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happiness

Edna Copithorne: A true Cochranite

There have been some really fun and interesting newspaper clippings that I have come across. Things in this house that look like junk – like old newspaper – rarely are it seems. Little treasures everywhere. You’d think in a house where nobody seemed to ever throw things away that I would have found those fossalized sea shells she talks about, but alas – no – so far anyway. Also no stove dynamite, so that’s a bonus.

Here’s a little story about Grandma that was printed in Cochrane This Week back in 1999. How Cochrane has changed since then!

Edna Copithorne, A True Cochranite

By: Gary Stevenson, for Cochrane This Week, February 9, 1999

Edna Copithorne is a true Cochranite. she was born in Cochrane, educated in Cochrane, and married in Cochrane. Edna is the daughter of Frank and Martha Brown who arrived in Cochrane with their daughter Ruth from Cobden, Ontario in 1904. The family homestead just north of Cochrane at the head of the coulee leading to Big Hill Springs. After four years, Frank Brown bought four lots in Cochrane and built a house, barn, corral and other out buildings.

Edna remembers the school and especially one of her teachers, Miss Bruce, who Edna says was a real pioneer teacher. The school is still standing and is now the Masonic Hall on Centre Avenue. The Bruces lived where the old police barracks are. When they first came to Cochrane, there was a huge pile of buffalo bones, as high as a hill, beside the station. These bones were shipped to be used in the sugar refining process.

Edna remembers standing at her bedroom window and watching a tremendous grass fire on Big Hill, a fire which threatened the town. It seems that a gentleman had been at the hotel celebrating some event when he was given a cigar. He lit it and started for home, going up the old Retreat Road (now closed). He did not like cigars so when out of sight, tossed it away. It is thought that this was the cause of a fire that had most able-bodied men fighting for hours. Imagine carrying buckets of water up a 700 foot hill! The fire fighters ran out of water except for the well at Frank Brown’s, and this was what saved the day.

Another well figures in Edna’s memories. In 1918, the Bruces sold their home in Cochrane and bought Bruckshaw homestead three miles north of the village. One of the necessities of life was a good well. This was excavated with the help of Tom Spicer and Orr Fenton. When the hole was of sufficient depth to use dynamite, Orr Fenton was lowered on the windless and set the charge. He pulled up and the men waited for the blast, which had failed to occur. So Orr went back down only to find the fuse still sputtering. They had to pull him by hand because the rope jumped the pulley and got him clear just as the blast went off, shooting dirt and rocks high in the air. Edna recalls collecting some of these rocks and to her amazement, they contained fossilized sea shells.

The next day, her dad went into the house to find a bucket sitting on the back of the stove. When he looked in it, he found sticks of dynamite frozen together. Orr had put them there to thaw them. Edna says she can’t repeat the words her father used.

Edna met her husband, Percy Copithorne, at a dance and they were married November, 1931. They settled on Percy’s property at Jumping Pound.

Edna remembers the Indian artifacts that could be found nearby where the Indians used a cliff to drive buffalo over. Unfortunately, scavengers picked the relics and today, the area is barren of artifacts of Indian life at the time.

But life went on, despite the Depression and the drought. Edna says, “1935 was the driest of several years. They were hard times, but we didn’t stop to think about them.”

There was an annual picnic organized by the McAllisters on an island in the Bow River. Dances were held. Edna’s husband Percy played the violin. Jack Copithorne was the drummer, and Percy’s sister Martha (this must be a typo? Margy?) played the piano. Later Bill Kumlin came into the band with a saxophone.

Sometimes, before the Jumping Pound Hall was built, they would load the piano into a wagon and cart it five miles to another homestead and hold their dance there. “I remember when there were no fences. Now everything is coming at us on all sides. It’s getting harder and harder to ranch. How long before Cochrane disappears under Calgary’s sprawl?” Asks a true daughter of Cochrane.

