Friday 7 May 2021

Spring buds!

Let's begin with the horse chestnut tree!  It's beginning to show leaves. They are so green and drippy with sap. 




Primrose

Doug the slug

This has been National Mental Health Week in Canada (May 3 - 9), and these are difficult times. It is so good to get outdoors. Noise continues to set my anxiety off, however. Who knew we lived near an OPP Recertification Range? Thursdays is their usual day. They put a notice in our mailboxes showing the dates when they are shooting. Thankfully. I asked them for a tour, as it really sets me off and it helps to know they were rapid fire guns.. I know it is important work, but that doesn't help my startle reflex! Poor JB has to warn me when he uses the dust buster.

I was a Victim Response Volunteer, and the noise of the helicopters every Friday, around 4:30 as the citiots drove to their cottages, they contributed to it. Our first morning here, we were awakened to the sound of an ambulance and firefighters. Someone was driving drunk and flipped his car in the ditch.

When we lived in Muskoka, by the lake, the noise and smell from snow machines and noisy watercraft drove me nuts. As my mom died, then we worked with my dad, I associate it all with the noise.

Traffic scares me, especially when I collect garbage in the ditches. It's important to do it, so I suck it up. The traffic here can be awful. It's a spot where locals know they can pass. There is about 500m of straight road. I wince as I hear them rev their engines, hoping there won't be another incident. 

This dude goes by at high speed a lot. motorcycle  


The wood ducks continue to nest. The male, for some reason, kept staring at the female in the nest!


9 comments:

Tom said...

...your slug has a name?

Christine said...

The leaves will all sprout soon!

Olga said...

I was looking forward to the signs of spring in the north, but now that's off the table. I can see plenty of slugs trying to make it across the driveway. Don't know where they think they are going and if the linger too long they fry in the hot sun.

Karen said...

My friend lives just a few hundred meters off the 417 near Cobden. Folks come out of the town and a curve, to a long straight stretch. They get the idiots and crazy bad drivers and lots of accidents too. On clear cold nights we can hear the highway from our back deck. I hate it too.

DeniseinVA said...

Enjoyed these photos and videos. Yikes on the motorbike and hope his angels stay with him and everyone else around him. The nesting box was enjoyable too. I also find my knuckles getting a little white every time we go on the freeway. The whole day is rush hour on those around here, but fortunately we don’t have to go on them too much.

Nancy J said...

The horse chestnut tree is so pretty, we had a HUGE one, the roots spread so far it entered into the sewer line and blocked it up on its way to the main line on the street. One year I collected bag after bag of fallen leaves, and put them under the firewood trees for mulch. A slug with a name??

William Kendall said...

And that's not even a good motorbike.

The Furry Gnome said...

Isn't it amazing how the chestnut leaves unfold!

Anvilcloud said...

We back onto a pretty busy road, but I am hard of hearing and they tend to keep the traffic under control.