The Power of Every Day

Posted on April 10, 2018 by Painter Lady

It is April 9, 2018 for just a short while longer.

I was downloading photographs off my Canon Powershot…birds, of course. I clicked something in the process of fiddling with the files on my desk top and images surfaced from past April 9ths and I take pause.

I’m going to slow this writing down a little. I’m going to back-track. Yesterday morning I was feeling downhearted. News has been very sad lately. We had just endured more bitterly cold days and another 15 cms. of snow. I was just heavy-hearted for a lot of reasons. I received a message from my friend Michael. He said that he was up for some naturing. The weather was taking a turn for the better and the sun was out.

We sat ourselves down on a bench at the river, after enjoying a leisurely walk right to the river’s edge. I watched a Downy Woodpecker, from where we sat. The brilliant white gulls flew overhead. Michael plugged in a bit of Ram Dass and we took pause and listened. For both of us, Toe Knee came to mind. Then we talked about death. We talked about the releasing of everything…power, ego, money, objects, even friends and family. We grieved the loss of so many who suffer addiction, hopelessness, overdose, hunger…we talked about trauma. I know. It all seems pretty dark. But, truth is, we don’t talk about some of the things that really matter. And that is why the pain sometimes continues to go on in the background.

Michael made me cry when he told me that the paintings that my students do are an expression of the artist in me. I was grateful for the remark. And so, today, I began my day by painting with grade threes…this, after walking Max, drinking my two cups of home brew and moving, dazed, through all of the morning rituals that began April 9, 2018.

First…my photograph of the little Mrs. She only pops her head out briefly during the morning, when Mr. heads out in search of sustenance. He is usually on guard at the vent, repeating his vocalizations again and again. This morning came with her sweet face.

The children are beautiful, as they enter into a magical silence and become completely consumed by the process of creating.

Small conversations about Easter break…hugs from friends I have made over the years…a really great conversation about Reconciliation and the Metis with a teacher I had met some years ago…a young student, now in grade five, putting out the question, “Do you remember me?” Number lines and plotting data, first events in stories, agendas, recess, mixing of paint, sunlight filling the room, fruit yogurt, spelling digraphs gh/ph/f…wallpaper in closets…dates in calendars…logging in and logging out…the drive to and from.

Max and I at the river…releasing. We stood under a tree and big chunks of wood began dropping onto both of us. He would shake. I would brush off. Again and again. I looked up to find this guy, ravenously chipping through the flesh of the tree.

…and this guy observing all.

…and this guy scooting into the tall grass.

…and this above and around me.

…and these two courting.

Not to mention, these two.

April 9 was a particularly beautiful day, as it turns out. My first born took a drive to Lethbridge today with my grandson and these two photographs, make my heart sing…Steven with his Great Granny Batsford and his Great Grampa Bergman….and soon he will meet his Great Grampa Moors. What a blessed boy! and how blessed we are by him!

And as I downloaded my photographs onto my desktop computer, April 9, 2013 photographs surfaced. I was given the memory of my mother’s hands…and the memory of the work that she did in her life.

These were a little gift for me.

The day is almost gone and I am left with a feeling about just how powerful a single day can be. I hope to be mindful about each day I am given. I hope to remember the lesson that this day has given.

The Struggle is Real

Posted on February 17, 2018 by Painter Lady

Winter is oppressive this year. I consider myself to be fond of all seasons, including winter, but as the snowbanks grow, I am in awe of the challenges this weather brings. I have begun my journey of Lenten observances, but my Nativity display is still parked on the front yard, with no hope of being wedged out of the snow until some of it disappears. I would guess that the accumulation is somewhere around the three foot mark at this point.

I came upstairs this morning, put on the coffee and then decided to sit and finish reading I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism by Lee Maracle. Outside, the snow was coming down steadily and there was evidence that it had been piling up all night long. Maxman was okay to chill out with me and we both eased into morning, without any attachment to screens at all.

By 10:30, the book was finished and I felt completely depleted. Interesting that in the very last section, titled, Last Words, Maracle stated that most readers would have stopped by that point. I had hung in…decompressing at times, but certainly interested in the honest approach to dealing with the topics that other writers might easily skirt around. It was a difficult book, heart-breaking in so many ways…only 140 pages, compact, intense but, most important for understanding.

