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Sunday, July 31, 2016

Down in the valley so low

Richard Schear photos
















At the risk of being unoriginal, a picture speaks a thousand words, and I want to thank my husband, Richard Schear, for these photos taken with his phone while he was on his regular walk around the nearby coulee last night.

If you don't know what a coulee is, I looked it up. You'll get only a vague idea from the definition offered by Merriam Webster:
a usually small or shallow ravine; gully. Really, it says "a usually small" and even without the grammatical error, that definition scarcely does it justice.
Dictionary.com's second try was a little better:
1800-10 Americanism; Canadian French: a flowing;  feminine of coulĂ©, past participle of couler: to flow.
But my favourite was Dictionary.com's example of historical usage:
He rode through the coulee without seeing a single cow, and an exploration lasting over an hour resulted no better.
Watch now, it gets better: the above example is attributed to Hopalong Cassidy by Clarence E. Mulford. Anyone old enough to remember Hopalong Cassidy must be nearly as old as I am, perhaps my brother Clint's age, or a little bit younger.
Anyone who knows anything about Clarence E. Mulford, however, must be even older than I am. Please let me know who you are.
So...the gully that is our coulee is barely visible to the left of the red rock path in the first photo above, and completely invisible in the second photo.
The photos below could almost be called historical, like ol' Hopalong, taken as they were by the abovementioned husband some years ago, but they should give you a good idea of our coulees, and they have already given me a good idea for another coulee-photo blog-post.
Now, Tuesday has come and is almost gone, and I forgot to link this post to

Our World Tuesday



























3 comments:

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
However defined, it is a fascinating landscape!!! LOVE R's shots - deserving of admiration. YAM xx

Jo said...

Hi Kay, now I also know what a coulee is. Thanks for the explanation! I remember Hopalong Cassidy but not the author!

Sherry Blue Sky said...

A great place to walk Dogs! Interesting markings on the rock cliffs, they look like people.