late July wedding

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Smokey skies but nothing like last year at this time. There s a few fires burning close by. The garden is bone dry and I’m up late trying to get some water on it with a hose and antique cast sprinkler. It is low and does a good job.

Lisa and I photographed a wedding today. It has been awhile since we have done one. We used to do a lot. We were very good at it. We both like doing them. Some photographers dislike doing them, thinking they should be shooting for National Geographic instead. I always felt we were documenting the start of the Bride and Grooms family history. Someday the pictures would be looked at by their grandkids. We wanted them to see the day as it was. The love, the awkwardness at times, the heat or cold and their friends and family. We also wanted to show their connection to the land and each other.

Like I said it’s been awhile but it was like riding a bike. Lisa didn’t miss a shot during the ceremony and moved things along during the portraits making sure the kids and elderly were done first so they could seek shade.

It all came back in a hurry. The beautiful couple with their two small kids was dearly in love. We were honoured to document and share their day. The endeared themselves to Lisa and I when they confessed their rings cost $13 each on Etsy.

Talking about being in love. Hunter and Bree are out from Calgary. I cooked a few steaks on the BBQ with fresh potatoes, carrots and squash from the garden. It was a feast. It is good to have them out.

The valley is busy. Plenty of traffic. Crazy drivers. All in a hurry to have fun. Ambulances going out all day and medic helicopters coming in to take the wounded back to Calgary.

I am getting used to it as I get older. There was a time everything about the crowds burned my ass. Now I’m glad they stay shopping in the valley bottom. There is still plenty of room on the backroads.

The moon is bright same as mars. Very fine day.

Palliser

RCE_0479 Yellow Columbine.

Lisa and I were kindly invited to the 15th Anniversary gathering of a business we once owned.

We started Palliser Printing & Publishing in 1986. Lisa and I were in our early twenties with a baby on the way.

We sold the company in the summer of ’03 to Dee and Rod Conklin from Calgary.

Their 15th Anniversary has made me reminisce about the early days of the company.

I remember it being a lot of long hours and hard work.

The print shop was a mess of paper, presses, photocopiers, computers, an old arc plate burner, a darkroom complete with vertical camera for composing film, to later, be stripped on one of the several light tables. The smell of ink was always in the air. We survived a fire and a flash flood. Not unscathed, but we survived.

Later we moved to better quarters. For every step forward we made, we were never sure how we were going to pay for it. It is like the old saying, ‘build your parachute while falling to earth.’

Often we had bills at the end of the month that exceeded our bank account. The poorest we ever were was when we were the busiest. We juggled.

Yet, our children came to work with us. They had a place to play in the back shop. A cozy couch. They helped out. Built forts in the broken down cardboard.

The business was lucrative enough to allow us to buy a house. Our kids were in figure skating, dance and hockey. We were able to afford dental care for them.

Sometimes it was a balancing act. Lisa often worked the front with a baby on her hip. I always felt bad about that. There is no maternity leave when you own the business.

We were lucky. Since then I’ve worked at a few places. We have never made what it would take to raise a family at todays prices. Not even close.

Everything we have is because of that first business we started when Kelsie was in Lisa’s belly. When things seemed to be changing in a flash. When I had plenty of youth, energy and anger to see any job through.

Now it’s different. Those were good days. Now I’m glad to be a Grandpa making minimum wage, crossing logs gingerly, tilting glasses and nodding head to read the fine type.

Congratulations to Dee and Rod on their 15th Anniversary owning Palliser.

mid July

lake_sm Above the lake.

It seems these last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. Lisa and I still make time to get out in the bush regularly. The weather has been clear and hot. The garden is chugging right along.

Our children have been out to visit. It has been nice to have them with plenty of laughter filling the house. We helped move Lisa’s parents into a new home. Their old place was getting too large for them. Now they live just a stone’s throw from us. This is a relief for Lisa. It was so nice to see our kids taking time away from their schedules in the city to come home and make their grandparents welcome. They think the world of their Grandparents, and know how hard they have worked for everything. Lisa and I are very proud of our children.

RCE_0397 Glacier Lillies. Maddy and Lisa telling Chad to pay attention,
while he takes a photo of the large peaks.

