We were up early. It was a stretch. Decided to look for berries. Stretch, because it’s early. Still a ride into the bush is always welcome and never a waste regardless of season.
The bush changes. Seasons are earlier or later. Logging roads prop up confusing the shit out of me. I’m on one, then another, while looking for the old road I used to remember.
Willow chasing a rodent down a small hole. Willow does her best to dig and expand the hole.
Lisa says, no sense getting mad about it. She is right of course. Sometimes I turn down the right road that’s now a goat trail, a better route having been carved out of the land. Usually, and amazingly, we end up where we want to go.
Thousands of chipmunks took their turns driving Willow crazy.
The berries look like they will be on time this year. We were early but happy.
Was up early to watch a near full waning moon hoover above mountain tops catching the days first rays of sun. It’s been good to have time off to relax. Lisa pointed out the last time we had time off in the summer, our son Hunter could stand on my hand, about 26 years ago. That was when we would head down to Montana.
It’s getting hot. The garden is going full tilt. Another 5 days and the peas should fill out. Cooper and Scarlett are going to like that.
Tomorrow I plan to stick close to home, weed the garden, make sure everything is watered, pick the rest of the garlic scapes and make pesto. Lisa also wants olive tapenade and salads galore. It is too hot to turn the oven on to cook in the house.
So far the skies are clear, blue, smoke free. With luck they will stay that way.
There is a unique spider that has taken up residence outside our basement door. Unique, because he is almost entirely white and has two spots on its belly that look like eyes, possibly to scare off predators; it works with me.
It spins perfect webs in the corner of the doorframe. More than once I have dragged my head through them leaving the basement, which causes me to quickly turn to make sure the spider is still in it’s corner and not on the web around my head.
I’ve since learned to mind its presence ducking as I enter and exit.
The spider outside the basement door.
It captures a grasshopper a day. The grasshoppers are getting larger as it warms up. Yesterday it caught one that was bigger than itself. The spider came down and immobilized it in a hurry. The grasshopper made a mess out of the web. The spider wrapped and cradled it and then proceeded to suck the juice out of it.
This morning, I thought, after such a catch the spider may take the night off from spinning another web, but come morning another perfect web was strung in the corner of the doorframe.
It reminded me of a spider my father and I watched during a summer long ago. Like this one it grew to a large size. We named it, though I can’t remember what it was. It strung its web on the beams above the door of our log cabin. Come fall its web would have frost on it. In the afternoon it would come out and sun itself in the middle of the web.
When it looked like it could not possibly live any longer due to the cold, my father brought out the .22 Winchester bolt action rifle. We backed up about 50 yards or so. I can’t remember if he got the first shot or I did. The spider had grown to about the size of a quarter and didn’t stand a chance. One shot was all it took.
I can guarantee this spider won’t suffer the same fate. Discharging rifles in town is frowned upon. Maybe a bird will ignore those eyes on its belly and have a meal. If so, the bird may be surprised it tastes like grasshopper.
The first day of a week off. Willow and I headed out for some fishing. I expected the bush to be busy. To my delight it wasn’t, not sure why. We stopped at the first lake and put the boat in. Caught a couple nice Cut Throat Trout that we turned loose. We had left over roast at home in the fridge. I was using a barbless hook and they came off easy.
Willow saying, ‘Let’s get this show on the road’.
An Eagle sat on a tree, also fishing, we kept an eye on each other. The fish were deep but came up with my hook. I didn’t want to get into a spitting match over who’s fish it was in case I hooked one the Eagle was interested in. This has happened to me before. I have a policy never to hook Eagles or Beavers while fishing.
A dandy! It threw the hook into my finger. Good thing it was barbless.
I never saw a soul until the fire marshall rolled up on me. They check to make sure people put out their camp fires. Low and behold it was a teacher I worked with at the School District. He also taught our kids. He was one of the good ones, probably the best. We had a good talk. We called it after the mosquitos had had their fill.
The garden is producing. Willow is asleep. The sprinkler is going. I am sunburnt. Sometimes you get lucky.
I worked at the resort today. It was busy. The guests and employees were in good moods. It was wonderful to see the guests enjoying the amenities that everyone works so hard to maintain. Guests even asked if they could help with maintenance items like defrosting a fridge or carrying needed furniture. The pool and hot tubs were rocking with the smell of sun screen in the air.
Canada is a wonderful place. If you don’t think so look at the news. We are lucky, just by chance, of where we were born. The least we can do is treat the people we meet; visitors, immigrants and fellow country men with respect. If any people should be pissed off it’s the First Nations, yet they still accept and treat their fellow inhabitants with kindness. They always have, if truth be known.
Canada is a country with plenty of faults and prejudices, hopefully, they are being weeded out and replaced with understanding and tolerance. I believe that’s what’s happening. I see it everyday. Goodness trumps bigotry.
Romaine lettuce before being made into Caesar.
It just doesn’t seem that way, because of the bad constantly streamed to our phones. It is easier to be taken in by negativity than goodness. That’s why they keep streaming and people keep sharing. It is a false narrative if repeated enough may become true. Canadiens are smarter than that. That’s why we celebrate.
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Willow letting on.
The garden is up and about, putting out. About this time last year a hail storm blew through and knocked every leaf off every plant.
