Glorious Summer

It has been pointed out to me – with good reason – that it isn’t very appropriate to still be greeted by a snow picture on my blog when it’s the height of summer. I had noticed that myself, of course, and have been feeling guilty for not posting anything for quite a long time, but I’ve been gone too much, and busy with catching up on all kinds of things when I was home, so it just didn’t happen.

There is another gift I would like to talk about, like the one in the last post something very special, but the next few days will be  dedicated to the annual ‘Cycleforward’ bike trip with a group of family and friends, with Trina once again at the core, so I might not get quite as far as I would like to now.It will have to wait until I'm back.

Instead, I will just briefly talk about the garden, always a source of joy, for the most part letting the pictures speak for themselves. 

Once again we've been away, spending time with family and friends in Germany, and while it was a wonderful trip I left home only reluctantly in the middle of June. The peony buds were almost ready to burst open, the first lettuce would soon be ready to cut, and the rocks in the rock garden were covered with masses of golden sedum and purple dianthus. How could I leave when the garden was just getting ready to spread its feast for the senses?

Summer is so short here, the reward for all the months of enduring a landscape mostly dominated by shades of white and grey and brown so eagerly awaited every year. 

Yet I knew that Germany, too, would be at its most beautiful at this time of year, and by the time I was back home even more buds would have opened, the little vegetable plants that had just emerged now would be much sturdier when we got back.

Needless to say I tried catching a glimpse of the garden the minute we arrived from the airport at the beginning of last week, but at ten-thirty in the evening it had to remain just that, a glimpse. What I gleaned looked promising, however, and the early morning light showed that I my expectations would be amply fulfilled. No more peonies, sadly; I had missed them completely this year, but the roses were in full bloom, the cool morning air laced with their fragrance, and the perennial bed with its delphinium spikes in different shades of blue and purple, the golden perennial sunflowers, crimson flower heads of the Maltese Cross, the deep purple yarrow and orange Siberian wallflower and the tall stalks of the bellflowers greet the eye from afar already. 

The vegetable garden, too, had fared well in our absence, lettuce and potatoes begging to be harvested, carrots, beans, peas and cucumbers as healthy as the squash plants and the red and white cabbage, cauliflower and fennel under their protective netting. Raspberries had already started to ripen and were ready for a picking. Apple and sour cherry trees have a good crop of fruit coming, too.

It had rained regularly in our absence, but never too much, always just enough, which is in notable contrast to much of the rest of the area. As a result, mosquitoes are very scarce, which made weeding – very necessary after nearly four weeks of neglect – actually enjoyable for once. Now, however, a week later, we are waiting for a good rain. The lawn is starting to get dry where the soil isn’t very good, always the first indication that things aren’t as they should be. Showers and thundershowers seem to give us a wide berth, clouds building in the west and emptying elsewhere. It’s not critical yet, but it might soon become worrisome. Even a lack of mosquitoes can’t quite make up for that concern, just one of the concerns that haunt farmers year after year. So far, however, crops in the garden and in the field still look good, and I revel in the beauty that surrounds me. 

 

Perfection

A Gift

We are almost into the third month of the new year already, and I have been away from the farm so much that even in the brief periods in between I have rarely been able to achieve the state of mind necessary for musings. Time spent travelling in South America (see the travel blog, ‘Every Day Is a Journey’) and with family in Germany at the beginning of the year, another wonderful Family Day weekend at the Ribbon Creek Hostel in the Kananaskis area with family and friends – life has been full and fulfilling. 

Kananaskis area

X-Country Skiing in Peter Lougheed Park

Our annual Family Day hike to Troll Falls

Mio needs a little rest

Even though I was away for several weeks of the winter I still appreciate how well it has treated us while I have been at home. We had very few very cold days and a nice amount of snow: enough to make winter, winter, yet not too much to give us a lot of problems. From time to time nightly fog created a beautiful frosted landscape that often lasted for a few days, transforming the humble poplar grove into something magic.

Around Christmas the snow was probably deepest, the trees heavy with newly fallen snow that had come to rest on thickly frosted branches. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve the snow glittered invitingly in the sun, and our whole family, already assembled to celebrate Christmas Eve together later, went out for a walk in the snow. This is much nicer in our treed fields about five miles from home than along the road, so we followed Magnus’ lead and started our walk at the edge of a piece of bush about thirty acres in size, a place I sometimes come to when I want to spend time by myself in the company of trees. 

It consists largely of white poplar, but there is a certain amount of birch as well, which sets this field apart from all the others. Shrubs like hazelnut, dogwood, alder are interspersed with the trees. Two big multi-trunked birches in the centre provide a perfect place to meditate, but to get there has always been a struggle: the undergrowth is thick, and thorny wild rose and wild gooseberry shrubs tear at my clothes. A bit further yet is a small area I call my ‘magic forest’. Here, the trees are only birch, some slender and still wearing their reddish brown adolescent bark, others joining filigree branches high up, others yet hollow and decayed, so that a slight push will send them tumbling to the ground. Here one can find wild blueberries and red currants in late summer, ferns – a rarity in our area – and the furry silvery leaves of Labrador tea. In the spring, a swamp surrounds this little piece of land almost all the way around like a moat, and marsh marigolds grow in abundance. 

This is where we were headed in the brilliant sunshine on Christmas Eve, snow crunching under our feet, our breath forming little clouds in the crisp winter air. There is little in the way of a discernible path except a cut line on the south side of the field to facilitate the building of a fence many years ago; it ends in the open field on the west side of the bush. A short distance along this cut line Magnus, in the lead with Pippa on the sled, turned off to the right. It took me a moment to realize that what I was looking at now was a trail leading into the trees. “This is our Christmas present for you,” he said. Overwhelmed, I followed my sons on the winding trail, my joy increasing with every bend. 

There were more birches – my favourite trees here in my chosen home, the parkland of Alberta – than I had ever imagined, among other, smaller ones a venerable two-trunk Mother Birch with tight curls of dry bark on one trunk and a series of white tree fungi climbing, stair like, up the other. 

How did this present come to be? Earlier this winter, when we were away in South America, a small area at the edge of the bush had been cleared to be added to the field surrounding it. While the shredder was working, Magnus got the idea to have him clear the path through the forest for me. He walked ahead of the machine, marking the trail by tying ribbons to branches, avoiding bigger trees – and the result was my Christmas present. 

As it happens when walking winding trails among trees compared to straight ones in open fields this seems like a long walk, but could probably be done in ten or fifteen minutes. I see no reason, however, to walk here in haste – it will be my place for restoration from now on. What a wonderful present - thank you, my children!

Full Snow Moon rising, February 22

Our next adventure is waiting already: on Wednesday we will fly to Phoenix, where we'll meet up with German friends and travel in Arizona and California for two weeks. As usual I will try to keep my travel blog updated. We have a lot of interesting stops along the way. Here is the link to the travel blog:

Every Day Is a Journey