I remember as a child there being teepee circles (made out of rocks) in a field near us. The way I was told, it wasn’t scavengers, but researchers (I’ll use the term loosely) from the University of Calgary who came out and took everything so they could study it. I remember my mom being quite upset about it because what good were the rocks when they had been removed from their placement, from their setting? They were just rocks again. I’m sure there were other instances of people taking artifacts, I may or may not have spent several hours myself looking and hoping I’d find something. I would typically come home with pretty rocks from the creek which became less pretty once they dried.

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happiness

The Accident (A poem)

I found a poetry book Grandma wrote when she was a teenager – along with a few school friends from what I can tell. Most of the poems in this book are written by her, but there are several written by other girls – I assume classmates of hers.

I had previously found a written copy of her poem “The Accident” that didn’t have the explanatory story at the beginning of the poem. I was left wondering what had indeed happened to poor Jean, although I knew by how history had played itself out that she had in fact lived through this accident and gone on to live a long and hopefully happy and fulfilling life.

There are some really beautiful poems in Grandma’s book, about the landscape, the snow, the mountains, even about the passing of my great grandfather – her father in law. But this poem about her best friend eating dirt on the way home made me smile. This friendship clearly was incredibly important to Grandma. There are letters spanning her entire life from her good friend. It seems very “Anne of Green Gables” with her bosom buddy Diana – the type of friendship I have always aspired to have.

The Accident – by Edna Brown, 1924 (Grandma would have been 16 at the time)

One Day Ruth and Jean rode to town and coming home, Jean’s pony fell and threw her off, she was unhurt except for the gravel taking the skin off her elbow. While she was lying on the road, Ruth shouted at her “Are you killed yet Jean?”

There once was a dark eyed cowgirl

And her name was Jean Russell

She used to ride a roan pony

When she wasn’t in a hustle

But one day a storm rose from the west

And both speed and steadiness were needed

Maybe I’d better not tell the rest

Because in supplying these things that pony

Never succeeded

However Jean was home before the storm

And how she did it I for one with wonder was filled

One place from the road they have torn

And there Jean was supposed to have been killed

They took the top off a rise in the gravelly trail

But when they reached hone we were glad to find

Jean alive and telling the tale

With a few grains of gravel from her elbow to be mined

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happiness

The Prairie fire that drove us from school

I was digging through our archives (aka long abandoned boxes) and found an article written about the 1936 fire Grandma spoke of (If you’re not sure what I’m talking about you can find her-story about the fire here, and photos of the fire here). Grandma makes a cameo appearance in this account of the fire.

This is an article written in Grainews from June of 1995, written by Ronald Wallace:

The Prairie fire that drove us from school

It was Nov. 20, 1936, when the Brushy Ridge School house burned down. It was in the path of a Prairie fire.

I was nine years old at the time. My two sisters were 11. We were party f a group of a dozen kids who had braved the wind, the smoke and the smell of fire to attend classes at this school.

The fire got its start away to the West, in what is now known as Kananaskis Country. Probably the day before. Sometime during the night, the wind picked up.

Coming home from cousin Kass’s birthday party that night, the air was full of the smell of smoke. We kids paid scant attention to it, however. We were too full of cake and ice cream and the fun of the party.

The next morning, the wind had become strong enough to blow the soil off summerfallow, as it had done off and on all fall – ‘36 was a dry year. A lot of crops didn’t make it that year. The Depression was working its hardships on many people.

The acrid stench of the smoke was even stronger than last night, I thought as I bridled and saddled Queenie for school. The wind and the dirt had us ribbing our eyes already. We weren’t looking forward to the five minute ride. In fact, it was so dark we were a bit scared.

As we pulled into the school yard, the wind gusts ripped and tore at us with an awful frenzy. It took two of us to wrestle the barn door open enough for the third to get Queenie in.

We ran for the school. The giddiness I felt as the wind snatched my breath and smoke and dirt swirled around was scary.

About 10 o’clock the schoolroom got so dark we couldn’t see the blackboard. No electricity in those days.

Miss Davis was the teacher. The school sat directly across the road from the Callaway farm.

