Happy Beginning of 2016

Happy new year, happy endings and beginnings.

Enjoy the small gorgeous gifts which nature offers.

Look closely, breathe deeply, relax into delight.

Each moment is new.

Sunrise on Big Tancook Island NS

We spent five days on Big Tancook Island to celebrate

Gary's special birthday this year.  This is the 5 am view 

from our bedroom window, birthday sunrise.

The colours of the southeast cove 

and the morning sky warmed

and changed like melting crayons.

Our time on Big Tancook Island 

and our birthday celebrations 

were peaceful, full of delight

and laughter.

Big Tancook Island is the ultimate get-away, 

providing opportunities to shed the unnecessary

burdens of life and to simply be,

fully alive, and aware of the natural world.

Gary says it made a birthday he will never forget.

Last of May

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though spring was late this year, the yard has, at last, leafed in.  And, when our yard leafs in, we are surrounded by walls of green, closing us off from neighbours, in a cozy, friendly way.  We are wrapped in nature; rapt in nature, too.  It feels so good.

Chipmunk Chatter

This chipmunk lives in our rock wall and comes out to chatter and hunt for food, or sometimes just to sun.  He usually keeps a safe distance, but he popped out of a hole near the deck and didn't notice we were sitting there.  He is one of many who co-habit this property with us.  We were content to see him close enough to capture a good photo.

Love is in The Air

The ring necked pheasant male is trilling and squawking from his vantage point, looking for love in the yard.  When he spots a female, he squawks and fluffs his feathers to attract her attention. 

"Hey, look at me.  Ain't I fine?  Choose me, choose me."

Love is in the air.  Or is it just nature and need?

Whatever it is, it's loud and colourful and urgent. 

 

Photos and words are copyright carol Steel.

Look Deep

 

 

Look deep into nature,

and then you will understand

everything better.

 

Albert Einstein

Northern Goshawk

Carnage...blood, feathers, body parts…that’s what we saw when we opened our curtains this morning. 

All winter, we’ve fed Mallards and American Black ducks.  Instead of seeing 3 to 4 dozen ducks waiting for cracked-corn breakfast, we saw 3 ducks huddled under the branches of cedar trees in the neighbour’s yard.  In the tamped down space where we feed the ducks, we saw blood and feathers and bits of duck.  My stomach rolled.

What had happened?  What had killed the duck?  Where was the rest of the duck?

Figuring that dead-duck bits would be off-putting for the usual crowd, Gary went outside and cleaned up the mess.   We didn’t put out any food for the morning feeding, not wanting to entice more ducks to their doom.   Despite this, we knew that we couldn’t stop feeding ducks in mid-winter; they were accustomed to us providing for them.

Soon after the duck-remains removal, we looked out and noticed a Northern Goshawk sitting in one of our maples, 40 feet away.   Patient, it sat there waiting and surveying the yard.  We grabbed the camera and began taking photos.

To our surprise, it floated down and began rooting around, digging in the snow, searching for the duck remains.  The Goshawk must have carried away the biggest part of the duck and had now returned for the head and neck, it had left behind. 

The Northern Goshawk was 15 feet away from our kitchen windows.  It watched us, watching it.  It stared back at us and kept on digging.

Eventually, the Northern Goshawk flew away with a murder of crows squawking and chasing it away from their nests and our yard. 

The ducks?   The Goshawk was still around.  Crows were flying overhead, their raucous cries filled the air.  The ducks circled but didn’t land.  The robins and chickadees were hiding.  The yard was still, deathly still.

Deadly, agile and able to fly with lightning-fast turns through the trees in our yard, the Northern Goshawk was hunting.

We felt badly about the duck kill, even though we knew that this was nature, was reality, was the food chain.

We were grateful and felt fortunate to have seen this powerful bird, up close, even though it killed one of "our" ducks.  The Northern Goshawk was a stunning sight, despite the carnage.  It was being what nature created it to be...a ferocious predator.

All photos are mine.  Words in red will take you to another site, if you click on them. 

There you will find additional information about Northern Goshawks.

Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine Falcon

Where are the birds?

