Care to Take a Walk?

This afternoon I asked a reluctant husband to walk with me at Cranberry Marsh.  This is alongside Lake Ontario ... so it was windy and COLD!  The wind was whipping up white caps on the lake.  On the left of this bar of land is the marsh.

 

Lots of migrating birds like stop at this marsh for a rest, such as these beautiful mute swans.

 

 

There are always a few pairs of nesting wild swans on this marsh and an adjacent marsh.

 

 

Such graceful, proud birds.

 

 

Flying overheard was an osprey.  My husband didn't believe me, but I'll show him this picture as proof.

 

 

Ospreys are fishing hawks and will dive down into the water for fish.  They have distinctive angular wings and clear markings under their wings.  They'll hover over the water before they dive.    We didn't see any fish down in the water, but there were these cute little bufflehead ducks zooming around the marsh.  Isn't he just the cutest thing?

 

 

These ducks can really motor along ... I'd love to see their feet in action from underwater.  Just look at the wake this little guy leaves behind him as he speeds across the water!

 

 

Here is a pair of bufflehead ducks.  The male is the black & white, and the female is the brown.  An interesting fact about these ducks is that they nest in abandoned woodpecker holes!

 

 

And in particular, the flicker's hole, which is a common woodpecker in this area (didn't see any today though)

 

 

But I did see this little downy woodpecker.  If you stand outside long enough with a handful of sunflower seeds on your outstretched palm, woodpeckers will actually come to your hand.  It takes a lot of patience to win over their trust.  Chickadees will do the same (and a lot quicker!), as will nuthatches.  I know this because I used to do this as a kid :)

 

 

My favourite thing to look for in spring are the returning birds.  I'm particularly happy to see the redwing blackbirds return with their sharp cries and bright red epaulets.

 

 

When I was growing up, the redwing blackbirds would roost in an old maple tree alongside our driveway.  The tree would be completely black with the birds, and the raucous chorus of these birds on a spring evening just set your heart to singing.  The hands-down all-time best sound of spring!

 

 

I was a bit disappointed at seeing only a few blackbirds at the marsh today ... I went down specifically to see and hear them.  I have a few in my backyard too, which I lure in with lots of wild bird seeds.

 

 

Blackbirds are aggressive defenders of their nests and will attack you if you even look at them the wrong way when you're near their nest.  We were once canoeing in a marsh and I was getting some great shots of a blackbird in a branch above us, when he suddenly swooped down and started attacking us!  Whoops!  We had to struggle to get the canoe moving through that murky marsh water, but it did make us laugh.

 

And here is the obligatory Canada goose ... preparing a lovely nest just a short distance from shore.  The female was plucking out her downy feathers here with which to line the nest.  Although Canada geese get a sort of bad rap in towns (especially since thousands of them no longer migrate, and 'pollute' the parks along the lakeshores), they do have their merits.

 

 

For instance, they mate for life.  If a goose's mate dies, the surviving goose will never mate again.  I'm not sure how this is proven, but there you go.  And they're very good parents in caring and protecting their young ... another bird you don't want to be near when they are caring for their brood!

 

And I personally think they're an attractive looking goose, especially when they're flying in V-formation with all their white petticoats fluttering on their bottoms ;)

 

So once my fingers were fairly numb from the icy wind, we walked back inland a bit and took a stroll along a gravel path.  This area used to be farmland, and there are some ancient apple trees in an old orchard alongside the path.

 

 

Such a pretty spot ... and the colours of spring are starting to glow ...

 

 

We were surprised to turn around and see A VIEW!  We're right down at the lake here, but it seems we were on a bit of a rise as we could see off in the distance a portion of the Oak Ridges Moraine (the blue ridge in the background).

 

 

Here is an old disused silo from the original farm. 

 

 

 

 I'd hate to see this area destroyed, but houses have been built up all around now.  It seems no one has any desire to preserve this pretty area.  This marsh used to be Ontario's largest wetland, but we've allowed it to be dug under and houses built on top of a large portion of it.

 

 

A teeny tiny woods amongst the fields ...

 

 

Looking out towards Lake Ontario.   Whoever originally homesteaded this area for farming picked a great location.  This farm must've been teeming with wildlife in it's glory days, and the farming would've been very productive.

