Some pictures of the farm. This is the original house that

occupied the homestead. Built sometime around 1912 it is a small

long cabin. Helen's family did not own the land then.

This is the second house on the farm. Built in the 1920's some

vistors have suggested it was a kit house from a catalogue and

shipped out by rail we are not sure. Some older vistors claimed to

have attended dances there. My wife lived there as a child
until the new house was built.

Willows by the drive

Bales in the pasture

Country Roads

"It seems I must content myself to be

a poet of quiet places and gentle hands

of sun-streaked sky and rough-edged voices

dusty prairies towns and wind-burned faces

eveything so commonplace and familiar"

Sitting on a high bank

                        over the South Saskatchewan River

                     Glen Sorestad

My wife and I spent Easter at her family farm.

We have 80 acres of mostly aspen parkland

that we purchased for a cabin.

This trip we laid out where the posts for the

cabin would go with her brothers. Actual

construction should start in July. I had hoped

for a few shots of birds and maybe a wild flower.

There were no flowers, it was pretty brown yet

but I did see an number of butterflies talk

about tough bugs. There were small flocks

of robins moving thru, hawks and some warblers

but it was pretty quiet. The ducks and geese were

back but a lot of the sloughs are still frozen.

These shots are from our property. We have

some nice views and a fair bit of water.

I will be posting more for the trip in

the next week or two.

"The trees that have it in their pent-up buds

To darken nature and be summer woods --

Let them think twice before they use their powers

To blot out and drink up and sweep away

These flowery waters and these watery flowers

From snow that melted only yesterday."

                            Spring Pools

                                          Robert Frost

"But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,"

                                             Mending Wall

                                                          Robert Frost

Taken April 17th, 2011

"May the bare sticks soon

live, and our minds go free

of the ground

into the shining of the trees."

                          The Finches

                                       Wendell Berry

"It has to be loved as if it were embroidered

with flowers and birds and two joined hearts upon it. 

 It has to be stretched and stroked. 

 It has to be celebrated. 

 O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it.
 It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet.  "

                                                  Planet Earth

                                                                     P.K. Page

"Did I believe I had a clear mind?

It was like the water of a river

flowing shallow over the ice."

                              Breaking

                                              Wendell Berry

 

"Why wait? The squirrel beats his torch-tail

on the pine tree's bark.

The half-moon with its peak sinks down

into the sun that snuffs it out. It's day."

          Motets

                             Eugenio Montale

taken April 17th 2011

                                                                       

" It is another country

There is not speech there such

as we know; even the colours

                                                         are different"

                                                      Out There

                                                                          R.S. Thomas

Taken April 17th, 2011

" O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul."

                                 Sailing to Byzantium

                                                    W. B. Yeats

"My streetllamp is so glacially alone in the night,

The small paving stones lay their heads down all around

where it holds up its lightumbrella over them

so that the wicked dark will not come near."

                                               Light Pole

                                                     Rolf Jacobsen

Wednesday I was taking some photos at a

lovely pond with ducks and geese and it looked

like spring. Wednesday night 6 inches of heavy

wet snow with lots of slush and we were back

to a winter wonderland.

Thursday I dropped by the pond a little

after seven. One brave feathered icebreaker

was making some paths.

Some folks were just looking iconic. 

I went back at lunch.  It looks like interpretive

dance has broken out

And back in the parking lot some of us

are still sprucing up for spring.

" Calling softly to the fixed lakes

As earth gets up in the frosty dark, at the back of the Pole Star

And flies into dark

Through the precarious crack of light

Quacking Wake Wake"

                                        The Wild Duck       

                                                Ted Hughes

Wednesday at lunch I went to a pond near my

office. Last week it was ice covered, now it

has melted and the mallards and geese are

enjoying it, which involved chasing each other.

The pond is fed by pumps that

are not actually turned on until May to

discourage nesting. Either the policy has

changed or I think this may be melt water,

we have had a lot of snow this year.

I suspect someone has already been
feeding them, they get pretty chummy.

"When the geese come back in the Spring
And they learn that their friend has gone,
I wonder will they take to wing
And try to follow him on?"

 

"There were hunters wherever they flew,
And snares for the careless wing.
Now, they'll grieve for the friend they knew
When the birds come back in the Spring."

both verses from a

Tribute to Jack Miner
                  by Edgar A. Guest

 While Canadian Geese are not popular I was

raised in Southern Ontario and made many trips
to the Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary.  A hunter turned

conservationlist he worked a great deal with

Canadian Geese and was nicknamed Wild Goose

Jack. Some claim he was actually so successful

in attracting geese to his property that he

changed the flight paths of the migrating geese.

An indulgence after a long week.

"in your dream there had been a pencil

or a pen or even a paintbrush

if only there had been a flower"

             A New Poet

                               Linda Pastan

"the walk liberating, I was released from forms,

from the perpendiculars,

     straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds

of thought

into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends

          of sight:"

                                                

The quote above is from one of my favorite

poems Corsons Inlet by A.R. Ammons. While

my walk was restricted to the parks and

parking lots close to my office I try to capture

some of the spirit.

"so I am willing to go along, to accept

the becoming

thought, to stake off no beginnings or ends establish

      no walls: "

                                                                                                     Corsons Inlet  

                                                                 A.R. Ammons

Hi, are these the Willie Wonka auditions?

     

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

                                   Sunset Boulevard