh at me and I would not like it. But there are some things that have happened that -- well, you know, don’t you, that when someone lives alone, the world takes on a different slant; there is no one there to, for instance, come to the rescue in case you have what I will call a “wedging.” There is also no one to share the story with and then the farther away from the event, it’s just plain scary or not really funny or something or other, just not worth the telling.

I will tell you about the “wedging” because I think you will not believe it could happen, but it did. After my “hike from hell” I knew that the only thing that could comfort me would be a hot bath with Epsom salts. So I prepared my bath, got in and was immediately wedged in, I could not move. The water was running and the tub was filling in front of me and not in back of me, because I was wedged in and couldn’t reach the faucet. I worked and worked and could NOT move out of the wedging. I thought of being found in a flooded house wedged into the bathtub and knew that trying to yell, “Hey, honey, I’m wedged in the bathtub, please come get me out” was not going to work. Whether it was the fear of being discovered dead in that half-filled bathtub or the idea of being seen alive in a bathtub of any kind, I somehow must have levitated some and jumped out of the tub. Now I never go into the tub without a complete slathering of oil in the wedgy places.

Have you ever in your life heard of someone getting stuck in a bathtub?

At the end of the day Monday, I return to this view when the tide is out and the boats are zigzagging.



P. S. Many, many thanks, you two, for giving me the gift of this beautiful island and its great people.

THE DAILY GRIND

DUCKS AND BIRDS


The shy green heron that visits regularly did a dramatic chandelle up and around the giant pine in front of the house, then landed on one of the tree’s branches. As I rushed to the window with my camera, he winged off and landed on a tree across the harbour. I took a photo, but my dinky digital camera can’t do him justice.

The ducks won’t let me sneak up on them. The moment I focus the camera, they either quickly skitter across the water or simply pop under the water in unison. And I hope they will come up feet first like synchronized swimmers and do a little routine.

Today it looks like there’s a group bathing, I’m guessing, by flapping their wings and stirring up the water. Can you see the red canoe?

The birds around the house are varied. Little chickadees and finches duck in and out of the branches and then zoom to the feeder which is the worse for wear by either small squirrels or raccoons which somehow get the top off and help themselves to the seed mix. Then there are these no-seeum birds which hop from under and around bush to bush, sometimes sailing along the ground if I accidentally stir them up. No way to get a photo, much less a good idea what they look like.

A magnificent bald eagle landed on the green heron’s tree outside and sat regally for only a moment. The other day a red-tailed hawk spread its wings and flew around the same tree to show its great red tail. Too bad I’m not a nature photographer.

ON THE ROAD WHERE I LIVE



One day a monsoon. When the sun came out, I did, too. Here's glittery rain on the trees and sun on the deck. I'm doubling up on Vitamin D.

















The road I live on is a typical Salt Spring Island road, unique and beautiful being typical here. I'm sure there's some way to become enured to this beauty, but I haven't found it yet.



I decided to take advantage of this rare sun to walk along and shoot some of the sights on my winding road.










There's a nice policy of the honor system roadside stand selling all sorts of goodies to take home: you choose what you want and then put the $$$ in the box. David suggested I explore all of the stands on the island and see what I can buy to eat so that I don't have to go to the Country Grocer or Thrifty Foods or Nature Works. Here's some eggs, flowers and beans -- Iron Chef Masters project.


Down the road there is a vineyard with a red house and mossy-roofed shed, and usually smoke coming from the chimney.


The vineyard in winter allows me to see the working equipment here and there and the Chinese temple gate in the middle of the field. This land used to be a sheep farm so you could see all the baby sheep before they go to . . . camp.





Some things along the road are simply too huge and magnificent to catch on camera, you know, like trees, giant trees glistening in the sun. So here's some mossy rocks that look spectacular in real life.












There is a lovely red and white house right down the road that sits down near the water. Each time I pass by, I want to run down the drive and knock on the door and see who lives in this cute little place. And it has two driveways!

And then there's this:



The neighbors probably call him "The Jerk," the guy who owns this sliver of land that runs about 150 feet along this forest road. The photo is of the beginning part of his property, a view to alert you that something is not all right here. The great thing for me is that I can see it all as I drive down the road and take a random inventory whenever I want. Here's a small list: two dilapidated travel trailers; artfully leaning collections of white plastic paint buckets; those round, black buoys, ones you have seen in the Gulf of Mexico, jauntily sitting on several sizes of fishing nets you might bring a large shark into the boat with; the shed with windows so you can see in to what looks like hundreds of tilting chairs stacked on one another; six aluminum ladders (I'll build a stairway to paradise?); assorted sizes of saw horses, none of which have moved one inch since I arrived. This is a little too close to a "Deliverance" look, so I won't knock on his door.

I'm gonna hit the road now.

THE HIKE WHAT DONE ME IN

(How I coulda been a terrorist hiker)

Lovely slippery rocky forest

I was so excited about joining the Salt Spring Nature Trail Hiking Club
(http://www.saltspringtnc.ca/). On the application, I saw that there were three classifications of hikers: hikers, walkers and ramblers (who I assumed were doddering elderly people using walkers to walk down a flat road). So I joined the “hikers” who told me that today would be a moderate hike.

Can you see the hikers down there?

Our lost leader (blurry due to breathlessness)

About a quarter of the way into the walk, I noticed our leader pacing back and forth and looking around like he was lost. Should we call you our lost leader, I asked? He said, no, not lost, just uncertain as to which path to take. I would have taken the one leading down, but we began to climb and climb and climb. (I also noticed he blabbed a lot, which didn't engender a bunch of confidence.)


Nice old fence


Distance view to ferry passage


Then I found out that this was considered an “easy” moderate hike. The hike was through a gorgeous forest with narrow, steep trails (euphemism) going up, up, up, then doooooowwwwwnnn and back upupup again, which were covered with slimy, muddy, slick tree roots that moved underfoot, squarish mossy rocks that moved underfoot, the trails meandering right at the edge of precipices that dropped 20, 30, and 50 feet down to large, pointy black rocks jutting up out of the sea. After two hours, we came to a collection of larger, slick rocks overlooking the sea where we ate lunch. (No, I did not stop to take photos of the precipices with rocks at bottom.)

Aside: I think Freud must have been a hiker which is where he developed the term “penis envy,” because try as I might, I could not find a place to go to the bathroom without being in full view of 21 other people.



6,000-year-old tree

On the way back, we stopped several times to see some 6000-year-old trees, a copper mine, and a nice old fence where I might catch my breath. I thought, surely, we will take the shortcut back. It was beginning to get to me to watch people, obviously much older than I, trip the light fantastic over the narrow, steep, slimy, tree-root-ridden, slick-rock-strewn trails -- oh, but hey, the weather was with us -- it wasn’t a downpour!

About an hour and a half into the return hike, after stopping many times to catch my breath and recover from nearly catapulting off precipice after precipice, I began to hyperventilate. I knew I had to stop it immediately, because the next step would be to fall to the ground and scream at the unsuspecting fella who was pulling up the rear for me: LISTEN, MR. SEARCH-AND-RESCUE MAN, IF YOU DON’T (expletive begins with 'F' and ends with 'G') GET ME OUT OF HERE RIGHT THIS MINUTE, I’M GOING TO (same expletive) (expletive begins with 'K' and ends with two 'L's) YOU!!!

The only saving grace was that someone had loaned me a trekking pole -- I coulda been a terrorist hiker!

Next hike, I think I'll be a rambler.

Christmas on Salt Spring Island

CHRISTMAS DAY WALK

Christmas morning was pretty much spent on the couch observing the tides and weather patterns coming into this harbour. When the sun came out, I rushed out and walked up the road and enjoyed watching a darling little boat come into the small harbour after a Christmas Day ride out to sea.









Mac would have loved this, this view of the water, the sailboats, the tides, so I poured up an eggnog and brandy (tribute to Libba, too) and went out on the deck and sat in the sun to think of him and yell at the birds -- what a racket -- and to watch the ducks skirmishing and then rushing off and pushing the Vees that make beautiful patterns in the water.




Then Farzhana and Keki, darling new friends, came over with delicious homemade Indian food. We opened presents and played with yo-yos and airplanes, and then we ate while laughing all the time. It was a good and tasty Christmas, even without you all.

N.B. Keki is Master of Ocean Going Ships, the first one I have ever met. More about his ocean-going antics later.

FIRST SNOW









This is what it looks like here when it snows at night.

I know, I haven’t described where “here” is actually. I know you all have an Atlas, so please look it up and see it on the map. Salt Spring Island is one of the Gulf Islands, sitting just east of Vancouver Island and southwest of Vancouver. It is called a temperate island, partially I think, because it is sheltered by Vancouver Island (think Victoria if you’re too lazy to get out a map).

I think I can see Alaska from here, so I must be Sarah Palin’s next door neighbor. I wonder if she likes Indian food with her moose chili.







THE INDIAN RESERVE

Walking into the Indian Reserve down south (at Fulford near the ferry with all the rules) is a nice little 35-minute walk through wild forest and which spills out onto a pretty little beach that consists of small, smooth black rocks and broken-up white shells, some huge washed-up trees -- a nice place to take coffee, a blanket and a book. I’ll go here many times, I think.

FERRY MISHAPS


This is not me, I promise.