wordsfromanneli

Thoughts, ideas, photos, and stories.


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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!

 

 


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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.

 

 


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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.

 

 


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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.

 

 

 

 

 


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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.


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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:

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,

Is those things arms, or is they legs?

I marvel at thee, Octopus;

If I were thou, I’d call me Us.

Now the placemats are all done, it’s time to use them when we set the table. I wonder who will get the first big blob of greasy gravy on them?

If it’s YOU, beware.

Darth Vader of the Sea is watching.


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Autumnal Equinox

All those lovely summer days

Under the warming sun

Turning to changes not

Unexpected, but which had perhaps been put out of

Mind.

No more leisurely days of morning birdsong

Allowing robins to

Land on my branches, singing

Ecstatically, and

Quite boldly,

Uncaring of who hears them

If they are out of tune.

Nothing to look forward to

On this autumnal equinox

Xcept to hope for a mild winter and that another spring comes soon.

 

I can’t wait for spring!


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Changing Seasons

It is almost time for the Autumn Equinox. Depending on which part of the world you live in, you will have equal number of hours of daylight and darkness on September 22 – 23. It marks the beginning of the autumn season in the northern hemisphere and spring in the southern hemisphere.

For us in North America it marks the official beginning of autumn as we head into cooler temperatures and shorter hours of daylight.

The trees and shrubs notice the change to cooler temperatures and the leaves begin to die, but as they “leave” us, as “leaves” do, they put on a magnificent show of colour on their way out.

This picture was taken in Montana, in October of 2016. It is one of my favourite photos because of the natural colour display.

“Oh, look at me, all dressed in gold,”

The quaking aspen trembles,

“Although I’m told I’m far too bold,

No other tree resembles

My shivery whispering leafy talk

When breezes tease my branches,

Admirers smile when on a walk

Around Montana ranches.”

 

Turn on your sound. In the following very short clip, you can hear the black cottonwoods, whispering. Ignore the whistle blowing in the middle of the clip. The captain is calling his dog.


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Shapes

The crescent moon hovered over the hills across the bay last night.

 

The moon was only partially visible last night because of the angle of the sun shining on it, as seen from our perspective. I originally had the information wrong, about why we only see part of the moon, and Thomas kindly corrected it. Please see his comment below and the link to a well-illustrated diagram.

Anyway, I began to think of geometric shapes and their occurrences and practical applications.

First the circle, the general shape of our planets and their moons. Round, like apple pie, chocolate cookies, and coins….

Then the partial circle, such as the crescent. I’ll come back to that.

The lumpy rest of the moon when it’s not quite full is not such an interesting shape, but maybe it has a special name. I’m not sure.

Then we have ovals, squares, rectangles (and their many variations), and triangles.

Ovals, so named because of the shape of eggs, I suppose.

Squares? Very useful for so many things; the town market place for one. Almond squares for a treat with coffee.

Rectangles. Squares that are adjusted to fit if the sides are not equal all the way around, only those across from each other. Placemats.

Triangles. For Napoleon’s hat, and some boat sails.

But somehow, I am most impressed by the crescent shape of the moon.

Crescent, or croissant, is one of my favourite shapes, especially when it comes in the form of a shrimp croissant with a cup of Wicked Thai Soup at my local lunch place.

Do you have a favourite crescent shape?