Sir John A MacDonald

Apparently a bunch of young losers decided to vandalize a statue of Canada's first Prime Minister...  Sir John A. MacDonald.  The most publicized incident was in Montreal, but I understand that several other plaques and statues were targeted in other cities as well.  The police stood by and watched while these vandals unbolted the statue in Montreal, pulled it down, broke the head off and sprayed it with graffiti.  Their argument is that his government was racist towards natives, created the Indian Act and started Residential Schools. Somehow this is justified and warrants breaking the rule of law.

I've been a conservative supporter all my life.  It just seems the other parties can't deal with the reality of the living within their means.  They recognize the fact that business, while making a profit, also employs huge numbers of people and contributes significantly, both directly and indirectly, to the tax base and the livelihood of all people, This is a fundamental belief of conservatives... and and of mine.  God knows I've paid millions of dollars in various forms of tax through the forty years that I was involved in the operation of my small business.

Recently I've been disappointed with Alberta's premier, Jason Kenney... even though I voted for him.  I have concerns about his policies related to the environment and his decision to approve open pit coal mines in the mountains... only to sell the resource to the Chinese.  His choice of some of his cabinet ministers, particularly Jason Nixon, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

But, in light of these recent events I am proud of what he said and maybe it will make me re-evaluate my opinion. 

He said, "the vandalism of our heroes and history must stop"

And went on to say....

"both MacDonald and the country he created were flawed but still great"

"many of the extreme left responsible for this kind of violence claim that Canada is an illegitimate state, all the while enjoying Canada's rights, freedoms, privileges and prosperity.  None of those were created by accident"

And..

"if the city of Montreal decides not to restore the statue to where it stood for 125 years, we would be happy to receive it for installation on the grounds of the Alberta legislature"

When is this political correctness going to come to an end.  The blind continue to lead the blind... unfortunately.

East Coulee

We all arrived back in East Coulee on the afternoon of Friday August 21st.  It was still very hot, but a couple of degrees cooler than it had been earlier in the week.  We set up the trailer in the yard at the shop and settled in to relax.  On Friday evening we joined Frank and Chris and headed over to the Old Grouches Cozy Cafe for dinner.  Their daughter Sabrina works there part time as a waitress.  I first met Frank and Chris and Sabrina back in the late 90's. I stumbled onto Frank's dinosaur digsite while photographing down in Horse Thief Canyon.  Over the years we have become not only very close friends, but also business partners.  At that time Sabrina was a toddler and I distinctly remember being awakened by her one morning when I crashed overnight on their living room floor.  She must have only been about 2 or 3 years old and woke me up by jumping onto my chest, at about 6:00AM, so that we could watch some Disney videos.  Flash forward to now and I think she is like 24 years old...!  Makes me feel my age...!

Hailey had to drive back to Edmonton on Friday evening as she had to work a shift on Saturday.  She had left her car at the shop after meeting me there earlier in the week.  Helena went home with her.  This left Margarit and I a couple of days to be together.  On Saturday we toured around the valley, Margarit hiking and collecting rocks, while I photographed.  We went up the valley from East Coulee and I photographed some hoodoos, some old mine workings, and some old wagons.  Later we headed into town and picked up a few groceries.  Still later that evening we made dinner for ourselves back at the trailer.  Margarit decided to head back home that evening and be with the girls.  I stayed for one extra night... the last night of my third week of vacation.  I hung around the trailer in the evening, had a small fire, and played guitar.  In the morning I packed everything up and moved the trailer into the shop.  We are unsure if we will get it back onto the road this year so for now it is stored away.

After leaving the shop I headed into town and photographed a few of the historic landmark buildings in Drumheller.  This included the Napier Theatre, an auto service garage, and the Waldorf Hotel.  It was still quite warm at 26C, but not nearly what it had been earlier in the week.  After I finished up the photos I fueled the truck and hit the road for home.  It was about 2:30 in the afternoon when I left town and headed back to Edmonton.

 

Red Rock Coulee

 On the morning of Wednesday August 19th Hailey and I hit the road from East Coulee, to Red Rock Coulee.  We bought groceries the evening before and tried to be ready in the morning.  After a couple of false starts... taking on water, putting the plug in the hot water tank, etc. we finally hit the road by mid morning.  It was smoking hot, clear and sunny, and very hazy.  I think the temperature peaked at about 33C.  The haze was partially from the heat and humidity, but I think the fact that the harvest was well under way in southern Alberta, was putting a lot of dust into the air.  It was somewhat surprising to me to see that the grain crops were a couple of weeks further advanced as compared to crops in Central Alberta.  A number of fields were already combined.

