Author: underswansea

Water water everywhere

Who pissed in my sink?

This is what District of Invermere (DOI) water looks like. I still drink it because I am told it is tested and fine for consumption, plus, I’ve seen Willow drink out of murky mud puddles on the side of a slough and she has always been fine.

Infrastructure and utilities has never been a strong suit of the DOI. Historically to present, Mayor and Council, primarily made up of real estate agents and businesspeople, have been known to act more as a chamber of commerce, who’s primary goal is to attract tourists and figure out ways to fit more boats on Lake Windermere, all the while, and without fail, feathering their own nests. Welcome to a tourist town.

Not that this is anything new or specific to this town. It’s the way things work most everywhere. The best a person can hope for is what is good for a politician; local, provincial or federal, is also good for the majority. In Canada, most of the time it is. If it happens, the politician gets rich in the meantime, we should be happy they didn’t resolve to display further greed and incompetence to make more people worse off.

If one was to complain about the water quality to the officials of DOI, which I would never do (why present concern to deaf ears?), the answer would be, ‘get a home water purification system if you are concerned’.

We are lucky to have an abundance of clear fresh water in the Columbia Valley, it just doesn’t flow through the pipes below the District of Invermere. 

Mid April News

Put some of the seedlings in bigger pots. They looked half dead and pissed off after I was finished, not much for starting plants inside.

***

Twitter labeled CBC “government funded media”. Which made me laugh. Of course they are. Most of their funding comes from the government. It doesn’t necessarily make the CBC bad. True the broadcaster endorses the Liberal Party agenda. But so what? I take heed when Chrystia Freeland tells us to buckle down and Justin Trudeau says everything is going swimmingly. There isn’t a news agency out there that is reporting without an agenda. That’s the way it is now. If you are seeking the truth, listen to a lot of news. The bullshit will come through. Of course it will be fucking exhausting and will leave you crosseyed, bewildered and, more than likely, worse off. I’ll take CBC any day, sometimes you have to settle for the least of the worst.

***

I think Orwell has me right. While the shit hits the fan. I am looking forward to tomorrow. I have a bunch of work to do. The work is going to make me happy, appliances fixed and running tickety boo. Grass mown. Looking good, for this time of year.

Pray

Wind and rain signalling winter is officially over and spring is here. I feel colder in this weather than I do when it is minus thirty.

It will green things up. Some of the kids at work are wearing shorts while I still have on my long underwear.

Lisa asked today, do I wish we prayed. It is a good question.

Bird Song

Was up there hell and gone, cashing in on birdsong and edgy dogs. Looking for snags, firewood, fallen or standing, rocks that look like letters or shapes, like hearts, to bring home, and have someone say, I see it.

Willow sat on lookout, the young dog was more comfortable close. She is going to be a good one. Willow is good in the bush and bad everywhere else. She’ll bark at a crow at home through the window, but stay still for a Black Bear, in the bush, waiting for the right time to put it up a tree.

Together we are too much trouble for man or beast to take us on.

Easter

There is plenty of reason for the way things work out. For instance, we’re told, a person works hard and they prosper. However, the biggest reason that things work out is random. The universe is chaos. It doesn’t consider us or our feelings. It isn’t Jesus or Santa Claus or cares if we have been naughty or nice. If it was most people would live forever and a few would pay for the shit they caused.

Bad things happen to good people. Bad people prosper. Not always, like I said, it’s random.

My brother smoked and drank from the time he was 12. Instead of liver or lung cancer he died of a rare blood disease. He thought it was funny. It also killed his fear of dying. So many doing everything right and dying. He was lucky.

We’re all lucky in the end.

The stars keep time. They swarm over the mountains. Turn south and back. It takes more than a lifetime to know them, to become an expert.

That’s Jimmy

Jimmy knocked himself out today. He struggled with a post of angle iron in the frozen ground. Finally it broke off and hit him in the head. He hit the ground, his radio on squelch. That’s Jimmy. If he does something he makes sure everyone notices.

