A Walk in the Woodlands after the Rain.

Here in British Columbia it has been raining for 7-8 days straight. The weather reports says to expect another 7-10 days of rain. When I saw the rain had stopped, even if just for an hour or so, I knew this would be a time to take some images and drove in the dark to Richmond to a small part area that is maybe 3 city blocks square. There was a bit of waiting while the sun came up, and then I walked quickly into the woods in case the clouds totally lifted. I went down the single path that makes its way between the trees and underbrush. There are lot’s of birch trees, but most are dying because the bog has nowhere to flow and being surrounded by streets never really dies out with the change of seasons and the roots just rot our. As they fall in a windstorm some of their white branches can become caught in the web of other branches. In the photos the broken bits look like they are magically floating, refusing to leave the sky.

A Circular Path

These images come from an urban nature centre that has, basically, one path. The path goes from the nature centre to the “bog,” which is mostly wetland, with some trees, now being overwhelmed by domestic blueberries. Every year the walls of this pathway, which in many places crowd in around you and stand several feet tall, are generally impenetrable. Here and there, are a few animal trails, very low and very dark. The walls are trimmed back each fall and in the spring new green growth peeks through here and there. Sometimes like a few misplaced hairs, sometimes tendrils that have a menacing look to them. The images are too full of detail, making them as impossible to understand as the walls are to penetrate. These images are part of a set collected at several similar sites over the past five years.

Winter in Burn's Bog

The bog, when frozen, opens up. Its interior becomes visible, its skeletal system, clear. Water that normally runs for one day and disappears the next freezes, yet the movement of the water is traced in its odd shapes and layers of frozen surfaces. Some plants are frozen inside the ice, like bugs in amber. Their colour remains bright and life like. Most of it will thaw and just go on with what it was doing before the sudden freeze. Birds fill the lower branches of the bushes and brambles, searching for seeds. They call back and forth. I don’t know if they are sharing what they found or warning others to stay away. The low winter sun casts shadows which in the spring are never disappear. It reminds you that we are moving, not the sun. We’ve got it all wrong.

Flooding in the Delta

The rain stopped early today and we went down to a woodlands along the Pacific coast. There the high tide and strong winds blowing inland Brough a flood inland. Pathways throughout the woodlands were flooded, some were like little streams. What all the salt water will do to the cottonwoods I’m not sure.