A bird for the new year?

 January 1, 2024?!   It arrived.  

And on the front of the local newspaper (yes, the Times Colonist!) was a photo of a new painting by Robert Bateman:

And I had a flashback to the spring of 2022, sitting at the desk in what was Arta's bedroom at the Annis Bay house, and seeing a little burst of colour hopping around on the ground at the bottom of the trees, just out the window.  

Having no idea what the heck it was, I posted it to Facebook.  It was Tracy Sabey Caldwell who said it was a varied thrush (I had never even heard the name).  Tracy for the win! 

Here is the video I had posted to Facebook, asking folks if they knew what it was (and where you can see the little bird tossing leaves around, presumably on the hunt for something delicious.  Sometimes i think i look exactly like that when i enter the kitchen.)

https://www.facebook.com/555530179/videos/291820813146706

I wonder what will be your first birds of the new year?

 

A little bird in the grass

As I was looking out Arta's bedroom window towards  Johnson's point, I noticed a rustling movement down by the compost bins.   I pulled out the camera (with its awesome zoom function), and got a closeup of this little bird.

At first, I thought it was a robin, but the colour looked a bit off.  

It was obviously looking for tasty treats in the leaves around the compost bin.  I caught a couple of video shots...a bit hard to hold it in frame, since I was zooming in.   The longer clip bumps around at the end since Penny jumped up on me to see what I was doing!

I flipped around in Arta's bird book, trying to figure out what it was, but to no avail.  I finally posted the picture to facebook, and a friend came back with the answer!   

Here is a link to more info, if you want to read more about this little bird (or listen to its birdcall).

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Varied_Thrush/overview#

Bees and Berries

Photos from Mary

 ...a  close up of bee sleeping in a hollyhock ...

I know this is similar to the photo underneath.
But I can't get over the wonder of a handful of berries picked on the way up from a nice swim in the lake.

Rhiannon asked me if I need to stop at every blackberry bush on the way up from the lake.

This is the second snake I have caught this summer.
This tiny snake musked me.
I felt loved.

The Blackberry -- edible

In August across BC, ‘almost every bird and most people 
are eating blackberries,’ said UBC forestry professor Peter Arcese. 
‘I hate to say it, but you can imagine a rain of seed 
coming down from the birds.’ Photo by Christopher Cheung.

The Tyee had a featured story  by Christopher Cheungon on the Himalayan blackberry which I found interesting to read.

As Rebecca said to me, "Thank-you to The Tyee.  Where can you find a current article like that in today's news."

For some reason the article matched up in our minds with a set of cards Rebecca has about plants that are native to the Pacific Northwest.

And the story matches up with the berries on like side hill here at the cottage, a  hill full of prickly vines and berries just ready to be picked.

Mary brought me two handfuls of blackberries this morning, and then Xavier, Naomi and their friends Shaena, Mikaela and Crya brought me another clamshell full of berries just as they were leaving to go back to Alberta today.

Blackberry heaven.

Later in the day Mary ate some raspberry jam, but remarked that it was not home made as she wished it might have been.  If people keep picking the blackberries, I just may get some jars of jam up.  I know I could just buy some blackberries at the store and do this.  But for some reason, I am looking forward to getting the berries from my owns vines -- invasive vines.

Arta

PS  If  you want to know more about the salmonberry, as opposed to the thimble berry which is on the land where we are, click here.

Bee Silhouettes

...the shadows of bee balm and bees ...

From Bonnie Johnson

Arta and I are sitting out on an old railroad station bench on the front porch at the lake. 

We came outside to watch the host of dragonflies as they were speeding past the window, drawing our minds away from our conversation. 

I tried to capture the swarm of bees feasting on the Bee Balm growing in in Arta's garden.  

I was distracted by the movement of their shadows dancing through the silhouettes of the long stems, leaves, and pink blossoms on blindingly white fiberglass of the freshly washed porch.

I don't know if my picture capture the shadows of some of the bees.

... Arta's bee balm garden ...

.. a bee feasts on the flower on the left ...

Spider

Photo Credit: Miranda Johnson

I saw Miranda bending down low with her phone camera a few minutes ago.

She took it over to show Bonnie the true nature of the bug that hangs on the outside of the window this morning.

That is another good thing about picture windows.

What they frame is always worth attending to, and always changing.

Arta

"Chicken Run - Larch Haven Style"- Act I (For Blogging)

OThe Setting: Eggs were purchased and hatched in the Spring.  It is now mid-summer and there are 3 chickens and 3 roosters that belong to Miranda, and the three children: Michael (8), Alice (7) and Betty (5).

Alice (running into the front room, frantically calling):  

"The chickens are lost. The chickens are lost.   They are all gone.  I can't find them anywhere."

Grandmother: (calm but remembering that she has seen the Wood's sheep dog, Reno, chasing the chickens around through the trees half an hour previously.  She also remembers seeing Owen Wood chasing Reno, then capturing the dog, and then dragging it back home by its collar to its leash which is on Lot five.  At that point Grandmother is also remembering the 12-year-old boy down low, a toss-up as to whether the boy is dragging the dog, or the dog dragging the boy -- it might be the first is the case, and then it changes back to the other is winning and so forth.)  

"Don't worry.  Chickens know how to hide in the woods."  (She is thinking to herself, maybe the chickens have scrambled over the hill and are down on the road and on their way to the beach.

Alice: (throwing hands in the air and then onto her head and then back into the air.)  

"No.  I have been looking everywhere for them.  They are lost.  Really lost.  Someone has to come and help me find them."

Grandmother: "I think they will be OK."

(Alice goes out to the porch.)

(Suddenly through the front door comes a chicken, being chased by a dog, the dog is chased by Owen Wood.  Owen and the dog are chased by Alice, then Michael and Betty.  All appear to come through the door at the same time.  The chicken flies high toward the ceiling, hitting the light, then falls and perches on top of the round table that is between the two couches.  There are the 3 fake Inuit soapstone carvings, one wire basket and a chicken on the table now.  The dog is in pursuit, climbing with its paws on the couch that butts against the end table.  Again, the chicken takes flight, but it can't get out through the window.  With its wings beating madly against the window pane, it can't gain height and it slips down behind the couch.)

Alice (yelling): 

"Save the chicken, save the chicken!"

Owen (Now behind his dog, all the while pulling on the dog’s collar, trying to back him up, but the dog is not trained to back up.  It is in forward motion, trying to get that chicken that is trapped behind the couch.  He is yelling out to no one in particular, for no one has said anything.):  

"Sorry! Sorry!"

(Owen looks up from his crouched down position with the dog, at Miranda who has now entered the room):  

"Sorry! sorry!"

Miranda says nothing.  She strides up, takes the dog in her arms full on, then switches the dog off to her side, under one arm but it is a big dog.  The boy is willing to take the dog, but she does not hand it over.  She walks calmly out of the house and down toward the creek.  

Grandmother is wondering if Miranda is going to drown it.  

Alice is gathering up the chicken in her arms.

Grandmother: (not saying anything to anyone in particular, but thinking): "I’ll bet there is a trail of feathers and chicken shit to be found there behind the couch."

(She knows Michael has just hand mopped the whole marble floor this morning, for she has been supervising him, so she knows how clean this floor is/was.  Grandmother is also laughing, for she has just been an actor in an event that could not be staged.  She can't stop laughing, even though she can see that no other actor in the scene is finding this humorous.  Alice is still yelling out words about the chicken's close call with death.  Alice takes the chicken out of the front door.)

(Grandmother goes in to report all of this to Aunt Bonnie Wyora who previous to this, needed a quiet rest, long before all of this action takes place, so she has missed it all.)

Bonnie Wyora gets out of bed, goes to the front room and begins to move all of the furniture to see if there is any chicken shit behind the couch.  There is.  

She begins moving both couches away from the window, and tries to move the end table.  It may weigh 100 pounds. 

She can remember Grandmother upon buying it had said, 

“This is either real wood or concrete.” 

Bonnie Wyora really doesn't want any help cleaning. Nor does she want an audience for the way she is going to clean and tells this to Grandmother, who leaves the room, since Bonnie says:  

"I can’t clean while you are watching.   Go away.  Go blog this." 

Grandmother (speaking aloud but quietly and to no one): 

"I can blog this but I don't think I am quite capable of doing it so close to the event."

 (Still, she goes to try.) 

(Betty has needed to get right there in all of this action.  She now wants to see the chicken shit, since she has heard these two words together with a new emphasis.  She gets her nose right in the corner, close to the specimen.  The spot is easy to find, marked, for there is a feather also, seemingly a placeholder – as though to make chicken shit easier to find.  Betty comes up with her nose wrinkled saying): 

"Pee-yew." 

Grandmother (speaking to Betty):  

"Your chicken, your chicken shit.  You clean it up, Betty." 

Betty: 

"No, it is Miranda's chicken. She can clean it up." 

Grandmother (again): 

"No, your chicken. Your chicken shit."

(Betty shakes her head.  She is not going to clean it up. She cleans up other things, but not this. Her nose is still wrinkled up from the smell.)

Miranda comes back and the 3 women gather to try and make sense of what has just happened.  

Michael walks through the door for the first time.  He is ashen and can hardly move. 

Aunt Bonnie Wyora (notices Michael and turns to him): 

"Michael are you all alright?"

Michael is as stiff and still as a statue: 

"I am going to be OK.  Just don't talk about it." 

Aunt Bonnie Wyora: 

"No, you need to talk about what is wrong with your mother."

(Tears well up in Michael's eyes, his lip trembles more.  Aunt Bonnie Wyora and Grandmother start backing up.)

Aunt Bonnie Wyora: 

"We will go into the other room and take Betty with us".

(Betty is the five-year-old who likes to be a spectator in all dramatic scenes.)  

Bonnie (still speaking:) 

"You call us when you are ready to have us near again." 

(They back up, taking Betty with them.  Michael moves toward the arms of his mother.)

(Bonnie Wyora later comes to find Grandmother with a pair of pink shoes in her hands, from which she is going to wash off the chicken shit.) 

Bonnie Wyora (to Grandmother):  

"By the way, the Rogers have just phoned.  They have a chicken down there at the beach and wonder who it belongs to."

(Meaning the question is no longer "why did the chicken cross the road?" but is "why did the chicken cross the railroad tracks"?) 

The End...?

Addendum:  No chickens or dogs were killed in this, Act I.

We love bees

I love spotting bees.  Every time I walk past the bee balm in Arta's garden I hope to see one.  I have spotted some on my walks down to the beach.

 

How to make a Bird Comfortable

... how to make a dead bird comfortable ...

"Was there a funeral for a bird out at the lake?" 

Rebecca Johnson wanted to know more after seeing the photos that will be in this blogpost.

Yes, a dead woodpecker, found in cabin and the bird had made a mess.

Children had different ideas about what to do.

At first the bird was going to be buried in the lawn and then some adult sent the kids into the trees with it.

Previous to this I had extended the wing to let the kids see what it looked like.

Then the kids weren’t allowed to touch it with their hands.

Michael wanted to bury it right away, but we thought we’d wait a day.

The next day Alice put on gloves and asked if she could touch it.

I said that would be fine.

I was gardening and at one point looked over and Betty was pulling up the moss/grass near the tree with her hands.

This looks like it could be a riff on
Ophelia floating down the lake. 

I asked her what she was doing and she said she was digging a hole.

I told her I thought we should do it over by the trees and with a shovel.

Alice said no, she was trying to make the bird comfortable. She was collecting flowers and leaves to put around it.

Then there was a discussion (argument?) between Michael and Alice. Michael wanted to bury the bird and Alice wanted to make it comfortable.

... the bird in the hole ...

We settled on putting the bird into the hole (it turns out Michael had dug a small one the day before) and then letting Alice cover it with leaves and flowers.

It think the bird was very comfortable.

I forgot how small the hole was for the grave.  I think Michael must have dug it with his hands. There were no tools around.

~Mary

My Trap Line

There are some summer jobs that I just don’t want to do. One of them is catching mice that scurry across the floor in the late evening hours. I don't mind the ones that do it when I don't know they are there, but when they run across by bathroom floor in full sight, then I feel left with no alternative.

If I have to do this job it will not be catch and release.  And for that catch job,  I prefer the electronic devices that go into an electrical outlet.  They emit a high pitched sound that the mice don’t like but some of the humans I live with can hear that sound, so there is a big no to using those devices.

