Dying Daffodils

The daffodils are slowly on their way out.  They have had a good long run though, no doubt due to our miserable cold wet Spring:(

Sh*t Hawks

That's what they used to be called by locals hanging out at the beach in White Rock.

A large flock of seagulls over the farm fields on the way home from the dyke.

Snap! Ginger that is...

When it's a miserable, dark, wet, feels like winter kind of day, and there's nothing good to eat in the house....

it's time to bake:)

Tulips

Borrrrring!

It turned into a miserable rainy day.

Calli has tucked my dirty smelly doggy farmy runners under her ear, and looks totally bored:(

Happy Easter (Eggs)!

Maple Blossoms

The fruit trees still haven't bloomed.  Right now the pear tree is  3 1/2 weeks behind last year, and it will still be a few days yet.

The maple trees are starting to bloom though.

Like the Swallows to Capistrano....

.....The wasps have returned to our greenhouse.

As far as I can tell they are European Paper wasps.

Usually they and I manage to coexist peacefully.

Evening

I did remember to take a photo yesterday, just forgot to post it. 

Here's the setting sun shining through an alder, hazelnut, plum and the closest, an apple tree.

The Fruit of Yesterday's Labour

Crabapple Jelly looks so lovely with the light shining through it.  There's a post about picking the crabapples here.

here

Another Weird Weather Day

After starting out to be a lovely sunny, albeit cool, Spring type morning, the clouds rolled in.  The next thing it was pouring rain with snow mixed in.  We left here in the rain and drove into town, where the sun was now out and the roads were all steamy.  The zoom lens compresses everything and does make the steam look thicker than it was, but it was pretty cool none the less.

Woodland Walk

Queen of the Sh*t Pile

Well, since it's been sitting there for a year now, the pile that is, not Luna, I think we'll just call it a compost pile.

A Comparison

Today, compared to.....

April 16, 2010

Tulips

A bunch of tulips I purchased at the grocery store.  This time last year we had our own blooming.

Just for you Meredith!

Your car is wishing it is with you in Florence, where one would assume the weather is nicer than this!

Yes, that's snow:(

Oh, and your vicious cat Smudge whacked our lovely dog Luna this morning, and there are quite a few blood spots on the lovely 'clean' Chinese rug in the family room.

(Only Meredith will get all the humour in that sentence)

Does This Shadow Make Me Look Fat?

So it was just about sunset at the end of a rainy afternoon.  I was starting to wonder what on earth I could take a photo of on a dreary day.  Suddenly the sun flashed out, and there I was in full 'colour' on the wall.

A Sign of the Season

We are all daffy around here at this time of the year!

Bradner (where we live) is said to be the daffodil capital of Canada.  The area abounds with roadside stands like these, selling cut daffodils on the 'honour' system.  Well to be honest, this stand is probably a little bigger than most, and sells potted bulbs as well as cut flowers.  

The owners of these stands could be anyone with a few rows of bulbs grown just for the purpose of making a bit of money by selling at the road side, to large farms that ship hundreds of thousands of cut stems each year, and produce as many bulbs for sale in the Fall.

The Bradner Flower Show is held every year (last weekend in fact).  

Here's some information about the grower of these daffodils, taken from this publication:      http://www.flounder.ca/FraserSouth/yak/YAKmay09.pdf

Click on the link and scroll down for the picture that goes with this article.....

Here is a snapshot of our own Matt Groves in 

front of some of his award-winning daffodils. Matt, 

a long time daffodil grower in Bradner and Mount 

Lehman, returned from the American Daffodil Society 

National Convention held April 25-27 in Chicago 

with ribbons a-plenty. Attended by growers from the 

US, England, Ireland and New Zealand, he was the 

only participant from Canada. Matt won first, second 

and third place ribbons for three of his varieties of 

double pink daffodils. In addition, his daffodils in 

other categories won a total of 7 first-place ribbons, 8 

second-place, 10 third-place and 3 honorable mentions, 

including an honourable mention for one of his own 

hybrids. He was also the recipient of  a special Judges 

Choice Award for one of his photographs.

Kudos to Matt!

Minimal Monday-Spring!

Best Before Date

Found some pretty good savings on food for the dogs today.

Chicken for breakfast tomorrow morning.

The Riding Lesson

I was planting more potatoes in the garden this afternoon.  I could hear a lot of voices out in front of our place, and then after a bit I saw a girl on a horse go galloping down the side of the road.  Then she came back up, and then she galloped back down.  There's a really nice shoulder on the road between us and our neighbours.  It is a long stretch of grass and moss with no driveways or mailboxes to interfer with having a good gallop.

Back in my teens and early twenties I had a couple of horses that were boarded out, but it was 'self board' which meant I had to go and look after them once or twice a day.  Most of my riding was done along the road.  I used to love it when there was a good stretch of shoulder on a quiet road, and you could let your horse go!

It was a thrill to be on a horse that was racing like the wind:)  Even to this day if I'm walking down a road and there is a good spot for a gallop, I feel the urge!

Seems like the girl on the horse was getting a riding lesson from the girl in white, and she went back and forth quite a few times.  I did wonder though how the girl on the horse could hear what the other one was telling her over the pounding of the hooves.  

Of course by the time I came back out with the camera, they were done, and were on their way home.

(I felt a bit like a peeping tom, taking these shots with my zoom)

Weird Dogs

We headed down to the dyke this afternoon to take the dogs for a walk/swim.  They are always besides themselves on the short drive there, because they know where they are going.  We were just about there, and the window was rolled down a bit, and Luna did this.  Now normally I would have rolled the window up enough so there wasn't room for her to get her head out, but since we were only seconds from getting to our destination, I just let her be.

A two-headed dog!

And then when we were walking back along the dyke, off to our left was a sun dog.  Well there were two of them, I realized when I glanced back as we were driving away, but the camera batteries were dead, so this is the only photo I got.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Smudge catching some rays this morning on the roof of the old shed.

Pocketful of Posies

This is what I was going to take a picture of yesterday until that buzzing bee came along. 

Funny though, when I was out there this afternoon, all of a sudden I heard a buzzing, and there it was again.  This time it landed on the heather.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I was at the front of the house trying to take a picture of something, anything, while the sun blessed us with it's presence for a few brief moments this afternoon.  There was a loud buzzing, and this gigantic bee thing was flying around the front of the house.  It eventually landed on the ground.  The body was 3/4 -1" long.

Kinda Depressing

Do we notice the  crummy weather more as we get older?

I know the elderly definitely feel the cold more, and I guess we're all heading in the elderly direction, just some sooner rather than later.

Whatever it is, the long dragged out winter seems to be getting to me this year.  

Maybe because I'm trying to take photos more often...and it just makes it harder.

Of course it all gets forgotten when we get a nice Spring type day, but days like today at this time of the year really seem to get me down.

So here we have it.  Rain running down the kitchen window, which it's been doing since I got up, and the temperature 6 degrees below 'normal'. Yuk:(

Haida Art

Part of what we saw at the airport today

Procrastination

Yes, I did take a photo of the computer screen.

Check out the cute video below

                                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P785j15Tzk

April Showers

Okay, a crummy photo, but it was a crummy day...

I got back outside just before dark, and wanted to take something that represented the wet and miserable day it was, and this was the best I could do.

What you can't see is the water coming out of the downspout and flowing over the closest corner of the bucket.

SOOC

It rained all day, and is still raining now at 10 pm.