THE NATURE BATS LAST TOUR CONTINUES

POST # 171

GUY COULDN'T DO THIS WORK WITHOUT ICE CREAM

The Nature Bats Last road show continues on its merry way down the west coast. Today, we find ourselves in Olympia, WA.  Since last week, Guy has done presentations in Duncan BC, followed by ones in Bremerton, Seattle, Bainbridge Island and Tacoma WA. Tomorrow night he presents here in Olympia at Traditions Cafe, and if it is anything like his last visit here, it should be a packed house. Packed houses were the order of the day during our time in Canada, however, since arriving here in the USA, the crowds have been significantly smaller. Perhaps Americans are even more complacent when it comes to the topics of abrupt climate change and near term extinction than Canadians are?  What I think is more likely is that these are difficult topics to wrap your head around, so the easiest option is to avoid them from the get go.
We have certainly met some interesting people along the way, and stayed in some unique places. One of those was in Bremerton at a lady named Jean's house. She has the most amazing fruit and vegetable garden, that I've ever seen on a suburban lot. We had ample time to gorge on cherries, raspberries, and snow peas.

JEAN'S PLACE: L TO R  DAHR JAMAIL JEAN, GUY (Jean is holding a copy of Guy's latest book, co-authored with Carolyn Baker, titled: EXTINCTION DIALOGS-How to live with death in mind)

TWO VIEWS OF JEAN'S GARDEN




Yesterday, we had a memorable drive from Bremerton to Tacoma which isn't too far, however when you have three adult males crammed into the cab of a small Toyota truck with a gear shift, it's an uncomfortable ride, especially if you happen to be the personal assistant, squeezed into the middle.
But some of the tough travel times provide the most memorable experiences.

PRESENTATION IN TACOMA AT KING'S BOOK STORE


We are now past the half way mark on the tour, and aside from a few glitches along the way, it seems to have gone quite smoothly up to this point. I've even had three opportunities to introduce  Guy prior to his talk, which has been a rewarding experience.   I've made a few errors along the way, but hey, it's my first time as a personal assistant, so "the boss" has cut me some slack. Like he says many times in his talks, "mistakes have been made."
It's time to go out for a walk and get some fresh air, so I will bring this entry to a close. No doubt, there will be more stories to tell by this time next week.  By then, the tour will be complete.

Happy trails,
Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer

NATURE BATS LAST TOUR HAS BEGUN

POST # 170
I've borrowed a computer to write today's blog, and I will keep it short, because now that the tour has begun, my life is much busier than the life I have become accustomed to as a pet sitter.
I met up with my friend Guy around noon on Friday, for his first lecture at SFU at harbour centre in Downtown Vancouver.  The house was full with about 60 people, and the lecture was well received.
Spent the afternoon with others involved in organizing this whole thing in Vancouver, including John, Rea, and Zak, and then moved on to the Heartwood Cafe on Broadway for the evening lecture. It was a packed house, standing room only which was probably about 85 people.

GUY, IN FRONT OF THE HEARTWOOD CAFE

Yesterday, I met Guy at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal to continue our journey, arriving in Nanaimo  about 2:30pm.  We were met by Dan and Linda and drove to their home in Ladysmith. Later,  three other guests arrived for dinner including Wayne and Debbie, and Eva who is helping to organize this tour.  A pleasant evening was had by all, despite the subject matter that we talked about.  There was plenty of laughter to go around.

My guest accommodation is in Maple Bay, a place where I have house sat in the past.

Today, Sunday June 14th, Guy will present his talk in Duncan, and I've been asked to introduce him this afternoon.  It's not the normal role for a pet sitter, however I imagine that I will get through it fine.

It's really quite amazing to see just how many people are involved in arranging this speaking tour, and we've only just begun.  Tomorrow, we will be delivered to the ferry terminal in downtown Victoria in order to board the ferry to Port Angeles.  The next scheduled talk is in Bremerton WA. tomorrow evening.

The time is just flying by.

