Wild Flower Bounty

 On a short hike today, there were lots of wild flowers.   This particular trail looks different in every season, and different with whatever trail or paths you follow. The terrain goes from field, to woodland, to wetlands to lake side, with softwoods, cedar, pines and some deciduous areas as well.   The fields on both sides of the trail were full of wild poppies.  They were so pretty and the little dots of red, with the white clover and purple alfalfa.   There were pops of bright green spurge as well.

Canada Anemone was blooming all along one of the riverside trails.  It was so very pretty.

The Fleabane has started flowering there, well before anywhere else that I've seen this year.  I don't think that fleabane actually deters fleas.  It sometimes takes over a bit in places in my garden, but it's pretty, so I don't mind too much.

I think this is some sort of Coreopsis, but I don't think it's a wild flower.  However there used to be a pollinator garden plant display, so I wonder if some of these flowers have been seeded from that garden.  There are a couple that seem more like garden plants that wild flowers.

Like this Dianthus, or Sweet William, which I think must have been seeded from the old pollinator garden, or someone sprinkled some wild flower seeds, or other flower seeds in some areas last fall.   

Ox eye daisies were blooming on some of the sides of the trails in sunny areas.   I remember making daisy chains as a kid and braiding them into my horses mane and forelock.  He was a very patient pony! The walk today was so much fun with all the flowers.  I'm sure hubby was a bit frustrated at times because I stopped an awful lot to take photos.  It was so lovely to see the pops of colour along the trails.

This is one tiny part of one of the fields of wild poppies.  The spurge is a bright green, in behind the poppies.   It seems like something I should try to paint, with all the greens and pops of reds.   

Flash Freeze: the next day

 Yesterday was the monthly spin in.   A bunch of us spinners gather to spin together for a couple of hours.  It's a fun, social gathering.  We've had weeks of windy, very cold weather and snow squalls.   Yesterday however, there was a break in the weather and instead of stupid cold, it was above freezing.  The roads were great, but it was raining.  More of a drizzle really but enough that I needed my wipers on and not quite enough to make them work efficiently.   It was a nice drive regardless, because there was no snow and you could see the roads!

We headed home about 1pm and by 2:30ish, the temperatures started dropping and the rain was now huge, huge flakes of snow.  They were falling straight down and within just a few minutes the road was covered over.   It kept snowing.   This morning though, the sun was shining and the sky a blue we rarely see in the winter around here. It was however, a crystallised winter wonderland outside.  It wasn't really an ice storm, although it sort of looks like it outside.  It was more of a flash freeze.  It was plus 2 in the morning and -11 by bedtime!

We went into town this morning and the trip in was interesting.   The ice and snow bound trees were far more intense and noticeable on the way, especially in areas not getting quite enough of today's sunshine, or in sheltered places.  However, there was a lot of icy areas still on the roads, and despite the shoulders being plowed, there wasn't a safe place to pull over to take photos.   I still haven't figured out how to quickly adjust the exposure on my phone for snapshots, so the sky really wasn't quite this blue, although it was pretty close.

We ended up not doing all the errands we'd planned.   The part for the kitchen tap turns out to be specialised and not labelled,  so we will have to go back with the part for comparisons.  It still works without it, so no urgency there.  The parking lot at the antique mall was overly full, so we passed on visiting today.   There is a business at the other side of the parking lot, with very clear NO PARKING signs on their workshop garage doors.   People still parked there.   Someone from the shop has parked very closely behind them, only slowing down a bit of access in the parking lot, but making sure the entitled parkers can't get out unless they get the big truck behind them moved.   That will put a bit of a damper on their day, for sure.

I filled the bird feeders when we got home.  Because of the rain, I didn't do it yesterday.   The food in the tray and around the little feeding  holes just gets wet and then freezes when the temperatures drop, making it impossible for the birds to get the food out.  But today, the old plastic feeder, may have just  finally gotten a bit too brittle in the cold and the lid closure snapped.  It's pretty old and is outside all year round so it doesn't surprise me too much.  I'm a bit sad though as  I'll have to go shopping for a new one next nice day.

The blue jays love the peanut feeder.  I'm not so happy about it.  Mainly it's because peanuts are expensive and the blue jays will empty the feeder in 30 minutes or less.  I've only been filling the feeder every other day because otherwise we'd go through way more peanuts than I'm willing to purchase as $43 a bag.   Second, I'm going to have to check to see that these are locally grown peanuts and not imported.  That's easy enough to do but I may still just replace it with a sunflower seed feeder as I know that the black oil sunflower seeds are grown locally, they are a whole lot cheaper, and more variety of birds will eat them.

Winter walks, garden visitor and shawl update

Hawk, right side, middle of picture.

 Here is a photo of the hawk visiting our garden.  He sticks around for over an hour at a time and has a couple of spots he likes to hang out.   With his dedication and patience, we're now thinking it might be the hawk who got one of our chooks.   DH says he found that hen just inside the door of the chicken coop, so it's possible.   The poor girls have been stuck inside since then.   With the risk of a hawk attack so likely, I'm keeping them in the coop.   They aren't fond of the snow regardless.  They'll make a track to the feeders and sometimes to spots where they can sun themselves, and mainly they hangout in the open part of the barn, making a mess of things.

The photo was taken through a double pane window which I didn't think needed cleaning this fall.  I was wrong.  It does.  The hawk is fairly large, like a crow size or a tad larger.  His back is grey and his underside/tummy is white and brownish.  He has a greyish head, which makes it hard to see, but he scanned the area constantly from that perch and I watched him sit there for over an hour.  He's been back daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

We headed out for a walk today.  I needed my sunglasses when we left the house.   The skies were mainly white, with some patches of very pale blue.   The sunlight was reflecting on the snow so it was bright, despite the high clouds.   By the time we were halfway to the chosen trail, I no longer needed my sunglasses.  There was a light flurry as well.   Luckily, the winds and the real snow, didn't pick up until we got back home.   

The trail was white.   Enough people had been on the trails by the time we got there, that the fluffy snow we had over the past 2 days was partially packed and easy to walk on.  No slippery spots and no ice.  Just light fluffy snow and lots of foot prints.

The lake or pond is mainly frozen over.  I don't think the ice is really strong enough to walk on yet, but there were foot prints on it.  They were likely animal prints, but we didn't go close enough to the shore to find out.   We were on top of the hill when we took this photo.   There are some houses and a train track on the other side of the lake.   You can't see them once the trees are leafed out.  This time of year though, they are able to be seen, and I'm betting they have great views as well.

The sun came out briefly (sort of) just as we were near the end of the trail , which runs beside the river.   It's not actually as steep as the photo suggests, but a weird angle to capture that tiny bright spot, the sun and trying to get a bit of the river in as well.  I don't think I was horribly successful.

The winds only picked up after we got home, which was nice and now it's snowing the kind of big flakes which tend to suggest we'll get some accumulation.  

Shawl update:   I'm getting about 4 -6 rows a day done if I put some effort into knitting right now, due to the length of the shawl.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to make this the last repeat.   It's certainly big enough to be a useful shawl, and maybe useful enough to be worn like a sonntag or tied shawl.  It's small enough though that I could also use it as an under-shawl and wear my larger one over top of it for warmth.   I'm also trying to decide whether I'll put the suggested fringe on it or just crochet a simple edging around the sides of it.    I fear the fringe might get in the way of wearing it for warmth while doing things like baking at Westfield, although the fringe in the sample picture was very pretty.