We find much beauty in water droplets. After the rain we discover these brilliant jewels clinging to leaves or hanging precariously from cedar and fir branches. They often reflect in their tiny mirrors the fascinating world around them. At times the photographer finds himself hidden in their magic imagery. All five photos have been captured during past couple of days. Enjoy.
Photo by Achilles Demircan on Pexels.com
In the meantime my brother Gerry (Gerhard) and I were getting ready to pick up Biene at the airport. The Chinook winds, which had brought spring-like weather to the city of Calgary less than a week ago, now yielded to the cold front chilling to the bones everyone who was foolish enough to venture outdoors. I was grateful to my brother and his wife Martha for providing accommodation for Biene until the time of the wedding. Biene seemed to have forgotten that this arrangement was part of the conditions we had to fulfill for getting her landed immigrant status. ‘Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.’ Times are a-changing and liberally minded people may scratch their heads nowadays and ponder in mockery and disbelief over this old-fashioned provision by Canada Immigration of the 1960’s.
At the airport we found out to our great dismay that Biene’s plane was delayed by two hours. I admired Gerry’s patience for having to wait that long before he could drive back to his home in southeast Calgary. This being Wednesday he had to work the next day. And I had a psychology lecture to attend in the morning. Shortly after midnight we were standing at the gate, through which the first bunch of travellers were passing and were being received with cheerful hellos from friends and relatives. As their number dwindled to a trickle and the flight attendants were marching through the gate, Gerry noticed the grave expression on my face and in his own peculiar way to cheer me up remarked matter-of-factly, “Don’t worry, Peter. Biene is not coming.”
He had barely finished teasing me, when a figure, rather slim and bundled up in a black coat emerged all alone in the doorway. The fluorescent light gave her a pale appearance. But her smile upon seeing me was unmistakably Biene’s. Weaving our way through the remaining stragglers we approached each other faster and faster like driven by powerful magnets feeling the overwhelming forces of attraction every step of the way. Then we embraced and kissed each other, while Gerry looked on amazed at the sheer length of time we took just to say hello.
So it came to pass that exactly one year after we had kissed each other good-bye in Germany, Biene and I were wondrously reunited at the Calgary Airport.
End of Book I
Note to my dear readers: I will be taking a break from the Peter and Gertrud Klopp Story. I consider to write Book II on Biene’s side of the family, especially on her father, who unfortunately has been getting a lot of negative coverage in the final chapters of Book I. I also would like to start a series of stories on the life and work of Albert Schweitzer written by my cousin Hartmut Kegler in German. It is a wonderful children’s seminar on this famous doctor and activist for peace. For my English speaking friends I suggest Google translate, if you are interested. I also want to do another series of posts on Bill Laux’s unpublished work on the mining and railroad history of Western Canada. Of course, it goes without saying, I will also continue with the popular series ‘Wednesday’s Photos’. That will be enough on my blogging plate for the next couple of months.
Photo by SplitShire on Pexels.com
In the late 60’s BC Hydro flooded the valley after building a dam to provide some control over the fluctuating water levels of the Columbia River. The stretch between Galena Bay in the north and the town of Castlegar in the south is known as the Upper and Lower Arrow Lakes. But BC Hydro’s main purpose was to generate electricity. Thousands of people were forced to leave their land along the lake shore. The island, which my wife and I canoed to, was once connected to the land on the opposite side of the Columbia River. Before the dam was built, the island was rich farm land with an orchard and a farm on it. As you can see, two weeks ago the forests nearby were still burning with a lot of smoke in the air. We are grateful for the rain, the end of the wildfire and the clean air we can breathe again. Enjoy the photos.
The Fauquier – Needles Ferry
Looking East where the Fires were Burning
Driftwood Sculptures on the Island
Driftwood Arch
A Sprinkling of Red from the Rose Hips
View through the Trees onto the Lake
Nature’s Sculptures Everywhere
Every fall after the first rains have drenched the parched forest floors my wife is getting restless. Mushroom fever is taking control over her entire being and she will not feel well until she is roaming through the woods in search of the pine and other mushrooms. Among all the choice mushrooms growing in our forests, such as Chanterelle (Pfifferlinge), Lobster, King Boletus, Honey Mushroom, and many others, no fungus can compare in monetary value to the prized Pine Mushroom. Every fall local and out-of-town mushroom buyers set up shop for the annual harvesting bonanza. This is the time of the year, when people, who would normally sleep a few extra winks on the weekends, get our of bed way before dawn and scour the woods for that elusive fungus.
Chanterelles (Pfifferlinge) are an absolute delicacy.
Mushroom Picker’s Delight: A Pine Mushroom Button
Lobster Mushrooms are rarely as clean as this one.
Triplets of Boletus Mushrooms
A Basket Full of Chanterelles
March 25th , Calgary
My dear Biene,
I remember very well the time when I wrote you the first long letter. Just like three years ago I am sitting in the warm spring sun and hope that it will bring some warmth into my lines.
Your birthday letter has reopened the locked chambers of my heart with power and might, and a flood of new ideas is pouring out about our near future, our little apartment, our weekends in the city or at the lakes in the mountains. With so much joyful tension and anticipation I can barely concentrate on my studies and I am longing for a break from my intensive work.
Only at night time I am still being plagued by ‘nightmares’, which constantly warn me against the wedding soon to take place. They whisper threateningly that we both don’t have the assurance of the heart to throw ourselves into such an adventure. But in the light of a new day I always return to my confidence and trust. I have been searching deep within me and often discovered that the very weaknesses I had attacked most fiercely in you lie also hidden in me. You were in deep trouble, almost in a state of desperation. There weaknesses emerged in a way that greatly disappointed me. But after some time through self-discovery I was able to understand them. I wished you wouldn’t worry about this my disappointment any more. In the atmosphere, where nobody dictates what our happiness should look like, let us work on the healing of soul, spirit and mind and let us try to overcome our weaknesses.
I am little ashamed that you are a bit afraid of me. Perhaps I have sometimes given you cause for such fear through my seemingly cold behaviour. Perhaps you even believed that your father’s illness could provide the answer to my last urgent question. Now that I did not receive any reply, I had to assume of course that you are sticking to your original plans. In the meantime your parents will have received my letter, in which in very kind words I have adopted your and your mother’s position and reassured your parents that you would not be in any kind of danger. I hope my letter will contribute to alleviate their fears. I also wrote that I was sorry if they felt insulted by my letter last Christmas. Hopefully you will understand that I could not apologize for what I had written. The strength to overcome my reluctance to write and to fulfill all your wishes came from the returning trust that from now on everything between us will develop normally and we two will forget the ‘sick’ period of the last three months. Should we not learn to trust each other, then spiritually speaking we will have built our relationship on sand and I will have no more hope. I am looking forward to make a little paradise out of our apartment. We will achieve this with love, imagination, and our skilful hands.
Thanks for the many kisses. It’s too bad that I was only allowed to imagine them and did not receive them right away.
Please write when the plane arrives in Calgary, so I can pick you up.
Greetings in love
Your Peter
One of the least demanding flowers, thriving in poor soil and growing to incredible heights, is the sunflower. When a volunteer plant pushed through the loose gravel on the south side of our house, my wife felt inspired by this unexpected appearance of a Russian sunflower and transplanted a whole bunch of ornamental sunflowers from a barrel of dirt where she had started them from seeds. The result of her labours is today’s post on these marvellous flowers, which not only decorated the windowless wall, but also attracted bumblebees and other insects. Enjoy.
The Peter and Gertrud Klopp Family 