After a brief stop for fuel in Medicine Hat we continued further south into Forty Mile County and by early afternoon arrived at the Red Rock Coulee Provincial Natural Area.  Although we have been here many times before, this was our first trip in several years.  There is just a gravel turnaround at the end of the road and we set up our trailer here.  It is not an official campsite and there are no outhouses and no fires allowed.  The only facilities are an interpretive sign and one picnic table.  We parked the trailer and settled in.

By late afternoon Margarit and Helena arrived.  Annelise decided to stay home in the city.  We had an evening meal of pasta and sauce and wandered around a bit among the boulders while watching the sunset.  This area is on the southwestward facing slope of Bullshead Butte.  Here there are many enormous sandstone concretions in varying stages of eroding out of the hillside.  Some are intact while many are fractured and split apart.  The area has a rather eerie feel as is was parched dry.  The girls saw a couple of cottontails but other than that it seemed devoid of life.  The prairie flowers were all finished blooming and the ground was very dry and split open.  We heard some packs of coyotes in the evening but of course they are able to travel distances to nearby dugouts for water.  The smaller animals were non-existent, except for birds.  The nighthawks put on a display in the evening, swooping and diving, catching insects and presenting their "booming" courting display.

We stayed for two nights and on Friday morning hit the road.  I stopped in Medicine Hat to photograph a couple of neon signs, while the girls checked out an antique store.  We headed back up to East Coulee and arrived back at the shop by mid-afternoon.  We spotted the trailer in the yard at the shop and settled in to relax for a couple of days.

While we were there I sent my drone up for an aerial view of the concretions.  Quite a different perspective from up above....

 

Atlas Coal Mine

I shot this image back in July of 2019.  It was while my cousin and her family were visiting from Germany.  I headed down to East Coulee with them and we explored for a couple of days.  Margarit and my girls were unable to join us, for some reason that I can no longer recall.  So it was just me, Roswitha, her husband Gunnar, and their daughters Melanie and Viven.  On one day... a very hot one as I recall, we went over to the Atlas Coal Mine, across the river from my shop, where we were camped.  This image was taken on Fuji Neopan Acros 4" x 5" large format film, with my Ebony SV45TU camera and Rodenstock 90mm lens.  It was processed in Rodinal developer.  This one may actually make the cut for the Historic Coal Project that I am working on with some of my friends from the Monochrome Guild.

Vacation Week

I booked my third week of vacation for the week of August 17 to 21.  I'm supposed to get six weeks of vacation this year, but the last three will be pro-rated due to my work week being reduced to four days, and perhaps less.  I've never had this much time off through my entire 40 year working career and I'm really enjoying it.  This should have me well prepared for full retirement at the end of the year.  

I headed out to Nordegg on Saturday, leaving the city about lunch time.  The girls were not joining me for the first part of the week off.  I had a pretty leisurely drive out and stopped a few places along the way to make photographs with my view camera.  An old theatre in Thorsby, and abandoned gas station in Sunnybrook, and a collapsed barn north or Rocky Mountain House.  I arrived at the cottage in the late afternoon.  This time with the weather being so sunny and hot, I had brought along our new loveseat.  I checked in advance to make sure that my neighbor would be out to give me a hand to carry it off the truck and into the cottage.  My neighbor Rob was over within minutes of my arrival and helped me with it.  It is just fantastic to have such wonderful neighbors.  I'm happy to return the favor any time, which I why I did the wedding photos of their daughter a few weeks back.  Later that evening I visited around the campfire with Rob and Brenda and stayed up way too late, and drank too much beer.  Typical for Nordegg and the next morning the infamous Nordegg Headache paid yet another visit.

On Sunday I spent the better part of the afternoon splitting firewood.  We still have two large piles of cut logs that date back to when our lot was cleared about three years ago.  Some of the stuff from the bottom of the piles is getting a little rotten and will have to be reserved for the outside fire pit.  But, knowing from experience how much wood we can burn in the winter, I am splitting and piling as much of it as I can.  The temperature peaked at 32C, the hottest day of the year so far.  I had to take a few breaks and cool off to avoid sunstroke.  I was sure exhausted by evening and feel asleep after a late dinner, trying to watch a move.  Monday was still warm, but it was mostly overcast and quite a bit cooler.  I spent most of the day splitting logs again.  I've now worked through more than half of the big pile behind our garage.  A thunderstorm rolled through in the afternoon and it cooled off dramatically as we got about 3mm of rain.  It was a relatively tame storm with only a little thunder and lightning, but no hail or heavy winds.  Within an hour or so it had passed and soon the sun was out again.  The storm forced a beer break but as soon as it passed I went back to work.

