It's the last day of August, 2016. September enters the calendar for this year, tomorrow. With October appearing soon afterward. Because of the drought conditions we've been under, only recently ameliorated by a series of rain days and gushing thunderstorms, some of the trees have begun to show subtle signs of change.

Fewer daylight hours are now obvious; dusk begins to fall much sooner and before we know it, we have been deprived of a full hour of daylight. The sun is setting at a lower angle in the evening and the atmosphere offers us some spectacular sunsets, a specialty of this time of year.

My husband has noted that the song sparrows that have spent most of their summer nearby, have now gone. Early migration resulting from impending seasonal changes we're hardly aware of compels migration. Chipping sparrows have returned to replace the song sparrows.

A magnificent, full-canopied maple at the top of the street, by far the most beautiful maple around the vicinity, has incrementally and surprisingly early begun to take on its fall mantle. We ascribed the early change - more than a month earlier than should occur - to the effects of the drought. Lower branches of the tree turned a muted red, and the colour just kept creeping up to the top branches as day by day, that tall and imposing tree is turning toward fall. On our trip last weekend to Merrickville we saw immense-trunked, venerable maples compared to which this one is a mere stripling, and none of them had shown any signs of seasonal change, yet.

In the ravine now, we come across brightly coloured, fallen foliage. It never fails to surprise us, so early in the season. We also saw the first of the white baneberries, nowhere near as plentiful as last year; even their red cousins have been scarce. The wild apple trees in the ravine are not bearing the copious burden of fruit they most often do, and the blackberries are now just about gone; none more to pick.

We are increasingly seeing the presence of pop-up fungi, mushrooms that are nowhere to be seen one day, then present in mature form the next. We've another three weeks before fall officially arrives in its early stages, but it seems to be pushing hard for early entry, this year, even if it isn't yet reflected in the ambient temperatures.

We'd ventured out quite a bit later than we usually do for our walk in the ravine yesterday. Consequently, we saw people that we don't normally encounter in the woods, although we're familiar with them, too.

It couldn't have been a more pleasant day. The humidity level had lifted somewhat, the wind was up and it wasn't as hot as on previous days. The rainfall that came down the previous day also freshened the atmosphere, while creating deep runnels in the packed accumulation of detritus on the trails, an obvious indication of the pounding the ravine took. And our narrow escape on Sunday from an utter drenching.

We came across a woman with her two little pugs whom we've seen on occasion. There'd been a lapse of time since last we had seen them and the two little dogs had been transformed from merely verging on overweight at six years of age to obese, one of them morbidly. She informed us that this little dog was now newly on thyroid medication, because he was so completely shorn of energy. And though he's just been on the medication for five days she could see a slight improvement.

We saw a little dog that needed to have its food intake severely curbed. He actually waddled when he walked, poor thing, and was anxious to keep up with the woman, yet so exhausted when he finally reached her side as she spoke with us that he virtually collapsed at her feet. If the veterinarian didn't recommend a change in diet and increase in exercise, who were we to do so?

Next off, we saw a youngish man we hadn't seen in awhile. He was walking his mixed-breed, Pinscher-Shepherd, a muscular and quite nice dog, although we've never seen the dog off-leash, the man always tends to hold him close to his side, wrapping the narrow leather leash he uses closely around his left hand. In his right hand he always carries a cane. Just as we were bidding goodbye for the second time to the woman with the pugs walking in the opposite direction, the man came abreast of us.

When we'd first become acquainted with him, he was rail-thin, his body curved like a giant question-mark, ambulating with difficulty, but still holding the dog close beside him. He had, at first, casually mentioned an accident with a vehicle. We would see him occasionally and it was clear that his ravine walks were accomplished with some difficulty. Yesterday, because my husband said to him that he barely recognized him because he had gained significant weight, was walking upright and with far more confidence, he related his story to us.

