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

It is really a Great Blue Heron

"On the shore a bat, or possibly an umbrella, disengages itself from the shrubbery, causing those nearby to recollect the miseries of childhood."

from The Object-Lesson
by Edward Gorey

Great Blue Heron on the slough

"Seedpods helicopter down

and sink under the diamond surface

where they become sleek schools of minnow,

moving sharp as a single thought.

Everything that loves to live comes here,

to the edge of water, though it changes

those who gaze or move through it. "

from Mergansers

by Michael redhill

'There may be various ways to organize 

one’s story, structuring it 

By place-names or by people or 

by poems, instead of incidents 

And years, yet all of them seem equal in 

the end.'

from La Duree

by Koethe, John. 

The Heron

"As though one's childhood were a small midwestern town
Some forty years ago, before the elm trees died.
September was a modem classroom and the latest cars,
That made a sort of futuristic dream, circa 1955.
The earth was still uncircled. You could set your course
On the day after tomorrow. And children fell asleep
To the lullaby of people murmuring softly in the kitchen,
While a breeze rustled the pages of Life magazine,
And the wicker chairs stood empty on the screened-in porch."

from From the Porch
by John Koethe

The Friday before last, we had family over in the evening. We were sitting on the screened-in porch when a young blue heron, the first we have seen on the slough this summer appeared. It fished directly below us and in the course of 1 or 2 hours in an  area few metres square it caught at least four possibly more Tiger Salamanders. We are lucky to see one a year, often crossing a grid road, so we were amazed at the profusion, much less the size of the animals it found in such a small area. Needless to say the heron has returned on a number of evenings, but I am unsure if it's luck is holding.

"And even as it deepens something turns away,

As though the day were the reflection of a purer day

In which the summer's measures never ended.

The eye that seeks it fills the universe with shapes,

A fabulist, an inquisitor of space

Removed from life by dreams of something other than this life,

Distracted by the bare idea of heaven,"

from Gil's Cafe

by John Koethe

                 

"almost sculpture

except that it's alive

brooding immobile permanent

for half an hour 

a blue heron 

and it occurs to me

that if I were to die at this moment

that picture would accompany me

wherever I am going

for part of the way"

from the Last Picture in the World

by Al Purdy

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

"So heavy

is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,

always it is a surprise

when her smoke-colored wings

open

and she turns

from the thick water,

from the black sticks

of the summer pond,

and slowly

rises into the air

and is gone."

from Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond

by Mary Oliver 

The Strike

“If you keep the faith I will exist

at the edge, where your vision joins 

the sunlight and the rain: heads in the light, 

feet that go down in the mud where the truth is.” 

from Spirit of Place : Great Blue Heron 

by William Stafford

Yesterday we managed to launch the canoe out onto the big slough from the hayfield. It is a lot easier than trying to drag it across thru the brush with all the beaver runs hidden by tall grass. We saw few small birds, but we did see the Osprey, Kingfishers, Grebes, Ducks and especially the Great Blue Heron.

"And when the blue heron, breaking his long breast feathers,

sees one feather fall, does he know I will find it?

Will he see me holding it in my hand?

as he opens his wings

softly and without a sound—

as he rises and floats over the water?

And this is just any day at the edge of the pond,

a black and leafy pond without a name

until I named it."

from Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones

by Mary Oliver

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

"How can one help marveling at the voyage we are making
on this planet? One has to lift one's self up and use one's
imagination to see that it is a voyage, and that our course
lies through the star-paved abysses of infinite space. Few
of us ever see it or realize it in all its awful grandeur. But
sometimes, as we look up at the night sky, we are surprised
out of our habitual stolidity and blindness; the mind opens
for a moment, and we see the Infinite face to face; the veil
is withdrawn, and the rays from myriads of orbs penetrate
to the soul. "

Both quotes are from The Summit of the Years
( 1913 ) by John Burroughs  they were chosen
to celebrate the fact that Helen has purchased her
8 inch Celetron Telescope and next year she can
enjoy watching the dance of stars above the slough.

During our 2 weeks at the cabin we were able to take the canoe
out several times and the photos that follow are combined
from all our trips. Like so may people we choose our future
retirement paradise (non-winter ) based on a proximity to water.
In this case a slough or prairie pothole. A definition follows but
basically they are ponds or marshes in which the water can
fluctuate wildly over the years depending on the long term
weather patterns. Within the last decade we have seen 
a drought which reduced many of these sloughs to a fraction 
of their former size and currently, our present situation where 
our slough is as high as anyone within the family can remember. 

This also means that we have gone from almost no beavers
 and lots of trees to lots of beavers and a lot fewer trees. 
The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources claims on
average one beaver can take down 260 trees but I have read 
higher averages elsewhere and of course you rarely have
 just one. Changes to the water level also means that our normally 
fish-less slough has fish (many sloughs freeze entirely in winter 
eliminating fish this however helps the population of amphibians 
with less predation of their young).

One thing we did notice was that on our trip in May there 
were a number of pairs of Bufflehead ducks displaying, chasing etc. 
However on this trip we basically saw no ducks of any kind 
on our slough. We initially though they might be molting but 
when I visited other sloughs in the area they had mallards, teals
 etc. in plain sight and much closer to the road 
so I  have no idea of the cause of this.

 “ Prairie potholes (sloughs) are water-holding depressions
 of glacial  origin in the prairies of the Northern United States and 
southern Canada. Water is supplied to the potholes by precipitation 
on the water surface, basin runoff, and seepage inflow of ground water.
Depletion of pothole water results from evapotranspiration, overflow,
and seepage outflow. Since potholes generally do not overflow, seepage
outflow is the principal way in which dissolved salts can be
removed. Salinity of pothole water is therefore a good indication
of the seepage balance. Net seepage outflow results in fresh
to brackish waters that constitute ephemeral to semipermanent
ponds, whereas net seepage inflow results in brackish to saline
waters that constitute semipermanent to permanent ponds.”

From HYDROLOGY OF PRAIRIE POTHOLES IN NORTH DAKOTA
by Charles Sloan GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 585C

One unexpected consequence of fish is fishers. I saw 

Kingfishers on several sloughs including ours.

 

Our slough is crescent shaped so this
Great Blue Heron would fly into the other 
arm only to see us come around the corner 
yet again.

I have noticed in several places on 

the property the beavers will almost entirely

denude a spot but then leave a tree or two; 

to paint the sky with bird song?

On this trip it was a green green world, a world of 

reflections, a world of mirrors.

"How wonderful that the globe itself should have
been born out of the nebular mist — the cosmic
world-stuff in the womb of the great sidereal
mother; that it should have had its fiery and turbu-
lent youth; that it should have sobered and ripened
with age; that its mantle of fertile soil should have
been wrought out of the crude igneous and stratified
rocks; that it falls forever around the sun, and never
falls into it; that it is so huge that we cannot span
it, even in imagination, but can picture it to our-
selves only by piecemeal, as with a globe of our own
making; and yet that it is only as a globule of blood
in the veins of the Infinite; that it is moving with
such incredible speed, and yet to our senses seems
forever at rest; that the heavens are always above
us wherever we are upon its surface, and never
under us, as the image of a globe might lead us to
infer would be the case at times — all this, I say
and more, fills me with perpetual wonder. "

Lost Lagoon

 

 It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight grey,
Beneath the drowse of an ending day,
And the curve of a golden moon.

It is dark in the Lost Lagoon,
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and--you,
And gone is the golden moon.

O! lure of the Lost Lagoon,--
I dream to-night that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs,
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon.

 

 Emily Pauline Johnson

 

One must see for me is Lost Lagoon an artificial

pond near the entrance to Stanley Park. It is a

good place to see ducks and of course the

famous Mute Swans. I once heard a park

ground keeper interviewed on radio, who said when

he was told the swans were killing Canadian Geese

he replied yes isn't it great, not apparently

a popular answer, however they were peaceful while

I was there and there were no nesting geese there.

It is a great place for herons.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Lagoon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?

 

from The Wild Swans of Coole

        W.B. Yeats