Ah, the noble mountain or bighorn sheep, surveying her(?) domain.
Taking a back road into Canmore after a harder-than-we-expected half-hike (the second half being abandoned to younger, fitter folks, including small children who passed us on the trail), we saw a sign warning of mountain sheep on the road. And just like that, there were mountain sheep on the road, licking the asphalt. Gotta love truth in advertising.
. . . and gone tomorrow.
I was going to call this post Ephemera, having it in my head that the word referred to a whole class of short-lived things. I saw some clematis seed-heads in Canmore last week (which caught my eye because of my encounter with a mystery clematis in Calgary a few weeks ago) and thought I’d contrast them with the mountains also seen in and near Canmore on this same short-lived visit. After all, a delicate vine’s end-of-season seed fluff-ball and a mountain range seem like polar opposites on a few scales.
Before I got very far, though, the dictionary objected. Ephemera (per Merriam-Webster) refers to items originally meant for a *single* use (usually paper, like tickets or programs) but that have become collectibles (although, really, for homo collectoris [also known by some as homo sapiens], what *isn’t* collectible?), thereby *lasting* in some sense although not for their original purpose.
As at most 3-star hotels these days, staffing at our Drum(heller) hotel was constrained. Front-desk staff had duties other than greeting/registering guests, and were somewhere in the back. But they’d thought about the need for arrivees to get the attention of staff, and taken the opportunity to have a little fun with it. Personality rocks, especially where you don’t expect it.
Speaking of expectations, I also found a reflection where I didn’t expect one: at the Horse Thief Canyon viewpoint-and-dirt-parking-lot about 20 minutes north-ish of the Drum.
Working fast to get a few trips in before the snow flies, falls, and otherwise intrudes on a well-ordered life, we headed out to Drumheller last week.
Welcoming visitors, I guess, although I’d have been fine with a small sign.
For the Big Guy, this was visit #1; for me, visit #something-in-the-small-single-digits, with the most-recent one being about 40 years ago. A few things have changed.
I’d like to say that we considered doing the 6.5km hike (one-way) (with the first 4km apparently all being uphill) to view the larches/tamaracks at their best in Larch Valley, but it would not be true.
Instead, we considered and executed a trip to Baker Park, requiring us to drive for about 22 minutes (and that was 5 minutes longer than strictly necessary) (sometimes our car GPS is just stupid) and then wander ON FOOT for about 15 minutes to see the tail end of the larch/tamarack season right here in town.
Uh, oh. Here we go again.
As we walked around our new neighbourhood last week, getting exercise, our bearings, and photos all at once in a virtuoso display of stunning efficiency, I found a climbing vine that had gone to seed. It was wrapped around the branches of a mature spruce tree adjacent to a golf-course club house in an area without much sign of careful tending. It also looked familiar.
. . . love the one you’re with.
– Stephen Stills
Are we being exhorted to cheat on an absent partner or to appreciate what’s in front of us? Opinions vary, just as people do. And as leaves do, for that matter.
For the last 18 years in Ottawa, I waited for the fall colours with great anticipation — browns and earth tones, yellows and golds, oranges and bronzes, reds and purples — but especially the last two. As my circumstances permitted, I observed them in passing while driving around town, planned photo shoots at city parks, made day trips to local viewpoints, and inveigled someone to drive me along backroads in maple country. Even in below-average years with faded colours on stressed-by-drought trees, it was glorious. It wasn’t just a tree here and there: whole valleys, whole hillsides were lit up.
ADQ73214408 (Filter assembly, air)
AGF80300705 (Filter replacement cartridge, water)
(the latter aka LT1000P/PC/PCS)
This week I’ve learned a few things about the above-noted air filter and water-filter cartridge in the refrigerator in our new-to-us house:
Is it full? I can’t tell.
I don’t think so. The left side looks a bit flat.
How many times have I had this conversation or its rough equivalent while staring at a full-ish moon? A few dozen times, at least. Unlike those who know the moon’s phase for spiritual purposes, unlike those who know the moon’s phase for scientific/meteorological/navigational/calendrical purposes, I just go by what I happen to see. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t lay out the moon’s phases in order, and for sure-sure I never know when a full moon is coming. This is, perhaps, one of the costs of living under a roof rather than under the stars.
Superstition Mountain, near Phoenix AZ
Colorado Springs, CO
