Badlands Hank

While I was working out in Nordegg in late July, Hailey and her youngest sister Helena took a road trip down to the badlands.  Margarit and Anna stayed behind back in the city... mostly to look after the menagerie.

Hailey and Helena headed down to East Coulee and stayed in the trailer at the shop.  I haven't talked to them yet, so I don't know exactly what they did while they were down there.  But they took Hank along, and sent me these snapshots of him exploring the badlands....

Seedlings

Every year around this time Clearwater County offers up seedlings to County residents.  You have to make an application, and be a landowner in the County in order to qualify.  The seedlings are intended as shelterbelt trees and are grown specifically for this purpose.  The seeds are collected in the area, and then grown in a nursery in British Columbia.  Then, every summer in July the seedlings are delivered to the County office in Rocky Mountain House, and can be picked up by those who ordered them.  There are both Lodgepole Pine and White Spruce seedlings available.

This is the third year in a row that I have taken part in this offering.  We have lots of spruce trees on our property, and they seed themselves, so I just ordered the Lodgepole Pines.  Pine trees generally need a fire to open their cones and shed the seeds. Obviously we don't want a fire on our property, and the pine numbers are declining.  A number of mature trees have died in the past couple of years.  Possibly there are some Mountain Pine Beetles taking their toll, but I think it is more likely that the hot dry conditions of the past couple of years, combined with our very thin topsoil layer, have contributed to this.  On most parts of our property we only have 18 to 24 inches of topsoil on top of solid bedrock.  I suspect that the topsoil layer was once thicker, and believe that it was burnt away by a forest fire at some point in the past couple of centuries.

The seedlings are very affordable, and I again got 75 of them for 25 bucks.  Unfortunately deer will eat young pines, though they don't really care for spruce.  We have resorted to installing chicken wire around most of our seedlings to keep the deer away.  We like the deer, but we like our trees too.

This year was the third time that I purchased 75 seedlings.  In the past I have also purchased some much more expensive seedlings from a nursery in Edmonton.  This included Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Bristlecone Pine and Jackpine.  I think all told we have put in close to 300 trees over the past three years.  Many of them will not survive but if even 20% make it, then we will nicely supplement the natural forest that we already have.

The Fawns are Out

There are about a dozen White Tail Deer that hang around our property.  They are more common in winter, and get a little dispersed over the summer months.  There are two large bucks with big antlers, as well as two or three younger bucks with much smaller racks.  There are about five does, and a few yearlings that hang around with them.  All of the does appeared to be pregnant this spring.  They usually drop their fawns around June but initially are very protective, and keep them very well hidden.  Until my most recent visit out to Nordegg, I hadn't yet seen any of the fawns this year.  When I came out on July 26th I saw one spotted fawn, already fairly large, back in the yard with his mama.  When I pulled the memory card from my trail camera, I found a few more shots of them wandering around.

I still have the date and time messed up on my camera and although these images are tagged with a 2015 date,they were all taken in the past few weeks.  I think I have this resolved now so going forward, any new images should have correct information.

I also got a shot on the trail camera of our resident Red Fox......

It has remained quite smoky all over the province through most of July, and this was evident in most of the images on the trail camera.  Hopefully the current rain helps to clear the skies and maybe dampen the fires in northern Alberta and British Columbia.

Hats

I found a sale online, and bought a bunch of hats.  Some are for me, and the rest are to give away to friends and family.

I got a kick out of the "Das Ist Mir Wurst" one, and bought it for myself.  It sounds like it is some obscene comment about male anatomy, but it actually means "I don't care".  A more direct translation would be "That is sausage to me".

I bought the "Warning - No Filter" hat for myself a couple months ago.  My friend Scott saw it and liked it, so this time I ordered one for him.

Of course the one about three daughters is for me...

The one referencing beer and being busy is for my neighbor Brian.

My friend Rob in BC just hates being around crowds, and his wife calls him a curmudgeon.  When I saw the hat I knew I had to get it and send it to him.

And my brother-in-law Shawn is the crop duster... so that one is for him.

It was a sale, and there were quantity discounts, and an offer with free shipping.  The hats ended up costing less than fifteen bucks each, all in, including shipping and taxes.

Summer Hockey Playoffs - Semi Final Game 1

It was a weird season for my Renegades hockey team this year.  We started out in the fourth out of five divisions, and a record of zero wins and six losses  through the first six games.  Then we strung together a couple of wins in a stretch of about a week.  First a 7-4 victory over the Sea Changers.  They started out in division three, then got moved down to division four, then got moved down with us to division five.  

