Weekend

A fine week behind us. The skies finally cleared and it was nice to get to see some blue skies. Lisa and I had some nice fires in the fireplace and went on a couple nice walks. Weekends are always the highlight.

The weekdays are good, I look for anything to make me laugh. Luckily I work with people that feel the same. It passes the time and makes some of the more difficult or trying work easier.

***

Last Tuesday, on the way to work, I thought I would go through the drive through at Tim Hortons and get a coffee. Early in the morning, off season, it shouldn’t be much of a wait. There was only one car ahead of me. I was in luck, I thought. Usually the line can be out of the parking lot.

He took awhile to order. When he was done I pulled up and saw he had ordered $101.64 worth of stuff! Of course, he was even longer at the pick-up window. The line up behind me was out of the parking lot. There was only one person in the car ahead. They had BC plates. Usually it’s the red and white ones causing grief. I was late for work when I am usually 15 minutes early. Tim Horton’s staff got him through and apologized for his actions, saying, with such a big order he should go in the front. I paid my $2.15 for my dark roast, black. I envisioned a School Board Employee, someone in management, buying a round of coffee, bacon and egger sandwiches and doughnuts for the early morning meeting, thinking everyone else in the world is on their lazy ass schedule.

What can you do, but laugh.

***

A rotten tooth above the gum line of the valley bottom.

The mountains have light around them. The colours are gray with blues, days getting longer, not in the morning yet, but in the evening. In January you take what you can get.

Tomorrow is Monday, I’ll get up and do it again. And if I don’t feel like it, I’ll remember how many times I didn’t feel like it, but did it anyway.

Funny

My manager Brandon presenting the award, glass artwork from a local artist.

This happened before Christmas, I was voted by the people I work with as Employee of the Year. It was presented at the Christmas Party I didn’t go to.

The resort I work at is staffed by wonderful people. Any one of my co-workers would have been a good pick, so I am especially honoured and a little bit embarrassed.

It is nice to work at a place that everyone cares about the job they are doing. The job isn’t easy. That is a tip of the hat to management that instills pride into their workers. I am fortunate to work with a great group of people.

I used to work at the School District, great pay, unbelievable government union benefits, large defined pensions and the most lazy unhappy workers you could find anywhere in Canada. Promoting the worst of the worst into management has had a great deal to do with the apathy and incompetence found in these positions. It is sad, especially for the workers who strive to do their best.

Today, I got on the radio and asked for help carrying a hide-a-bed up a flight of stairs, four people answered offering help. If that was the School District it would have been crickets until they decided to contract it out to a moving company. My job is much simpler with everyone pulling in the same direction.

My co-workers are mostly young. They don’t have pensions in their future or high wages, they may never own a house, yet they are Johnny on the spot, doing their best. It is incredible to watch and they put me to shame.

Warm Spell

It felt like spring today. The only thing cold was my feet from being damp. Cut and split firewood. Nothing makes a body feel better. Willow and Lola ran hither and yon. They both got wet and muddy.

The snow melted, got heavy and fell off the trees. For the first time in months, Lisa and I could see deep into the bush, past thousand branch trickery and white out simplicity. No sense, walking off trail, it’s still deep, the warmth making the going heavy. It wouldn’t be long my old legs would be stuck like a long legged moose after a week long mountain blizzard. My only advantage is there is no hungry wolves following close. Perhaps I’m just too blind to know. Regardless, at this stage of the game it’s best to stay on the beaten path.

A feather under runoff. The best of nature is never perfect, it is rugged, torn, chewed up, bloody, cold, wet and beautiful.

That doesn’t mean you can’t be cantankerous, obstinate, disagreeable and ornery. The only rule: as long as it’s not towards the ones you love.

Warm

Crazy dreams, cozy. People alive, that haven’t been seen for awhile and plenty of dead people too. All the people I love or did.

Had my head down today. In and out of a plow, shovelling snow. It was just a skiff. Winter eases us into its season. Sometimes it can be a bastard. Freezing beards, crawling up ankle socks, long underwear and Lullulemon britches, which are similar if not the same thing, when I wear them my ass looks anything but nice.

Wood heat, electric blankets. Putting your head under the covers and flexing. Whatever it takes to keep warm.

Shovelling, plowing, gathering around the fireplace.

All those friends and family in the dreams working hard to keep warm.

Noctilucent

Probably should have spent more time figuring things out on earth instead of looking at clouds and stars. Rivers of fish hiding behind every rock. To see it on ground you have to see it above.

Plenty of folks say God is up there. Looking down. Religion, and lately, science casts judgement with offers of redemption.

The sky is full of giant birds spreading their wings, prehistoric animals, white water fast and falling, chimneys puffing and faces that can’t be quite made out. Ghosts maybe.

Perhaps God took off and who could blame him.

I said to my daughter, ‘Do you see that elephant?’

She looked up and said, ‘Yes, I do.’