More updates in a week.

Happy trails,
Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer

BIKING AROUND ORCAS, "GREEN" ENERGY, AND THE NATURE BATS LAST WEST COAST TOUR

POST # 169

My time on Orcas is quickly coming to an end and it seems like time is speeding up these days.  I suppose it's just one of the things that happens as one ages.

Since arriving here I have been fortunate to have the use of a bike, and I've made sure to go out for at least one ride each day, but usually two.  Here is a photo of the bike.

I haven't had the chance to ride much in the past six months or so, and the lack of exercise combined with the usual amount of calorie intake, has left me with an energy surplus, which is a polite way of saying that I have a larger waistline  than before.  Energy in, energy out.  It's really a simple formula, but simple doesn't imply easy.

There are always plenty of places to ride to, and things to see along the way.  One of my favourite places to spend time is at the beach at East Sound.  This photo was taken quite a few days ago, when we had some cloud cover, but it's long gone now, and each day has provided an abundance of sunshine since then.  The grass is "crunchy" dry which isn't normal for this neck of the woods, but it's becoming the norm nowadays.

On my journey yesterday, I rode through the town, and as it was Saturday, it was very busy.  I happened to come across an event at the main park where they were promoting all sorts of "green" energy "solutions" to our fossil fuel predicament.  Here are a few of the things that I saw.

Now I could have started a conversation with people at any one of these displays and if I had,  I probably would have begun by asking, " How exactly are the materials used in solar panels and cars acquired?"   It wouldn't be the type of question that any of the participants would be expecting.  Of course, it doesn't take an Einstein to work out, that it requires a tremendous amount of fossil fuel energy to mine the materials needed to produce these items in the first place, so you can now throw out the term "green" and you may as well throw out the word "sustainable" as well.
Yes, I could have started plenty of conversations, but I already know that I would be wasting my time, and spoiling their dreams.  As a society, we are extremely reluctant to give up on the notion that new technology will be the solution to the predicaments we find ourselves in, but it is technology that has helped to paint us into this corner, without an exit strategy.
So instead I just wandered around and took a few photos.  Even if everyone on Orcas Island had solar panels on their properties, and they all drove around in Tesla and BMW cars, it still wouldn't make any difference, now that we are in the era of abrupt climate change.

I continued on my ride and came across this old relic from a by gone era.  Sometime in the future, there may be the rusted out remnants of a Tesla here on Orcas, however by the time that happens,  I wonder if there will be anyone here to see it?  I know I won't be.

As the day progressed I took time out in the garden, to pick through the strawberry patch, and enjoy some of the sweetest strawberries ever.  Here is one, just prior to popping it in my mouth.

The tiny house in the background, is called the Raven house, and it is where I am spending my evenings while here.  It's cozy, but I like cozy.

Finally, I pedaled down to the beach at the north end of the island which is only a  few minutes from here.  I came across some little creatures in the sand, which made me think that I was looking at popcorn popping.  Look closely.

Then, just after 9pm, the sun was setting over Saturna Island, and as luck would have it, there happened to be a man further along the beach who was playing a flute.  It was a pleasant combination of sight and sound.

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NBL WEST COAST TOUR

After I depart Orcas this week, I will be accompanying my friend Guy, as he starts his Pacific Northwest tour, which kicks off in Vancouver on June 12th, and finishes in Portland Oregon on June 26th.  During this time I may or may not have the use of a computer to write my blog on the 14th or 21st.   Tour details can be found at this link:

http://guymcpherson.com/coming-events/

Happy trails,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

TINY HOUSE LIVING IN WASHINGTON AND OREGON, AND A NOTE ABOUT THE ENDOCENE TO ROUND THINGS OUT

POST # 168

The computer blog gods didn't align last week so I didn't get to write, and now it's time for a bit of catch up.  Meandering up the coast through Oregon to Washington eventually landed me at the cabin pictured below which is located on Whidbey Island in Washington.  Carol, the woman who owns it, is a friend of my friend Mary, and we were offered this little piece of paradise for a few days.  It has to be one of the cutest cabins, that I've ever come across, and I've seen plenty of them in my travels.

