By Colleen Fielding
Welcome to Colleen’s Corner. This is a column meant for fun and some information About myself: I am a Freelance Photographer you often see me on the side of the road or in various places taking photos of different things animals, birds, places, people etc. l have lived in Lumby just over 8 years you have seen my photos in the newspaper (Lumby Valley Times) and once in awhile in the Vernon Morning Star, and the Lumby Art Gallery. Photography is my passion. Disclaimer: The information on some of my photos that I write about a lot of times come from the Internet or books I research them, hopefully the facts are as close to the truth as I can come.
Last week’s article I wrote about how the snow was finally melting in my yard. Then Wham! Hit with another big dump of snow this weekend. My swing and arbor is hardly visible from all the snow again, so I won’t be sitting on my swing any time soon.
I remember one of my teachers in school, Mr. Carter. He was cool and scary at the same time, and a little quirky. He had long hair that was always tied back into a ponytail. Round glasses that were too big for his face. He always smelled of Cherry Tobacco. His pipe was always with him, even in class his pipe would be in his mouth, he didn’t light it in class, but it was always there. Just before breaks or lunch he filled his pipe at his desk with his Cherry Tobacco as soon as the bell rang he and his pipe went out quickly. When he came back into class, there was that sweet smell of Cherry Tobacco following him. When he was showing you something on the chalkboard the pipe would be his pointer instead of using a ruler or an actual pointer. Sometimes he would shut off all the lights and close the blinds in the classroom, and pull out his flashlight, put it under his chin and tell us scary stories as if we were camping around a campfire. All the while the pipe never left his hand.
Mr.Carter was a great believer in Mother Nature, and how if you mistreat her eventually she will retaliate with a huge force that no one has ever seen before. He would use the old phrase “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” I now believe he was right.
You can call it global warming or anything else, but it still boils down to Mother Nature getting revenge.
If I were to write a letter to her it would go something like this:
Dear Mother Nature:
It is a harsh reality to know that we humans are the cause of your misery.
We are sorry we didn’t look after you better, we have polluted you and the air we breathe, filled our oceans with garbage and plastics. We have used pesticides, and chemical poisons to kill weeds and insects which have seeped into our waterways and harmed our wildlife, birds, our trees, and everything else you have provided for us. We have burned fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. We did not respect our environments at all, making you angry with us. You held back for a while fuming inside, but now you are letting it all out. It is time to feel your wrath! And what a wrath it is, you are very powerful, and very, very scary!
Some places are getting punished more than others. There are more earthquakes, floods, heat waves, fires, tornadoes ,hurricanes, and everything else you can think of.
WOW! You must really be angry with California. There you have presented them with almost everything. They have had huge tornadoes, hurricanes, fires and floods for years and now you are giving them snow, and ice! Most people there have never seen snow, they don’t know what to do, and they really don’t know how to drive in it with their summer tires.
I wonder at times how long your wrath will go on, are you just cleaning up the world for the next generations to live a cleaner life, or do you intend to go on even longer?
I don’t know if Mr. Carter is still alive or not, if he is in my mind I can see him trying very hard to do what he can to make the earth a better place to live in, and if he has passed away, no doubt he is rolling in his grave pointing his pipe at us and saying” See, I told you we mistreated Mother Nature for too many years, and now she is retaliating with a huge force that no one has ever seen before.”
In the meantime Mother Nature, I am still looking forward to seeing my backyard again, sitting on my swing, and wearing my sunglasses “as it’s always a good day when you can wear your sunglasses!”