The photos in this post are from a place I find very special. Lisa, Maddy, Chad, Willow and I hiked in yesterday. It has been several years since we have been there, due to roads and bridges washed out. There was a time I would hike from wherever the road ended. But I was young and stubborn then. My Father and I even had some long hikes into Leman Lake.

Alpine Forget-Me-Not.

Back then the trail crossed several slides with tall skunk cabbage and elder bushes. It was closed in thick. You never knew if a bear or moose was going to be waiting for you around the next corner.

We all looked in vain for a way to cross the swift creek. While Lisa, Chad and I were looking for a deadfall across, we noticed Maddy on the other side putting her boots back on. That ended the search. We all took off our boots rolled up our pant legs and subjected our feet to freezing cold water and sharp rocks. Willow crossed enthusiastically, got caught in the current, and came out about twenty yards downstream.

RCE_0412 Scorpion Weed.

We took time to rest, along the trail. It was still steep and in some places overgrown. Lisa reminisced about hiking here while pregnant with Kelsie. Being pregnant never slowed her down. We wondered around marvelling at the sights and smells.

The hike reminded me to try to stay in good enough shape to be able to show these places to Cooper and Scarlett when they are old enough to hike the mountains on their own. That will be sooner than a blink of an eye. Yet that same, seemingly small, time will start taking a toll on my hips and knees. No doubt, just as my father, my balance will be tested on logs over the creek and I’ll curse the rain for making the rocks slippery.

willow_sm Willow takes a dip.

We looked for wild flowers and porcupine quills. Maddy and Lisa alerted Chad to pay attention, because, if I pointed out a ‘Glacier Lily’ on the way up, I may ask him what it was on the way down and he better know the answer.

RCE_0511 Sky, rock, bush and water.

To experience these places with loved ones is a gift. The colour of the lake, the sky and large mountains, the smell of spring slides bringing down old spruce, the ice and snow and how I cheer it now, thinking if we could only get a few cold years the glaciers could build up again, how I am a fool to think such things are up to me, the fish and bears and all the wild flowers, the overgrown trail with so many ghosts and so much yet to show.

I always try to look extra hard before I leave, because I never know when I will see it all again.

late June

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There is only two things to do on Canada Day weekend. You can either get out of town, deep into the bush, or stay hunkered down at home, don’t even try to go out and get a coffee, or beer or groceries or anything else. All the locals know it. The area is taken over by revellers from the city. We’re told we need them. I certainly can’t blame them for trying to escape the city. Most have manners, but some are hell bent on partying and tearing the shit out of the countryside and waterways. The latter all have big toys, four wheel drives, ATV’s and loud motorboats. The business people jack up the prices on everything from a loaf of bread to a litre of gas. This is the good time, they say.

We have elected to stay hunkered down. The garden needs weeding. Lisa is going to pickle the garlic scapes. I am looking forward to cracking a jar in the winter. They are going to be good. So good I probably won’t be able to stand myself.

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Willow will miss the bush this weekend but she will have plenty to bark about around here. Yesterday, she caught a young bird in the garden. She killed it, of course. Once I clued in to what was going on I stopped her from eating the small bird. She wasn’t happy with me. My old Wire-Haired, Slinky, was a master hunter, unlike rodents birds never agreed with her upsetting her stomach until she purged herself and vomited feathers. Willow is much more delicate than Slinky so I didn’t want to take a chance. There is nothing worse waking up to the sound of a dog trying to get something up.

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Thinking of Slinky, this was her least favourite weekend. All the Canada Day fireworks scared her. We would try to spend most of these weekends in the bush, so she wouldn’t have to put up with it. Willow on the other hand can sleep through thunderstorms and fireworks.

slink Slinky. Scraped or not never slowed down.

A good rain today. The garden is coming. I got the foot long grass mowed before the skies opened up. I am hoping all the moisture will be good for the huckleberry crop. Cooper loves huckleberry jam and he is depending on me.

weekend news

Lisa and I returned home this evening after spending a wonderful time with our children and grandchildren. We had a big family gathering and celebrated Tom, Cooper and Scarlett’s birthdays, all falling within just a few days of each other. It pleases Lisa and I so much to see our children happy and healthy in the lives they have made for themselves. It also pleases us to see how close they are with each other in adulthood. They are good people.

