The grandfather tree

This morning, Remi and I visited what a friend of mine calls "the grandfather tree." It's big and beautiful, and I'm sorry to say that I don't even know what kind of tree it is. A poplar of some sort, I think. All I know for sure is that I love it, especially sitting and breathing with my back against its rough trunk. I've taken pictures as it has leafed out this year -- April 10, May 1, and today.

With the drought and the winds we've been having recently, I worry for our trees. Edmonton has lost several over the last weeks -- 130 km/hr winds are hard for anyone to withstand. I also feel for them... with the wildfire smoke we're experiencing, there's no way they can keep up with clearing the air. The air is polluted beyond their capacity, though they continue to do what they can.

And that's a lesson for all of us in these challenging times, I'd say. Be like the trees, and keep on keeping on. Do what we do best, and hope for the rest to work out somehow. 

But I also know enough to acknowledge and appreciate beauty when I see it, and so I am sharing the grandfather tree with you. Come visit, and we'll walk there together.

Our chilliest vacation yet

I'm still catching up from my June moodling break... in these beautiful summer days, it's challenging to spend time at the computer. So I'll keep this vacation summary short on words and a bit longer on pictures.

We drove to Southern Alberta on the last day of May,

and after a brief visit with my father-in-law in Lethbridge,

set up camp in Waterton Lakes National Park on June 2nd.

It was so windy, Lee had to drive the car in front of our tent

to protect it from 80 kmph winds. Windy and noisy! 

It wasn't easy to sleep, hearing the wind roar up the lake like a jet plane!

I wore my long underwear for all but the last day 

of our Southern Alberta vacation. Glad I did, too

-- it was cold at Cameron Lake, but we had a good hour's hike

along its edge. We were almost the only ones there.

Waterton Lake remained rainy and windy except for the day we left!

The Blakiston Creek hike was an easy, lovely walk 

and didn't disappoint, though, like much of Waterton Park

after the 2017 wildfires, the forests were gone.

When we got back from our walk, the view from

the Prince of Wales Hotel was promising... 

but windy and cold. I guess that's why Waterton

is more popular in July and August!

We moved on to camp at a warmer spot at Beauvais Lake

and had a beautiful climb up Baldy Mountain

-- there were bear warnings for the other two popular vistas, 

so we satisfied ourselves with this view.

Near Beauvais Lake we found the carefully preserved gravesite of

kind and good Metis settler John Whitford

and a pair of Trumpeter Swans! Beautiful birds!

(I wish I had a better camera...)

We spent some time driving through Castle Provincial Park

(recently protected from destructive recreational vehicles)

and I soaked my feet at Castle falls, 

which was running too cold and fast to be a good

swimming hole at the time!

We enjoyed watching wildlife from respectful distances,

and I took lots of wildflower pictures.

On our way back for another visit with Lee's dad , we stopped at

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (a UNESCO World Heritage Site)

and took our time in the visitor's centre. 

The cliffs above were hidden to the buffalo...

until it was too late, and down they plunged,

a feast for indigenous communities 

who carefully herded the buffalo to this place.

After a brief return home, we drove to see a few uncles and aunties 

in rural Saskatchewan before driving on to Saskatoon

to visit my godmother and my second-favourite river city.

I especially enjoyed watching an Oilers' playoff game with Auntie Jo!

Saskatoon's Bessborough hotel, a landmark from my youth.

Though those early weeks of June were the chilliest vacation Lee and I have ever taken overall, we made many good memories, and I managed to read a few good books while sitting in our car in the  worst of the lashing rain and wind. 

It was great to get away and see old and new places, but the best part was seeing the faces of Saskatchewan relatives. And, of course, enjoying the beauties of Creator's nature, human and otherwise. I think, though, that we'll pick a warmer time for our next trip to Waterton!

Happy May!

May is my favourite month of the year. It's always been special for me because of Mother's Day and my birthday, but those fade into the background when flowers bloom and trees put out leaves and Spring abounds!

