Snow Yet Again.....!

I was out at Nordegg by myself... working with my contractor on the site work next door.  When I got up at 6:00 AM on Wednesday May 19th I was greeted with a dump of fresh snow.  Margarit tells me that they had a lot of rain, followed by some snow, back in Edmonton.  This was mostly on Tuesday, I'm told.  Later in the morning it snowed even more and accumulation eventually got to about three inches.  But it was very loose, wet snow and it didn't last long.  I made a trip to the dump in the early afternoon and by then the snow was mostly gone, but it was very muddy.  By later afternoon it got up to about +4 C, though the clouds never really broke.  But the snow mostly disappeared.  I've lost count but this must be about the fourth time that we've got a dump of snow, in the past five or six weeks.  There's a little more in the forecast for the May long weekend and hopefully we are done after that.

Evening Stroll

After we got back to the cottage, from our afternoon drive up to the Blackstone River, we set about getting supper put together.  We did some baked potatoes, salmon, steak, chicken breast and corn on the cob, all on the BBQ.  Margarit also threw together a Tex-Mex salad.  It was a huge meal and very satisfying after a great day.

Later in the evening, I decided to head out for a walk.  Helena was watching a movie, Anna was listening to music, and Margarit was reading a book, so I went by myself.  I did my usual loop around the subdivision, starting in front of our place on Tamarack Trail, and the circling back around on Pine Martin Drive.  The walk is probably close to two miles, with a little elevation gain.

When I set out, the sun was just setting in the west, behind the Bighorn Range.  Twilight lingers for quite a while at this time of year, and it was a very pleasant evening.  I saw nearly a dozen deer around the neighborhood as I leisurely strolled around.  Hardly anyone was out at the cottages as being Sunday night, almost everyone went home after the weekend.  I think there were only half a dozen or so of the places that were occupied.  The sky was clear, with just a few whispy clouds.  The moon was like a fingernail clipping, and by the time I got back to the cottage, the first stars were starting to twinkle to life.  Even at that point the temperature was still +14C.  

I made a brief stop along the way to check the spot where the deer had recently passed on.  To my surprise, it was gone....?  There is a cottage fairly close to the site where she died, so maybe the owners noticed the carcass, and buried it...?  But I couldn't see any signs of that.  And it was a full grown White Tail Deer, so the only thing big enough to carry it away would be a bear, or maybe a cougar.  There was nothing left but a few hairs in the grass.  Even the sunflower seeds that we tried to feed it were gone.  I found it rather strange, and a very sad end to a sad story.

Back to Blackstone

On Sunday afternoon Margarit, Annelise, Helena and I took a drive up to the Blackstone River on the Forestry Trunk Road.  This was my second trip in recent weeks, as I went up there with Hailey just a couple of weeks ago.  It is 32km from the junction of Highway 11 and the Trunk Road, to the Blackstone Crossing.  Just as we were rolling down the hill towards the river valley we saw a Black Bear in a clearing beside the road.  A short time later, Helena saw... likely the same bear, along the gravel bars of the river.

We spent a couple of hours exploring down here.  Mostly the girls collected rocks, and I did a few setups with my 4x5 camera.

Later when we headed back to the cottage, we rolled into the subdivision and noticed that almost all of our neighbors had left.  It was fairly busy this weekend, and a lot of people were out at their properties.  But by the time we rolled back to our place, it was well after 6:00 PM, and almost everyone had gone home.  A most glorious time indeed.

We took my old 2004 Dodge out for the day trip.  The old girl has become a permanent resident of our place at Nordegg.  It sure was nice to drive a standard... for a change.....

Day Two on Site

On Thursday I worked on our property for about four or five hours.  My Contractor Scott was there with his track hoe.  He was pushing down trees, pulling stumps and clearing away debris.  I was working with my chainsaw cutting the limbs off the downed trees, and cutting the trunks to length.

On Friday we continued with more of the same.  We spent about 7 or 8 hours working on Friday.  By the end of the day Scott had hauled away five tandem dump truck loads of debris.  The County operates a burn pit near the subdivision.  Locals are allows to dump wood waste there without charge, and the County burns it every winter.  I'm sure it will see lots of activity this year with all the construction taking place.

All of the trees that need to be removed were down by the end of the day.  Unfortunately I had to take down a few more than I really would have liked.  But, we need space for the guest cottage, a septic tank, and a fire break around the site.  We also had to take down a couple of large spruce that could have fallen on the building site in a wind storm.  We will plant some new trees around the perimeter this year to develop some privacy and a windbreak for the future.

