Stories, Excerpts, Backroads
It makes me feel like I should be in the bush, slipping and sliding, looking for spruce to take shelter, the bears like it, snapping off flower buds, so why shouldn’t I take a bite of those big yellow dandelions, more fluorescent as fall sunflowers, both on the verge of kissing colour behind.
It was good to head into the bush. We went way out there, brought back firewood. We got into the canyon, where it crashes, where we used to make love on the rocks beside the river. It was our church. I was always less adventuresome. You always said, lets go.
We’re older now. A lot has changed. I’m cranky. Our bodies are changing again, it ain’t for the better. Still, regardless of it all, you egg me on.
Willow tries to harvest gophers.
There is a whole lot of theories out there. Some say you plant when the snow is off Baldy, or when the snow pulls up Three Finger Slide.
Others say you keep a close watch on worms, two weeks later, the tender stuff, like tomatoes and squash can go in. Frost and greening of grass, count too.
As for seeds, put them in whenever, even the year before.
What’s down there?
If I had two hundred years to plant a garden I might get it right.
This is only my thirty-fifth garden, not counting my father’s and grandfather’s gardens, that I only ran through raiding radishes and carrots.
It’s life, those plants, they can be delicate, but most time strong, like everything I guess.
The storms are close to the mountains, the snow is melting in rain. It will start sliding. Down here we keep watch and try to make sense of it all.
A Song Sparrow greets the day.
Work wise things are back to where they were before. It’s almost like the virus never happened. Maybe it was a drill. Plenty of vehicles holidaying from Alberta. There is even vehicles from the United States. Odd, as I thought the borders were closed to non-essential travel. Perhaps vacationing is essential, I know it is for the well off.
Still plenty of people not going back to work as they make more on the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). It doesn’t matter to me, I am not eligible. People who think these programs and health care for all is available to everyone in Canada is mistaken. I don’t want these benefits from our government. I am happy making slightly more than minimum wage. Somebody recently said to me, it’s because I refuse to accept the terms or ‘play the game’. Maybe so or I could just be fucking stupid..
I believe you don’t ask (or fight) for something that should be given, especially if promised. That’s a rule decent people adhere by. It’s the way it used to be. Dropping a deer off to people who need it. It’s not charity, nor do you need thanks, it’s what you hope would be offered if the shoe were on the other foot. Someday my health will go, I won’t be expecting help from our health care system (even though I’ve paid premiums my whole life), I won’t have the energy to fight for it, I’ll be better served by the end of a loaded gun. I jest, but you need a mountainful of hope to get by in this day and age.
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Wildflower by Lisa.
I planted a portion of the garden yesterday, peas, carrots, beets, lettuce a few things will have to wait until things warm up. Today I am waiting for the rain to stop to plant a couple rows of spuds.
Yesterday, was also the first day without long underwear. It seems I keep it on longer each year. Truth is a feel a little naked without it.
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Fresh Juniper Berries. A powerful source of medicine.
It has been work and straight home these past few weeks. The snow is melting and the roads will be opening into the mountains. Fuel prices are going back up, not that they went down very much here. They should be back up to about $1.50 a litre by May long.
Don’t make such a rhubarb about the current goings on!
Covid19 precautions are starting to ease in Canada. We are seeing more tourists. Shops are starting to reopen. About two thirds of the vehicles on the highway and around town, on the weekend, are from neighbouring province Alberta, ignoring warnings not to travel outside of your home province.
The ambulance has been out several times today, a sure sign the roads are getting busier with tourists.
It should be reminded, we are as susceptible to this disease now as we were two months ago. The only thing changed is we have learned to social distance and bought time to possibly better ready our health care system. Numbers show most are still vulnerable to contract the sickness. This will remain so until a vaccine is developed. It will be interesting how we go forward.
A handsome Flicker.
Five years from now, we will know better how we managed this illness, did we overreact, was there things we could have done better? Right now we move forward with the information we have.
Strange times. One good thing in our small community; it’s amazing to see people forgetting about money and tourists, choosing instead to support each other.
Crocuses, a sure sign of spring, are blooming in abundance on the benches and valley bottom.
Willow and I went into the bush, yesterday, to get some firewood. Storms have been threatening, clouds raining on the mountains, not much in the valley bottom. Lisa is afraid the government may close the bush due to the virus. The fear is fires will start and the province will not have the resources to fight the fires. It is a legitimate concern.
The surrounding mountains are still covered with many feet of snow. A quick melt could cause flooding in the valley.
The company I work for has extended my hours from three days a week back to five. This is very helpful for Lisa and I. Lisa, who was laid off from work several weeks ago, spends 7 hours a day trying to get through to check on her Employment Insurance claim. So far no luck and I don’t expect that will change. I mentioned in a previous post Lisa and I are not the kind of people who collect or are able to collect on many of the government programs available during the Covid19 crisis. I am okay with that. We are resourceful and will do anything to get by. I do believe, however that we shouldn’t have to pay into EI as we have done our entire lives without ever being able to use it when we lose our jobs, as Lisa has. I still believe, regardless of resourcefulness, a person or families best defence in these strange times is to be sitting on a piss pot full of money with nice secure, defined government pensions rolling in, another thing we pay into but never will collect.
A murder of crows peck seeds from a freshly thawed field.
The Albertan tourists and second home owners are back in force. There is no way they are going to stay away. The reports from BC and Alberta health ministers fall on deaf ears. And who can blame them, living in a concrete shithole like Calgary, spitting distance from their neighbours, it must be downright depressing.
No longer is the ice off the creeks and lake and the Osprey reappears.
Are we going to be different after this virus passes or are we going to go back to jumping on planes winging our way around the world, building second and third homes, piling motorboats onto a tiny lake and polluting and consuming at every opportunity with reckless abandon. I can imagine we will.
Regardless if this slowdown lasts for another week or several months it has been a nice respite from the usual ruck that is the tourist trap we call home.
The Lyrids are flying. Tomorrow they will peak. Weather permitting Lisa and I will be out fishing for them.
We went out tonight to test the waters. As soon as the coffee was made the clouds rolled in, we went out just the same.
I am easily discouraged these days; clouds, moon interfering. I long for dark skies with starlight so bright it casts shadows, the treetops tangled in a bottomless sky and the rivers running silver.
Souls, like bats, fly so close they take my breath when I duck my head.
Lisa pushes me until I see the beauty.
The snow covered mountains are over 130km away. There is a haze just above the lowest ridge. Woodstoves I suspect as it was a chilly morning.
More than a few years ago I would look south down the valley and wonder if the haze at the horizon was pollution? And was it there the year before or the last time I looked? It would glow orange. Of course we get our share of pollution when the forests are on fire during the summer months. I’m talking about the rest of the year.
Much of industry is carried on south of us where the majority of the population resides. It could be that I have been missing them, but the skies seem exceptionally blue at the horizons where smoke is most noticeable.
Regardless, it was a beautiful blue day. I can’t help but think we are going to be a more mindful society after this threat passes. I know this; the blue skies sure make the birds feel better, like always, they can be trusted.
Had to bribe Willow for this picture. She was amply rewarded with a generous piece of breakfast sausage.
It’s never too early to get a truck full of wood. The backroads are still snow covered. Got lucky finding a down pine and fir before heavy snow. Both dry but thawing out. I cut and Lisa loaded. Willow kept the perimeter.
We saw Whitetail Deer, the rivers are clear and I could have brought home fish if the season wasn’t closed. It’s hard to know when we won’t give a shit. For now everything is fine.
Lisa and I talked about the anxiety we have been feeling, especially when the virus first hit, and how we are feeling now. We both can do with a lot less. Still, having a shitload of money stockpiled, including pensions, would be the best defence. Neither, we have, but neither did all our descendants before us.
The grass is greening. I’m looking for garlic to come up.
It doesn’t look like much, but Toby Creek used to flood the entire business district of the Valley. With plenty of bulldozers it’s path was changed to a less harmful route. I still look for signs of the delta it once cut running into Windermere Lake and the Columbia, instead of the gravel pit it runs through now.
It will be an odd Easter weekend. All of our kids will be staying put, isolating in their houses in Calgary. Lisa and I will miss them. Of course, we understand the necessity of social distancing. We are planning a group Facetime session. We have a turkey in the freezer that we plan on cooking. It should keep us fed for awhile.
All the talk about our social responsibility and the importance of staying home still hasn’t sunk in for many Albertans as they clamour into the valley. Entitlement pure and simple. Many have gone on line to remind us they built our area, including our small hospital, and how we would be nothing without them. It’s not surprising – I’ve heard it all my life. Meanwhile my children stay away from their home, knowing this is bigger then them. We miss them but are proud of their resolve.
I was disheartened by Prime Minister Trudeau’s address today. He didn’t pull any punches, delivering news of mass unemployment, how many infections and deaths Canada can expect, also stating how long we may have to endure the isolation and social distancing measures. It was sobering.
British Columbia has done a good job and been lucky at flattening the curve. Part of that is we had a later school spring break than other provinces.
Hand dug about half the garden. Transferred the seedlings into pots. Some things are still normal.