It's also a busy time, made busier these days by wonderful educational concerts at work (if you know any young families who might be interested, M is for Music is a wonderful show written and performed by a former Edmontonian and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra this weekend), and planting starting in earnest. So far I've planted onions, Lee put in potatoes, and there's lettuce, arugula, spinach and garlic poking up. And today I moved my tomato and pepper plants outside into our covered garden box, where I hope they can stay until they are properly planted (though if the temperatures dip, I'll be sure to bring them back into the greenhouse -- I learned my lesson two years ago when I put things in before the May full moon and lost 40 tomato babies!) 

Here are the tomato plants... and other things in the yard just starting to bloom. Happy May!

Scilla, true blue

Tulipa

A few crocuses that the jackrabbit didn't eat...

and violas all over the place!

Happy Spring!

Monday Music Appreciation #19 -- Handel's Messiah Amen

(Yeah, I know it's Tuesday, but I accidentally set the publication date incorrectly for this moodling to next Monday, oops! And didn't realize it until this morning.)

My wonderful Winspear ushering job means that I get to hear Handel's Messiah in December each year. I've always loved different parts of it -- the rousing Hallelujah chorus for its excitement, For Unto Us a Child is Born for its back and forth between duet choruses, Comfort Ye My People for its soaring tenor, and Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion for its amazing soprano aria, to name just a few. After this moodling, I think I'll go listen to it all again!

Of course, in the chamber, it's easy to feel that once the audience sits down after the Hallelujah chorus, it's all downhill from there. But is it?

Not exactly. What struck me most this week was the final Amen. In particular, the violin passages between the singing. The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra's violins played it with such incredible feeling this year that I sat up and took notice. They probably do that every year, but this year, it hit me!

I've listened to the Amen a few times since. Amen means we believe. A heartfelt Amen goes a long way in these very long winter nights. See if you don't agree.

Simple Pleasures: Nature's tenacity

Yesterday, the sky was full of thousands upon thousands of sandhill cranes migrating north, sometimes playing in the thermals overhead, flying in spiralling clouds that looked as though they might crash into each other. Can you see them? I wish I had a better camera and could capture the sound that makes me look up every time!

Violas also appeared this week, pushing through a crack in the sidewalk.

And the scille that were eaten by some small critter in my yard? Well, a small patch of them survived!

In these days when human news seems to be going from bad to worse and I'm struggling to keep my chin up sometimes, there's nothing like nature's tenacity to remind me that greater forces are at work than human plans and economies.

Things are always changing, and that calls for adaptation. The cranes will adjust their flight paths, the flowers will bloom earlier or later, and wise human beings will find ways to work together for the common good.

Nature's tenacity is in all living things no matter what we two-leggeds do. These days, I'm finding that tenacity everywhere, and delighting in it. It's better than letting the news get me down.

Appreciating simple pleasures improves our happiness quotient!

Simple Pleasures: Green growing things (a.k.a. houseplants)

Meet Rex. Rex has been with me in one form or another for four or five years. My husband and kids call Rex "the ugly plant," but I think she is incredibly gorgeous, especially when the sun strikes her in certain ways.

I have my friend Jocelyne to thank for introducing me to her a few years ago. I had never seen anything like her, but she was sitting in Jocelyne's window with sunlight shimmering on her fuzzy leaves, and I was drawn to her shapes and colours as though she was a magnet. Pictures just don't do her justice. 

I asked Jocelyne if she would give me a cutting, and she promised me that when the time was right, she would share some of her plant's progeny. And here we are, maybe five years later.

What's funny is that I didn't know Rex's official name until yesterday. When people (who are not my family members and have no biases against Rex) visited and commented on her beauty, I would inevitably ask them if they could identify my plant. No one could.

So yesterday, I finally solved the mystery. I web-searched "houseplants with purple veins." No go. I tried "purple-veined houseplants with long stemmed leaves." That got me a little closer. I tried "plants with red markings." I don't remember what finally worked, but eventually I found a picture of a plant similar to mine, and that led me to a whole page about Rex Begonias, which vary in colour and size. 

My mom grows beautiful flowering begonias every summer -- you'd think I might have recognized the shape of Rex's leaves as similar to Mom's plants! But Rex has never bloomed, though apparently she can put out small flowers if conditions are right. However, according to the webpage, those small flowers can't compete with the beauty of the plant's leaves.

