Tag: nature

July Garden

Even Willow was powerless against the grasshoppers.

The garden is doing it’s best after being ravaged by grasshoppers. The grasshoppers are still around in abundance but not eating as much as when they were small. When we have vegetables from the garden for dinner I remark my thankfulness that the grasshoppers were kind enough to leave it for us. They were ravenous bastards.

No carrots this year. Almost everything had to be replanted. Strangely they didn’t like peas, which are about 6 feet tall and covered in pods. The tomatoes, they mostly left alone. Same as the zucchini. Everything else was at their mercy.

The cannabis is coming and I’m about to trick it into thinking it’s dying so it will flower. The grasshoppers ate it as well, but it fought back on its own. The grasshoppers who indulged were last seen, wearing dark glasses, listening to jazz, riding vans, driven by a ladybug, down to SF, Haight Ashbury, to find themselves. I’m happy I could, at least, convert a few. The stoned grasshoppers remaining are degenerates, happy to listen to Led Zeppelin overflowing from the gardeners earbuds. They are hard to motivate, but great to have a conversation with once you get them going, unfortunately they still like to snack.

We will miss the carrots. I planted zucchini in many of spots in the garden that the grasshoppers destroyed. We are going to have ‘chini coming out our ears. I won’t be able to give them away. My friends will see me coming and scatter.

Old Tracks

Hind and front. Glad we came along later.

Before bed I thought I’d better make sure the garden gate was closed. Walked outside into a warm evening. I never walk anywhere without boots. The garden is only thirty paces from the basement door. I figured I was safe to go barefoot. Half way there I stepped on a wasp and got stung in the crotch of the big toe and the tall one next to it. Damn. That’s seven stings this year! It could be my new record.

Little Big Dog.

I remember when I was about four, one morning, I took a stick and knocked down a nest in the shed. I was stung on the nose. That night I was with my Dad picking raspberries at my Aunt Elenor’s place and got stung on the ass.

Dad thought it was hilarious I was stung on the nose and ass in the same day. He laughed telling Mom when we got home. I couldn’t see the humour in it at the time. Now I am a Dad and Grandad it is damn funny. I can’t help laughing when I reminisce.

Long Weekend/Tourists

A good long weekend all in all. Lisa and I got out of Dodge early on the busiest days.

No shortage of entitled idiots from Alberta. They were everywhere. I believe they are something we have to accept like, dry summers, grasshoppers, wasps and forest fires.

Speaking of grasshoppers and wasps. The grasshoppers are everywhere, hitting you in the face and jumping ahead of every step.

On Sunday unloading wood I rearranged the woodpile. The grasshoppers started jumping. Before I knew it. I had disturbed a nest in the woodpile. Got stung about six time on the hand before I realized they weren’t grasshoppers. Angry bastards. I had to split the load of wood 20 feet away from the woodpile. More hauling later. My hand is sorer today than yesterday.

Still those fucking tourists are more of a nuisance, I swear to God/ 😉

Canada Day

Lisa and I were up early and heading for the bush to miss the tourists and second home owners, who are out in force.

Once we made the corner after the first bridge on the Kootenay we were free and never saw a soul, except the most important, a black bear, a murder of crows circling something dead, plenty of deer, bucks in velvet, a shiny muskrat and birds singing songs, so beautiful, that I will never understand no matter how hard I try.

We picked up a load of wood. Tomorrow I will split it. It is birch so the sooner the better. It will keep us warm. Summer is when you should think of winter.

Picked a litter of lettuce in the garden. The grasshoppers have wings but aren’t eating like they were when they were small. As far as I can tell they don’t like peas or tomatoes. Everything else has taken a shit kicking.

We sure have a good country. I may bitch at the folks running it. The country and citizens are so strong even the politicians haven’t been able to screw it up. 🙂 Aboriginal people are seeing a future where injustices are acknowledged. There is no making things right. There is no returning justice. MY small spot on this land belonged to someone who didn’t agree to sell it to me.

Our future is dependant on immigration, that’s a good thing. The ideas and hard work coming from abroad will make us strong.

Whenever I meet someone wanting to make Canada their home I think of my Grandfather coming from England in 1912 looking for a better life.

I live in this time in history when immigrants made my life easy in my youth and will help me in my old age. How lucky is that?

Most of the creeks are still high. I followed a spring, out of nowhere, a hundred yards through a grove of birch, then disappeared underground to cripes knows where.

The country is alive and beautiful. I can’t contribute like I used to. I don’t expect much. That’s how it is when you are happy.

Somehow we have to grab rocks, but instead of throwing them, we have to lie down on them and feel the warmth.

Rain

The rising sun catches the ridge in the west. Dark storm clouds above, shaded valley bottom below. Taken about 6am from the garden.

Came through a good bit of rain. It was welcome. In the mountains it was snow.

We planned a trip into the high country last Wednesday, but postponed it to this coming Wednesday. The youngsters from work were disappointed. I didn’t welcome trudging through a foot of wet snow on the mountain side. The truth is I’d end up sliding on my ass coming down trying to dig my heels in yelling whoa!! It can be fun, but I’m too damn old for such hijinks. I didn’t want to lose face so told them the scenery would be better when it cleared.

The doe deer are busy with their fawns. A few days ago I freed a fawn that got caught in fencing. Today Jack shooed one from the pool court back to its mother. It was held up under patio furniture and was starting to gather quite a crowd of guests. Jack said he had done it plenty with lambs back in England. He is a good man that Jack.

***

Some warm weather is expected. The recent rain has done its best to cool the bush. That’s more than we can ask.

