West Coast Summer

West Coast summer has arrived

It's summer time on the wet west coast, and guess what?  It's not wet!

In fact, summers here on the southwest coast of British Columbia are anything but wet.  While the climate is quite mild all year round (snow is such an oddity that people have no idea how to drive in it!), with very wet winters, summers are often very dry.  It seems like the only time it might rain on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast is either during Sea Cavalcade or just when the tomato plants start producing fruit (or is that a vegetable?).

(There's something in the air, here - a very scary thought if you stop to think about it - that causes hollyhock leaves to "rust" and tomato plants to turn black if it rains after the tomatoes start forming.  What are we breathing, anyway?)

Here we are, living in a rainforest, yet there is actually a contest here for the driest, brownest lawn, due to the fact that we haven't got a big enough reservoir to get us through a summer dry spell without taking extreme measures.  Watering your lawn is a taboo that can get you ostracized by your neighbors.  

That's one of the paradoxes (or is that paradoxi?) of living in a rainforest.  Even Prince Rupert, on B.C.'s northern Pacific Coast, billed as one of the wettest cities in North America, has had to put watering restrictions in place some summers.  We have brown grass here in a rainforest, while our desert-dwelling friends in Kamloops and Kelowna have gorgeous green lawns all summer!

The problem, of course, is quite simple.  Because we live in a place where it rains all the time (which, in fact, it doesn't), we assume we'll never run out of water.  Therefore, we don't create water storage facilities - aka, reservoirs - that will hold enough water to get us through a drought - which we often have for three or more months every summer.

That worked out fine a few years ago, before the Sunshine Coast was discovered by Vancouverites who discovered they could sell their tiny rancher in the lower mainland for a millon-five and build a mansion over here.  Our local governments, ever looking for ways to raise taxes easily, have been only too happy to continuously grant development permits for lots and subdivisions, but without doing anything to increase the water supply, ergo the brown lawns.  But it gets worse.

I mentioned the blight on the tomatoes and rusty hollyhock leaves if it rains.  But at least if it doesn't rain, we can water our plants and veggies, and enjoy the flowers and fruits of our husbandry, right?  Well, actually, no...

If we have an all too typically gorgeous, dry, hot summer like this one, the powers that be will wait until our tomatoes are almost ripe, the corn almost ready to eat, the very productive squash plants producing abundant gourds in preparation for our enjoyment alongside the lettuce and pole beans...  Then they will tell us we can no longer water even our vegetable gardens, even by hand.  

That's right.  Here, in a rainforest, we have to let our vegetable gardens wilt and die, due to a lack of water!

But along with this really annoying fact, there is one more sinister.  A rainforest has an abundance of growth on the forest floor, including some of the deepest most you could ever slosh through on a hike in the woods.  But during a long, dry summer like this one, that moss and everything above it dries out.  One lightning strike, one spark from a chainsaw or truck, or lawmower, one careless camper or smoker, and we have one of the scariest things you can imagine - a forest fire in a dried out rainforest.

This year, we've seen a few started, all by human carelessness, but thankfully, our fire fighters have been quickly dispatched to exercise  their excellent skills and thus saving us from a conflagration.  However, we've already lost one of our own brave warriors not so very long ago, and can't afford to lose more.

Thus, like it or not, until our water storage issue is ameliorated, we must put up with beautiful brown lawns and wilting veggies, or risk not having enough water to fight a deadly fire.

Perhaps that's the price we have to pay for living in a place as near to paradise this Earth offers.  What do you think?

Vandalism During Elections

Vandalism During Elections: What are they trying to accomplish?

Vandalism during elections is a problem that never seems to draw enough press.  What are the folks who knock apart and otherwise destroy campaign signs trying to accomplish?  What kind of message are they trying to send?

Let me ask you:  If you saw a truck with an NDP sign stopping at every Green Party sign, the driver getting out, and trashing the sign, would you be inclined to vote for the NDP?  Not likely!  It applies no matter who is doing it. Canada is world renowned for its politeness, but that seems to disappear during elections.

