Moose and Smoke

Special Air Quality Statement

Issued at 10:47 Wednesday 15 August 2018

Smoke is causing poor air quality and reducing visibility. Smoke is expected or occurring.

A westerly flow in the upper levels of the atmosphere is once again spreading smoke from forest fires over western Canada across Saskatchewan. Poor air quality and diminished visibility will be widespread across the advisory area while the smoke remains in place.

from The Weather Network

I have been working on a post concerning some lovely first edition Canadian poetry books I purchased on a trip to Saskatoon. But today has been such an odd day I thought it should take precedence. Last night we entertained company, on the way across the hay field to the cabin, they saw a large bull moose near the back slough. Then as they were leaving we noticed the beavers had brought down one of the few remaining Balsam Poplars along the lane. In theory they do not eat them, preferring instead the Trembling Aspen. So despite the fact that it was fairly smoky this morning I went out and put wire around the four largest trees on the lane. At one point I returned to the cabin for a saw and Helen pointed out the female moose and her calves in the slough. They stayed quite some time and I was able to get some photos, although the rusty colour of the smoke in the air, precluded a lot of detail. This was before 12:00.

Conditions have worsened until now at 2:30 in the afternoon we are submerged in aa eerie breathless orange void. The smell is not to bad but we need lights insider the cabin. These photos were taken then.

Franklin's Ground Squirrels

While taking photos of the Moose cow and calves I noticed the long grass in front of the porch rustling. My wife then pointed to these two little critters playing on the lane. Last year we saw our first Franklin's  ground squirrel. Apparently there was more than one. It is an interesting ground squirrel because it can climb trees, although we have not seen that. Also up to a third of their diet can be protein, and they will eat mice, chipmunks, birds and eggs, etc. We still have Least Chipmunks but the slough in front of the cabin normally houses Barrow's goldeneye and Bufflehead ducks but we have not seen many ducks in the slough this year. The Red Necked grebes are here but they build floating nests. The Franklin's become habituated quite easily, I was standing behind the cabin when one of the adults came out of the grass some 3-4ft from my feet, stood up on it's back legs to look me over then continued on it's way. 

“Surely,” he said, “the great mountains of the world are a present remedy if men did but know it against our modern discontent and ambitions. In the hills is wisdom’s fount. They are deep in time. They know the ways of the sun and the wind, the lightning’s fiery feet, the frost that shattereth, the rain that shroudeth, the snow that putteth about their nakedness a softer coverlet than fine lawn.” 

from The Worm Ouroboros
by E.R. Edison

Moose and Calves

"A moose has come out of 

 the impenetrable wood 

and stands there, looms, rather, 

in the middle of the road. 

It approaches; it sniffs at 

the bus’s hot hood. 

Towering, antlerless, 

high as a church, 

homely as a house 

(or, safe as houses). 

A man’s voice assures us 

“Perfectly harmless. . . .” 

 Some of the passengers 

exclaim in whispers, 

childishly, softly, 

“Sure are big creatures.” 

“It’s awful plain.” 

“Look! It’s a she!”"

from The Moose

by Elizabeth Bishop

I have not been updating the site much. Maybe a month ago my wife pointed out a cow moose and two calves swimming across the near slough and I was able to get some photos from the porch.

"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, 

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea sweep

And profit and loss."

from Death by Water

by T.S. Eliot

Common Terns in the far slough. Where have they journeyed and

what have they seen, that they declaim the tale in such shrill voices?

"In others, books make visible changes in readers over the course of their lifetimes, accentuate the temporal contingency of those changes, or stand for a perpetually postponed future."


from THE BOOK IS A TIME MACHINE

by David Henkin

http://www.publicbooks.org/author/david-henkin/

Some texts I have read recently or am reading that can be said to support this

in the most literal sense;

"The Chronic Argonauts" by H.G. Wells

Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of Eternity by Brian Stableford

Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension by Gaston de Pawlowski

Lilith by George MacDonald

Flight

"When the time of sorrow is come?

They will take the goat's path, and the fox's home,

Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords."

from A Song for Simeon

by T.S. Eliot

Storm coming?

"And beyond such a river, this ritual night

think of the summer weather questioning the corn

contoured for the rain, while the lightning crawls,

and a face like a news event approaches the world."

from Interlude

by William Stafford

"The stories you remember feel like mirrors,

And rereading them like leafing through your life at a certain age,

As though the years were pages."

from A Private Singularity

by John Koethe

full poem available here

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/57386/a-private-singularity