Sidney Spit Restoration Adventure

Yesterday, Kate & I had an opportunity to do some restoration #volunteering with the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve on a beautiful tear-drop-shaped spit jutting out from Sidney Island which is home to a coastal sand ecosystem (rare in this region) which hosts several at-risk species such as the contorted-pod evening-primrose, Edwards' beach moth, & the ground-nesting (deceptively-named) common nighthawk.

  Slow-life at the Banana Slug Bungalow

When I saw the call-to-artists for an upcoming show at the Metchosin ArtPod for 'art using photographs as a base', I figured I could manage to put something together for it (considering the massive pile of digital photos we have of things around Hum Hill from over the last two years, heheh).

Looking through the photos, I was inspired by several close-up pictures of various fungi and lichens. They seemed to scream, “you must adorn us with creatures!”, and so it began:

The first in hopefully a series of creatures digitally plopped atop photographed micro-scenes.

  Snowtoro & Co.  

After what has been a very mild winter, this weekend's snow storm brought a trio of unexpected visitors from 日本 to Humm Hill.  They were gone the next day, but left a scattering of ドングリ behind...

  New Year, New Nectar

Here on Hummingbird Hill, one of our most important duties is to keep the hummers happy. We have a handful of hummers year-round who regularly come to sip the sweet stuff from our two saucer-style feeders. When we were still new at it, we found it difficult to remember which of us changed the nectar last and when. This resulted in confusion and—more importantly—the potential risk of unhappy hummers.

So, I came up with a solution.

Enter: Nectar Refresh Schedule!

  “Crow Ho Ho!” It's...  

SANTA CAWS!

This is our first collaborative lino-print. We passed it back and forth throughout the whole process— from sketching to digitizing; carving to colouring; printing to packaging. We offered some for sale at Metchosin Artpod's Mighty Fine Art & Craft show, but primarily made them to send to loved ones & friends for the holidays. 'Twas a fun & pun-tastic experiment— and we're looking forward to collaborating more through this medium in the future! ☺︎

  Returning & Reorienting (戻りと変更計画)  

Viewing the Zen garden at HCP. See more photos from this trip on ノート.

ただいま！

After over six weeks of exploring 日本, we're officially back in Metchosin to reorient ourselves toward the holidays and a rapidly approaching new year (正月). That being said, as we hinted in our last post, our virtual 旅 has been so rewarding and inspiring that we've decided to continue making periodic trips back across the submarine cable bridge which connects islands & digital lives through the 'thick' 太平洋.