Fifteen years earlier he had been highway driving in the winter with an icy glaze over the road. A number of vehicles had collided and before he knew it, his van was one of them. He hadn't been wearing his seat belt, he said, and he was thrown out of the vehicle, landing close enough to reach over into it, he said, to shut the engine down -- and he laughed ruefully. He had sustained so many internal injuries it was questionable that he would survive.

But he did, and it has taken him all of fifteen years to get to this point. We hadn't seen much of him, he said, because months ago his dog had suddenly dashed off, anxious to see another dog he was sometimes permitted to play with, at an area park. As the dog bolted, the fellow's fingers which were curled tightly around the leash, broke. They've since, he said wryly, recovered. And I noted that he still walks the dog with his hand and fingers clenched tightly around the leash, in the very same manner.

Another downright gorgeous summer day. It has cooled off markedly from the heat registering all last week, with extreme humidity to exacerbate the heat. Thankfully, it was all accompanied by a really emphatic wind, so relief lay in being in the shade, exposed to the wind.

Which we certainly were, yesterday afternoon when we embarked on a ravine walk under cloudy skies. With the weather warning of 40% chance of rain and thunderstorms in mind, but figuring it was worth the effort to get out into the woods for a hike with our little dogs, anyway. Anyway, we weren't long into our walk when rain began. A light rain, which my husband optimistically, as is his way, saying would be over soon. I always wince when he does that, hoping his opinion would be confined to my attention only, not nature's who always enjoys a challenge to her authority.

And we were being kept reasonably dry by the forest canopy, so no big deal. And then, distant thunder. Distant enough, we thought, that by the time it was overhead we'd be clear. But darned if the continuing thunderclaps didn't move closer in a great big hurry. So we took a short-cut through the usual circuit, and hiked across the spine of the ravine, and down back again to reach home in record time.

During that time the rain became more persistent, slightly heavier. The topknots of Jackie and Jillie began to look pretty wet and limp and they're not the least bit fond of rain. But we emerged from the ravine before the thunder was right overhead, and as it happens, a few minutes after getting into the house down it came, with a vengeance, sweeping through the area in a wind-driven assault of heavy rain, beautiful to behold from the front door of your house, standing inside your home, not outside somewhere, vulnerable to the downpour.

Today, no rain, just sun and more sun. So we decided to spend a little time in the garden. My husband took a variety of garden sheers and began cutting back the Jade ornamental crab, which badly needed the treatment, went on to the Japanese yew standing next to it, and then the spirea got the same attention, and we ended up with two compost bags' worth of shorn greenery, ready to be picked up tomorrow morning by the municipal collection crew. Now, when he backs the car out of the garage, it will no longer be brushed by those impertinent, protruding branches.

Jackie and Jillie had the opportunity to have a little social time with Rosie, whose elderly companion was walking the little white fluffball down the street, and I finally popped back into the house to begin Monday's cleaning-house ritual.

It's another small eastern Ontario town that prides itself on its heritage status, billing itself as "The Jewel of the Rideau" not self-consciously but with supreme conceit. But it is, of course, a jewel of a small town, with its stonemasonry buildings, many of them transformed into hotels, restaurants, boutiques, workshops, quite beyond attractive. And if anyone's interested they can go and have a look at the historic locks on the Canal.

Within a short-walking distance of one another on the main street crossing there is a venerable stone Anglican church, a United Church building, and a Catholic church. It is entirely possible, though I don't personally know, that in small-town Ontario attendance of the faithful at their houses of worship is far greater than what consumes the interests of more urbanized folk. The town is beyond quaint.

And since Saturday was a lovely day for a drive in the country, we decided to visit Merrickville. We haven't been there in years. We used to go there on occasion with a purpose in mind. They use their fairgrounds for an annual antiques and collectibles show. This one was billed as an antique and craft show. In the past when we've attended, it was always hot, humid and crowded. Yesterday it was merely hot and humid.

Where was everyone beyond the vendors, we wondered? And from what we could see it should have been called a show for antiques, since the antiques were all ambulatory elderly, people like us with some age behind them. The atmosphere was loose, friendly, even jovial. It's a social occasion clearly, as much as anything else; the opportunity for people to get out and about and chat with others. So for that reason alone it was a great hit with us, we came across so many amenable and friendly people, vendors and prospective purchasers alike. Mostly memorabilia, items that are vaguely familiar. But more than ample wares to look at.

It was beyond pleasant, both the drive, about an hour and twenty minutes each way, driving south-west of Ottawa under a partly sunny sky with a high temperature of 27 degrees and somewhat humid. We had reason to be thankful for a good, stiff breeze at the fairgrounds.

We'd gone off earlier to the ravine for our usual walk with Jackie and Jillie in the forest, and since it was early in the day it was still cool and the wind made it even dryer/cooler. We were there longer than we'd meant to be since we came across others and invariably one stands about talking, and sometimes for longer than intended.

At the Merrickville fairgrounds, we carried our puppies along in over-the-shoulder bags the sides of which are ventilated and we brought along a water bottle to hydrate them. They were very well behaved. And as often happens drew attention from others. Their reward came later when we returned to our vehicle and headed home, with some treats in their little bellies.

With the passing days of summer there are the inevitable subtle changes in the garden. As perennials
enjoy their brief opportunities to flaunt their transitory beauty, others growing alongside reach their maturity just as their garden mates decline. There is never any end of new discoveries.

I have discovered, to my dismay, that one of the native ginger plants that I had transplanted from the ravine had re-established itself after its initial disappearance, and looked to be thriving, but suddenly is once again gone, with the mystery solved in the remaining presence of an almost-nibbled-through leaf, all that remains of the fairly robust new growth from the root that had persevered. I can only hope that spring will see it renew itself.

I've now taken down all but one of those giant sunflowers that had been happy to establish themselves in the various garden beds, from seed residues of winter bird feeding. Their final removal has given free rein to other plants to spread, not feel quite as constricted by the aggressiveness of the sunflower stalks and roots.

Overall, we're immensely pleased with the garden, and there's nothing particularly new about that. We're seldom disappointed in the manner in which all the beds and borders manifest their enthusiasm about spring, summer and fall.

They continue to offer us the eye-stimulating gratefulness to nature in the fullness of the greens and reds, yellows and oranges, blue and purples that create a secret landscape right outside our front door.

Shortly after breakfast they loaded up the car and left to return to Toronto. Last night they provided us with right royal entertainment; a duet of Baroque music, reminding us of how, in many years past, music soared through our family home as our older son and our daughter played duets together on recorder, flute, viola. For almost the past thirty years it's been our son and daughter-in-law. It has become somewhat of a tradition.

Our daughter-in-law had to return to Toronto today since she is committed to pastoral work for what she called "the evening shift" at the church she is part of this evening, until the spring semester starts in a few days and she switches roles, to her chaplaincy. One of the meals we enjoyed this week came courtesy of her kitchen efforts introducing us to a new recipe, a tomato-cheese tart.

And yesterday it was my husband who was on meal duty. Early in the day I'd prepared a cole slaw to accompany our evening meal, but it was he who stir-fried potatoes on the barbecue, then grilled pork chops. We closed the meal with fresh strawberries from Ilse d'Orleans, and wickedly-luscious freshly-made vanilla ice cream, another of my husband's summer mealtime specialties.

About twenty years ago, the entire ensemble of five that comprised their Early Music group specializing in Medieval liturgical music stayed over with us in this house, en route to a recording studio in Montreal. That was the first and only time we experienced a grand performance dedicated to us personally and it was sublime.

Several years later the group was on their way to London, England, for another recording. Some of the original members have changed, mostly the soprano, but they continue to perform and delight audiences appreciative of the kind of music they research and sometimes transcribe, and often perform at particular calendar dates.

