Honestly…I DO like birds

I love birds; I really do. But the last couple years a pair of juncoes have decided they would like to nest in the hanging basket on the deck beside our patio door. I’m sorry, guys, but IT’S THE WRONG PLACE. I have significant time and money invested in that basket and I need to be able

Fall Snapshots: Hunger

This isn’t a particularly impressive photograph. I have several better ones taken on a sun-filled day last spring. (You’ll find that post here and if you like bear stories there’s an earlier one here.) But this photo is taken at midnight, with only the porch light on, and without the benefit of a flash. Other bears have wandered onto our

Lessons from a Lenten Rose

  The Royal Horticultural Society says, “Hellebores … are perennial garden plants with elegant flowers, perfect for brightening up shady areas during late winter and early spring. Some species are grown for their striking evergreen architectural foliage.” When purchased sixteen years ago, these two plants were simply labelled “Helleborus Orientalis (Lenten Rose)” and I intended and expected they would

Squirrel! Squirrel!

I sometimes wonder at a squirrel’s mentality. Does he think at all, or simply react to survival needs? The Douglas squirrel is a regular around here… one or two of them come by periodically to investigate the state of our birdfeeder. Last spring the bears demolished the feeder that had attracted a good variety of

Starting Again

. Here we go again! It’s a brand new year and everyone we know seems to be wishing us a Happy New Year and talking about New Year’s Resolutions. How do you feel about them? Personally, I hate them with a passion! Setting myself up for inevitable failure by promising to adhere to a list

Learning patience by birdwatching

Black caps and white cheeks flash past my windows as the chickadees flit to and from the birdfeeder, interspersed with the occasional nuthatch. They dart in to snatch a morsel, then swivel away on their rapid return to the trees. I sit with camera in hand and try to catch a photo, but on the

Blowdowns and Abandoned Writing Dreams

Thank goodness for a 4×4 truck! As I’ve mentioned in at least one previous post, when we head north to our cabin, the route takes us via major highways, gravel logging roads, private dirt roads and eventually to our very primitive road. There is no public access to our land, and therefore no road maintenance.

Since when is a writer like moss?

I don’t understand moss. Shallow rooted, persistent beyond belief, it turns up everywhere. It’s in the gravel walkways around our property, taking over the lawn, creeping up trees and hanging from the limbs like gymnasts on a trapeze. In some places wild mosses are overcollected … varieties becoming threatened. That’s definitely not a problem in

Trying to make it perfect… or, revision frustration

. The perfect shot shouldn’t have been all that difficult. I followed the striking black and yellow Tiger Swallowtail butterfly around the yard, sneaking up with camera in hand whenever he fluttered within range and settled on a plant. But I barely had a chance to locate him in the viewfinder before he skittered away

Challenging Changes

. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. Our trip home from the Okanagan mid-week was one of those things. The afternoon’s drive started out pleasantly enough. Sunshine. Picture-perfect clouds. Hardly any traffic. I barely noticed as more clouds snuck in… … until suddenly, well along the mountainous Coquihalla Highway, the darkened skies dumped their