Cabin construction in Saskatchewan

The road to the site. Saturday, cabin delayed 

truck problem.

 

Helen's brothers have the beams and posts in place.

The view of the slough from the site.

Sunday the cabin arrives backing into the site.

The new neighbours between 5 to 10 snakes 

from large to small are sitting on a mound 

of disturbed earth next to the site. A plus.

By end of Sunday the deck and floor are in.

 

Monday the walls begin to go up

 

 Sunday a black bear swims across the

slough in front of the cabin. A  bit far for

my lens.

"The wind blows through

the little hut in the rice field

and the moonlight shines through the roof

and guards us all through the night."

                                    Shunzei's Daughter

                                         Women Poets of Japan

My guess is Cherry-Faced Meadowhawk

female or immature?

"Watching on this hillside tonight,

I want to know how to see

And bear witness"

                  Seeing the Glory

                                               Pattiann Rogers

Happy Calgary Stampede!

As normal I will not be in attendance.

My favorite plant at the Research Park is in bloom,

The Red-leaf Rose, Rosa glauca, it only blooms once

but the foliage is great in arrangements and it produces

lovely rose hips. I finally planted one in the back yard

this year.

This rose is a favorite target of Diplolepis rosae,

the mossyrose gall wasp. These galls are sometimes

attacked by other wasps who replace the original larva.

I have also seen a downy woodpecker happily ripping
them open in the winter. "It's the hard-knock life!"

There is a great discussion on this wasp at

http://www.talkaboutwildlife.ca/profile/index.php?s=1838

"Some things that fly there be --
Birds -- Hours -- the Bumblebee --
Of these no Elegy."

                                            Emily Dickinson

                                                89

 

I wanted to capture the release of the cottonwood fuzz

in Calgary. This is a yearly event although it is not as

common as it used to be. Cottonwood were planted

as a hardy tree along city streets. As other varieties

became available the city began to discourage planting

cottonwoods they are messy, not long lived and they

drop a lot of limbs in the wind storms. I was raised

near the Lake Erie where in the summer you sometimes

 get drifts of Fish Flies or May Flies so this seems

fairly harmless and a lot less smelly.

Even though it is not snowing I thought a quote

from Frozen Fire by Floris Clark McLaren

1937 would work besides I just got my copy 

in the mail today and wanted to use it.

" Against the blue of spruces, and the grey

Of bare-boughed poplar suddenly

As though a snowdrift burst in

scattering fragments."

                      Frozen Fire 

                           Floris Clark McLaren

Friday we were gardening.

Every job requires supervisors.

J.P. Connell  is looking good.

The Toba Hawthorn has a lot of dead branches

but it is still blooming

The Jacobs Ladder looks great and

we have some help in the garden.

"I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers:

Of April, May, of June, and July flowers."

Hesperides

                             Robert Herrick

Thursday at the research park I headed

down to the pond at lunch. They have reduced

the water level probably to discourage the

geese. It worked there were none, it also

showcased the liquor bottles and beer cans

tossed in by the night crowd. The water was fairly

 green with lots of algae. It gave my pictures

a greenish tinge I have not figured out how to

compensate for. However a  proud mom was there

with her brood and they are getting big.

The clouds moved in and out all day but it never rained.

The view below is Nose Hill Park, it is far greener than

normal because of all the rain.  The quote by Emerson

seemed quite appropriate for this borrowed landscape.

"But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the

horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate

all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's

farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title."

              
      Nature

                                      Ralph Waldo Emerson