Home again cont

“And this is what I learned: that the world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.”

From Upstream: Selected Essays

by Mary Oliver

I wanted to post some shots from the trip home. The roads were good and there was a lot of hoar frost transforming the landscape. We also saw lots of animals most I did not get photos of. We saw Pronghorns which I mentioned last post. A deer had just crossed the road as we went through. We also saw Snowy Owl, a coyote, partridges and two unusual sights, the first a Red fox amid a cloud of crows. The second a Bald Eagle with Magpies. I thought in both cases they were being mobbed but Helen though they had a been feeding from the same road kill. It was a vey blue and white day.

The combination of moving car and moving animal rarely make for a stellar photo. But I have including it because I was really surprised to see a Bald Eagle here. We were heading towards the tiny badlands town of Dorothy Alberta at the time. I did not realize that this portion of the Red Deer River Valley had Bald Eagles.

Home Again

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream; Selected Essays

After a lovely Christmas in Saskatchewan, we are back in Calgary. We saw lots of critters on the drive yesterday. None on the road, thank goodness. I will post more on this but I wanted to include a photo of what I consider the most fascinating animal in Canada, the Pronghorn Antelope. Yesterday we saw the largest herd we have ever seen, a very welcome sight.

https://forum.americanexpedition.us/pronghorn-antelope-information-facts-and-photos

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/pronghorn

https://nhpbs.org/natureworks/pronghorn.htm

Happy Holidays

“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
 
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 

Venice Floods

Anyone that knows us, knows that Venice is our favourite city. We were there only a few weeks before the floods this year, This photo is taken of the area directly in front of the walled garden of our hotel.

More images of the flooding
https://mymodernmet.com/natalia-elena-massi-venice-flood/

Morning Mist

"I walk, all day, across the heaven-verging field"

Mary Oliver from Upstream

Winter Walk Dec 11th.

  "No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you're an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and the heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. What ever you know about their true natures is grafted on top of that." 

from Isle of the Dead

by Roger Zelazny

Summer Phoebe

 "What will the creature made all of seadrift; do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?

Ursula K. LeGuin
The Lathe of Heaven