Category Archives: Douglas fir
Chicken Little’s Sky
When Chicken Little saw this sky, she knew there was trouble ahead, so she squawked her famous lines and said, as you know:
Bok-bok-bok!
The SKY is falling,
And WE must tell the KING!
BoddOCK bok!
Well, who would’ve thunk that a chicken could forecast this dramatic weather phenomenon?!
The very next day, the sky actually DID fall. That big dark cloud fell onto the ground and covered the whole valley.
And then, as Carl Sandburg said:
The fog comes in
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
They say that “No man is an island,” but these fir trees aren’t too sure about that.
Red-breasted Sapsucker
Air is cold, I’m shivering,
Legs so skinny, quivering,
Ants or beetles, if you’re near,
Eating you would bring me cheer.
Not much sap is dripping down,
Though I’ve drilled holes all around,
Maybe though, an ant will scurry,
Running off in such a hurry.
I’ve no chocolate to coat it,
Nature simply won’t promote it,
But the crunchy flavour’s good,
With a hint of fir tree wood.
Watch me skipping round the tree,
Eating ants and bugs with glee,
Little holes, the bark endures,
Graciously, my meal ensures.
I apologize for the background noise of dogs barking and garbage trucks backing up somewhere in the world outside my own little world.
Too Many Branches
I took this picture from my back (second storey) deck to show how long the branches of the fir trees have become. They almost reach the house now. The philadelphus (mock orange), on the right, has also grown up high and dense.
Our friend offered to take down some of the big lower branches. I’ve blurred his face for his privacy. He did a great job of taking those huge limbs off, but see the photo below. Dickie, the squirrel, was extremely upset.
He’s on top of the root of one of the fir trees, and we had to shoo him away so he wouldn’t get hurt.
Some of the branches that came down are pictured above, but a couple more huge ones joined them after I took this picture. Dickie came back to check on the progress and ended up hiding under the big ground-level canopy of branches.
Something crazy’s going on,
Men with noisy saws,
Gone, our quiet neighbourhood,
Must be some big cause.
One guy said, “They’re way too long,
Blocking out the light.”
Then the chain saw started up,
Gave me such a fright.
Horrible, the noise they made,
Chewing through the wood,
Branches crashing all around,
Near to where I stood.
Like flash I dashed away,
Running ’round the yard,
Now my skyway highway’s gone,
Travel will be hard.
After the Snow
Screaming winds ripped through the fir trees when they were still laden with snow. The weight of the snow and the push of the wind was too much for some branches. It will take some sawing to make this branch manageable in pieces for the yard cleanup.
But all is not doom and gloom. See the black creature between the trunks of the trees? She’s having fun.
Here is closer look.
Sorry. All we can see is her hind end. The front part of her body, especially the nose and front paws, are busy investigating whatever smells so good inside that old tree stump. It will be bath night tonight … again!
I can smell it in that stump,
Is it mouse or ratty’s rump?
Something yummy for my tummy,
Hope it hasn’t turned too gummy.
What care I if full of soil,
In the house the rugs I spoil?
I won’t cower in the shower,
Splashing water gives me power.
People love me even dirty,
They make kissing noise all flirty,
They will hug me, it won’t bug me,
Better clean though, soft and snuggly.
***** Please visit annelisplace for writing tips. Today we have more troublesome words explained.
The Nice Light
At a certain time of the evening, the last rays of the sun paint a golden glow on the tall firs. We call it “the nice light” when that happens. The morning light is similar, but the glow isn’t as warm as the evening light.
Stand tall, fellows, ready then?
Here comes that nice light again.
Soak it up and feel its glow,
Soon enough, cold winds will blow.
Soothing warmth and light for growth,
What good luck to have them both,
Cloudless evenings are the best,
As the sun sinks in the west.
When the cold days come again,
We will stand through wind and rain.
Strength to keep harsh days at bay,
Comes from warming light today.
A Windy Night
“Will ya look at that?” Emma says. “Branches all over the yard are bad enough, but that one that smashed into Lincoln’s house is huge. And it’s still up there!”