I had some leftover mexican food from the night before and then when out for an evening ATV ride.  When I crossed Shunda Creek at about 8:30 I noticed that the fish were rising all over the place.  I rushed back home and got my fly rod and managed to fish for about 20 minutes until the sun went down.  My fly got hit about six or seven times and I actually landed three brook trout,  Two were just tiny minnows about four inches long, which I promptly threw back.  The first one I caught was a nice size at about nine inches long.  When I got back to the cottage there were two white tail bucks in the woods behind.  They have been regular visitors but are now sporting full racks and have lost their velvet.  As I sit in the window typing this I am watching them in the fading light of evening.  Three does wandered over and joined them as it settled into night.  Sure love this place and will enjoy spending a bunch of my retirement days here.

 

 

Headboard of Peeled Logs

I finished up the headboard that I made and brought it out to Nordegg on the weekend of August 8th.  I actually had four days off so I headed out of Friday and stayed until Monday.  It was pouring rain when I left the city so I elected not to bring out the new loveseat that we bought.  It actually rained quite hard most of the way out, so that proved to be a good decision.

By the time I got to Rocky Mountain House the clouds had opened up and the rain was coming to an end.  I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some grub for the weekend.  At this time of year, with the heat of the summer, it is easier to buy groceries in Rocky, so the food doesn't sit in a hot vehicle for three hours.  A cooler helps, but this is better.  Have to be respectful of the Covid situation and not transport the virus to a small town.  I'm very cautious about keeping distant and I wore a mask while I was in the store.  Masks have been made mandatory in Edmonton, so I'm getting used to wearing them in public.  In Rocky Mountain House they remain optional, though I wore mine.

The headboard looks really good and it makes that fact that I spent so much time peeling logs, not to mention dropping a tree on my foot, all worthwhile.  I've spent the last several weeks drying the logs and sanding them at the shop.  Every day after work, for most of the last several weeks, I worked on sanding and assembling the headboard.  A few days prior to the weekend it received its four coats of lacquer and I packed it up and brought it out.  I'm quite pleased with the way it looks and will now focus on finishing the matching footboard.

Hailey had to work part of the weekend but she joined me for the last two days.  We really didn't do much of anything.  Other than setting up the headboard, I just tinkered on a few things, mostly relaxed and played a little guitar.  For the past couple of months Hailey and I have been watching the old Twin Peaks TV series on DVD.  I bought the disks for her a few months back, thinking she would like them.  I was right, and she has become obsessed with the show.  We watched the pilot and both seasons.  Then we watched the prequel, Fire Walk with Me.  Followed by the anniversary follow up that came out 15 or 20 years later.  I'm glad that she enjoys it and its nice to do something together.  

I had to pack up and head home on Monday evening but Hailey stayed a couple of extra days by herself, before coming home mid-week.

 

 

August Long Weekend

Margarit and I headed out to the cottage together for the August Long Weekend.  I also had the Friday off, so it was a four day weekend.  Originally we were going to head down to the badlands and stay at East Coulee.  But, at the last minute the girls decided they wanted to stay home.  Margarit and I decided to head out to the cottage in Nordegg instead.  This would be our first couples weekend out there together since we insulated and painted the drywall a couple years ago.

I recently ordered a rustic sofa and matching loveseat on line.  These were delivered to our house a few days before the weekend, and we had them stored in our garage.  We decided we would take one of them out on the long weekend.  We had also ordered some pine seedlings from Clearwater County.  They have a batch raised every year by a nursery and offer them to county residents at a very modest price.  We had ordered 90 seedlings and they only cost us $27.  These had just arrived and were ready for pickup, but only during business hours at the county office.  With the opportunity to head out on Friday morning, we decided that we would pick up these seedlings as well.

Having just purchased the lot next to ours a couple of days prior, this gave us an opportunity to walk the lot and get a better feel for it.  We will take some time to figure out the best building site on the property, and also take some time to think about exactly what we want to build.  We did take this opportunity and planted some of the seedlings we bought on our second lot.

