Just a reminder to step outside and try to spot Comet Lemmon, now brightening in northern skies. It may not reach the brilliance of Comet NEOWISE—seen here in 2020—but with comets, you never really know how bright they’ll become.
It’s finally starting to have a chill in the air. I found a home for most of my giant red cabbage. Sophie from Sophie’s Choice Pickles took it to make fermented sauerkraut. Her pickles are incredible and she sells out every year.
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The good neighbour Larry has been enjoying the carrots. I left a bag of them on his doorstep the other day. I didn’t stay to talk as I was in a hurry and figured he’d find them as soon as he came out the door. They are Chantenay carrots. If you know your carrot varieties you know Chantenay have short thick tapered bodies.
Later that day a friend stopped by who is quite religious. I behave myself in his company. As we talked outside, Larry came out and found the carrots. He grabbed them by the stems and walked to the edge of his property, celebrating the gift raised high, yelled across the road, ‘Thanks for the buttplugs!’
I looked to my pious friend and sheepishly said, ‘They are carrots.’
But I couldn’t resist an answer to my good neighbour as he expects it from me, and yelled back across the road, ‘They are various sizes so you can work your way up!’
He didn’t miss a beat and yelled back, ‘I’m no amateur!’
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If it clears a little, Willow and I may head out tomorrow morning to look for Comet Lemmon in the coming dawn. Hard to know if it will clear however as some are calling for snow.
The Huckleberries have been tremendous this year. We have picked plenty. Lisa has made delicious squares and other desserts.
The crop could be attributed to a wet spring and summer. Much different than we have experienced in recent years. The bushes may have produced a mast year, similar the way trees produce large number of cones some years.
This is an evolution strategy to overwhelm predators from consumption, and also catch up for years of bad weather. Humans may also have these cycles for similar reasons. The only difference is our enemy is often ourselves. For instance we have population spikes after wars. Natures way of replacing the species perhaps.
Right now population is in decline due to the state of the environment and humanities action towards ourselves. It is interesting, if the trend continues, population growth will stop and quickly decline. The earth may need a rest. Hopefully we won’t destroy ourselves completely, but it is possible. It is also possible, something else may come along to do the job, such as a virus or cataclysmic event. Nature has a way of evening the score and restoring balance.
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The garden has been good. The garlic has been harvested and dried. I have set aside the largest heads for seed to be planted in the fall. The kids have enjoyed the peas and Lisa pulled the vines today. There is plenty of beans and at least a few ripe tomatoes everyday. The carrots are delicious, the cabbage is forming large heads and will do it’s best growing once it starts to cool.
The weeds have been hell to keep up to this year. Probably due to the rain. The best year for lack of weeds was a few years ago when the grasshoppers ate everything down to the ground. Of course they did the same with the vegetables except a few that they seemed to dislike, including peas, tomatoes, zucchini and spuds.
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I’ve noticed the loggers cutting new roads into the bush in a spot we frequent. They are even building a bridge across the creek and heading straight up a mountain that had been spared until now. It is a mountain I’m well acquainted with having roamed it’s side since I was a kid. I’ve even walked it in the dark looking for stars, my ears cocked for voices talking in cyphers, while spirits stole my breath.
Long ago, when I was a youngster, I picked out a rocky bluff and cliffs, half way up, with overhanging trees, figuring if things ever got bad enough I could toss a rope around one and swing out never to return.
The view would be good with the high cedars and creek below. It was a spot I always kept in my back pocket. I think everyone has a spot whether they know it or not.
Now there will be a road below leading to massive clear cuts. I would have never guessed, when I was a young wanderer, it would go before I did.
Breaking through the trees for the first sight of the lake.
It was good to leave the valley where everyone is trying to separate tourists from their money. It is a scourge, troubling watching the lake and town gasp at it descends into overconsumption.
We were off into the mountains to a place my father and I hiked until his legs ached. I didn’t then but I appreciate it now. He let me go following the dry creek runoff all leading up.
Dave and I hadn’t hiked together for awhile. My fault as work has consumed me the past two years.
Once we turned towards the Palliser, the people were gone. The trail head was deserted. I slipped off a boulder at the creek crossing and had one wet foot that lasted the hike. Certainly not as sure footed as I once was.
The trail hasn’t seen much use.
The old skid trail was overgrown. We both carried bear spray. We remarked at the amount of bear sign. Dad used to attach bells to me a long time ago. I also carried granddads 30 30 rifle so often dad said I had one arm longer than the other.
The trail gained elevation through the alders and skunk cabbage. It has been wet and Dave stopped to take pictures of various plants and mushrooms. The spruce had new dark blue pitch covered cones at their tops. The nuthatches and grosbeaks will be plentiful come November.
A Rocky Mountain peak rising above the trail.
Strata once layered horizontally, under a sea of prehistoric shell fish, is pushed vertical in the highest spots. Millions of years work which we can’t fathom, thinking a lifetime is a long time. That these mountains don’t consider us is peaceful. We are of little significance in the hands of time. Even our damage will one day be undone the same as the trail we followed was grown over and hard to follow.
Mountain asters blooming and abundant along the trail and slides.
Once off the rise we stopped for a bite. I scoped the old trail across the slides north for grizzlies and moose. The trail we were on was much better than the one my father and I followed.
The remaining trail was flat with only a few deadfalls across the trail. The lake was right where we left it. It still takes my breath away as we clamoured out of the spruce and soft footing onto its rocky shore.
Cow moose yields the trail for a swim.
The slides on all sides of the lake were overgrown. On rounding a corner a large brown hump appeared. I started reaching for the bear spray and realized it was a cow moose. A moose can be as dangerous if it decides to charge. Since we had no where to go we took a few pictures before it turned our way and trotted not fifteen feet from us into a small pond leading to the lake. A fine encounter.
Tadpoles swimming in the shallow pools.
We found a flat rock to have another bite and look around. I took some directions measuring where the stars would align during the night at this time of year. Dave pointed out thousands of tadpoles swimming the shallows. Fish jumped in the middle and around the shores. I had caught some big fish here long ago. I found the old camping spot completely grown over.
Dave picks his way over the trail roughed up with bear sign.
After lunch we picked up the trail and headed above the lake to get a good look at the emerald water. We stopped as long as we could before we turned to follow the trail back as we were due back at the bottom three valleys over.
When ever I leave this place, even when I was a boy, I always wondered when or if I would ever see it again. To be here on this tiny sliver of time sharing the earth with these large spruce, rocks, flowing water and animals is a gift.
The river is full reaching almost to the top of the banks. Flowing quickly to the north. Catching the red willows, straight as arrows, flicking them forward until the spring back in a gracious whip. Green mud that mixes perfectly with the sky. Colours you only see at this time of year. A calendar without dates only sounds, bird calls, trickles and thunder. Smells like heat and moisture, the service berry ripening, some call Saskatoons, sweet, and the river running with high country snow and last nights rain.
The osprey doesn’t recognize me. It leaves its nest and circles above. Sizing, evaluating threat. I try to let it know we are old friends, but feel its distrust.
So often they would follow above as I walked the paths of bush to the lake. Back then it watched as my mind was on fish, railroad tracks, the spring in poplars, the wind putting a ripple on the water, just enough to obscure the weeds and fish swishing shadows, languid almost undetectable during calm, as I wondered how they saw their prey during a storm with a chop on the lake. Other than that I was oblivious most of the time, happy to roam the shore. A whistle would make me turn skyward or to a snag then back above to the railway and someone approaching. My signal to move along, to avoid the day being interrupted by the crudeness of conversation or worse, a scolding or beating. Once further down the shore or back under the canopy of bush the osprey would have followed. But I didn’t keep track back then.
The mosquitoes had me. Lifting me among the clouds. They buzz in my ears and around my nose, I shut my eyes and try not to swat, in case I am to fall from such a height. Above the river I can’t see the fish through the summer murk. The osprey still holds me in its eye, assessing, wary. Its wingspan and hooked beak, turbulent, knowing honour can put it at risk. I hope it can see through the chop on the surface, through time and hurt, even if I can’t.
Noticed a big waning gibbous moon a couple mornings ago. It stayed well into light, hanging around till damn near noon. I used to be up on these things. Moons, birds, when the orchids would bloom to the day. Now it is lucky to get out.
