A New Beginning

Around this time 23 years ago Jan and I found ourselves in the first paragraphs of a very exciting new chapter of our lives. The house we have called home since September 1993 was taking shape in front of our eyes… and we went to see its progress almost every night after supper. We would walk around on the floors imagining the rooms through the framing skeleton and we would peek out the holes where the windows would go. It was one of the greatest days of our lives when we were handed the keys to our dream home and started living in it.

And so much living has happened here. Teenage girls grew into adults who flew the nest when it became “just too small!” Birthdays and anniversaries have been celebrated with garden parties. “The Danish Invasion” for our silver anniversary is still the talk of the neighbourhood! Small sticks grew into towering trees. The waterfall in the backyard was and is a magnet for songbirds. Walking on the pathway kept us in shape. The laughter of the grandson echoes even when he’s not here. The ambulance came only once! Tears fell as family departed after a visit, and after a life well lived. Friendships were formed with neighbours. Working careers came to an end. Retirement began.

When we built the house we saw ourselves living it in forever. No need to downsize as the house is the perfect size for a retired couple. Some people can’t wait to get out of Calgary and its climate, but we never felt that way. We loved our house, we loved its location, we loved the extra hours retirement allowed us to spend at home. BUT… all good things come to an end for one reason or another. Life is funny that way.

Perspectives have a way of changing as we grow older. In our younger camping days we wanted to travel across the country in a truck and fifth wheel when we retired. Now we couldn’t imagine doing that, preferring instead the comfort of three (or more!) stars and a cozy B&B. Having witnessed the support and care our parents, and the parents of friends, needed in their senior years, we took a hard look at our own lives and did some soul searching. As a result this is the last month we will spend in our beloved Hidden Valley home.

Seneca said “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Our new beginning in Black Diamond is exciting for many reasons, the top of which is we will be living very close to family. That is a comforting and reassuring thought as we grow older. And for many years to come, hopefully, we are “young” enough to enjoy each other’s company and create memories together. We will come full circle and return to a small town—our first house was in Lacombe—and at this stage a quieter and slower pace of life is desirable.

The end of the 1993 beginning was bittersweet for me for a long time. From thinking I would never see that end alive to accepting it’s time to close that chapter took a lot of effort and sleepless nights, but I can honestly say now I am at peace with the decision. I am ready to let this house go. I am ready to make a new house our home. I am ready for a new beginning.

Branta Canadensis

The Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in Calgary was severely damaged during the 2013 flood. After the raging Bow River calmed, tons of debris from elsewhere found a resting place in the sanctuary, and its trails, bridges, and viewpoints were simply gone.

Since moving to Calgary in 1983 my family and I have walked the trails and pathways of the bird sanctuary numerous times, and it is one place we always take overseas visitors to. It is such a lovely green oasis in the middle of the city. My camera and Jan’s binoculars at the ready, we have seen many different birds and wildlife there over the years. So we were very happy when most of the sanctuary reopened in July 2015.

With cleats on our boots we took a wintry walk on the restored trails not so long ago. The ever-cheerful chickadees were flitting about us, one even landed on my toque for a second! Hundreds of mallards were resting at water’s edge, males by far outnumbering females strangely enough. Canada geese took to the air many times, giving me plenty of opportunity to practice photographing moving objects. As I looked at the downloaded pictures at home, I was in for a few surprises.

#1

When I took this picture I didn’t realize there was a plane in the frame, too. While I would have liked the picture without the plane, its presence adds so much more to the story. Man and bird, flying in opposite directions, each with a destination in mind; one consciously, one by instinct.

#2

Sometimes the Canada geese flew past very quickly close to the bench where I was sitting. In this photograph I sense speed through the blurry background and wings, yet the focused birds calm the overall feel of the image.

#3

My focus points didn’t always hit a bird which is very obvious in this last image! But the result reminds me of an abstract painting, so even though I didn’t consciously seek to create this effect, I am quite happy with this photograph. I know they are Canada geese in flight. Had I not told you, would you have guessed?

Wildlife in the City

In our neighbourhood a family of gray partridges wanders from house to house and finds leftover birdseed from feeders to eat. It has been our privilege to have them in our yard a couple of times this winter, all 19 of them. They are the same size now, but in the spring and summer it was easy to distinguish the adults from the babies. Just imagine 17 little baby birds running along as if their life depended on it… and sometimes it probably did!