“I know! I saw the whole thing from inside my cedar hedge home when it happened.”
The Captain pulled the treetop off the woodshed roof with his old beater truck while the Admiral ran for the tape measure. Thirty feet snapped right off the top of a tree to the left of the woodshed.
And another long branch is still up there – it got hung up on the way down.
“Good grief!” wails Lincoln. “That was my lookout tree. The whole top is gone. And I had plans for all those cones left on the tree.”
“I feel just sick!”
The forces of nature make changes on Earth,
They make creatures realize what life is worth,
The wind can move trees and the branches around,
It howls and it yowls with a frightening sound,
The birds and the squirrels take cover and hide,
They shiver and shake while the storm they outride,
But after a night that they spent curled up tight,
They creep out and check in the bright morning light,
To see if their home world is standing there still,
It’s been slightly changed, but survive it they will.
Fish or Beans
Vernon Lake on northern Vancouver Island is a good-sized piece of water. Expect lots of gray days, with misty clouds, some moving around the lake, some hanging onto the hilltops nearby.
If you are in a small boat, watch for the many partially submerged logs, especially near the shores. The area around the lake was logged long ago, probably more than once, by the look of the different sizes of trees.
Some of the trees have been in the water for so long that the exposed stumps have decayed and supported new plant growth. Sorry for the blurry photo of that one. It was a quick afterthought photo on a drive-by in the skiff.
Some stumps had not had time to develop growth yet. Instead they took on the role of sea monsters guarding the passageway to the far end of the lake.
At that end where the river flows out, the lake narrows like a funnel. Along the sides of the ever narrowing passageway, stand snags of trees that were probably drowned years ago by the rise in the lake’s water level in the rainy season. It looked to me like Snag Alley.
The water was so clear you wondered if it was really there, except that it reflected the greenery from the shore.
The Captain did his best to catch a fish after scrambling to get all his ducks in a row.
Either our timing wasn’t right, or the Captain was hampered by having to set up the Admiral with her fishing rod, but by the time he was able to dabble, it was not a fishy time for him just then and there.
Or possibly the fish didn’t take him seriously because he wasn’t wearing all his top-of-the-line brand name fishing paraphernalia. (The Admiral didn’t care about that stuff as long as he had the bear spray along.)
Anyway, supper that day was not going to be fresh gourmet fish.
More like sausages and a can of beans.
It was time for one of my favourite sayings: Tomorrow is another day.
Bark Mulch
I needed mulch to keep the weeds down between the shrubs in my yard. A visit to the local poleyard was in order.
The mulch is the chipped up bark of the mostly firs that are peeled to make nice smooth telephone poles.
All the peelings are sorted into mountains. Some are long strands of bark mulch, some are smaller chips of bark, and some are just ratty, junky pieces that aren’t good for much.
My garden needed the smaller chips so we parked the truck and utility trailer at the side of the road between the mulch mountains and waited for the loader to come and help us out.
Here he comes with his scoop in front.
One of those big scoops holds what they call a yard of mulch (we pay by the yard).
I’m always amazed at how little they drop on the way to the trailer.
Here comes our one yard of bark mulch.
When he drops it into the trailer and pats it down with the scoop, the truck shakes like in an earthquake.
It doesn’t seem like a lot until you start unloading it.
While I was waiting for the loader to come, I took a couple of short video clips to show how they take the raw logs and put them into the machine that scores the bark and flips the logs around and around. The power is awe-inspiring. Have you ever tried to juggle a log that size? Look at how the blades cut into the bark without cutting up the wood.
In the second video, you can see the bark mulch shooting out the long pipe to be piled up into those bark mulch mountains. Not much is wasted.
Next time you see bark mulch around a pretty shrub, think about how that log bounced around as it was stripped of its coat. It’s a good thing I can’t talk to the trees or hear what they’re saying, but if I had to guess, I’d bet they’re calling to each other, “Anybody got a coat they can lend me?”
“Naw, they took mine too!”
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