A couple of posts ago I wrote what I thought was kind of a fun little poem on my berry about a berry, while in Nose Hill Park (I was out there again this morning too). I enjoy poetry but it was meant to be a fun little ditty, but my interest, admiration and chronic bewilderment is sincere.

I received a nice response from Colin who subsequently passed on the following great poem from Wallace Stevens. Read it and enjoy!

The Snow Man

WALLACE STEVENS

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is

Anyway, this is the week when conservatives and libertarian types gather for the Institute for Marriage and the Family Canada and Manning Centre conferences. They are preceded by the annual PDAC mining conference in Toronto. The biggest annual conference, I believe, in Canada.

I'll be at both but especially look forward to drinking deeply from the well of freedom and limited government in, ironically, Ottawa.

Speaking of which I saw Sarah Pailin speak last night in Calgary. She is a conservative, with a sense of humour, zero pretence, and she can connect with people. I'll write about her in an upcoming Sun column.

We'll soon board. Please God, I hope Air Canada has changed the TV programming. Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Getting up that early really does make me feel superior, and I can use the extra time to judge others, and to find them wanting.

Actually, what I did do is use that time to bash out a project on my laptop. It truly is the best time for writing.

Then off to Nose Hill Park where the sun was just inching above the horizon. The sky was completely blue-not a single cloud. The mountains looked bigger too. Some cool mornings they seem to rise up and lean east as though they are trying to impress, and they do.

I walked for an hour and a half along the eastern slope. Just off the parking lot I could hear coyotes yipping over the hill. A half moon loomed overhead. Later I kicked up a bunch of white tail dear.

Our snow is gone now except in the valleys and thickets and on trails especially heavily travelled, where the snow became ice.

I also came across a great glacial erratic, a large boulder, plunked there millenia ago by a retreating glacier.

On the prairies these are also usually ringed by what looks like a broad path, the result of thousands of buffalo over thousands of years using it to scratch their leathery sides.

It is too early yet for crocuses. The only colour really are the small red buffalo berries. In their honour I have written the following:

Dear little red buffalo berry.

Winters must seem very scary

But stiff and brave you stand there still

Against the fiercest winter chill

With you stands a bent wolf willow

Clouds above shift and billow

I'm getting cold so I think I'll go

Too bad for you we're expecting snow.

Some prairie doggerel for you. Actually it should be nice today. In fact I may need an auxiliary hike later, but for now breakfast beckons.

In the daytime the park is full of dogs walking their owners. Tonight though it was just me, a full moon and a lot of stars. I would have thought the light pollution would make it tougher to see stars in the suburbs but tonight at least they shone brightly. The moon did its part and lit the park softly. You kinda had to be there. It was pretty.

Back home now. I opened my bedroom window and from outside I hear a man's voice singing the I Believe Olympic song. Hilarious, and kind of charming. A good way to end the day.

I admit to being a tad sentimental as I reflected back on the buzillions of hours I spent in our old arenas with Matt and Michael. Terrific times really. We met so many good people.

Anyway, I'll be back to Calgary today but careful planning is important. I think I'll drift back via the hill country that runs north of the TransCanada highway between Hussar and Rockyford.

It really is a pretty area. I used to hunt ducks, pheasant and sharptail grouse in those areas. Maybe I will one day again. My plan today is to take my camera. This is pothole country where stands of aspen and poplar ring sloughs that, come spring, will be home to pintails and mallards. 

The hills are the western end of the Wintering Hills, so named because a hundred and fifty years ago the Cree and I suppose the Blackfoot would come there to overwinter. Now it is farm and ranch company. The tiny village of Rosebud, famous for it's terrific dinner theatre, lies at the northern edge of all of this, but sits along the pretty valley that holds the Rosebud River. 

Today though I'll keep an eye out for deer and coyotes. I suspect the odd moose makes their way down there as well now that their range has expanded all the way down to Drumheller. They seem to have quite taken to the Rumsey morraine just north of Drumheller.

I'll be watching too for any small hint that spring will eventually come. I saw two crows in Calgary yesterday, which I take to mean that this very long winter will eventually end. Until then I'll be happy to wander for a time amongst frozen hills, while ensuring I get back to the couch for the Canada US hockey game. They are big boys who get to play for their nations, but whose dreams began in those small town arenas.

I fear for them in the second though as monsters like Pronger, Getzlaf and Iginla decide to show the world that Canada will not be mocked.

God speed my blonde haired cousins. Canada is about to rise up in a terrible fury, and you will pay for your effrontery!!!

I did hear the yipping of coyotes however, and folllowed it as best I could. After a few minutes I stood on a hill and watched four of them. One perhaps 50 yards away and utterly unafraid of me and the three others stretching out over a couple of hundred yards, which was about as far as I could see in the fog. I took a picture of one of them on my berry meaning of course that it looks to be about the size of a fruit fly. 

I think they eat well. There are lots of field mice in the park, jackrabbits and the odd partridge. Down in the city they would eat squirrels, cats, garbage and the occassional unfortunate shitsu or some such small dog.

As I walked I thought about the opening ceremonies and the three or four highlights for me. I thought the prairies scene was cool, set up by Donald Sutherland (that's Keifer's dad kids) reading W.O. Mitchell. I thought k.d. lang was terrific. The young woman who sang O'Canada was great, such an unusual arrangement. The Georgian athletes had a haunted look as they walked in tribute to a fallen friend-a moving moment.

I liked the people selected for lighting the caldron. Catriona Lemay Doan is....so...wow! Bobby Orr is just the best, the reason I became a Bruins fan all those years ago.

A lot of the stuff in the ceremonies would have been better if it was half as long. Some of it was just too...well...what you see at any government thing where it's all about inclusiveness  

Gretzky riding in the back of a half ton truck reminded me of my highschool years in Rosetown Saskatchewan. It was just odd.

Anyway, I'm glad that I didn't have to figure all of that out. It would have a lot of hockey, some Ultimate Fighting, some country music with Ian Tyson and Paul Brandt, some rock and roll with...BTO, the Guess Who and April Wine, maybe some footage of cool carnivore wildlife attacking and eating other herbivore wildlife that isn't quite as cool (except Buffalo, Moose and Muskox, which are cool) and of course, soldiers.

Now the real games begin.

Sharp hooved white tail deer glared back but I glared back in a threatening way and they retreated to an aspen grove.

The fog was completely encompassing, yet I carried on. I'm pretty sure I am the first human to the top of Nose Hill, at least without oxygen, so I claimed it for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, for the Spirit of Alberta and for conservatives who settled a hard land and prospered.

The Superbowl is on. I sign off in deference.

1 800 463 9014.

I love that they make the point that we should be hopeful about the future, but we need to act to set aside habitat if we want to preserve plants, animals and birds.

Look, I'm a conservative and a conservationist. I'm a hiker, a birder, a fisherman and I even enjoy duck and pheasant hunting. I give them money every month because they make such a direct contribution and have such enormous credibility with governments of all stripes.

All of that and they are great people to boot. They are activists without being bitter and holier-than-thou which is an acid test for me.

Anyway, I like them enough to bet my money on them.

There are six or seven rallies every year on Parliament Hill that attracts more people, and with none of the media hype.

Seriously, you can't propagandize people into getting mad about something that just doesn't ring true to them. They may not like prorogation. It may annoy them, but Iggy, Jack and many columnists have just overplayed their hand on this. Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry