"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

from I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935), 
by Upton Sinclair

Young Grebes

                          "It does no take courage, Quixote.

                           to slaughter windmills in a windy world

                           or tilt against entrepreneurs.

                                                     It is a waste of  breath

                           to criticize vast corporations

                           The difficult thing

                                                    is to sit still

                                                    like a child in the yard

                           while the whole bleak catastrophe of winter

                           descends like a glacier into the soul."

                           from Soliloquy to Absent Friends

                           by D.G. Jones

Zipping around the Big Slough

"This is the best—

throwing off the light covers,

feet on the cold floor,

and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,

a palmful of vitamins—

but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,"

from Morning

by Billy Collins

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

"So heavy

is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,

always it is a surprise

when her smoke-colored wings

open

and she turns

from the thick water,

from the black sticks

of the summer pond,

and slowly

rises into the air

and is gone."

from Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond

by Mary Oliver 

The Strike

“If you keep the faith I will exist

at the edge, where your vision joins 

the sunlight and the rain: heads in the light, 

feet that go down in the mud where the truth is.” 

from Spirit of Place : Great Blue Heron 

by William Stafford

Yesterday we managed to launch the canoe out onto the big slough from the hayfield. It is a lot easier than trying to drag it across thru the brush with all the beaver runs hidden by tall grass. We saw few small birds, but we did see the Osprey, Kingfishers, Grebes, Ducks and especially the Great Blue Heron.

"And when the blue heron, breaking his long breast feathers,

sees one feather fall, does he know I will find it?

Will he see me holding it in my hand?

as he opens his wings

softly and without a sound—

as he rises and floats over the water?

And this is just any day at the edge of the pond,

a black and leafy pond without a name

until I named it."

from Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones

by Mary Oliver

Road Trip Krydor to Hafford Part 2

“…this country would always be populated with presences 

and absences, presences of absences, the living and the dead. 

The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, 

and of the world that is to come.” 

from Jayber Crow

by Wendell Berry

After our visit to Krydor we drove to Hafford about 21 km away.

A 2016 photo taken from outside the bistro in Hafford. 

These are typical prairie towns with beautiful skies and 
landscape that stretches off forever.

Hafford with a population of  360, still maintains the normal small town

businesses, a CO-OP, credit union, pharmacy, grocery etc. I noticed that

in 2017 the sign has been removed from this business I photographed 

in 2016 and it as been boarded up. Hafford does have a K to 12 school a 

vital link in maintaining community health. 

We also had to stop at the Hafford Ukrainian church, the distinctive

silhouettes of these churches are a beautiful feature of the 

Canadian prairie.

Photos of the church in Krydor taken in 2016 can be found here.

https://thatsjustthewildwood.blogspot.ca/search?q=krydor

An extensive article on Nykyta Budka can be found here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nykyta_Budka

“Some of the best things I have ever thought
 of I have thought of during bad sermons.”

from Jayber Crow
by Wendell Berry 

Road Trip Krydor to Hafford Part 1

“You may say that I am just another outdated old man 

complaining about progress and the changes of time. 

But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, 

and am prepared to submit to correction by anybody who cares 

about a community, who can show me how the world is 

improved by that community's dying.” 

from Jayber Crow

by Wendell Berry

Last year we went through the town of Krydor, we spent 

most of our time at the church, a link to those photos will

appear in Part 2. I noticed the boarded up stores then and so

we came back this summer to look around. There are signs of

life, the community hall is maintained, the church kept up,

there are recycle bins. But as you can see the main street consists

of boarded up stores and vacant lots. My brother in law pointed

out that most have metal roofs so some attempt has been made to 

maintain them. Founded in 1911 the town now has 25 residents.

As you drive through you see houses that have been abandoned

and a few with signs of life or an RV plugged in indicating some

seasonal occupation. As I said to my wife, it would be very

eerie to be a child in such as town at night, with all these dark 

overgrown homes and the vast dark prairie sky above.

Demographics can be as relentless as any tsunami. A few 

years ago the rural high school I attended closed after 112

 years in Harrow ON when the decision was made to consolidate to 

large towns. This immediately affected local businesses and the 

sale of town lots.

A link to other photos and some very interesting 

comments about the community of Krydor.

http://www.pbase.com/impalass/krydor_sk

"There was a river under First and Main, 

the salt mines honeycombed farther down. 

A wealth of sun and wind ever so strong 

converged on that home town, long gone. 

At the north edge there were the sand hills. 

I used to stare for hours at prairie dogs, 

which had their town, and folded their little paws

to stare beyond their fence where I was. "

from Prairie Town

by William Stafford

Cranes

"Autumn is crisp and the firmament far,

especially far from where people live.

I look at cranes on the sand

and am immersed in joy when I see mountains beyond the clouds.

Dusk inks the crystal ripples."

from Drifting on the Lake

by Wang Wei

Yesterday we took off in the morning, promising to finish the little jobs in the afternoon. We did. We went back to a series of sloughs where we saw Sora last year. We did not see a lot of birds, so we are not sure if we have missed the start of migration. Given there were no red winged blackbirds I suspect we have. But we did see Sandhill Cranes a bird we have wanted to see close-up for years. Ever since then my wife (I am too hard of hearing) has heard them passing overhead.

https://thatsjustthewildwood.blogspot.ca/2016/08/so-gradual-in-those-summers-was-going.html

Wilson's Phalaropes

Stilt Sandpiper

Sandhill Cranes

Blue Winged Teal on the prairie.

“If you are very lucky, you're allowed to be in certain places during just the right season of your life: by the sea for the summer when you're seven or eight and full of the absolute need to swim until dark and exhaustion close their hands together, cupping you in between.” 

from Bones of the Moon

by Jonathan Carroll