Waning Crescent

*The moon, Venus and Regulus at 6am shot through a 200mm lens handheld.*

A magnificent sight this morning with the waning crescent moon beside Venus and Regulus.

A few things to consider:

The moon is about 385,000 kms away from earth. It takes 29.5 days to orbit earth. Amazingly the same time it takes to complete a rotation or day.

Venus is close to the same size as Earth. It is the second plant from the sun. Earth is the third.

Both the moon and Venus have been observed through history and have important cultural significance to humanity.

Regulus is part of the constellation Leo. It is 79 light years away from us. It is actually four stars in a star system. The largest of the four is four times larger than our sun. It is a dominant star in the night sky.

I could go on with more facts. The point is, we know all of this from observation. I consider this fantastic. Think of the speed, time, math, angles and experimentation needed to prove what we now take as fact. It has been figured out by people like us (smarter than me I concede). Of course, it has taken generations. Something is learned and it gets added to, and so on. It is amazing to me.

It also shows what humanity is capable of when we collectively work together. Of course it takes time.

Most of the time on this blog I speak of the spiritual importance of nature. There is something I do in my head; I use the word nature and science interchangeably. I mentioned this to a teacher in high school long ago and was told how wrong I was. I took his word, but didn’t change my mind. I know I don’t understand either. Somehow that gives me peace. The same way watching wild orchids appear shortly after the snow melts or watching The Milky Way reappear, rising sideways in the east, curving above the Rocky Mountain Trench. I get the same feeling considering distance and time working out the trip in light speed to Betelgeuse or The Andromeda Galaxy.

I will leave this earth without contributing to the great pool of knowledge needed for the next great discovery. But shouldn’t the wonderful discoveries we already have be honoured. Shouldn’t that be enough to inspire us to do our best and treat our fellow humans with kindness and respect. It is not a jump from marvelling the brilliance of Regulus to loving your family or even pointing out the moon or sharing a mountaintop to someone interested.

It’s in our nature.

Cool Morning

The moon, Venus and Jupiter in Gemini. The faint twins can just be seen to the left and above the moon. Mercury could also be there very low, washed out in the light.

Willow and I headed out early to catch the waning crescent beside bright Venus and Jupiter.

It was my plan to capture them above Chisel Peak but I couldn’t get the angle right with light quickly approaching. The right angle would have required us to walk another mile or so. That would have put the sun near up and me late for work. That’s the way it is sometimes.

Survival Strategy

The Huckleberries have been tremendous this year. We have picked plenty. Lisa has made delicious squares and other desserts.

The crop could be attributed to a wet spring and summer. Much different than we have experienced in recent years. The bushes may have produced a mast year, similar the way trees produce large number of cones some years.

This is an evolution strategy to overwhelm predators from consumption, and also catch up for years of bad weather. Humans may also have these cycles for similar reasons. The only difference is our enemy is often ourselves. For instance we have population spikes after wars. Natures way of replacing the species perhaps.

Right now population is in decline due to the state of the environment and humanities action towards ourselves. It is interesting, if the trend continues, population growth will stop and quickly decline. The earth may need a rest. Hopefully we won’t destroy ourselves completely, but it is possible. It is also possible, something else may come along to do the job, such as a virus or cataclysmic event. Nature has a way of evening the score and restoring balance.

***

The garden has been good. The garlic has been harvested and dried. I have set aside the largest heads for seed to be planted in the fall. The kids have enjoyed the peas and Lisa pulled the vines today. There is plenty of beans and at least a few ripe tomatoes everyday. The carrots are delicious, the cabbage is forming large heads and will do it’s best growing once it starts to cool.

The weeds have been hell to keep up to this year. Probably due to the rain. The best year for lack of weeds was a few years ago when the grasshoppers ate everything down to the ground. Of course they did the same with the vegetables except a few that they seemed to dislike, including peas, tomatoes, zucchini and spuds.

***

I’ve noticed the loggers cutting new roads into the bush in a spot we frequent. They are even building a bridge across the creek and heading straight up a mountain that had been spared until now. It is a mountain I’m well acquainted with having roamed it’s side since I was a kid. I’ve even walked it in the dark looking for stars, my ears cocked for voices talking in cyphers, while spirits stole my breath.

Long ago, when I was a youngster, I picked out a rocky bluff and cliffs, half way up, with overhanging trees, figuring if things ever got bad enough I could toss a rope around one and swing out never to return.

The view would be good with the high cedars and creek below. It was a spot I always kept in my back pocket. I think everyone has a spot whether they know it or not.

Now there will be a road below leading to massive clear cuts. I would have never guessed, when I was a young wanderer, it would go before I did.

Late July

Each day has had a little rain. Plenty of blue sky between. Cool at nights. Almost a perfect summer compared to what we have had the past few years.

The berries are raging on into August. Lisa and I could get used to this time off wondering the mountains with the grandkids. Picking our fill to take home. They are proud and, of course, turned it into a competition with Scarlett and me picking against Copper and Grandma. Luckily it is evenly matched.

It is good to be up there sharing the sky and tree tops, watching for wild flowers and hummingbirds, pointing out the big berries, showing them how to plink, plink at tins, wishing time could stand still or at least slow down.

Wet

Willow, low to the ground, soaks up the rain enthusiastically running the bush.

Lisa makes me keep my boots outside. She says they stink. Sometimes she makes me put a blanket over my socked feet when I am sitting inside for the same reason. If I let her have her way the socks have to live outside as well.

We have been getting some rain lately. On the weekend I failed to move my good boots into a sheltered area outside and they got rained on soaking them thoroughly during the night.

I had to wear on old pair of boots that had holes in them. My feet got soaked on my weekend hikes with Willow. Lisa didn’t seem to be sympathetic to the problem. Meanwhile my good boots still aren’t dry 3 days later and my feet keep getting wet in my old boots.

I realize these aren’t much for problems in this day and age. I’m just happy Lisa thinks it is the socks and boots that stink. If she ever figures out who the real stinker is I’ll be locked outside in the rain.

An old pair of my boots Lisa has repurposed.

Calypso Bulbosa

Like the old saying, been up to my ass in alligators. Was able to step away from the grind a few evenings ago to lay on my belly on the forest floor and study the first orchids of the season.

They were abundant, small fairies hovering above the moss and crumbled deadfalls.

***

Lisa and I took our grandkids for a walk in the bush today. We unfortunately came across the carcass of a black bear, shot and skinned. The kids didn’t see it and we changed our route.

They are in season right now. I am amazed there are any bears left considering the pressure from hunting and poaching. Parts of the bear are valued in traditional Chinese medicine. The gall bladder, liver, testicles, fur, paws and head are highly valued.

I have found dead bears cut open with head and paws missing.

***

It is warming up. The grass is already burning. The garden is coming along with the weeds. The garlic has scapes and they are damn spicy!

Foraging

A good way to kick a few days off. We went to the Palliser River. There were a few camps of people picking mushrooms, in the area that burned last year.

We picked enough morels for soup and headed through the burn further up the river. Lisa was glad to leave it behind saddened by the burnt areas and clear cut logging. Fires, although devastating, are turning into a huge business for British Columbia. I try to remember the landscape as it was and what it will look like when it heals.

We got beyond it into the Royal Group, cut some firewood and watched the creeks and clouds.

A very fine day!

The Miracle

Sometimes when you feel bad the best you can do is put one foot in front of the other and count it as a victory and let that small little victory lead to a little bigger one. The world often doesn’t see you the way you see the world. The world won’t see you hurt if you keep putting up small victories. Even if that’s only one foot in front of the other.
Sometimes you may climb out of bed and think I don’t think I can do it. But you laugh knowing you’ve felt that way before. And you put one foot in front. And you look for those little miracles along the way. That squirrel on the line catching Pedley’s eye. The way her fur rises on her shoulders as she turns to attention.
The commute, earbuds with Above and Beyond, that’s something, that drop after meandering through an electronic corridor, then a slow rise, getting faster with one door opening after another into brighter colours.
Into work, like so many, but it’s not just a job, it’s to help others with the same hollowness that was nagging you earlier. It’s the realization we are so alike and different. Things are both terrifying and beautiful. And you put another foot forward and you count another victory and you hold a hand out and pull another like you up. And you put another foot forward. Soon the slow days, the hard days and the good days all become miracles.

Crank

Easter weekend. The tourists and second home owners from Alberta are running amuck. CBC says money is tight, the US is going to swallow us up whole, but you wouldn’t know it looking at these folks.

The Flickers and Starlings are fighting over the holes in trees to build nests. The Ospreys are back working on their home beside our old house. They seem to be the only commuting second home owners I have any use for. A Bald Eagle is perched over the river below the bridge an eye out for easy prey. They better do it quick before the river is covered in white bloated tourists.