From Whidbey Island, Mary drove me to Anacortes, where we said goodbye, and I continued my journey to my current accommodation, called "The Raven House" which is situated on Orcas Island and which will be my home for about the next two weeks.

My purpose for being here again on Orcas, is to take care of three of my favourite furballs, Felix, Oscar, and their little sister Ziggy.  I've had the pleasure of their company three other times, and I am looking forward to our time together.

Here they are last night, waiting somewhat impatiently for their dinner.  We will get to play out this little dance, twice a day while I'm here.
Felix and Oscar prefer to sleep in the Raven House, so I have plenty of company during the evening.  They have given me "permission" to sleep in "their" house for the time being.  It's a good trade off, they provide the accommodation and I feed them.  Everybody's happy.
After breakfast, Oscar and Felix always find time to hang out in the sunshine on the front deck.  Ziggy is nowhere to be seen.

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I guess that just about gets things up to date for now with regards to my latest wanderings.  But moving right along to other things, I came across this comment today in response to the latest posting at Nature Bats Last which is titled,  "Edge of Extinction: Endocene"

It seems to sum up pretty well our situation here on our only home, earth.  It's been quite the ride, however as each day passes it looks like the show will be coming to a close in the not too distant future.  At least some of us will have the good fortune, if you can call it that, to be here at the end of the show. Step right up and get your tickets for the greatest show on earth, "The Endocene".

Endocene is the short epochal period following directly from the anthropocene.

During the Endocene, the species Homo sapiens caused its own extinction, as well as the total extinction of thousands of other innocent species & life forms.

The primary causal chain for this mass extinction was the human species’ total obsession with growth.

Humans developed the ability to extract & consume enormous amounts of energy from the carbon based fuels buried in the bowels of their various planetary ecosystems, especially coal, oil, & natural gas.

Using their evolved large & creative brains, the human species developed very effective exosomatic tools both to extract & burn the increasingly sacred buried fossil fuels.

Only about twenty percent of the total human species, one & one half billion people, profligately consumed these sacred ancient fossil fuels in sophisticated, ingenious, & massive industrial plants & intricate machines.

The elitist controllers of the gleefully consuming humans in rich countries developed all manner of convoluted intellectual supports, justifications, & high sounding rationlizations for their obsessive & rapacious consumption & pollution.

The elitist engineered system of never ending growth was known as continually expanding free market economics.

The entire growth mania/economic system was completely based on borrowing money from banks at compound interest.

Compound interest, of course, was not well understood by the innocent & bamboozled borrowers.

Most bewildered borrowing pilgrims only knew it as qualifying for so-called credit.

Depending on the rate of interest, compound interest required that the borrower must repay the banker/creditor much more than he borrowed – usually around three plus times more than he borrowed.

As a handy rule, the compound interest system/religion can be summed up by the game of 72 – a very simple but monstrously perverse, deadly, & bloodsucking game.

If we divide the rate of interest, say 7 % into 72; we get slightly longer than 10 years.

Ten years is the length of time it takes for the original investment/debt to DOUBLE.

At 10 % compound interest any original investment doubles in about 7 short years.

It is a completely logical “system” & even considered “a science” by practicing well dressed priests, also known as economists.

The supply of physical money has to grow/expand to pay the bankers mathematical/mystically expanding interest.

Therefore, all development & expansion; including basic living & survival, requires continual consumption of finite resources, in order that the debtors repay their lawfully incurred contractual debts to their banker/creditors.

All consumption by the most indebted twenty percent in the “rich” countries was inevitably based on using & burning fossil fuels.

But, disaster & collapse was written into the mystical & “impossible” system of ever expanding resource extraction & consumption

The profligate burning of fossil fuels led to the equally profligate production of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

The CO2 pollution was so readily & cavalierly exhausted into the atmospheric commons in such massive amounts that it caused the entire plane to abruptly heat.

