elk – Page 2 – Skelton Sketches

First dusting…

Posted on October 7, 2016April 29, 2017 by lindaskelton

On a misty moisty Monday morning before I’d left the cozy covers of my bed
there was a distinct clippity clop just outside the window– hooves on cobbled rock.
I didn’t get to the window quick enough; the fugitive elk was gone. But perhaps he was just a decoy, for heading into the kitchen to peer out the front window I discovered visitors at my doorstep.

Do you see him here? A pair of elk had found my recovering petunias tucked up against the house and were having a gourmet breakfast at my door—a mother and her yearling. The youngster caught sight of me first. His mother had her head in the pot, polishing off the straggles. But the silly flash spooked her on the second go and she jumped backward, upsetting the pot, upsetting the bikes and steering her charge to safety at the perimeter of our yard…

So that’s that for flowers—for real this time.

But there is still the beauty of the grasses…

And though I don’t have my own pumpkin patch, I did buy a little pumpkin to practice on…

Oops…a bit of a squash! ha.

But the news of the week is that we’ve had our first dusting of snow, harbinger of skiing days to come!

Just enough snow to make the subject of my daily tidbit to add to October’s collage…

And that has been our week. How about yours?!

–LS

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning…Lam 3:21-23

The Sound of Autumn…

Posted on September 6, 2016April 29, 2017 by lindaskelton

I heard them bugling with the light of dawn… an eerie hollow strained sound ending with a tinny whistle.
I snuck out of bed to watch them from the front window and then the porch—a whole herd of elk just outside my door, feeding on bushes and tips of spruce as they wandered along in the quiet of early morning…

The mothers keeping watch over their gangly half-grown offspring eyed me suspiciously standing there in my pajamas…The buck noted my existence but seemed unimpressed… and then a second larger grander buck came striding intently across my line of vision oblivious to my presence. All the others cleared out of his way, the younger buck taking the lead, and moved along out of view around the end of our string of houses… Rutting season has begun.

The following morning I came out to breakfast less impressed. Not only are elk wild, majestic and awesome to watch… They also eat petunias, ravage lobelia, and generally have no sense of the aesthetic value of a profusion of potted flowers on an otherwise sterile porch… They left me a straggle of pansies and a few token petunias, and the dirt. The time for flowers is past. Autumn is upon us, and with it, the elk.

So I took my camera and went scavenging for any remaining beauties in the meadow…

The bees are scavenging too.

We squeezed in another hike on a day of mixed sun and cloud…This time, Tunnel Mountain, which sits smack dab in the middle of Banff. It reminded us of hiking up Scout…

Here it is from the highway:

And here’s the view from both sides at the top…

The Bow River, winds its turquoise thread through the valley

The one remaining highlight of the week was getting to spectate ( : as The Tour of Alberta got underway on Day 2 from the heart of Kananaskis country just down the highway from us.

Pretty neat!

–LS

O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Ps.104:24 ESV

Collecting Summer…

Posted on July 26, 2016July 26, 2017 by lindaskelton

It’s mornings like these that one could hope would last forever—fresh gentle breeze ( zephyr is the perfect word for what I feel just now on my bare toes…), hot sunshine, blue sky spun with cotton candy clouds, and nothing that must be done right now but to sit and smell the clover and watch the wee striped ground squirrel harvest seeds from the tall grasses, and sit very still when the hummingbird comes to the petunias at my side…

I’ve had a big project going these last couple of weeks. A daughter’s wedding is in the wings. But can’t share photos of that just yet… So I’m digging into my summer’s flower collection for today’s post. I love flowers (in case you didn’t recognize that already. ha!) And being in a new place means there are new flowers to add to my photo collection ( :

Just beside a well-trodden trail I found these lovelies…

The Wood Lily was new to me. Incredible that they just pop up in the woods like that!

These, whose names I have mislaid, come in yellow and in white…

And what a curious little thing is the Lady’s Slipper…

This bright eye-catching clematis is apparently a noxious weed… Who would guess?

But I don’t have to wander far for flowers… In my back yard and just close by there’s plenty of glory…

The clover smells soooo sweet on the breeze these days. It’s delicious to more than just the bees!

And then there’s the blessing and the bane of the Buffaloberry bushes.

They are lovely to look at, though among the bitterest of berries to the human palate (I tried them, in hopes of making jelly. Uck!). But the bears adore them, and because there is a bumper crop of these berries in the Bow Valley this year, there is also a bumper crop of bears… which have not been very nice to random cyclists and campers…So… the trails I stroll in the evenings are all taped off till further notice so the bears can enjoy their picnic without intrusion of homo sapien. Sigh.

But on one of my last strolls I happened upon another wood lily—only this time a yellow one!

The other thing one happens upon around here is coal–a reminder of Canmore’s history and primary reason for existence!

I visited the local museum last week and discovered a map detailing where the mine shafts are under all this flower-strewn picture-perfect land we live on. It’s startling to see the gaping black holes surrounding the little strip of houses that comprises our street!

Smack left of center on this map you’ll see our little stretch of street, on the brink of the black abyss that marks the areas mined underground… Eeek! The positive effect is that this land is now lovely meadow which isn’t likely to be developed ( :

It’s home to the flowers and the beasts.

I woke one morning to find these fellows camping just outside our place….

Mamas with their young were hiding out close by…

Such is the life in our neighborhood!

Thanks for stopping by to share my collection ( :

–LS

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. Ps.145:15-17 ESV