Come Into My Web

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect." Chief Seattle

STICKY STRINGS, barely visible, seem harmless to use as a bridge but can land a bug onto a hungry spider's dinner table. Nature's crocheted webs and catching-nets are everywhere this fall.

Webs cling to the misty air, dangle from mailboxes and fence posts and attach to homes and hairdos, doing their part to decorate the Halloween season.

For more West Coast scenes stay awhile and explore past posts. To see fresh perspectives or to leave a comment, link to my latest photographic journal and online scribbler at UNDER MY UMBRELLA AND BEYOND.

Super Wonderful Canada From Coast To Coast

"Canada is like a bird, it likes to soar freely." - Unknown

Visit my latest photographic journal at UNDER MY UMBRELLA AND BEYOND.

It's a work in progress!

Sandy Trails For Healthy Hearts

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have. Margaret Mead

Some caring person put up a handmade sign at the bottom of a trail I often trek through in Crescent Beach.

Although you can't tell by the photo (above), the trail is steep and gets me puffing, which probably means the climb is good for the heart.

I was in my twenties when mom died suddenly after a heart attack. Decades later I'm still not over the shock. Because there are many wonderful paths near my area and to increase my chances of a longer life, I challenge myself when I walk. At the bottom of the hill there's car traffic and a busy railway track.

There's beach access where folks go to refresh, build sandcastles and more.

Mother's Day is upon us. I wondered if the stack of rocks (below) represent mother and child. The big one could be the parent and the smaller one the child, although as we get older it can become the other way around.

Parents tend to shrink over time but mothering instincts never do for women or men who take positive steps big and small. Helpful deeds, like useful signage and walking, can save a life so Happy Mother's Day to whoever added the cautionary note to the back of their artistic Sandy Trail sign.

This post is linked to signs, signs.

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Laughter's The Best Prescription & It's Free

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. - Mark Twain

A NOTE taped to the front door made me laugh when I came home from shopping and realized I'd forgotten my keys. My husband wrote it. He hasn't lost his wit despite dealing with health issues. Life is unpredictable ... of that we can be sure. We count on the sun coming up every morning but the day can hold surprises and not all of them are nice. Life can rob us of many things but hopefully not our humour. It's no joke that a tickled funny bone can see us through. The smiling Buddha (below) sitting in a garden and the note got me thinking about infectious giggles and big belly laughs.

Even the stuck kite (below) seemed comical later during my walk.

These spring flowers (below) seemed to be in on a joke of their own. It's as if the buds were saying, "See ... we fooled you ... you thought we were gone but here we are again ... uncrinkled and good as new."

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Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms

It's A Non-refundable World

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. Henry David Thoreau

EARTH DAY is coming and I’ve been thinking about the billions-of-years-old blue marble we call home. It’s clear that in this current wink of time humankind is the biggest biological threat to all life on the planet. Ravaging resources and hooked on cheaply made products, polluting chemicals, fast fashions and throwaway plastics, it’s a disposable mentality in a non-refundable world. We are literally choking on our own over-consumption, compromising the very air and water that make existence possible. If we keep it up, sooner rather than later, Earth could be as barren and oxygen deprived as the moon or Mars. A serious mind-shift needs to happen where there is value in having less and treasuring more of what we already have. Are we up for the task? Can we reverse damage done? I wonder as I go for my walks and catalog the fragile beauty. Some say those who concern themselves with such matters are Chicken Little crying, “The sky is falling.” I say hat’s off to the environmentalists/scientists and common folk who pursue ways to turn things around. Even if a reusable bag at the grocery store seems like spit on a battleship … a whole lot of similar small steps can result in a heap of difference and extend this magical moment in time.

I heart this planet is what the (above) art at the bottom of 1001 Steps in Ocean Park seems to say. Traces of humanity are everywhere.

On bright breezy days kites share the sky with the birds.

Several little known stairways lead to the beach in the South Surrey area.

The stairs over the train track at the end of 24th Avenue are covered in mesh.

Couples attach padlocks there to insure their relationships, perhaps imagining they're in Paris where there are so many love-locks attached to bridges that they're banned now in some places.

Mysterious pools form at low tide. They come and go without making a splash.

When the sun peeks through the clouds the ocean sparkles like fairy dust.

Shells are collected off the beach floor. Some creatures leave their homes unwittingly while others dig in. Some never leave, yet willingly make their homes uninhabitable, even when it's the only home they've got.

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Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms

Second Generation Trudeaumania

RAIN POURED down relentlessly as people who came to see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Gordon Hogg at a high school stood patiently under their umbrellas. A stream of people had been forming since early morning. When the doors opened, I, as well as hundreds of others, squeezed inside the building to find security checks and a place to put our soggy umbrellas. I imagine it was a bit hard to let go of some cuter umbrellas but those were the rules.

The event in the South-Surrey-White Rock riding was billed as a meet and greet and discussion about good middle class jobs and how to create them. In reality, it was a chance to make everyone aware of an important by-election on December 11th and a rare chance to turn the traditionally conservative area liberal. This was thanks to a trusted local candidate, Hogg, who for years was Member of the Legislative Assembly for the conservative leaning BC Liberal Party. Now he was throwing his hat in the ring for Justin.

Honestly, no one cared about labels just then. Emotions were building with the size of the crowd. People from all racial backgrounds, walks of life, physical abilities and challenges, beliefs, ages, big, small, short and tall figuratively stood shoulder-to-shoulder, cameras ready and hopeful Justin would walk by. Someone brought an old poster of Justin's father, Pierre Trudeau, Canada's Prime Minister from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. He also drew a crowd.

