Tag: dogs

long weekend

_LME3237Dave rolls a dart, Chewy licks the papers. It’s a joint effort.

Damn, this has been a busy long weekend. Calgarians tailgating everywhere they go. All in a hurry to have fun. Making the most of it, they must figure.

While driving through town I saw two incidents of road rage. All four involved were from the city. One had a Flames front licence plate, stealing another’s parking spot. Cue the horn, hand gestures and expletives. I am ashamed to say this warms my heart. I wish the Flames were as aggressive.

It never ceases to amaze me how people act on holiday while trying to relax.

It also never ceases to amaze me the wealth that flows into the valley. If Alberta is hurting, we don’t see it here.

Also, if there is a climate crisis we don’t see it here. It’s big cars, trucks, boats, RV’s, ATV’s and huge second homes built as close to the water as they can get away with. All spewing CO2, polluting the land and water. Perhaps when they start worrying I should too.

Some of these folks can be counted as our most vocal environmentalists. Always reminding us they love it so much this is where they decide to vacation, drive, boat, ATV, fly, build, spend their money and die. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. I have a $16 an hour job because of it.

Tonight the sky is blue. The breeze is warm. My arms are tanned and I have a full garden of food.

Very fine day.

ro dun dent

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A mouse has decided to make it’s home in our studio. It has chewed the weather stripping at the bottom of the door. I blamed Willow at first, thinking she was scratching at the door, though I’ve never seen her do so. The mouse has even got into my big teacher’s desk and chewed into my bag of veggie and flower seeds.

Willow knows it’s inside and it drives her nuts. She sniffs and snorts and follows it from one hiding place to another. Once under the old Heidelberg press it is safe. Willow falls asleep with her nose beside the pallet.

If Willow doesn’t pick up her game I may have to buy a trap.

***

The garden has gone from wet to bone dry over the weekend. It doesn’t take many sunny days to parch the earth.

The garden is producing more than we can eat. Tonight it is mixed salad including kale, spinach and chard, beets, carrots and spuds.

Another week and the zucchini and squash will be ready. 

The beans are also on the rise, this year will be quite a crop as it seems every seed germinated.

***

A lazy Sunday after a busy week.

loyalty

_LME3193The thing about letting the dog run the mouse out the door is she might keep going to the next barn. The dog I mean, the mouse will always come back.

fine weekend

_LME2931.sm

If you ain’t ready to leap you never will be.

That’s what I’ve heard. Heights with water under have begun to frighten me. Even logs with rushing water, once skipped over, take concentration.

It’s the sky and water telling us to hold on.

I appreciate their concern.

The pure white and jade.

Sooner or later you fall

or jump.

Best to keep

your laces

tied

up.

after the rain

_LME3007A few thinnings.

So far it’s been a wet summer. That’s ok with me if it means no smokey skies.

_LME3020Spuds.

The garden is coming around like it always does in summer regardless of smoke, sun rain or mist. Even my negligence can’t keep it down.

_LME3026Lavender.

_LME3028.jpgBlack Crimson Tomato.

_LME3056.jpgWillow eats the last radish.

welsh

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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.

Rain

RCE_2845.jpgThe 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_2837A 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

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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.

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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,

RCE_2807.jpg

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_2753Daisies 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_2731Lisa 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_2757Driving 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_2746Always 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

RCE_8364.jpgfence 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.