It could be age taking the energy, or the job. Can’t work like I used to. It takes a bit to recuperate. No sense bitching. It’s not my invention. There is only bone on my shoulders these days and it ain’t coming back.
Good sense cackling in fury and ranker, or high in spirit like the Redwings in the marshes dashing between the cattails, leading hither and yon, it is hard to tell, regardless there it goes, fluttering jumping in the breeze getting smaller between clouds of mosquitos, still a marvel, one day gone for good.
A tight crop of a 200mm frame. The crescent moon is 6% or 7% illuminated.
A crystal clear morning. Venus came up in the morning dawn. The sun caught the top of the peaks in the west before it rose over the mountains. The thin moon rose just before the sun. It was an old waning 6%. Due to its thinness and the morning light it was hard to see. I needed the binoculars to spot it at first. A Robin came and sat close to me and a heard of young Bighorn Sheep ran, about 50 yards in front of me. The way they were going I expected to see something like a coyote or cougar on their heels, but nothing. Something riled them however. The river is still clear and runs slow beside the tracks. Not long now the wetlands will be full. Next moon probably. Very fine morning.
Sometimes when you feel bad the best you can do is put one foot in front of the other and count it as a victory and let that small little victory lead to a little bigger one. The world often doesn’t see you the way you see the world. The world won’t see you hurt if you keep putting up small victories. Even if that’s only one foot in front of the other. Sometimes you may climb out of bed and think I don’t think I can do it. But you laugh knowing you’ve felt that way before. And you put one foot in front. And you look for those little miracles along the way. That squirrel on the line catching Pedley’s eye. The way her fur rises on her shoulders as she turns to attention. The commute, earbuds with Above and Beyond, that’s something, that drop after meandering through an electronic corridor, then a slow rise, getting faster with one door opening after another into brighter colours. Into work, like so many, but it’s not just a job, it’s to help others with the same hollowness that was nagging you earlier. It’s the realization we are so alike and different. Things are both terrifying and beautiful. And you put another foot forward and you count another victory and you hold a hand out and pull another like you up. And you put another foot forward. Soon the slow days, the hard days and the good days all become miracles.
There has been some snow the last five days. It is good to see. Most of my time has been spent on the end of the shovel or plowing the roads in a skid steer.
There are very few people under the age of 35 who like shovelling. Good neighbour Larry says, if there isn’t an app for it they don’t want to do it.
I’ve never minded it, like chopping wood it is good exercise.
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The District of Invermere (DOI) is off to a bad start with the roads downtown again. We had a wet snow that they neglected to plow so the streets are now rutted. You think they would have learned from last year as they were criticized in the local media and by citizens and tourists for the same situation.
I could care less if the streets are rutted. You would think, however, with the tax money they collect, the fleet of equipment and manpower DOI have at their disposal, that keeping the downtown streets plowed wouldn’t be that hard.
PS The last time I criticized DOI. A few Councillors and the Director of Planning accused me of writing rude anonymous Facebook posts critical of DOI council.
The world is in a terrible time with two wars. It breaks my heart seeing what is going on in the Middle East. Canada and the US’s support of Israel’s profound disproportionate response to the October 7th Hamas attacks which were barbaric. And now, Palestinian women and children being killed by the thousands. It is sickening. I don’t understand how our government supports this. Are we watching a race of people being wiped out?
The moon and Venus looked great today next to each other in the morning sky. I have read the moon occulted Venus in the Southern Hemisphere. That would have been something to see. I was off to work before it got lighter which may have made for a better photo. Regardless, the clouds rolled in as dawn advanced.
Lisa popped out this morning when she saw a few Bohemian Waxwings feasting on the frozen berries. These birds will gather in large flocks and strip the trees of berries in no time, even getting drunk on the fermented fruit. It’s something to see!
The dorgs, Willow, Lola, and I headed behind the mountains where the creek runs dry this time of year.
The snow started low and fell heavy further up, big juicy flakes. We met a couple of mushroom pickers. They were discouraged. I told them I saw plenty of shaggy manes down below. They were after portabella and chicken mushrooms. Once the snow melts they will be out.
Good to be out, running the muddy roads before they are frozen, facing skyward catching snow and spitting it out, watching dogs twist, chasing their tails, while the mountain pulses in silence.
Palliser Pass 