Taking (a photo of) Trilliums

Last week I was driving to a writer's critique group meeting when I nearly drove off the road from gawking at the sight of hundreds of trilliums carpeting the forest floor.

I've seen trilliums for many a spring over the years (hey, I even blogged a poem about one a few years ago) but I've never myself seen that many together.

So I pulled over and snapped a few photos. It was dusk and I just had my phone so they're not the best photos, but it was a nice moment made even better because no one in the neighbourhood came out to call me bonkers.

I got back into my car and carried on. I was pleased that I'd taken the time to...well, take a photo of the trilliums (no roses out to smell yet) even though I was a bit late for my meeting.

And at the meeting, Caroline helped me to sort out what I might tackle writing next. If I'm brave enough to take it up, I'll let you know.

Lichen Art

After a rain the lichen patterns really stand out. They're quite beautiful, don't you think?

I'm lichen it, at any rate. (Yes, groan, lame joke, I know.)

Pet Personality

Our cat was not impressed with my daughter's idea of a photo shoot. With apologies to ICanHasCheezburger:

We already knows we haz mad skills on this thing. We doesn't have to show you.

But I bet you guys can come up with a better caption. Hit me with them in the comments, please!

Frost on the Windshield

Thursday morning was a hoar frosty morning. The view through the windshield was kind of neat. I felt bad that had to defrost it so I tried to take a picture first. It worked!

Frost on the windshield reminds me of a Depeche Mode song I like. Excuse me while I go listen to it.

(And if you know the song I mean, hope you go listen to it too:>)

An Impression in the Snow

A couple Mondays ago my youngest daughter came rushing into the house. She'd seen a really cool bird in the backyard. But even better, she'd seen it swoop down and scoop up a mouse right off the snow and fly away with it! Practically vibrating with excitement, now she wanted to know what kind of bird it was.

I pulled out the bird book and had her go through it. She thinks it was a horned owl. And to think she'd been in exactly the right place at the right time to witness it catching its dinner. I was a little envious.

Then she told me she'd also seen the tracks of the mouse trail and the owl's wings. Wait, tracks? Tracks??

There were TRACKS?

This I wanted to see.

So we went out, and although it was getting a little dark and the flurries were starting to fill them in, there was the whole incident laid out as an impression in the snow.

What a story those impressions told. We snapped a few photos and once again marvelled at how lucky she was to have seen that.

Of course, the snow impressions are now gone, but I'm hoping the impression they left on my daughter will last a lifetime.

The Horrible Hairy Holiday Surprise

How's that for a title? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

But it was hairy, it was related to the holidays, and it was a surprise. It's horrible, too, if you're arachnophobic. See:

This was lurking on the pineapple display in my local grocery store just before Christmas. I'm not too sure it's native. Could it have come in with the pineapples? It was a healthy inch and a half long at least. [[shudder]]

My daughters and I tried to tell store personnel about this unusual squatter but no one was interested in giving us the time of day.

I wonder what happened to it. Maybe there's a story there...somewhere.

The Shades of My Muskoka Sunrise

What a sunrise this morning! It sure made me glad I got up early, and what a way to start December. I got a few photos of the colour, but in playing with my camera the photos came out looking quite different depending on the setting. See:

It made me think: which one is the shade of reality? Do I even remember now? Nope, not really. Does it matter? Maybe, but for me the variations are what matter not which one is more authentic.

Those differing shades of reality...the stuff a writer navigates through all the time, wouldn't you say?

A Spectacular Sunset Sky

I invested a little time to be a spectator at the town ball park a few weeks ago. It paid off. Isn't this a spectacular show in the sky?

Peake Fields Ball Park, Bracebridge, Ontario, Aug 22, 2011

Peake Fields Ball Park, Bracebridge, August 22, 2011

I think even hubby's homeruns were eclipsed by the scenery. But don't tell him that.

Beautiful Beetle

Green beetle, sheen beetle

six-spotted tiger beetle

soaking up sun on a stone

Green beetle, sheen beetle

six-spotted tiger beetle

seeing me near so you've flown

Not top quality verse, just for fun.

The Facts
I found this cool insect by one of my flower gardens. Such an amazing dazzling emerald shade! I wanted to know more about this creature. It really is called a six-spotted tiger beetle.
Here are some good links for tiger beetle info in case you want to know more too:

Types of tiger beetles in Ontario
http://www.uoguelph.ca/debu/tiger-beetles.htm

Comprehensive US site on Tiger Beetles
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/insects/tigb/index.htm

Scientific info on ground beetles of Canada
http://www.cbif.gc.ca/spp_pages/carabids/phps/index_e.php

And if you're interested in poetry, for a much better poetry experience check out the Poetry Friday links from the Kidlitosphere.