Lisa and I spent a lot of time with Cooper and Scarlett. Such gentle souls, yet both, even at years 3 and 1, filled with humour and mischievousness.

Driving home today I commented on a radio news story about public unions. I started to tell Lisa what I thought of them. Lisa listened until I was finished and then remarked, the further away from Cooper and Scarlett the crankier I was getting! That made us both laugh.

***

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On arriving home it was clear we have had plenty of rain and wind. The grass needs mowing. The wind has bent the plants in the garden and shredded the flower pots. The rain has made everything spring up, including the weeds. The lettuce is going crazy and we won’t be able to eat it fast enough.

On the way out of Calgary we stopped at Costco. I bought tuna, olives, feta, chicken and olive oil. Things that can be thrown in a bowl of greens to make a meal. The kind of meal you wish for in winter but don’t have.

***

While in the city I picked up a copy of The New York Times Sunday edition. Not that I need more American news that dominates every source here in Canada.

News is troubling. Not just the content, but how it is delivered.

I prefer newspapers. But I’m told they are going out of style! I like the long stories, the headlines and design. The quest for truth, even if the truth hurts advertising dollars.

I’m not sure if this kind of journalism exists anymore, in newspapers or anywhere else where information is used to push an agenda.

It could be the era we live in, the mix, the way the news is delivered. How truth is bent by the, almost always, editorialization that is contained in the delivery. It becomes a message instead of an unbiased report.

Both the left and right, American and Canadian news sources are guilty.

Like decades before the best bet is getting news from plenty of sources. Doing so, makes the bullshit stand out. If reading the news confirms your own beliefs you are probably being played.

Lisa and I are getting older. Our sense is dwindling right along with the longevity of newspapers. Soon we will have trouble knowing the truth. We will be ripe to be scammed. The scam hasn’t been thought of yet, but it will be brilliant in it’s simplicity.

***

With that said, I’m looking forward to the Book Review, the magazine and all the articles that can only by found in a weekend newspaper.

mountain lady’s slipper

Willow and I made time after supper for a run behind Swansea. She ran rampant, smelling rabbits on her tongue. I poked around looked for blossoms and signs to confirm it was indeed the middle of June.

Work is good and plenty of it at this time of year. Lisa and I were side by side today hammering the computers. It feels good to be back in business for ourselves again.

There was a time I could put in 16 hour days, even longer sometimes, sometimes even with a couple beer under my belt, but not now. Occasionally, I wish I still possessed that focus, most of the time I’m glad I don’t, it can catch up to you.

It feels good to be making practical things, not art or anything magnificent, but products that make peoples lives easier or happier. That’s what we are good at, working, putting our noses to the grindstone. Nothing more, but more than enough.

Was up early this morning. Mars was blazing over the lake. Right now Mars is close to Earth in our respective orbits around the sun. How close is Mars? It is so close, Willow stood up and barked at Rover.

Boooooo!

mid June

mobot31753002839139_0377 Yarrow illustration by German Botanist Walther Otto Muller from the 1800’s. He illustrated many important botanical books of the time.

Was up in the mountains today while the valley bottom was at it’s busiest. The yarrow plant is starting to bloom in the bush. I picked a bunch and also juniper berries for my good friend Dave. He makes the best jellies and hot sauces. The yarrow and junipers will be made into an exclusive hot sauce for a local bar and restaurant.

Lisa says she is going to make me a foraging pouch that will hook on my belt. I told her to make it big enough to hold a mickey and a couple quarts of huckleberries.

***

Got the spuds hilled this evening between showers. Every time I tried waiting it out it kept up, and when I came in it instantly stopped. That’s June.

***

Plenty of thunder last night. It’s good to see it accompanied by rain. That will stop soon.

***

It’s Father’s Day tomorrow. I still miss mine. I told Hunter, when I talked to him on the telephone today, I will be expecting some dry macaroni glued to a sheet of paper.

I wasn’t the best father or the worst. I was serious back in those days and worked a lot. I also did things that didn’t make it easy for us. That was part of being serious. I could have got along better with people that could have made life easier for all of us, but I was too proud or quick to criticize, so we all suffered. It’s not noble looking back. Still my children love me, regardless. That’s luck.