I had purchased my drone a few weeks prior, but had just recently obtained my pilot's certificate.  This would be the weekend that it would take it's maiden flight and I played around with it a bit, trying to learn how to safely pilot the thing.  I also spent quite a bit of time practicing guitar.  After three years of not only collecting guitars but also taking some lessons and sporadically practicing, I am finally beginning to get the hang of it.  Mostly this is because in recent weeks, with my declining work responsibilities, I now actually have more time to practice.  I just play a bunch of my favorite songs on my iPod, and try to play along on the guitar.  I am now able to figure out the chords on about half of what I listen to, and can actually begin to hear the chord changes.  Now I just have to work on my strumming...

Margarit was pretty patient with me.  She did most of the work planting all those seedlings while I was pretty lazy and mostly just played guitar.  But it was a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend.  One evening we went over to our neighbors Rob and Brenda and visited with them around their camp fire.  A few other neighbors from the other end of the subdivision came over and joined in so it was nice to meet some new people.

On a second evening our friends Shelly and Eric came over and we had a campfire of our own.  It was nice to visit and just relax with them.  Eric was gracious enough to give me a hand to carry our new sofa upstairs to our living room.  Next time I come out I will bring the loveseat.

I think this is the first weekend in ages that I actually did not take any photographs.  Nothing with my big camera, no digital snapshots, not even a phone shot.  So no images whatsoever to include with this post.  I will try to change that going forward.

Spreading Creek Burn

Back in mid July, when Hailey and I spent a few days together at the cottage, we took a day trip up into Banff National Park.  We made it as far as Waterfowl Lakes, Bow Pass and Bow Lake.  But, it was very busy everywhere and just parking the truck was a challenge.  We didn't stay long and soon found ourselves back outside the park on the David Thompson Highway.  In 2014 a large forest fire called the Spreading Creek Burn started in the park and burned its way east along the North Saskatchewan River.  It was finally extinguished by the time it got to Whirlpool Point, but not without devastating a significant amount of forest.  We stopped near the trailhead to Landslide Lake, and wandered through the burned area.  I was intrigued by some of the standing burned trees that resembled totem poles.  I took a number of photographs here with my view camera, and Hailey plunked around taking some shots with one of my Hasselblads.  It was a very pleasant and enjoyable afternoon.

Wedding Photographer

In late July the daughter of our neighbor at Nordegg got married.  The wedding ceremony was at their cottage, followed by the reception in town at the hall.  I was asked and volunteered to take a couple of photos with my big film camera.  In particular they wanted to attempt to replicate a shot of the bride and her mother at a mirror.  They had an old family photo of their grandmother in a similar shot.

I've shot weddings on a film a number of times in the past, but never with my big 4x5 view camera.  I've done studio portraits with the 4x5, but never something as fluid as a wedding.  It takes far too long to set up the big camera and there is too much activity on such a busy day to consider it.  Most people have no understanding of the process and the time requirements and hence there is limited patience.  In this case the wedding party had a full time photographer hired to shoot the entire wedding with a digital camera.  I was only asked to try to supplement that with a couple of film shots.

The mirror shot was fairly simple as I was able to set up in the bedroom in advance and thus there were only very minor adjustments needed once the bride and her mother arrived.  I attempted a couple other formal shots while the digital shooter was doing her thing.  I got one of the entire wedding party and one of the bride with her parents.  The shot that I attempted of the bride alone did not work out as I was rushed too much and was a little out of focus.  But all in all it went pretty well and our friends next door are quite pleased.  At some point soon I will make them some prints.

1600 Posts

My last post... the one about the prairie yard... was my 1600th post... dating back to 2010.  Over 140,000 views over these past ten years.  Thanks to everyone that keeps coming back and looking at my photography and my writings.  Nice to hit a milestone like this....

Prairie Yard

Back in mid-July we spent a few days down at East Coulee.  This was the weekend at the end of my second week of vacation.  Our friends Chris and Connie from Calgary came out to meet us.  We have been out with Chris and Connie on many occasions in the past.  They are the Bigdoer team and run a website called bigdoer.com, as well as a Facebook page.  They are historians, researchers and explorers with a passion for old stuff, and a keen interest in the natural world.

Margarit's brother Shawn and his girlfriend Donna were also down with us for the weekend.  We hung out at the shop in East Coulee.  Margarit and Helena and I stayed in our trailer.  The other two girls stayed home in the city.  All of our guests crashed in the shop.  We had a good weekend of visiting and hanging out, with a little exploring thrown into the mix.