If you haven't yet guessed, houseplants are one of the simple pleasures in my life. A friend of mine recently discovered the joy of green growing things in her home, and she's suddenly the proud mom of over 100 of them because Canadian Tire had a sale! 

I have a quarter that many, accumulated one at a time, many of them gifts, and most are surviving quite nicely, though they are often somewhat neglected during outdoor gardening season. We recently had an annoying fungus gnat infestation, but even that didn't diminish my joy much. (As much as I abhor pesticides, Lee picked up some Dr. Doom pyrethrin powder made from some sort of chrysanthemum compound, and the tiny fly-up-your-nose flies are down to a dull roar once again).

In places where winter is long and dark, houseplants are a simple pleasure that can enliven any room with a spot of colour and better air quality due to plant-filtered oxygen. I used to keep my plants all in one area, afraid I would forget to water somebody, but now they're spread around the house, and I haven't lost anyone yet. Lee has appreciated the plant companions in his work-from-home office during the pandemic, too. He says the air quality is better. 

Not all of my plants have names, but I have named a few that came to me because of special people:

Mary-John (from Lee's Polish grandparents)

Ruthie (from a cutting snitched
from the hospice where her
final journey took place five years ago)

Gaby (my dear Belgian host-dad)

Jay (our youngest)

Lidia (my Italian kaffee-klatsch friend)

and Louis (my father-in-law).

Just so you don't think I'm totally off my rocker, the rest of my plants are nameless, and the ones mentioned above have their names mostly in my head because of the loved ones connected with them. By all rights, Rex's true name is Jocelyne, because I think of her whenever her plant catches my attention. But I am delighted by the name Rex, too, because I've often thought a plant like her may have been around long enough to witness the tyrannosaur's era. She has that look about her, somehow.

Are there plants in your life that bring you joy? It's a question worth thinking about. If you like, send me pictures and I'll share them... The more we can be aware of our Simple Pleasures, the more gratitude floods our lives and reminds us of the good that surrounds us even in these challenging times, and I don't know anyone who can't use more goodness and gratitude. 

Thanks, Jocelyne, for sharing some simple pleasure with me through your Rex Begonia!  Even though I will never convince my family of her beauty, I love this plant, especially when I remember who gave her to me...

Appreciating simple pleasures improves our happiness quotient!

Simple Suggestion #284... Nominate a neighbour (Front Yards in Bloom)

Poster borrowed from the Evansdale
Community League Website

I intended to post this a while back, but with garden dirt on my hands most of the time lately, I rarely open my laptop for moodling. So this is a time limited post for my Edmonton neighbours!

It's Front Yards in Bloom nomination season until June 30, and for the next couple of days you'll find me walking the streets of my neighbourhood and noting the addresses of neighbours whose yards inspire me to stop in my tracks and smile, or at least take a second look at the beauty they are creating.

For some of us, a yard is like a canvas, a place to create a landscape that feeds the soul, not to mention bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, jackrabbits and other wildlife that's less visible. My regular readers know that I'm with God and St. Francis when it comes to rectangular monocultures that many folks seem to value, and cheer more for yards full of colour, texture and life.

So the City of Edmonton's Front Yards in Bloom nominations are a wonderful way to encourage neighbours to create spaces that attract wildlife, increase biodiversity and give us lovely things to look at. If you have a neighbour who gives extra time and effort to their greenspace or balcony or tiny yard, or who plants edibles or native plant species where folks can appreciate them, why not visit the city website and nominate them to let them know you recognize their work as something special that makes the neighbourhood more beautiful?

The deadline for nominations is June 30th.

Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

A love letter to the North Saskatchewan River

One of the main reasons I love living in Edmonton is our river valley. We are so blessed to have the
North Saskatchewan River flowing through our metropolis from west to east, and even more blessed that , over many years, our city councillors have protected its banks and made it into the largest urban park in Canada. A string of about 30 municipal parks covers about 18,000 acres, with more than 160 km of maintained pathways for walking, jogging, cycling and other outdoor pursuits.

