Hops Vine, flowers, sunrise,

That was a disappointment, only 1mm rain. That said, I can't smell the smoke today, Thursday, although I know it is there. The heavier smoke has moved off to the west. It is still there, though, and many activities are being cancelled. I tried working out Monday, and gave up after 10 minutes. I just feel depressed, and on edge. 

 I put in my annual trellis for the Hops Vine. It's grown up to the top of the railing, May 31st it was just at the deck. 

 

The vine will bring old friends to the back deck: the 🦋Eastern Comma, and Question Mark butterflies, 🐸tree frogs, sometimes a 🐍snake, once an 🐛IO caterpillar, lots of ants and aphids.

Flowers are blooming: iris, iris, persian cornflower, poppies.

The orange colour is unusual, it lasts all day. I don't dare hang out laundry. I had a haircut on Tuesday, and wore a mask in the car and outdoors. Wednesday morning, it was awful. Today, Thursday, it was a bit better, but it is insidious. 

I found the first frog in the goldfish pond. (Normally they don't move in until August when things dry up!) Percy has a friend! I'm having trouble with the pump, it keep falling over. 

Goat's Beard and milkweed

May 29, I have two cameras at the end of the frog pond. It has worked well to capture the beasts!

porcupine from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

We'll see what today brings. I hope you are well. 

Frosty morning

 I rolled out of bed Wednesday, and checked the thermometers. It was 1 C., and I'm glad I brought the hanging baskets in. The Weather Network said we were at 0.  Today we are a cold. There is frost out back in the yard. Out front we are good. I remember the year we had a spring frost which took out a lot of the milkweed. 

Thousands of people were without power in the Ottawa. Ottawa Hydro never seems to give totals, but if I click on each red bubble and total them up it looks like 12,784 homes out of power. They came back up shortly, but not a good morning to be without power.

Then there is out west. Wildfires have displaced tens of thousands of people. Climate Change is real, peeps. 

🐻 What else is happening in Ottawa? Well, Ottawa has a bear in Centrepointe, and twin cubs in Bell's Corners – not too far away, where the kids live. Bears are on the move.  I'm glad I put the feeders away. The girls are playing it safe, avoiding the park going to school. 

Ottawa police put out guidelines. This has worked for me the once I came across a bear in the forest.

I brought the plants in, Cinnamon supervised. I put them out for the day.

Caitlin's wool baby blanket worked! 

I overturned a pot on the impatience. They came out well.

Outside the garage, another overturned pot did the trick. You can see the one leaf that I didn't tuck under, and it was rather wilted. I removed the pot, the sun came out, and it warmed up to 12 C. yesterday.

🐣 I did a walkabout, bundled up, for sure. The robin had 7 eggs, I could see two hatchlings, and only 2 or 3 eggs. I wonder what I will see today...

I think the robins will do OK, though. We have many, some have already fledged. Venturing down to the meadow, I encountered a juvenile robin, and its parents. They yelled at me from the trees, afraid I would hurt their baby.

 

Robin family & bugs from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

The other nest under the deck, the phoebe nest with 4 phoebe and one cowbird egg, is still intact.

I'm wondering if a weasel or the fisher has been about. The phoebes nesting in the shed are missing 2 eggs. There were 4. 

 

I tried to recover my saw, embedded in the tree branch I was trying to cut down, but failed. I'll need a larger ladder. Sigh. Another project for the To Do list. 

If a tree falls in the forest...