Burrowing Owl (Photo: James R Page)

Have you ever wanted to be friendly with burrowing owls? You know burrowing owls. They’re the cute below-ground-nesting ones. With big owl-y eyes. They’re smaller than pigeons, and they don’t have ear tufts so they look almost mammal-with-wings. And beaks. And little stick legs. Burrowing owls have been endangered for a long time. This is partly because they didn’t know to be afraid of humans so were targets for nest wipeout by farmers who don’t like holes in the ground. It’s also partly because when their food sources are reduced, entire nests can disappear. Now Parks Canada research shows that feeding the owls in June can increase productivity of successful nests. And you could be the feeder!

Grasslands National Park in Val Marie is looking for volunteers to feed burrowing owls during the month of June this year. Volunteers should be prepared to feed for one day’s series of nests. That is, you would feed about 20 nests for one long day or for parts of two days.

The food source is frozen mice. GNP will provide them to you. Three frozen mice per nest per day, thrown or pushed (with a stick) to the bottom of a nest.  The park will also tell you where the nests are, and may be able to provide you with a place to stay. There will be long stretches of hiking involved, and maybe owl sightings, and you can’t mind frozen dead mice.

If you are keen and committed, wouldn’t it be wonderful to think you could contribute to saving an endangered species? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to do so while visiting Val Marie, Grasslands National Park, and Grasslands Gallery in the beautiful month of June? For photographers and artists who are also enthusiastic conservationists and walkers, it’s a dream job.

For more information you can contact Pat Fargey, Species at Risk Specialist, Grasslands National Park of Canada, at pat.fargey@pc.gc.ca. If you decide to contribute, do let me know too, at laureen@grasslandsgallery.com. I’d love to meet you.

And please, if you can’t do it but know someone else who fits the assignment, pass this along!

"Light Heart" by Laureen Marchand

Some weeks are mournful. Some are gorgeous. This is one of the gorgeous ones. Warm sun, and spring birds are everywhere. A dandelion field in the vacant lot across from my house is glowing yellow and I’m waiting for the goldfinches to come back because both kinds of golden sparks appear at the same time every year. And Grasslands Gallery opens for its summer season today. Such pretty things. I wish you could see them. All the new paintings, photographs, scarves, and jewellery aren’t up on the website yet, but they should be by next week. Come back and look!

In the meantime I have a gift for you. It’s a printable PDF of one of the new artists’ greeting cards in the gallery this summer. Download and save, print onto nice paper or Avery note card stock 03268, two cards per sheet, as many times as you want. The front-of-card image is above. The website doesn’t yet support a click-through download, but shoot me an email at laureen@grasslandsgallery.com and I’ll email you a PDF attachment.

My pleasure! I look forward to hearing from you.

Crocus and sky

My small community is in mourning. The Canadian government has decided it somehow makes sense to reduce its deficit by reducing employment in Canada. One of the federal agencies whose staff is being cut is Parks Canada. Grasslands National Park, Val Marie’s main employer, has four staff affected. This might not seem like much in a city, but it wasn’t a very big staff to start with, and Val Marie’s population is about 100 people. Losing four jobs is a major blow to a small town in the middle of nowhere.

There’s more. All the affected jobs are senior positions in the areas of resource conservation and public information. The people who have held them are experts in their fields. It’s their expertise that makes sure places like Grasslands National Park survive. Without this expertise, will Grasslands National Park still exist in generations to come?

This scenario has been repeated this week across the Canadian national parks system. Over 1000 people have been told their jobs are at risk; more than 600 positions have been eliminated entirely. Conservation specialists, public information specialists, site specialists, interpretive specialists, visitor services specialists. This week Parks Canada took the biggest hit of any federal agency.

Will Canada’s great preserved wildernesses one day still be there at all ?

Trans Canada Highway (Photo: Tudor Barlow)

Riding in the car
Turn on the radio
My back is sore
Got a long way to go

(Bruce Springsteen, Fire, lyrics modified for the occasion)

Last Friday I finished my morning shift at the Whitemud Grocery, piled a suitcase into the car, and headed for Banff, where my dear friend Ruth lives and was celebrating her 90^th birthday. Her son Steven Ross Smith and daughter-in-law J. Jill Robinson had a weekend of festivities planned with family from across the country, and it was my privilege to be with them. 730 km to Banff, arrive Friday night, join the party until Sunday morning, and come back. Short but sweet, and all my responsibilities would be waiting here for me.

It was a lovely, friendly, moving weekend. Somewhere in the middle of things, my 18 year old Nissan Sentra decided that almost every brake part it contains needed to be replaced. The mechanic in Canmore outside Banff National Park, who Steven found for me on Saturday afternoon, said the car would get me back to Banff that day. Later it might run as far as Calgary, 120 km away but at least in the right direction. Calgary is a big enough city to have all kinds of brake shops. With none of them open on Sunday. I’d be staying at least a day longer. We struggle against disruptions to our careful plans.

On Monday, after an early and slightly tense but in fact uneventful drive to the brake shop, I spent five hours waiting for all the repairs to be done. At 3:00 p.m. the car and I set out for home. 600 km to go, the temperature an unseasonable 30 degrees, and the Nissan has no air conditioning. It was long and hot and late. We arrived. Here I am.

The next day, my friend the artist Catherine Macaulay and I climbed into her pickup truck and headed back over some of the territory I had just covered, for a long-awaited date to meet Regina friends at a concert at Swift Current’s premier venue, the Lyric Theatre. The concert, with Whitehorse, was wonderful. Sometimes lyrical and sweet, sometimes so loud the floor under my chair thrummed. The audience, including us, was thrilled. It was a great evening.

Then into the truck again to come home. The ditches are full of deer. A fox, a coyote, a jack rabbit, thousands of bugs glued to the windshield. Long and dark and late. We arrived. Here we are.

I’m opening Grasslands Gallery for the season in two weeks, talking to the artists and collecting new work. I’m teaching an online course in library and research skills for new MBA students in University of Maryland University College’s distance education program, and grading 25 major assignments that came in Sunday night. I’m working with the rest of the Board of Directors of Prairie Wind & Silver Sage as we get ready for our 2012 summer season. That delicate scheduling, those careful plans. A persistent virus derailed me for most of three weeks from the end of March. Income tax is due in five days. My studio is in the house somewhere. Where did it go?

This is the learning of this time in my life: You can do anything you want to. And everything you do will have a price. If you’re willing to pay it, the price is worth it. You get to decide.

I’m tired. I’m behind on everything. I wouldn’t have missed Ruth and Jill and Steve and Whitehorse for anything. Life can be so rich. It was worth it.

What is worth it to you?

Prairie crocus, 2012

It seems like spring has been a long time coming. After a burst of warmth at the end of March, we’ve had drifts of snow, sprinkles of rain, gusts of wind, and very little sun. My tulips popped four inches out of the ground in early April and since then they’ve been snowed on and frozen. They seem to be in a state of suspended animation.

But all is not lost. I saw 28 robins on a power wire last weekend. The meadowlarks are cheery and persistent. There are prairie crocuses blooming in Grasslands National Park.

And Grasslands Gallery opens for the season on May 10. You can expect new artists, new work by artists you’ve come to love, and a general air of refurbishment and light. In a very short time you’ll be able to buy online. Look for stories about gallery artists here on the blog, and a new page of downloadable resources for artists and art lovers on the website.

Spring is in the air!