Our deep summer days are patterned with high humidity levels, heat ranging from the tolerable to the extremes of high, but unfailingly, thank heavens, rain events regularly on tap now, we also receive sufficient wind to impress us with at the very least, the illusion of relief. All the more so when we're in shaded areas.

As we invariably are, in the ravine with its broad tree-masted, leaf-heavy canopy overhead. Yesterday during our ravine ramble we came across a couple we've known well for the last few years, with their three very obedient sibling-litter of three border collies, whom our two little poodles rush over to see whenever we happen to meet-and-greet. They were with an unfamiliar older woman and two children, a boy of about eight and a girl a few years younger, obviously siblings.

The children made much of our little dogs, pleased to be licked by them, their excited pop-up antics of great amusement to the children. Border collies are, understandably, as intelligent working dogs, far more restrained in their social temperament. The woman with the children was upset at an encounter she'd had just a few minutes earlier with a woman she described as young and irresponsible.

That woman was walking three 'large' dogs, she said, roaming free and looking somewhat threatening, so she called out to the other woman to ask her to gather in her dogs because of the children in her own care. The young woman simply ignored her, while it was the older woman with the children who gathered them close, feeling exposed and vulnerable and responsible for the welfare of the children, and hoping the dogs wouldn't gallop over.

Our friends said they'd seen the group on a number of previous occasions, and the young woman never acknowledges the presence of others; neither people nor dogs. If spoken to she will not respond. And, they said, it is Doberman Pinschers she walks, so they themselves tend to give them wide berth hoping like the woman with the children that the Dobermans won't approach their own. They'd had a bad experience with one of their Border collies just two weeks ago when it was attacked by a pair of Chows being walked in the ravine. That, the third of their Border collies, is still recovering, its wounds healing.

Jackie, bottom left, excited at seeing his friends, the Border collies

As it happened, after we parted, sensitive to the possibility we might run into the young woman with her questionable pack of dogs, we were cautious, ensuring that Jackie and Jillie remained fairly close to us, but we always ensure that they don't venture too far from us, and they're always in close eyesight. We didn't come across the four, and for the most part we've been fairly fortunate that we haven't ourselves run into any really aggressive and threatening dogs in situations that we weren't able to handle, but it is surprising how many people are oblivious to their obligations to others around them to make certain people don't feel threatened by their canine companions.

Otherwise, it was a beautiful, sunny day, with a great breeze, just beginning to become really hot and humid.

These really are the dog days of summer. But since it's August, a month we've always found to be volatile, and all the more so in the Ottawa Valley we've been ricocheting back and forth from dry spells to wet ones, extreme heat and humidity to drier atmospheric conditions with ample wind to keep us from melting in the heat.

Sitting around the table at mealtimes provides the perfect time for four of us, our son, daughter-in-law, my husband and me to catch up on a whole range of life events in more detail than distance communications permit. Spending leisurely evenings sitting around talking, discussing various issues seems like a real revelation, a warming comfort of familial serenity.

It's kind of amazing to get my head around the fact that our children have all passed their half-century mark in age. To view them as mature with all the symptoms of physical maturity in plain view. How then do they view us?

This morning I was out in the backyard, snipping back some of the plants, the spent lily wands, the Bergamot wands with their large seedheads, floral wands of our many hostas, cutting back the long-flowing branches of the Corkscrew Hazel, the drooping Mulberry trees. Dead-heading roses and other blooms. Too hot out there to spend too long, and Jackie and Jillie were anxious to get back into the air-conditioned house.

Where our daughter-in-law was busy in the kitchen. She offered to produce our evening meal tonight and that's just fine with me. Among her many other accomplishments she is a great cook. She was cutting up tomatoes, dicing garlic and sweet basil, pre-preparing a few of the ingredients for the tomato-cheese pie she has planned to bake.

