Spring Planting Last year was the year of experimental vegetable gardening, not that we don't have many years of experience but very little of that in Canada. We had three excellent raised beds installed for us by Urban Seedling and stock the beds with seedling vegetables or seeds obtained from the same people. [...]
15 years later This is quite exciting - it looks as if a pair of Carolina Wrens are building a nest in an accessible (to us) site after an interval of some 15 years. We were taking our morning constitutional when we happened to observe the pair buzzing back and forth with nesting [...]
Opened up the waterfall (cascade) in the garden this morning and within five minutes a pair of Robins had already found it, took a splash and then proceeded to haul out wet leaves and chunks of moss which they flew off with to a neighbouring garden where, I guess, they are building [...]
I am reading and enjoying a fascinating memoir at the moment. If you'd like to read it, look for "A Curious Boy: The Making of a Scientist" by Richard Fortey. The author is a contemporary of mine, just a couple of years older, and was a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in [...]
The world is becoming scared of its own shadow and populated by wilting violets ... Earlier today while our on the snowshoes we happened upon a rabbit's foot, some scattered fur and a little blood. Probably a coyote's dinner. I took a photo and posted it to our local nature group Facebook [...]
This is an adaptation of a recipe culled from a baking blog (thanks Emily for the link) the URL of which I omitted to save. I have been playing around with various methods of making focaccia and I think this one comes the closest to my personal ideal of what the bread should [...]
How time does fly — just over a year ago I was inspired by a fine naturalist from England (thanks Tom) who had set himself the challenge of identifying 1000 UK species — birds, grasses, spiders, whatever. I had a couple of exchanges with him was assured that the concept was not trademarked, [...]
Almost the end of February and a light snowfall overnight coated everything with a covering of snow and ice. The sun came out, the temperature was not many degrees below zero. In three or four weeks most of the snow will be gone (though more could arrive) and there will be a [...]
Clearing out the basement, well, truthfully, a corner of the basement a few days ago I uncovered a three hole pipe which, for those readers who are not into folk music, is the blown half of a pipe and tabor - the original "one man band". Once upon a time I learned to [...]
Getting right to the point ... the focal point I like to do macrophotography - getting really close in on small features such as flowers and insects. But it has always had a significant limitation - depth of field. Not all of your subject is guaranteed to be in focus. I use a [...]