***

The town as we turn into a small city stinks. The sewage lagoons are not working again, the bacteria having died. A common problem as we outgrow our infrastructure. The sewage will get flushed into Toby Creek that will soon start to back up into Lake Windermere. Invermere officials thinking it is long gone flowing downstream once in the creek, while they allocate funds to grow business and entice more second home and short term rental investment. I haven’t met one small town politician who didn’t think it is money that makes the world go round.

***

The US Whitehouse continues to implement and sustain tariffs. It is difficult to know their reasons, they say it is to bring manufacturing back to it’s home soil. But what if it does what economists say it will and make everything too expensive to buy? Would that be such a bad thing. I think our appetites could use being curbed. That is probable not the intention of the US. Sooner or later though we are going to have to slow consumption. Fill these big second homes, that are only lived in a couple months a year, with people who need housing. Wouldn’t that be something.

***

Canada is in the throes of a federal election. In our riding it will be an easy lay up for the incumbent, Rob Morrison of the Conservative Party. Mr. Morrison was parachuted into the riding in 2019 to challenge the hapless NDP candidate, Wayne Stetski a true dullard. It has been a lucrative and easy position for Mr. Morrison. One that he can keep doing for as long as he chooses.

The Conservative Party of Canada, under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre, looked like it would hop, skip and jump over the listless Trudeau into power. But not so fast, with the US in the state it is. All of a sudden conservatism doesn’t look as sweet to Canadians.

The CBC is firmly behind The Liberals and Mark Carney. So much for impartiality in media. And why not, their bloated budget is on the line as Mr. Poilievre threatens to cut their funding if elected. The CBC is fighting for their life even if it means getting behind Mr. Carney, a high minded banker who has never garnered one vote from the Canadian electorate.

The theme is we need someone to stand up to Donald Trump in the Whitehouse and their desire to make Canada the 51st state. Something first said, as a barb to Trudeau, that didn’t even dignify a response has now become our main election issue, ramped up by social and mainstream media.

It is with this in mind that Poilievre and Carney are offered up as saviours. Like most politicians, two guys I wouldn’t trust to lead me across the street.

***

Behind Swansea, down on the creek, the rain kept up. A few buntings topped the trees. Deadfalls snapped half way up blocked Novembers once clear path. My pant legs soaked through keeping up with Willow.

Slip Slide & Away

The Milky Way above the Fairmont Range. The Dark Horse Nebula can be seen to the right of the central bulge of the Milky Way.

Willow and I were up early. The moon was due to go down at about 4:30am. Our goal was to catch a bit of the Milky Way before the coming sun started to wash it.

We were off for the end of the lake. The pick-up slid in the mud. It has been clear and warm during the day, but chilly at night. We broke through the ice skimmed over the mud holes, churning this way and that trying to stay out of the ruts.

Just about at our parking spot, damn near level with the lake, I underestimated a strip of mud, letting the truck slide deeper and we were stuck.

There was no going forward or back. We were already in four wheel drive. I shifted the beast into 4 low and it still wouldn’t budge.

I got out and surveyed the situation. It is usually a foot and a half step to the ground out of the truck. This morning the step was just about level with the mud. We were stuck. It was dark. There was only one thing to do. Go looking for the Milky Way.

Willow looked at me sideways as if to say, this is where we are going to park?

We walked up the hills overlooking the lake. Willow stayed close with the coyotes yipping.

The moon was down in the west. The Milky Way stretched east to south. Antares, the heart of Scorpius was well up above the horizon. The Prancing Horse whinnied as if chuckling at our predicament.

We walked to the waters edge. The geese were at it, establishing territory, gearing up for flight. Once it started to get light we headed back to the truck.

I laid some broken branches in a corduroy fashion, shovelled mud and water and did some rocking, lots of rocking. Finally, like a stubborn tooth, the muck let loose and the ship sailed onto solid ground.

The only way out was forward, so I had to turn around and go back through the cranky puddle. Fortunately, I had realized the err of my ways and picked a more favourable route without incident.

Once home it was like Lisa knew I had got stuck. It could have been we were later than usual or the mud soaked up to my knees. She reminded me I wasn’t thirty anymore. I assured her we weren’t stuck, just parked for a while.

Interesting morning.

Palliser Pass

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