The priestly economists called carbon greenhouse gas pollution an “externality.”

It was NOT even considered part of the continually growing economic system.

The economic priests had esoteric equations as proof.

Nevertheless, the increased planetary heating from CO2 forced the release of other methane rich carbon stores in the Arctic Ocean Sea beds & Northern latitude permafrost.

In short order the perviously sleeping methane in the Arctic Sea beds & permafrost melted.

The escaping methane perfused into the atmospheric commons, where it abruptly increased the deadly heating – releasing even more deadly methane.

Evenually, planet Earth became too hot to sustain most froms of life, including all Mammalian life.

It was called the Sixth Great Extinction &/or the Endocene.

Some wise asses call it the ultimate bummer.

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I guess that's about it for this go around.  More news next month as I will have a computer for June 7th.

Happy trails,

Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer

SO LONG SOUTHERN CROSS AND WELCOME BACK, URSA MAJOR (aka THE BIG DIPPER)

POST #167

Here is the final photo of Ali, taken as I was walking out the door to head to the Armidale airport, after completing my final house sit in Australia.

The look on her face can be described in three words-  "But why, Paul?"

After a month of spending every day together, and playing ball, she probably couldn't work out why I would want to leave.  But such is the life of a house sitter- always on the move.

However, just prior to departing this country house sit, I was invited to go along to a get together with some of the locals.  It was a wonderful afternoon spent with some very friendly and interesting people.

So it was time to say goodbye to the Southern Cross constellation, and hello to Ursa Major ( the Big Dipper), as we crossed over the Equator en route to my next destination.  But before I left, I had time to say so long to a couple of friends, Brian (top), and David (bottom).  I met Brian way back in 1988 through my friend Victoria, and I met David after applying for a job ad in a newspaper back in 1990.  In 2003, David, myself and another sailor named Anthony would spend 43 days sailing across the Indian Ocean from Durban South Africa, to Fremantle, Western Australia.

Above, is a rather grainy photo of the wing of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. I had read an article only a week or so prior to this flight, that Boeing had discovered a glitch in the computer software of the 787 which had the potential to shut down all the power to the aircraft at any time without notice. If it happened while cruising at 39000 feet over the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, it would have been a long glide to a watery grave.  This news, along with the documentary that I linked to a few months ago on this blog, with regards to the manufacturing of this jet, had me wondering whether or not I would make it all the way from Melbourne to Los Angeles, but for anyone who has been there, this next photo confirms that we arrived safe and sound.  I arrived in LA, three hours BEFORE, I left Melbourne, due to the crossing of the international dateline.  May 9th was an extra long day.

 After a few hours layover in LA, it was time to board a different aircraft and continue my journey to Seattle airport.  I had a great view of Mt. Baker as we were on our final approach into SeaTac airport.

The stop over in Seattle would be a short one hour, before boarding a prop aircraft to make my final flight for the day, to Redmond Oregon.

This was taken just after we departed Seattle,  and I managed to catch another glimpse of Mt. Baker, as we headed south.

Finally, here is a video taken en route.

The weary traveller, ah, that would be me, arrived safe and sound in Redmond, at about 6:30pm where I was greeted by my friend Mary.  A short car ride would be the final travel for the day and would have us arriving in Bend around 7pm.

I have some precious time off before I journey to my next house sit which will once again be on Orcas Island in Washington.  This will be my fourth journey there, and I am looking forward to caring for my three furball buddies, Oscar, Felix, and Ziggy.  However, I won't be there until late in the month, so I will have another post on May 21st, as long as I have a computer to use.

Until then,

Happy trails,

Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer

A PHOTO FROM 2013 ( I AM CURRENTLY ON THE ROAD)

POST # 166

I'm in between housesits at the moment, and on the move, so I will keep this short.  I was going through some old photos the other day, and I came across this one, which was taken on March 9th 2013, just over a year after I fell down this exact hill.  From this angle, one gets a much better view of the terrain that I tumbled over on my way to the bottom.
On this particular day, I decided to re-climb the hill from the side that I had fallen down in 2012.
It certainly was a memorable experience.

