November 2, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 2 Comments

Remembering

This chrysanthemum hung in my parents’ back veranda in the fall of 1981, covered in many, many little white popcorn-like flowers. My mother died the next spring, leaving my father with a plant he didn’t care about or know what to do with.

I brought it home to my house and it has bloomed for me in the fall, every year since then.

This year, I was worried. It had been hot and dry and I wondered if I had maybe overwatered it to compensate. No buds. No sign of any flowers. Limp leaves. Would this be the first time in 45 years that my mother’s chrysanthemum would not bloom?

It seems like such an unimportant thing, but it meant a lot to me. I had looked after this plant for so long.

At the end of the summer I was SO happy to see a few hints of flower buds, and now, almost too late, as the temperatures get very low, it has decided to bloom after all. There are not that many flowers, but at least there is a sign of life here, and the tradition can continue for another season. The plant spends the worst of the winter inside in a “coolish” place and then goes out again in the spring.

I’m so happy to see the flowers. It’s as if my mother is waving to me from her garden in paradise, saying, “I’m still here, watching over you,” and I can show her, as always (at least in my mind), “I’ll never forget you.”

October 31, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 23 Comments

Funny Farming

Right after a summer of growing,

Along came a big machine, mowing,

So please don’t get mad if I’m whiney,

And rest for a while on my hinie.

Although I am dressed up for treating,

My arms and my paint took a beating,

I know that I’m not very scary,

But tricksters, you’d better be wary.

Don’t think you can jump up and harm me ,

Or fool me and think you can charm me,

I’ll frighten the people who dare, so

You’ll know I’m a Halloween scarecrow.

October 29, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 33 Comments

Black Walnuts

The tree with the golden leaves in the center of the photo below is a black walnut. You can tell where the coldest wind comes into our yard, over the hedges where the tree faces the open gap between the taller firs. The leaves in that area, except for a few near the top of the tree, are hit the hardest by the cold weather that is moving in, so those are the first to go.

Below, you can see some walnuts still hanging onto the branches, waiting for another big gust of wind to knock them down.

The walnuts are inside a thick husk that comes off easily enough if you step on the walnuts once they have fallen to the ground. Wear gloves!!! You can peel that husk off after stepping on the nuts, and take off that outer coating. Even with gloves, you may find your fingers and fingernails stained from the walnut juice and you will be mistaken for a two-pack-a-day smoker.

These walnuts are different from the English walnut that we are most familiar with. Black walnuts have shells that are much thicker and harder than the English walnuts. It’s no exaggeration to say that you may need a hammer to crack the black walnuts. A simple nutcracker won’t work. The nuts are also more bitter, possibly because the trees produce a toxin called juglone that will eventually kill some kinds of small plants trying to grow near the walnut tree.

Even though the husks are bitter, squirrels don’t seem to mind the strong taste of the nut meat. The only problem is that the walnut shells are SO thick and hard and tough that the squirrels would have quite a challenge to open them. It is really helpful to give the nuts a good crack with a hammer to open them up before giving them to the squirrels.

I’ve collected several pailfuls of these walnuts. The squirrels are happy to have a snack of five or six walnuts every day.

For ME? You don’t say!

October 24, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 40 Comments

Black and Orange

It’s quiet on the prairie land,

Save whispers in the leaves,

I’m safe above coyote’s band

Because they can’t climb trees.

Beware, I say, of Halloween,

When spooks and bats abound,

When ghosts at night drift in between

The witches swirling ’round.

Don’t fret for me, I set the scene,

With orange fur and black,

I play my part on Halloween,

I yowl and arch my back.

So run coyotes, run away,

Until that black night’s done,

Your pack will be afraid to stay,

I’ll be the bravest one.

October 20, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 28 Comments

Ups and Downs

“Happy, sad, and hopeful” was the sequence of feelings I had over the events in my garden yesterday.

Happy

I saw a flock of birds sitting on a small cold frame in my garden, and quickly got out the camera to take a picture. It was through a window I should have cleaned ages ago, but when I uploaded the photos, I didn’t worry about a bit of blur. I was just very happy to see that most of the birds were crossbills. I hadn’t seen crossbills in my yard for a couple of years, and they don’t stay long when they do visit.

Their odd crossed bills are unique, and I find the way they walk, similar to the way parrots walk, endearing. So I was happy to see these birds.

Just behind the cold frame is a Florence fennel plant that has gone to seed, and the wind has knocked many of the seeds onto the top of the cold frame. Those seeds were the attraction for the crossbills.