Over the past 22 years I have seen our neighbourhood mature and there is now more wildlife around than in the early days when only jackrabbits and house sparrows called this place home. Tree swallows have attempted to build a nest in our birdhouse a few times over the years, and last year the house sparrows finally lost the battle. A few times a northern flicker woodpecker has tried to make the hole in the bird house bigger, much to our amusement. Robins have nested under the deck many years, and a few times cedar waxwings have graced our tree with a nest. Chickadees are welcome daily visitors year round, and house finches—my happy bird!—sing their hearts out in spring and summer. Their beautiful song always brings a smile to my face, no matter what my mood. This past year red breasted nuthatches have scurried up and down tree trunks looking for insects. Our bird book is littered with sticky notes of resident as well as migrating birds that have made a stop here and entertained us while drinking and bathing in our waterfall.

One of the two baby tree swallows had ventured out of the birdhouse for the first time and was less than thrilled his brother got fed first!

The baby cedar waxwing was newly out of the nest and waited anxiously to be fed

Jackrabbits are still around, and while I curse them in the spring when they nip off the tender shoots of tulips and crocuses, it is kind of cute to see one settled down in a little hollow it has made in the flowerbed and take a nap. “If I flatten myself, no one can see me” seems to be its thought! We’ve had our share of baby rabbits in the yard over the years, too, which is very sweet. The occasional squirrel races along the fence on its way to somewhere, and voles have the perfect home under the waterfall despite our best efforts to discourage that!

A clump of baby jackrabbits!

Occasionally the bizarre has happened. I recall the coyote trotting down the path behind us without a care in the world an early morning; another morning a deer took the same route. With no open water close by I can only imagine the journey ahead for the mama mallard and her seven ducklings. How the salamander ended up in our waterfall is still a mystery. And then there were the deer in the backyard, two of them, on a bright summer day. People said afterwards when they saw the pictures that I had photoshopped them in, but the broken electrical box by the waterfall and the hoof prints in the grass and flowerbeds told another story.

I really love all this wildlife around me in the city… and I really love my zoom lens and the continuous shoot setting on my camera!

New Life

We live in a throw-away society. In “the old days” things were made to last a lot longer than today, and if the need did arise, a repair job was often cheaper than buying new. If you have not read the picture book “Something from Nothing” by Phoebe Gilman, I urge you to do so—and don’t forget to pay attention to the story told in the border as well.

Almost a year ago a crate arrived at our house from my sister in Denmark. It contained our Grandmother Andersen’s spinning wheel. Despite its worm-eaten state and worn, missing, or broken parts, it was easy for the mind’s eye to see the work that had been done on this wheel in its glory days. It was very much a production wheel, not just a pretty piece of woodwork adorning a corner of the parlour.

My grandparents were married in 1912 and took over the family farm. Whether the spinning wheel was there when my grandmother moved in, I don’t know. Was it her own wheel that she took with her? I don’t know. But it’s a fair guess the wheel is at least 100 years old. And why in the world would I want that piece of broken equipment?

I am not a spinner, but my eldest daughter is. In fact, in another couple of years she can call herself a Master Spinner after six years of study. Jan knows a thing or two about woodworking, and after extensive research he restored the spinning wheel into a functioning tool again. He left the restored pieces in the natural light colour in contrast to the old dark wood. On Christmas Day, for the first time in decades, a foot on the treadle moved the footman up and down which caused the fly wheel to rotate, Vanessa’s hands fed fibre through the flyer, and yarn wound onto the bobbin. Between the two of them, father and daughter had brought new life to the old spinning wheel, and she rewarded them by humming softly and running rapidly. It was like she had been waiting for this moment just as much as we had. My grandmother’s spirit is in the spinning wheel and I saw her in the content little smile on her great-granddaughter’s face as she was creating yarn. This family heirloom is in good hands…

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Yesterday we lit the third candle on our advent wreath. That means there’s only one more Sunday before Christmas. I don’t know about you, but the days of December seem to pass with lightning speed, and the Christmas spirit has so far eluded me. Maybe it’s the lack of snow crunching under my winter boots; maybe it’s the lack of seeing my breath in -20C weather; or maybe it’s because I have seen Christmas displays in stores for months, thinking “that’s much too early!” This is also the first year I have not worked in the month of December, longing for the Christmas break… yup, that just might be it!