Over our Christmas and New Year's break, Lee, Shadow-dog and I walked over 60 km along our river, doing what we call a chain walk. Basically, we crossed 11 bridges (some more than once) and walked in 28 parks on both sides of the river, starting at one bridge and walking to the next, returning on the opposite side of the river, except in the parks out west where the trails meander up into neighbourhoods like Rio Terrace, Quesnell Heights, Rhatigan Ridge, and Ramsay. That was our longest walk, almost 10 km from Quesnell Bridge to Terwillegar Footbridge and back.

Here's a list of the parks we hiked through, borrowed from Wikipedia's North Saskatchewan River valley parks system page. Up until now, I didn't even know that some of the parks had special names!

Walterdale Bridge

• Terwillegar Park - south bank
• Oleskiw River Valley Park - north bank
• Whitemud Park (also known as Whitemud Creek)- south bank
• Sir Wilfrid Laurier Park - north bank
• Buena Vista Park - north bank
• William Hawrelak Park - south bank
• McKinnon Ravine Park - north bank
• Government House Park - north bank
• Emily Murphy Park (named for one of Alberta's/Canada's "Famous Five") - south bank
• Victoria Park - north bank
• Kinsmen Park - south bank
• Queen Elizabeth Park - south bank
• Nellie McClung Park ("Famous Five") - south bank
• Irene Parlby Park ("Famous Five") - north bank
• Rossdale Park - north bank
• Louise McKinney Park ("Famous Five") - north bank
• Henrietta Muir Edwards Park / Rafters Landing ("Famous Five") - south bank
• Mill Creek Ravine Park - south bank
• Gallagher Park - south bank
• Riverdale Park - north bank
• Allan Stein Park - north bank
• Forest Heights Park - south bank
• Dawson Park - north bank
• Kinnaird Park and Ravine - north bank
• Capilano Park - south bank
• Gold Bar Park - south bank
• Floden Park - north bank
• Rundle Park - north bank

We were fortunate that the weather was reasonable (it's reaching into the -30 degrees Celcius range these evenings, with a -35 windchill at the moment) and the skies were blue for the most part. The thing about living here is that if you can adapt to the cold (read, dress properly), there's every reason to get out and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, and there's plenty of beauty to enjoy.

As we walked, I decided that it was time to write a love letter to my river valley.

Dear North Saskatchewan,

I love your

frosty, misty mornings, 

sounds of squirrels and songs of birds,

your still, shining waters,

frozen surfaces and chunks of ice,

your woodpeckers' holes in snags,

tall trees and frost-encrusted shrubs,

your snowy paths and quietly curving trails,

bridges and city views.

Low Level Bridge view

I love walking, hand in my partner's hand,

and the dog's prancing gait

as we meander with you,

North Saskatchewan River,

and return home

with pink cheeks and tired feet.

I love the part you have played

in the lives of those 

who have inhabited your banks and bluffs

for thousands of years.

I am grateful 

for the way you sustain life

from the glaciers 

to Saskatchewan River Forks.

Pileated woodpecker

Thank you

for your water and ice,

for your beauty and serenity

in my hometown

amid the noise of traffic

and the construction of your bridges.

Thank you

for being a refuge,

a nature-haven

for city-weary souls.

May your waters flow

forever.

With love and gratitude,

Maria

Fort Edmonton Footbridge

Icing-sugared trees

On Tuesday evening, we had a lovely gentle snowfall of rather wet snow that stuck to the trees, not quite like hoarfrost, but pretty all the same. Shadow and I went for a walk to take pictures before the sun melted it all. As it's been a while since I've posted any wintry beauty, I thought I'd indulge today, and put some pretty snow at the top of my moodlings against our gorgeous winter blue sky. Enjoy!

Happy Environment Week!

Happy World Environment Day, in the middle of Environment Week. Here is something really beautiful. Let's do all we can to enjoy our forests and care for our environment...

Spring beauty

It's been two weeks since my last visit to Butchart Gardens with my best friend, and I was always going to post these pictures, but I've been MIG (missing in garden) since I got home. Two weeks ago, not much was happening in my own yard, but now my tulips are in full bloom, as you can see on the picture at the top of Simple Moodlings right now. Of course, I don't have the incredibly interesting varieties found in Butchart, and in Edmonton, we can't grow the kinds of rhododendrons you find in BC, so I'll post a few pictures from Butchart for you to enjoy, and enjoy the blossoms on my own pear tree in the meantime...