Turkey Soup
Willow surveys the sticks on shore, carefully picking one to fetch.
It is a long standing tradition of rotating hosting Christmas dinner among our family. This year it was Lisa’s brother Brent’s family’s turn. There was plenty of great food and wine and lots of good conversation and laughs.
Grey December beside the Columbia.
Brent generously gives me the turkey carcass as he knows I like to make broth from the bones. He always leaves some meat on the bones so I can add it to the soup the next day. Even at this late hour the soup is boiling. I will wait as long as I can before straining the broth. It will be put outside to cool.
Tomorrow I will sauté onions, carrots and onions, add the broth, the left over turkey and a handful of barley. That’s it, supper taken care of. The kids always loved that soup. Sometimes they would argue over whether I should add barley or pasta noodles. Barley usually won out.
An American Dipper holds down the ice beside the river.
My Mom and Dad used to make the same soup, from turkeys, but also wild chickens we shot. They called it mulligan. It was thick and gamey. They said it was soup that stuck to your ribs. I used to wonder what that saying meant. I thought, maybe the barley acted as glue and stuck to your insides. Later, when I understood a person could go hungry, I realized it could keep hunger away longer than many other foods, some much more expensive.
We are lucky to have so much.
My old path to the fish holes.
Cresting the summit.
Morning light touches the mountain tops. Willow scans the trail ahead.
Maynard and Willow walk the ridge. 
Looking back along the windy ridge.
Hypnotizing Maynard and Willow with a piece of cheese.
The Milky Way dips below the horizon, leaving the night to the brilliant winter stars.
It was an exceptional fall day. No clouds, cool but with sunshine. Today cannnabis is legal for recreational use in Canada. It is the step in the right direction to give people the right to do what they have been doing all along. Growing, packaging, advertising, pricing distribution and tax collecting will now be handled and approved by government and friends.
A meteor streaks beside Mars before it follows the moon over the eastern ridge. 
Along the fence line, into the darkness, chasing the night.
Orion rises, in pursuit of Taurus and Pleiades. The trees limbs point to Orion’s Belt.
Hazy nights often reveal colour from both Earth and the stars. The green and purples are from space. The orange is from earth, artificial light bouncing off clouds. Mars shows red near the horizon left. A rock sculpture is in the foreground, I damned near tripped over it and lit it with my cell phone so it could be seen in the photo. Lots of light, man made and natural.
This one is lucky I traded my rifle for a camera.
Reaching the creek bottom.
A cathedral, the only thing missing is a preacher, thank God!
Cooper burying the potatoes I just dug.
Dog tries to steal babies tomato. Scarlett, says, ‘fuck you Willow’. . . not really.
Hiding out in the carrot patch.
