Tag: writing

May Burn

RCE_9738smColumbia Lake. The haze is from the many controlled fires being burned in preparation for, what could be, a busy forest fire season.

Feels like we skipped over Spring and went straight to Summer. Warm temperatures in the mid 20’s, blue sky and everything greening up. It won’t be long and we will be praying for rain.

Hiked with Dave, Chad and Todd to the top of the hoodoos. Willow chased grouse and gophers. Sending them into the trees and underground, respectively.

RCE_9774A Blue Grouse struts his stuff. Once Willow caught wind, she put him in a tree. 

The hoodoos are featured prominently in the Ktunaxa Creation Story. It is said they are the remaining ribs of a large water monster that once inhabited the Kootenay and Columbia River systems.

RCE_9775Arrow Leaved Balsam Root. Arnica. False sunflower. The Ktunaxa called it xaǂ. Every part of the plant is edible and was an important food source for the Ktunaxa people.

It’s damn steep once on top with spectacular views of Columbia Lake to the north and Dutch Creek directly below.

RCE_9729Lisa remarked at the length of the Pine needles, saying they would make good weaved baskets. Lisa makes lovely pine needle baskets.

The mountains are still snowed in, but won’t be for long with the heat. Lisa and I went as high as we could last weekend looking for Mountain Orchids. They are close, yet still behind, we found their flat leaves on top of moss on the forest floor.

RCE_9755A couple of Swallows take in the view.

The hike back from the Hoodoos was uneventful, but for a small snake that crossed our path. It was enjoying the heat when we came along. I can never remember seeing one so early in the year.

RCE_9782A small Garter Snake sharing the trail. 

My mother used to tell us kids to get outside in the hot days of May and get sunburned. We were white as daisies after the long winter. She said, by the time it was summer it would turn to tan, and we wouldn’t have to worry about the sun burning again.

I am not sure if that parental advice would go over today, but I’m sure glad I got it when I did.

 

sparrow

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A couple of Robins in the garden this evening. The one with the rosy breast hopped around showing off. The other, with a rusty breast, pecked for worms, which are easy to find this time of year.

A constant warm wind is already drying the ground. I watered the seeds planted a few days before. They will come up with or without my help. Still, I have to pretend I’m useful.

I peeled the bark off the firewood I cut in the fall. The trees were down and dead when I found them. Bug killed. Under the bark the larvae were coming back to life. Amazing, these small creatures survive the cold winter under the thin bark. They must be made of anti freeze. They awaken just in time for birds to peck and find them. If Cooper were here I’d grab a couple, thread a hook and show him fish like them too. We would keep the fish and eat it. Without saying a word he would know those bugs were important.

I let two fish go on the weekend. They were beauties. A rainbow and a grayling. They were both brilliant silver. I caught them in the last clear water of spring.

There is plenty of truth and nonsense to go around. Willow barks at sounds far away. I awake and think this is it, then realize I only need to pee.

late April

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Got the garden tilled. It raised to 20° today. It is freezing tonight. This is the part of spring that feels good. The backroads are melting and drying. It will go on for awhile.

Somehow I got a sliver stuck in my finger. It’s a good sliver. In deep. Much bigger than the hole it left going in. Maddy says she is going to come out and extract it. It should be infected by then and will come scooting out. She says she wants to put it on youtube. People love that stuff, she says.

My finger is swelling. I’ll give her till Saturday then, if she hasn’t come, I’ll cut my finger open.

I feel behind watching spring. The birds chatter. I try to see them. Sometimes they reveal themselves and sometimes they don’t.

Somebody looking in would say it’s all by rote, but they would be wrong.

The garlic is up. It’s clear as a bell. The rain is coming. It’s still early enough to turn to snow.

Nothing lasts in spring. Nor does it look the same way twice.

a piece of April

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The Robins that were late returning seem to be everywhere now. They have been poking around the manure and compost in the garden. A fork full of dirt reveals worms working the soil. It’s time to put my back into it and get ‘er dug. I haven’t looked yet to see if the Robins are cleaning and refurbishing last years nest. I will give them privacy until the foliage returns and they can hide behind the drapery.

getting on i guess

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i wipe my eyes with the same hand holding my glasses.

i pee in the middle of the night and keep the seat up because i know i ll pee again before morning.

there is no longer need to exclaim.

time does go by faster.

do you have bumps behind your ears? skin tags and brown spots in spots you never knew you had? asking for a friend.

fort

RCE_9396smLow clouds cast shadows on the ice.

The ice on the lake is hanging on. It will take either wind or rain to get rid of it. The ice wasn’t as thick this year as the year before. It snowed on the weekend and I was glad to see it. I like winter. There is something about fresh snow and spring clouds.

Spring is coming. I’ve always liked late snows.The birds are making lots of noise. The rhubarb is breaking through the ground. Soon the garlic and last year’s lettuce seeds will be showing. I should dig the garden early this year. Get the spuds, carrots, beets and peas in early. As usual, I started a few tomatoes and weed plants inside. Black Cherry and Early Girl for the tomatoes and a Sativa for weed. They will be ready to transplant by the end of May.

The backroads are mud, ice and snow; in that order. I have been keeping to the valley bottom for Willow’s walks.

A few winters ago I spotted what looked like a treehouse from a distant hillside perch. It is a spot I only walk in the winter. In spring, fall and summer it would be well hidden with foliage. I have always intended to check it out, but deep snow always deterred me.

On the weekend I found myself again looking at it across a mile wide coolie. Still hard to see, it kept starring back. Since there was little snow I thought I would finally check it out.

RCE_9384Three windows, aesthetically placed.

