Greenwater Report for August 14, 2000

The Greenwater Report for August 21, 2000

Greenwater Provincial Park - August 21, 2000 - By: Gerald Crawford

drizzled a bit
A cool day; it started out overcast plus a smoke haze, drizzled a bit around noon (Sunday), then cleared up later in the afternoon.

Ducks Unlimited Greenwing
Day
I took our grandson, Danny, to the Park for Ducks Unlimited Greenwing Day. Instead of the usual building bird houses and going for air boat rides, they chartered a bus and went to Wadena to see the wetlands development there. Stan Hopkins tells me they had a wonderful day the best ever. There were twenty Greenwings and ten adults on the bus. They visited the new Ducks Unlimited headquarters, were treated to some films and lectures about wildlife, then went out to the marsh. They had a barbecue, and each got a bird house to make at home Stan says they jammed eight hours of program into four hours, so didn't have time to assemble their bird houses. Danny confirms that it was a great day.

Montana
fires
Yesterday (Saturday) was funny - it started out sunny but with a bit of haze in the air; the haze got heavier and heavier as the day wore on until the sun was almost blotted out. I understand it is smoke from the Montana fires that is causing the haze. I’m surprised that there is no smoke smell, as there sometimes is when we get smoke from faraway fires.

tough-looking raccoon
Doreen has been complaining that something keeps upsetting a pot that she is trying to start some vines in. Monday morning, while I was having breakfast, a runty, dirty, tough-looking raccoon hopped past the patio doors, holding its right front paw off the deck. It was a female, obviously feeding young, or had been recently. I opened the door and stepped out; it hopped back toward me a few feet, then sniffed at a pot of dirt on the deck, turned around, and slowly hopped away. It sure was favoring that paw, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with it from that distance; it wasn’t bleeding, and didn’t appear broken. Pity the poor wild animals - they can‚t go to a doctor when they get hurt.

paw
It came around again on Friday, as we were having supper. I got a better look at the paw this time, and it appeared much smaller than the other, likely shrivelled from some accident. We are lucky - when I got up Friday morning, I found the back door wide open - it must have been open all night. Good thing the raccoon didn‚t take advantage of it.

coyotes
I write this in a room by myself, not distracted by the TV. I like to keep the window wide open, and just about every evening around sundown the coyotes set up a chorus. They can‚t be very far away; I would suspect they are in the spruce bog across the road from us. There is a yipping and yapping, howling and ki-yi-ing so you would think something was being murdered. Then, after about five minutes it stops, just as if a switch were turned off.

great horned owl
One night an owl serenaded us; it must have been right on the edge of our yard. Its call was a bit out of the ordinary for a great horned owl: hoo, h-h-hoo, h-hoo, hoo and repeated two or three times to the minute. Interspersed was a shriek that sounded as if something was dying, except that it went on without losing strength. Some night bird, I expect.

geese
I noticed a bunch of geese swimming off the swimming beach last week. The same ones that were hauled away from here in early July? I can’t remember seeing geese on the lake in August in other years - surely they’re not staging to head south already! Of course, Dennis did say we were going to get an early winter.

I’m on the rack again! The following letter was in the Wadena News, signed by Bill Ostlund of Choiceland:

bear

"I have a comment regarding Mr. Crawford's Greenwater column of July 26. The statement of a raccoon having the stray cat for dessert shows a deplorable lack of compassion for creatures less fortunate than us humans.

Justice would be well served if a bear was to have Mr. Crawford for lunch, and if there was room left, to make dessert of the person who abandoned the innocent cat."

the cat
I apologize, but please call off the bear! And be comforted to know the cat now has a good home, though it has to share it with fifty cows, forty goats, seventeen cats, and one dog.

Gerald B. Crawford
Box 100, Chelan, SK S0E 0N0 (306) 278-3423
Check out my Webpage: http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/crawg

The Greenwater Report for August 21, 2000

Greenwater Provincial Park - August 21, 2000 - By: Gerald Crawford

drizzled a bit	A cool day; it started out overcast plus a smoke haze, drizzled a bit around noon (Sunday), then cleared up later in the afternoon.

Ducks Unlimited Greenwing Day	I took our grandson, Danny, to the Park for Ducks Unlimited Greenwing Day. Instead of the usual building bird houses and going for air boat rides, they chartered a bus and went to Wadena to see the wetlands development there. Stan Hopkins tells me they had a wonderful day the best ever. There were twenty Greenwings and ten adults on the bus. They visited the new Ducks Unlimited headquarters, were treated to some films and lectures about wildlife, then went out to the marsh. They had a barbecue, and each got a bird house to make at home Stan says they jammed eight hours of program into four hours, so didn't have time to assemble their bird houses. Danny confirms that it was a great day.

Montana fires	Yesterday (Saturday) was funny - it started out sunny but with a bit of haze in the air; the haze got heavier and heavier as the day wore on until the sun was almost blotted out. I understand it is smoke from the Montana fires that is causing the haze. I’m surprised that there is no smoke smell, as there sometimes is when we get smoke from faraway fires.

tough-looking raccoon	Doreen has been complaining that something keeps upsetting a pot that she is trying to start some vines in. Monday morning, while I was having breakfast, a runty, dirty, tough-looking raccoon hopped past the patio doors, holding its right front paw off the deck. It was a female, obviously feeding young, or had been recently. I opened the door and stepped out; it hopped back toward me a few feet, then sniffed at a pot of dirt on the deck, turned around, and slowly hopped away. It sure was favoring that paw, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with it from that distance; it wasn’t bleeding, and didn’t appear broken. Pity the poor wild animals - they can‚t go to a doctor when they get hurt.

paw	It came around again on Friday, as we were having supper. I got a better look at the paw this time, and it appeared much smaller than the other, likely shrivelled from some accident. We are lucky - when I got up Friday morning, I found the back door wide open - it must have been open all night. Good thing the raccoon didn‚t take advantage of it.

coyotes	I write this in a room by myself, not distracted by the TV. I like to keep the window wide open, and just about every evening around sundown the coyotes set up a chorus. They can‚t be very far away; I would suspect they are in the spruce bog across the road from us. There is a yipping and yapping, howling and ki-yi-ing so you would think something was being murdered. Then, after about five minutes it stops, just as if a switch were turned off.

great horned owl	One night an owl serenaded us; it must have been right on the edge of our yard. Its call was a bit out of the ordinary for a great horned owl: hoo, h-h-hoo, h-hoo, hoo and repeated two or three times to the minute. Interspersed was a shriek that sounded as if something was dying, except that it went on without losing strength. Some night bird, I expect.

geese	I noticed a bunch of geese swimming off the swimming beach last week. The same ones that were hauled away from here in early July? I can’t remember seeing geese on the lake in August in other years - surely they’re not staging to head south already! Of course, Dennis did say we were going to get an early winter.

	I’m on the rack again! The following letter was in the Wadena News, signed by Bill Ostlund of Choiceland:
bear	"I have a comment regarding Mr. Crawford's Greenwater column of July 26. The statement of a raccoon having the stray cat for dessert shows a deplorable lack of compassion for creatures less fortunate than us humans. Justice would be well served if a bear was to have Mr. Crawford for lunch, and if there was room left, to make dessert of the person who abandoned the innocent cat."

the cat	I apologize, but please call off the bear! And be comforted to know the cat now has a good home, though it has to share it with fifty cows, forty goats, seventeen cats, and one dog.

	Gerald B. Crawford Box 100, Chelan, SK S0E 0N0 (306) 278-3423 Check out my Webpage: http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/crawg