“All the world, as a matter of fact, is a mosaic of little places invisible to the powers that be. And in the eyes of the powers that be all these invisible places do not add up to a visible place. They add up to words and numbers.” 

from Jayber Crow

by Wendell Berry

My wife and I enjoyed driving about the countryside this summer stopping in small towns and looking for birds. Just outside Krydor (the name is an amalgamation of parts of the names of two early founders) we stopped at this church. The first Ukrainian Services in Krydor started in 1921 in private homes, the present church appears to have been completed in 1945. The sign outside identifies it as the Ukrainian Orthodox Mission of St Peter and St Paul. The current town of Krydor (first postmaster 1918) has 25 residents. I did not take any photos of the town itself which I regret. There was small main street of a couple of blocks with a number of the small wood frame false front stores and businesses common in the Canadian prairies from 1900-1930's. All appeared to be boarded up, the only sign of activity a new super-mail box outside one building. I hope to go back next summer but for now here are photos of the church. There was one headstone from the 2000's and the grounds are well maintained.

"He sees that they are the dead, and they are alive. He sees that he lives in eternity as he lives in time, and nothing is lost. Among the people of that town, he sees men and women he remembers, and men and women remembered in memories he remembers, and they do not look as he ever saw or imagined them. The young are no longer young, nor the old old. They appear as children corrected and clarified; they have the luminous vividness of new grass after fire. And yet they are mature as ripe fruit. And yet they are flowers."

From Remembering

by Wendell Berry

Dance

"So gradual in those summers was the going
     of the age it seemed that the long days setting out
when the stars faded over the mountains were not
     leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew
glittered in the webs it appeared then that the clear morning
     opening into the sky was something of ours
to have and keep"

from The Speed of Light

W.S. Merwin

The migrating birds are going or gone now and soon we will

follow them, but while touring sloughs a few weeks ago we 

saw a number of Sora, a bird we rarely see. The adults stayed

well hidden but here one perfect tiny dancer completes the 

last steps of her dance before her final curtsey.

“Sometimes I need

only to stand

wherever I am 

to be blessed.” 

from Evidence?

by Mary Oliver

"Well, what tongue does the wind talk? 

What nationality is a storm? 

What country do rains come from? 

What color is lightning? 

Where does thunder goe when it dies?” 

from Something Wicked This Way Comes

by Ray Bradbury

On July 4th I wrote about a big thunderstorm we had. Aside from

dog related trauma things seem to go okay. However the next day

my brother-in-law found one of his younger cows dead on a hill 

in the pasture possibly struck by lightning. It definitely struck this

poplar trees in one of the hay fields.

This summer we have seen mostly Red Tailed Hawks, they

haunt our hay field daily. These photos of a Red Tail on a

truly awe-inspiring rock pile are the result of a trip to look 

for shorebirds that we took last week between Lac La Peche 

and Hafford Saskatchewan.

Sorry about the different fonts blogger will not post the edits.

"Look! Look! he is climbing the last light 

Who knows neither Time nor error, and under 

Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings 

Into shadow. 

Long now, 

The last thrush is still, the last bat 

Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom 

Is ancient, too, and immense. The star 

Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain. 

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear 

The earth grind on its axis, or history 

Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar."

from Evening Hawk

by Robert Penn Warren

"I go and lie down where the wood drake 

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. 

I come into the peace of wild things 

who do not tax their lives with forethought 

of grief. I come into the presence of still water. 

And I feel above me the day-blind stars 

waiting with their light. For a time 

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."

from The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

I took the first three photos last year, these sawhorses 

of scrap lumber were made many years ago by my

 late father-in-law and they acted not only as a perch for

  Phoebes and a jungle gym for chipmunks 

 but also as a reminder of John.

  

I always think of chipmunks as creatures of parks and camp sites, 

easily tamed, not really wild. The next three photos were taken

while canoeing last night. This inquisitive chipmunk climbed thru

a maze of branches to watch us go by. There are no house or 

cabins for a mile or more. It is both curious and wild.

"Just consider how the mere idea of it alone
Has already caused me to sing and sing
This whole morning long."

from Rolling Naked in the Morning Dew

by Pattiann Rogers

More small animal yoga poses.

"Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?"

from Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branchess

by Mary Oliver

These shots of the Red Squirrel are from last year.

at the cabin. I am still trying for good photos from 

this year.

"Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches 

of other lives --

tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, 

hanging 

from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, 

feel like?"

from Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branchess

by Mary Oliver