I continue to be very moved by the journey and history of my indigenous brothers and sisters. With this reading, I received new revelations to the struggles…for women, especially.

This morning, the snow became a wall for me, insurmountable, while carrying the weight of the contents of this book. I thought that getting down to the Bow River might create respite from my own thoughts. Instead, I encountered the desperation of hungry animals.

My eyes seem to be wide open when I am at the river’s edge. I feel blessed that way.

The first thing I noticed was the gobble gobble sound of a male pheasant as he valiantly took flight, gliding quite a distance from the hill across from me. A scattering of snow and a coyote bounded from that same location, toward me and Max. I hadn’t even left the parking lot, at this point, and already spotted the female pheasant in a neighbouring shrub. She was going no where!

I was pretty certain that this coyote was one that I’ve been observing lately, easily identified by an evident limp and a mangy coat. As the weeks of bitter cold continue, a generous food source, in the way of mice, voles and such is becoming very challenging. The predators are looking gaunt.

Stepping onto the trail, into the deep woods, and along the dark turquoise river, I noticed canine tracks in the fresh snow, unaccompanied by any human presence. I looked down at Max and told him, “Let’s go another route today, Max.” As I took pause and looked up, there, only a few meters away, stood one of the juvenile Bald Eagles about half way up a tree. His back was hunched and covered in a transparent blanket of snow. As Max and I moved to go around his territory, he took flight, his huge wings opening up directly above us. Having taken the more traveled route, it wasn’t far and we met two of our friends, both intensely engaged in something else.

It took Max a short while to respond. I think he was curious, more than anything. But, out of nowhere, he let out a wild and crazy barking-frenzy and in response, nine deer took flight and bounded across the landscape. It all happened so fast that I didn’t have opportunity to react. The coyotes followed the deer, without hesitation.

A moment’s pause and then, slowly and methodically, three other deer appeared. I have a sense that these are the younger three and that the adults had reacted to Max’s barking. Is that possible? Dunno… Tentatively, these guys carried on in the direction of the action. Max and I headed north on the river.

I wondered about there even being a possibility that coyotes might feed on deer during the winter. I suppose if one were to fall ill or if the coyotes worked together, their clever approach to community-hunting might provide for a meal of venison. I just know that in the cold and the snow, I felt compassion for all…the pheasant, the eagle, the deer and the coyotes.

For years, I’ve logged on to a Live Eagle Cam at Duke Farms. I’ve just recently seen that a second egg has been laid at the nest. Last year, surprisingly, no eagles nested in that location. Tonight, the camera is capturing an adult sitting on the nest in a horrible snow storm…

The Struggle is Real. Please take a moment and check in.

Max Falls In!

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Painter Lady

By now, my readers are getting to know Max pretty well. Yesterday, it was such an awesome autumn day…so golden-blue, that I took Max back on the loop where I once did daily walks with my Laurie-dog at the river. The image below is a photo that I took on one of our final river walks.

My children and I sprinkled Laurie’s ashes along the path of his favourite walks…places he had shared with me over his 14 years. I painted, as a result of his passing, a series called my Heaven Series, paintings that were rejected by the commercial galleries that represented me at the time, for the fact that they had ‘too much sky’. Sigh…

I try to get Max back to these places before the snow flies and my favourite time is in the autumn. Yesterday the yellow leaves were dancing on the ground. There was just enough breeze and in the past couple of days the leaves have been on the change.

Initially, Max was charged with excitement simply because we had such a steep drop into the valley and then there were gaggles of juvenile pheasants feeding in the open clearing left behind after utility and infrastructure revisions.

Interest Peeked

Poor photograph…but, yes, these are what caught his eye.

Where, once, I would throw sticks for Max from the broad perch of river rocks on the shore, most of the banks have dropped vertically into the water. Max found one of the few locations on the east side of the river where dry rock could be found and there was no way I was clamouring down there, although he barked enthusiastically to prompt me.

