Stories, Excerpts, Backroads
A few thinnings.
So far it’s been a wet summer. That’s ok with me if it means no smokey skies.
Spuds.
The garden is coming around like it always does in summer regardless of smoke, sun rain or mist. Even my negligence can’t keep it down.
Lavender.
Black Crimson Tomato.
Willow eats the last radish.
The look Willow gives trying to convince me to give her a bite of my breakfast.
It works every time.
Thundershowers on and off this past week. It is something we haven’t seen for the last few years. Thunder, yes, showers, no. Lightening without showers is hazardly in a bone dry forest, as the last two years have proven. With luck we won’t have smoke filled skies this year.
The garden is benefitting from the moisture and lightning that releases nitrogen. I have long noticed a growth spurt after thundershowers.
The garden is beginning to produce, we have wonderful salads each night, consisting of a mix of about ten different greens.
A small Song Sparrow weathers the storm.
Lisa, Willow and I were back in the bush today cutting firewood. We got most of it done between storms.
Very fine day.
fence line
“Yes I am. It’s on my resumé,”
said my neighbour,
after he was told
he wasn’t
an asshole.
***
My fence even half not up
still tomorrow should
prove promise.
***
It’s good not to be a connoisseur of anything. It allows us to drink bad beer and wine, eat all the the extra parts of the animal, enjoy Jughead and Crumb, figure a fine is sometimes worth it, tell bad jokes, unpolitically correct or just in bad taste, share stories about birds, flying, laughing. . . those superior bastards.
Plus what would we do without sub standard music? Shite, we would all be listening to Brahms and Taylor Swift.
***
My boss likes to say, we ain’t building a piano. He doesn’t say it to me. He knows I haven’t seen a piano since keyboards. But for the other guys. . . those old fucks.
***
Storm clouds with nothing in them, neither rain or wind. Most go west to east and jump the mountains. It’s the northerners you have to worry about. They care little for geography, and will flatten a garden in a minute.
***
Exaggeration isn’t just bullshit.
A small swallow enjoying the evening light.
It has threatened rain all day. Other than a few scattered drops it has stayed away. So far, this has been a dry spring, perhaps we will get our precipitation in June. June can be wet. However, I fear we are in for another dry summer.
Willow sporting her new haircut.
We got a new dog. . . well not exactly. It took two sessions but we gave Willow her annual stripping.
Wire Haired Dachshunds grow a thick wiry coat over winter and it has to be ‘stripped’ in spring. This is done by grabbing a few hairs at time and pulling them out.
Willow with her winter coat digging for spring mice.
It is not that bad because the hair has loosened and needs to come out. I’m not sure if the hair is even really attached to her anymore, but held in place by all the other long wire hair.
Once it is out they have a smooth soft coat for summer.
Cooper and Willow wrestling over a stick.
Although it doesn’t hurt her, Willow doesn’t like it. She endures Lisa and I pulling, while she thinks of hunting, letting us know if we grab a couple more hairs than acceptable.
At the end of it we have half a dog as what we had at the beginning.
Willow trying to talk me into a late night fetch.
Cooper and Scarlett hang loose.
Dug the last of the garden tonight. I am way behind this year. With luck I will get most of it in this weekend.
The cool weather stuff (lettuce, peas, carrots) could have been in 2 weeks ago. However, on the bright side, the good thing about planting late is everything can go in at once. Beans, kale, tomatoes. . . it’s all up to them.
Time seems to be of the essence now, like always in spring. There is only so much to plant a garden, or spend behind the mountain listening to the creek or watching stars playing hide and seek with the tree tops.
Somehow those old trees can still play tricks and make the most of time.
Willow and the beetle.
Riding in the back of the truck.
Was up early. Scarlett and I headed to the store. We were planning a big spaghetti dinner. Scarlett picked out ice cream treats. I let her have one for breakfast.
Good neighbour Larry sold plants, over the weekend, to tourists. Tomatoes and peppers mostly. They look good this year. Brandywine, Cherokee, Black Cherry and Thai Dragon.
The long weekend brings out the tourists in force. They race and honk their horns at each other. Sometimes they bump into each other in the parking lots and yell at each other. Still, I don’t blame them for wanting to be out here, away from Calgary and the malls, freeways, casinos, high-rises, pavement, neighbours that you live right beside but don’t know, shopping, shopping, fees and movie theatres.
We headed up the pass to look for orchids. We were only five minutes off the main road and we never saw another person. They were all fighting for coffee at Kicking Horse Café, thank God.
Last week there was still snow.
Turning wild.
Today, Scarlett and Cooper ran, climbed banks and contemplated the tops of trees. They found paths in the bush. They followed moose tracks until they were out of sight and we had to call them back.
Mountain orchid.
The Calypso Orchids were out. Small, among the forest floor, almost invisible, sinking into the moss.
Kelsie, Scarlett and Cooper, climbing towards the ridge.
I pointed out a snowy mountain and suggested we should run up there. Scarlett and Cooper took off in it’s direction. It had fresh snow. You can do much worse than run towards an unclimbed ridge.
The kids sat in the back of the truck for the ride off the mountain.
Mines and clearcuts.
In town or up the pass, it makes no difference, the creek still bubbles and the stars jump. In this day and age the trick is cutting out the noise and light. Not easy. Still, the stars and Milky Way outweigh fireworks anyday. The sound of a log caught on a sandbar, geese honking, trumps the gunshots and voices spouting nonsense.
It’s about putting your ear to the track, looking high and deep, not being taken in. It’s not that hard.
A robin who was singing into the sun turns his back for the camera and scratches it’s ass.
It was good to get out and catch up with the garden. Despite good intentions I am once again behind. Spring always seems to sneak up.
The garden needed digging. The garlic, planted in the fall is not yet up, it could be because it was trampled by the deer before the ground froze. It is hard to say if it will come up. The weeds got shaken and tossed to the side. Tomorrow I plan on running a rototiller through the garden and maybe get a few spuds in the ground. I’ve started a few plants inside, but they are not ready to be put out.
I think we should prepare for another dry one.
***
During the week Lisa and I headed behind the mountain along the creek. There is more yahoos in the bush then ever. We saw some people shooting down the road. We weren’t in their line, but somebody could have easily been. Before I could think, I was out of my truck and asking them what the hell they thought they were doing. They apologized, which I didn’t give a damn about.
Lisa calmly asked, once I got back in the truck, if my new thing is giving people carrying high powered rifles shit?
***
The sun felt good today. My head has been clogged with a cold. The first one I can remember in years. My arms are sunburnt and scratched from pulling out the old raspberry canes. Very fine day.
The absolute colour of spring.
We were able to slip behind the mountains into the bush this evening. Lisa said bring the camera we may see bears.
We did see a truck that looked like they were hunting bears. You probably wonder how I can tell if they were hunting bears. I will tell you sometime, but for now I will keep it to myself. I wish many hunters luck, these I did not.
We got higher than we have since November. Willow enjoyed the snow which was plenty and stopped our ascent just below where we find orchids.
Willow digs in.
I looked to patches without snow for orchids, though I knew it was too early. Willow ran for sticks and snowballs, raised her nose for the smell of rodents and scratched and dug for thawing scent.
Many of the slides have not yet come down. The grass is greening in the valley bottom. It felt good to be out breathing the air, listening for birds, feeling the last spring snow underfoot and looking for trees that died during winter to add to the woodpile.
Palliser Pass 