Of course, once he came to, he wanted to keep working. He is small of stature, but strong as an army. That’s Jimmy.

Early April

A couple inches of wet snow overnight. It will be gone in a hurry. It seems winter is trying to hang on.

Lisa and I went for a short walk behind the mountain. We were hoping to see a few Meadowlarks. Lisa said she heard their distinct call the other day. We did see Chickadees, Siskins and Robins. Not many got close enough for a picture.

Back in the valley bottom I walked the road, but still no luck, instead I shot a few old fence-lines.

All and all a overcast black and white day. It was good to get out even if briefly.

100

A good fishing day.

Dad would have turned 100 today or it would have been his hundredth year. He had a distinction between the two. All I know he always said he was year older than what he was. So it is safe to say he is 100 considering he was born on March 31st, 1923.

Joined the army at the start of the Second World War at age 17.

Been looking through some old photos. Some I look at every day. Not a day goes by I don’t think of my father, usually when I hear something funny, or see something on the news. Nature as well, almost anything I know he pointed out to me when I was young.

He’d still find a lot of those things interesting in this day and age. The level of the creeks. When the berries ripen, the dryness and forest fires. The politic climate, how we are set against each other depending if you are left or right.

Paradise when the buildings still stood.

One thing you never asked was, how you vote. I knew that early and never asked. He despised bullies, people who punched down. That could be unions or conservative tight asses. It was hard to know where he stood. I figured it was on the side of common sense.

He could be hard, even to his own children. I never felt it, he was older by the time I came along. But I don’t doubt my brother’s rendition. Men when they are young are on an edge.They want the best and are damned and determined to achieve it even if it works counterintuitive to their goals.

His grandchildren had the best of him. He wrote poems to them that demonstrated, love, humour and wit, with always an invitation to come along.

In his final year Hunter and I would go down to the old house. I would mow the lawn or do a few chores. Hunter, sitting on his Grandfather’s wheelchair, would shoot the shit like a couple of friends on the mountain. Hunter no more than 5 and Grandpa at 79. By the time I was finished they both looked disappointed to see me interrupting the party.

A few doughnuts and candles. Dad would have approved. Thanks Lisa!

We go when we go. The older go first. That’s the way it works.

Cripes I miss him. I still have an apology to give, but will only do it when we are face to face.

Happy 100th oldtimer!

Back Roads

Willow and I were up early a few nights ago. We decided to circle the lake on the old back roads, like a couple of drunks trying to make it home from the old roadhouses, The Royal Antler, Hunt’s, Hammond’s and the Crook and Elbow. Of course those old watering holes are long gone. Instead we imagined them. Outside of the truck we admired The Milky Way coming up parallel to the mountains and rivers. That’s a joyful coincidence I suppose. Still worth waiting for March’s weather to clear, to see it. Willow barked at owls, hooting, I tell her to not worry, but she doesn’t like them. Probably because they are better hunters and she is secretly jealous. Auroras shined on our trip. Once heading back, north, too home, they showed their colours. It was an hour from dawn, it made me wonder how spectacular they must have been when we were fast asleep. Good morning, arriving at work on time.

America

We live in a strange world. The news is reported to our open ears. We want to trust it. Some news gets played over more important news. It’s what’s stylish, current or in the newsaphere at that time.

It is the twentieth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/world/middleeast/iraq-war-reason.html

A pretty significant event in history.

The United States, George Bush, Dick Chaney and company got it wrong. Regardless of intentions or who got rich. 4000 US service men died along with 300,000 Iraqis died. Those are low estimates.

Meanwhile, on this anniversary, the news is all about Trump paying off a pornstar.

Trump is and always will be a buffoon. He gets votes because the choices aren’t any better.

Why is Bush painting shitty painting in Texas and rubbing elbows with Michelle Obama and Ellen DeGeneres, instead of in jail for war crimes?

America is this correct? America, Allen Ginsberg [1926-1997]