garden markers

_LME2792 Cooper and Scarlett not quite into posing.

We used to have the kids hold up a sign in the garden with the date. It was to mark the growing of the garden as we did it several times of year. It’s even greater purpose was to mark the growing of our children.

The last time Kelsie, Cooper and Scarlett came to visit we thought it would be a good time to get them in on the tradition. Although they enjoyed making their signs they didn’t really understand the importance of holding them up. That’s okay we have time to practice.

kelsie Kelsie

maddy Maddy

hunter Hunter

welsh

_LME2910

There ain’t pictures clear enough to tell the story of the mountains. The rain is intermittent, same as the sun, both make the moment, all forgotten till next time.

We were hell and gone, looking for glacier fed lakes and rushing creeks. A busted rock exposed ore. It was kicked aside. Down the mountain overlooking clearcuts. Hoping no one would notice.

There were magic mushrooms and large toads in the bush, twisted snags, spruce, pine and larch, hundreds of years old, somehow missing snow slides and lightening strikes.

Those rolling rocks on top of scree will take my legs someday, but not today even with rain. Today the sky is my friend, mottled with clouds, bear shit and moose tracks, threatening either storm or sun. Lucky they stayed in-between where it’s good for us on the ground.

Very fine day.

Scarlett

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It’s going to warm up. A light rain falls. My grandchildren have come to visit and they remind me time isn’t forever. I kick myself for not cherishing every moment. Lost in anger and differences, most in my youth, fuel, to make it this far. It’s not about becoming wiser or learning the err of my ways. It could never have been different. But now to see my granddaughter walk among the garden, my guard dropped, to be finally thankful for a long awaited gift.

Rain

The look Willow gives trying to convince me to give her a bite of my breakfast.
It works every time.

Thundershowers on and off this past week. It is something we haven’t seen for the last few years. Thunder, yes, showers, no. Lightening without showers is hazardly in a bone dry forest, as the last two years have proven. With luck we won’t have smoke filled skies this year.

The garden is benefitting from the moisture and lightning that releases nitrogen. I have long noticed a growth spurt after thundershowers.

The garden is beginning to produce, we have wonderful salads each night, consisting of a mix of about ten different greens.

RCE_2837 A small Song Sparrow weathers the storm.

Lisa, Willow and I were back in the bush today cutting firewood. We got most of it done between storms.

Very fine day.

firewood

We have plenty of firewood. We get it early. We call it next years wood.

It takes sweat and stamina to cut, chop and finally relax in front of a fine fire.

RCE_2804

The dogs were a sniff in the bush. Catching scents, running hither and yon. I envied them. I also envy the way they can sleep anywhere. Dreaming of slow rabbits and bird calls,

Lisa did the cutting, not every woman can handle a chainsaw with a 24” bar, while I hauled the blocks. Maynard caught a rabbit and displayed it proudly. Willow enjoyed the bush as usual. Very fine day.

Canada Day

RCE_2753 Daisies and Yarrow

A busy Canada Day Weekend for Lisa and I. Our son Hunter and his wonderful girlfriend Bree were out from Calgary to take in the festivities with their friends. We put up a higher fence around the garden in and attempt to dissuade the deer from eating our vegetables.

RCE_2731 Lisa stopping on a cutblock to admire the daisies.

Lisa busied herself further making wooden signs for our daughter Maddy’s quickly approaching wedding. Lisa is very handy with power tools and can whip together almost anything. This spring she made me a a potting bench, complete with a sink, from the old leftover cedar siding from our renovation a few years ago.

RCE_2757 Driving Willow crazy.

This morning we escaped the ruck of the crowd in the valley bottom and got behind Swansea. We followed the creek a ways then turned mountain side. Crossed a few cutbacks covered in daises, kept up until the road ended in a spot we haven’t visited for awhile.

RCE_2746 Always happy, even if sometimes one step behind.

Willow looked and dug for rodents. I took a few photos. Found a spring crisscrossed with moose tracks. Lisa harvested small new prickly pine cones. We picked a couple bouquets of wild flowers for home. Willow hunted until her tongue hung out of her mouth.

Very fine day.

those northerners

fence line

“Yes I am. It’s on my resumé,”

said my neighbour,

after he was told

he wasn’t

an asshole.

***

My fence even half not up

still tomorrow should

prove promise.

***

It’s good not to be a connoisseur of anything. It allows us to drink bad beer and wine, eat all the the extra parts of the animal, enjoy Jughead and Crumb, figure a fine is sometimes worth it, tell bad jokes, unpolitically correct or just in bad taste, share stories about birds, flying, laughing. . . those superior bastards.

Plus what would we do without sub standard music? Shite, we would all be listening to Brahms and Taylor Swift.

***

My boss likes to say, we ain’t building a piano. He doesn’t say it to me. He knows I haven’t seen a piano since keyboards. But for the other guys. . . those old fucks.

***

Storm clouds with nothing in them, neither rain or wind. Most go west to east and jump the mountains. It’s the northerners you have to worry about. They care little for geography, and will flatten a garden in a minute.

***

Exaggeration isn’t just bullshit.

long weekend

_LME2657

Elegance in anything is worth the paper it is printed on.

Which is a lot in this day and age

Have you seen paper lately

something good

printed on it,

or true?

***

All this time I’ve lived under the stars

and never once hurt

***

Even by my own standards

I’ve become a fake.

***

irony

***

I think not.

******

I am sick of bringing the dog in when she barks. She has the perimeter, both of us in here, fat as hamsters, her, waiting for me to eat something and me, racked with anxiety, eating anything.

******

3 hrs of darkness

\till tomorrow