Updated: Feb 24, 2022
After a week of brainlessness, struggling with what feels like an eternal cold, I am, at least briefly, writing again. I can feel my body relaxing as I settle into story, making up absurdities while I listen to Elgar’s cello concerto. It’ll back to Netflix in a little while, but in this moment, at least, I feel just fine.
Updated: Feb 24, 2022
Calgary’s been hit with another disaster-of-sorts – a summer snow storm that snapped trees all across the city. (Heavy, wet snow on leafed-out old trees doesn’t go well).
We’re in clean-up mode now. Power company workers from across the province are working to get power restored to everyone who lost it to tree limbs taking out power lines. Any city worker who knows how to use a chainsaw is cutting and clearing roads and sidewalks. Every arborist is at work on private property, prioritized by safety issues, cutting and stacking, with a plan to return later for final cleanup. In an informal poll at the Calgary Herald, 65% of respondents said they had tree damage. In a city of over a million people, where we work to nurture the tree canopy, that’s a lot of trees.
The impassibility of the city during last year’s flood was from flooded streets and closed bridged; this time it was from trees blocking roads and sidewalks. The sounds are different too. Then it was sirens and helicopters and big trucks. This time? Sirens and big trucks and chainsaws. The mayor said not to be alarmed if we heard chainsaws in the night, and everyone just nodded, as if that was perfectly normal.
Two of our trees were badly damaged (luckily not our beloved apple or pear trees). The neighbour’s power was saved in an emergency arborist session – they’ll be back later to finish, including cutting out three large limbs dangling above our side garden. We have a huge stack of branches between the garage and the alley. “Imagine,” my husband said, “the biggest stack that would fit. It’s bigger than that.” Plus three other stacks.
I’ve gathered the apples knocked off when we took brooms to the trees to bang off snow. I’ve set them in bags by the sidewalk. Tart, perfect for pie or crisp, sweeten like rhubarb – in case anyone wants to swing by and pick up a bag. These are the good things that come out of disasters – meeting neighours and sharing stormfall apples.
Maureen
Updated: Feb 24, 2022
Last week we had a final brief summer jaunt to the mountains, but it felt more like fall than summer, with fresh snow on the mountain peaks. One morning we hiked up Baker Creek before breakfast, layered up, gloves on, frost on the plants.
Baker Creek was the furthest west creek to flood last year, and by the chalets it became a vast swath of huge gravel. It’s been dug out and reconstructed, but still looks wildly different than before. It also looks much tamer, now, to our eyes, in comparison to what we found upstream. A pedestrian bridge caught debris and all the boulders and trees tangled upstream of the bridge.
We stood on a bank of boulders and fallen trees all in a tangle, several metres above the water.
The bridge has been removed (pilings damaged), and the trails wiped out.
I also found tidbits for a story. I’ve been collecting bits for a while, and found a little more at Emerald Lake a couple weeks ago. On this trip I found another piece at Stewart Canyon at Lake Minnewanka. It’s like collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces and not having any idea how they fit together until the latest piece – that one – connects here and then that connects to this and suddenly there’s a bit of story that’s come clear – oh – there.
I have half-a dozen stories-in-waiting like this, where I find bits and moments and jot them down, and then go back to my main project, knowing the other stories aren’t ready for that kind of attention, not yet. They need to incubate a little longer, and show me pieces and moments, bit by bit, until the story is ready for writing.
Maureen
