black & white
Roots from old logging set.
Making a getaway.
Ancient fire circle.
Pine Siskin.
Tag: journal
hard in the mountains
Rare Yellow Orchids
Lisa thought it was a good idea to take a trip behind the mountain and look for Yellow Orchids. I thought it was too early.
We walked to a spring where we have found them before. It was tricky as we had to find a crossing to the creek that was running quick. Sure enough, Lisa was right (should I have doubted?) and the Yellow Orchids had just started to bloom.
Oregon Grape, blossoms promising a good year of ‘grapes’.
We also noticed plenty of young cones on the pine and spruce. Oregon Grape is covered with blossoms, possibly suggesting a good crop of the sour pitted fruit.
Young Pine cones covered in pollen. Pine pollen is used medicinally for many ailments. I told Lisa it is also said to boost testosterone, she said, ‘we should take some home’. I chewed on a few cones on the way home. Very sweet. Sure enough, I was harder than algebra when we pulled into the driveway. Unfortunately, Willow wouldn’t let me get close to Lisa. What nature gives, nature also takes away.
It has been a damp year so far. The plants and trees seem to be enjoying it.
thunder
Willow smells for meat to go with the spuds and cabbage.
Off for a couple days after a shitty week. Took off for the creek last night to clear my mind. Plenty of snow up top still to come down. It’s got the second home owners scared on the edge of the lake. I don’t like this global warming trend. It would only take a couple of years of winters with lots of snow paired with some chilly summers and those glaciers would grow. Then when it warmed up it would wash those second homes, along with the rest of the pollution down the Columbia.
A new bear.
Was worried about one of the young crows. It was stubborn to take up flying, it found itself along a fence line with mother in a tree offering encouragement, swooping at anything she thought a threat.
She must of done her job because the young one was out of the corner, hopping around with the other two. It must have paid off looking at them everyday because they let me get close.
You know you’re getting old when all you want to do is spend time in the garden and woodpile on your day off.
Bad Cabbage.
Crows
I’ve been watching a nest of Crows at work. The mother was quite throughout, she sat on the eggs only to leave for a short while. Once the eggs hatched she was constantly busy going back and forth for food for the hatchlings. It rained a lot and there were worms on the pavement, plenty to choose from.
I had to climb to the third floor to see them. Sometimes my work didn’t take me there, but I did it anyway each day. I always said I’d bring my camera, but I didn’t.
Every time I looked at those birds I couldn’t get over how much bigger they got, day after day.
Today they sat on the edges of the nest, all three black and shiny, confident, if they are lucky they will always be so, the mother on a branch above, her eye on me, trusting, but knowing I can never be trusted.
They looked at me. It’s said Crows can recognize faces, I wondered how those wings worked and when they will figure out they can fly.
early June
More rain in the valley bottom, snow in the mountains. We took an extra special trip behind Swansea, beside the swollen creek running pure mud, under a canopy of black spruce. My kind of day Lisa remarked.
It would be nice to have a rainy year for a change. It does the bush good. I expect the bush to be extra busy this year with people from out of province camping in every nook and cranny due to campsites being closed to out of province visitors. The rational for this decision is to keep people close to home during the pandemic. Both Alberta and British Columbia have implemented this rule.
In our neck of the woods I have already seen Albertans camped in the damndest places with, motorbikes, ATV’s, trailers on jacked up trucks, booze and loud music, sky high bonfires and not a drop of water in a five mile radius. It’s a recipe for disaster. At least if the recreational and commercial campsites were available to them they would be kept in check with plenty of water available and threat of a scolding if they get out of hand.
It started to pour, we were back down too soon for my liking.
thunder
The garden always grows after a thunder storm. The rain that falls beside lightning is special. Full of nitrogen science says. I figure it comes from the sky in a hellacious crash and that’s got to be good.
The shed provided shelter until the rain stopped. Luckily I’d hid a couple beer in there for a rainy day. They were just as I like them; aged to perfection, woodshed warm and dying to be drank.
Bears and Flowers
The first of the mountain orchids begin to bloom.
It seems orchids and bears start to appear at the same time in the bush. The trick is not to be too focused on one or the other. For instance, if you are just on the lookout for bears you might step on the delicate Venus’s Lady’s Slipper.
A Black Bear says, ‘What are you doing here?’
Conversely, if you are laying on your belly in the moss, intent on focusing your camera on these lovely orchids, you could pop up your head and have a surprise. Awareness is always the best policy.
wood getting
rain mostly
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.
planting schedule
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.
Palliser Pass 