Steaming Trees

Too bad I couldn't capture it as well in the photo, but it was pretty cool the way these trees were steaming in today's sunlight.

And, yes, I know many of you are under snow or currently in the middle of a blizzard, so it must be an even odder sight to see. Well that's Vancouver for ya - we live in a rain forest - sure looks like it doesn't it?

Freaky is...

...seeing a roadkill squirrel body when you leave for your walk though a bushy area when you live in 'bear country' at 7am on a Saturday morning when no one is around, and 45 minutes later when you pass by the same spot finding that the body is gone.

Did a bear get it? Did the conservation officer remove it during his morning rounds so a bear wouldn't get it? Did the person who lives in the house nearest to the roadkill clean it up? I don't know. I didn't see any people during our walk, and only a couple of cars.

I mentioned this to my brother who had recently come across the scene of a recent coyote kill this past winter and he agreed that 'no body' is actually more freaky than seeing the body.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  - Carl Sagan 

Blue Squirrels?

Take a look at this squirrel - maybe it doesn't show up on the photo, 

but he appears to have blue on the side of his tail and body. 

Do you think that's the colour of his fur, or did he have a little encounter with some paint? 

I don't think I've even seen colouring like this before, have you? 

Stumped

The other day there was a terrible racket and so I went into the backyard to see what it was - there I could see two men on hoists cutting down a tree. I know this may sound crazy to you -but cutting and chipping trees really affects my body. It seems to violate ever cell in my body. There is no escaping the sound and it vibrates through my whole being. I don't think we need to cut down many of the trees we do - once again it's humans destroying the planet because something's an inconvenience.

It was a very large tree and the cutting went on all day. I ended up leaving to get a hair cut and then went for a ride-along with JP a short time later. I just couldn't bear to hear the cutting all day long.

I'm very sad to see this big tree go. Look how big the stump was!!! 

To give you some perspective: 

I'm dreaming of little seedlings and popsicle sticks

Okay, finally the weather has gotten into the double digits (celsius that is) so it finally feels warm enough to even think of gardening. Even though there are very few plants in bloom the hummingbird has already been spotted, so I'm helping him out by putting up a feeder.

I usually have to skip feeders as it seems that everyone except the intended guest visit them. Starlings on the suet, bees and wasps on the hummingbird feeder and of course the absolute worst offender was the dang bear that scrunched over $200 worth of feeders a couple of years ago. Oh, and I forgot to mention the pesky squirrels.

And every time I put out food I have  to contemplate those that feed on them - should I discriminate against nature? Is is wrong to feed Juncos and Sparrows and Chickadees but not Starlings? Is it bad to allow wasps at the hummingbird feeder? So what do I do? I usually don't put out feeders  and leave it up to my neighbours to deal with the pesky squirrels and starling fights.

But it's early and I'm feeling generous so for now I'll leave out the suet and hummingbird food.

And then I can back to dreaming about my garden - this year I'd like to try "square foot gardening" - are you familiar with it? Any advice?

Pretty Flowers

My amaryllis  didn't bloom in time for Christmas, but it did bloom for New Years - and boy did it bloom!! Each stem had 4 big candy cane flowers:

Isn't that just amazing? Now to see if I can keep the bulb and store it until next year. My old bulb - which is about 5 years old, only produced 2 leaves and that's it. So I will have to do some research to see how I can restore it to a flower producing wonder. My parents had one that bloomed every year for 15+ years.

Wet and cold and hungry

So I'm sitting in my living room around 7:30 last night when I hear the lid of my mailbox open. Odd, I think for a Friday night, and then a moment later I hear another clunk in my front yard so I fly the door open, and what do I see? Two bears in my yard! The big one grunts at me as it runs. In my carport are wet bear footprints all over the floor. They had knocked over an empty garbage container (if there's anything in them, they are locked up in a room at the end of my carport.

About 10:30 I hear some noises outside and go to investigate. Jp tells me it's nothing, just the neighbour's car doors but I decide to peak out my front window and what do I see?? Yup, the two bears again. The little  one hopped the fence, sat on the top rail for a bit and then slipped down bum first before disappearing in the neighbour's yard. Then I felt really sad for them. I think the little one, who's fur was very wet from the heavy rain was tired. It's probably tired and very hungry. I hope they're able to find some food soon - just not people food.

Jp thinks they should be killed, but I just can't agree with him. They're not doing anything wrong. They come to our neighbourhoods because many of us are sloppy and lazy and there's often something to eat in a container outside our houses. People don't pick up the apples from their trees and so the bears have to scavenge for meals - maybe even the odd stray cat? I don't know. If people were more diligent and there was no food to be found, I'm pretty sure the bears would look elsewhere. As usual, humans create the problem and the animals pay for it.

Dodged a "bullet" last night

When I came home late last night, I let Eco into the backyard for her "business" when she takes off chasing something, then I see it - a very large skunk! I frantically call her back, and does come back to me - not as fast as I'd want but fast enough I guess because she didn't get sprayed! I still cannot believe that she was not sprayed. Maybe the skunk was in a good mood last night, or forgot it's superpower, or already unloaded on something else - I don't know.

I just know that I am EXTREMELY grateful that she did not get sprayed last night.

Now between a hungry bear roaming the neighbourhood looking for fallen apples and the skunk it's almost not even safe in one's own backyard. And since the skunk incident, I've been going out in the yard first to ensure it's safe and clear for me dog! I just can't take a chance with a skunk!

Street Heart - spider web

Here's another to add to my "street heart"  collection, I came across this heart shape in a spider web:

Isn't that interesting? It's also really hard to get a photo of a spider web in the middle of a park in dewy, foggy weather, with a dog randomly pulling on the leash.

End of Summer, or Beginning of Fall?

The beginning of September for many is like January 1st. For many it means new things - new pencils, books, clothes. For some, it's a new way of living as they start university living away from home in a dorm.

I imagine that last night there were many tears as parents tried to kid their young ones off to bed early for the first day of school after a summer of late nights. Which is why, I presume, the first day of school is also usually only a couple of hours - probably EVERYONE is exhausted.

But I too, like the beginning of September. Sometimes I take a new course. Or start a new hobby or journal. I take advantage of the cute notebooks and school supplies out there and pick up one or two items for myself. And each day I start my dog walk in the dark, waiting longer and longer for it to be light enough so I can put away my flashing light and to turn off Eco's collar light  - once I assume that people can see her (being dark brown has it's disadvantages in the dark).

I assume this time of year is meaningful to others when you hear songs like "September Morn" or "Try to Remember the First of September"  which longingly recall the glorious days at the end of summer. For us, we had a wonderful, textbook summer which was a little dry for our area, so even though it hasn't gotten cold yet (still no less than 12 degrees celsius) in the mornings there are some leaves falling due to our heat and the dryness. It's starting to feel like fall, and I'm starting to think of Thanksgiving and Halloween, and of course the fact that Christmas is only 3.5 months away -but I try not to get too far ahead of myself. And you? Does this time of year instill any great thoughts or memories?

Nasty Raccoon

It was a beautiful sunny, warm day and so I decide to take a break from work and eat my lunch outside. Soon I hear the sound of claws on bark and look up to see a raccoon in a tree, I talk to him and he starts coming down the tree closer to me. At first I'm hoping for a quaint magical moment but then I'm get a little concerned as he gets closer and I wait to see what he's planning on doing.

He sits and wags his tail (I've never seen a raccoon do that before) and licks his lips. I thought maybe he was hungry or thristy. He continues his descent until he's in a branch about 20' above me, and then - he turns around and poops! Yes he did. From the tree branch. Twenty feet from the ground.  Then he turned around again and as he's looking me in the eye he pees a steady stream down the tree and onto the ground below. Nasty!

I guess that was the latrine branch or something because after that he climbed back up the tree and travelled from one tree to the next until he was out of site.

Sometimes nature is not all unicorns and rainbows, is it?

How big IS the bear?

So Eco and I are out for our morning walk when a man drives by, stops, rolls down his window and tells me there's a bear eating garbage just around the corner.

I thank him and then I say "how big is the bear?". I guess my first instinct was that it would be better if it was small. The man paused, probably trying for figure out a size for comparison when I realized what a stupid question I had asked and I said "it's okay, he's big enough. Thank you"

Oh my, the things that cross our minds.

As it turned out we didn't encounter him which is just fine for me, I can live vicariously through another's bear sighting! No matter how big he is!

Where have I been?

I've been to the mountain and back.

Last week I was away on business in meetings at Bear Mountain Golf Resort. Wowza, is it ever a beautiful place, and the weather could not have co-operated any better. What a tourism commercial. We had people from Western Canada and Ontario at the meeting and I think everyone wanted to return (or move) to Vancouver Island!

Travel-wise it was fantastic. For those of us on the Vancouver side, we have to take a ferry to the island which is about an hour and 45 minutes. That too was wonderful. And the ferries have much improved. They used to be so 'functional' but now they are quite well designed breaking up the sitting areas making them smaller to reduce the noise levels. And landcapes and ocean were superb - and that's coming from a personal who's seen it many times and lives here! British Columbia is a gorgeous place to be.

The craziest part is no one golfed! The events co-ordinator booked a whale watching expedition instead. The thinking was that everyone could be together and mingle since we are all so spread out across the country and you'd only get groups of 4 doing that for golf - but still, two beautifully designed golf courses at your door and no one from our group stepped on the greens. I did see licence plates in the parking lot from Colorado and California though - I bet they had a good trip up here too. If you eve come to Vancouver, you must plan a trip over to Victoria. I'm sure you will be glad you did. (No I do not work for the tourism board)

The weather this spring and summer has been stupendous and I am over the moon. Being a summer baby I just love the sun and hot weather, however, being an adult I no longer get to lay about for hours on end just being outside. Maybe that's why I appreciate it so much.

Friday night Jp and I walked out of the house to go to the grocery store and then realized we forgot our bags (they don't give bags anymore in many stores to reduce the waste and damage to the environment - do they do that where you are too?) so we turned around and headed back into the house. Just then we heard a crash and I see a pile of boxes I had in my office covering the floor. Poor Eco was under my desk, probably not sure what to make of it. First thing we did is call her to make sure she wasn't scared and that she could get out.

Although I'm not happy about the mess, I'm so glad that I was there when it happened. First because I wouldn't want Eco to be hurt by it, and two because if it had happened while I was away I might have felt that Jp was somehow responsible.

The bad news is that my weekend plans were changed as I dealt with this issue. Oh sure I could've just thrown the boxes back together and restacked them, but I decided I'd better deal with them since they were a mess and so I cleaned out my bookshelves and other areas as well. Day 3, almost done! I'm sad that I'm missing the sun, but so glad that the visual clutter won't be clogging up my brain.

How are things going for you? I must catch up in the next couple of days!

Is it Naked Day today?

Okay this is really odd, first I see a naked man standing in the doorway of his house during this morning's walk, then a couple of hours later Jp drives by a topless chick on the by-pass - are we missing something? Is it Get Naked In Public day today? It's not that hot out there, is it?

Additionally - a friend of mine just sent me this message, " that's interesting because I just got off the phone with my sister - she was commenting that she can see her neighbour going to the toilet because his doors are fully open, yet at the same time she's telling me this, she's topless because she's too hot, go figure!"

Did you see (or have) any unexpected nudity today?

Chickies are Hatching ! Hurrry!!!!

This is so interesting! Head on over to Honey Nutbrown's blog  - she's giving a play by play of chickies hatching. But hurry cuz it's almost over!

Sunshine Makes Me Happy

Oh what a lovely day it's been, sure it's cold (-6 degrees celsius) but the sun was out - loud and proud! I am so happy to see the sun, I can't even begin to tell you.

But when it's cold outside, it's cold inside and this morning it was only 16 degrees in my house, so I turned up the gas fireplace and dug out my biggest, thickest Scandinavian wool sweater - that helps a lot. It's up to 20 degrees now, that's much more bearable.

This afternoon I put on a big long scarf which I wrapped around my neck several times, a flannel baseball cap, ear muffs, a big puffy jacket and some polar fleece gloves and went for a nice dog walk. It's unfortunate that Jp can't come with me to enjoy the lovely weather and the pleasant dog walk... but he's just not that kind of a guy.

I expected the dog park to have more people but three or four can be just fine too. If the wind stops and you can stand in the sun, you can actually feel a little heat, but unfortunately the dog park was in full shade. Today's people were nice and the dogs had a pretty good time - Eco played with a mini Labradoodle called Pansy which was good for her. Many dogs overpower her and then she ends up spending all her time with the people. Today she chased it and played with it pretty good. Maybe because Pansy was only 1 1/2 years old, Eco was more comfortable with a puppy. The one man that was there said he thought the football games had something to do with so few people that were there - the rest of us weren't even aware of any football games. He told us to root for Seattle because they are the closest to us. And then for the Patriots later today because they are a better team. I don't understand sports fans.

Here's what my frosty garden looks like today: 

Did you have a sunny day? How did you spend your Saturday? 

Turkey Soup and Rustic Bread

We had a belated Christmas dinner with Jp's family on Wednesday as everyone was somewhere else at Christmas this year. When it was announced that we'd be having a turkey dinner, Jp asked for the carcass (that doesn't sound very appetizing does it?) again for soup - in the past his sister has given us up to 15 pounds of bones and meat! She told us repeatedly that we couldn't have it because she was going to make soup with it.

We had an very enjoyable meal and at the end of the meal, his sister handed us a big container of meat and told us that we could have it for our soup as she had too many dinner plans for the upcoming days and wouldn't be able to make it for herself 

So here it is  - 

Yummy looking isn't it? It has gabazo beans, black beans,
yellow peas and lentils,  peas, carrots,
green beens,  lima beans and rice. 

Along with the soup I made of loaf of No Knead Bread which creates a very rustic loaf of bread. 

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And, I just had to capture this beautiful Christmas cactus that's been in bloom since just before Christmas. This is an off-shoot of a plant that my parents had going back the the 70's. They just keep going and going (just like our jade trees) 

Day 4

It's a good thing I don't make New Year's resolutions because I would have already broken them - we're only on day 4 and already I feel like time's whizzing by again. Same old, same old:

January 1 - hey, it's New Year's day, relax, don't do anything... so I didn't
January 2 - work day, walk dog, then family dinner *
January 3 - work day, walk dog, knit, dinner, knit, time for bed
January 4 - work day - probably repeat some of yesterday.

We had had a couple of dry days, including a couple of glorious sunny days with the most beautiful West Coast sunrises and sunsets for which I am very grateful for -  I think god/the universe/etc knows that we'd all go stark raving mad if we had rain and cloud for too long so at least every 5 weeks we get a reprieve long enough to restore our sanity and then back to rain again.

I was hoping to take advantage of the drier weather to get out there and take down the outside Christmas decorations but as I was knitting before dinner last night my attention was drawn to different sounds outside and I realized that it had started raining again. Drat! And now it's supposed to rain for a while which means I'll have to take down all those decorations but put them in my carport for a couple of days so they can dry before I put them away for 11 months. I was really hoping to get to my inflatable snowman before he got all wet. Now you know what I'll be doing tomorrow -up and down the ladder in the rain... I normally don't complain about our weather too much, but sometimes it has really bad timing!

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*(a belated Christmas dinner - with all the trimmings - including an aunt who tried a new recipe for candied yams with pecans forgetting completely about my stepson's allergy to nuts - it was touch and go there for a bit but he recovered pretty quickly. Being a teenager he didn't make a big deal about it, but the aunt couldn't let it go and about every 15 minutes kept brining up about how she almost killed him. Good times. Good times. )

September love

I must admit that we've had an absolutely fabulous August and September (so far). I can't recall a September that has been so dry and sunny and I am really enjoying it. Most years our tomatoes would just be nice and big on the vine by the end of August and then the rains would start in September and they would never turn red or they'd just split and then the slugs would get into them and into the compost they'd go. And the grapes would be just about ready and then the rains would cause them to stay sour and get mouldy and then I'm busy keeping the dog away from all the fallen ones on the ground.