At some point during the work one of the hydraulic cylinders on Scotts' track hoe became bent.  This was the ram that operates the thumb on the bucket.  As we continued to work, that cylinder became more and more bent, eventually to almost 90 degrees, and then it broke right off.  I was shocked to see that a solid, hardened steel rod, two inches in diameter, could bend like that.  Neither of us noticed any particular strain or torque on it, as it was just used in normal operation.

Scott had a neighbor bring out a new hydraulic cylinder that afternoon.  I gave him a hand in the evening to pull the damaged one off and install the new.  Cylinders are not overly expensive... only around 300 dollars, but hopefully this doesn't happen again.

It has been quite some time since I have done that much physical work.  My back and my legs were extremely sore by the end of the day.  I felt much older than my years.  Fortunately when I got up the next day, most of the pain was gone and I was ready to carry on.  On Saturday I did a little more work with the chainsaw but only for an hour or so.  Scott did not work on the weekend so the track hoe remained idle.  We will get back to some serious site work again on Monday.

It's Official

Work has commenced on our second property out at Nordegg.  On Thursday May 13th our contractor, Shunda Creek Contracting, commenced site clearing.  It rained in the morning, so work didn't get underway until around lunchtime.  Scott ran his large track-hoe and pushed down a bunch of trees and pulled out the stumps.  I helped out a bit with my chainsaw, limbing the trees, and cutting them into manageable lengths.  A driveway in to the building site was cleared, as well as most of the building site.  There are still a few more trees to pull down tomorrow, and lots of cleanup left to do.  Scott hauled away two dump truck loads of waste, but there is still a lot more to go.  All of the logs that are not rotten will be retained and cut up for firewood.  The rest will be hauled to the community burn pit.  We have come to learn how much firewood can be consumed through a cold winter.  A wood stove will be the primary heat source in both our main cottage and the yet to be constructed guest cottage.

Yesterday we had our septic tank pumped out and hauled away, and got a load of water.  Our water storage cistern holds 2000 gallons, and the septic tank is the same size.  When we fill with water, we always empty the holding tank, so this helps us to monitor.  We last dealt with the tanks around Thanksgiving, so this has lasted us over six months.  Two tanks a year is very reasonable and we expect to use even less at our guest cottage.

I also had our propane tank filled this week.  We have a 1000 Gallon tank.  We last filled it about two years ago, and this time around it only needed about 175 gallons to top it up.  We use propane for supplementary heat in our cottage, as well as for our kitchen stove, our hot water heater, and our barbecue.  When we are away, we use electric heat to keep the cottage from freezing.  When we are at the cottage and it is cold outside, we mostly use the wood stove for heat.  So our propane consumption is minimal.

The Deer

This is a very sad story......  

Annelise and I went for an ATV ride out at the cottage on Monday May 10th.  The trails were all pretty muddy considering the rain and snow that we had just had.  We avoided some of the ones that we knew would be really bad.  The winch on our ATV is broken, and no one was around to give us a hand if we got stuck.  So we tried to stay out of trouble.  We crossed over the highway and took a trail that circled around behind the golf course beside Long Lake.  The ice was long gone, and there were a bunch of ducks on the lake.  We also saw two Swans...!!  Not sure if they are Whistling or Trumpeter... one of the two is endangered, I think.  We saw a Swan here last year as well, so hopefully they are nesting.  It was pretty muddy on this trail so we made a mental note to stay away until things dry off a bit.

We circled through the new commercial area in town.  The only original buildings that remain are the church and the bank and one industrial building.  All the other historic stuff was demolished and all the trees were cut down to make room for new curbs, sidewalks and lots.  It remains to be seen if anyone actually develops anything.  The County also has an area, just slightly to the west, where they put up fencing and serviced a bunch of residential lots.  I think that must have been about ten years ago and not a single lot has been sold or developed yet.  It seems their development plans are somewhat misguided, or at least optimistic....!

We circled up into the hills above town, and followed the old rail trail for a bit.  We decided to avoid the trail that went down into the flats near Shunda Creek as we knew that would be pretty muddy.  We went back into town, and crossed back over the highway back into the north Subdivision.

