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Show’s over…almost
If you’ve been following along with me for more than a year, you know I love fall. Long walks along my local paths, gawking at the show of colours that Mother Nature puts on without fail every year. I love the sound of the leaves crunching under my feet and the smell as they begin to break down. I love watching as the goldenrod go to seed and the milkweed pods open up. I’ve just finished a week of #staycation and I’ve ventured off to many other locations along the Niagara escarpment to check them out. I’ve hiked to waterfalls,… Read more…
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How does your garden grow?
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? This nursery rhyme was part of my childhood. I remember as a very young child, walking through our garden in the summer evenings with my Dad when he returned home from work. In my memory, I was fresh from a bath, with damp hair down my back, my little hand in his great big grownup one. I’ve carried that love of gardening into my own grownup life. One of the great joys of working from home has been watching my garden come to life this spring. From the very beginnings of… Read more…
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A new year, a fresh page – what to write?!
Yesterday, on the last day of 2019 – the decade, in fact – my Facebook feed was full of that quotation – you know, the one that talks about today being the first blank page of a new 365 page book, and that we should write a good one. A little googling tells me it’s from to singer/songwriter Brad Paisley, but it’s often unattributed. Regardless, thoughts about writing that book is a little more than metaphorical for me this year. This year, in fact, we get an extra day – 366, in total – not just the standard number. Canada’s…
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The November blues
I hate November. For me, November is the cruellest month. The gloriously coloured leaves have fallen from the trees like tears. We’re all a bit hypoglycemic after tumbling from our Hallowe’en sugar high. The joy of one extra hour of sleep has been replaced by the depression that comes from realizing that darkness descends before work is done. Art Credit: @CBC It’s dark when I wake up, dark when I go to work – where I spend the day in my windowless office – and dark when I go home. November is the month where the year is made or lost. Where… Read more…
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I love fall
I love fall. Crisp sunny days. The crunch of leaves under your feet. The first Macintosh apple. Watching squirrels pack away enough food for winter. Skunks ambling up the boulevard. Well, maybe not that last one, but you get the picture. I have plenty of friends who soak in every hot humid summer day, and mourn the beginning of fall, but I’m in that minority that celebrates that first day that it’s cool enough to wear an extra layer and drink a cup of tea that seconds as a hand-warmer. They love their shorts and tank tops. I yearn for… Read more…
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Changing with the times
Yesterday, as I was driving home, I saw my first flock of starlings this fall. They were dancing across the sky, magically swooping and twirling as one single unit. I’ve always been astounded at how birds do that. I know that geese, flying in formation, take turns as leader, but a flock of birds doesn’t seem to have the same, as they morph into different shapes, and double back again and again, never leaving a single member behind. When I saw this, I was coming home from a choral rehearsal, and the similarities between the birds acting as one, and… Read more…
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Lighting up the sky
Beyond my garden fence last week, I was treated to an amazing light show each evening at dusk. I don’t remember seeing this many fireflies in many, many years. A few nights ago, the neighbour kids were out trying to catch them in jars, just as I did as a child. When I was in Costa Rica a couple of years ago, we experienced bioluminescence in the water. Motion caused it there, so the more we moved our kayak paddles at night, the more the phytoplankton glowed, forming magical patterns in the water. The science behind the light is bioluminescence. When… Read more…
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Spring, where are you?
Behind my house yesterday, there was a mallard duck taking a morning snooze on the banks of the little creek that is running quickly due to the spring melt. And the day before, a sleek brown otter ambled along it. A little closer in, a pair of hungry yellow-eyed grackles greedily gobbled down seeds in a recently filled bird feeder. They’re part of a whole flock that arrived this week. They’ve temporarily scared away the songbirds – although by afternoon, I could hear them singing in the distance again — while the rest of the flock perched high up on… Read more…
