Just Chillin

My, I like this yard! ...lots of food and water
and the dog can never catch me.

I may look like a dead leaf, but if you get too close
I'll have to leave my comfy spot.

This swamp is just perfect now that the
water level has dropped below our sunning log.

We're soaking up some April sunshine.
What a beautiful weekend!

(My condolences to blogging friends in Western Canada
who are receiving snow and very cold temperatures)

Lady's Slippers

Ontario is home to many species of wild orchids, but they are not widespread nor easy to find in our region. The Bruce Peninsula is known for its diversity of orchids and last weekend an orchid festival was held near Tobermory at Bruce Peninsula National Park. I have been trying to find at least one wild orchid on our area and asked a local naturalist for some tips on where they might be growing.


My directions were to park on a dirt road, walk on a certain trail past the first intersection and to veer right into a forest. Just past a creek I was to go off the trail and look around the swamp where large skunk cabbage plants are plentiful. The woods were beautiful with many types of wild ferns and wildflowers. I have seldom seen a place where native plant species predominate so completely.


Poison ivy was growing in large and small patches and I did my best to keep away from it. After an hour of searching, I found what I was looking for. There were only two flowers but they were perfect. I have heard there are large yellow lady's slippers and pink lady's slippers growing in local ditches and marshes but they are hard to find too. Like all treasure hunts, the search is as much of an adventure as the discovery.

Fresh from the Garden

The weekend was muggy and warm with showers, grey skies, big clouds and sunshine. Spring usually comes gradually, but with the beautiful weather we had in April, it is progressing rapidly. I was shocked to see my lilacs in bloom yesterday morning. The flowers were just starting to develop last week. Lilacs are an end of May flower and here they are, fragrancing the yard on the third of May.


I was waiting to pick fiddleheads from the ostrich ferns in the back corner of the garden. Last week there were none, but today, most of the ferns were six inches high, far too advanced to pick and eat. But there were a few fern heads in the shade of the fence, just enough for a serving or two.


I usually buy fiddleheads at the grocery store once a year and an exorbitant price of $5 a pound. This year I was a gatherer of the tender green shoots. While I was in the garden, I picked my first bouquet of the year. Forget-me-nots provide a ground cover in the flower beds right now and come up every year even when I pull them all out later in the month. One of my elderly patients calls them "Forgotten-not" in the English translation from her native language. I like that.


My "Forgotten-nots", Pulmonaria, Violets, and big yellow blooms with no name (the roots given to me by another patient) make another free gift from the garden.


I ate my plate of fiddleheads (and the violet) outdoors on the deck. The Becka enjoyed them too and they were much tastier and tender than the ones we buy at the store. With the warm weather in the forecast, they will be the only ones we eat from the garden this year. There is early lettuce and chives plus lots of rhubarb for dessert, but we are far from self sufficient. My husband is bringing home his limit of Lake Trout from Manitoulin Island tomorrow so hunters and gatherers we are for a day or two.

Squirrel Corn

In a new subdivision of identical tall houses on small lots, a pathway leads back to a bit of forest and swamp. Big forests and swamps once covered the area but they were gradually turned to farmland which was eventually sold to developers.

Black Cohosh

A pathway leads into the bush and wild flowers are poking up through the carpet of dead leaves on the ground. Bloodroot, Hepatica, Spring Beauties, Trilliums, Jack in the Pulpit, Wild Ginger, Black Cohosh and Trout Lilies are growing quickly and blooming before the trees high above come into full leaf.

Squirrel Corn

I look for Dutchmen's Britches and think I have found a patch, but no, this is something different. The flower is the same shape as the Bleeding Heart in my garden and the leaf shape is similar too. This is the first time I have seen Wild Bleeding Heart, or Squirrel Corn (Dicentra canadensis). It is very closely related to Dutchman's Britches (Dicentra cucullaria) in the Fumewort family of flowers.

Tubers of Squirrel Corn

The tubers of this native wild flower resemble corn and the next day I remove a single stalk from the ground to positively identify the plant.

I have taken many pictures of wild flowers in the past week and have posted some on my Flickr page. They are old favourites but a new discovery is always welcome. I would love to find some wild orchids this year if anyone knows of an area on southwestern Ontario where they grow.

