SUMMER IN SLATE RIVER VALLEY - July 27, 2017

Image may contain: sky, tree, plant, cloud, outdoor and nature
A patchwork of mustard-yellow canola fields spread this way to Candy Mountain and that way to the Nor'westers; the air heavy with the sweet scent of the blossoms; a blend of lilac and sweet clover fragrances. 

The warm afternoon is alive with the humm and chirr and crick-crick-crick of insects, and as I walk along, I am pelted by chitinous flying bodies.

I think of mid-July in Alberta and the stunning vistas of yellow canola and sky-blue flax that blanket the landscape. Then passing the Correctional Centre on Hwy 61, I spy test plots of blue flax just coming into bloom, and now look forward to enjoying the same palette of summer colour here in Northwestern Ontario.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FIRST SHIPS of the SEASON -

A rite of spring for my husband and me involves waiting in Thunder Bay to greet the first ship of the season, then dashing down to Duluth to see the first ships loading there. This past weekend, we were lucky enough to catch the arrival of the John J Munson in Two Harbours on Friday and the the Edwin H Gott in Duluth on Sunday. However, the absolute highlight of our trip was meeting both Terry White and Paul Scinocca out doing what they do best, photographing and recording ships of the Great Lakes. It was an honour to meet you both and to put faces to the names from our favourite FB group. "She is turning in. Oh my goodness. She is turning in!" So says my honey with the delight of a schoolboy as the lake freighter, John G Munson, hoves to outside the Two Harbours break-wall in preparation to enter the ore dock for loading. We have followed this ship since we left Thunder Bay finally catching sight of her at Split Rock Lighthouse but were unsure of her...
Read more

CARL`S 80TH BIRTHDAY BASH - Varadero, Cuba March 2018

Image
"Miss, you want cold beer. Six for $20." Cervasus cold from the can in the midday heat on the macadam of the airport welcomes us to Cuba as we stand round the bus that will take us to our resort. The drive through Varadero is stunningly beautiful; red earth, aquamarine sea, golden sand, flowering plants and waving palms. The vintage vehicles we came to see parade by us, as well as horse and donke y carts and bikes of every kind, motorized and peddle. Nodding pump jacks draw crude from the ancient seabed, storing it in oil batteries that dot the arid plain, and at one point our guide points out the Cuban Eiffel Tower - an oil drilling rig. One hotel we stop at reminds me with its dark wood plantation shutters, cane furniture, inward opening library windows and lazily turning fans that this island inspired Ernest Hemingway's writings. Our Caribbean-style hotel has an open air lobby with courtyard pools in which cichlid fish swim lazily and a night heron stalks small mi...
Read more

WARNING TO DOG OWNERS - March 11, 2018

Image
Today we were camping in Kootenay National Park. Carl had just come back from hiking down to photograph Marble Canyon and I sent Manny, our French bulldog, out to join him for a quick walk. Carl came back furious at Manny for eating something he found on the trail, but I wasn't really concerned because he often tries to get away with eating wild animal scat. I fed him his d inner and then we sat down to eat ours. Manny was dozing off, so I lifted him up onto the bed where he wouldn't be underfoot, but when I went to get him a couple of hours later, I couldn't wake him. I lifted him up and he went rigid in my arms, head thrown back, eyes staring and front legs extended. He seemed to be having some type of neurological episode and I have seen these type of symptoms in dogs that have been poisoned. There was no cell service where we were in the mountains, so while I held Manny quiet on the bed, Carl drove us down to the highway junction. From there I called a vet in B...
Read more