Time for a quick dip in a cool creek. The river level keeps dropping and in some places, the water comes up to the knee but it is still fine to sit in the middle of the creek and let the current wash over you and admire the trundling caddisfly larvae, some of which have sparkling mica flecks worked into their clever homes.
Booked a ferry in advance this time and went over to Vancouver Island for a picnic on the beach. My mother-in-law had a picnic all ready to go so we could just immediately go for beach walks. This is the view from the island looking back over Georgia Strait to the mainland and the Coastal Mountains.
The tide was extremely low.
Another day of lovely weather. My brother is visiting here so we tried to catch a ferry up Sunshine Coast but all the ferries were booked. Then we thought to just pop over to Bowen Island for a nice afternoon walk, but we could not find parking anywhere. We gave up our attempts and decided to have fish and chips overlooking the harbour.
And an ice cream.
To throw in some exercise for the day, we went to Lighthouse Park. Who says you have to go far in this province for beautiful walks?
What was in the mail when I got home but the book I had ordered.
Huzzah!
Either rain or don't but don't make me keep re-winding my garden hose whilst watching my plants wilt.
There, that told them.
Shake fist at dismissive clouds.
These jays are probably one of my favourite birds with their gorgeous blue colouring and inquisitive bold behaviour. We have a couple of Steller's Jays who habitually come to visit for their peanut hand-out. (Just don't tell the neighbours across the alley, not that the neighbours want the peanuts, what I mean is, that they don't like having birds around their vegetable garden.)
The jays choose their peanuts with care. No hasty dashing and grabbing peanuts willy-nilly. Oh no. They carefully go through the pile of peanuts and shake each one and weigh them up in their beaks to decide whether the meat in the shell is worth the energy expenditure of caching. They fly away, sometimes only ten feet or so, and hide them in the lawn by pushing them into the ground and then covering the cache with a leaf or a clump of grass clippings. Sneaky! When they are really feeling lazy they will cache the peanuts in the geranium window box right next to where they are sitting. Then I dig them out and offer them back to the jays when they aren't looking. Oh yes, it is nonstop with crazy good times here.
This is the view from my living room window...
...if I removed the houses, roads, cars and telephone poles and wires...
You can tell some doozey-big lies with a paintbrush.
How many times do I tell myself not to throw out the tag?
Many. The answer is many.
The last of the cheerful orangey-yellow poppies around here. Not as flashy as the big red opium poppies but wonderful nevertheless.
Hiding in the bushes as they do, this catbird was mewing up a storm. At first I thought it might be a juvenile towhee begging for food so I was very pleased to see this smart slate grey fella come into view and hang out on the weigela shrub. The last time I saw a catbird was a few years ago in the underbrush in the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Florida.