I have not done much photography since the fall, but I wanted to experiment with taking pictures in low light without flash. In this the dark half of the year there’s plenty of opportunity to do just that outside and inside. I love coming around the corner of our street when it’s dark and being met by the sight of icicle Christmas lights on our house. There’s something very simple yet incredibly beautiful in those drooping lights which I wanted to capture. So I grabbed my camera one night recently—but not my coat!—and took a few shots. I am surprised at how clear they are, really, as I went out long after sundown. The pictures are a bit grainy in the bottom half which is further away from the lights, and I have to figure out if there is a way to avoid that. But for my first try I’m pretty happy I have this memory of our house at Christmas.

If it works outdoors, maybe it will work indoors on the same setting, was my thought, and what better subject to try it on than our advent wreath. Jan made it himself for our second Christmas in Canada, and I love the simplicity of it, too: the spruce wreath held up by four red ribbons, one red ribbon hanging down in the middle with a pine cone at the end. And of course the four candles evenly spaced between the four red ribbons creating shadows on the ceiling and the wall. We turn off all the lights in the house and sit quietly watching the wreath while listening to Danish Christmas carols. Sometimes we sing along. I am at peace for those 15-20 minutes… nothing else matters. I feel I captured the essence of this Danish Christmas tradition we have kept alive through all the years. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without it, or without all the other Danish traditions we hold so dear at this time of the year.

I dare say… could that be a little pang of Christmas spirit I just felt?

Merry Christmas to all of you who read my blog and have encouraged me to keep going. I am blessed to have you in my life.

Canada, Our Home

I’m sure no one who reads this blog needs me to tell them Canada is an awesome country. From coast to coast to coast we have spectacular landscape and scenery, flora and fauna, and each province and territory has its own strengths which together make Canada one of the best places in the world to live. I know Denmark has been named the happiest country on Earth, and I have often been asked why I chose to leave such a place and settle in Canada.

It wasn’t a conscious decision, really. Neither Jan nor I were ever so dissatisfied with our life in Denmark that we decided we’d had enough and wanted to live somewhere else. We were young, adventurous, and in between jobs, so when I saw an ad for a greenhouse foreman in Leamington, ON I jokingly said to Jan “why don’t you apply for that one?” Over the next few months one thing led to another and the joke became a little more serious. We both wanted to see the world, and this was a perfect opportunity to experience this huge northern country we really didn’t know too much about.  Canada had a certain mystique about it in my 23-year-old mind, and the more I learned, the more excited I became that we might actually go there for a year or so before we settled back down in Denmark.

On November 17, 1975 we set foot on Canadian soil for the first time. That was the beginning of the love affair we have with this country. For the past 40 years we have explored many corners from coast to coast to coast, and we marvel at each turn. We gave up our Danish citizenship to become Canadian citizens and we feel proud and privileged to call ourselves Canadian. To us, this is the best country in the world, and we are happiest when we are here. Canada may not be our native land, but it is our home.

Here we are on the night before we boarded the plane for Canada in 1975

And here we are 40 years later, a little heavier and grayer, doing what we love the most--hiking in the mountains

Into the Mist

The other morning I woke up to a mist hanging in the valley, obscuring the view I so love from our kitchen window. The sun had not quite yet risen as I sat down for breakfast, and it was by chance I happened to look up when I did. What met my eyes was spectacular in an eerie way: the rising sun shone through the mist and reflected off the windows of houses on top of the hill. These little specks of light were suspended in the air, not attached to anything, just reminding me there is something on the other side. I ran to get my camera, but of course it was almost too late by the time I reached the deck, camera in hand. Sunrises are like that. I did manage to capture two little dots of light which was better than missing the moment altogether.

There is something mysterious yet soothing about mist and fog. I got soaked hiking through the pea soup in Newfoundland and could only guess how high the Tablelands are.

I was not able to watch for migrating whales in California because the ocean fog didn’t burn off at all that day, but felt so peaceful walking on Crescent Beach through the migrating patches of fog instead. 

I had no idea what was on the other side of the bridge in Coos Bay on the Oregon Coast, but trusted it would lead me to where I was going.

And then there’s ice fog… hoar frost usually goes with that, encapsulating everything in its way. 

I am so lucky to live in a place where I get to see winter's work of art.