Saturday, 10 August 2013

My hop plant has friends

It caused mold on the
old, wooden railings.
Aphids, mostly.

Last year we had an Io caterpillar.

Every year the tree frogs love it, as the bugs attract them in the night.

The plant is a climbing bine, and I have been beside myself trying to figure out how to support it.
They brew beer from them. I don't know if the previous house owner did this. It is an amazing beast.

Humulus, hop, is a small genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae.
Although frequently referred to as the hop "vine", it is technically a bine; unlike vines, which use tendrils, suckers, and other appendages for attaching themselves, bines have stout stems with stiff hairs to aid in climbing. It is a perennial herbaceous plant which sends up new shoots in early spring and dies back to the cold-hardy rhizome in autumn. Hop shoots grow very rapidly, and at the peak of growth can grow 20 to 50 centimetres (8 to 20 in) per week. Hop bines climb by wrapping clockwise (except for Humulus japonicus) around anything within reach, and individual bines typically grow between 2 to 15 metres (7 to 50 ft) depending on what is available to grow on. 

The Question mark and Comma butterflies like it, too.
The lady beetles eat the aphids.
Then there are the ants who eat the aphids.
The tree frogs are just the most delightful.

Question Mark butterfly

Eastern comma butterfly
it is as colourful as the Question mark!


Tricky to photograph

Fly on tree frog poo!


Macro fly
Peculiar little critters that fly!


BLossom 
Hops plant




The white aphid began to attack the gray aphid

Giant leap! It flew away.
Spring Peeper

Friday, 9 August 2013

Docktales! What is at your dock?

Docks are important to cottage life.  I wrote a post illustrating with photos about boathouses, last March. CBC features a show on the long weekend in August, and this struck a chord for me.

DOCKS

You jump off of it. Lots of critters use our docks. We park at the dock. Beavers may chew it.
We tie things to it. We fish off of it. For those who have boat access only cottages, it is crucial.
Fishing, with my dad,  on the dock
–circa 1965.
Fishing off the dock (where we would swim!)
Jumping off of the dock

  They tie up airplanes at the dock



Critters on the dock

–both two- and four-footed critters, large and small, in all seasons!
 

There are large and purposeful public and private docks


Islands need docks!


Then there is Andrew Cumming who has a 9 m (14') monster on his Lake Muskoka dock! You can see this monster on Baxter Island. (SEE MAP: Just to the left of the "E" in Eilean Gowan Island.) He seems quite proud of it, despite some controversy.   Cumming's been handing out press releases about his sculpture and doing interviews. I wouldn't want to see the monster in the fog! It doesn't seem to fit in with the peace, tranquility and beauty of cottage country. But that is just me, and my memories of cottaging in 1960 - 2010 in Muskoka! Cottaging sure has changed over my lifetime.