Outdoor Activities | wordsfromanneli

April 14, 2025
by wordsfromanneli 34 Comments

Oysters, Clams, and Phony Money

An oyster bed near the shoreline is encouraging to see. If you like oysters, be sure you’ve checked your local website for updates on any shellfish contamination that may be happening in your area.

We saw tons of oysters, but our fishing licences only allowed 12 each. That is certainly enough for a meal.

Poor Emma. She ran over these oyster shells and was soon limping along with sore feet from the rough barnacles on the shells.

After that, she preferred to run over pure sand or maybe a clam bed, both of which were easier on her feet.

I found a bit of beach money to pay for the clams and oysters. See the sand dollars below? The whiter ones were dead and sun bleached; the yellower ones were probably not feeling well; and the darker purplish brown ones (not pictured) were quite alive. I didn’t get a picture of them because I didn’t find them until later when I figured out that they were a few inches below the surface of the sand.

Emma was interested in a lot of things on the beach. This oyster was by itself, away from the rest and was covered with big barnacles. It seemed out of place here among all the clam shells.

The beach had so much driftwood washed up that it was an endless job for Emma to explore for mice and other little creatures that left their telltale scents on or under the logs.

She finally decided to tackle that big job, one log at a time.

It kept her busy all day.

So much fresh air and a tiny bit of sunshine ensured that we all slept well that night.

April 13, 2025
by wordsfromanneli 32 Comments

Flowers at the Beach

Today we spent a few hours on a nearby island beach that sees little use because it is only accessible by boat.

I was surprised to see the sandy fields blooming with tiny wildflowers.

I don’t know the names of all these flowers but the blue ones (below) look like tiny violas. I’m sure they have a proper name but I don’t know what it is. The little white flowers on the reddish stems might be saxifraga.

But this one I know. It is Oregon grape (berberis aquifolium, or holly-leaved barberry). Those yellow flowers turn into blue berries that look like a cluster of tiny grapes. I’ve read that the berries also have many health benefits, but they should be washed before eating. I’ve never enjoyed eating them raw. They are very tarty, but they make an excellent Oregon grape jelly.

Notice the dry moss all around the flowers. Even the moss has tiny blooms. The island has a rather dry climate so it makes its own unique, messy, but very pretty, flower garden.

More flowers will bloom here in the next weeks. I recognized leaves of lupins, and many other new shoots from various plants coming up from last year’s stock that has gone to seed.

Tiny but precious and ever so frail,

Bravely we bloom though the chill may prevail,

Few eyes will see us, and fewer admire,

We’ll stand courageously ’til we expire.

March 30, 2025
by wordsfromanneli 46 Comments

Learning English is not Easy

As I’ve mentioned before, my mother had trouble learning the English name for daffodils when we first came to Canada a very long time ago. She had heard of Daffy Duck because we children used to listen to a Saturday radio show called Kiddies’ Corner and they often played stories about Daffy Duck.

She also knew what dolls were, of course, because my little sisters had to have their dolls.

So the best she could do to get her tongue around the word “daffodils” was “daffy dolls.” My mother has been gone for 43 years already, but I can’t help thinking of her every year when my “daffydolls” bloom, usually in the same month when she died so long ago.

These flowers bring me happy thoughts of her wonderful sense of humour and her sunny disposition. She loved gardening and would be pleased to see daffydolls in my yard. I wish she could see them. But who knows? Maybe she can.

cheerful daffodils

welcoming another spring

bittersweet flowers

February 21, 2025
by wordsfromanneli 18 Comments

Butting In

propane fire throws heat

warming gathered campers’ feet

and one dog’s cool butt

February 7, 2025
by wordsfromanneli 30 Comments

Waiting

a new palapa

more tourists arriving soon

perched vultures waiting

January 24, 2025
by wordsfromanneli 10 Comments

Annie and the Honeydew Man

I posted this about five years ago and came across it again. I thought it was a sweet picture and couldn’t resist reposting it.

When my sisters and brother and I were little, we lived in a newly built, but unfinished house on the edge of town. The streets weren’t even put in place yet. Our road was just a track through a field of yellow grass. But it was perfect for us to play cowboys and gallop our pretend horses around the trails and up and down the hills of dirt that were not yet backfilled to the new house. We pretended to be characters from the western movies of the day — Annie Oakley, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Dale Evans. But Annie was my favourite. My sister, maybe almost three years old, was really too little to keep up with us as we tore around on the hills of dirt, so she played Annie Oakley with a toy shotgun and guarded the house while the rest of us were out on the range.

I don’t know what is wrapped around her right hand, and I just noticed for the first time in decades that there is a doll peeking out from behind her left shoulder.

Fast forward to more modern times. When the Captain and I were on one of our trips to Baja California, we stopped to do some shopping in Ensenada. I found a puppet-style doll that I couldn’t live without. She was the Mexican version of Annie Oakley.

What made me even happier, was buying the doll that had to be her partner. He is pictured here.

The store proprietor told me that this doll represents the hen-pecked husband, the Honeydew man (Honey, do this and Honey, do that), but in Spanish they called this fellow a “mandilon,” because he is ordered about, and, in the original version of the word, probably wore an apron (a mandil). What woman would not want a mandilon to do things for her? I had to have this doll!

*****

In my novel Orion’s Gift, Sylvia is all alone in the world. It seems that her life has taken a sudden turn and everything has been going wrong for her. Her husband is all about himself, and would not understand the news she just received in a letter.

She is trying to outrun her problems by escaping what she once thought was a perfect life near San Diego. She leaves everything behind to “run away” to Baja California where she plans to live in her VW van.

Baja seems to be a place for runaways. She meets Kevin at one of the campsites, and although there is an immediate attraction, Kevin has problems of his own.

Sylvia really needs moral support, so I gave her a mascot to lend her strength. Below is a short excerpt from Orion’s Gift, telling about how Sylvia came to adopt Annie.

Excerpt:

In one shop, handmade puppets on strings hung from the ceiling. Each doll had a unique character and, like orphans hoping to be adopted, seemed to call, “Take me with you.” I fell in love with a Mexican Annie Oakley. She held a mini six-gun in each hand and radiated confidence and self-reliance. I paid for her and happily carried her home to my van. I rigged up a spot on the curtain rod behind the seat for Annie to watch over me at night. She’d be my mascot, a reminder that I was strong and could take care of myself.

You can read Sylvia’s story in my novel “Orion’s Gift.” She’s going to need Annie’s strength to face some of the challenges of being a woman travelling alone in Baja.

The e-book version is marked down to only 99 cents on amazon.com for the next few weeks.