🍁 Yay October 🍂

It's been dry in September. We shall see what October brings. I watered the garden yesterday. 

I took a nice walk in the forest, the shoulder seasons are the best, and found a few trees down. 

My first wood duck nesting box, wrecked by a bear, and three cubs, needs repair. This is my non-mental note to remind me.

Our colourful mushrooms are done, the fungus is still going.

I feel so badly for our large white pine trees. Shorn, as they were in 2023 storms. I've been stacking the wood.

After my break, I got back to work stacking. 

During and after. The rest of it is too big for our wood stove. I may just fire it down the hill! I could get them back, but I'd just have to stack it!

👀 Now, those of you with eye floaters know whereof I speak. I am still not used to them. 

Not only that, but we've these durned no-see-ums. They aren't biting, and for that I am grateful (some of the 5000 of this species do), but they hover in a cloud just to fool my eyeballs. When I sat down for a break in my orange shirt, they all landed on me! Then, I looked at the hops vine, and there they were. 

 

There was a ceremony on TV for Orange Shirt Day (←excellent information from the Canadian Encyclopedia). I taped and watched it. This is a day to honour the 4100 named missing Indigenous children at residential schools and missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). It was a moving two-hour event. White people must bear witness, and listen to their stories if they are able.

This is another shameful saga of white colonial history. Children sent to horrid institutional schools, torn from their families. It is well represented by this famous painting.

The Scream
Kent Monkman ~ Cree
2017 pic.twitter.com/KP1Y4h3fXJ

— Canadian Paintings (@CanadaPaintings) September 30, 2023

Felting

This is a new craft for me. I watched several YouTube videos and I am getting the hang of it.

I am working on Christmas presents! SSsshhhhh – don't tell anyone in Vancouver! I have been revising it. I originally ordered a kit from Topsy Farms, one for each girl, but they only had the one style. That first one worked out well enough. 

This is Bernie, one of the kids' cats in Vancouver. Bernie lives near a busy street and he is a runner. He is often leashed. I was trying to figure out my second piece, having redesigned it myself. 😸 

I decided to improvise. My bird didn't work well. I pulled it out, felting is very forgiving, and created a dragonfly.

I tried to order more of the felting base, but even Topsy Farms has trouble finding it. I ordered kits from Amazon. More on that later!

The old pine tree

I loved your comment about Diwali lights, YAM! It was early, but we needed cheering up in the dark of the night. One year (2000-ish), when he was living with me, I asked my youngest to help me hang the pagan lights. That worked for him! 

We went walkies, me an' my boy, and found the wetland filling up nicely. This will protect the critters that hibernate under the snow and ice.

This old white pine tree on lot #3 has had its day. Cinnamon likes it, but it is dead as a doornail. This will allow more water and sunlight for the young trees coming up. 

Another poor dead pine tree in the background. The cedars lean, too!

This old tree fell in May of this year [fallen tree]. I looked inside it, snagged a photo of the hollow core, and it would make a great shelter, if there wasn't so much traffic! This is a busy trail, now that the wetland is wet, again.

While the old pine trees fall, the little ones begin their journey.

Cinnamon smelled something VERY interesting here. His tail got pouffy, perhaps a coyote?!

I had another great adventure! 

My old hairdresser is on mat leave, and she had a replacement, who quit since the salon is being shut down. I had a cut with the replacement person a month ago, but since she is no longer available to me, I have to find a new one. For someone with anxiety, I was a bit anxious! I spent a lot of COVID doing my own hair and this week I tried a new salon. 

First photo is the before, the second after the cut! 

When I made it home, I grabbed a photo as I may never be able to recreate the 'DO'! 

I am so pleased. It was worth putting my face on for it!

In the meantime, back outside in the wind to try and clear away the leaves. This is after several passes, and still the leaves fall and blow in the wind!

❄ NOVEMBER 2021 ⛈ We'll see what it brings! November is usually windy. This is the historical data... our snow tires are on, so here we come! This morning it was 0 C.!

 

 

Busy backyard: sparrow, waxwing, doves!

An update on the white pine tree!

The chipping sparrows have fledged!
chipping sparrow fledged from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I've had a bit of a struggle: I found another poison ivy patch, right around the tree house, under one of our massive pine trees.

The yard is so busy. The pine tree nearest the house is amazing, as well as sheltering the poison ivy. As hubby says, a condo!
This tree has a tree house built into it. The girls are nearly too old for it, but Izzy still enjoys it. The cats like the tree house, as well. My faithful readers will remember the time the phoebe built a nest in it. Phoebe update - still going strong in the tree house What a time I had.

On the lowest limb, a mourning dove is nesting. It's mate goes up with food every so often. Just above her is a pair of chipping sparrows, doing the same thing. At the very top, I can hear baby cedar waxwings. Yes, I know it's a pine tree, but it seems to do the job!


Junior bear posed under said tree last week.
 

It's a fabulous yard! The nesting pine on the left. The girls' invisible friend, Nebuchadnezzar on the right, me doing the lawn.


Then there was the rainbow!