***

It’s said the weather is about to turn hot. Lisa says I need a haircut. It’s about time to stop wearing long sleeved shirts, even if they are worn rolled up. There is a slow leak on the rear passenger side tire that needs taken care of. The carrots need weeding same as the garlic. Other than that I don’t think I have any problems. But I’ve been wrong before.

stripped down

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Willow has now been properly stripped. Lisa and I held her in place and pulled out all the loose hair. Now she looks like a smooth Dachshund with furry paws and a terriers face.

Willow doesn’t like getting stripped or having her nails cut. It is a bit of a wrestling match and it is important she knows she is going to have it done even if she doesn’t like it. It is usually me who is the bad guy in these situations. It’s funny, because she seems to forget any hostilities right after, and we go back to being the best of friends.

Willow does enjoy a bath though. I am sure she would jump in Lisa’s bath at the first hint of an invitation. I tell Willow not to feel bad, Lisa banned me from her bath a long time ago when I started displacing too much water.

***

The garden is coming along. It’s been chilly the last week. Rain on and off. The tomatoes look stunted. The lettuce and mustard greens are chugging along and we can’t eat them or give them away fast enough. Mid winter, I often think, I’d die for a spring salad. Now they are so plentiful. I’m thinking to save time, I might just go out to the garden and get down on my hands and knees and munch the leaves right down to the soil. It would save time picking, washing and putting on dressing. I could always chug some olive oil and lemon juice later if I was left wanting.

The garlic scapes are coming ready and we have been enjoying quite a few. They are humdingers – hot and spicy! Delicious raw! While I lay in bed last night I thought, shit, I’ve overdone it on the garlic.

***

While driving over the overpass today I saw an old guy on the sidewalk. He was walking slow, shuffling like he was on a patch of ice. He had a hundred yards of sidewalk in either direction before he could rest. Cars whizzing by. He was on his own.

I figure somebody, maybe even a doctor, told him to get out and get some exercise. He figured he walked the overpass plenty of times before, so he set out. He was dressed nice. He looked like a tourist or second home owner.

I worried for him. Not because he looked shaky, but because he looked like he didn’t have a purpose. Going for a walk is never enough. It’s better to be out checking the height of the river, the progress of bulldozers building a dyke or the next condominiums, or the species of birds landing on the wetlands, all the while contemplating a desire to walk the liquor store isles, pushing the need to collect bottles and cans to pay for another snort. And then another walk in the spring sun admiring the girls wearing less.

Or something like that.

***

Willow seems small without her wire hair. She better get her shit together and grow it back in a hurry. . . at least before winter.

a little to burn

Paintbrush

Cool today with some wind and rain on and off. Perfect for splitting wood. I had about a cord of fir and pine that Lisa and I cut last fall that still needed splitting. It was windblown last summer and wasn’t ready to be used last winter. Lisa and I always like to be a year ahead with firewood.

Cooper would have enjoyed working outside at the woodpile. He even has a small axe that he uses under my supervision, when his mother and grandmother don’t hide it. Lisa and I made and sent him a video. While stacking the wood I put an old desk in the woodpile so he and I can sit at it during the winter and have lunch. Lisa says it’s my new office. I told her, why not, I can even get wifi out there!

***

I remember hearing a Los Angeles right-wing, comedian, pundit, celebrity talking about how busy the LA Freeways are and how difficult it is to go anywhere. He said, he wished they would raise the price of gas to $10 a gallon (expensive for the US, we are almost already there in Canada). His reasoning was it would get most people off the freeway and he could get to his appointments in peace. A price well worth paying he mused. I appreciated his candor, he was honest and probably correct. That doesn’t mean he isn’t an entitled dipshit.

***

Lisa and I have an Instagram account for our business. Instagram is an interesting platform in the social media world. Young people love it. It’s like putting up your greatest hits.

We had a young photographer ‘like’ one of our posts. I went to his Instagram page, he was an exceptional photographer. Under one of his photographs he wrote about preserving the natural world and how we must do everything in our power to kill the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Several other, equally talented photographers, left comments agreeing the oil has to stay in the ground. I don’t necessarily disagree.

I poked around their Instagram posts. Their photos were taken with expensive high quality mirrorless lightweight cameras, with lenses costing thousands of dollars. I noticed some of the photos were taken in Iceland, South America, Nepal, Greece, Alaska, Austria and Asia.

It occurred to me, these young people will never miss a plane ride, safari or travel adventure regardless if the Trans Canada Pipeline is killed or not, or if all the oil in Alberta is left in the ground. Their lives will not change. They will never miss a truck ride or sleep in the cold when they choose not to. The freeway, for them, will just be less crowded.

These are the folks that scare me. I’ve always thought their isn’t much difference between the elite ‘left’ and the elite ‘right’. They both have second homes and the same travel plans.

For Lisa and I, we will be sleeping closer to the fire as we age, trying to stay warm. I am hoping Cooper won’t be sick of us when he gets older and still wants to come out to help with the woodpile.

I also hope, as selfish as this may sound considering the climate, I can still afford a few gallons of gas to escape the ruck of the crowd and deliver me to the wild orchids and dark sky stars that lie beyond the valley bottom.

If they shut down the oil sands and decommission the pipelines, perhaps I’ll dig it up myself.

early June

A Great Blue Heron fishes in the runoff. Photo by Lisa.

Lisa and I took a quick drive behind Swansea tonight. We commented how nice it is to be able to get away from it all in only a moment. We have been busy in the studio. We both like being busy and we have to be if we are going to make it. We have always worked a lot of hours for not a lot of money. That is how we have been able to stay in the valley. It comes with a lot of perks. It is being close to the bush and able to show our children, and now grandchildren, that makes it worth while. We are fortunate, but money has never come easy. My personality is something to blame as well.

Tonight, we were fortunate to be close to the truck when it started to hail. We saw it coming and heard the thunder. We got back in the truck and watched the show. The temperature dropped to 3°c and the pea sized hail gathered on the truck and ground before it could melt.

On the way back into the valley bottom we spotted a Great Blue Heron and Lisa took some photos. Willow would have barked the dinosaur into the air, but she never caught onto what we were looking at.

***

The National Post reported the Alberta Government is cracking down on School Superintendents getting raises and bonuses. http://nationalpost.com/news/alberta-cuts-school-superintendent-pay-as-review-finds-high-salaries-big-perks

In our school district, in recent years, there have been several instances of mismanagement; busing issues, disposing of school properties, increased management costs, including the hiring of spouses in top positions, the handling of teachers accused of indiscretions, schools over populated or in need of upgrades while choosing to build a multi million dollar Operations building, to list just a few.

When things appear to go sideways, in business or government endeavours, it can almost always be traced to the top.

Sure enough, in School District #6 Rocky Mountain, the Superintendent is at the top of the heap, getting yearly salary raises and bonuses, while teachers and staff put up with salary freezes or minuscule increases.

Some would explain his salary package as compensation for a job ‘well done’, or to attract people of ‘high calibre the pay must be good’, or simply say, ‘the money is in the budget’.

All would be untrue. Convenient, but untrue. Leaders who’s first goal is feathering their own nest are not rare. They’re a dime a dozen.

Not unusual in this day and age where leading by example is non-existent in our businesses, institutions and government.

***

We get bogged down. We hear about the American President on every newscast and the internet. We hear about Canada buying a non existent pipeline from a Texas company for 4.5 billion dollars just to see it built. We hear constantly that we are doomed. The Doomsday Clock is 3 minutes to midnight, the seas are filled with plastic, the ice caps are melting and the oceans are rising, the storms are getting worse. Meanwhile, the whole world is arming themselves with assault rifles and nukes with the only outcome, the complete annihilation of humankind!

That’s what we read and that’s what we’re told. It keeps us from a lot of pleasure. I don’t know if we are being fed a line, but I do know I’ve been lied to before.

We feel powerless.

Meanwhile, there is plenty of dragons we could slay right in front of us if not for the fatigue of thinking it won’t make a difference. Isn’t our own backyard where we should start? There is no shortage of scoundrels, big and small to go around, nor garbage to pick up at our own feet.

***

The tomatoes and lettuce were pummelled by the storm. The hail punched holes in the leaves. Still the moisture did them good.

Palliser Pass

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