September does have a special appeal to it for me - even though it's now been YEARS since I've been in school, September still feels like a time to start again, a time for fresh paper and supplies and for new goals in the 'year' ahead, hope for what lies ahead. And even last night when our dance group met for our fall classes, it felt like the beginning of a school year (even though it had only been 4 weeks since most of us saw each other) There were several new hair cuts and even some new hair colour and of course, many were tanned from summer vacations. And we were all so happy to be together and get going for the fall and planning for the future.

September has always been special to me as my parents shared the same birthday and so it was special in my mind because of it. It reminds me of bouquets of asters and dahlias and those lovely orange chrysanthemums. My mom now lives far away from me, but I trust by brother and SIL to tak good care of her, they always have very lovely presents for her and a lovely meal with a special dessert. I'm envious that I can not be there.

I really love the summer because I love the heat and the sun but for some reason when I fondly recall dog walks, I always conjure up images of the fall walks (often all the way back to walking my Old English Sheepdog when I was in high school). I think about being bundled up in my coat, boots  and maybe even a scarf and mittens with my dog happily enjoying all the different smells and the cool air. And turning a corner on the walk and being surprised by a tree that seems to have suddenly turned red (or yellow) overnight!  And soon it will be time for me to switch our morning walks to midday as it's staying dark later and later and soon daylight savings will mean we'll be completely in the dark (it's just easier to walk in the daylight rather than outfitting both of us with flashy blinky lights and reflective gear). The midday walks are also quite enjoyable, it's a nice break during the workday and sometimes we end up walking past the local elementary school around lunch time and many of the little kids run to the fence to pet Eco and of course, Eco just LOVES children and can't wait to say 'hi' to all of them.

Other than the hour or so before and after school as the kids noisily walk to and from school, most of the days are quieter and there seems to be a calmness in the air. Slowly one by one the hummingbirds and other birds start to disappear  - the geese honking as they fly south, sometimes in groups as big as 50 and sometimes they can be seen and heard for miles. And there are less and less lawnmowers or other sounds during the days. September just seems to have it all: warm, sun, rain, cold, frost, flowers, colour, empty trees, ending of summer, beginnings of autumn to winter. Sigh, isn't it a wonderful time of year?

What's your favourite part about this time of year? 

Curious coincidences?

About 5 times in the past week, I've rescued something before the situation became worse -first there was our portable dishwasher that started to zap at the wall outlet, I was across the hall at the time, so I raced over and pulled to melting plug from the wall - it appears the outlet had shorted out. Jp had to cut off the old plug on the dishwasher (which by the way is 40 years old - can you believe that?), replace the wall outlet and replaced the circuit breaker in the box just to be safe. But what if we were in the yard, or even at the other end of the house, could it have started a fire?

A day or so later I awoke when the fan in the bedroom made a noise like to motor seized and the fan stopped oscillating. I hopped out of bed to turn it off. Would it have whirred until it burst into flames?

A day or so after that, the dishwasher (again, poor thing is getting a bad rap) was running and something smelled like it was melting, I opened the door and found a spatula that had fallen through the racks and had melted in 2 spots on the bottom drying element. No further harm was done.

Yesterday we were sitting having a nice family brunch when the light in the fish tank started to short out, so I hopped off my chair and dove under the table to unplug the aquarium light, and then removed the stinking hood from the aquarium so our whole house wouldn't smell. No more lights for the poor fish (gee, anyone want a free fishtank, I've been told I must get rid of them.. ) The boys think this could have been a house fire, but I think all the water in the tank would have helped to stop it from going further - although I might've had some cooked fish....

And then today, I was inside and heard a stellar jay squawking - as they always do - but then something didn't sound right so I went outside to find a very guilty looking cat hovering over an adolescent jay. He lost most of his wing feathers and had some bleeding but I think he could recover. I had put box out for him with some food and water, but a couple of hours later, it's  since disappeared - I'm pretty sure my neighbour took over it's care as she too, didn't want the cats to attack this poor little birdie again.

Gee,  5 things that I that prevented from becoming worse. Are they only coincidences? Or is there a bigger message? What do you believe?