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Whatever, you have to roll with it. That’s Canadien.
There ain’t many left, but I see a few downtown. Usually they are hell and gone creek bound, stumbling up or down a mountain looking for bears, goats, sheep, elk, moose or the next good huckleberry patch, always keeping an eye out for straight pine, without a knot for the first twenty feet, something that will lend it’s self to easy dovetail and make a descent cabin.
The fish and muskrat will come, same as the beaver and lynx, bobcat and coyotes. There is still people that want to wear fur. Sometimes just a bit for trim. The animals get to live on in a place where they won’t bear their teeth.
You ever try opening a trap to set an animal loose? It’s easier to kill them with a rifle or rock. That’s why you never see three legged wild animals.
It’s a collaboration. They don’t get to watch the world go to hell. They live like their fathers. The snow gets deep and things don’t turn out, they wonder about something easier, sunshine for instance in the November cold. Then it gets colder and finally the sun comes back making everyone feel special.
The animals trapped given their druthers, more than likely, would prefer having their hide on the hood of a rich bitch instead of being eaten by magpies.
The garden is coming. We have enjoyed some wonderful salads. Everything is up and if I don’t get the fences up for the peas soon they will flop over and will have to be trained.
Iris.
The rain has been falling for a couple of three days now. The grass is knee high. The good neighbour Larry’s feral cats, the mother and kittens, are starting to wonder around. She took up nesting under his hot tub that hasn’t been operational for ten or fifteen years. The cat’s a calico. Larry’s a radical. Not sure how the kittens look. All I hope is they stay across the road, which they won’t. Larry might, but the cats will wonder.
Red Cabbage.
We still can’t see the tops of the mountains due to storms. If it heats up the snow will melt up high, the rivers will swell and the wetlands will flood. It’s been a long time since Athalmer has been underwater, lot’s of fill and dykes. Can’t say it won’t happen again.
A Lady’s Slipper with an antenna that reaches to the end of the universe.
Odd day, everyone off, guarded. Arguments and discontent. Cutting off and swerving. It was good to get home. Lisa said, Let’s head up the pass. Look for Orchids.
The forest floor at spring time.
Last week they were small stems. Snow in the ravines. The Tamaracks turning lime with new needles.
This mountains are still full of snow, the sun is tilting in our favour, making the forest bloom as it has for thousands of years, hell or high water.
Willow finds Orchids.
A bit of bear shit here and there, rocks turned over and stumps torn, getting the early beetles, maybe even before they come out of hibernation.
The Lady’s Slippers were everywhere under foot, making me walk gingerly, drunk like, to avoid squashing such beauty.
Plenty of snow still to melt on the ridge and fill the creeks.
A touch of rain this evening and it sure felt good. The ground in the valley bottom is getting parched. Each day brings at least some wind that dries the earth further. I reminisce to earlier days and I can’t remember it being this dry in spring. It is true the area is much more built up and water is scarce due to usage, which makes watering the yard prohibitive for all but the wealthy, District of Invermere, and School District N0.6 (Rocky Mountain) who use more than needed. For them it is easier to over water than manage the resource.
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Fuel is above $2 a litre and going higher. Tourism hasn’t slowed one bit. More motor boats are planned fro Lake Windermere. A new RV park is being built on the outskirts. Our public officials say we are lucky to host our wealthy tourist clientele that come in droves from Alberta.
Meanwhile I hope I will continue to be able to afford to drive the 17Km to work and back each day for the opportunity to earn shit wages. I shouldn’t complain, Lisa and I have it better than many. The Valley hasn’t always been the tourist trap it has become. When the kids were young we did better. Many young couples will never have the opportunity Lisa and I had to buy a house and raise a family.
***
The world seems to be going apeshit crazy, environmental disaster, war, shootings and people mistreating each other with impunity.
I listen to many of my young co-workers, their view of the future is very dim, and why shouldn’t it be with all that is going on. What does inspire me is how well they treat each other.
Maybe that’s the best we can do in such a world – be as kind as we can to people we encounter.
It is a work in progress for me. The older I get the less time I have for right wing bigots and racists, people that tear up the environment, swindlers including many politicians and business folks, lining their pockets at the expense of people they proclaim to serve; neighbours and future generations.
These types have always existed, they have been successful, even revered by history, it just seems the stakes are higher now and it should be clear that punching down on your fellow man and the earth that sustains us for profit has become a terrible outdated practice. Perhaps someday it will finally fall out of favour for good.
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Even this little bit of rain helps and refreshes. The garden shows thin green rows of carrots, peas, kale and turnips just planted last week.
Damn near stepped on a wild chicken. It didn’t move until I was above it. I stopped and waited for Willow to catch up, lagging behind, busied with the smells of mice. The grouse and Willow locked eyes at the same time. Willow gave a bark, the grouse took off in a great flutter of wings and then glided, never more than ten feet off the ground, into the timber, seemingly looking for a place to land. It was long gone or hidden. I knew better from the many times I followed these birds into the trees while packing a twenty-two, only to come up empty, my father laughing at my optimism of an easy shot. The easy shot, he said, was when it was standing right in front of you. It makes me laugh I still don’t see them sometimes. The twenty-two is hidden, but I still crave my father’s mulligan sometimes.
Palliser Pass 