The Wind Has Returned

The wind has returned, after a summer of unusual stillness. It’s clearly a fall wind, as the first of the leaves start to turn (only the diseased ones, but it’s still a reminder). It’s sad and glorious at the same time. The wind carries an energy that fills me, especially after a summer of allergies.

This wind is clean, and I can breathe.

The garden is winding down, but there are moments that thrill me. My Echinacea are lovely this year, after years of struggling to establish the plants – coneflowers in pink and orange that are so absurd they make me laugh.

My long-languishing Japanese Anemone is loving the new ecosystem in our garden, of dappled shade instead of deep shade, after the neighbour’s lovely old spruce trees were cut down by a developer.

Our back garden is fully rebuilt and thriving (after massive damage from the developer).

There are more kids in the neighbourhood, moving into the newly built big homes going up on every street, and that’s a joy. We have lovely new neighbours, a mom and two kids and a very sweet dog, and that’s the payoff for enduring the horrors of a developer for a year.

There’s lots of interest in our knarly old apple tree – I think we’ll find plenty of neighbours to share apples with this year. And maybe some local kids to help pick. It’s always fun to have a swarm of kids in the tree.

And this will all carry into story, as I prepare to dive deep.

Maureen

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

I visited Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a World Heritage Site, for the first time the other day.

It’s a lovely centre, perched on the edge of the Porcupine Hills, overlooking the prairie in southern Alberta. Even on a cloudy day the view is amazing.

The centre itself is beautifully designed, built into the hillside and rising six stories to a path along the top of the cliff. It’s a bit of a celebration of death, of the sacrifice of the buffalo so the people could eat, carried through into the cafeteria that serves buffalo (which is delicious, by the way).

The museum focuses on the buffalo jump itself, on the Blackfoot Indians, and the archeology of the site. All of it is interesting. Afterwards, walking along the lower path at the base of the jump, lush with vegetation fed by thousands of years of buffalo bones piled many metres deep, I could feel time, a presence here that is lost in more peopled places.

Maureen

Playing In The Rockies

We’ve just returned from a week in the mountains, staying in a cabin near Lake Louise.

The weather was threatening the entire week (including actual threats from forecasters, like warnings of possible flooding). We managed to dodge the rain drops, hiking dry every day except post-rain in a meadow where I was soon soaked to the knees from rain drops on grass heads. But that was lovely, absolutely lovely.

We’ve learned some tricks for avoiding the worst of the summer crowds (arrive early), and were well prepared with toques and gloves (summer essentials in the Rockies).

We saw a few animals – a glimpse of some mountain goats, a gazillion what-I-though-were-chipmunks but are in fact ground squirrels. Some were kind enough to pose for photos. I saw a pika for the first time – I’ve heard them, but had never seen the fluffy-mouse-sized creature that loves rock piles. We saw a huge elk, resting in the forest. Another hiker walked back along the trail with us to show us the best spot to view him, and admire his huge antlers.

Stories hovered, a little too shy to settle with so many people around. But they’ll come. They always come, after a trip to the mountains.

Maureen

Emerald Lake

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