As we were driving along Pine Martin Drive I noticed a deer laying in the ditch.  It was kind of scuffed up, and looked like it was dead.  We lurched to a halt and went to check it out.  Much to my surprise it struggled to its feet.  It was really wobbly, and not in very good shape.  It climbed up the bank beside the road and wobbled off into the bush.  We left it alone, but returned a couple of hours later to see if we could find it.  It was there... laying in the bush, a short distance from the road.  It did not look as though it had been attacked by a predator, as the wounds were very superficial.  I suspect it might have been hit by a vehicle on the highway, which was about a quarter mile away.  When Anna and I approached it, she tried to struggle to her feet, so we backed off and left her alone.  But it was starting to rain, and getting rather cold, and we were concerned.  So we went back to the cottage and got a moving blanket out of my truck, and some of the sunflower seeds that we had for our birdfeeder.

When we went back to the deer, it was too weak to get up, and allowed me to cover it with the blanket.

I can't tell you how sad it is to see those big dark eyes looking up at you, as you try to comfort and help a wild animal that is obviously in distress.  We left it for the night, fully expecting that it would pass away.  The next morning we went back to check on it.  It was laying on the ground with its head cranked back in a death pose, but much to my surprise it was still breathing... though barely.  We got some water and returned with Margarit and she tried to dribble some water into its mouth.  It managed to swallow, and moved its head a little from side to side.  She had big dark eyes with long eyelashes and it was a very sad situation.  We left it covered, and left a dish of water, and the birdseed, and hoped for the best.

Margarit and Anna and I had to return to the city that day.  Hailey and Helena stayed at the cottage and they went back and checked on her that evening.  They reported that she was still breathing but didn't look very good, and that she probably wouldn't make the night.  I guess I could have taken my rifle and put her out of her misery, but I was hopeful that there was a slim chance she might recover.  I also hoped that the human scent on the blanket would keep the predators away for a while.

On Wednesday May 12th I headed back out to the cottage by myself.  In the evening I went back and checked on the deer.  She had passed on sometime during the day.  She was cold and stiff and her eyes had glazed over.  I took the blanket away and saw that she had released her bowels.  I cleaned up the site and left her to allow nature to take over.  A very harsh life lesson for the girls... which they took remarkably well.... but it was very sad.

 

Shunda Creek

Here are three more of my less than ideal color transparencies.  Like all the others that I recently posted, these were processed with badly outdated chemistry, and the film itself was also well past its best before date.  The film used in all three of these was Fujichrome Velvia 100F that expired in July of 2006.

All of these images were taken with my Ebony SV45TU view camera.  The first two were taken with a 110mm lens, and the last one with a 135mm lens.  A Blue-Orange Color Polarizer was used on all three.  

This is Shunda Creek, and one of its tributaries, not far from our cottage.  I believe that the old pumphouse was part of the coal mining operation back in the 1950's.  Its quite a walk to get to any of these spots, but we rode out on the groomed ATV trails on our side-by-side.  These images were all taken in August of 2017 over a period of about a week.

Windmill House

With my color film processing wrapped up I packed up my Jobo processor and made some space in my darkroom.  A week ago I processed a batch of black and white film.  This was Fuji Neopan Acros 100 in 4" x 5" format, processed in Rodinal developer.  There were a number of good images in this batch and I will be scanning and sharing some of them in the coming days.

This particular shot is a very recent one.  It is of an old house, in an abandoned yard with a windmill.  Arturo, Fred and I recently visited this site and had landowners permission to photograph there.  The old house was empty, but I always love the texture and tonality of weathered wood.  This one is particularly interesting as there are some old parts and junk hanging on the wall, as well as the weathered marks where other stuff used to hang.  I think it adds to the interest of the image.  This one might be worth making a print of.....

Industrial Site

Here are a couple more of the wonky color transparencies that I just processed.  In October of 2017 my friend Nigel and I took a drive out to an abandoned industrial site west of the city.  As is usual for me, most of my shooting was on Black and White film.  I was out with my Ebony SV45TU view camera and a selection of lenses.  On this day I also took a couple of shots on color transparency film.  Both images were taken on Fujichrome Velvia 100F.  This particular batch of film expired in July of 2006, and had been sitting in film holders since November of 2016.  As with the rest of my recent batch of film I stored these exposed sheets in my fridge until recently.  They were processed in a batch of E-6 chemistry that expired in 2008.  The color shift ruined many of the images in this batch, but I think it worked well with the shot of the graffiti.  Those bold paint colors in the contrasty light of that concrete foundation worked well.  

Vaccine Excitement

In early May, Alberta Health Services announced that vaccination appointments for all residents 12 and older could be booked starting on May 10th.  I thought it was going to be virtually impossible to get a booking within a reasonable period of time.