When the speeches were over and Justin walked past, I felt suddenly crushed by the people around me. The air was sucked out of the room for a few seconds and my camera rendered useless.

If only I were taller. All I got was a peek. People seemed overwhelmed as Justin got closer and I wondered how a man, who once hoped someone/anyone would show up at his political events, became such a crowd magnet.

Somewhere along the way, Justin became a star.

I think it’s the disheartening times we live in that has drawn people to this attractive man who speaks of unity, elevating all cultures and working together to create a better county, indeed world, for all. People are desperate for a leader with this rare mix of charisma and kindness. But not everyone was impressed.

I smiled at a single sign of displeasure upon leaving the event. Not everyone was enamored with Justin or his Liberal Party policies. But you’ve got to love the freedom this man represented and his right to express his discontent.

At this writing, I’m curious to see what this election will bring. Will the community turn liberal after being a conservative strong hold? They used to say a raccoon running for the conservative party would win in this riding … but now … time will tell.

Postscript Updated Dec. 14, 2017: For the first time in several decades, the Liberal Party of Canada won the South-Surrey-White Rock riding with help from a popular local candidate, Gordon Hogg, who was a mere 1,617 votes ahead of Kerry-Lynne Findlay who led the Conservative Party that until now had been entrenched in the community.

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Some Sunny Day ...

WE WAITED at St. Mark's Anglican Church in Surrey, hosting a choir from neighboring Langley, to hear the songs of World Wars I and II. These were written when the fight for good over evil seemed more clear than the conflicts that followed. I wondered if those earlier wars ever really ended. Many battles boiling up today stem from territories split and grudges formed decades ago.

The ability to solve tribal problems hasn’t improved it seems while the stoking of extremism and the building of more deadly weapons is on the rise. Current key leaders add to destabilization, making life appear on the brink sometimes. Thankfully, there's nothing like a well sung song by First Capital Chorus to bring joy and peace to a room and to relax the worry.

I wondered amid a sea of white hair in the audience and choir where the young people were and why more youngsters didn’t wear poppies, particularly since they'll inherit the messy challenges left behind. It's the mostly young who died bravely and it's they who still soldier on in dangerous places for the rest of us. They deserve respect and remembering, if history is not to repeat itself over and over again. Joining the military is optional in Canada but that might not always be the case. My thoughts lingered on misty ghosts from the past and lyrics about sunnier days as the choir concluded with an iconic wartime song capturing both the optimism and uncertainty about the future, then and now.

We'll Meet Again, written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles in 1939, was a beacon of hope:

We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day
Keep smilin' through
Just like you always do
Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away
So will you please say hello
To the folks that I know
Tell them I won't be long
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singing this song
We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

Vera Lynn, very much alive at the age of 100, brought this and many more soothing songs to light, making wartime sacrifices a little more bearable. Listen to her moving voice as it slips through time into the present HERE.

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Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms

Autumn Creeping

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." George Eliot

MOTHER NATURE is sweeping away summer and like Eliot I'm loving it. Petals are scrambling, leaves are drooping, crumbling, swirling in gusts of wind, sliding down slippery wet roads into sewers never to be seen again.

The Virginia Creeper is the first vine to transform and has the brightest blush.

A plant called burning bush is stiff competition when it comes to colour.

Bedding plants such as winter pansies, marked by butterfly wings, are replacing summer blooms.

Warm browns are softening daisies past their prime.

Stunning shades of orange are beginning to cover the ground.

Pumpkins have crept onto our doorsteps and now appear everywhere.

It's an opportunity to get creative painting or carving.

Most pumpkins are orange but this ghostly white one (below) is truly a star.

Current fires in California make it all too easy to imagine life if there were no rain seeping through the veins of a parched earth after an overly hot summer. But would I love a forever-autumn and follow it around the globe like Eliot ... not likely. I'm glad southwest BC experiences all seasons to a moderate degree, although even here weather seems more extreme nowadays.

Greenery can still be found along sandy trails ... rainfall is just beginning. Earth's tilt and rotation as it circles the sun and its location to the sun are the reasons for the seasons. As a wonderstruck resident of a precisely balanced spinning top I can only hope such remarkable synchronicity never stops.

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Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms

Chiming In To Make Things Better

"Live for moments you can't put into words," chimed an ornament adjacent to a railway track at Crescent Beach.

The wise advice, meant to inspire, was likely put there by locals wanting to create a serene space for passersby.

The wind-chime decoration dangling from an ornate garden arbor was barely audible as tanks with chemicals and loaded coal cars groaned and hissed, snaking along the track.

The long chain of containers blocked vehicles and walkers from going in and out of the seaside community, a real concern should there be an emergency.

It might take years for activists to convince people in power to reroute the track but meanwhile a thoughtful neighbor with an artistic touch provided seating.

Hand painted panels brought a splash of colour to the chairs. In a world filled with tragic events someone, more often than not, is trying to prevent disaster, beautify, bring comfort and make things better practically or creatively.

Able to cross the track after some twenty minutes, I spotted a strange creature holding a guitar. What could be cozier than a giant moss-covered teddy bear? This unique interpretation of wildlife wasn't alone.

A beaver drummer and bird songstress (below) completed a patriotic Canadian band. Since there was no explanation as to why the soundless musicians were there, I assumed their motionless parade was designed to delight onlookers with wordless moments and, like the train, was just passing through.

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Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms