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

Seen on a road trip

"When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It marked the edge 

Of one of many circles."

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Wallace Stevens

Red-Necked Grebe on nest, early summer.

"And how many hours have I spent in watching the reflections on the water? When the air is still, then so is the surface of the river. Then it holds a perfectly silent image of the world that seems not to exist in this world. Where, I have asked myself, is this reflection? It is not on the top of the water, for if there is a little current the river can slide frictionlessly and freely beneath the reflection and the reflection does not move. Nor can you think of it as resting on the bottom of the air. The reflection itself seems a plane of no substance, neither water nor air. It rests, I think, upon quietness. Things may rise from the water or fall from the air, and, without touching the reflection, break it. It disappears. Without going anywhere, it disappears."

from Jayber Crow: A Novel
by Wendell Berry

Red-Necked Grebes

"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 E. Pauline Johnson

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

from I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935), 
by Upton Sinclair

Young Grebes

                          "It does no take courage, Quixote.

                           to slaughter windmills in a windy world

                           or tilt against entrepreneurs.

                                                     It is a waste of  breath

                           to criticize vast corporations

                           The difficult thing

                                                    is to sit still

                                                    like a child in the yard

                           while the whole bleak catastrophe of winter

                           descends like a glacier into the soul."

                           from Soliloquy to Absent Friends

                           by D.G. Jones

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

"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

“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

Red Necked Grebe and young on home slough, canoe trip 

the morning of June 30th, 2015.

"From those holiest waters I returned
to her reborn, a tree renewed, in bloom
with newborn foliage, immaculate,

eager to rise, now ready for the stars."

from Purgatory, Dante, Translated by Mark Musa
Canto XXXIII, lines 142-145

“I dreamed that I floated at will in the great Ether,

 and I saw this world floating also not far 

off, but diminished to the size of an apple. 

Then an angel took it in his hand and brought it to 

me and said, ‘This must thou eat’. And I ate the world.” 

                                      by Ralph Waldo Emerson 

This post contains photos taken during one canoe trip on the Banana 

slough a crescent shaped body of water in front of our cabin. Sloughs 

or glacial potholes are feed by snow melt and groundwater infill rather

 than actual streams. This means the level fluctuates during period of 

high rainfall or drought. At present it is as high as anyone in the family

 can remember. This has meant lots of waterfowl, this trip, more a one 

hour meander was in early June so we encountered a glaring goose mother,

 and a pair of blackbirds determined top distract us from their nest.

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?

For a drink of written water from a spring

whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?

Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?

Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,

she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.

Silence - this word also rustles across the page

and parts the boughs

that have sprouted from the word "woods."

                          from The Joy Of Writing

                                       by Wislawa Szymborska