experienced during the dirty thirties. The trees planted
in the late forties and early fifties are mature and like this one well into the
time were it needs to be replanted as so many of the trees are old, breaking and
prone to infections. The farmer in the Smoky Burn area East of Nipawin is clearing
all or part of his shelter belt.Many of these shelter belts are maple which when planted densely as many of these belts were, a beginning to look pretty shabby.
By clearing this area which were likely interfering with overhead lines as well this farm will now have line coming in from the South of the yard improving the garden and general surroundings.
It was only a few miles East of this site that I was
confronted with
an outstanding moose who ambled out on the road side took a quick look around and
when he noticed I was slowing to take a picture swung calmly around and trotted back
into the bush, a mile further and these four road watchers gave me a chance to bring
the van down to a crawl and snap this picture. Editor's note -Over and over the limitations of my digital camera with its fixed wide angle lens makes we long for the days when my weapon of choice was an Olympus OM10 with a hefty zoom lens ready to catch the passing world much closer and immediate. I have used my video camera with its 12x capabilities but the images are substandard especially when they are at full telephoto.