Yesterday they accompanied us on our usual ravine hike, but today they've planned for an afternoon day-trip downtown to mosey about and re-acquaint themselves with places they've been long familiar with. Tomorrow's target will be the National Gallery for a special art exhibition and that one will be reserved for father and son exclusively.

That's what happens when your mind is busy elsewhere. This morning my mind was thinking are they up yet? What'll they want for breakfast? In reference to our oldest son and our daughter-in-law, visiting with us.

That's when I dunked a few things into the laundry sink, poured in a little soap and let the faucet flow. Then moved out of the laundry room into the kitchen. And forgot about the flowing faucet. Just as well my husband heard the water flowing and turned it off.

Not all that long ago he'd done the same thing. And we went upstairs for our morning shower, unaware the tap hadn't been turned off, wondering why the hot water flow for our shower (we've got a double-sized shower, ample room for two) was so low. Eventually we made our way back down to the kitchen to start breakfast. And that's when we were aware that there was the sound of running water...

The reason our shower was different suddenly dawned; hot water had been trickling away, thanks to the overrunning laundry tub whose drain smartly ensured the tub didn't actually overflow. Lesson learned, we thought smugly.

It wasn't until hours later that my husband ventured down to the basement level to do something in his workshop. En route to his workshop he passed through the finished portion of the basement and found something unusual there. The floor covered with water that had leaked down from the laundry room faucet, not the sink overhead for the period of time we'd been unaware of the faucet running.

It took quite some time for my husband to mop up all that water. Oddly enough, I'd just the week earlier given that floor a good scrubbing. Unsurprisingly, my husband decided it might be a good idea, under the circumstances, to repeat that scrubbing. A lot of extra work resulting from a hurried mind.

We've been careful ever since. And then I slipped up again, this morning. Good thing one of us was alert; the one who'd had to go to all the trouble of taking responsibility when the consequences of his slipped memory faced us.

The heavy rains that began early yesterday morning were unexpected but we soon became accustomed once again to a dark house interior. Any time the dim light lifted slightly there was a bit of a break in the rain but it didn't last. It wasn't until midafternoon had come and gone that the break that ensued was long enough to give us hope that the rain had lifted entirely for the day.

And that's when we set out. On what was left of a cool, but hugely humid, windy day. It felt hot because of the extreme humidity even though the temperature failed to rise above 20 degrees. Because of the concern that the skies would open once again to more torrential downpours we put on light rainjackets and hauled along the same for Jackie and Jillie, and set off for a ravine walk.

Everything in the woods was so drenched it seemed as though it was raining, the slick, waterlogged environment dripping incessantly. We couldn't, in fact, be certain that it wasn't really raining, it was so constant, and so we put the puppies' raincoats on, but they didn't seem to mind, and we forged on with our day's hike.

In fact, the woods were so soaked that there wasn't, in the end, much difference between the rain sliding off the overhead foliage, and the sky opening up again, raining moderately. The sky didn't open up, as it happened, though it felt as though that was the case; instead we kept being enveloped in second-hand rain as it were.

We had the ravine, and the trails all to ourselves. No one else, none of the regular  hikers appear to have turned out on this surprise-weather day. So it was a tranquil hour or so, tramping along on the soaked surface, seeing that strange light that prevails after a heavy rain and overcast skies, that always serves to illuminate the forest-green in a luminescence not seen on other occasions.

Which didn't keep us from enjoying our usual forest-trail hike; neither us nor our little companions. True, we came back a little damp, but not drenched, and nicely exercised for our trouble. A few hours later the rain still hadn't resumed, but the high humidity levels had lifted and we began to feel the true effect of the cooler temperature as the wind continued to blow-dry the environment.

Ah, for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea Tracing one warm line Through a land so wild and savage And make a Northwest Passage to the sea
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones

Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain
And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again   Stan Rogers

 
Saturday night at the movies for us translated into viewing The Snow Walker, a Canadian film of powerful impact on my husband and me. He has long read and been fascinated with stories of exploration of Canada's far north and the search for the Northwest Passage and the tragedy of one failed voyage of discovery after another launched by Great Britain's navy in its territory that was to become Canada, culminating with Sir John Franklin and his last voyage; the mysterious disappearance of his ships, his crew, his chronicled death and the discovery just in the year 2014 under the auspices of Parks Canada of one of his ships, HMS Erebus.

Parks Canada website

For me, the fascination with the polar regions and the many exploratory voyages of discovery that took place -- Arctic and Antarctic -- came much later, but I devoured many of the same books and more that my husband had once done. One of the most gripping to me was the book The Ice Master by Jenifer Niven, which focused on the 1913 voyage of the Karluk under its captain Robert Bartlett, who took charge of the expedition when Vilhjalmur Stefansson whose expedition this was to have been, abandoned it. The story of the Karluk and what occurred to its crew is one of dauntless courage, perseverance, and discovery.

The film we watched, The Snow Walker, was inspired by one of Farley Mowat's stories of the far north. Farley Mowat was an absorbed and absorbing lover of Canada's far north, who made it his life's work to educate Canadians through the medium of literature, about an astonishing part of the country that most people rarely thought of. He wrote of its people, their endurance, and ability to adapt themselves to the vast and alienating landscape they lived within. He wrote of the wildlife, of the terrain, of what it takes to live in such a landscape that seems to offer nothing helpful to human survival.

His story, "Walk Well My Brother", from which the film was made, displays the vast emptiness of the breathtakingly beautiful, but intimidating landscape of permafrost. The Arctic tundra is host to a wide variety of flowers flourishing when snow withdraws, where shrubs and trees are dwarf vegetation, stunted by the harsh climate and small lakes, bogs and ponds abound, of melted snow. The film is focused on an Arctic pilot whose light plane has crashed and he along with his passenger, a Tubercular young Inuit woman, forge their way in a search for rescue, across the landscape; she teaching him the fundamentals of Arctic survival. Her ancestral knowledge and resourcefulness enables him to discover just how survivable such adverse conditions can be for someone tutored in the Inuit manner of accepting what the environment has to offer. The film is a symphony of two wildly disparate civilizational representatives discovering one another; the cosmopolitan one taught by the 'primitive' one that life's values can be more qualitative than quantitative.

The conclusion of the film left us both deeply moved. The acting was masterful, the setting mesmerizing, the drama superb. A wonderfully good production.

Hot, hazy, humid. That pretty well describes this day where the temperature is supposed to top out at 34 degrees mid-afternoon, and we can believe it. Still, while we were hiking in the ravine this morning as long as we were in the shade of the forest canopy and a good breeze cooled us off, the out-of-doors was tolerable.

Jack and Jill came across several friends, and had a nice little conversation and semi-romp with them and we weren't too sweaty by the time we returned home an hour or so later. But because it's so hot and they looked a little untidy I thought it would be as good a time as any to give them the grooming treatment. My thought must have somehow transferred to their little brains, because when I went to look for them, they were nowhere to be found.

Of course, they'd noticed that I was gathering together their grooming equipment and setting up shop out on the deck under the canopy to have a go at them. That didn't impress them in the most positive light, and so of course they made themselves scarce. I tackled Jillie first, then did Jack, about an hour-and-a-half's worth of dedicated snipping.

And then it was bath time! I've concluded that it is Jillie only who is water-aversive, not Jackie, because he was excited about the bath preparations and clearly looked forward to plunging into the water. Jillie, on the other hand, was her usual evasive self, trying to clamber out of the tub as soon as she was deposited in it, while Jack was content to bask in the water being laved over him.

I suds-and-wash them, my husband dries them, simply because he has more patience than me, and does a far better job of it. After which both of those little imps resort to what they do best - race madly after one another around and about the house. As good entertainment as any we can think of.

The woodlands in the ravine have had a reprieve. They've been stressed from lack of rain this summer, but now they look well hydrated. That should give a boost to everything growing and keep it all thriving.

As for the gardens, the same can now be said. With one notable exception. The smaller of our two magnolias which I'd noticed several weeks back looked fatigued and too dry, beginning to shed leaves, looks little better now that we've had days of unending rain followed by the sun. The magnolia continues its shedding and foliage that hasn't yet fallen, staying firmly attached to the tree has become brown, dry and crumpled.

This is a tree that often at the height of summer begins to put out another flush of blossoms. It had started to just that; soft, fuzzy flower buds can be seen here and there, and though it's still in distress from all appearances, there is enough healthy green foliage left to give us hope that it will recover. The larger of the two magnolias, many times larger than the one in the backyard, is thriving. No signs of distress there, nor on any of the other trees and there are many.

On yesterday's ravine walk we came across a four-and-a-half-month-old Old English Sheepdog puppy. Cuddly-sweet and a treat to see gambolling happily about. Its companion was a black standard poodle. Our two little poodles greeted their older, larger cousin with their usual shrill, excited barks, and the other poodle wasn't certain it was prepared to confront two yappy little dogs, even if they somewhat resembled him, so he retreated.

But then he returned with recruits, two other large dogs, the puppy -- which though still very young was multiple times larger than Jackie and Jillie, and as a puppy, happy to play with them. The third dog was one we see on occasion, a shaggy black long-haired shepherd with a very benign character, patient in the presence of nuisance puppies.

All of which made for an outstandingly pleasant walk for our two little black devils who are behaving so well now, even off leash they seem like someone else's little dogs, not ours.

Profile in courage, an episode of telling endurance and dedication by U.S. National Park Rangers; a rescue squad of seasoned mountaineers embarking on an intrepid rescue in the face of a raging mountain storm of 110 mph winds and lashing snow on Denali, 1992.

My query about the state of the Korean team was being answered. One of them was staggering back into camp screaming pitifully. His name was Duk Sang Jang, and at his insistence, Ron Johnson, the mountain's rescue ranger, sent four others, including John Roskelley and Jim Wickwire, up the Headwall in blizzard conditions, to see if anyone was alive.
The tale they told later of what they found when they arrived at the crevasse's lip was chilling -- a gaping hole approximately 150 feet long, 50 feet across, and almost 80 feet deep. Hundreds of other climbers had been crossing over this same shelf for the past two weeks, thinking it solid. Even Roskelley admitted, with all his experience, that he, too, thought the shelf was as solid as they come. The Koreans hadn't made a terribly bad decision, just a very unlucky one. In their struggle to return to the relative safety of our camp, they'd stopped on the only flat spot along the trail up to the ridge, and the flat spot had simply caved in. The crevasse itself was filled with a jumbled pile of broken ice blocks and layers of snow, and buried in the middle of it all were two Koreans, one trapped from the waist down, the other, his hand protruding upward.
Roskelley and another rescuer rappelled down and onto what appeared to be the bottom of the crevasse. They could only pray that this layer of ice and snow wouldn't collapse farther into the crevasse with them standing on it. Seong Yu Kang, the Korean buried from the waist down, had attempted to scratch and claw a conical pit around his waist using only a pocket knife, but he was a long way from freeing himself. He'd been trapped now for at least three hours and at an air temperature of minus-15 degrees [F], was probably freezing to death.
Both Roskelley and the other rescuer dug with a focused energy, intent on getting Kang free while not shaking loose the fragile pile of rubble they were all perched on. Johnson, who had arrived at the scene with a Sked Sled [a heavy, plastic rescue sled], set up a pulley system and helped the team haul up Kang.
While Kang was getting hauled out, Roskelley and the other rescuer turned their attention to the hand reaching skyward from his arctic tomb. Laboring in an eerie silence punctuated by their heavy breathing, they began cutting ice away from part of the body. It appeared as if the Korean was dead, so they decided to bolt before the entire ice shelf collapsed. It was a difficult decision, but the risk of staying in the crevasse outweighed the benefits in attempting to rescue a dead person. As the rescuer turned to leave, the hand clutched at his ankle. With one grab, the body managed to convince its rescuers that their efforts would be worth the trouble.
As they dug, they uncovered Dong Choon Seo's face and he began to scream, horribly. The snow around his head was crimson and blood flowed freely from his mouth. Although Roskelley and the other rescuers didn't know it at the time, blood was flowing because Seo had done the unthinkable. Assuming he was trapped for good in the crevasse and likely to die slowly by freezing, Seo had attempted to chew off his own tongue in an effort to speed up his demise.
After the Sked was lowered again, Roskelley and the other rescuer loaded Seo onto it, wrapping him in a sleeping bag and strapping him in like a trussed package. According to Ranger Johnson, he used "more duct tape on [him] than I've ever used on my car". With so many injuries, the only items in camp left to make splints of were the trash-can lids -- so he used them, too.
They returned to camp later that night. One of the rescuers, eyes vacant and lip pressed into a tight line, referred to the event as "a rescue patrol from hell and the most frightening mountaineering experience of my life". Even the venerable and unshakable Roskelley admitted it was the most terrifying thing he'd ever been through. Ranger Johnson, who'd slept only one hour in twenty-four by his own admission, just shook his head and muttered something about "having to get the hell off this mountain", and disappeared into his tent. What had happened to the rest of the Korean team was anyone's guess.