That last divisional move happened in early June and we were moved, along with the Sea Changers to the lowest division, number five.  Before the move we played our last game in division four and defeated the NorAlta Canucks by a score of 10-6.

Once we got moved down we were easily winning most of our games.  Our record in division five was 6 and 2 and we only lost two games late in the season... mostly by our own fault.

The Sea Changers finished the season with a record of 8-8, but they were awarded first place because they got a points adjustment on the divisional move.  The Chiefs finished 8-7-1 and that overtime loss saw them finish a point ahead of us, in second place.  We finished with a .500 record at 8-8 but because we were not awarded any points at the divisional move, we ended up in third place.

The semi final round saw the first place Sea Changers face off against the winner of the wildcard game.  They handily defeated the Metalheadz in their first game.  The second place Chiefs and my third place Renegades faced off in the other semi-final.  Our first game was on July 25th at Grand Trunk Arena.  Despite only 8 of our skaters showing up we rallied from behind to win the game 6-5.  

I was injured in the first period in a collision behind our net, but managed to finish the game.  I certainly didn't contribute much but since we only had three defense, it was good that I could spell off our other two guys.  I think it is just a shoulder sprain or some such thing, and hope to be able to play in the second game on August 1st.

Its Official

The Beer Parlor project has been ongoing for about a year now.  We have already documented four establishments, scouted several others, and have plans for in depth visits at a couple more.  To aid in making introductions, and getting permission to visit we have had some business cards made up.  One side has my contact information, and on the other side is the information for my colleagues Chris and Connie.

The cards just arrived at Chris and Connie's place from the printer, so I don't have any yet.  But this is what they look like...

Weekend Outing

Margarit and I headed down to Big Valley on Saturday July 22nd.  I had arranged to re-shoot my portrait of the Outlaws that I messed up when we were down a month prior for the Beer Parlor Project.  On this day there was a big street party going on in Big Valley.  The steam train was rolling in, and the outlaws were holding it up, but there was also a classic car show, a free BBQ and a street dance with some bands playing.

We met up with Chris and Connie and then connected with the Outlaws.  After I shot some portraits of them with the view camera we hung around town for a while and checked out the street party.  Later in the evening we headed down to East Coulee and settled in for the night at the shop.

On Sunday we packed up and hit the road for home.  Chris and Connie eventually made their way back to Calgary.  Margarit and I took the scenic route back home to Edmonton.  We circled around to the Sheerness mine.  The coal mine has been shut down, and the power plant converted to natural gas.  Some months ago the drag line was blown up and is being stripped down for scrap.

Here is a Youtube video of the boom coming down....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-PgPqyR-Oc

By the time of our visit there is not much left of the old dragline.  It looks like final salvage is taking place on what's left of the machine.  

Sadly there is also not much left in the old Sheerness townsite either.  There never was a lot....

The school and old store and one residence are still standing.  The large house that once belonged to the mine manager has been demolished.

Little Frogs

On our way home from Nordegg, Shawn and I stopped at Jackfish Lake.  There were hundreds of baby frogs clustered together in the grasses along the lake shore.  Some of them were wood frogs, but I think some were also toads.  I tried to shoot this video with my phone to give some idea as to just how many there were.  It is not a particularly good video, but I think it gets the message across.....

ATV Ride

On Sunday July 16th Shawn and I went out for an ATV ride.  It was a pretty long one, and took the better part of the afternoon.  I didn't keep track of the mileage on the odometer, but I seem to recall the ride is over 20km round trip.

We started out from the cottage and crossed the highway, circling into the Nordegg townsite.  Then we went through town, up past the water towers, and up into the hills above town.  There was some open pit coal mining activity up in the hills during the last years that the mine operated, and we rode past some of these.  Then we continued on up an old road and circled in behind Eagle Peak.  The views would have been spectacular was it not for all the forest fire smoke.

There were lots of wildflowers up along the trail and we stopped to admire them in a few locations.  At the end of the trail there was a big clearing that I believe was once a lease site for some drilling activity.  It was full of wild flowers, and also some relatively fresh bear droppings.  We didn't see any bears, but I suspect they frequent the meadows and roadsides to graze on the grass and clover.