Happy Trails,

Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer

MORE FROM TUMBALALA AND THOUGHTS ABOUT NEPAL

POST # 165

Last week I headed out for a drive from the property onto this country road which is east of my location. I was just past where the shadow on the road is (on the curved end of the road), when out of the blue, a truck came flying around the bend heading straight for me, and he was on my side of the road.  He must have been going at least 80kph or more, and thankfully I had only just started out so I wasn't going very fast.  He made a desperate swerve over to the left, where he should have been in the first place, and we passed each other unharmed.  However, if I would have left the property even 30 seconds earlier, I think that there would have been a head on collision.  As I've said many times, you never know when you get up in the morning, whether or not you'll be going to bed that night.  Anyhow, it made for an exciting start to the day, and there was no harm done.  As the driver of the other vehicle went by me, he seemed to have a sneer on his face which made me think that he was annoyed that I had interrupted his normal race track style of driving on this road.  Or perhaps, maybe he'll think twice the next time, before he goes screaming around that bend in such a hurry on the wrong side of the road.

Moving right along. Time for a few more views around Tumbalala.

I just love the green colour of the ground cover around the property.

Now here is an interesting photo.  This is a huge rock in the creek behind where I am located, and the unusual thing about it, is the old log perched near the top right. I can only assume that at one time in the past, the water in the creek rose to such an extent, that this log was deposited there.  If that was the case, it would have been something to see at the time. There would have been plenty of water here on the property as a result of the flood. (Note: I have left this photo large, so that the log can be seen easily.)

And next, we have a view from the back deck overlooking the chook yard.  This is a great place to spend time in the late afternoon, which is when this photo was taken.

Now here is a rather unusual rock/tree formation, and that's all I'll say.  I leave it to the reader's imagination as to what this might remind them of.

The lighting in late afternoon is always so wonderful, and it encourages me to try and capture what it looks like on the gum trees and rocks.

In the next photo, Tumble the cat captures perfectly, the mood around here, in other words, it's VERY, VERY relaxed.

From day one of my arrival, Ali the dog showed me her favourite ball to play with and so the two of us have managed to play ball multiple times each day.  I have found a good stick to hit the ball with, which is better than just kicking it, because it travels a lot farther, and Ali gets a better work out, as do I.  However, the poor ball has taken quite a beating, and even though it doesn't much resemble a soccer ball any longer, in it's current form, it's easier to send it flying into the air, and Ali doesn't seem to notice, that her ball isn't very round anymore.

Here is Ali, all set to play with what's left of her ball.

Today I have three short videos to share as well.  This first one is of Ali, after we've had another game of ball.

Next up, as I was walking down the road yesterday, I noticed this little spider trying it's best to get from one side of the road to the other.

And finally, one more video.  A small creature was wandering across the computer screen last night while I was on the NBL website.  Well, at least, some creatures are interested in finding out what's really going on.

That pretty well covers things for this week at Tumbalala, but I didn't want to end this post without sparing a thought for all of those people in Nepal right at the moment who are suffering through the effects of a 7.9 earthquake.  Having spent time in Kathmandu and the surrounding area back in 1980, I feel a connection to the people there, who are some of the poorest, yet most generous people I have ever had the opportunity to meet.  They must be going through a very rough time at the moment.  Of course, the media focus here is on the westerners who are in Nepal, however, they have the ability to leave.  Unfortunately for most of the locals, there is nowhere else to go.  Very sad indeed.


Soon, my time here at Tumbalala will be coming to a close, and I will once again be wandering to the next place.  I may or may not have computer access for a blog post on May 7th, but time will tell.  However, I certainly will be writing again on May 14th, with more news to share.

In the meantime,

Happy trails,

Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer