Rangy

rangy, adj.
4. Of great scope or compass; expansive, broad, wide-ranging


I've come to a realization as I've been doing ridiculous amounts of reading for papers in the past month or so: the work of the authors I love most is repeatedly described as "rangy." I think this is one of the qualities that draws me to them. It's why I find them so rich and deserving of attention that I eagerly anticipate each new release and contemplate writing PhD dissertations on their work. However, it is also why writing on them feels almost impossible. I never feel like I'm done. I always feel like there is some other idea to explore, some other thread to be picked up and followed on a long, glorious journey of discovery. I'm struggling with this right now as I'm trying to produce a polished, edited, pretty much complete chapter for my thesis. This just isn't how my brain works. There is too much for me to still explore at this stage in the game for me to be able to produce something that is, in any sense of the word, finished. Ah well, tomorrow evening I will have to hand something in, and hopefully it is good enough.

For miles and miles

One of the really awesome things about Alberta is the space. Once you get out of the city there is just an abundance of room and air. I suppose this is true of almost anywhere, as I'm sure my friends from places like Ontario and Saskatchewan will attest, but having grown up in Alberta, I feel like we just have an abundance of this space. You won't run into trees for miles. Or buildings. It's just land and sky. And sometimes I appreciate this. I'm a bit claustrophobic at the best of times, but when I get stressed out I always want nothing more than to stand in the middle of one of these giant fields and scream at the top of my lungs. (And if you just read that and wondered how on earth a slightly claustrophobic girl came to love big cities...don't worry, it is profoundly confusing. I'm often a walking paradox. You get used to it eventually.) Space, room to breathe, is definitely part of iconic Alberta imagery. The fields that stretch for miles and miles are one of the first things I think of when I think about this province.

Iconic Alberta

As we were driving from the ceremony to the reception on Saturday, we rounded a curve and I said "Now that right there is an iconic Alberta scene." And it really was. This got me thinking about the things I'll miss about how Alberta looks. As someone who love photography, I'm always aware of colour and light and how it changes over the seasons here. Nova Scotia will be profoundly different. It is an absolutely gorgeous place and I am so excited to live there, but there are those moments driving down an Alberta highway that I am struck with how much I love this province. So, since I'm moving on Sunday, I figured over the next few days I would share some of these iconic Alberta scenes with you. I hope you enjoy them.


I love photographing rural scenes. I am a city girl at heart, but I love how the country looks so so much. Especially on a sunny day, with the blue sky, white fluffy clouds and green grass.

Ten Things...Let's get out of this town

In general, my flight instinct is a lot stronger than my fight instinct. As soon as things get hard, I want out. Life gets stressful and I start dreaming about being anywhere else. This is only compounded by the fact that I really do love to travel. Consequently, I spend a good amount of time thinking about being other places. I daydream about what my life would be like if I lived somewhere else. This longing for other places often finds its way onto the blog. Here's ten posts that reflect a yearning to just get out of this town (and, yes, that is a reference to the Carrie Underwood song):

1. Wanderlust
2. I love the places I ain't ever been to
3. Sometimes I feel I've got to run away
4. Daydreams of Paris
5. The Siren Song of the City
6. The Power of Suggestion
7. Sunset on the Harbour
8. Getaway Car
9. When words fail
10. Fields

Sometimes I feel I've got to run away, I've got to get away

That's right, I just quoted Soft Cell in my title.

I mentioned yesterday that I spent Saturday at my roommates farm in Lacombe. It was the perfect getaway. I didn't take any homework with me, instead I spent a lovely afternoon wandering through their gorgeous gardens and around the grounds taking pictures. After the crazy week I had last week I really needed the breathing space that this trip provided. As much as I am a city girl through and through, I sincerly love spending time on farms and in small towns. There is something wonderfully relaxing about them even if you are only there for a few hours. Maybe it has to do with simply having space around you. The air is cleaner and it is just easier to think and breathe. It was a drizzly day and the air smelled so clean and fresh. It was that cool, crisp autumn air that is so refreshing to breathe in. Just thinking about it makes me smile. I think this picture captures a bit of that relaxed state of mind.

Oh give me a home, where the [bison] roam

Sorry, that song is going to be stuck in your head all day now. If it is any comfort it is going to be stuck in mine as well, and I am almost ready for bed so it will be playing on an endless loop as I try to fall asleep. Wow. I just realized how much mental pain I inflicted upon myself with that title. Anyway. I worked today and one of the stories was about a herd of bison that broke free from their farm in the Camrose area. This prompted the great "are they bison or buffalo?" debate in the office. (They are bison.) It also led to the inevitable use of the phrase "where the buffalo roam" over and over again. I thought that in light of this it was appropriate to share some of my own pictures of bison. One of my roommates comes from a family that has a bison farm in southern Alberta. I've spent a couple of Easter breaks down there. The first time we were out there her dad took us out to the fields to get up close and personal with the bison. Let me tell you, they are big. It was pretty cool though. I do think that my spectacular inability to climb over the gate demonstrates that I am NOT "home on the range" though. Oh well. I got a good story out of it. And some good photos. I like the first one here because it also shows a bit of the vastness of the prairie as well as the bison. It seems to fit the song.

Pretty in Pink

It has been cool and rainy for the past couple days, and even though I am enjoying the cooler temperatures and the opportunity to wear sweaters again it is kind of bumming me out. Actually, it is mostly making me really tired. And making my knee hurt. Yeah, I'm only 21, but my one knee likes to inform me of dramatic weather changes by aching, sending shooting pains down my shin, and occasionally swelling up to twice its normal size. Anyway, even though I've been longing for fall to arrive, I still am not quite ready to let the dreamy days of summer slip away. That is why I chose this picture today. I took this at that Muttart Conservaory here in Edmonton last summer. The soft pink color and the fuzzy texture are distinctly spring-like in my mind. And the wheat-like shape combined with this makes me think of the first precious days of summer vacation in May and June when I start daydreaming about skipping through fields while wearing lovely summer dresses. Not that this ever happens in real life, but it is a nice daydream. Particularly on blah days like today.

Fields

As I've been wandering through the blogosphere (did I really just use that word?) this week it is clear that spring has sprung and all over the place people are starting to dream of long walks through grassy fields. The number of pictures around this week that featured fields was pretty incredible. It makes sense though. After all, what makes a person more wisful for warm spring days than images of strolling through or lounging in sunlit fields. Personally I can't really think of anything.

The past couple of years over Easter break I've headed home with one of my roommates. She's from a small town in southern Alberta called Champion and her family owns a bison farm. Now, I'm a city girl, but I enjoy spending time down there. It's just so relaxed and we've been lucky enough to get some absolutely gorgeous weather, blue prairie skies, golden fields stretching into the distance where you can see the Rocky Mountains. Just glorious. I took this picture the first time we went down there. I'm actually pretty impressed because we were sitting in the back of a moving truck at the time and I only had to crop the image slightly. This is what spring looks like in Alberta. At least, this is what spring looks like in Alberta on a nice sunny day. And we have fields to spare.