morning commute...

One sunny morning, (because there is no other kind in Nicaragua!)

we took a stroll down by the lakeside in Granada.

Seemingly idyllic we wandered towards the sparkling water,

spotting a cowboy during morning chores herding cows.

The cows here (vaca in Spanish) are a breed known as Nelore.

They are derived from an ancient cow from India.

As we got closer to the waters edge we started to notice the garbage.

Plastic bags and bottles everywhere mixed in with the cows...

 A ever growing problem in our world, especially in places of poverty where funding

for recycling is little to none...Plastic; perhaps our most ingenious and most devastating invention of our times....but that's another chapter to discuss...

Quite sad to see such beautiful waters in such a state...the little river running into the lake was much the same as the few stray horses made their way down stream...

Anyway, it seemed a much nicer life than the mass factory feed lots

in which many cows are subjected to live in...

Down on the pacific coast a week later we encountered a whole different picture.

The cows living by the eco lodge we stayed in had a cleaner more serene commute...

 "good morning ladies!"

Wandering through the open woods...

Once in a while we spotted a loner quietly making her way up into the hills...

...perhaps taking in the views towards the ocean and the beach we were staying on...

Those mountains in the background are Costa Rica...

...no doubt the cows taking care not to get too close to these massive thorny acacia trees...

A safe haven for a birds nest though!

The cows here are lovely, velvety things with

loppy ears hanging over big soft eyes...

 I was able to run my fingers briefly across her fur and it was like suede...

The water trough was a welcome hangout for an egret on this beautiful morning...

Love this old school wind mill that was powering the farm...

So goes the morning rush  hush hour in Nicaragua.

Movie review... Think.

Last night I watched a fascinating documentary by a young Vancouver couple called

"The Clean Bin Project".

They were tired of garbage and plastic packaging and disposable "stuff'"

and decided that for 1 year they wouldn't buy ANYTHING except food and neccessities

and use their own bags and containers if they needed them.

WOW! Where do I start?

This film will really get you thinking about the amount of garbage produced

by plastic and where it ends up.

Some of it in the bellies of birds...

No lie. This is an albatross from the island of Midway in the Pacific

Ocean where the adults are literally eating this stuff to bring back to feed

their chicks and the chicks are dying from it.

The artist Chris Jordan who is featured in the film, will give you some amazing images

and facts about plastic garbage.

Have a look at this...

Look familiar?

Based on the famous Japanese woodcut, it is Chris' rendition but made up

of thousands of bits of plastic found floating in the ocean.

How about this?

It's kinda like a tree landscape but if you looked close, it's 1.14 million paper bags.

The amount used every hour in the U.S!

His artwork gives you a sense of numbers.

People can tell you a number but when it's something so high as this,

it helps more to SHOW you what it may look like.

Her's the amount of cell phones retired every day in the U.S...

half a million...where do they end up?

Now I'm not picking on my fellow Americans, it's just that the artist is from Seattle

so he gets his 'inspiration' from his country.

Canadians have loads of their own garbage as well.

We all know that the world can't change overnight but we also

know that one small change can add up when millions of

like minded people start to do little things to help.

I hope you get a chance to watch the film.

It's inspiring and will definitley make you think twice when someone

offers you a bag that you probably don't need.

Just a little plug for Mother Earth.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFilb-VhAGE



Old roads...

(Note: I have spared you the disgusting 'before' pictures and leave you with images of the present day site.)

B.C is littered with roads of the past...old logging roads are everywhere thanks to our history in the lumber industry. 

Some are accessible by vehicle and others are not much more than a wide footpath. These are my favorite, which the woods are slowly taking back, with alder, salal and salmon berry.

 Once logging has been completed, some roads are decomissioned  by placing obstacles such as gates, tree trunks or large burms which cuts off access to vehicles.
The roads that aren't blocked quite often fall victim to the garbage dumper. This is a mentality that I CANNOT wrap my head around.

This mound used to be high with bags full of garbage, old tires, lots of plastic, and general refuse scattered about.
I try to pick up the bits of garbage that I can but usually don't have a very big bag.

Picture this....someone fills up the back of their pickup truck with an old couch, a broken t.v, old roof shingles, large plastic bags of household garbage and drives out to an old logging road.

It could be in the dark or in the light of day.

They dump all their shit out into the bush and drive away. 

I guess for them its 'out of sight, out of mind'.

 One such place was King Creek, a tributary which flows into Kemp Lake, directly up the road from me.

  Some people just don't think that there are other living things around besides themselves...

About a year ago a local organization, called The Juan De Fuca Trail Society, decided enough was enough and cleaned the place up.

 I think they took away 5 large dump truck loads of garbage and built a few burms to keep traffic out.

 It is now a lovely place to walk with the sound of birds...

 ...and  glimpses of bear and deer once in a while. I found this bit of bear fur on the trail today...

 I thank these people for their random act of conservation and I now try to pick up any trace of garbage left by the side of the road here so as to dicourage others.

These woods are being respected and reclaimed.

The society has posted signs and encourages others to get to know this lovely spot...

Of course Rosie and Griffin love to go for a ramble any day...

One way or another we can all do something small which adds up to something big.