There is a problem
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“If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” — Raymond Inmon
A great and undeniable problem has arisen. The dilemna which calls calls from the heights of the untrodden immutable forest kingdom. Yet borne up within by courage unflinching, the morning’s faint light through the narrow embrasure, rugged, majestic, the trees, they tower far above.
The June Rose has bloomed as if on cue with calendraic reminder that May has past. Joining June Rose across the vast prairies is Canada Anemone, white and true, and waving as a spring bonnet in the breeze High Hush Cranberry flower doilies toss to and fro. Traveling yet the plains, what could possibly capture the heart more than the delicate bloom of the False Solomon’s Seal and Bunch Berry or, no, it just may be the blossom of the Red Osier Dogwood.
One may then cry out forests are perfect! However, that leads one to the problem at hand. In the course of this June study we shall have to touch on what is called the problem of perfection and grandeur. But in this primary matter of the ideal the difficulty is not the problem of magnificence, or perfection, but mayhaps the problem of abundance. Life, thus unfolds and is full of little problems, which arise suddenly and find one wholly unprepared with a solution.
What is that you say? Is it not a wonder to behold the sunset, A gold fringe on the purpling hem of woodlands or mayhaps the sunrise, the fresh-blown rose of dawn, is that not what one should call perfect and spectacular? The reflections of the sky captured in the waters below, amplifying the beauty times two – nay this is perfection! Did you forget perchance, amid the broken clouds the rainbow’s angel spanned? The double rainbow colours bright or light prism dancing amid the crystal dew, what could be more perfect than that? Did you not catch sight of the butterfly flittering past, the Swallowtail and Fritallaries and Mourning Cloaks? Did you stop to listen to listen to the warbling notes from her fair songsters’ feathered throats ~ are these tunes not Perfection at its finest?
You are left free to judge of these problems and dilemnas now with fresh minds to ponder and consider these issues… And this brings the tale to another problem. Which is more perfect, the wetlands fresh the new families of ducks, and goslings or the understorey bedecked in blooms, or the marsh spangled with the rays of the Aurora Borealis? How, then is one to choose? On this particular June day, how will the problem resolve? Or do your heart strings pull at the sight of a glorious winter’s hoar frost day, the majestic mountain, rippling waterfall, or span of ocean?
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” — John Muir
Be contented; enjoy your fine imagination; and do not throw your salad out of window, nor shove your cat off your knee, on hearing it said that Shakespeare has a finer, or that a minister is of opinion that you know more of music than of nature.
The exertion of intellectual power, of fancy and imagination affords us greatly more than their enjoyment. We are motes in the midst of generations: we have our sunbeams to circuit and climb. Look at the summits of the trees around us, how they move, and the loftiest the most: nothing is at rest within the compass of our view.
Do not imagine that the illusion is, or can be, or ought to be, complete. Imagination makes encroachments on the heart, and uses it as her own. Imagination could finish the story, this single June Day confronts the senses with the main outline of the whole problem.
“Yesterday was the happiest day of my life. Every new day that follows the previous day is happier and what better than this I can wish for my friend. “I wish you health and strength of an oak, the long life of a redwood.” Richard St. Barbe Baker
For directions as to how to drive to “George Genereux” Urban Regional Park
For directions on how to drive to Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
For more information:
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063
Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot
Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com
Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map
Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map
Facebook Group Page: Users of the George Genereux Urban Regional Park
Facebook group page : Users of the St Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
You Tube Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
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Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail / e-transfers )
Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date!
1./ Learn.
2./ Experience
3./ Do Something: ***
“St. Barbe’s unique capacity to pass on his enthusiasm to others. . . Many foresters all over the world found their vocations as a result of hearing ‘The Man of the Trees’ speak. I certainly did, but his impact has been much wider than that. Through his global lecture tours, St. Barbe has made millions of people aware of the importance of trees and forests to our planet.” Allan Grainger
“The science of forestry arose from the recognition of a universal need. It embodies the spirit of service to mankind in attempting to provide a means of supplying forever a necessity of life and, in addition, ministering to man’s aesthetic tastes and recreational interests. Besides, the spiritual side of human nature needs the refreshing inspiration which comes from trees and woodlands. If a nation saves its trees, the trees will save the nation. And nations as well as tribes may be brought together in this great movement, based on the ideal of beautifying the world by the cultivation of one of God’s loveliest creatures – the tree.” ~ Richard St. Barbe Baker.
DEDICATION.I need give my verse no hint as to whom it sings for. The rose, knowing her own right, makes servitors of the light-rays to carry her color. So every line here shall in some sense breathe of thee, and in its very face bear record of her whom, however unworthily, it seeks to serve and honor. ~George Parsons Lathrop
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. George Genereux Urban Regional Park. 
“In my room, the world is beyond my understanding. But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four hills and a cloud.” Wallace Stevens
***
What Is So Rare As A Day in June by James Russell Lowell
AND what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
‘Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For our couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer’s lowing,-
And hark! How clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
‘Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,-
‘Tis for the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season’s youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep ‘neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.
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This is perfect!
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A beautiful post. And Marth’s response equally so. But how sad that the beauty and the perfection might blind us to the increasing strain that we inflict upon our world. For though the mountains rise with the strength of steel deep in the oceans and on the plains and in the valleys we have poisoned so much. Is it too late?
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