Snow geese on the way home

 We returned to Calgary in mid Sept to vote. The last day we also had our first really chilly night after a summer of drought and heat. We had hoped to see the huge flocks of snow geese sweeping south but that is always a tossup between when they appear and when we have to leave. We were really pleased to see some on the drive home. 

"Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - 
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things."

from "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

Beaver Hateman (An Uncle reference sorry)

 Helen and I have not walked around the property much this year. We take the dogs down the lane thru the trees and across the hay field, left fallow this year, which given the drought, was a great decision by Ralph, to the grid road. Otherwise we have stayed by the cabin. The other day we went along the edge of the Banana slough, named for it’s shape, although I think it looks more like a fencing staple, but that is not as poetic. We wanted to see the fall colour which is just starting. We also saw how the water level has fallen. We followed paths created by  the beavers who continue to make great inroads into our trees. The spit of land with the spruce trees was entirely covered by poplar when we bought the land from Ralph about 12 years ago. Also you could not see the slough by the lease which is now clearly visible to the right. This extends the view but also cut down on the trees available to thee birds, makes it hard to move around and hurts the security of the cabin a bit since it is much more visible. It will be interesting to see what the drought does to the beaver population which has risen steadily since the last drought ended. Otters have also moved into this general area and they will prey on the beavers kits. However I am not sure the farm has any habitat that would attract them. 

And rather that a quote a link to information about the Uncle books. 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/jun/20/theelephantnotintheroomw

It's been an odd summer

 

It has been an odd summer. Broken up by trips back to Calgary, heat domes, the drought, wasps and some personal matters I will not go into, we did not do many of the things we had planned. We did not make paths around the back slough, hook up the water system and install the grey water tank. We never got the canoe to the slough though whether the water level was high enough anyway is questionable. We did manage a lovely week in Grasslands Park which is another post or two.

It seems when we leave in a few weeks we will have again cancelled our travel plans but that is fine. More time to fuss with dogs and books and craft projects I really mean to start this time.


It is fall now, a couple days of rain mean the water tanks are full for the first time this year. All but one or two of the Franklin's Ground Squirrels have turned in. But we also had our first Thirteen-lined ground squirrel under the feeder. The White Throated Sparrows that have been lurking in the grass all summer are now jostling there with the chipmunks. Chickadees now seem to outnumber everything else but the drought has also meant we have shorebirds skirting the edge of the slough. This morning I started a fire to take the chill off before the family was up, caught the sunlight thru the smoke and startled a heron eying the ducklings. 

"one side so far from the other

it is impossible

to see across

without stepping out

                              onto a slick, tight rope,"

from (Re)conciliation by Cindy Clarke

Within These Lines

Singer-Songwriter Nanci Griffith (1953–2021)

 

A good interview with Nanci

https://acousticguitar.com/remembering-singer-songwriter-nanci-griffith-1953-2021/

Grasslands Park Last week and I will start updating again.

 

"do u understand what heaven is it is the surround of the living" 

James Merrill

The Changing Light at Sandover

I can snap them for the porch. Mocking me, while the family hauls away my trees one twig at a time.

 

"Cocked in that land tactile as leaves

wild things wait crouched in those valleys

west of your city outside your lives

in the ultimate wind, the whole land's wave. 

Come west and see; touch these leaves." 

from Midwest

by William Stafford

If you took an Uber in Washington, D.C., a couple of years ago, there was a chance your driver was one of the greatest living Uyghur poets.

 

Let there be a man who lived through the winter
Let him fill his inner pocket with rain
and find a farmer
sowing his fields with wind seeds
and let him say to the farmer: “Here I am.”

Three Poems by Tahir Hamut Izgil

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/tahir-hamut-three-poems/

Atlantic article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/the-uyghur-chronicles/

Red-Necked Grebe by the grid road.

Above us, stars. 

Beneath us, constellations.

Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies

like a snowflake falling on water.

Flying by Night

Ted Kooser

link to the full poem here,

https://www.tedkooser.net/excerpts/flyingAtNight.html

On the way home from town

                                                   

(from) Deer Stolen by William Stafford

Deer have stood around our house

at night so still nobody knew,

and waited with ears baling air.

I hunt the still deer everywhere,

Cabin June 3 2021

 

Last year we did not stay at the cabin. Instead we spent two weeks at the farm and the rest of the time in Calgary. We have been here a week and I have some observations. It is incredibly dry. We have noticed green popular leaves falling from the trees and blowing in the wind. I have only seen one Franklin’s Ground Squirrel in front of the cabin. Whether the colony has been reduced or whether some are  still denning I cannot say. We have not seen the Snowshoe Hare so far. For many years we only saw one. Two years ago we had a pair who produced several litters. Typically they take longer to habituate to the presence of us, dogs included. (one just showed up and was soundly barked at)  I have not seen a Red Squirrel but we can hear them. I have seen a couple of Least Chipmunks.

Catbird

Red Necked Grebes have nested in the slough in front of the cabin every year we have been here. This year the only visible nest seems low in the water  and I have only seen one bird so I wonder if something has happened. There seem to be more species of ducks at least visiting the slough including Scaups, Canvasbacks, Buffleheads, Goldeneye, Mallards, Blue Winged Teal, and a pair of Ring Necked Ducks which is a new species for us. We have seen the Bald Eagle, Turkey Vultures and Franklin’s Gulls flying overhead. The first morning we were here I photographed a female Oriole on the porch and one or more pairs has been around most days. We also have had Hummingbirds, Goldfinches, Chickadees, and a female Rose-breasted Grosbeck at the feeders. There are Phoebes and a Robin nesting on the cabin. Again there do not seem to be any Barn Swallows. We have had three pairs nesting on the cabin in one year in the past. There appear to be Tree Swallows by the hayfield, as well as Kildeer, Song, Vesper and White-throated sparrows, a Catbird and a Great Blue Heron. The beavers are omnipresent the number of trees continue to decline. 

I initially came to western Canada to participate in an archaeological field school excavating at Fort George, a Northwest Company post. Every year at the cabin I try to read some history books to expend my knowledge of the subject. Primarily these books focus the fur trade in western Canada and the culture and history of the indigenous people of Western Canada including the events of the North-West Rebellion. Sadly the discovery in Kamloops did not come as a great surprise to me. I would recommend the book Loyal till Death Indians and the North-West Rebellion by Blair Stonechild and Bill Waiser if you want to get a sense of the attitudes leading up to the situation we find ourselves today. I am currently reading Waiser’s A World We have Lost  Saskatchewan Before 1905. 

We are heading to the cabin soon. And Helen is busy with other plans as well so after a long fairly quiet period. we may be busy.

 

By this time next week we should be settled in a the cabin. 

Hopefully I will be updating my blog more regularly then as well.

"Life is a long walk forward through the crowded cars 

of a passenger train, the bright world racing past beyond 

the windows, people on either side of the aisle, strangers 

whose stories we never learn, dear friends whose names 

we long remember and passing acquaintances whose
names and faces we take in like a breath and soon

breathe away."

from Local Wonders

Ted Kooser

Old photos new quote

 Paula Gunn Allen

"We are the land… that is the fundamental idea embedded in Native American life… the Earth is the mind of the people as we are the mind of the earth. The land is not really the place (separate from ourselves) where we act out the drama of our isolate destinies… It is rather a part of our being, dynamic, significant, real. It is our self… It is not a matter of being 'close to nature'… The Earth is, in a very real sense, the same as our self (or selves)

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210420-mental-health-healing-the-trauma-of-climate-change

"Nothing There: The Late Poetry of John Koethe" by Robert Hahn

 "And that is why artists keep trying—to speak to something beyond the confines of the page, to move the stars to pity."

from "Nothing There: The Late Poetry of John Koethe" by Robert Hahn

https://kenyonreview.org/reviews/the-swimmer-by-john-koethe-738439/

 I am thinking about poetry and that can only be a good thing.

“Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.” ― May Sarton

 

This summer we will return to the cabin. 

Hopefully the beavers will have left us a tree or two.

“For any writer who wants to keep a journal, 

be alive to everything, not just to what you're feeling, 

but also to your pets, to flowers, to what you're reading.” 

May Sarton

Whateley and the snow cone

 "The snow came down last night like moths
Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,
Covered the town with simple cloths."



from First Snow in Alsace
Richard Wilbur

It looks like we can spend some time at the cabin this summer.

"Cocked in that land tactile as leaves

wild things wait crouched in those valleys

west of your city outside your lives

in the ultimate wind, the whole land's wave.

Come west and see; touch these leaves."

from Midwest

by William Stafford

The Ghost of a Flea by William Blake

"fleas were inhabited by the souls of such men 

as were by nature blood thirsty to excess."

William Blake

                                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_of_a_Flea

Work on the basement continues. I am also going thru old photos. Calgary Zoo lights.

 

"Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? "

from The Tyger

by William Blake

Shaun 2002 - Feb. 28, 2020

 

Shaun

After an hour of tests at the vet’s

you sat on my lap so quietly 

waiting for the verdict.

They said you were in great shape for a dog so old,

and with a bit of attitude. 

I was so proud of you,

you were so patient and good

so content to sit there.

A few weeks later you were gone

The last week I made your favourite, spaghetti 

to be sure you would have some,

then let you finish mine.

Going for a walk

two days after

I turned down a side street.

Because I could not face the curve of Northmount drive

where you liked to stop and lift you leg against every other poplar,

as we waited impatient to get home.

I wonder now, as we walk the neighbourhood whether

the other dogs will unexpectedly smell you against this tree,

that rock and find,

as I do while standing at the kitchen counter

or rolling over in bed,

some happy memory of you.

First Draft (it took a year)

Remembering

The next two photos are Wendolene and Shaun's mugshots 

from the Calgary Humane Society.