Category Archives: Blog

Blog, Inspiration, Just Because, Wanderings

Garden Close-Ups

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Yesterday afternoon was absolutely glorious, sunny and warm. Every creature was enjoying the day.

After taking care of urgent things, like mowing the “lawn” (or what passes for a lawn in this garden), I noticed a big butterfly, really busy on a wallflower (Erysimum) and ran inside to get my camera. Lucky for me, that butterfly was intent on cleaning out every blossom… I had all the time in the world to capture it at work.

May Butterfly on Wallflower (Erysimum) Saturna Island, BCWhen I looked at the photo on my computer screen, I was shocked, shocked, at its hairy back! Honey, you need to shave your back!

Butterfly and Bee on Bowles Mauve Wallflower (Erysimum), Saturna Island, BCThen the butterfly was joined by a bee, and cleaning out pollen became a collaborative effort.

While looking at the rest of the afternoon’s pictures, I fell in love with the one below, of the poppies… And played with it in Photoshop. The result:

Poppies in the Glorious Sunshine, Saturna Island, BCNow, gotta get out and set up a bean trellis, on a tipi of cedar poles. That should be fun!

Blog, Photo Wednesday, Wanderings

May Commute

When you live on a small island, you have to commute every week or two, to run errands, keep appointments and generally “get off the rock” (a local expression). For me, it often means getting on a ferry very early in the morning, then transferring to a second ferry, to get to “town” (another local expression for Victoria, on Vancouver Island).

Saturna Island, from the back of the ferry...

Above: Saturna Island, from the back of the ferry. On my way to town…

When you start doing this almost every week, you settle into a routine, and it becomes very easy to be blasé about that commute. Once the ferry departs, it’s tempting to just snooze, read a book or the paper you have just purchased on the ferry… To kill time.

Even while reading the paper or a book, it’s a good idea to remember to look up and take in the magic moments, all around, during that commute…

May Commute, in the Gulf Islands. The Cumberland Queen, BC Ferries

Above: in the late afternoon, after transferring to the second ferry, I get to watch the Cumberland Queen, first leg of my trip home, from which I have just disembarked, go off to its next round of destinations, to pick up people and vehicles on other islands… BC Ferries, the “floating highway” that links the Gulf Islands to the Lower Mainland of BC and to Vancouver Island.

May Commute aboard a Gulf Islands ferry... orca sighting!

Bonus! Another magic moment, an orca sighting from the ferry deck…

Blog

Colour Joy

Spring. It was that kind of a day, on the tulip shot.

Tulip glory, in the late spring afternoon light

Billy Collins describes it best:

If ever there was a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
 
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
 
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
 
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
 
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
 
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
 
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
 
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
 
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
Blog, Just Because

Birdfeeder Visitor

My birdfeeders are a fantastic investment (I have 7 feeders spread out in the front and rear gardens…).

Since September, a pileated woodpecker has become a regular visitor and is particularly fond of the suet and mixed nuts feeders.
Pileated woodpecker on a suet feeder, Saturna Island, BCAnd I spend a lot of time in the garden on dry days (and those are getting rare), expanding the flower beds, moving manure and mulch into position, planting bulbs, moving plants. Tired, but a good kind of tired!

And on some days, I am rewarded by many colourful birds at the feeders. This Pileated guy was not very worried, and let me get surprisingly close.
A special moment…