A busy shoulder

Finn Slough has but one road, along the landward side; the island is accessed only by foot or boat. The road, two lanes, with a deep ditch and no shoulder on the Richmond side, doubles as parking, storage, shop, and garden area for the houses with an anchor point (never all four corners) on dry ground.

There are no lawns, no driveways or garages. Cars and pick-up trucks line up, two wheels on pavement, the others on gravel or weeds. A scant 2 or 3 metres separates them from the back doors of the homes.

Some vehicles are more or less new; many are derelict, put to non-transportation uses. This one holds machinery in the pick-up bed, sprouting plants in the "greenhouse" cab, and cats on the engine hood:

Blackie and Number Four

The cats' caretaker came out while I was scratching their ears; he feeds them here, where it's warmer and out of the mud, all winter, starting a couple of weeks ago. The grizzled one is Number Four. (I didn't ask, but it could be that he came from Number Four Road, just around the corner.) He is fourteen years old; Blackie is younger.

Detail of the truck; foot rest between the cab and the rear fender.

At the next house, someone has been getting in the wood for the winter, splitting the logs right where they were dumped from the truck;

Alder, a weed tree. Good, quick-burning, aromatic wood, useful for cooking and starter fires.

Curious set-up; a tap in an old piling. Not connected to anything at the bottom.


Number Four keeping a planter company on an old chair.


I have no idea what this is. It's on a wall a few feet off the road.


Number Four again. Just because.

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