The Turtle and the Toonie

This evening my daughter came running into the house all excited because she'd found a turtle on the driveway. I ran out to see. She'd found this baby turtle.

But it's hard to tell this is a baby turtle from the photo. So we figured we'd try including her shoes in the picture. Here they are, size 4 Crocs in all their well worn glory, and a baby turtle:

But even that's not the greatest reference. So we thought we'd add in her hands. Here is the baby turtle with an 8-year-old's hands for reference:

That's pretty good. But we wondered if we could make another size comparison. And we think we came up with a brilliant idea. If you're Canadian. Because here is the baby turtle beside our two dollar coin, or Twoonie:

Definitely a teeny tiny turtle when seen with a toonie. Cute or what??

After we were done taking its picture we let it continue on doing its turtle thing. We hope it grows up to be a big turtle.

When Turkeys Play Chicken

So you can be driving your mom-mobile, coming home from the grocery store. Your mind can be wandering and you’re enjoying singing along to the radio because you have some time to yourself. Not much is going on in this mundane moment.

Then something catches your eye and you can’t quite believe it but a turkey has jumped out of the bush on the left side of the road and is now strutting towards your lane. Now running. You calculate that--OMG--your trajectories will definitely meet. You inch over to the right hoping turkey will slow. You inch over more. No, it’s not going to work. The geometry and physics are undeniable.

Are you going to slam on the brakes and probably hit the bird anyway? Are you going to drive off the road and risk sliding into the rocks or trees?

You are seriously wishing for your mundane boring drive back again when some turkey- brained thought or instinct tells it to turn around. It races for the ditch on the side of the road from which it emerged.

Phew!
For both of you.

It can happen....

Today's Office Window View

Snow mixed with freezing rain. All school buses cancelled. Today you have to feel sorry for the robins.

March Muskoka Sunrise

Sometimes the world is beautiful.

This Bites

Some of my writer friends have squirrels to deal with. Yes, those rodents are definitely a pain in the birdfeeder.

Me?

Squirrels don't give me any trouble. I don't keep bird feeders. But I've got bigger backyard rodents to deal with: beavers.

Yep. Apparently the beavers have decided my deciduous trees are delicious. They appear to be helping themselves. Check this out! Here's the chewed tree we discovered this past weekend.

This is a large tree, but it's going to be a stump impersonating a pencil point any day now.

But that's not the end of the story. Walking to the right of this big tree we came upon this beaver bitten evidence (see right).

Two more gnawed trees! (The one in the foreground is a double trunk.) And then walking up from the smaller tree in the photo, MORE damage!

The  photo on the left shows that the tree on the right is the tree on the left in the previous photo. How's that for confusing?

But look, there's another tree that's been nibbled and yet another further back that's been chewed to nearly a stump.









Walking up from that small tree in the background we found this big bitten patch below.

Hopefully we can save it. It's just the bark that's been bitten. We've wrapped it with chicken wire along with a couple other trees that were only bark bitten. Which brings me to this discovery below a day or so later:

I know they have to eat too. But yeah, it bites. Better make plans for planting this spring.

The Missing Milkweeds

 So how's this for a bit of irony.

In trying out a camera I figured I'd attempt to get some closeups of the milkweeds at the end of my driveway. I love that plant. It's so full of textures: the plump velvety leaves, the sticky milky sap, the rubbery pink flower clusters of spring; the knobbly green pods, the black-and-orange beetles and monarch caterpillars that snack on it in summer; the soft downy fluff that flies from the dried papery pods in fall. So anyway, I got some okay shots, which you can see here. I figured I could see how they turned out and if they were dreck I could go back later to take some more. So here's where the irony comes in.

It's a good thing I took a picture of those milkweed pods because now they're missing! The photos are all I've got left.

On (Canadian) Thanksgiving Sunday I drove out my driveway only to find a car parked crosswise at the end blocking my exit. Some guy was fingering a small pine tree growing at the side of my driveway and his apparent wife or female companion was bagging up the milkweed pods!

I rolled down my window and asked them what they were doing. Alright it was obvious but I had to ask.

The woman laughed sheepishly and said she was just gathering the milkweeds. Yeah, like I said, that was obvious. I could see she'd gathered quite a few in her bag. I asked her to leave some for us thank you. Meanwhile, the man had gone to his car and moved it so I could get out of my own driveway. I wasn't moving. Not till they left. Nope. Not budging.