Doral likes to use the black sticky traps that glue mice to the pad as they try to run across it. I don’t like to catch my mice and still have them live when I go to take them outside.  Plus, as  you know, this year Alice got her hair caught in one of those traps.

That leaves me with the third choice, the old fashion wooden trap that gives a quick snap.

My commitment to ridding the house of mice began, but I was thinking about the traps  ($2 each at Canadian Tire) and wondering if I could use them again.

... I am trying not to look afraid here ...
What is there to be afraid of?
... a little bleach in a dish and I am ready to set the trap line again ...

Will a second mouse smell the fear of death if there is any scent of the previous mouse left on the trap?

I got on some sterile gloves and took my traps outside and sterilized them before putting them to use again.

The children followed me.

All of them wanted to try on the gloves.

None of them wanted to take the dead mice out of traps, clean the traps or reset them.

Sometimes there are jobs that only grandmothers can do.

Arta

Caravan Farm Theatre Presents ...

Photo Credit: Rebecca Johnson

Caravan  FarmTheatre presents The Coyotes

Tonight Duncan, Bonnie, David, Meighan, Amanda and Rebecca went to Caravan Farm Theatre to see The Coyotes.  The introductory notes to the show go like this:

And what if The Most Fabulous Coyote Of Them All fell in love with the daughter of the widow who owns the farm with the only water left in the world and thus set in motion a whole chain of events that defied the laws of logic and reason and science?!

Bonnie said that the show had all of the usual sight gags -- water thrown on the audience, feathers flying out of a chicken coup -- it doesn't matter how many times this happens in life to me, I still laugh at those silly gags.

A trip through MacDonalds on the way to Enderby staved off the need for a treat run to the store, though pockets and bags had been filled with pop and chip before the teens left the house.  They sat on one side of the outdoor bleachers and Bonnie and Rebecca thought they would be more comfortable on the chairs with backs.

What's not to love about rural theatre held on an on 80 acre farm down at Enderby.

And a good time was had by all.

Arta

Mindfulness

... hornets swarming  in a hive ...

As I walk I try to be mindful of what is around me:  the trees that are blocking the sun, the moist air that fills my lungs, the patterns of the shadows on the road, the rocks that I bend down to pick up and then throw off of the grass or the road.

I was surprised to see that one of the larger rocks that line my path had been moved.

I know that rock for I pushed it to the end of my iris patch.

I couldn't figure out who would have done that until I saw a hive deep in the ground, now covered with swarms of hornets.

... the rock that the bear swatted away ...

I stopped to take a picture, getting close, but not too close.

My best guess is that a bear preparing for winter took a swat at the rock.

I have been thinking about bears as I walk.

I upgraded from the bell Glen gave me to  Wyona's large brass bell that could be swung to call children in from recess.

The louder bell is working for I haven't seen a bear yet.

Arta

A fish in hand ...

This is one of the times when an image
is worth 1,000 words.

Mmmm, is all I can say.

Tasty.  And I hope I get invited to dinner.


Arta

A Flicker in a Nest

Marcia and I have religiously been taking walks in the morning.  We go about 3,000 steps and then she drops off to go to work from home and I continue the walk.  Trent joined us one day, so we walked up to see Lot 13 which has a house on it.

The siding has not been finished on the house and when we walked to the north side, Trent was sure that he could see a bird head.

Check it out, because we did, getting just a little closer.

And then a little closer.

I couldn't help advancing and advancig, as near as the bird would allow without flying away.

When the flicker left its nest we wanted to see inside but there was no ladder, and as tall as Trent is,
he wasn't tall enough to get a glimpse of what was there in the darkness of the cavity.

Marcia left to go to work.
Dave Wood joined us for the last part of the walk.

A good time was had by all.

Arta

A Falcon, a Hummingbird and a Bear

At the end of the morning fishing trip, on the way back to our cove, Ceilidh caught a fish. As she was reeling it in, a falcon swoop down and tried to get it as well. With that fight, the fish missed being caught by either Ceilidh or the falcon. It swam away and Art, Gabe and she were left wondering "Exactly what kind of brown and speckled bird was that?"

