"I ain't a man of constant sorrow

I ain't seen trouble all day long

We are only passengers on the last train to glory

That will soon be long, long gone

I want to hop on the last train in the station

Won't need to get yourself prepared

When you're on the last train to glory

You'll know you're reasonably there"

lyrics from Last Train 

as performed by Arlo Guthrie

"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

Fires - Heat

" The sun is axeman among dry 
Slashings: he would clear 
Kindling from the rocky hills " 

Blue Jay in Haliburton 
D.G. Jones 

Still really hot here.

Last night after a lovely meal and visit with the in-laws we

were heading home, okay a couple of quarters down the road, 

when we noticed the most beautiful sunset. This is probably

the result  of enormous forest fires in BC, a couple of provinces

over. In 2015 fires some 500 miles north of us in La Rounge

Sask. meant the first few weeks of our first extended stay

at the cabin were quite smoky. Last year we saw some smoke

 from BC fires on the way back to Alberta, and of course there

was the huge fire in Fort McMurray in May before we came out. 

We have not smelt smoke this year but last night's sunset was

spectacular.

"I summon up the roller-coasting south, 

Cry birth day to the lion sun."

from Genii

by Dorthy Livesay

Franklins amid the moths

"I lean at rest, and drain the heat;

Nay more, I think some blessèd power

Hath brought me wandering idly here:

In the full furnace of this hour

My thoughts grow keen and clear."

from Heat

by Archibald Lampman

Very hot here today.

              Wednesday evening we noticed a small flock of Franklin Gulls

swooping through the meadow and skimming over the tops of

the poplars. You can see the trees on the left are green and 

heathy, these were the trees the gulls were attending. The distant

trees on the right were stripped early in the spring by Tent Caterpillers.

They are just starting to green up now. However using binoculars my

wife could see that a large concentration of the moths had appeared

above the green trees nearby and these were the targets of the gulls.

This behaviour continued for about 30 minutes.

All things are plotting to make us whole 

All things conspire to make us one.

Gwendolyn MacEwen

Blue Explosion

"This land like a mirror turns you inward

And you become a forest in a furtive lake;

The dark pines of your mind reach downward,

You dream in the green of your time,

Your memory is a row of sinking pines."

from Dark Pines Under Water

by Gwendolyn MacEwen

"Then morning showed

Infinity's proportions,

The proper height of sky.

Becoming small,  

We were grown up again."

from Growing Up

by Dorothy Livesay

Good morning starshine The earth says hello

"And up on the hills against the sky,

A fir tree rocking its lullaby,

Swings, swings,

Its emerald wings,

Swelling the song that my paddle sings."

from The Song My Paddle Sings

by Emily Pauline Johnson

Today we paddled across the Banana Slough and dragged

the canoe a short distance to the much larger slough next to it.

This will be the first of several posts as it was a productive

trip. We have canoed for hours in the larger slough several 

times but this was the first time we have seen moose. We first

encountered a female then a male both reclining in the water

probably to escape bugs. Both my wife and I initially thought 

the females ears were the wings of some bird trapped in 

the branches, odd but we both first interpreted the movement 

as wings.

The female stayed in place regarding us for some time, the

male we encountered later, moved off before I could get a

good photo. We were very pleased to have been so close to 

female. And seeing two moose was a real treat.

"Nor dares complete the sweet embrace.

Into the hollow hearts of brakes,

Yet warm from sides of does and stags,

Pass'd to the crisp dark river flags;

Sinuous, red as copper snakes,

Sharp-headed serpents, made of light,

Glided and hid themselves in night."

from Said the Canoe

by Isabella Valancy Crawford 

The Drink

"What I believe is

All animals have one soul.

Over the land they love

They crisscross forever.

from Climbing along the River

by William Stafford