Quick! Quick! I’ll grab one of their sunflower seeds.
I need to crack the shell. Here’s a stick. Hurry, hurry, before they come back. Those two squirrel brothers have been doing their best not to share with me.
Do I dare believe my sharp brown eyes? It’s a towhee. The sneaky little thief!
Here is my garden, looking a little bit neglected as I spend more time copy-editing than I do gardening. I suppose you could say I’m weeding, but it’s words I’m weeding out, not “weed” weeds.
A western flycatcher flew over to the fence and gave me a condescending look.
Ooooooh! Anneli! That doesn’t look good. You’ve got to get out there and clean up that mess you call a garden.
So I asked if he’d like to help me weed.
“Tell me you’re joking!” he said.
“I don’t think so!” he said. “… Awww … don’t look like that. You should have gotten on top of the job right at the start!”
I found this odd plant growing along the side of my driveway this morning. It goes by several names: monotropa uniflora, ghost plant, ghost pipe, Indian pipe, and corpse plant.
It does look rather ghostly without its green chlorophyll, but more striking than that is the shape. I’ve only ever known it as Indian pipe, probably named for its shape similar to the traditional Indian peace pipe.
I’ve always found the Indian pipe fascinating because it is so different from most other plants. I thought it was a fungus, like a mushroom, but apparently it is considered to be in the family of Ericae, the heathers. I can’t see the connection, but I trust Wikipedia to have given me the correct information.
But the Indian pipe is parasitic on fungi, deriving its energy from the root systems of fungi rather than from sunlight. It can pop up very quickly after a rain. We did have quite a downpour yesterday and here they are!
By the way, you might have noticed that it is surrounded by Canada’s symbol, the “maple leaf forever,” looking a bit ratty around the edges, and no wonder, the way things are going.
Marlie is a good person. Maybe a bit naive…. A young teacher newly arrived in the Queen Charlotte Islands, she has a lot to learn. The rough island life tests her survival skills both physically and socially. She is surprised that with the beauty of the islands come hidden and unexpected dangers.
Here is a short excerpt from “Marlie” :
She pulled over to the side of the gas station after she gassed up, and made the call. At the pumps Brent was leaning his shoulder into the side of his truck, staring off into space as he held the nozzle in the gas tank. The profile of his face was perfect—manly, but fine. His blue checkered work shirt had a tear in the elbow. Jeans were dirty and smeared with dried blood—from the deer, she presumed. She sure hoped that was what the blood was from. How was she to know? She’d only just met him. His canvas vest had lots of pockets, more practical than fashionable. Seemed like islanders tended to be that way. Kodiak boots half unlaced told her he must have walked a lot today and maybe his feet were sore. Fancy, he was not.
It would have been great if she had been nicer to Brent, but as luck would have it, she chose instead a man who would get her into serious trouble. You will be shocked at how Marlie’s trusting nature is turned against her. Rough island life is about to get much rougher. When she most needs a friend, she realizes that she knows very few people in this new setting. She’s on her own.
If you like page-turner stories of love, adventure, and danger, why not download “Marlie”? It is available on all amazon outlets for Kindle and paperback, and on smashwords.com and nook.com (Barnes and Noble) for all formats of e-readers.
Mother merganser had her hands full. Her brood was something to be proud of, but the full-time babysitting was nerve-racking to say the least. It was especially bad when one (there is always one!) had to march to his own drum.
“I just saw a little fish go by. See him there, just under the surface? He flipped me the fin and said, ‘Bite me!’ So I thought, ‘Why not? It’s what mergansers do.'”
“Seems he got away, but wait a minute. Where’s my mother?”
And yikes! Look who’s giving me the hairy eyeball.
“Muh – muh – muh – mu-u-u-u-um! Help!”
“Oh whew! Those people in the boat scared the eagle away. Wait up, Mom! … What’s that? I should stick with the group? But, er … I was … just trying to catch us a fish.”
We parked our trailer and unloaded the skiff to have it ready for use at the edge of Vernon Lake.
The campsite was visited by many birds. Here are only a few of them. Many stayed hidden though they sang their hearts out all day.
This is a hairy woodpecker. I thought at first it was a downy, which looks very similar, but the hairy woodpecker has a much heavier and longer beak than the downy.
One of the birds I heard a lot, was Swainson’s thrush. I love the song he sings, “You’re pretty, you’re pretty, oh really.” But he is very elusive and I couldn’t get a photo of him.
Next to visit, was a Steller’s jay, but I almost mistook him for something else. He is a bit pale and scruffy, and this has me wondering if it is an immature bird.
Below, we have the red-breasted sapsucker, probably the very one I took pictures of for a previous post. He was hanging around the campsite the whole time we were there.
And no wonder! He has already made quite an investment in this tree, sipping sap and nabbing insects.
But do you see what I see? Circling the tree just below the chipped bark is a nasty looking petrified snake. I think he’s guarding the dinner table for the sapsucker.
You won’t see me trying to get near him. He looks mean. Is that blood on his lips?
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.
The Captain said the other day, “I think that’s enough Lincoln posts. They’re cute and all, but I think it’s time for something different.”
I agreed. I know I have a thing for Lincoln and his girlfriend, Della, but okay, enough is enough. No more squirrel posts.
But today, the Captain yelled, “Anneli, come quick and bring the camera. Della’s got three babies!”
I took about nine videos of them but a lot are blurry or there is background noise (someone mowing a lawn). I picked one that shows Della grooming her babies. They all have fleas or some other little parasites. If you watch closely you can see Della groom the babies and eat the pests that are “bugging” them.
Thanks for enduring yet another squirrel post. I had not intended to inflict any more on you, but you see, with these new additions, they’re so cute I couldn’t resist.
PS Don’t bother to look for Lincoln. Now that the kids have arrived, he’s “gone fishing.”
This is a very Christmassy recipe, but it’s good any time of the year.
Simple to make: all the ingredients are in the picture below. No baking powder or baking soda or salt. Just butter, sugar, flour and an egg, vanilla, dates and nuts (you can do without the nuts if you have an allergy). Recipe is at the end of this post.
You can see that I’ve chopped the dates (except for one to show you) and the pecans (you can use walnuts if you prefer them).
Mix the butter and sugar, add an egg and mix again, add the vanilla and then the flour. You’ll get a gooey batter. Add the nuts and dates.
Drop by spoonfuls, a couple at a time, into a bowl with shredded coconut, and to avoid getting batter all over your fingers, take a big pinch of coconut and push the batter off the spoon with it. Then coat the batter over and over in the coconut, pressing lots of coconut into the batter as you shape it into a roll (a yule log).
Place the logs on a greased cookie sheet and bake them at 350 for 15 minutes.
They should be golden brown when they’re done.
Now all you need is a cup of something to go with the logs.
I copied my mother-in-law’s recipe years ago. She used walnuts, but I like pecans too, so sometimes I substitute.
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