"NOW when the time of fruit and grain is come,

When apples hang above the orchard wall,

And from the tangle by the roadside stream

A scent of wild grapes fills the racy air,

Comes Autumn with her sunburnt caravan,

Like a long gypsy train with trappings gay

And tattered colours of the Orient,"

from Autumn

by Bliss Carman

From 2014 trip home found on old memory card.

"What faint sweet song out of the turning years 

Is thine amid the myriad songs of earth? "

from The Hepatica

by Archibald Lampman

The Bull

"Up there far enough you might hear the world, not 

what people say."

from The Prof 

by William Stafford

Last week we saw  a young bear on the point that juts out into the slough to the left of the cabin, the second bear we have seen there this summer. I did not get a good photo. Last night my wife pointed out that there was a moose on the right side of the slough. The ability to see these animals for our porch is one of the glories of this location.

"Cocked in that land tactile as leaves

wild things wait crouched in those valleys

west of your city outside your lives"

from Midwest 

by William Stafford

"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."

from The Peace of Wild Thing

by Wendell Berry

(trouble with font spacing today sorry)

Yesterday having run out of paint for the farm, we are redoing the outbuildings red with white trim, and having heard we were getting a storm today, one inch so far and no end in sight, we went bird watching. We headed out toward two historically Ukrainian/Canadian towns, Krydor and Hafford. More on these towns in a later post. One advantage to heading in this direction is the A&M

Bistro Bakery in Hafford. I am in no way associated with this enterprise, okay
(while in town we did purchase a ceramic rooster from people who professed to be their relatives at a yard sale, and we did have their cinnamon buns for breakfast) but my endorsement is based solely on merit.
http://www.bakeryinhaffordsk.ca/about/

The other reason for heading in this direction is a series of sloughs, we were hoping to see shorebirds and we learned last year birds here leave early.

We only saw one, shore bird. 

We did see some interesting ducks.

A Mallard? mom and brood.

One slough had both Redheads and Canvasbacks

hanging out together.

And we saw Ring-necked ducks at several sloughs

thanks Helen for the quick ID.

So it was a wonderful trip, we have not seen much less

photographed most of these duck species recently, and 

we still have cinnamon buns for tomorrow.

"From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,

Beautiful comical things

Sleeping or curled

Their heads beneath white wings

By water cool,

Or finding curious things

To eat in various mucks

Beneath the pool,"

from Ducks

by Frank W. Harvey

" We come into life with nothing and gradually we build 

up the vast, rich world of the self: language and knowledge 

and relationships and belongings and experience and 

memory and love. Above all, memory and love. "

from Words fail us: dementia and the arts

by Nicci Gerrard

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jul/19/dementia-and-the-arts-fiction-films-drama-poetry-painting

After a trip to an art exhibit in Rosthern, 

we had a lovely lunch as well, (see the

b & w photos,). We crossed the mighty

North Saskatchewan River on the 

Wingard ferry which is free, holds up to 

six cars and is a trip of several minutes.

Viewing these photos I think of other

journeys.

"Imagine that you see the wretched 

strangers,

Their babies at their backs and their poor 

luggage,

Plodding to the ports and coasts for 

transportation,

And that you sit as kings in your desires . . .

What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had 

taught

How insolence and strong hand should 

prevail,

How order should be quelled; and by this 

pattern

Not one of you should live an aged man,

For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,

With self same hand, self reasons, and self 

right,

Would shark on you, and men like 

ravenous fishes

Would feed on one another."

from the New Yorker, If you Prick Us, 

July 10 & 17, 2017

article by Stephen. Greenblatt, 

The quote's possible attribution, an

unpublished work by William Shakespeare 

from a play on Thomas More

Hayfield

"The least little sound sets the coyotes walking,
walking the edge of our comfortable earth.
We look inward, but all of them
are looking toward us as they walk the earth."

Photo taken in the hayfield last Aug. early Sept, 2016.

"Coyotes are circling around our truth."

from Outside

by William Stafford

Green

"I REMEMBER long veils of green rain

Feathered like the shawl of my grandmother-

Green from the half-green of the spring trees

Waving in the valley"

from Green Rain

by Dorothy Livesay