Lots of snow in the past few days, over two feet deep, and forecast of serious (even for here) cold at the end of the week meant that this morning's exercise session was not going to be a healthy walk or retreating to the basement treadmill. It was on with the boots, coat [...]
My first Canadian lifer was the Red Bird, the "Devil's Bird", the Northern Cardinal. Here is a short tale of our first encounter as the kettle boiled for morning tea. (Drawings and photographs are my own) In an earlier post I wrote about the first bird, a European Dipper, that [...]
Introducing Favourite Artists I have read that the basic arts of drawing are no longer much taught in a number of art schools and in the ones that do still offer the subject, it is just one option amongst many. A shame - a great shame if this really is the case. I [...]
The clacks went back this weekend ... darker afternoons for all.
The All Hallows Flower Count A quarter century ago when we still lived in England we used to record how many plants were still in flower at Christmas. In Quebec that’s always going to be zero but in recent years J has taken to making an annual list of the flowers still [...]
By chance I happened across this short tale of failed gophercide. Enjoy, there is much truth in this little tale (Facebook does have its uses - sometimes)
It is quite normal here at this time of the year for pictures to be exclusively focussed on the glorious fall colours of gold and brown and red but a gentle stroll in the garden this morning before coffee reminded me that provided the gardener does not indulge in the practice of [...]
It's been a busy week, but now it's a quiet Friday with just the bird feeders to replenish here in the garden. Here we see how the time of day changes the things we can see. There is always something to enjoy in a garden. [...]
There are two groups of plants that are always spoken of as "THE" obligatory species to grow in a wildlife garden - Asters and Golden Rod. Very hot and sunny this afternoon in the garden and ten minutes baking in front of a single Golden Rod produced these eight species. There were more [...]
J, my irreplaceable and invaluable spotter of good things, directed me to these two Clouded Sulphur butterflies in the garden who were making merry, or even hay while the sun shines, on the New England Asters. Clearly they were intent on trying to make more butterflies. The rear butterfly is the male and [...]