Two of the twelve birds I can spot in the picture are some other kind of songbird, but the rest are crossbills.

Sad

I took several pictures and then the birds were spooked and all flew up. It seems there were many more in other parts of the garden, and as the flock took off I heard that sickening thump of a bird hitting a window.

I was shocked to see a female crossbill hanging onto the garden fence, presumably after hitting a window. I felt heartsick.

What to do? Go pick her up and keep her warm? It was a chilly morning. But maybe that would freak her out more and she was already traumatized.

Leave her alone? I just wanted to help. But would I do more harm than good?
I felt like a shallow reporter, taking pictures of a tragic situation.

It looked like she had taken quite a hit to the head. A drop of blood clung to the feathers behind her eye. At least the blood wasn’t pouring out. It seemed to have stopped.

The crossbill held on without moving for at least ten minutes. I thought she might be dead. But then she moved her head a little bit. Another five minutes went by and I worried about the chill in the air.

Hopeful

Suddenly she flew up to the top of the fence and sat there for about five seconds. Then she took off into the air, and flew into the safety of the thick branches of the nearby fir trees.

I hope she’ll make it. My worry is that her flock is not to be seen, but I hope she can call them back or somehow find them.

October 18, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 27 Comments

King of the Castle

When we were kids, my brother and sisters and friends were delighted when a load of topsoil was delivered to backfill the edges of our new house that was in the final stages of construction. We would run to the top of the mound of dirt and then challenge each other to push us down and replace us, with taunts of “I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the dirty rascal.” (It was a good thing my mother didn’t hear us talking like that.)

Crispin is the king of the castle here, but he has no challengers at the moment. The new load of firewood is perfect for him as he snacks on one of the walnuts he has stashed away.

I’m king of this fine castle,

The view up here is great,

I don’t get any hassle,

To see how much I ate.

In case of any danger,

Of hawk or hungry owl,

Or any other stranger,

Who’d like to make me howl,

I’ll pop down in the wood pile,

And hide until they leave.

That way I’m sure I could smile,

No worry that I’ll grieve.

October 8, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 26 Comments

Dinner Time?

Owl photo by neighbour, R.G., of cougar video fame.

Just look at that poor little rabbit,

I’m thinking how great he will taste,

But running away’s not his habit,

His sense of survival, a waste.

Perhaps I should scrounge up some pity

And let him escape his bad luck,

This squirrel would make dinner so pretty,

Unless he escapes, nip and tuck.

Oh dear, it’s that barred owl prowling,

Just look at his beak and his claws,

I’d bite him and send him off howling,

But he is too big for my jaws.

We need to convene a town meeting,

Though making rules stick is quite hard,

“Goodbye” is our standard owl greeting,

“A barred owl should always be barred.”

We find the barred owl to be scary,

And hope he will silently leave,

If not, we must always be wary,

Or he will swoop down and we’ll grieve.

October 5, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 28 Comments

An Artist’s Sky

It was just another ordinary evening, until I went to open the deck door to cool the house a bit. The colours were amazing. I had to remind myself to close my mouth, stop gawking, and run for the camera.

Wispy rain clouds brushed away,

That’s the easy part,

While the glow at end of day,

Warms the painter’s heart.

October 3, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 38 Comments

Come Swim with Me

Next time you have a fish dinner, you may not even have to go fishing first. The meal is all served up on your new placemats.

I worked on these for many days, and when it was time to do the last step, I must have had that “horse to the barn” feeling and rushed through the corners when I was putting on the binding. Don’t look too closely. They are not neat and squared off.

BUT, I had a lot of fun making up these placemats, cutting out the shapes and finding a fabric that would serve as a reasonably close match to their colours in real life – not that you’d ever encounter the Darth Vader fish in real life. Each piece is first ironed on with some slightly sticky white webby material called Steam-a-Seam. When you peel off the fusible material, you iron the shape onto the place where you want it to be and then sew around it with your choice of stitch. Mine was a blanket stitch that grabs the edges every second stitch.

I doodled around with my free-motion stitching (which just means you can go in any direction by moving the material around – not just forward and back when the machine does the steering) and was able to put some scales on some of the fish and lines on their fins, and make the pupils and irises of their eyes.

In the background, I see two strips of material from the Captain’s old jeans, one light and one dark, to make up part of the water, and a light blue denim shirt for the top layer of water.

In case you were wondering, I do know that an octopus has eight legs, but he’s sitting on one of them.

That strange creature reminded me of one of my favourite Ogden Nash poems: