Category: Uncategorized

Cooper & Scarlett

Off trail, testing their footing.

Lisa and I had the kids over for a sleepover. They are so good. Copper and Scarlett have their own room with a bunkbed at our place. They feel at home. Lisa and I feel good about that.

They get up early in the morning. Lisa taped over the minute digits on the clock on the stove and told them they couldn’t get up until the hour digit said ‘6’, ‘7’, or ‘8’. They were up at 6.

Cooper standing beside a backroad mile sign corresponding with his age. This could be a family tradition.

We had breakfast up the creek. Pancakes and bacon.

The valley is busy.

Cooper and Scarlett are full of energy and they are constantly yaking. Sometimes I think they are purposely trying to drive old Grandpa crazy. Grandma, on the other hand, is unflappable and welcomes the spirited discourse.

They are celebrating their birthdays this month. They sure are getting big.

Scarlett pointing to her young age on a milage sign blasted by a shotgun.

Rain

The rising sun catches the ridge in the west. Dark storm clouds above, shaded valley bottom below. Taken about 6am from the garden.

Came through a good bit of rain. It was welcome. In the mountains it was snow.

We planned a trip into the high country last Wednesday, but postponed it to this coming Wednesday. The youngsters from work were disappointed. I didn’t welcome trudging through a foot of wet snow on the mountain side. The truth is I’d end up sliding on my ass coming down trying to dig my heels in yelling whoa!! It can be fun, but I’m too damn old for such hijinks. I didn’t want to lose face so told them the scenery would be better when it cleared.

The doe deer are busy with their fawns. A few days ago I freed a fawn that got caught in fencing. Today Jack shooed one from the pool court back to its mother. It was held up under patio furniture and was starting to gather quite a crowd of guests. Jack said he had done it plenty with lambs back in England. He is a good man that Jack.

***

Some warm weather is expected. The recent rain has done its best to cool the bush. That’s more than we can ask.

Mid June

A good spell of rain put the grasshoppers on pause. The buggers got all of the carrots, beets and some of the lettuce.

***

Skipped town early for the bush. Lisa and I fell a dead fir. Willow and Lola ran around while we knocked off branches and bucked it up.

***

Cormac McCarthy passed away this past week. He wrote many good books. Suttree, No Country for Old Men, The Road, Blood Meridian and others.

When I read Child of God, I wondered how he could write it. How did someone, a loved one, tell him, you can’t write that.

It is in that space where conscience and violence takes hold, deep down, where truth dwells. Cormac McCarthy had a seat next to this other world and reported back in prose that could stun.

When I broke my leg I was higher than hell on morphine awaiting an operation. My sister Wynanne gave me a copy of All the Pretty Horses.

I read and reread until I could say it in a slurred voice:

They rode out along the fenceline and across the open pastureland. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The lights fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.

***

I rarely get angry anymore. I’ve paid dearly for things I’ve said, but I stand by them all.

Recently my name came up at a District of Invermere (DOI) council meeting. Somebody had left an anonymous message in a Facebook post criticizing the Mayor and Council. They attributed it to me without proof.

It is true I have been critical of DOI council and the mayor on this blog. My name and email is beside everything I say. I give reasons for my criticism.

I despise anonymous comments and the people who leave them. They are seen everywhere on news sites. My feeling is, if you have something to say you put your name to it.

When I heard Mayor, Council and DOI staff were attributing critical anonymous comments to me I was pissed off.

I had a talk with one of the Councillors today. Of course getting to the bottom of who said what is like herding cats. The more I tried to shake him the further down his tongue went.

***

The hot weather is picking up speed. It will be winter before long and the wood will come in handy.

Politicians Hopping

A good walk in the morning. The Tiger Lillies are up. Birds all around, singing, but few I can see. Spotted a large pine tree down that would make good firewood.