The elevation here is about 6300 feet above sea level, considerably high than the 4500 foot elevation that the cottages are situated at.  As a result the blooming season was not as advanced.  There were bunchberries blooming in my yard a couple of weeks ago, but now they are all finished.  Yet here at higher elevation, the bloom was still in full swing.

All along the trail there were lots of small shrubs and trees that were bent right over, and lots of bigger ones that were snapped of.  This is undoubtedly from the heavy snow that fell in the area in late June.  I was down in southern Alberta at that time, and did not experience it first hand.  I watched the yard on my security cameras at the time of the storm and there was an accumulation of a couple of inches down by the cottage.  But up here in the higher elevations it must have been a lot more.

I took my big camera along on the ride but never got around to shooting anything with it.  Wildflowers are not well suited to Black and White, for the most part.  And the skies were so obscured with smoke that none of the landscape images would have been particularly attractive.  Maybe next time....

Once we got back down to the cottage and put the ATV away we decided to hit the golf course and play our second round of golf.  It was surprisingly busy and I thought by Sunday afternoon most of the weekend people would have been heading home.  For the first time this year my score did not improve over my previous round.  In fact it got a lot worse, and I finished about 10 strokes higher than my previous round.  Shawn says he felt rushed by all the people on the course behind us and perhaps this influenced my score too.

Brothers in Nordegg

My brother-in-law Shawn came out to Nordegg with me on July 12th.  My two brothers declined, so I suppose it was the Brother-in-Laws trip.  It was great to get away from the city for a few days after being a little burned out looking after my mother.  But Shawn and I had a great time.

There were a few firsts for Shawn...  he played his first round of golf... he learned his first guitar chords, and he got re-introduced to Gin and Tonic.

While I was away, we had Margarit's 1972 VW Beetle in the shop.  It sat for the past couple of years and the fuel system got clogged up.  This was mostly due to the fuel tank starting to rust.  We had a new tank and carburetor installed by a shop in West Edmonton.  They finished the work while Shawn and I were away, so I paid the invoice with a credit card, and Margarit and Hailey picked up the Beetle.  All of Margarit's previous Beetles were named, and she finally came up with a name for this one... Jitterbug... or Jiggy for short.

While we were out at Nordegg, and aside from our two rounds of golf, Shawn and I puttered around at the cottage.  I made another batch of smoked salmon.  We also did a batch of smoked pork ribs that were really good...!!  I worked on applying paint and lacquer to most of the remaining trim materials.  I also managed to install the last little bit of aspen panelling.  While I was doing that Shawn cut up a bunch of deadfall, and worked on splitting it with the wood splitter.  He took nine feed sacks full of split wood home for his backyard firepit, but also replenished a significant portion of the woodpile that I burnt last winter.

Most days it was really smokey due to some forest fires in British Columbia.  All of the fires in central Alberta are currently contained but there are still some burning in the far north of the province.  The ones in northeastern British Columbia are really large and remain out of control.  It is these that are contributing to really smokey conditions.  Some days we could not see across the valley to peaks around us. 

A Very Busy Week

My 89-year-old mother badly ripped open her shin about ten days ago.  Sometime around the beginning of July the injury took place.  Mom has dementia and can't clearly recall how it happened.  My brothers and I think that she stepped into a brush pile full of old branches that is on her acreage.  Initially Mom did not tell anyone about the injury.  She just flipped down a big flap of skin that had been ripped off of her shin.  So the wound did not initially get any medical attention.  

My brother eventually found about the wound and went to check it out.  I was in Nordegg at the time and unable to help out.  The doctor dressed the wound and asked that we return every day to have the dressing changed.  

I returned to the city on July 7th and Mom's home care worker Kim and I took her in to the doctor to get the wound checked.  It had begun to heal but was showing signs of serious infection.  They  prescribed some antibiotics to combat the infection that was beginning to set in.  On Saturday the 8th I took Mom back to the doctor to have the dressing changed.  He was not satisfied with the way that the antibiotics were working and advised that we should go to the hospital.

So, I took Mom to Emergency and we waited for about 5 hours before she was finally seen.  They started a routine of Intravenous Antibiotics and set us up for a bunch of return visits to a daily IV clinic.  

This all took place on the day that I was supposed to get together with my friends Chris and Connie, for another chapter of the Beer Parlor project.  Chris and Connie had driven up to Edmonton and checked into a hotel with the expectation of us getting together for the weekend.  Of course I had to bail out and we were not able to do anything.