I was out at the cottage with all of the girls on May 10th, and unfortunately we all slept in.  I got up, around 10:00AM, expecting that I would be spending the entire day trying to book appointments.  I had my computer ready, and my phone by my side, and was getting settled in for a long day.

It turns out that appointments could also be booked at pharmacies.  My first attempt was to call the drug store that we use, right by our house.  To my amazement I got through on the first try.  I was able to book vaccination appointments for all three girls.  We don't even have to wait all that long... and the appointments are all in less than three weeks, on May 28th.

Margarit and I got our Astra Zeneca vaccinations back on April 12th.  We should have reasonable protection by now, and should be able to go in for our second booster shot in late June or early July.  I believe that the girls will be getting the Pfizer vaccine, as I don't believe that the Astra Zeneca one has been approved yet for younger people.  It will be such a relief when we are all protected.  

Yet Another Watercolor

It was mostly an inside day at the cottage today... May 8th.  We got another 10mm of rain today, plus the snow that my weather station didn't really record.  Unless the snow melts directly into the measuring receptacle of my weather station, the amount is just not properly recorded.  The snow is gone now, but the forecast is for continued unsettled weather in the coming days.  I went for a walk around the subdivision and it was nice to get out and move around a little.  A number of the new neighbors are out for the weekend, attempting to get started on the lot clearing and cottage construction.  I remember days like that, stuck outside in the cold and wet, trying to get some work done.  The first year that we were out at our place we had our holiday trailer parked on the property.  I'm so grateful that our cottage is now finished and we have such a nice comfortable place to relax and enjoy the mountains, despite the weather.

Later in the afternoon I attempted yet another watercolor.  I sort of used an online image of another watercolor artist's painting as a guide, but modified it to my own composition.  I think I am getting to the point that I am starting to like my work... a little.  I still don't think I'd consider framing this one, but it is getting closer to where I want to be.  I've lost count as to how many paintings I've done now.  I think this is around number eleven.  

Here we go again...!

Hailey spent a couple of days out at the cottage by herself.  I drove out and joined her on Thursday May 6th.  She had to head home on Friday morning as she had a couple of shifts at work over the weekend.  Margarit and the other two girls drove out to join me on Friday evening.  They brought my old 2004 Dodge Ram truck out.  I am keeping that one as long as I can as it has a standard transmission and those aren't made any more.... and way too much fun to drive...!  The transmission and clutch in the truck are relatively new, as I replaced them after the trip to Utah in 2015.  I just had some service work done on the truck to deal with a couple of leaks on the drive train... mostly at the transfer case.  That old truck will now stay out at Nordegg and we will use it to haul stuff to the dump and the burn pit, and to pound around on the backroads.

It was windy on Friday, but fairly pleasant until late in the afternoon.  Then the temperature dropped and it started to rain.  By the time the girls arrived at around 8:30 it was just a degree or two above freezing.  We got over half and inch of rain that evening, and then overnight it turned to snow.  When I got up on Saturday morning there was a couple of inches of snow on the ground and it was till coming down heavily.

Mexican Ranch

This historic property is on private land in southern Alberta.  I visited with my friends Chris and Connie, and we had permission from the landowners.  This was in July of 2017.  We were warned to be aware of rattlesnakes, but it was so hot that even the snakes were hiding.  We didn't see any, and the temperature peaked near 40C that afternoon.  I shot these two images on 4" x 5" color slide film just minutes apart.  Its funny how the color balance between the two images looks so different.  It was significantly more so before I fixed things up a little with Photoshop.  The horizontal composition was taken on Fujichrome Velvia 100 that expired in 2010.  The film was loaded into the film holder in 2012, and sat unexposed until this day in 2017.  The vertical composition was taken on Fujichrome Velvia 100F that expired in 2006.  It didn't sit in the holder as long, as it wasn't loaded until the spring of 2016.  After exposure both films were stored in the fridge until this past week, and then processed in that expired batch of E-6 chemistry that I recently used up.

Progression

I tried to paint a realistic Maple Leaf, working from a photograph I found on line.  I think this is now my tenth watercolor.  It turned out OK... but is not realistic enough for my liking.  I think I just have to resign to the fact that my color blindness will never allow me to mix realistic colors.  Perhaps I should go for the bold and stark look... much like the color film I recently processed.  I've included some snapshots below that show the progress on this painting as I worked on it.