We had reservations to fly to Calgary on June 4 and spend a full four months traveling the Canadian West in the RV, with regular overstays at the ranch and the nearby towns of High River and Claresholm. That was the first plan to be revised. I flew to Canada three weeks earlier than Jim so I could help my parents with various projects. Alberta in mid-May is brown and cold with few hints of the coming summer. I was glad to have lots of diversions. I spent a week in a guest suite at Cottonwood in Claresholm (the senior-living place where Mom and Dad live) and had the use of Dad's car to get around. The rest of the time I was in High River at Cousin Shane and Peter's house. By the time Jim arrived leaves were beginning to pop out on trees and lawn mowers were already in use. The growing season here is short and intense: Just add heat.
A few days after Jim's arrival we moved to Mom and Dad's house at the Webster Ranch. And what a pleasure it was to be home again. We spent the last four summers slowly refurbishing, updating and turning the 60-year-old place into our summer cabin and it's entirely welcoming and comfortable at this point. Mind you, it's still what I'd call "rustic" — wood-burning stove, no indoor toilet and no communications (read: no tv, no Internet, no cell phone service). Yes, we do have electricity, running water, hot shower and a phone. No, we don't have traffic noise, barking dogs, noisy neighbors, sirens, or bright lights. It's perfect. Well, perfect it would be if the creek were a little lower and clearer so I could get started fishing, but it was early June and I had plenty of time, right?
On June 19, we accompanied my brother and his wife, Tony and Debbie, to a conference on the growing problem of carnivore-livestock interaction: Bears, wolves and cougars attacking cattle and sheep. The gist of the all-day seminars was how to make your farm or ranch less attractive to these predators: Bear-proofing grain bins and feed storage units, erecting electric fences around pastures, and removing carcasses quickly and efficiently when an animal was killed. It was this last premise that got my attention. We visited Canada's first-ever livestock composting pilot project, located at the Cardston MD landfill. It opened in January with "Stinky Steve" plopped into the unenviable position of head composter - a job he has no training for, no mentors to guide him and no idea what he was in for, but he's doing admirably. It's on-the-job training, trial-and-error efforts that are paying off. He started with dozens of frozen carcasses — cows, calves, sheep, pigs and a horse or two — and a bedding of sawdust, his first mistake. Before long he realized that sawdust cakes and hardens so he switched to wood chips and straw, a combination that is working well. As we walked through the huge cement-floor building, past a dozen piles of composting critters I was struck by the overall cleanliness of the place; no runoff (due in part to the desert atmosphere of Southern Alberta), no offal, no "parts" in sight, and no odor of rotting meat. There was a strong ammonia odor, a result of not enough carbon in relation to the amount of nitrogen (the carcasses). At the conclusion of the conference Steve and I spent a few minutes going over the logistics of composting. He took note of a few ideas: using shredded paper as an additional carbon source and using the "set it and forget it" method to reduce nitrogen loss.As we left the Cardston area we drove into a storm, a storm that would result in the worst flooding in Southern Alberta in recorded history. If you haven't heard about this disaster I suggest you look at the online videos, especially those of High River and downtown Calgary. The destruction is jaw-dropping. Our two-hour drive back to the ranch was a white-knuckle trip with the truck hydro-planing in low areas, continuous lightning, raging ditches and flooded fields as far as we could see. As we climbed into the mountains we were hit by hail and flood waters crossing the highway. Arriving at the bed 'n' breakfast, we found the little creek in full flood and, within an hour, the bridge to our house was under water and the approaches wiped out. Fortunately, Tony and Jim made a last-minute dash across the bridge and rescued a few necessities and our Jeep.
The next morning we were advised of a voluntary evacuation from our area so Jim and I left in the Jeep and headed for — great choice — High River! As we pulled into Peter and Shane's cul de sac we were pushing water with the front bumper, the adjoining streets were underwater and a raging river of mud and flood water was ten feet high through the yards of lovely riverside homes. Again, we were given a voluntary evacuation notice but decided to spend the night (sans power and phone) and see how high the water got in the park behind their house. It got deep but no more than three feet into their yard, well below the walkout basement level. On Friday morning it was no longer voluntary; the entire town was ordered out. Fortunately, we had time to unload the fridge and freezer and pack up both SUVs with food and essential; even more fortunately, we had a place to go: the ranch. The flood waters there were slowly receding and Tony had set up planks on the bridge ends. We parked our vehicles and walked across, hauling the loads in several trips. And there we stayed. Peter and Shane were finally allowed back into their house (no damage at all; they were among the small minority) nine days later. Jim and I stayed on for two weeks, coming back into High River two days ago. We toured the town Friday evening. The damage was incredible. Hundreds of homes destroyed, almost all of the historic downtown area in a soup of water and sewage, buildings condemned, roads torn up, the old railway tracks twisted like a strand of dna. The cleanup is going on all around us; hundreds of volunteers from as far away as Red Deer are bussed in every day, with shovels, mops, brooms, hazmat outfits, masks and rubber boots. The muck is thick, the air full of dust; dumpsters are overflowing with the ruined remains of people's homes.
Tomorrow we're heading for Montana to visit Gillan and the girls for a couple of days. We'll be back at the ranch on the 14th. If the creek is clear I'll go fishing!
