The first sounds of winter’s retreat come from snow melting off the metal sheets covering my woodpile.

Plink . . . plink . . . plink. 

Slow, almost imperceptible. 

Then faster and louder as the morning sun grows more ravenous. Individual drips joining others in a widening pool at the woodpile’s base.

My woodpile looks sadly diminished today, its early autumn bulk considerably reduced. It’s like looking at a good friend wasting away.

Wasting is a wrong word. My woodpile’s bulk has been reduced as it gave up a large part of itself to keep me warm this winter. Given, not wasted. 

My woodpile is a good friend who gives me much. It was once a living tree offering beauty, shade and oxygen while providing protection for small animals, insects and birds.  When it died, as all living things must, it fell to the forest floor for me to find.

My woodpile brings me more than winter heat. It gives me the joy of being in the woods, and the physical exercise of cutting, splitting and stacking it. 

It also gives me mental workouts. I come here occasionally to lean against it and think about life and how complicated it can be.

In the woodpile I see a different world. A world of trees. Also a complicated place, but a place managed far more successfully than ours.

Some Indigenous people believe that trees and other plants are living beings somewhat similar to human beings. Scientific studies have been supporting this, finding that trees, through their roots and leaves, sense and comprehend their environment and communicate information with fellow trees and other plants.

Trees avoid many of the problems that complicate our human world. One reason they do is that trees are patient beings, never rushing to make change.

Trees don’t get angry or yell at each other. They don’t waste time and energy whining about their situations or controls on their lives. They work together to help each other.

Most importantly, they respect and appreciate diversity. 

Their skins are different colours, different textures. Their leaves are different shapes and different sizes. But they live side by side, not discriminating. There is no racism nor social inequality in the world of trees.

The mightiest oak is no more important than the weakest willow. 

Unlike us, they live sustainable lives. They take and use only what is needed, understanding that conserving energy and resources makes life better for all.

We humans are beginning to understand that we are living an unsustainable way of life. Some research indicates that 87 per cent of all our economic activity is unsustainable – in other words not supported by renewable resources.

Understanding that problem is one thing. Solving it is another.

We deal with the symptoms of our unsustainable way of life – plastics congesting the oceans, carbon emissions changing climate, landfills choking with waste. We haven’t yet seriously addressed the root cause of the symptoms, which is consuming much more than we really need.

Nature has dealt with the root cause of unsustainability since the beginning of time. If it hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here. It understands the difference between simply wanting and truly needing. 

We humans see Nature as something nice, but separate from ourselves. We don’t see ourselves as part of it and certainly don’t see that there is much that it can teach us.

When I lean against my woodpile contemplating the world, I often wonder whether the answers to our problems are right here in Nature. Can Nature show us how to live without the anger, hatred and wars we experience now? How to live without discrimination and social inequality? How to fight the diseases that continue to infect us?

It will take people a lot smarter than me to find the answers to those questions.

The positive news is that those people – members of the scientific community – are out there working steadily to unlock the secrets of Nature. As they share what they learn from Nature, it is possible that we all will become as smart as the trees that surround us and the world will be a better place. 

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 It’s February! Time for happy dancing and thumbing noses at the month just expired.

January was wretched. A coronavirus that would not go away. Threats of war between the U.S. and Russia. Continuing ethnic cleansings and other human tragedies in places like Afghanistan.

Then there was the bizarre weather. Unprecedented winter storms, including tornadoes, in parts of the world. Midwinter forest fires in California and Siberia.

There were no forest fires here at home. Just cold and snow. Brutal Arctic-style cold. 

It was the coldest January in recent memory. 

The average high temperature for the month was a chilly minus 6.3. The average low was minus 22.2. The normal January daily high for the Haliburton area is minus 3.8, and the normal low minus 15.9.

Twenty of this past January’s 31 days saw lows of minus 20 or colder. On seven of those days county thermometers dived below minus 30. On the morning of January 21 furnaces and wood stoves worked overtime against a low of minus 38.

All those temperatures were recorded by an Environment Canada co-operating private site at Haliburton Village.

The cold seemed to keep heavy snowfalls away. There were no large snowstorms in January and when the month ended there were only 36 centimetres (14 inches) on the ground in most places.

There was no January thaw this year. Usually we see one – a day or two above freezing – in the last half of January.

All this was much different from January last year. The average daytime high temperature in January 2021 was minus 2.7 and the average low for the month minus 12.3 – much warmer than the month just passed.