On Sunday July 9th my brother was able to step in and he took Mom to the doctor and the IV clinic.  I was able to briefly get together with Chris and Connie.  We took advantage of a beautiful afternoon and took a drive out to several small towns in the Edmonton area.  We scouted four or five different small town hotel taverns, with the expectation of returning to some of them at a later date.  The Beer Parlor Project documents small town hotel taverns and the people that frequent them.  One of the places that we stopped had these urinals in the men's room, made from old beer kegs.

After that scouting trip the next week was filled with taking care of Mom.  I took her to the IV clinic on Monday and again on Tuesday.  There she was given antibiotics by IV, and had the dressings on her wound changed.  I also had a consultation with a Nurse Practitioner who assessed the progress and made recommendations for the days to come.  

I was scheduled to head out to Nordegg for a few days with my brother-in-law Shawn, and I was able to do that on July 12th.  My two brothers and Mom's home care worker stepped in and took Mom to her IV appointments and looked after dressing the wound.  On July 17th Shawn and I returned to the city, and then I stepped back into the role of primary care giver.  My middle brother Greg was away to a conference in Montana for a couple of weeks, and my youngest brother Wes lives in Calgary, and can only help out on weekends.

I stopped in briefly on the 17th to check on Mom before heading home to celebrate Helena's 15th birthday.  Then on the 18th I spent the entire day with Mom again.  We went to an ultrasound clinic to check the circulation in her leg.  The doctors are thinking they may want to prescribe a compression stocking to speed the healing, but is has to be the right size and degree of compression.  We also picked up a bunch of first aid supplies to properly deal with the wound.  Many of the medical supply places were out of stock of the items we needed and a good part of the day was spent driving around and trying to find them all.  Eventually we were able to do that, and it appears that things are improving a little.  On Friday Mom can finally get in to see her family doctor and a decision will then be made about the compression stocking, and any needed treatments moving forward.

Another Outlaw Video

Here is another video from our visit to the Outlaw Saloon back in June.  Margarit shot this one on her phone, while I was trying to play along on the guitar.....

Sweet Fifteen

Today is my youngest daughter Helena's fifteen birthday.  Being the typical teenage girl she would rather not be seen on the same planet as her parents.  Hopefully we can convince her to have some sort of family celebration later this evening.......

Old Church

On July 6th, on my way back home to the city from Nordegg I made a side trip over to this old abandoned church.  I had been here before, about a year ago.  This time around I took my time and shot about eight sheets of 4x5 sheet film.  I look forward to seeing what those images look like.  In the mean time here are a few snapshots that I took with my phone.....

Ribstone

This shot is also from the recent batch of Ilford FP4+ given plus development in HC-110 Developer.

I shot this image early in the spring of 2023, and you can see a small patch of snow on the ground.  This is one of the Ribstones at the archaeological site near Viking.  The indigenous people in ancient times carved these glacial boulders with grooves that resemble the ribs of a bison.  To this day the site is sacred to the first nations people and they leave offerings here of sweetgrass, coins, tobacco, etc.  A braided wreath is visible to the right of the stone.

I shot this on April 8th 2023, at about 1:40 in the afternoon.  It was taken with my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a Schneider G-Claron 210mm lens.  I used a #25 Red Filter to increase contrast.  The exposure was F20.0 at 1/15 second.

Picture Coulee

This shot was also taken on Ilford FP4 film and given plus development in HC-110.  This is Picture Coulee and that is the Red Deer River in the background.  This coulee is on private property, and we were escorted by the land owner.  I'd like to get back there someday and explore it a little more extensively.

This particular shot was taken on May 28th 2022 at about 6:00PM.  I shot this with my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a Fujinon 250mm lens.  I didn't use a filter for this shot and the exposure was F20.0 for 1/15 second.

Pasque Flowers

This is another shot from the badlands of southern Alberta, taken on May 2nd of 2022.  This one is also from the batch of FP4+ that received plus development in HC-110 to increase contrast.  If I ever print this one I think I would bleach up the value of the foreground flowers a little.

I shot this one at about 1:45 in the afternoon with my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a Fujinon 125mm lens.  I used a Magenta filter to create some separation between the badlands soils and the vegetation.  I think it worked to a degree.  Exposure was F29.0 for 1/15 second.

