The Grid

"When for too long I don’t go deep enough into the woods 

to see them, they being to enter my dreams.

Yes, there they are, in the pinewoods of my inner life."

from The Faces of Deer

by Mary Oliver

"This is the phoenix the solution

Of a true perpetual motion

darting up from its own dust

On a wing that rides at rest."

from Now 

by Robert Finch

This young Bufflehead has not yet mastered flying.

Having spent more time on the slough we realized

this was a female distracting us as the young escape.

"The spirit on

its furious fins

flashing above

The sea of sense"

The Flying Fish

by Robert Finch

"We could go there and live, have a place, 
a shoulder of earth, watch days 
find their way onward in their serious march 
where nothing happens but each one is gone. "

from East of Broken Top

by William Stafford

Congratulations Lynda!!!

We took the canoe down to the small slough

directly in front of the cabin. On the way we

saw a Western Red Lily the provincial flower,

Lillum philadelphicum var. andinum.

Our disappearing pension, via Rose Breasted Grosbeaks.

We were looking to see if the higher water level would allow us

to drag the canoe directly to the larger slough. It will for now.

We saw the Red Necked Grebe that has nested in front

of the cabin with a chick on her back.

There still seem to be three eggs in the nest but she does

not seem to be brooding them

Every activity by the cabin is scrutinized by the Phoebes,

in the slough the Red Winged Blackbirds take over.

And they are not quiet about it.

 My pretty?

The way to the promised land, the other slough

This Bufflehead family were unimpressed with us . I am 

not sure if all these chicks are hers, ducks are like that.

The slough curves around (hence the name Banana Slough )

and the other side is pretty much cut off from any road or path.

Which is fine with this doe,

 and her fawn, 

who has a lovely spotted coat.

 While circling one of three beaver lodges within 

few hundred meters of the cabin to see a shorebird

we found it was also used by a Garter Snake.

My brother in law has seen them dive for leeches

while he was working in the water, they are obviously 

more comfortable in an aquatic environment than

we realize.

The cabin on it's shoulder of earth.

The whole grebe family take to the water.

We were always screened from the other slough until this 

year when the tree sharks ate them. This afternoon Helen

pointed out White Pelicans on the larger slough. If you squinted

you could see them from the couch. Cool!

Not a great photo but I took it from the front porch, cool again.

"Somebody spoke and I went into a dream."

from A Day in the Life

by The Beatles

"Love: as though the stars

rushed in upon a void, and in extinction

left a flower."

from Disintegration in a Dream of Love

by D.G. Jones

After a couple days of rain, note to self an uninsulated cabin

4 ft of the ground has no thermal mass and thus retains no 

heat, we are planning to add a wood stove, soon. 

Each year the environment around the cabin 

and the species present change. This year a pair of 

Yellow Warblers have decided to nest 3 ft. off the ground 

in a rose bush next to the porch. ( I just looked it up 

a nest is typically 10 ft. off the ground ) All photos were

taken thru the living room to avoid disrupting the

family, and my plans for a garter snake rock garden

there, put on hold.

First the male fed the female while she brooded.

Then the male took a break to do some brooding 

himself on his upcoming responsibilities.

Or maybe just enjoy the sunshine.

But soon the kids showed up. Hopefully they can

go undetected by the many Red Squirrels and 

Chipmunks in the area.

"But then I saw his luminous plumed Wings

prepared for flight,

and then I heard him singing glory

in a green tree,

and the I caught the vest he'd laid aside

all blest with fire."

from Marvell's Garden

by Phyllis Webb

“A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and 

full of wonders.” 

by Lord Dunsany

We had a bat in the cabin so the mouse related cleaning has 

expanded. Trips to the dump, nailing of boards, caulking,

reorganizing, plastic bins….,

 We brought the canoe over from the farm today so 

hopefully we can get out on the slough this week.

This Red Necked Grebe has nested on the far side of the 

slough directly across from the cabin.

We have had several days of rain for a couple of inches so far.

This family of Canadian Geese are also nesting on the slough, 

this is only the second year we have had geese here. 

The other night the beavers alerted us, with much slapping of tails,

to several deer on the far side of the slough. After several years

of only seeing a couple of deer for an entire summer it looks

like the population has rebounded.

We have also not see the bear or any of it's scat so far.

We have only see one garter snake in two weeks, normally we

would see multiple snakes each time we walked the dogs. It is

interesting to observe how the animal populations seem to 

fluctuate from year to year.

“Then I perceived, what I had never thought, that all these staring 

houses were not alike, but different one from another, 

because they held different dreams.” 

from A Dreamer's Tales

by Lord Dunsany

   We got to the cabin Monday. About five trees were down on the lane, so we had to get my brother-in-law to come by with his chainsaw. Had mice in the cabin for the first time. So lots of laundry to do, they picked my sock/underwear drawer for their nest. It looks like they all suicided in the bucket under the bathroom sink. About 4 or 5 but it was a pretty disgusting mess so I did not look too close. 

   A squirrel also started a nest inside by the kitchen door but he moved out when we got here, I don't think he was there long but we need a new pest proof door. My wife is duking it out with another squirrel in the outhouse, I may sprinkle some black pepper to drive it out of there, that normally works. 

   Another first, we have tent caterpillars in large numbers. Not close to the cabin yet but the trees around the slough are grey. We do have some nice orioles around the cabin, also coyotes yipping at night but I can no longer hear them. I can hear the grouse that are really drumming in the evening. 

   The beaver cannot chatter at me from the trees like the displaced Red Squirrels, but in the evening they circle in the slough below the cabin and slap their tails on the water to mock me.

(Week 1)

Hit the road Jack, and don't you come back, no more, no more..,

"He took then to waiting

till the night smoke rose from the boil of the sunset

But the moon carved unknown totems

out of the lakeshore

owls in the beardusky woods derided him

moosehorned cedars circled his swamps and tossed

their antlers up to the stars

Then he knew though the mountain slept, the winds

were shaping its peak to an arrowhead

poised

But by now he could only

bar himself in and wait

for the great flint to come singing into his heart"

from Bushed

by Earle Birney

But if we have the luxury of true mental freedom, there are larger concerns to be found. Look at the sky. Does space go on forever, to infinity? Or is it finite but without boundary or edge, like the surface of a sphere? Either answer is disturbing, and unfathomable. Where did we come from? We can follow the lives of our parents and grandparents and their parents backward in time, back and back through the generations, until we come to some ancestor ten thousand years in the past whose DNA remains in our body. We can follow the chain of being even further back in time to the first humans, and the first primates, and the one-celled amoebas swimming about in the primordial seas, and the formation of the atmosphere, and the slow condensation of gases to create Earth. It all happened, whether we think about it or not. We quickly realize how limited we are in our experience of the world. What we see and feel with our bodies, caught midway between atoms and galaxies, is but a small swath of the spectrum, a sliver of reality.

from What Came Before the Big Bang?

The physics and metaphysics of the creation of the universe

Harpers Magazine Jan 2016, 

by Alan Lightman

"In our short century or less, we generally aim to create a comfortable existence within the tiny rooms of our lives."

from What Came Before the Big Bang?

The physics and metaphysics of the creation of the universe

Harpers Magazine Jan 2016, 

by Alan Lightman