another reason we look to the heavens

There’s a lot of logging going on in our neighbourhood of late, much of it right along Granite

Bay Road, our community connector.  It’s clear cutting, so everything goes down, even the

little trees.  After the marketable timber is hauled out, we’re allowed to take what’s left for

firewood.

The logging companies unofficially appreciate this because it reduces their stumpage fees,

which are charged by the province for all that’s knocked down but left behind.  We’re free

to sort through the huge burnpiles, like this one:

Picking through one of these is like a giant game of Pick-Up Sticks, except the consequences

of a screw-up are more severe than the scorn of your peers.

Monday I took these pics to record the ugliness of this enterprise.

Mind you, I witness this with some guilt.  I’m a consumer of wood.  And I know that this is a

renewable (albeit slowly) resource.  You can see the replants from another clear cut growing

behind the new slash.  Still, it makes me wince at times to be at ground zero of this industry.

So you can imagine my joy when I realized that the new opening in the forest created a spec-

tacular view of the mountains on the mainland.

Despite the circumstances, the joy of driving home is now even more joyous.  Sometimes ya

just gotta look up.

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Nora Ephron died from leukemia yesterday at age 71.  She was the daughter of  Henry and

Phoebe Ephron, who wrote the screenplays for Daddy Long Legs, Carousel and The Desk Set,

which starred Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

Nora wrote 13 feature films and directed eight of them, including Sleepless in Seattle, Michael,

Bewitched and Julie & Julia.  Early in her career, she wrote When Harry Met Sally …, which

gave us this classic scene.  She worked often with Meryl Streep.  In 1986, Streep played her

in Heartburn, based on Ephron’s account of the breakup of her marriage to Carl Bernstein.

Here’s a sample, featuring the haunting song “Coming Around Again” by Carly Simon.