A Garden Month (to 24 Aug 2019) Pictures follow Even back in late July some end-of-summery things were already being noticed such as a small group of Waxwings taking berries from the Dogwood bushes on a hot and windy day … the sort of day on which it is perfect for Japanese Beetles to [...]
A little Sunday morning magicThis tiny bird appeared to accompany the Sunday morning cup of tea … the red flowers are Cuphea (Mexican cigar plant) and have proved to be the best attractor of Hummingbirds we have ever grown. They are not hardy, but plant some where you can nsee them next summer and [...]
Berries and Birds Everyone has remarked on the amazing size and variety of the tree fruit crop this year - and it has not gone unnoticed by the juvenile American Robins in our garden who have started to fill and fatten themselves on the bounty - observed by some young Song Sparrows. [...]
Signs of the Season Turning Our first visit to North America was in 1987 at about this time of the year. A friend we were staying with mentioned that seeing Egrets on a lake in Minnesota was his marker that summer is nearly over while ours has become seeing Golden Rod in flower. [...]
Garden Creatures The sun at just the right angle illuminated a horizontal band of white "fluff" in a Pagoda Dogwood tree and it warranted a better look. At first appearances one thinks of Tent Moth caterpillars but this is the wrong sort of tree. Closer inspection found that most of the affected area [...]
This and That Coming back from a walk we found a Banded Hairstreak butterfly (Satyrium calanus) on the "other" sort of milkweed (Asclepia tuberosum). They only open their wings to fly away but the upper surface isn't much more colourful than this. ** Not bad photo for one taken with an iPhone, albeit it [...]
We seem to have slipped into the habit of writing a round-up of recent activities in the garden around the middle of each month. This one is being composed as we swelter under a “heat dome” sent to us from south of the border - far too hot to do anything physical at [...]
Lawn Care - The "LoMow" Way, a taster. Regular followers of this journal will have heard earlier this year that we have pretty well let our lawn loose to do whatever it wants to do this summer - just a couple of mown paths through it so that we can reach the corners [...]
Cartooning ... Seeking some illustrations for a project elsewhere I started sketching on my iPad using the Procreate app ... I tested some of these on Facebook and enough people were complementary that I thought this might amuse the followers of the journal on a hot, too hot, Sunday afternoon. It was fun [...]
Eastern Chipmunk - Tamias striatus Although every other creature in Quebec other than Coyotes has visited our garden in the 21 years we have been here we have never seen a Chipmunk before, so we were really happy to see this young fellow scurry across the deck after a major wind and rain [...]