black & white
Roots from old logging set.
Making a getaway.
Ancient fire circle.
Pine Siskin.
Tag: local
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.
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.
Mid or late
A lot of campfires below those ridges.
February shouldn’t even be there. January should slide right into March. I jest, February is a splendid month. Cold, snow, a few sun filled days; you never know what you’re going to get. We are lucky for an extra day.
Ghosts.
I am a believer we will never completely figure it all out. That’s fine with me. I’ve always been suspicious of the folks that claim they know it all. It usually comes wrapped in religion or some claim to hereditary insight. Sometimes, these guys are more dangerous than the people who are only motivated by money. Bullshit and greed doesn’t discriminate.
Rush hour.
Every morning’s lighter. Same in evening. Pretty soon I won’t be able to hide out and roll in early
tracks
It’s easy to forget where you came from. The trees, mountains and tracks right out the door. Everyone saying to get away. My heart was too stubborn to leave. I try my best to show it to my children and grandchildren, but I hope they don’t feel it like I do. I just want them to know.
Of course, all of it is beyond my control. My new mantra, just like the downtown doctor: do no harm.
Then again that may run contrary to the truth.
It’s compassion, I want to pass on, towards the bush and other living souls. That doesn’t mean not cutting down trees or eating meat. We are animals after all.
The world didn’t get fucked up recently, it’s been that way for awhile.
My bet is still on good sense.
where’s willow
storing it up
The Chickadees have been busy in the remaining sunflowers. I put a couple large heads on the deck so we can watch the tough little birds do their business. They fly from the garden, to the deck, to the trees where they hide the seed for future consumption, presumably when the cold and snow hits and food is scarce.
A Downey Woodpecker has been watching them and I wonder if he will be the beneficiary of all their hard work.
Like all of nature these small birds seem to work extra hard just to survive. They hide ten times what they will need, because they know most of it will be gone when they need it.
A Turtle lays a hundred eggs and only a small number survive. A tree produces many cones, some fall and lay dormant, some are eaten by birds. Some sprout and are trampled and die or don’t get enough light. Sometimes it takes a lightening strike or fire to clear the brush and let them survive. Without going ‘above and beyond’ perhaps all would have died out by now.
Then there is us. Humans are the cruelest animal, it is our nature to wreak havoc on animals, resources and the natural world, because we feel we are somehow above or separate from the trees and fish and even the coal in the ground. It’s because, like every other living thing, we guard our young. For them, we produce and consume much more than is required. In this moment of time we have gotten too good at being cruel. All of our seeds are still in the trees, we have ten times more than we need, but we’ve killed off all the woodpeckers.
The last 200 years, even the last 2000 years is such a small amount of time for nature. It is our hubris, maybe even our nature and our weakness, to think we are on top, or somehow in control.
new moon
Backroads.
It’s been awhile. The stars are up there still. The old moon this morning was a reminder of dark skies, the best time to wonder around.
So off we went.
Andromeda.
Plenty of cloud, not the best conditions. Willow and I headed higher without further success. We walked the old road trying to register bearings. Taurus, up in the valley bottom, was down in the mountains. Cassiopeia was left, showing the way to Andromeda. Despite the weather, or the week, or the news, or our predicament, distance became irrelevant.
That happens when you are where you belong.
get your tongue out of my ear
The election is over. I didn’t talk to anyone who was happy today. Most couldn’t give a shit. I talked to a few with Alberta plates who were devastated.
There is plenty of people left out of these decisions. Sure they cast a vote, out of duty or, maybe even, hope. They roll with it when house prices become unaffordable, and keep working until they die. Some even believe they are in a predicament, because of some shortcoming.
That’s the big lie. The same lie that makes people who are well off think it was their hard work who got them where they are. Both sides never considering the situation they were born into.
Before you think it; fuck you, if you say ‘look at me, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps’. If you think it and say it you are an asshole.
The world is going through a change. Most of the change won’t be bad. Do you remember we changed from vinyl, to 8 track, to cassette, to CD. At every change we were told how much better the next format was.
That’s what’s happening now. Unfortunately, it’s designed to leave a lot of poor people from every corner of the world in it’s wake.
It was interesting to see several teachers working at the polling booths. When I worked at the School District, during an election, some would take a sick or vacation day and work the polls. Double the money.
Our incumbent NDP, MP, Wayne Stetski was voted out. He will get close to $90 thousand severance for the effort he put in for the past 4 years, on top of his $180 thousand a year he made sitting way, way, back behind leader Mulcair, stuttering out how he liked local food and biking to work.
Lucky bastard.
Our next MP, Rob Morrison of the Conservatives will do the same. He will be as ineffectual. Sure he will help his friends, and spew the ‘right’ rhetoric. But in the end, he will collect his money.
Thats why I don’t give a shit about political parties, The right and left are in cohoots. They take long vacations with each other, spend and bullshit. It’s us who are left behind.
My good friend said it’s criminal, and it would be, if it wasn’t them making the laws.
Mid September
Plenty of moisture for September. Still good to have the seasons change, with longer nights and cool mornings. The mountains have a touch of white. Plenty of mushrooms for soup in the bush. Lisa never eats the soup the first day, she lets me eat it, if I’m still alive the next day she’ll have some.
A small sparrow braves the rain to have a chance at the garden’s sunflowers. Lots of overcast, the full Harvest Moon has passed and still no frost.
The smoke blossoms have ripened and need to be cut and dried. They have done well considering the lack of sunshine. It really is a beautiful fragrant plant. As usual there is much more than we can use. The rest will be given away or traded to friends, who like I, refuse to get from the government.
Fall is still on.
Palliser Pass 