She and I watched an episode of Suits on Netflicks on her return home, but a humming bird, or maybe two, kept hovering at our window and distracting us.

Ceilidh went to make fresh blueberry muffins in the kitchen and I continued to keep one eye out for hummingbirds, but got distracted by a black bear who came lumbering up the road to the beach. The bear stopped to paw at the dogwood tree, getting up on two of its paws to search the branches. Then it lumbered over to the raspberry patch. Luckily I had stripped it the day before. We watched the bear at 5 Corners, wondering which way it would go. When it mossied off to see the Woods we were quickly on the phone to them so they could see it coming.

I was too excited to take a picture of the bear.
I compensated by taking a picture of a bee in the bee balm.
Look on the right side flowers for only a flash of orange.

When I phoned Wyona’s to alert her, before someone could say hello, I could hear the call of “Bear, bear, get the kids inside” before someone even answered hello.

When the excitement died down Ceilidh said, “Only at the Shuswap. A falcon steals a fish, a humming bird lingers at a window and a sighting of a bear. All before 11 am."

I laid down to have a nap after playing a board game with David and Ceilidh. The game involves lying about cards you put down. 
David just can’t do it.

"Honesty is the best policy," he says.

Arta

Rufous Humming Bird

rufous humming bird

I was telling Moiya that I am seeing the most amazing bird show from my bedroom window during the day. And just as I was telling her, a rufous humming bird hovered at my window.

I sit and type.  Bird after bird lands on a cedar branch or swoops past my deck: this time on orange humming bird, the sun glinting off of its back, the orange colours iridescent hovers at my window. The bird doesn’t pause long enough for me to watch it as long as I would wish, but I can get enough particulars about it to find it described somewhere on the web.

 I didn’t know what rufous meant, so I had to take a side trip to learn about colours, how there is a rust colour when orange goes to brown, or brown goes to orange, and in that moment the colour on this hummingbird is born: rufous.

Arta

The Bald Eagles

... inching my way closer ...

I like going on day trips.

Wyona called and said that Moiya and Dave were returning from the U.S.A., and that we could drive over to Kamloops and meet them there -- preferably at Costco.

That seemed like a lot of gas to use to get to a store where we didn't want to shop, or even to a store where we would shop and buy commodities we don't really need.

Wyona said she needed to go somewhere.

She had been watching bald eagles all morning and since they wouldn't move, she thought that at least she might move.

... looking at them face on ...

Going down to the lake to see the bald eagles seemed like a better day trip to me, than going to Kamloops.

She picked me up.  I had my binoculars in one hand and my camera in the others.

Sure enough, they were still sitting there and they didn't seem to be bothered either by our car, or by the next train that whistled on by.

"Get out of the car and take your pictures," she said.  "The rain on the windshield is going to show up and ruin the images you are getting.

It is stunning to be right there under the tree, looking up and seeing the birds.

There is still a lot of deadfall on the road past the track and it is hard not to get distracted and start cleaning up the beach so that it is easier to walk.

... the bald eagles take flight ...

Whatever I did, the birds stay there -- even when I went under them and tried to look at them from every angle.

When they took leave of us, they were too quick for me to get a good shot.

Still I tried to capture them as they flew away.

Arta

On watching the two bald eagles

... two bald eagles ...

... yellow train engine ... (I was hoping for a blue train engine)

... twinberry ...

Wyona writes:

I have been watching two bald eagles perched on a top branch of a tree now for one hour.

One bird just flew to a higher branch.

The female, being 25% larger has been sitting still the whole time.

The male has been fidgeting for the hour.

It is the male that finally moved to the top branch.

How long do I have to watch before they fly to another spot.

One of them should be sitting on the two eggs which were laid in February.

However, the eggs hatch by end of April or first of May so maybe they have hatched.

If so, the parents should be out looking for food for them.

Fly birds fly!
Fly away home
Your house is on fire
And your children are alone!

Oh, that is lady bugs.

A train went by and the birds just sat there. My camera battery is loading or I would go down and take better pictures. I don't know what for because the best pictures are on the internet.

stinky bob

Yesterday I ran down to the tracks to take photos of a yellow train engine, my first time seeing one. Then I get to the beach and there it was, a yellow American train engine in the middle of the train going full blast only this train had stopped to let another two trains go by.