It was obvious to me that some huge shifts have happened with the river since the big Calgary flood. For Max, these changes were not so evident.

As we continued south along the river, I think Max supposed that there were going to be some excellent locations for his activity of choice. At one point, he took a mad dash from the path and I heard him briefly charging through the thick autumn brush and then….nothing. Silence. And yes…this is where he went in. A tentative and anxious herder, Max has always loved the water, but up to his hips. He has never had a swim. He has always barked at sticks when they have flowed out of his easy reach. Hmmm…this was to be a different sort of experience for him! This is where he went in.

I climbed my way through thick brush and heard his feeble cries. His situation came clear. The current was kicking him down river, all the while his wee head was popping up and his strong legs were reaching up onto the wet, worn shoulder of the river. Eyes, wide open, he caught sight of me and at my prompting, remained at one spot. I urged his hard work and with a few strong efforts, he pulled himself up and into my waiting arms.

Sheesh. Be warned! I was a bad mama! While on the west side of the river, I could see other families, children and dogs playing on a broad shore, there isn’t nothing of that kind on the east side.

This was excitement that we didn’t need…but, let it be known, my border collie has finally had a good swim!

Pheasants on the Golf Course

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Painter Lady

Ok, so, I’ve actually heard people say, “Bloggers have nothing to say!” Cough! Sputter! How dare you??!

I just got home from my river-walk with Max. It was pure magic! Yes, the sky IS grey and there IS a constant drizzle! My eye glasses begged for a wipe…but, I just pushed them lower and lower on my nose! As you likely know, Calgary is infamous for its zillion-and-one golf courses. I’m letting you know right now, I don’t golf and I have several environmental and OTHER reasons for why I cringe at each siting of another golf course being developed by our river. But, I know…I know…some of the people I know, absolutely love to golf! They live and breath golf…they travel for golf…they book days off for golf…they date golfers…talk golf…drink at golf clubs…so, far be it for me to say ANYTHING negative about golf courses! So…I’ll move on to my blog.

I want to write about the pheasants on the golf course, as well as make other observations of our time down by the river this evening. First of all, the Bow River is at least ten feet up from where it was last week. We were walking on river rock last week and Max, the border collie, was neck-deep, chasing sticks. Tonight, as I struck a path through the wild rose bushes and tall grass, Max eagerly took a nose dive off of the bank, anticipating, I’m sure, his hunt for the perfect stick. Instead, he lifted off of the bank and landed in fast-moving river water. He did a quick about face, bounding up the river bank and charging about like a kook. It was so funny that I let out a belly laugh.

It was interesting watching the birds this evening. With the huge mosquito population this season, the birds, like dive-bombers, were swooshing down just above the water surface, feeding steadily and in huge number. I took Max down to the foot bridge and watched the birds for a long time from the half way point on the bridge.

I don’t know how those geese protect their babies! Two pair of geese were VERY busy coralling their family of countless babes, attempting to keep them tucked in to the wee eddies, but dealing constantly with the rushing water and the apparent contradictory spirits/choices of the young ones. In the end, the two families separated, clamouring onto the grassy bank. Amazing how one family headed one direction and the other, in another. How do those downy babes know their own parents? AWESOME!

A beautiful male pheasant let out his call, again and again for the duration of my walk. I stopped and watched him a couple of the times along the way. Two magpies swooped again and again in the pheasant’s territory and I knew that the brightly-coloured male was likely defending a nest. I marvel at the challenges for wildlife and know that in the end, it is all really a matter of which BEAST is stronger. So much of what I observed today was about instinct. It was just so fantastic to be party to a taste of it.

Finally, there were several pheasants on the golf course! I can not tell you how comical this was, given the particular way that pheasants move or ‘make tracks’. They were evidently feeding, and in this situation on wide open MOWED greens, I’m certain that they became immediately, more vulnerable. All of the colours were such a contrast and the time that I spent watching seemed so surreal. Nothing about what I saw, the dance of these birds, made sense. Ours is a remarkable world!

The Chapel

…a place where MAGIC happens!

Tag Archives: Pheasants

The Power of Every Day

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The Struggle is Real

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Max Falls In!

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Pheasants on the Golf Course

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