"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."

 

Pelicans 2

"The suspension of a life between two other lives   

Of continual remembrance, between two worlds"

from In the Park

by John Koethe

Pelican 1

"A wonderful bird is the pelican
His bill can hold more than his belican
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week
But I'm damned if I see how the helican "

by Dixon Lanier Merritt ( I guess the attribtion has changed )

But it was one of my father-in-law's favorite poems.

Pelicans in the far slough?? Or dreams?

"These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

                           the Tempest

Pelican, seen from the cabin porch on a day of rain.

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, —and done a hundred things.

You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along,"

from High Flight

by John Gillespie Magee, Jr

"On either side, those dear old ladies,

the loosening barns, their little windows   

dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs   

hide broken tractors under their skirts.

So this is Nebraska. A Sunday   

afternoon; July. Driving along

with your hand out squeezing the air,   

a meadowlark waiting on every post.

 

Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,

top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,   

a pickup kicks its fenders off

and settles back to read the clouds.

 

You feel like that; you feel like letting   

your tires go flat, like letting the mice   

build a nest in your muffler, like being   

no more than a truck in the weeds,"

from This is Nebraska

    Ted Kooser

So after visiting with family in Saskatoon we are back 

on the road to the cabin and farm. It was still a brown 

landscape however in the week we are there the trees 

will leaf out for our green spring.

Helen took the following shots of White Pelicans as they

circled above the cabin. We have lots of positive memories of 

beautiful White Pelicans floating down the river when we

worked on an archaeological site in Nipawin Saskatchewan

so it was great to see these birds here.

"A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His bill will hold more than his belican,

He can take in his beak

Enough food for a week

But I'm damned if I see how the helican!"

I have seen this attributed to Lanier Merritt Dixon 

or Ogden Nash. I do know it was a favorite of my

father-in-law John who farmed this land for many years.

 

 

My pictures from the cabin were not great, but I wanted to

include this Bonaparte's Gull because they are fairly common

and I had always wondered were they nest I assumed it was

by the rivers. I finally looked it up and learned they nested in

spruce which we do have but they are not nearly as common

as poplars. So a goal to add to my list, see a nesting Bonaparte's.

 

 

Brown Headed Cowbirds were sadly common.

 

 

A Yellow Rumped Warbler, the only warbler I saw

but we did spend most of our time working on the

cabin or in the hardware store or driving back and

forth to hardware stores.

 

 

 

The Bufflehead by far the most common duck on our property on this trip.

Another Cowbird I think.

 

 

The Phoebes are nesting underneath the cabin, since it is raised

4 ft from the ground they have lots of room. 

 

You can see a few green leaves,

 

 

but it was still mostly a twiggy time of year when we arrived.

 

 

"She looks for wiggly fishes,

At least so it appears,

To stuff inside the suitcase

That's swinging from her ears.

And though she's very graceful

When flying round and round,

How does she get that faceful

Of luggage off the ground?"

    The Beak of the Pelican

   J. Patrick Lewis