The trains left. I walked up the long path between Woods and Bates. Squish, squish, ooze under my feet where the water crosses the path. Ferns, having no respect for human traffic, pop up in the middle of the path. I pick out a couple a dozen of those. (Arta asked me why I did not pick them and cook them for dinner; another name for them being fiddleheads).

I checked out my twin berry bush which is coming along just fine. Tonia and I transplanted and copied a number of twin berry bushes and planted them on the path. Marcia decided to weed one day last year and the place where she weeded was just where we had planted to twin berries. Thinking they were weeds, Marcia cropped them all off. Oh Well! Such is life! However, not gone forever because there are still a few leaves popping out.

stinky bob

And of course as I walked the path, I happened on a number of Herb Robert or Death Come Quickly, or Storksbill or as we call it 'Stinky Bob'. Uprooted those! Then upon arriving at the large cedar I sat on the bench which Teague rescued from down the beach a number of years ago. And low and behold, I spied a hill full of 'Stinky Bob', just everywhere, too many to pick with my bare hands. Now should I weed them or leave them for my grandchildren to weed?

Three hours later, four trains have gone by, and the bald eagles are still sitting on the same tree.

Wyona

Who's that knocking?

This morning there was such a clatter in my kitchen.

I could only think that a bird was caught in the chimney flu and trying to get out.

But that seemed like such a weird explanation, having lived here for 23 years and catching no bird there before.

I had to go to the porch and look at the chimney.

The problem was all on the outside – a woodpecker hammering its bill on the metal. The morning sun must have been just right to give an image of a tree trunk there to fool the bird.

Arta

The Compost Animal Hypothesis

... driving through the pass in the Autumn ...

Glen dropped by to say he had been doing the worst of the jobs around growing hops.

Because of the speed with which they grow, hops are fun to watch. 

Picking the hops is a joy for they are the magic ingredient in brewing beer.

But getting rid of the vines – that is the kicker in the fall. I asked if they were going to the burn pile but he looked at me in environmental horror. “No, I am composting them,” he said.

“We having been composting. A bear knocked over our barrel again,” I said.

“I saw a deer, a large one at the cabins yesterday,” he said. "I stopped and yell, 'Go deer.'  It looked right back at me and didn’t move. Do you think your bear might be a deer?”

And with that, I could see that I can get my composting going again. I don’t mind attracting deer. I just don’t want a bear strolling across my lower patio.

Bonnie and I walked in the fall leaves this morning. They are strewn across the road that goes past my house to the beach, so thick that no one would know a road is underneath. On the walk to the east we stopped to check out both of Wyona’s apple trees, since she told us that if we have any time, we could pick them for her and put them in her garage. Her apple tree to the west of the house is one that should be the prototype for The Garden of Eden story. Even Adam would have stolen an apple from that tree. But only about 10 of those apples are left and they are hanging on high branches. Her red delicious apple tree is laden with fruit, large, shiny, every apple too big to fit comfortably in one hand. Bonnie said that the fall crunch is in those apples now – fully ripened and still hanging on the tree, they have that delicious cracking sound that comes when the skin of the apple is broken with the first bite.

... close to the summit ...

The leaves from the trees on the Wood’s lawn have fallen straight down. No wind. An Alberta wind would have toss those leaves onto the lawn of the neighbours. But no. Here the leaves sit in a perfect circle around the trunk of the tree. The rest of the lawn is green, the morning dew on the tips of every blade of grass.

I think the CPR have marked some trees to be taken down, for there are splashes of black paint sprayed on the trunks of some of the birches that had now died. Bonnie went to look more closely at those dark marks. I hadn’t noticed them. But she has lived here longer, now alert to the quick movement of a squirrel off in the forest, or curious about the louder sound of the stream rushing under the road.

We can’t walk in the early mornings. I thought we could just go between here and the Pillings, but Bonnie Wyora showed me this morning that it is just too dark. No stars. No moon. Dark. So I turned my exercise into the daytime job of moving the rocks I have been collecting from one of the garden beds. I go deep with my pick axe and then try to separate out the rocks that can stay from those that have to go.

I would rather be walking, maybe even in the dark.

Arta