Ahhh...The Country Life

I always enjoyed the story of the town mouse and the country mouse which is based on a fable by Aesop. Many people who enjoy the convenience of city life romanticize the resourcefulness and peace of country living.

There once was a mouse who liked his country house until his cousin came for a visit.

"In the city where I live," his cousin said, "we dine on cheese and fish and bread. Each night my dinner is brought to me. I eat whatever I choose. While you, country cousin, work your paws to the bone for humble crumbs in this humble home. I'm used to finery. To each his own, I see!"

(Read more here)

We took a trip to Luther Marsh which is near the headwaters of the Grand River. The river runs wide through our city but is just a trickle in a farm field a few kilometres north of the marsh. Luther Marsh is a nature sanctuary and no canoes are allowed on the water until after August 31st so the many birds which nest here are not disturbed.

Yellow accents were provided by pussy willow flowers rather than the forsythia bush in my yard. The trails were beautiful and very soggy but biting insects which will swarm the marsh in a few weeks were not around yet.

In a dead stump near the water's edge, a pair of country Chickadees worked furiously making a cavity for a nest. Their skill at creating sawdust was surprising seeing they are not woodpeckers. I never realized until this year that Chickadees are cavity nesters.

Apparently the female selects the nesting site and both birds work diligently to build a softly lined nest. In yesterday's comments, Laura mentioned the lovely moss-lined nests that Chickadees make. I peeked quickly in the "back door" of the box in our yard when the birds were out and sure enough, they have imported a lot of moss.

Our backyard Chickadees have the convenience of a ready-made home but these country birds will be working for several more days before their nest is ready for eggs. I wouldn't be prepared to say that the marsh birds will have a better life than the city birds as we saw plenty of racoon tracks and snake holes in the area. I hope this pair will be secure in their little place.

I found lots of interesting information about Black-capped Chickadees at this site.

Spring Break

In my last post I listed what I hoped to find on the weekend. We enjoyed...

...an early morning visit to the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival, the largest of its kind in the world with the Guinness record for the most maple syrup served in one day.

I found...

... lots of Skunk Cabbage blooms in the swampy ground beside a creek.

We watched...

...two Bluebirds in love, barely in sight with a camera, but fun to watch with binoculars.

Another single Bluebird sang a lovely spring song from an overhead wire.

I didn't find...



... any Great Blue Herons at the heronry and I think they may have relocated this year. There were none in the many ponds and streams we passed but my husband reported seeing one in the river early in the morning last week.


I am taking a short blogging break for this busy week and will be back here and visiting other blogs after Easter. It looks like March will enter and exit like a lamb this year in our part of the world. I hope everyone is having a wonderful spring season.

Pinniped Colonies and Human Mimicry

Sea Lions in San Francisco- October 2009

California is home to various seals and sea lions and we enjoyed viewing them when we visited last fall. There were many sea lions in San Francisco at Pier 39 but they suddenly left the area at the end of November for reasons unknown. Apparently a few are now returning. (source). They were smelly, noisy and amusing to watch and I am glad we got to see them.

Harbour Seals near Pebble Beach, California

We saw many Harbour Seals on the 17-mile Drive at Pebble Beach near Monterey, California. They sunned themselves on rocks near the shore while balanced on ledges and steep slopes. Brown Pelicans and Cormorants were their close neighbours.

Elephant Seals near Point Piedras Blancas, California

South of Big Sur along California Highway 1, we stopped at the beach near Point Piedras Blancas where many hundreds of Elephant Seals were lined up on the sand. They were mostly inert but every so often one would flick some sand on its back. In the picture above, a seal is sanding its back with a very subtle flick of its flipper. These seals are the largest pinnipeds and are much larger than Harbour Seals. Males can weigh up to two tons and reach a length of ten feet.

It was too cold in late October for the average person to sun themselves on the beach but humans can exhibit behaviour similar to these seals and sea lions. I was looking at pictures on the BBC website last week which showed 5000 naked humans supine on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Artist Spencer Tunick has done similar photo shoots in other parts of the world. His work is not erotic in nature, but reminds me of pinnipeds on rocks and beaches. Some poses are reminiscent of pictures taken in Nazi concentration camps. It does not take much to erase human individuality and make a group of homo sapiens look just like another herd of mammals.

Photo from The Huffington Post