That's no way to treat your wife

 

As part of our tick avoidance scheme we decided to have designated outdoor clothing, mine are tick repellent. These were hung on hooks outside the cabin. After a very cold night Helen went to put her sweater on and found a tiny field mice looking up at her. They are now stored inside. 

We have had Baltimore Orioles around the cabin for many years one nest is to the side of the porch. We never had much luck with an Oriole feeder, it was expensive, ignored except by a determined hummingbird and now it leaks. When I saw them trying to use our nice sturdy hummingbird feeder I put out navel oranges. The other day this became a bone of contention. But I am sure like most marital squabbles they will work it out. None of the other birds have shown any interest in the orange which is just as well. Sunflower seed are a lot cheaper.

“Neighborhood What do I care that they’re tearing down the nice old houses and putting up brutal ones? Before very long, I’ll be just a breeze blowing around town, trying to avoid all the wind chimes.”

Billy Collins, Music Tables:Poems

"A wonderful bird is the pelican. His bill can hold more than his belican."

“Anyone with quiet pace who

walks a gray road in the West

may hear a badger underground where

in deep flint another time is”

from Walking West

by William Stafford

I should never have stopped updating my blogs. They serve as a valuable resource to supplement my faltering memory. They improve my grammar, spelling and vocabulary. They are a wonderful way to share my photos, And they send me back to my many poetry books to find snippets to adorn my posts. 

We came to the cabin June 7th this year, our trip delayed by some medical tests, an all to  familiar consequence of aging. We had just finished packing the car when Helen got the alert telling us of the major water main break in Calgary, a situation that is still not resolved. So we are missing that. However we have to go back to Calgary in early July for a week or more and they may still be working on it. It is interesting how fragile our cities and our societies can be.

The first day here we had an adult and immature White Pelican exploring the slough directly in front of the cabin, they could easily be photographed from the cabin. They worked their way around the edge scooping through the weeds with their nets, filtering up, I assume luckless salamanders and frogs.The slough seems too shallow for fish. We have never seen any in this slough before. Unfortunately their search and our enjoyment of it came to an abrupt end when they entered the territory of a Red-winged Blackbird who drove them both off. 

As for the summer this far it has been exceptionally cool and very wet. The rain is welcome as many parts of the prairies have had years of drought conditions. However it has brought a huge number of ticks a pest that has only moved into the area in the last few years. I have required antibiotics several times after tick bits so this has reduced my wandering around the property despite bug spray and special insect repelling clothing. So we cutting back grass, checking bedding, clothing, the dogs, who are on medication for ticks, and each other on a regular basis. Today we plan on dragging one of the canoes down to the near slough thru the call grass so that will be interesting.

My late father-in-law John who always quoted this snippet by Ogden Nash would have loved to see them. Whenever one of the family sees Pelicans he springs to mind. A wonderful gift.

"A wonderful bird is the pelican.

His bill can hold more than his belican."

 

And again

 

"so I came straight off here, through the Wild Wood and the snow! My! it was fine, coming through the snow as the red sun was rising and showing against the black tree-trunks! As you went along in the stillness, every now and then masses of snow slid off the branches suddenly with a flop! making you jump and run for cover. Snow-castles and snow-caverns had sprung up out of nowhere in the night--and snow bridges, terraces, ramparts--I could have stayed and played with them for hours. Here and there great branches had been torn away by the sheer weight of the snow,”

                                                         Wind in the Willows

                                                                    Kenneth Grahame

Snow yesterday, snow today. And blimey, if it don't look like snow again tomorrow. And an appearance by the abominable Snow Whateley

 

The snow started Tuesday night and looks like it will continue for awhile. Still it is fairly light and not to cold. And Whateley is a fan.

Here,

I’m here—

The snow falling

Issa

Snow and home again.

"No wiser now 
Than the spellbound child
who first beheld beguiled, 
Long seventy years ago
Enchanted snow."

                                               Enchanted Snow 
                                          Melville Cane

After mentioning that there was little snow, it snowed on Jan. 5th, the day before we were heading back to Calgary.

Then winter arrived with a vengeance. I sent this email to my family on Jan. 12th.

"We are okay. We had to go out for a minor medical errand this afternoon. The temp registered outside the cab, we made no attempt to start the car, was -35. That was not the wind chill. I did do a bit on the walk this morning and I said to Helen it was about as cold as I could ever remember. Nina and Whateley are only out for a minute or so but sometimes Nina limps in and has to be carried up the steps from the landing."


But it is supposed to warm up on the weekend.

It has been a long time since we had a cow day.

 

I believe this unusually coloured cow is referred to as Mousey, but I find it is best not to get attached. 

Golden

Golden lay light upon the sill

after lunch, after school.

Day lingers slowly, a patch of light,

time pursues day retreats

but the moving trail is still new

and I wonder at the golden pool.

The window still speaks of sun

after night after years, decades of time

I see that golden time, still.

Guy

One of my older poems.

We are getting a few flakes at present, these photos show how much snow we had last January.

"White are the far-off plains, and white
The fading forests grow;
The wind dies out along the height,
And denser still the snow,
A gathering weight on roof and tree,
Falls down scarce audibly."

from Snow, by Archibald Lampman

Last night we had a lovely supper and visit with family

 

“Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.

Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies

like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,

some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,

snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn

back into the little system of his care.

All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,

tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.”

Ted Kooser, Flying At Night: Poems 1965-1985

After all, time is not money. It is an opportunity to live before you die. Donald Culross Peattie

 

On the nine hour drive from Calgary to Central Saskatchewan on Dec. 29th we saw almost no snow. The fields were mostly bare the entire way. Given that we had watering restrictions right up to Nov. in Calgary and only two small snowfalls in Calgary from mid Oct to Christmas it has been an incredibly dry fall and winter. The bit snow at the farm is way below average and the temperatures unseasonably warm.

 

The pages above are from A Book Of Hours by Donald Culross Peattie, 

Decorations by Land Ward, 1937. The book was a Christmas gift from my brother. 

At the farm Christmas 2023

                                                     

"When the great wind comes

and the robberies of the rain

you stand on the corner shivering.

The people who go by—

you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs

any day in your mind,

“Who are you really, wanderer?”—

and the answer you have to give

no matter how dark and cold

the world around you is:

“Maybe I’m a king.”"

from A Story That Could Be True

by William Stafford

https://poetry.princeton.edu/2010/01/05/a-story-that-could-be-true/

Willow Two passed Nov. 20

 

We lost the farm dog Willow Two in Nov. Although unrelated, she looked

a lot like the original Willow shown in the blog banner. She was the sweetest 

of dogs and beloved by the whole family. She has a friend to foxes and a

terror to snakes. She liked to excavate a hole  at the bottom of the side 

steps to use for naps. And she loved snacks.

She was a good dog.

"Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift.

 It is not the least reason why we should honor as love the dog of our own life, 

and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born."

Mary Oliver

I am having trouble with my external drive and was limited

 in the number of photos I can access.

Musings and nostalgia

 

"So you speak to me of sadness

And the coming of the winter

Fear that is within you now

It seems to never end

And the dreams that have escaped you

And the hope that you've forgotten

You tell me that you need me now

You want to be my friend

And you wonder where we're going

Where's the rhyme and where's the reason

And it's you cannot accept

It is here we must begin

To seek the wisdom of the children

And the graceful way of flowers in the wind"

Rhymes and Reasons 

John Denver

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Jaime Royal "Robbie" Robertson[1] OC (July 5, 1943 – August 9, 2023) Sixto Diaz Rodriguez (July 10, 1942 – August 8, 2023) I felt these.

Last night in bed while listening to their music I read these words. RIP fellows.

"Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:

I'm a martyr to a motion not my own:

what's freedom for? To know eternity.

from I Knew a Woman

Theodore Roethke

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/10/robbie-robertson-obituary

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/10/rodriguez-obituary

 

Howler Monkey Belize Trip Nov./Dec. 2022

 

"Then the Earth grew old, its landscapes mellowing and showing signs of age, its ways becoming whimsical and strange in the manner of a man in his last years..." 

The High History of the Runestaff

Ivan Kenneth Eyre (15 April 1935 – 5 November 2022)

  I finished school and moved to Calgary to join Helen in the summer of 1988. We were both at the U of C that summer just in time to see Personal Mythologies/Images of the Milieu a solo show by the Canadian artist Ivan Eyre at The Nickle Gallery. One day a week admission was free (we had little money) and I was there every lunch hour. Later the library I worked in in Calgary  held Eyre's large painting Floodwood, a strange merger of still life and landscape typical of the artist. Another library and I shared my office with a print of his landscape Red Hill. Since my first viewing of his work Eyre has not just shared my personal space through his works but also my imaginative space through his oft repeated images of wheeled horse, giants shapes in the sky and hornblowers. I have collected show catalogues, books and a few works. He has influenced how I view the cityscapes and the landscapes of the prairies in which I have spent most of my life. As Helen once said after seeing his cityscapes one learns to look up at the tops of the tall buildings to catch a glimpse of the Eyre hornblowers silhouetted against the prairie sky.

Obituary

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/winnipeg-mb/ivan-eyre-11003438

Wikipedia entry.

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

A lovely youtube clip of Eyre in his studio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4URm0196QjM

When I look at a painting it isn't only the painting I see but the thing that I am. If there is more in the painting that I am, then I won't see it.

Ivan Eyre

Thank you Ivan.

I'm back

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
    And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
    And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
            Shall be lifted—nevermore!"
The Raven, Poe

Spring back/Winter Wonderland

 

  "Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, 

     its white flag waving over everything,

      the landscape vanished,

      not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,   

      and beyond these windows"

      from Snow Day

       by Billy Collins  

And let's remember.

White-tailed jackrabbit

Taken from the front window this morning. Despite the cars, dogs, coyotes and bobcats they share the city with we still have some white-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus townsendii).

"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