Dead and Alive

This is another shot from the recently processed batch of Ilford FP4 sheet film, given plus development in Kodak HC-110 Developer.  Development was at Dilution B, for 14:20 minutes.  This yields a significant increase in contrast, particularly for a subject such as this, that was in relatively flat light.  I took this shot way back on September 8th 2021, at around 11:30 in the morning.  I shot it with my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a very long Nikkor 500mm telephoto lens.  This allowed me to get in very tight on the trunks of the trees.  I used a #8 Yellow filter to lighten the value of the foliage.  The exposure was F20.0 for 1/4 second.

Turner Valley Gas Plant Historic Site 1

This image is from the recent trip to the Turner Valley Gas Plant Historic Site back in June.  The manufacturer of this valve, Crane Steel, used the Swastika as their logo.  This dates back to before the war, when this symbol was not attached to the Nazi party in Germany.  I expect to post additional images from our visit to this fascinating site, in the coming weeks as I process the rest of the film.  We booked a private tour of the site and paid for personal escorts and guides to provide us access to photograph the site.  It is hoped that some of the images may work for our Apparitions project.

I shot this particular image on June 17th 2023 near the end of our visit, at around 2:30 in the afternoon.  This was taken on Ilford FP4+ sheet film, with my Ebony 4x5 view camera.  I used a Schneider 135mm lens with no filter, and the exposure was F18.0 and 4 seconds.  I rated the film at 160 iso, which gave slight underexposure.  This was combined with extended development of 14:20 minutes in Kodak HC-110 Developer, dilution B.  The result was this significant increase in contrast, well suited to both the lighting conditions, and the subject matter, in my opinion.

Dinosaur Valley Studios.

This is a Youtube link to a short documentary about the construction of a Mosasaur Skeleton.  Dinosaur Valley Studios, working out of my shop in East Coulee, constructed this and installed it out at Carolside Reservoir.  Carolside is a small lake.... large by prairie standards... created by the damming of East Berry Creek.  It is a popular spot with the locals for camping and fishing.  Carolside is located about 65km straight east of East Coulee, on Highway 570,  It is a short distance beyond Highway 36.

https://youtu.be/bkUduUIVwJw

Working Through the Weekend

I stuggled with my cold through the whole long weekend.  It got rather cool and overcast for most of the weekend, and showered off and on.  I ended up staying in Nordegg a day longer than I originally expected, hoping that I will get over the cold a little more, and not be contagious when I go back home to the city.  

I keep working through the weekend and into the first week of July.  I got two coats of the "Buttercup Yellow" paint on all of the interior doors.  While I had brushes and rollers dirty with this color, I also painted the interior side of the main entrance door.

On Tuesday July 4th my cousin Vic and his wife Susanne stopped by for a visit.  They were camping nearby with friends and wanted to stop by and say hello.  Unfortunately Margarit was not out this time so she was not able to join in on the visit.  But we plan to all get together out here at the cottage sometime in August.

I tried to play a round of golf on the afternoon of the 4th and had a tee time booked at 3:00 in the afternoon.  But, when I showed up at the clubhouse, the skies broke open and it poured rain.  This was the first time I left the property since I arrived before the long weekend, and I wasn't away for long.  I decided to take a literal rain check, and went back to the bungalow and carried on working.

I cut up a piece of cherry hardwood that I brought out from the city, and glued together the parts to make two picture rails for our kitchen in the city.  I've been meaning to do this for years and just haven't gotten around to it.  All my tools are out here at Nordegg, which makes it difficult to do much back home in the city.  Next time I come out I will continue and round off all the edges and corners, sand them, and then stain then to match our kitchen cabinets.

With my decision made to stay for an extra day I decided to install the doorknobs and latches on the three interior doors.  The paint was fully dry by Wednesday so I spent the morning installing this hardware.  In the afternoon I made a quick run over to the dump to get ride of some garbage, and then headed back over to the golf course.  It was mostly sunny, with a partially cloudy skies, and the temperature got up to about +25C.  The course was busier than I have seen it so far this year but I managed to get in nine holes.  Every time I play my score gets just a little lower than my previous round.  This time I shot a 45 on the par 32, 1999 yard course.  Nothing to brag about but at least I'm going in the right direction.

There have been chipmunks all over the yard the whole time I was here.  There were three at a time on the bird feeder on occasion.  The feeder, which holds a significant amount of seed, was emptied in just a few days.  There was a pair of Evening Grosbeaks hanging around the feeder on Wednesday too.  The male is so colorful with his bright yellow plumage and I managed to get a snap shot of him with my phone.