It was a bit of a scramble, through thicket and deadfall, the route I choose, but other than carefully crossing a small patch of thin ice over moving water, it was a nice walk. The treehouse had been there awhile and had been abandoned for just about as long. There was no way into it, not for me anyway. The ladder was long gone. There was a thin rope hanging. Too old and thin for me. I stayed looking up, where I belong

It wasn’t the work of kids. It had two sunning decks, a locking door and three framed windows facing east. Not a bad set up. My guess it was built by young adults for a place to squat during summer while working trades, though the trade wouldn’t have been carpentry.

Packrats had shredded a bed or mattress and stuffing lay below the fort. Willow enjoyed going through it. She loves chasing rats when given the opportunity.

RCE_9389Watch that first step.

A roll of poly lay covered in forest debris. Old beer cans scattered. Those beers must have tasted good on a summer day watching the sun leave the eastern mountain tops from such a vantage point. Most of the trees used for support were dead or dying. The firs would survive. They will be stunted but standing long after the fort disappears entirely.

It was a steep haul back to the trail that the here and there snow made double difficult. Should be a quick melt from here on in.

Early April

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To be young, feel the wind, the cold and the pull of the clouds on a string. I remember back to those days, only a short walk from where Cooper flew his first kite.

The bunch grass overlooking a frozen lake, the blue mountains majestic, tho we didn’t consider them, since they’d been there since we were born. Same as the lake and the train hauling coal and sulfur.

Times are different. It’s not necessary to fly a kite anymore. It’s not necessary to see it dip and learn when to run.  To pull the string and walk with the wind, watching it stagger, then when the moments right, turn into the breeze and watch it dance back into the spring sky. It was essential once. It was essential to let out all the line, risking the high winds that could send it crashing back to earth. But to master those winds was a craft indeed.

It’s not necessary anymore. There are so many more important things, I’m told. My problem is I never figured them out, nor considered them.

Cooper got it right away. The string, the wind and the sky. It’s nice being his Granddad, because I get to show him good things, while he reminds me how lucky I am.

Very fine day.

Jumped

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Chased a Kingfisher around the sloughs. It was having fun with me. I’d get the camera to my eye and it would launch into the sky a chatter and waving. It came back when I turned my back, trying to get my attention. I am old enough not to mind being made fun of.

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A herd of Goldeneyes took to the sky when we crested the hill after the tracks. It was Willow’s fault this time. She considers the shore and river her own. I tell her she is too small to think so, but she doesn’t listen to sense; never has. I’m guilty too. It’s a miracle, sometimes to our detriment, we get to hang onto our beliefs. So far the coyotes have been kind enough to let us continue to lie to ourselves.

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A Bald Eagle stood for us. Even turned it’s head away, not concerned, looking to the slough in the west. It whistled to it’s mate hidden in the tangle. They will be picking chicks off the water soon. Diving for newborn lambs on the crags above the river. Some will loose their balance. The smell of blood on the rocks below will bring Magpies, Crows, Ravens, the Wolves will get a whiff, by then the Eagles will be back in the trees, nesting.

nest

Willow is much more comfortable with all this than I. She raises a ruckus over the littlest thing and cares naught over swimming the river that rises quick once the sun reaches midday.

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Sometimes it makes me wonder who’s in charge. The Big Dipper is pouring by midnight. The Coyotes yip yip at the waxing moon. The first of the owls who who in the morning before light. All this while I keep steady.

2 late to classify

Lots of people say their dog is trying to tell them something.
Not sure about that.
Mine is sitting to the left, where she always sits,
When I’m stoned.

late march

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At loose ends these days. Took to the creek in the evening. Thought it would be good to be under the trees. Up the road someone had cut a big live fir. It landed across the road. They had taken the bulk of it and left the rest that had fallen to the other side. Too much work to tramp through the three feet of snow, probably.

You can tell a lot about people’s tracks. These were lazy people. They didn’t need the wood or they wouldn’t have cut a live tree. It will be a year before it can be burned. With all the dead wood it seems a shame to cut a live tree.

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Why should I care. The province allows clearcutting of entire forests. Places I used to wander beside the Palliser look as if they have been scorched by fire. Even the thin stuff up Windermere Creek is fair game. Slash piles and oil cans, the only thing left over. Sure it will grow over. The abuse the trees and creeks and land puts up with and still survive is a miracle in itself.

Lisa likes to call me the ‘tree police’. Suggesting I take things too seriously. She loves a grove of trees in an area we frequent. She finds peace and healing there. The trees rise above all others and reach their spiny fingers into the sky. Darkened grey or white, green and blue they are a sight that never fails to uplift.

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One of the trees is leaning. It has woodpecker holes up it’s trunk. Limbs are breaking and not being replaced. It lives, but is dying. We have been watching for several years, wondering when it will fall towards the creek.

I tell Lisa some day we may come around the corner and the trees will be cut down. She doesn’t agree, the trees are of a variety that are not normally harvested. There would be no reason to cut them down, but to watch them fall. She has more confidence in humans than I.

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A town politician/developer in the village at the headwaters of the Columbia River talked about, ‘a God given right, that if you pay a bunch of money’ for a second home, a person should be able to do what they will with the lake shoreline to launch their motorboats.

God given rights, sure as shit, have fucked things up in the past. It’s what allows pollution to flow downhill. Everything and anything below us is on their own. It’s why we look at mountains, trees, rivers and creeks as dead, as something only to be conquered.

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It’s been grey for awhile now. Typical for March. Wind and spit. Mud and melt. The buds are appearing on the low brush, when I squint my eyes I can see them on the high branches also.