 

 

And that's it!  I hope you enjoyed your walk with me, and I'm sorry it was so cold!  Hopefully things will warm up a bit this coming week.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Wendy

Back to the Drawing Board

In the spirit of the Stash Busting Challenge (see button at side bar), I decided to knit myself a pair of mittens following an old Beehive booklet of my mother's.   I tell ya, these old patterns are not for the easily distracted, new-to-knitting people (such as myself!).  The pattern was beyond confusing, and I honestly think I could've done a better job myself at writing it out.  Too much is "assumed" in these patterns.  I would be certain to tell the knitter exactly what row to continue working on after completing the thumb(?!).   Too much was left to figure out on your own, and I started getting bogged down in sorting out what row I was on and where to put those darned cables.  But I ended up with this ...

 

 

I was quite pleased with my accomplishment.  What you can't tell from a finished project is the number of times a piece has been frogged, or knit up again starting after the thumb, or frogged again, or tossed in disgust in a waste bin, retrieved, knit yet again, starting at the decreasing rows, etc etc!!  To all of you it just looks like a mitten!  But what you're really looking at here is blood, sweat and tears people!

 

The worst part of all of this is that it is only ONE mitten, and sadly, mittens are meant to be knit as a PAIR!!   So after breathing a huge sigh of relief that I finished the right mitten, I had to start all over again on the left ... which I finished in record time, because I foolishly thought I had sorted out the crummy bit of the pattern, but it finished up like this ....

 

The decreasing at the top which gave me such torment in the right mitten, came back to haunt me in the left ...

 

It's too bizarre looking, and I'll have to rip it back again ... groan.  You can see how odd it looks in comparison (below) to the right mitten (actually the right mitten is on the left and the left mitten is on the right) ...

 

Last night (late), I thought it looked not half bad and actually stitched up the end and wove in the ends ... which makes for a struggle to even get the darned thing apart!  But in the light of the morning, I realized it looks so wrong, and I do need to fix it if I ever want to wear these mittens with pride.  If I ever complete the mitten properly, I will then add it to the Stash Buster Challenge link party, but until then, it must remain hidden :(

 

Hopefully, I'll soon be as thrilled as the young lady here in her perfectly knit cable mittens!

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Wendy

Signs of Spring

Even though we're still sitting at 0'C and there have been snow flakes whipping past my window all day ... thankfully nothing settled on the ground ... I have witnessed some Signs of Spring in the garden.

 

Snowdrops!  Such cute little nodding flowers :)

 

 Last spring my sisters and I had to sell my parents' house.  This was not a house that I had any feelings for, as they only lived there for two years.  My mom had brought to this house as many of her favourite plants as she could from her old place, and put them into her garden. 

 

So in the springtime before the house was sold my sisters and I dug up and removed as many of the perennials as we could out of Mom's garden, and transplanted them to our own gardens.  I didn't know what many of them were, but will find out this spring.  I didn't know I had the snowdrops until this past week.  I very nice surprise indeed!  No wonder Mom loved these little flowers as they are the first glimpse of spring here in my backyard. 

 

Next to show themselves are the iris.  I believe these will be purple and mauve, although not all of them flowered last year.  I hope they do better this year and recover from all this transplanting!

 

 

 Springtime was Mom's favourite time of year.  One of our farming neighbour's had a small wood in the midst of his fields and Mom loved to walk through this little woods looking for signs of spring.  Known to us as "Jack King's Wood", there was a pretty little pond in the woods, which helped supply the tiny flowers with water, and it was also a great place to listen to the tree frogs at dusk.  Here I am (foreground) with brother and sister admiring some tiny flower (can't remember the name of it now), which grew wild. 

 

 

 

My favourite woodland flower is the trillium, which is also a springtime flower.  We have gone camping in May and the woods have been a carpet of these beautiful white flowers.  The next shot is of trilliums, but from a previous year.   There is even a rare red trillium at the bottom of the shot.

 

Trilliums are Ontario's provincial flower, and it is against the law to pick a wild trillium here (although many people who live here don't know either of those facts!).   Since they are a wild flower, they don't transplant easily into a city garden.  Mom did transplant some of her trilliums from out of the woods and had them growing up beside our house in amongst some giant ferns.  It was a lovely woodland garden :)   And here is what they look like en masse!  Amazing! 

 

I hope there are signs of spring squeezing up through the ground where you live.  Have a wonderful day!

 Thanks for stopping by!

 

Wendy