The grasshoppers took another bite out of the garden. They are starting on the broccoli and cabbage. They have completely done away with the carrots, beets and most of the lettuce.The only defence I have against them is a spray of water. A scarce commodity in this town.

***

As mentioned in earlier posts, The District of Invermere (DOI) is notorious for poor management. The town is struggling with water, sewer and road issues. For years infrastructure and District citizens have taken a backseat in favour of enticing tourism. Now, aging infrastructure is becoming hard to ignore. Dirty water, poor roads and untreated sewage discharged into Toby Creek is starting to cause problems. If it is only a problem for residents, DOI leaders wouldn’t care, now however, the problems may spill over and effect tourism.

***

What the DOI needs is Incompetence Insurance, if such a thing exists. It is true DOI rates would be high due to the level of incompetence exhibited in the past. However it still may be a worthwhile purchase for the citizens of DOI.

Here is an example of how it could come in handy:

A few years ago DOI hired a Public Works Manager. He was useless from the beginning. The District tried their best to get him comfortable in the position, but it was not to be. They had to fire him and paid out a large severance package to do so.

After he was fired, I had to drive him to Cranbrook. He had a new job. After an hour in the truck with him I knew this guy was as useless as tit’s on a bull and full of shit regarding his credentials. He had some education, but was daft in every other way.

I never could understand why DOI HR didn’t see through his bullshit in what must have been an extensive interview process.

As it turns out another government agency hired his sorry ass and have been regretting it ever since.

Now, getting back to the point, the Incompetence Insurance could have been used to pay for the mistake of hiring the dimwit and paying his salary and the handsome severance package he walked away with.

***

Of course I am being facetious. There is no such insurance.

***

It is the same everywhere. Big government or small seems to be populated by A type ambitious arseholes who get what they want and disappear leaving their shit behind for everyone else to clean up.

These are the people we entrust to do their best in our interest.

The greedy grasshoppers are harmless in comparison, even comical, jumping this way and that.

Wild Orchids/Grasshoppers

Lisa and I were out looking for orchids a few days ago. Over the years we have found places where these wild flowers grow. It is always special when we find new spots with flowers.

The season is short for most orchids making when to look as important as where.

This is an excerpt from Orchids of British Columbia by AF Szczawinski published in 1959:

“The orchid family is unusual among the higher plants for a good many reasons, such as extreme variation, highly specialized flowers, and a great range of habitat. It is interesting that the number of seeds produced in a single capsule is, in many cases phenomenal. A count made at the Greenwich Observatory, England, showed that a capsule contained 3,770,000 microscopic seeds.”

“Unless the conditions of temperature, moisture, soil and shelter are ideal, failure for the seedlings is certain. There is only one chance in thousands that such conditions will occur. If only a small percentage of the seeds from each plant could grow to maturity, orchids would be as common as grass.”

***

We have been overrun by grasshoppers. The garden has taken a beating. They seem to go after the youngest plants first effectively killing them. There are other plants they don’t seem to be bothered with such as peas.

The grasshoppers are small and growing. I could use a herd of turkeys to take care of these buggers. Perhaps I should figure out a way to trap them and deep fry them, smother them with seasoning and sell them at the farmers market. Dirty Bob’s Spicy Grasshopper Crunch. It could be a hit.

Rain and the sound it makes

Plenty of rain but it won’t be enough. God nows where the falling rain goes. Here we are at the headwaters with Stripped Turtles, Herons, Fossils, Native Fish, where not much changes. Sure we can bitch, compared to the rest of humanity we have it better. Who am I not to enjoy it.

Gardening

The good neighbour Larry always gives me some plants. He starts them inside starting in February. To say he has a green thumb is an understatement.

I also start a few plants in March. When I have one or two that don’t look like they are going to make it, I let them convalesce at Larrys, and he breaths life back into them. It is like a spa for plants.

The plants he gives me must feel bad, because they go from a perfect environment to where they must survive.

‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen,’ he says, is my motto.

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.