On our way down to the badlands Margarit and I stopped at the Antique store in Erskine.  We had always wanted to check this place out, but it was never open when we normally passed through.  This is because we usually passed through on Friday evenings on our way out, or Sunday evenings on our way home.  This time it was midday Friday, and the place was open.  I had actually stopped here once before by myself, but this was Margarit's first visit.  Lots of cool stuff in this place...!  This time I bought an old double barrel 12ga. shotgun.  It was made by Syracuse Arms and dates back to around 1905... so well over a century old...!  It's probably not safe to try to fire this, and I only bought it to hang on the wall at our cottage.

Chris had made arrangements for us to visit an old farm yard out on the prairie nearby.  This one was occupied, and we had permission to visit.  It was at this location that we checked out the old abandoned swimming pool.  I posted a scan of a large format negative that I shot here... a few days back.

There was also a really cool old snowmobile in a storage building.  Probably dates back to the 1940's or 1950's.  Big 4-cylinder aircraft engine on this one, and it was wind driven by a propeller about six feet in diameter.

We also made a stop at the churches in Dorothy.  Chris is writing a book on historic places and Dorothy is one of the subjects.  He wanted to get some "after" pictures of the restored buildings.  While we were there, I showed Chris what is rumored to be an unmarked grave, in the pasture near town.

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key.  Had a big BBQ with the whole gang.  Visited around an evening campfire.  A very enjoyable time.  By Sunday evening we had to pack up and head for home.  This would be the end of my second week of vacation, and I had to head back in to the office on Monday.

First Drone Image

Another of several retirement gifts for myself was a drone.  A couple of months ago I bought myself a DJI Phantom 4 drone.  This thing captures high definition video, and good quality digital stills.  The new drone rules in Canada require the owner to have a pilots certificate.  An on line test must be taken and once passed, a pilots certificate is issued by Transport Canada.  It costs $10 to take the test, and you can take it as many times as you want or need to.  There are 35 multiple choice questions and you need to achieve a score of at least 65%.  The first time I took the test I didn't study and just answered all the questions as quickly as possible, guessing at the ones I didn't know.  I finished the test in 10 minutes and got a score of 50%.

A couple of weeks later I tried again, with a little studying, and almost passed.  I was two correct answers short of getting the required 65% correct.  The third time around I actually spent a couple of hours studying and reading through all the information.  I took my time and really thought about the questions.  This time I passed, though I was not provided with an actual score.

Then, once I had the pilot certificate I was also able to register the drone.  So, now I am ready to fly.  The rules of the basic certificate that I have permit me to fly within line of sight, to a maximum altitude of 400 feet above ground level.  The drone must remain a minimum of 100 feet away from occupied buildings and I can not fly it over people.  I also need to stay at least 3 miles away from any airport or heliport.  Those are the basics at least.

I took the drone out to the cottage last weekend and it flew its maiden flight.  It is fairly straightforward to pilot, but you need to be careful and pay attention.  Although the drone has sensors to avoid obstacles, there are a lot of trees at our property, and I had to pay attention.  This is one of the first drone images that I captured with the digital camera.  It is of our cottage from about 75 to 100 feet up.  I can be seen standing in the driveway operating the drone.

Prairie Pool

When I took one week of vacation time back in July, I spent the first part of that week out at the cottage with Hailey.  At the end of the week Margarit, Helena and I headed down to East Coulee for a few days.  Our friends Chris and Connie from Calgary met us down there.  My brother-in-law Shawn and his girlfriend Donna also joined us.  For one day we headed over to a nearby farm.  There were some old buildings and machinery like many other farm yards.  This one was different in that it also had an old abandoned swimming pool.  We visited with the lady that lived there and she told us the story of how it all came about.  All the neighbors for miles around got together, back in the day, and built the pool and the change rooms.  It was the center of activity for all the kids from miles around.  I can just imagine those hot prairie summer days and the pool filled with kids, splashing and shrieking.  It is very quiet and almost eerie now as it sits abandoned, partly overgrown by carraganas, out on the prairie.

Lodgepole Grove

I took this shot back in mid July.  It was on the day that Hailey and I took a day trip from the cottage down to Ram River... on the Forestry Trunk Road.  This grove of Lodgepole Pines was visually very interesting to me, and the understorey was so open.  We stopped here and I took a couple of shots with my view camera, while Hailey rattled off a few frames with the the Hasselblad.  Mine was shot on Fuji Neopan Acros 100 sheet film.  The roll film that Hailey was shooting hasn't been processed yet but hopefully we get to it soon.