"On he shuffles, quietly mumbling

Figures, facts and formulae -

Bats are busy in the belfry

In the bonnet hums a bee,

At the Reading Room he settles

Pince-nez on his bottle nose,

Reads and scribbles. reads and scribbles,

Till the day draws to a close,"

from A Ticket for the Reading Room

by William Plomer

Yesterday I took the dogs for a walk and ran into this flock of Grey or Hungarian Partridges on a neighbour's lawn. We used to see them in this area all the time but I have rarely seen them in the past few years so it was great to encounter these.

"The Calgary Fish and Game Association introduced gray partridges to Alberta around 1908, says Alberta Fish and Wildlife biologist Gordon Court. The first 15 pairs were from Hungary, which is why locals often call these birds “huns.”

from the St Albert Gazette http://www.stalbertgazette.com/The-running-of-the-Huns-20130821

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

" He sighed, more exhaustedly than regretfully, I thought. That morning was the last time I saw Moreland. It was also the last time I had, with anyone, the sort of talk we used to have together. Things drawing to a close, even quite suddenly, was hardly a surprise. The look Moreland had was the one people take on when a stage has been reached quite different from just being ill.

from Temporary Kings ( A Dance to the Music of Time )

by Anthony Powell

This morning we said goodbye to our cat Max. For many years, he sat with me in the morning before the rest of the house was up. And in the evening the two of us would sit in my study to read or watch hockey while the rest of the family was in the living room. This summer he spent 3 months at the cabin with us, mostly sleeping on the screened in porch in a state of feline bliss. It was only a few months ago when his health started to fail that I came to appreciate the tremendous gap he would leave.

Max and I collaborated on this poem in April of 2012

it was a happier time. Rest in love little man.

The Cat Wishes to Use the Pen

by Max

To write doubtless, 

about the space under the rug where he keeps things and 

the spot under the coffee table where he also keeps things

including himself, dreaming of jungle, he would like to

immortalize lurking unseen.

Unless he wants a drink in which case he will write 

of the white porcelain tub where he sits demanding 

a drink from the faucet. Or yowling through the house 

until someone follows him to his dish to witness 

the wonder of a feeding cat.

He would include a triumphant inventory of the 

clawed furniture, the red leather chair, the sofa, the 

good Lazy Boy. The declawed cat broke lamps but he

is all about fabric, sweaters, wedding dresses, 

comforters and of course the good Lazy Boy.

He would surely write about laying across a warm chest 

with one paw extended purring happily. But there will be

no mention of the small white dog who sniffs his butt,

let him write his own poem.

"The thudding sound from the quarry had declined now to no more than a gentle reverberation, infinitely remote. It ceased altogether at the long drawn wail of a hooter - the distant pounding of centaurs' hoofs dying away, as the last note of their conch trumpeted out over hyperborean seas. Even the formal measure of the seasons seemed suspended in the wintry silence."

from Hearing Secret Harmonies ( A Dance to the Music of Time )

by Anthony Powell

"And I have dreamed

of the morning coming in

like a bird through the window

not burdened by a thought, "

from The Design of the House:

Ideal and Hard Time

by Wendell Berry

I have not taken many photos this winter. The winter has been fairly mild but its been cold in the New Year. So I have been looking thru my photos from the summer. Here are more shots of one (I think mom) of the fox family who were always around the farm teasing Willow the farm dog, who I must say seemed to enjoy it.

" let me catch sight of you again going over the wall

and before the garden is extinct and the woods are figures

guttering on a screen let my words find their own

places in the silence after the animals"

from Vixen

by W.S. Merwin

"But I consider further, and find
A hungry bird has a free mind;
He is hungry to-day, not to-morrow,
Steals no comfort, no grief doth borrow;
This moment is his, thy will hath said it,
The next is nothing till thou hast made it.

Thy bird has pain, but has no fear
Which is the worst of any gear;
When cold and hunger and harm betide him,
He does not take them and stuff inside him;
Content with the day's ill he has got,
He waits just, nor haggles with his lot:
Neither jumbles God's will
With driblets from his own still."

                    from Consider The Ravens

               by George MacDonald

A trip to Banff on the weekend, a beautiful shiny black bird and the mountains.

"What is it worth, then, this insane last phase

When everything about you goes downhill?

This much: you get to see the cosmos blaze

And feel its grandeur, even against your will,

As it reminds you, just by being there,

That it is here we live, or else nowhere."

              from Event Horizon

                   by Clive James

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

                        From A Visit from St. Nicholas

                        by  Clement Clarke Moore

"We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every particle is equally related; the eternal ONE."

                                                                         by Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Now during the cold winter days I have begun to edit the pictures from our summer at the cabin. One advantage to spending the entire summer at the cabin is watching the birds from mating through nesting and the first flights of the young. So here in June we see the Brown Headed Cowbird scoping out the territory and then in late August the White Throated Sparrow feeding the Cowbird chick.

"Perhaps you have noticed that even in the slightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in different ways."

                                                                        by Black Elk

Parked in my spot again, eh!

Just let out some air.

And my work here is done.