The Homestone

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The whole wood-world ....

May

"The whole wood-world is one full peal of praise." 

David's lovely shot of our house and shop from the far end of the meadow.  This is a different view ~ one I really like, and will have to take again when everything is green and singing.

 
  Our feathered friends.  Finches and Grosbeaks
 and our hummingbirds at dusk, awaiting their seat at the sugar bar.


   
After a rain storm on a Tuesday afternoon . . .



 a walk about with the camera ...
Wild strawberries ....
 A little patch of wild violets ~ first I've seen this spring



Lots of greening up to come...

 

Indeed, in the words of Tennyson ...
"The whole wood-world is one full peal of praise."

Monday, May 14, 2012

Frogs.

 
 
I believe what we have here is a Columbia Spotted Frog (but please correct me if I'm wrong)  ~ he was on the trail at the edge of the creek ~
 
  about 3.5 inches long...
Always happy to see a frog  : ) they are indicative of a healthy Eco-system.  
This from the BC Frogwatch Program website:
"The Columbia Spotted Frog is a Protected Species in British Columbia.
Males may take up to 2-4 years to reach sexual maturity, while females may not breed until their fifth or sixth year. A typical lifespan of the Columbia Spotted Frog may be 10 years or more.
Columbia Spotted Frogs can complete their entire life cycle in or near the same lake or pond, but will also migrate seasonally and use different water bodies for breeding, summer feeding and overwintering. This migrating habit makes these frogs particularly sensitive to habitat fragmentation, such as road building, which makes it tough for frogs to safely move from place to place."


 

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

First of May on the meadow


Summertime. 
The dog days of August are busy days for the birds 
(and the bees) with little ones learning to perch and fly and forage. And speaking of bees ...


“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should,
for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Our current feathered visitors include a late and motley crew of evening grosbeaks.  
A family of three. Mom and Dad and one young 'un. 

 







Two finches at the breakfast bar enjoying a bit of chatter about the weather perhaps . . .
And our beautiful hummingbirds are gone now. They leave in mid August with just one or two coming through in the final few weeks of August.  We leave our hummingbird feeders well tended till the frost is on the pumpkin ~ just in case a hungry little flyer drops by for a fuel stop. 


Once the swallows give up the clothes line it's time to hang a load of laundry on a summer's breeze.
Sweet sweet swallows.






A Sand hill Crane lifts his lankiness seemingly without effort and balances way up there : )
The end of summer is in the air.
I do not know this author or her book but I do love this quote attributed to Ms Babbitt.

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting
 
























Blessed we are and ever thankful. 

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Spring arrivals

It's spring, and we enjoy an invasion of red-winged blackbirds.
 
 We see yellow headed blackbirds here and there through the spring and summer and some, but not many, Rusty Blackbirds.  
The Rusty Blackbird is listed as a vulnerable species with their numbers in decline

David spotted our visitor the other day poking about in a post winter pile of sticks and dry grasses that is my Lilac bush.  He (the rusty blackbird, not David) landed with a female on the roof of our re-purposed dog house just outside the kitchen window. 
There are lots of bright Purple Finches 
a few Pine Siskins,
and in much greater numbers is this little bird with the sweet song; we have a host of White-crowned Sparrows at our kitchen window feeders right now. 
And last but not least
we said hello to our First Hummingbird of the season  at the back door this afternoon and as I crane my neck to look around the corner I see him at the feeder this very moment.  It's a happy day.