We feed ducks and pheasants each day.  Our yard provides shelter to robins, blue jays, grackles, chickadees and goldfinches when they choose to visit.  Crows nest in the woods behind our street, and in a cedar taller than the house, in the neighbour’s yard.

Where did the birds go?

Today the ducks have flown away and returned many times.  They did not land and stay to eat, kept bursting skyward.  The crows and blue jays were noisier than usual.  Raucous circling in the clear sky.  So clear, it was endless blue. The chubby robins were hesitant and brief in their trips to the seed cones of the Staghorn Sumac. The cats, who spend hours on indoor chairs watching birdie TV outside, meowed and moved from one viewing point to another.  They were up and down stairs racing from window to window, and up and down from their chairs all afternoon.

Agitation and noise.  Birds flew through and paused for a moment but did not settle and feed.

Mid-afternoon I discovered why.  As I sat writing at the kitchen table, I caught the movement of a shadow across the snow.  I looked up and saw a Peregrine Falcon drop through the branches of maple, turn and wheel between the sumac and the spruce, chase up through the hill that is our yard closing in on a starling.

I stared, my mouth agape.  I’ve never seen a Peregrine Falcon before.  It was blue-grey, heavy-breasted, with a 3.5 foot wing span, swinging through the yard with feet clenched, ready to strike.  The two birds flew up and over the garage and out of visual range.  It happened in a moment.

Though I know the starling likely ended becoming supper, it was a moment I won’t forget.  Raw and powerful.  The wheel of life and death, the cycle we all share. 

And the Peregrine Falcon, it was magnificent!

Our regular birds didn't share my opinion and showed wisdom by avoiding the yard today.

If you click on words in colour,

you will go to another website with additional information.

Crow in the Birdbath

Crow in the Birdbath

A crow family has made our tall trees their new home.  These are my photos from yesterday.

If you enjoy crows, go to Gwen Buchanan's blog (click here) to read more and see her gorgeous art, some of it centered around her love of crows.

See also my blog of June 26, 2011 for crow information.

Are you intrigued by crows?

After this crow finished bathing, it gracefully flew up to the canopy on our swing seat and wiped its face and beak on the fabric. 

So tidy and fascinating!

Photos are mine.

What Kitties Know

What Kitties Know   (continued  #7 - #9)

7. Kitties know that regular routines are comforting.
8. Kitties know that Spring IS coming.
9. Kitties know that it is important to spend time appreciating Nature.

Kitties are good people.

Life is Like Knitting a Pair of Mittens

Knitting begins with the spark of an idea.  I see a fine-looking skein of yarn – soft, fresh smelling, nubby and squishy, silent except for the crinkly paper band – and am enticed to create something practical or beautiful or both.

I explore my yarn stash.  Every knitter has one: secret heaps of multicoloured skeins yearning to be wound into tidy yarn cakes or efficient balls, longing to be knit into useful warm socks, sturdy comforting sweaters, striped or cabled scarves, gorgeous expansive shawls, practical protective hats or cozy sensuous mittens.

I choose mittens.  Where can I find a pattern - in a magazine, seductive with glossy photos, or in a book admonishing advice, “knit a swatch first”, or online at my favourite yarn shop’s website?  What size needles do I need?  What do I already have?  Will they work?

I begin, knit, make mistakes, unravel, and knit again.  Adjust my pattern instructions, fiddle with my knitting, measure, fine-tune again and knit.  Click, click, click of needles.

A bit like life, isn’t it?  All of this organizing, venturing, creating, retreating and progressing with detours and adjustments.

Finally I’m finished.  The mittens are lovely, soft, thick, warm.  I like them so well that I wear them in the house for a while, enjoying the pleasantly subtle waxy feel of the thick fuzzy strands.  The woolly earthy fragrance reminds me that these homemade mittens embody relationship between my handiwork and nature’s offerings from alpaca or sheep, goats or angora rabbits.

These mittens are charming and imperfect, not quite the way I had imagined, but delightful, comforting and useful just the same.

Learning from my mistakes, I note improvements for the next pair of mittens, eyeing the tantalizing textures and beckoning hues of the yarn stash … ideas sparking!