And in January 2021 there were no days minus 30 or colder and only seven of 30 days in which the thermometer fell to minus 20 or a bit lower. The coldest day in January 2021 was minus 28.

But all that is history. The main interest now is what weather we can expect in coming weeks, and whether we will be treated to an early spring.

Things aren’t looking good so far. January’s cold continued into early February with signs of some slight warming this week. Most of the morning lows in the first week were in the minus 20 range.

A variety of weather sources are predicting day and night temperatures below freezing for the first three weeks of the month. Nighttime lows are forecast to be in the minus double digits for much of the month.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac forecasts more cold followed by snow storms – some of them heavy – for later in the month. That almanac has been around for 230 years and claims an 80 per cent accuracy rate for its weather predictions. 

Some people question that percentage, but the almanac was accurate in its forecast for this winter. It predicted the winter of 2021 – 2022 would be “a season of shivers.”

“This coming winter could well be one of the longest and coldest that we’ve seen in years,” the publication’s editor Janice Stillman said last fall.

At any rate, none of the forecasters are predicting spring-like weather for the rest of February. They seem to agree that the first three weeks of this month will see constant below freezing weather, plus snowfalls pretty much every day.

The better news is that most forecasts predict settled, warmer weather in late February and early March. Long-range forecasts for spring and summer see warmer weather with above normal rainfall.

Who knows? Someone once said the most accurate weather forecast is obtained by looking out the window.

And, whatever we get, we get. Despite all our advances in science there is nothing we can do to change the weather, at least in the short term. We can, however, start living in ways that reduce global warming and climate change.

Besides, there really is no bad weather. Sunshine is great, Snow can be pretty and provide fun. Rain is refreshing and wind can be bracing. 

Or, as Alfred Wainwright, the famous British walker and author, wrote in one of his books:

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”

 By Jim Poling Sr.

From Shaman’s Rock

I shouldn’t have had that extra glass of wine before going to bed. I savoured it while watching the news, forgetting that late-night wine and late-night news combine to give me nightmares.

News of the Russian takeover threat to Ukraine, plus the truckers’ anti-government protests must have triggered my bad dream.

I dreamed that Russian president Vladimir Putin and China’s president Xi were smiling, shaking hands and agreeing to invade not just the Ukraine, but the U.S. and Canada. They said autocracies make the world a nicer place.

The invasions went smoothly. Canada and the U.S. succumbed within a couple of days.

This was easily accomplished because the Canadian forces had no arms or ammunition, having donated it all to the Ukrainians. American forces were either too sick with COVID-19, or too busy arguing whether to support Biden or Trump, to offer any effective resistance.

Immediately after the takeover, Putin appeared on CNN reassuring Americans they would be treated well and their former presidents would be given opportunities to rebuild their nation.

“Donald Trump has been appointed minister responsible for Remaking America Great Again with Communism,” Putin announced.

Joe Biden was assigned to see that all Afghans were returned home to Afghanistan.

George Bush was given the job of ensuring that evangelicals understand that Communism is an improvement over white supremacy.

Bill Clinton was put in charge of state birth control and Jimmy Carter was assigned to head the new Communist Peanut Co-operative.

Barack Obama was ignored because the Russians said he had a weird name.

Meanwhile in Ottawa, China’s top People’s Liberation Army general addressed the protest blockade on Parliament Hill.

“There is no need to protest about your rights and freedoms,” the general shouted into a loudspeaker. “You don’t have any. There is no need for that stuff in a People’s Republic.”

As he finished speaking, bulldozers and cranes cleared the blockade of trucks and garbage put up by the protesters. Then a flatbed truck carrying a rock band appeared, blaring music that drowned out the Peace Tower clock chimes as it drifted past the Parliament buildings.

The lead singer appeared to be Anne Murray belting out a revised version of Janis Joplin’s Me and Bobby McGee.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,

Nothin’, that’s all Justin did for me

But feeling good is easy pal, when Putin makes me free

And feeling good is good enough for me . . .

Good enough for me under President Xi.”

I woke up sweating and yelling but soon calmed down, happy to be back to reality. I went downstairs, made coffee and turned on the morning TV news.

There was little new from the night before. The truckers’ revolt continued in Ottawa and other cities, shutting down manufacturing plants and putting people out of work.

World COVID deaths hit 11,000 a day and now totalled almost six million. Iran was close to having a nuclear bomb. A gun violence site reported U.S. gun deaths now are running at more than 115 a day.

Another item reported that 50.5 million children under five are acutely malnourished, many because global warming was killing agriculture. It also said that in Asia alone, as many as eight million kids are being forced into begging and child  labour because their parents cannot afford to buy enough food. 

Meanwhile in Canadian news there were reports of teens killing other teens, rampant drug abuse, a shocking rise in mental illness and an even more shocking rise in the prices of consumer goods.

Then there was a video clip of Trump endorsing the truckers’ revolution and calling Trudeau a far-left lunatic who ruined Canada.

There was no rebuttal from Trudeau, who had not been seen since Groundhog Day. Some commentators said he had seen his shadow, which forecast six more weeks of trucker blockades.

I clicked off the TV and poured the coffee down the sink drain. Then I did what seemed a reasonable thing to do in a world gone mad:

I reached up into a cupboard and pulled down a new bottle of wine.

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I am proud to report that I was one of the journalists covering that heroic highway convoy. It was a courageous event that demonstrated the strength of human spirit.

 
It happened without me being verbally abused, or spat upon. Reporters were treated with respect.

As it crossed the country, gaining cheering supporters along the roadsides, I realized this was a powerful story that could change Canada and Canadians. It changed me.

I’m not talking about the truck convoy that travelled to Ottawa to protest health restrictions to control the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed six million people worldwide.

 
The convoy I covered was 42 years ago when a 22-year-old curly-haired kid with an artificial leg decided to run coast to coast to raise awareness and money for cancer research. 

In 1977, Terry Fox, a Port Coquitlam, B.C. university student, was diagnosed with cancer. His right leg was amputated. Doctors told him that medical advances gave him a 50-per-cent chance of survival, up from 15 per cent because of research.

Fox endured 16 months of chemotherapy and practised running on the artificial leg. He ran with difficulty but determined he would run a Marathon of Hope to collect money for more cancer research.

On April 12, 1980 he dipped a leg into the Atlantic Ocean near St. John’s, Newfoundland, then began running west toward the Pacific. 

 
The pain never slowed the odd hip-hop gait that carried him roughly 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day. Until it did, on the eastern outskirts of Thunder Bay. An ambulance carried him to hospital where he learned the cancer had spread to his lungs.

Terry Fox ran 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles} in 143 days. He didn’t whine. He didn’t curse and shake his fist at government action or inaction on health matters. He just ran his heart out in a fight against a deadly disease he believed could be defeated. 

Ten months later I was at a Port Coquitlam hospital when Leslie Shepherd, a talented young reporter stationed outside Terry’s room, sent me a pre-arranged signal. I fashioned her signal into a wire news service bulletin and sent it out to the world: Terry Fox was dead.
 
The story did not end there. Terry Fox’s fight against cancer has raised nearly $1 billion for cancer research in the past 40 years. That’s money that has saved or prolonged many thousands of lives.

That’s why it is heartbreaking to see the protesters mock the Terry Fox memorial near Parliament Hill, draping it with anti-vaccine signs and upside-down Maple Leaf flags. Some were reported to have danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Most heartbreaking is that protests against COVID-19 precautions are prolonging the pandemic, overburdening hospitals and delaying cancer treatments Terry Fox ran so hard to have improved.

Some have called the convoy truckers and their supporters heroes. They are in fact anti-heroes who lack the courage, fierce determination and hope that shone from Terry Fox’s eyes every step along his Marathon of Hope. They are the worst of the self-centered in an increasingly self-centred society.

“It took cancer to realize that being self-centered is not the way to live,” Terry Fox once said. “The answer is to try and help others.” 

We are all tired of the pandemic and the restrictions it has placed on our lives.

 
Terry Fox was tired of being without a leg. Tired of months of cancer treatments. Tired of thoughts of dying.

But he refused to succumb to bellyaching and a “woe is me” attitude. He stood straight on his artificial leg and ran. Ran in a battle against a terrible disease. Ran to improve life for us all.

“I just wish people would realize that anything's possible if you try,” he said. “Dreams are made possible if you try.”

The truckers’ convoy didn’t bring dreams to Ottawa. They brought Nazi banners, Confederate flags, anger, hatred and other relics of American Trumpism.

This is a country that neither needs, nor wants Trumpism. It’s a country that needs respectful protests, positive actions, much better leadership and appreciation of its heroes.

Terry Fox, the young man who refused to let disease consume his spirit, is a true Canadian hero whose memory deserves our utmost respect

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