The school vacated

At 11 o’clock, Mr. Callaway came over to the school to talk to Miss Davis – out in the cloak room. When she came back in she asked Carl Wilson, who would have been 13 or 14 at the time, to run up the road about half a mile to the Messer place to warn them of the approaching fire. She told the rest of us to get our coats and run across the road to the Callaways. The noise of the wind had me totally spooked. Once we cleared the school, the same giddiness and panic took hold of me as I gulped and sucked for air.

My sister Doreen had hold of my hand, and if it wasn’t for her, I don’t know how I would have got across the road and into the Callaway’s house.

Their house was protected on the west by Spruce trees. The smoke and the wind billowed and screamed through the branches. The front and the back doors of the house were open as people rushed in and out.

It was dark in the kitchen. Mrs. Callaway was heating up porridge for Evelyn, the baby. It was burning. It took her a while to realize it. The smell of things burning was everywhere.

Some live coals blew in the back door. Joe, the hired man, stamped them out and tried to shut the door. The wind was such it forced him to put his shoulder to it.

I can still see his neck bulging with the effort. My sister Eileen told me afterward that Joe had helped get us kids across the road. I often think of this because, at the time, most of us were a bit afraid of Joe. He was Czechoslovakian and had a strong foreign accent. He seemed to us to be a big boy with a gruff voice.

Rushed out of area

Ted Callaway had a big blue car – a Nash I think it was. He put as much of their belongings as he could in the front seat along with his wife Mamie, his young son Bob and Evelyn. In the back seat were nine of us, ranging from seven to 16.

The wind hit us broadside as we haded north to Cochrane. It did its best to upset us. The car would lift and settle as the gusts took hold of it.

Miss Davis, Carmen Barkley, Vernice Towers, and Carl Wilson were left behind. They ended up at hte Edges’ house, which was almost a mile east of the school. I can;t remember how they got there, but I think one of the Edge boys picked them up. For a period of time, they were reported missing.

Once we crossed the river coming into Cochrane, the visibility cleared some, the smell of smoke was not as overpowering and the wind-driven dirt didn’t hurt as much.

We went to the Cochrane Hotel and waited. After a while, a reporter from Calgary came along. He asked us a lot of questions and then lined us up and took some pictures. We were a sorry-looking lot! He asked us some more questions and then took us over to the cafe for doughnuts and hot chocolate.

People started to drift into town. Haggard, worried, desperate people. The Coelens milked cows a few miles west of the school. They lost everything.

The Arnell’s, also to the west, had pigs and chickens roasted as their buildings went up in flames. Their house and everything in it quickly burned. They escaped with little more than the clothes they wore.

Mrs. Towers came in looking for her daughter. When she found she wasn’t with the rest of us, tears ran down her face. I remember being somewhat sobered at this. I hadn’t seen too many adults cry. I remember saying “I wonder what our folks are thinking.”

School’s on fire

George Wilson lived a mile east and a mile south of the school. His oldest daughter, Muriel, was at home. She was a slim girl about 18 or 19 at the time. Somehow, through the smoke and dirt she saw the school on fire.

Although she wouldn’t have weighed 100 lbs, she ran with the wind a mile east to our place to sound the alarm. Then she turned around and ran back home again! Into the teeth of the gale that was later reported to have gusted up to 90 miles an hour.

Dad threw a shovel, an axe, an 8-gallon can of water and some sacks in to the old Ford car, picked up hose brother Bill and headed for the school. They went through the back pasture, got out on the road and had only gone a little way when they ran into a large obstacle across the road. It was on fire.

Through the smoke and dirt they saw it was a “slide” or hay stacker, commonly used in those days to build hay stacks in the field. They were big wooden structures made out of logs and planks. It took four horses to move them any distance.

The wind had blown this thing uphill, out of George Wilson’s hay field, through the fence, across the ditch, and onto the road. Imagine their dismay when they circled the thing and there, on the other side, was a car half in and half out of the stacker.

Mrs. Percy Copithorne had been driving back to their ranch from Cochrane. At the school, she had swung a mile east to avoid the oncoming fire. In the near-zero visibility, she didn’t see the stacker in time and before she could get stopped, the front wheels went over the log skid. She was stuck. She was a young woman. She had a young child with her and she was expecting another one.

Dad and uncle Bill beat out the fire and chopped her free. They took her back to our place and then made another run for the school. When they got there, the school was gone and so was the barn where we had put our horse. Harry Edge came along and told them us children were all in Cochrane, but that Queenie was in a bad way. Smoke inhalation. He said when he got to her, the barn was on fire but he got her out before it collapsed. We had to shoot her the next day.

About 5:00 pm., Mr. Wellington Barkley came into Cochrane and took us all home. The wind had died down and a light rain started to fall.

It was an eerie sight driving home through a blackened and smouldering countryside. Hay stacks were still burning and so were telephone poles. Downed wires were strewn along the sides of the road.

Many stories have been told over the years by those who were caught in this fire. Stories of danger and courage and heartbreak. This one is written through the eyes of a schoolboy.

Fifty-eight years later, I can still smell the smoke, hear the shriek of the wind and feel the sting of the dirt in the air. It was quite an adventure.

There was no loss of human life, although a considerable number of animals died. It’s amazing took how the resourcefulness and ingenuity of people who are faced with disaster can still muster the will to rebuild and overcome their losses. In the ‘30s this was no mean feat!

Written by Ronald Wallace

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happiness

Aunt Agnes

As I’ve been sifting through things I’ve discovered a couple of books of Aunt Agnes’s poems, as well as an article that was written about her in the Calgary Herald not long after she died (the paper is dated Feb. 2 1992).

I was always fascinated by Aunt Agnes and Uncle Harry’s house. The outside was surrounded by beautiful paintings on the fence, the inside with weird pieces of clock strewn about (I think I must have been in the work space Uncle Harry used to build his grandfather clocks).

Because she keeps popping up I thought I’d share the article written about her, as well as one of her poems.

Homesteader never forgot her rustic roots – by Brian Brennan

If southern Alberta had been hit recently with a prolonged utilizes failure, Agnes Copithorne would have remembered how to make do. She began her married life in a homesteader’s log cabin west of Calgary in 1927, and always kept kerosene lamps and Franklin stove around as reminders.

“Habit is strong,” she said. “Nothing new is purchased if the old will do.”

The old was good enough when she and husband Harry built their kitchen out of scrap lumber and rusty nails salvaged from an old granary near Cochrane.

It was good enough when they bought their first radio, their first car, their first pieces of farm machinery.

“We like to think that our homesteader’s cabin had not forgotten the past entirely,” said Agnes.

The cabin, near Jumping Pound Creek on the south side of the Trans-Canada Highway, belonged originally to Harry’s Uncle Sam, and Irishman who homesteader in the area during the 1880s with his brother John, Harry’s father.

Harry was born in 1902, moved to Victoria with his parents at age 10, and returned at 16 to work on his uncle’s ranch. Nine years later, he met and married Agnes.

She was Agnes Rollefstad, born June, 1906 in Hopple, N.D. and raised in Schuyler, Alta. In 1925 she took the train to Cochrane to take a job as a ranch cook on the Copithorne spread. Harry met her at the station and their destinies were sealed.

“We’ve only had one fight,” Harry told a reporter 50 years later, “and it’s not over yet.”

Home renovations became their life’s work. The cabin was cold as an outhouse when they moved in. Harry became carpenter, plumber, and electrician. Agnes played carpenter’s helper. A new kitchen emerged from an old back porch and woodshed. A new dining room emerged from the old kitchen. To put bread on the table, they grew grain, and raised Herefords and sheep.

They recycled before the word was invented. They built their kitchen window with wood from an abandoned chicken house. They electrified kerosene lamps, and enclosed a deck with windows salvaged from a demolished greenhouse.

Their doors were never locked. Travellers on the highway were forever breaking down nearby, running out of gas, looking to use the Copithorne phone. Agnes invited them in for tea and home-made biscuits, and filled up their tanks from a canister kept permanently filled in the shed outside. Nobody was ever turned away. Tourists, truckers, and escaped convicts all received the same friendly welcome.