English: Gibsons Harbour, Sunshine Coast, British Columbia Deutsch: Uferweg am Hafen in Gibsons, British Columbia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Election campaign signs, whether we love them or hate them, whether for our candidate or theirs, are legally erected for the duration of the campaign.  It is a criminal act of vandalism to destroy them.

What many people may not realize is that people who put up these signs are volunteers who care about the community they live in.  Never mind what their politics are;  they do a lot of work during a campaign.  All those large signs that are so manly to destroy are put together by hand, built from lumber that has to be measured, cut, fastened together and driven into the ground by community minded volunteers who love their country.

The other day I noticed as I went down "the Bypass," here on the Sunshine Coast, BC, and then back up again, that someone had destroyed every single one of the Conservative campaign signs on both sides of the highway.  One was repairable with the tools at hand, a pair of rocks, so I did.  The rest required a lot more than what I had with me, so I did not.

Today, as I drove along the highway between Gibsons and Sechelt, I saw where someone had vandalized a Liberal campaign sign, cutting out the face of the candidate.  I suppose these criminals must think that if they destroy all except the signs promoting their candidate of choice, people will vote with them.  

Wow.  Such mind boggling intelligence!  They must think the rest of us are very stupid...

My Latest Visit to Steveston

My Latest Visit to Steveston to See my Lyme Doctor

Any time your doctor prescribes coffee as an effective medicine and tells you more is better should be considered a good day!

Yesterday, I went to Steveston (Richmond, BC, has absorbed this quaint and beautiful cannery town, now a museum of the dying BC fishing industry).  It was my monthly trek to see the only doctor in BC that I know of who is actively treating Lyme disease.

My doctor is a Naturopathic Doctor, or ND, who has been university trained in more than one health discipline, and has passed the test that allows him to prescribe antibiotics, something that other provinces have talked about, but have not yet implemented.

The problem is that Naturopathy has some built-in problems of its own that can make it a bit of a mine field for folks like myself who can't get treatment in the regular medical system, due to the heads up their posterior, willfully ignorant, arrogant, elitist Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in virtually every region in Canada, the USA and Europe, with the possible exception of Germany, who completely and vehemently deny most modern science relating to Lyme disease.

Many NDs claim to be able to treat Lyme disease, but when you visit them, a few quick questions will usually show that you've gone to the wrong doctor.  More and more NDs are licensed to prescribe antibiotics, but very few know anything about Lyme disease, and they will not provide the treatment needed.

In my quest for a Lyme Literate ND (LLND), I ran a gauntlet of some pretty strange folks (in my opinion) who were all very nice, but knew practically nothing about Lyme disease, and who often were dipping pretty deeply into the pond of Metaphysics...

Furthermore, many NDs visit Lyme disease seminars, which are very short and give an opportunity for them to meet with the speakers.  They are very quick to give their cards to these speakers and say they are licensed to treat with antibiotics, but the reality is that they are simply trolling for patients and have no intention of really learning anything about Lyme disease.  Many of them have already pretty much made their minds up about what works for everybody in a "one-size-fits-all" mentality that is almost as bad as the denial of the mainstream medical profession.

Unfortunately, you and I have to do our own due diligence when we are referred, because these poor, overworked speakers at these seminars simply cannot.  They share the names of the NDs with those looking for treatment, but they know very little about the doctors.  You can't assume you will get proper treatment simply because a Lyme expert has given you a name.  You have to research every one separately and ask a lot of questions.

Thanks very much to Dr. Murakami, who answered my call about the ND I am now seeing and gave me his approval of him, I now have a good ND.  And to top it off, he prescribes coffee as part of the treatment!  (Before you snort in derision, find out why!  Lyme sufferers, such as myself, have HUGE and DEBILITATING energy problems, and it's very difficult to overcome them.  Suffice to say, the coffee is only part of the regimen, and requires a number of other things to work.)

But did I mention?  I have to drink lots of coffee!  Now THAT is a prescription I won't be ranting about!