The woman continued to gather for a few more moments. I really was astounded. Then she got into their car and drove off. So now I hardly have any milkweeds left AT ALL! Like, maybe two or three pods (not plants) at the most. These ones in the photos? GONE!

I wouldn't have minded so much if she'd only taken a few and then driven on down the road and taken a few from another patch and so on and so on leaving no patch destitute. But she pretty much cleaned me out. So now while we wait for the school bus we have no ghostly patches of down to filter the rising morning sun, no fluffy parachutes to launch into the sky. Milkweeds were kind of a fall ritual for me and my kids.

Okay, rant over and now I feel better. It's a minor thing, I know. But sometimes it's the little things in life that get to you, you know? Little things—at once both little and hugely important. And it's the little things a writer adds to a character or to a setting that make for the best stories, I think. So go, and may you sow the seeds of your own milkweeds in your manuscripts.

The Poor Pine

Fall is such a spectacular time of year around here. You can't ignore the colour of the deciduous trees, and every warm day is like a gift as we count down to the coming constant cold of winter. I climbed the Dorset fire tower with my family this past Thanksgiving weekend. How can you not love a view like this?

(Dorset, Ontario at the Fire Tower)

The colour is past its peak but it's still a spectacular view. I usually focus on the colourful trees, but consider the plight of the pine. The poor pine gets overlooked this time of year. But what would the view be without the deep pine green to punctuate the colour? Maybe you've heard that pine trees don't lose their leaves? It's one of those "facts" that gets tossed around, but don't you believe it. It's not true.


Pine trees do lose their leaves, or rather their needles. It's just that most types don't lose them all at the same time so it's not as noticeable (but take the tamarack--it does lose its needles all at once). No spectacular reds or oranges on a pine to make for great pictures. Pine needles turn yellowish and then brown. You might not even really notice those needles.

Then the needles fall off the tree and collect on the ground. They don't make a satisfying crunch when you walk on them, but they do form a cushy carpet.

And if you want a lawn anywhere near a pine, you know the needles make as much of a mess when you rake them. So here's to the poor maligned pine, holding out for its moment to shine--the Holidays.

In the meantime, happy Fall to all!

A Stormy Interlude

There was quite a bit of drama in the sky hereabouts last evening.

I tried to beat the storm home, but I lost. Ah well.

It was a challenging drive home. But once home

The girls and I raced
to cross the space
from door to door
Drenched
by downpour
laughing
enjoying ourselves
thoroughly

Or something like that anyway.

Dragonfly Rock

Time for a silly interlude. These guys were sunning themselves on a rock beside my driveway. It was quite a high traffic zone. The comings and goings put me in mind of that song involving a barley based beverage and a wall...

Five little dragonflies sunning on a rock, five dragonflies soaking up sun,

If one more dragonfly should alight on the rock... 

Six!

Six little dragonflies sunning on a rock, six dragonflies soaking up sun,
If one more dragonfly should alight on the rock...

A WASP?!

Six little dragonflies and a wasp sunning on a rock, six dragonflies and a wasp soaking up sun,
Should one more dragonfly find room on this rock? That'd be...

Seven! (Plus a wasp.)

Seven little dragonflies and a wasp on a rock, seven dragonflies and a wasp soak up the sun,
Luckily that's all that alighted on the rock, so now this silly song is all done!

Frog Find

I dashed out to cut some chives for my dinner the other day when I was surprised by this green guy:

Maybe it's an all-you-can-eat slug buffet at the third clump of chives from the tarragon. Bring some friends!!

G8...Gr8?

Between the natural world throwing us an earthquake yesterday, last night's tornado off to the southwest of me, severe thunderstorm warnings here this morning (which amounted to only heavy rain, thankfully), and all the security and shenanigans associated with the G8, things here have been rather interesting lately.

Yesterday my kids came home excited to tell me about the military helicopter that landed across from the school and how everyone in a couple classroom portables abandoned their desks and ran outside for a better look. I guess some guy told them to get back and it took off again. The kids got a talking to from their teacher too.

And yesterday three very loud helicopters flew over the house a couple times. Those things are loud! The wildlife in my backyard was not too impressed. The low flying copters scared at least one heron and a turtle. I initially put the quake shake down to another flyover. Oops!

I know these things are necessary with an event such as the G8 and the important people attending it, but it's a very odd juxtaposition to have such a technological military/security presence in such a rural region known for being a get-away-from-it-all vacation destination. Makes me appreciate the time when the peepers were my biggest noise complaint:



And I am fortunate that things will return to normal in just a matter of days.

G8?
Gr8
2 appreciate
1's normal state