A lovely warm day at the beach. My friend and I hung about, lounging on old, silvered logs that had been jammed up amongst the rocks. We both love seaweed with its full range of colours and textures. This pic was taken with my little phone camera and I am well pleased with it.
Tomatoes
My tomato of choice this year is the cherry size "SunSugar" tomatoes which are very tasty and very sweet. They ripen to a lovely orange colour and are so good grilled on the bbq!
My snapdragons please me to no end. Hours go by while I stare at them...okay, maybe not hours but still, way too much time is spent staring distractedly at them.
Watery Summer Days
The days have been hot and sunny and I can't believe in just a few days it will be September. Fortunately, the month of September is as nice here as anywhere and could well be mistaken for summer days if it weren't for the cooler night air and the shorter day light hours. You really notice the shortening days in September! Anyway, it's been nice to spend some time at the water's edge and watch the harbour seals and the tugboats go by. The ocean edge is the nicest place to be on a summer's day I reckon.
Aborted Camping Attempt
So we went camping but had to return early as we had only one bottle of bug spray. The mosquitoes were so bad that we ran through one bottle of spray in a matter of hours. Usually we have been lucky and don't need bug spray and only bring it as a backup measure. I do not like spraying chemicals and I do not like WEARING chemicals either. I guess it is to be expected when the campsites are situated around the swamp area of the lake and not on the far side of the lake itself. We drove further down the road to find more sites but the road was closed off by a metal gate so we didn't have much choice. Despite the fact we had bought firewood and marshmallows, we didn't even bother with an evening fire in the pit because the mosqies were so voracious.
Anyway, apart from the mosquitoes, it was a lovely lake for swimming and there were many frogs, no doubt to the happy smorgasbord of bugs. I haven't seen that many frogs in a long time. I finally saw a Pacific Tree frog. (I always heard them at the old apartment but they can be tricky to find as they are so small.) The Tree frog was sitting on the floating dock and looked for all the world like a piece of jewellery that had fallen out of some one's pocket. Apparently they are quite comfortable in most environments due to the waxy coating on their skin.
We had a campsite right on the edge of the lake.
And yes, it was worth the bites to see the frogs. Good bugs AND (sighs) bad bugs.
Plants Are Not Sacred Cows
Customers come in, quite often wanting a pesticide to kill something and quite often I manage to talk them out of it. I ask them, how bad is the damage, and can you live with it? Killing bugs to save one plant isn't worth it in the big picture of things. It's a garden, it's nature, it's a balance. "But my plant", they cry. "I just spent money on something a bug is eating". People only worry when it costs them something but they don't see how much it is really costing them to sterilize their garden and their neighbourhood. It's a chain reaction from the smallest creature up. A garden is only healthy when you have good bugs AND bad bugs. Anyway, here is a drawing of one of my favourite ground beetles.
And yes, he's a good bug.
High today +24
Summer Days
Summer days tend to blend together, probably in the same manner as rainy, grey winter days, but these days tend to be more enjoyable. The kingfisher was back at the creek again and I would not have known he was there until he purposefully made a noise above me. I'm wondering if I am sitting in his specific fishing spot because I do see a few salmon fry swimming about in the deeper areas of the creek. He must be peeved then, to have to wait for me to leave.
It was much cooler today with a bit of cloud cover. It tried to rain but wound up burning off and we had a sunny evening.
The tomato plant is coming along nicely and I am still resisting digging up the potatoes...
Spiderwebs and Kingfishers
I took the dog out early to the creek before the heat of the day built up. I decided to head off the path and push my way through the scrub to get to a different part of the creek. This meant pushing through spider webs (yeesh) which are becoming quite numerous at this time of year but it was worth it because I had company after a while. A Belted Kingfisher perched upon a dead branch overhanging the creek and with many a rattling call, surveyed for small fish. I can't imagine how he catches anything with all the noise he makes. I looked him up in the book when I got home and indeed Belted Kingfishers are rowdy birds even though they are loners. Maybe they are the crazy-voices-in-head loners of the bird world. Mad ravings and accusations of other birds stealing their jet propulsion plans that will change migratory patterns forever. Such a shame.
Sunday, July 16, 2006 at 09:43 PM
SO, though I sat last evening, with water hose at the ready, little Hector the skunk never showed up again. I told my story to my co-worker this morning and she pointed out that a skunk, living in Vancouver, where it rains for approximately seven months out of the year, probably won't be discouraged by a dousing of water. I can't help but feel she might have a point.
Hector didn't show up tonight either. At least I don't think he did. I was trying to stay awake around 6:30pm, when he ambles by, but I fell asleep on the couch. (Yep, a work day). I say 'amble' and 'wander' a lot because that is what they do on their short, little legs. Skunks have very bad eyesight so they kinda do that very self-involved ambling, where they have their nose to the ground and are really, really minding their own business.
No sketch today but I do have this photo of a funky spider web. I first saw it in the garden nursery and again while I was out walking. It's an upside down dome and the spider sits upside down on the top...or...errr bottom...or wherever she thinks she is. I call them 'Tina Turner Thunderdome Spiders'.
Sunny today
High +22
Lo +12
You will never believe this! I just received a phone call from that very co-worker. She called to say that she was involved in a near catastrophe. She was chatting with her daughters when she looked down to find a baby skunk had wandered into the place and was at her feet near the chair. Not only that, but the neighbourhood cat had followed it inside. They managed to get both animals back out the patio doors but they were all quite shaken. Can you imagine having a spraying skunk inside your home? It was bad enough when Maggie got sprayed out in the garden and it took weeks to get the smell out of the place and out of her fur. I couldn't imagine a cat chasing a skunk who is spraying defensively all over you, your family and your belongings. Yeesh!
New Skunk On the Block
So the young skunk is back again. We have seen him the past couple of nights, ambling nonchalantly around the garden and deck. I panicked and began hooting like a horned owl out the window as that is their chief enemy. I also yelled, "Shoo, shoo" several times. He paid not the slightest bit of attention and toddled up the rockery and went next door. I now have the hose ready to blast him with a shot of water. I shall ALSO play a horned owl clip on the speakers <em>at the same time</em>. He's young and impressionable, he might get the idea that this garden spells soggy fur and doom from above.
Grey Day
It was overcast and rainy yesterday and it looked quite grey as we drove over the bridge to downtown. You couldn't tell where land, sea or sky met but that didn't stop the boats from enjoying the fresh breezes out to sea.