It felt good, even if I should have taught her different.

dreams

It was a big dog, face twice the size of mine, docile. It would have been okay if it wasn’t for the two cougars following me. The older was injured the young one was following along. Dogs are smart, instinctual, they smell fear. I was the intermediate between both worlds, cougar and dog. Not understanding either.

The old cougar woke up, knocked out most likely, saw the young one. The big dog knew right away the game was on and started barking, slow and deep, its giant face, jowls and eyes jiggling.

The cougar reared back and made itself twice as big as the hound. There was no reason to step in.

***

The last dream. I was playing hockey and had to put the puck in an empty net and couldn’t do it.

***

Usually something goes wrong.

***

But sometimes I am swimming in the deep water out at the logs. Doing backflips into the lake when the sun goes down, while a girl in jean shorts straddles the log watching me. If the time is right I elevate into the sky. That’s better than anything conscious or dreaming.

***

Willow asks if we are going fishing tomorrow and I tell her, ya.

Murmur

A lot of good stuff out there despite it all. It’s always been that way. It takes looking, searching even, sacrificing, just when you think it doesn’t exist it jumps up and slaps you in the face.

It’s what’s given to you, a gift. Born in the wrong era, hellbent to prove them wrong. Adrenaline and height, lost on purpose just to find yourself back. It’s the only war most people will know.

It’s easy to die, to live in these times takes courage, fortitude, strength and conviction. You have to be quick to react, and do so with the same purpose of a murmur of starlings or school of fish.

lamb

Busy weekend. Lots of tourists.

Things have changed dramatically at the resort. The mood is better. One bad apple does make a difference.

I picked the wrong week to take the long underwear off. Well below freezing everyday this week. Perhaps the end of April will be the new target for shedding the second skin.

Spotted a sick ewe at the resort. It is separated from the herd. Its head is low and lies in gravel. She can still get up. She is bleeding from the hind end. It’s a bit early for Bighorn Sheep to give birth. Maybe a still birth. We have been telling guests to give her room. It is safe on the resort grounds. Unlikely a cougar will take her down there. If people bother her she will wonder off and be picked off by predators.

The best case is the herd will come back and she can rejoin. Or it will make it back to the herd on her own. A perilous journey on her own, but one she may risk. It is amazing how a herd will protect the slowest.

If it can’t she will go to a place to be killed and eaten. Cougars, coyotes, bears, eagles, crows, ravens, dogs, magpies and even songbirds will see she doesn’t go to waste.

Late March

Kelsie, Cooper and Scarlett called to me to complete the ring. This Fir tree would be well over 300 years old. To think of its place in history. The many forest fires it survived, drought, world wars, colonization and the epic battles of the lands first people. It resides in a place known for warring between the Ktunaxa and the Peigan Blackfeet Pikáni. This one even survived the greed of developers. This area, on the east side of Columbia Lake is now protected, the developers satiated after being handsomely paid off.

This was the time of year I’d get stuck, sometimes on the flat. Teaches me for running around on bald tires. I don’t have to do that like I used to. I’d ask Bucky which tires had the most rubber after the tread was worn off. That’s how you know a good tire. It is easy to slip slide yourself into real trouble.

An old Ranger with a mismatched box. Smelling like oil and rust, but can still deliver a half yard of well rotted manure.

I took one of these roads yesterday. The snow hard in the trees, soft where the sun hits. Four wheel drive can’t save you once the truck starts pushing snow. It gathers under the truck and before long you either need to shovel or hope for another week of warm weather.

Spring clouds with a few more snowstorms inside. I could always walk up that hill if someone was chasing me, I bet they would give up before I did.

The plants have been started inside. Tomatoes (Black Krim, Brandywine and Black Cherry), basil, some flowers and a couple varieties of cannabis. The frost is out of the ground where my garden lays and is waiting to be dug. Scarlett, Cooper and I took down the tall sunflower plants we left for the winter birds.

Scarlett smelled them before she found the Juniper Berries. It’s Spring after all, they are filling with sap. She stuffed her pockets to take to her friend Savannah, she said. Hopefully Kelsie checked her pockets before doing the wash.

***

Amazing everything said is taken seriously. The figuring consciences is that both are inside us. Bad and good. We use them to get what we want.

Kindness works almost always. But if you have to fight back, fight back harder.

***

Don’t think I forget every old timer like me on the road is a desperate man. It makes me drive close to the shoulder. Not to mention the middle age driving up my ass and the youngsters taking too long in the Horton’s line. For the most part everyone is respectful. But you never know when that might change. We all have reason after all.

Early March

The fucking world keeps us on our toes. War, racism, bigotry, sickness; not a lot of good news out there.

Our connection to the Earth is in jeopardy. To be clear, the Earth doesn’t care. It will survive in spite of our abuse. Rocks can be moved, crushed and turned into metal, blasted into space even. It is us that have polluted that thin part of the sky that keeps us alive, no longer allowing us to see The Milky Way. The stars that put us in our place are gone.

No wonder we turn against one another.

Palliser Pass

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