From: Facing The Extreme; Ruth Anne Kocour/with Michael Hodgson

U.S. National Park Service  

Credit: NPS Photo / Tim Rains

Sunrise alpenglow on Denali

We've cut back, trimmed and hauled out of the garden soil some of the plants that have enjoyed their time in the sun. We've had a real deficit of rain this summer and it has had its impact. Area farmers in the Ottawa Valley and beyond are seeing the results of lack of irrigation on their crops. And we're seeing a far less problematical environmental stress in our gardens. We're able to water our garden containers and pots with the use of watering pails, but are being asked to conserve water, so lawn watering isn't a great idea.

We decided to winnow out even more of the sunflowers; they're thirsty since their size alone make them more aggressive than other, more modest-sized garden plants. They've more or less had their glory days in any event. We have left a few of the larger of the sunflowers in place so the goldfinches who visit daily won't be disappointed. But freeing up the beds and borders from their presence gives other plants more of a chance.

And it certainly looks a lot more orderly and visually pleasing now that they've outgrown themselves to return the garden to its usual more aesthetically overall pleasing presentation. Now, we can actually see the other plants, they're no longer hidden behind the pushy foliage of the sunflowers.

It was time to yank the poppies, and in the process harvest their seedheads and sprinkle them back into the garden where they will be glad to reappear come spring. These are the annual California type poppies, we have no need to worry about the perennials that just require cutting back after flowering, with the assurance that they'll return for next summer's bloom period.

Shasta daisies were cut back and in their place Black-eyed Susans in abundance have appeared, and the bee's balm has replaced the previous flowering crop of mountain bluet. Coreopsis and Echinacea are brightening the late summer gardens, and we've nothing, as usual, to complain of considering the presence of the garden urns resplendent still with ipomea, begonias, petunias, geraniums, lobelia, and so much else, gladdening our eyes with the vision of their fresh loveliness.

We had a plenitude of rain this week, three full days of unrelenting rainfall, for quite an accumulation and that should give fresh spark to the gardens, let alone agricultural fields. The woodland ravine next to our street has been delighted to welcome the rain, and it has been fairly well absorbed, despite the volume of the rain that came pelting down and how it swelled the creek into a turbulent flow, there are no significant puddles of water sitting around on the forest floor.