Storm

Bog Orchid. Although common I have not seen this species for several years.

Lightening with plenty of rain, so not so bad. We have postponed a hiking trip with some youngsters from work, because of snow in the back country. They’ll enjoy it more with the sun shining on the blue glacier water and I will not have to slip and slide off the mountain in 12″ of wet snow. There was a time I wouldn’t have been dissuaded by weather. That day is long gone.

The Elderberry Wine looks promising.
Come fall, the rose hip jelly could also be good.

Mid June

A good spell of rain put the grasshoppers on pause. The buggers got all of the carrots, beets and some of the lettuce.

***

Skipped town early for the bush. Lisa and I fell a dead fir. Willow and Lola ran around while we knocked off branches and bucked it up.

***

Cormac McCarthy passed away this past week. He wrote many good books. Suttree, No Country for Old Men, The Road, Blood Meridian and others.

When I read Child of God, I wondered how he could write it. How did someone, a loved one, tell him, you can’t write that.

It is in that space where conscience and violence takes hold, deep down, where truth dwells. Cormac McCarthy had a seat next to this other world and reported back in prose that could stun.

When I broke my leg I was higher than hell on morphine awaiting an operation. My sister Wynanne gave me a copy of All the Pretty Horses.

I read and reread until I could say it in a slurred voice:

They rode out along the fenceline and across the open pastureland. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The lights fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.

***

I rarely get angry anymore. I’ve paid dearly for things I’ve said, but I stand by them all.

Recently my name came up at a District of Invermere (DOI) council meeting. Somebody had left an anonymous message in a Facebook post criticizing the Mayor and Council. They attributed it to me without proof.

It is true I have been critical of DOI council and the mayor on this blog. My name and email is beside everything I say. I give reasons for my criticism.

I despise anonymous comments and the people who leave them. They are seen everywhere on news sites. My feeling is, if you have something to say you put your name to it.

When I heard Mayor, Council and DOI staff were attributing critical anonymous comments to me I was pissed off.

I had a talk with one of the Councillors today. Of course getting to the bottom of who said what is like herding cats. The more I tried to shake him the further down his tongue went.

***

The hot weather is picking up speed. It will be winter before long and the wood will come in handy.

Wild Orchids/Grasshoppers

Lisa and I were out looking for orchids a few days ago. Over the years we have found places where these wild flowers grow. It is always special when we find new spots with flowers.

The season is short for most orchids making when to look as important as where.

This is an excerpt from Orchids of British Columbia by AF Szczawinski published in 1959:

“The orchid family is unusual among the higher plants for a good many reasons, such as extreme variation, highly specialized flowers, and a great range of habitat. It is interesting that the number of seeds produced in a single capsule is, in many cases phenomenal. A count made at the Greenwich Observatory, England, showed that a capsule contained 3,770,000 microscopic seeds.”

“Unless the conditions of temperature, moisture, soil and shelter are ideal, failure for the seedlings is certain. There is only one chance in thousands that such conditions will occur. If only a small percentage of the seeds from each plant could grow to maturity, orchids would be as common as grass.”

***

We have been overrun by grasshoppers. The garden has taken a beating. They seem to go after the youngest plants first effectively killing them. There are other plants they don’t seem to be bothered with such as peas.

The grasshoppers are small and growing. I could use a herd of turkeys to take care of these buggers. Perhaps I should figure out a way to trap them and deep fry them, smother them with seasoning and sell them at the farmers market. Dirty Bob’s Spicy Grasshopper Crunch. It could be a hit.

Travel

Quick trip into the big city. We left early and the three hours went by quick with us chatting and the traffic lite. The smoke from the forest fires wasn’t too bad.

We hit Costco. We had shopping lists for four families. It went surprisingly smooth and didn’t have to wait at check out.

I bought a couple of Lavender and Barberry bushes at about the third the price I could get them at home. Then we fuelled up with the cheapest gas in Canada. Albertans love to bitch, but they don’t know how good they have it. Not that I’d ever trade places.

Now I just have to figure out where to put those Barberry and Lavender bushes.

***

Lisa had her appointment and we stopped at a mall so she could find a dress for a summer wedding we are invited to.

Looking for the dress took longer than Costco and the appointment put together. I walked around the mall looking through windows, but not going in. I saw Louis C.K. working at Sporting Life at the South Centre Mall. He was taller than he looks on TV. But it was him, sure as hell.

Lisa found a wonderful bright pant suit and colourful top. A summer ensemble. She looks gorgeous in it. Now I’m feeling bad for her, because I am going to look shabby on her arm.

***

The way home was a steady stream of traffic with every kind of driver. I like to hang back and give the impatient plenty of room in case they have to dodge in on the two lane highway through Kootenay National Park. There was a few times I felt like closing the gap and leave them hanging out there in oncoming traffic, but that wouldn’t be good for anybody.

***

When we were home and unloaded, I checked the garden. Perhaps it was the walk stretching my legs. I had a twelve second fart that broke the quiet of the evening. Even the birds stopped chirping and were struck with awe. A few neighbours came out and looked skyward. I had been travelling in the truck all day with Lisa and it built up. I was impressed I still had it in me.

Gardening

The good neighbour Larry always gives me some plants. He starts them inside starting in February. To say he has a green thumb is an understatement.

I also start a few plants in March. When I have one or two that don’t look like they are going to make it, I let them convalesce at Larrys, and he breaths life back into them. It is like a spa for plants.

The plants he gives me must feel bad, because they go from a perfect environment to where they must survive.

‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen,’ he says, is my motto.