For recreation, Agnes sewed, wrote poetry, short stories, and plays, and painted with the Calgary Sketch Club. In 1967, as a Centennial project, she invited members of the club to help her decorate the fence around her home. They filled the panels with mountain scenes, ranch scenes, bucking horses, and red-eyed bulls, and created a local landmark. Twenty years later, Agnes redid the 24 panels herself as a Winter Olympics project. She was then 81.

Harry retired from ranching in 1967, turned the business over to son Jim, and started building grandfather clocks as a hobby. Agnes continued to paint, and published three books of poetry.

She was diagnosed with cancer last March, moved into the Bethany Care Centre with Harry in August, and died four weeks ago. Harry, now 90, remains at the Bethany. Their youngest grandson has become the fourth generation Copithorne to occupy the old homestead.

Agnes Copithorne is survived by husband Harry, son Jim, two grandsons, and two great-granddaughters.

Remembering Yesterday – Agnes Copithorne

It seems like only yesterday

We broke the land with two oxen

And a walking plow.

Picked stones off the field

Hauling them away to a rock pile,

Readying the earth for planting.

Winters were long, the snow deep

Mother knitted our mitts and socks.

The long black wool stockings

Itched unbearably until

They had been through several washings.

In felt boots and four-buckle overshoes

We trudged through the drifts to school.

Thawed out around the pot-bellied stove

Before starting on the hated arithmetic

Problems laboriously scratched out

On a slate.

In the evenings, by the light of

A coal oil lamp we played Old Maid,

Checkers or Dominoes.

Bedtime came early.

And there were chores, always reminded

That idle hands were the devil’s tools.

No hockey, no basketball

Or any of that nonsense

Life was uncluttered, uncomplicated.

Stress unknown.

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Photos of the Fire of 1936

Those of you who knew Grandma (or anyone else living in the area in 1936) probably heard her talk about the time she was pregnant with my uncle, while my aunt was a toddler, and the huge fire burned from the mountains right to the edge of Calgary going through the ranch. If it’s not a story you’re familiar with, here’s a link to her memories of that day.

As I was sifting through some old photos, I came across photos of the aftermath of the fire!

Wind damage to Nicoll Bros buildings – day of the fire (Fall 1936)
Wind damage to Nicoll Bros buildings – day of the fire (Fall 1936)
Hay Valley after the fire (Fall 1936)
Hay Valley after the fire (Fall 1936)
Stack in Hay Valley after the fire (Fall 1936)

Can I say one more time how grateful I am that Grandma took the time to label so many of these photos and to write down so much of her history (her-story)? She’s left enough behind that I’ve been able to begin to write her-story out so that all of the written (and taped) memories she left can be in one place. It was a time that seems so distant now, but also still so close to who we all are. Just people walking each other home.

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A little story about the Hall

Yesterday I was standing in our community hall waiting to meet someone and I started reading the poster that hangs on the west end that tells some of the history of how the hall came to be. It’s really something I should know since that building has been part of my life, part of our community, for almost 100 years now. And yet, somehow I’ve never made it all the way through reading it.

I love that old hall. We’ve had parties there, dances, Santa has come and given presents to generations of children, we’ve had Stampede breakfasts, and of course there have been family gatherings. Some of my family gathered there over the weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving and I’m grateful to have been able to attend and catch up with people I rarely get to see.

So, here’s the story of the Hall that hangs up high on the wall that I had never taken the time to read, but finally did so. I’m so glad I did too, it’s like a little love story about our Hall:

Jumping Pound Hall

By Margaret Bateman

The Hall sits on a hill visible from the Trans Canada Highway and was built in the year 1927. It has an excellent hardwood floor, its walls and ceilings are finished in “V” joint. Benches have been built along both sides of the hall with shelves built above the benches. There are electric lights since the year 1947 and in the year 1967 a propane stove and furnace were installed. It is a frame building sitting on sand stone blocks reinforced with cement. It is painted grey with white trim and the roof is covered with red asphalt shingles.

