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.
There ain’t pictures clear enough to tell the story of the mountains. The rain is intermittent, same as the sun, both make the moment, all forgotten till next time.
We were hell and gone, looking for glacier fed lakes and rushing creeks. A busted rock exposed ore. It was kicked aside. Down the mountain overlooking clearcuts. Hoping no one would notice.
There were magic mushrooms and large toads in the bush, twisted snags, spruce, pine and larch, hundreds of years old, somehow missing snow slides and lightening strikes.
Those rolling rocks on top of scree will take my legs someday, but not today even with rain. Today the sky is my friend, mottled with clouds, bear shit and moose tracks, threatening either storm or sun. Lucky they stayed in-between where it’s good for us on the ground.
Very fine day.
It’s going to warm up. A light rain falls. My grandchildren have come to visit and they remind me time isn’t forever. I kick myself for not cherishing every moment. Lost in anger and differences, most in my youth, fuel, to make it this far. It’s not about becoming wiser or learning the err of my ways. It could never have been different. But now to see my granddaughter walk among the garden, my guard dropped, to be finally thankful for a long awaited gift.
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.
Elegance in anything is worth the paper it is printed on.
Which is a lot in this day and age
Have you seen paper lately
something good
printed on it,
or true?
***
All this time I’ve lived under the stars
and never once hurt
***
Even by my own standards
I’ve become a fake.
***
irony
***
I think not.
******
I am sick of bringing the dog in when she barks. She has the perimeter, both of us in here, fat as hamsters, her, waiting for me to eat something and me, racked with anxiety, eating anything.
******
3 hrs of darkness
\till tomorrow
Last light catches rain.
Perhaps when I get old (er), I said to Lisa, I’ll keep the camera nestled in my lap while sitting on the porch and take pictures of clouds.
Lisa said, sure, reassuring like I’d just slipped off.
Lettuce, self seeded, beside the compost.
The garden is still behind but showing promise. The beans came up like gangbusters. Not like other years. The cabbage is doing the best out of what was planted. The weeds are kicking ass, until tomorrow. That’s when I’m heading out there like a pimp with my angry hoe.
A few early black cherry tomatoes.
Just words. My friend, said, he wanted a shirt that said, free speech is more important than your feelings. I agree. The problem is, if you want the shirt, you have to be on the internet and buy it from the white supremacists.
A pterodactyl or blue heron, one or the other, flies into the storm.
Fathers Day. I was lucky. Phone calls and even a few Instagram tributes. It was pretty nice. Better than being like most of the dads on Instagram . . . already dead.
Tomorrow, I’m heading out there like I said. That’s the trick, and probably what makes a good father.
Very fine day.
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.
Palliser Pass 