However, it wasn’t always like this. Before World War I, Arthur Cope, Leonard Hutt and the Bacon Boys planned to build a hall and the site was to be on Section 14 near the Pile of Bones Hill. The logs were hauled out but when the war broke out the idea was abandoned because some of the men did not return. The logs remained for some time and then Stanley Cope decided to make use of them and designed a corral in the shape of a cross and his cattle were able to seek shelter from cold winds in all four sections. About the year 1926, the district decided they needed a hall. Prior to that time nearly all social events such as card parties, masquerades, box socials, and dances had been held in private homes around the district. Some of the hosts for these parties were J.W. Copithorne, Hugh Robinson, Frank Sibbald, L.D.and E.E. Nicholl, Dave Lawson, Dick Copithorne, and John Bateman. The school and the post office were used for social events too. I heard of one event which took place in the Jumping Pound Post Office – a box social to make money for Red Cross during the first war when Grannie Bateman played the mouth organ for dancing.

When plans were completed for the Hall – John Copithorne donated an acre of land to be the site of the Hall. The lumber was obtained from Syd Chester in Cochrane and was hauled by team and wagon by some of the local boys, namely Percy and Harry Copithorne, Clarence Sibbald, Dave Lawson, Norman Edge, and Bill Bateman. The total cost of the Hall lumber was $1,479.35, hardware and furniture $654.75, labour $477.90, making a grand total of $2,612.00. Dan Fenton was chief carpenter and all the men in the district did the volunteer work. Charlie Cooley was responsible for the sandstone blocks and since the ground was frozen he used some dynamite to loosen the earth where the blocks were to be set in. As a result, a fair sized hole and considerable cussing but the job got done.

The hall was heated with a coal and wood heater – a bog one donated by McLynn; Coleman lamp lighted the hall.

About the same time as the hall was built the Ghost Dam was being constructed and the workers prioritized the hall – as did all the local people of the district. The opening night of the Hall was a gala affair – the walls were decorated with bear, wolf, and deer hides loaned by Mr. Frank Sibbald. A huge crowd attended and Mr. Sibbald was floored manager. Over the years the hall has been decorated in different ways, at one time Kleenex flowers were attached to shutters painted green and adorned the windows. These took a long time to make and was a project for the local ladies whenever they met to make flowers. Another time decorations of autumn leaves and foliage and Christmas decorations were obtained courtesy of Hudson Bay Co. Another time gay Chinese lanterns were hung from the ceiling to decorate the hall.

Card parties too were popular and the Xmas concert put on by the school children was looked forward to by all the community. Plays were preformed by people from Springbank and there was a popular minstrel show from Cochrane – Mr Brodie and Sam Allan.

In those days if one chose to have a nip or two the bottle was cached behind a willow bush or down a gopher hole. The police sometimes came out and checked on the dances. A few times there was a fight or two, no one was seriously hurt just their dignity. Lunch was served at midnight – a good one, sandwiches, home made cake and real good coffee made by Archie Maclean. He was a good coffee maker, but was very possessive with the kitchen, he liked it to himself.

Do you remember dancing to the music of some of these names? Does Henry Bolter ring a bell? What about the times we danced when Margy Buckley played the piano, Percy Copithorne the violin and Jack Copithorne on the drums. Other bands came from Calgary such as Vi Hopkins, “Ma” Trainor, “Blind Mac”, Jerry Cooke, Lee Lewis, Mrs. Foster, and more recently Lamberts from Cochrane.

The dances now are more modern living, rock and roll – not so many square dances or even waltzes. Supper is still served and there is often a Barr. The price to attend dances has greatly increased as has the cost of the bands.

Showers and special anniversaries are well attended and looked forward to. Turkey shoots are also popular.

Our hall has been our meeting place, events looked forward to and been a source of enjoyment to all of us who reside in the district.

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Dancing Skies

Last night I was actually organized enough to get myself to bed early. I’ve been exhausted and not sleeping well, so figured if I was going to wake up early I’d trick myself by going to bed early.

When we went outside at 8 to grab the last running dog, my daughter gave a little squeal and told me to look up in the sky. The whole sky was dancing and it was absolutely amazing. It was just settling into darkness, so you could still see some actual sky and clouds – but also colours bouncing everywhere.

We ran out of the yard and into the field so we could stand amongst the beauty of the universe and enjoy the light show. God really gave us something to appreciate last night, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one quite like this – and the girl has never seen northern lights that you didn’t have to look through the phone camera to properly see.

It was a real honour to be able to stand outside for an hour or so taking in the beauty and wonder of the moment that nature was providing for us. Stop and be still, listen and hear, see and be seen, love and be loved.

By the way, I went to bed much later than intended and slept like a log. God is Good.

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Embracing Fall

I have to admit, fall was never my favourite season. How could I embrace fall when it lasted for 2 seconds (maybe 2 days) when the leaves turn yellow and then the wind blows them all away. Plus, there’s usually that September snow storm in Alberta that drives us immediately into winter with a kind of fake fall after.

It wasn’t until we moved to the East that I understood why people got so excited about fall. All the beautiful colours, pumpkins, Uggs, fall clothes, it was a lot of fun.

Then we came back here to September snow and 2 seconds of fall.

However, the last two years we have enjoyed spectacular autumn weather and colours. It’s been relatively warm, it’s been beautiful, and I’m loving seeing all of the changes in our landscape.

I’ve discovered one of my dogs is naturally camouflaged to our fall season. She’s kind of like a tiger in the woods. With the teeths and all.

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Majestic Moose Mountain

We had our trees trimmed last week, and for the first time in over a year we have a mountain view again.

For the last several days, I have spent a great deal of time standing in the kitchen or on the deck, holding my cup of tea and looking west at Moose Mountain. I had forgotten how much I love doing that.

For as long as I can remember, Moose Mountain was “the” mountain that we talked about in our family, both immediate and extended. It’s fascinating to me how many of the houses in my area have been built making sure the view is of that mountain.

When I look through my photos, it’s by far the most photographed mountain in my gallery (and I’ve got several hundred random mountain pics).

It brings me joy, it grounds me, it brings me peace, it brings me home.

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Sammy Blue Jay

When I was a little girl, sometimes my mom would read me some Old Mother West Wind stories before bedtime. I always loved Thornton W. Burgess’ accounts of the adventures of the creatures of the Green Forest, but Sammy Blue Jay was one of my all time favourites. Perhaps because he was always getting in trouble just for being himself.

When I became a parent and we were living out East, I bought a set of the Old Mother West Wind books for my family and the tradition continued. This time, when we read about Sammy Blue Jay, we could see him right outside the window. I loved many things about living in the East, and by far one of them was the birds – the Blue Jays and the Cardinals being my favourite.

This last year, we suddenly have a yard full of Blue Jays, all of them named Sammy. I have never seen so many here, and don’t remember them being part of my youth on the ranch at all, and I am loving it! They sit in the beautiful tree that is my direct view out of the kitchen window and eat the seeds I put out. I have spent many hours watching and enjoying these birds.

I remember many people disliking the Jays, saying they were loud and obnoxious, but I never felt that way. I did, however, feel that way about our local Magpies, and I remember being shocked when someone I knew saw one for the first time and went on about what beautiful birds they are. I thought to myself (maybe said out loud) “how could anyone like Magpies? They’re so loud and obnoxious”.

Yesterday I was sitting outside and I heard the weirdest sound. After much investigating I discovered it was one of the Sammys singing the song of his people (the song of his birds?) and it was pretty horrible. For a moment I could start to see how they could possibly also be obnoxious. But then, I heard a Magpie go by screeching away and I was reminded that no, in fact, the Magpies are their own special creatures.

Whatever the case, whatever the sounds, I am loving the birds that come to my feeder. They now come up to the windowsill and do a hard stare inside to let me know when their food supply has been depleted. The resident squirrel, not so much. He prefers to throw objects at me from the safety of his tree perch to let me know that his tummy needs to be filled.

Even with the occasional screeeeeech, I find the sounds of nature so soothing. It’s good to remember we all are here sharing life on the planet, we are all part of the same experience, equal in importance and value.

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