Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#66-71)

Having focused on wild flowers twice, I thought I'd better give cultivated flowers their due. So, here is what's in bloom around the yard right now. (Stay posted because there are at least 2 more that have ready-to-burst buds. I'll be featuring them soon.)

Picture #66: Poppies.


Picture #67: Lily of the Valley. They have a wonderful smell. Just three stems in a vase scents the whole house.


Picture #68: Pansies.


Picture #69: A white, 6-petal flower. Anise?


Picture #70: Pink Petunia with purple centre.


Picture #71: Pink Petunia with white centre and bumblebee!

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#65)

Oh no! Tonight when I came home the neighbourhood kids let me know that 2 of the baby robins were out of the nest. The kids wanted to know if they should help. I told them to let the Mother try first and to keep their distance so that the Mother feels comfortable returning but at the same time to keep an eye on them. They wanted to touch the babies but I recommended against it because I'd heard that some wild animals reject their babies if there is someone else's smell on them.

Picture #65: 2 baby Robins on the garage floor.

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#55-64)

10 days have passed since I took note of what wild flowers were on the lot. That's more than enough time for a whole new set of flowers that prefer the middle of June to early June. Today's post is dedicated to them.

Picture #55: Small clumps of many purple flowers. They grow on a vine.


Picture #56: Tiny purple flowers that almost look like miniature pitcher plant flowers.


Picture #57: Intense lemon-lime green flowers.


Picture #58: Johnny Jump Ups.


Picture #59: Forget-me-nots still in full bloom.


Picture #60: Buttercups.


Picture #61: Dandelion in full bloom with Dandelion in closed state (left).


Picture #62: Tiny white flowers which seem to have double petals (5 petals which look like 10).


Picture #63: Clover.


Picture #64: Wild Strawberry flowers with fruit beginning to form.

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#54)

As the sun was setting tonight, a momentary sprinkle of rain passed overhead. Just long enough to cause a perfect rainbow over the house.

Picture #54: Rainbow Sunset.

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#51-53)

My neighbour and her kids were remarking on the comings and goings of the Robin parents. They wanted to know the status of the nest so I decided to investigate. Again, no flash was used so that I disturbed them as little as possible.

Picture #51: Two Robin beaks poke out over the nest. Now let's take a look from above...


Picture #52: Inside the Robin nest it looks like 3 babies! I'm so glad that the blue egg (photographed earlier) hatched and that all is well in the Robin family.


Picture #53: Here's the nest with the beaks highlighted to make it easier for you to see them.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

I paint very large pictures. I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however – I think it applies to other painters I know – is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it."
— Mark Rothko

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#49-50)

The last couple of days I've been noticing an inch worm slowly walking around the top of my new compost enclosure. He seems to love the thick wire.

When I came home from work today he was out there again so I decided to record him.

Picture #49: Inch Worm strikes a pose. I'd accidentally brushed against the compost cage and the sudden movement caused him to freeze, likely to mimic a small shoot off a branch. Hey little Inchy, don't just stand there, let's get to it. Strike a pose, there's nothing to it. Vogue, vogue, vogue, vogue.


Picture #50: Video of an Inch Worm walking. I just love the way they move.

Food Envy No More!

I have always wanted to be the person at the Chinese restaurant that was receiving the "sizzling dish". Oh come on, you have, too.

Well, yesterday I was that person!

Beef Szechwan with the sizzle:


The really fun part was when another customer asked the waitress what that dish was.

You can get your very own serving at House of Lam in Moncton. You won't be disappointed.

House Of Lam Restaurant
951 Mountain Road
Moncton, NB E1C 2S4, Canada
(506) 384-1101‎


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Tuesday Tooth Report

Everything is going very well this week. The back of my throat aches a little and my nose is sometimes instantly runny but that's all happened twice before throughout this process so I know that it's just because things are moving and the hollows of my skull around my mouth are changing.

It still amazes me that all this can happen to bone and that all of it is happening to me!

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#43-48)

The season is far enough along (I can't believe that tomorrow is the longest "day" of the year already!) that there are examples of all stages of the life of a poppy in my yard.

Picture #43: All 4 stages of the poppy's life in one photo.


Picture #44: Poppy bud.


Picture #45: Spittle Bugs love poppies; probably because of the protective 'hair' that covers all parts (except the bloom and seed pod) of the plant. Here I've shown the spit that the bug uses to protect itself as well as a close-up on a Spittle Bug.


Picture #46: Poppy in full bloom. So vibrant!


Picture #47: Aging Poppy with centre piece starting to form into a seed pod.


Picture #48: Poppy with dropped petals and seed pod fully formed.

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#32-42)

Today I decided to document the conversion of a tree stump into a flower container.

Last year one of our trees had to be cut down because it was rotting. The stump that was left behind was an interesting shape and a neighbour suggested that I make a flower pot out of it. I loved the idea so I set to work.

I quickly realized that my axe was getting me nowhere so I decided to scoop out the rotten centre and use the crevice only. Here's what I found...

Picture #32: Birch Tree stump. As it was cut down a year ago and left to the elements, I expected it to be easy to hollow out. Not so.


Picture #33: Rotten centre of our old Birch Tree. Scooping out the rotten bit was easy!


Picture #34: The wet, saw-dust centre was a mixture of loose mulched wood and pellet-like 'nodes' of wood; a lot like the crumbly quality of cut pie crust dough. I squished the pellets between my fingers. They were fairly compact but did break down into saw dust. No critters inside that I could see with the naked eye. Perhaps they were dung of some sort?


Picture #35: Millipede-like juvenile.


Picture #36: Centipede-like critter next to transparent egg-like spheres.


Picture #37: Close-up on the egg-like spheres.


Picture #38: Tiny, white egg-like sphere. I found a few of these throughout the sawdust.


Picture #39: Slug. One of four that I saw.


Picture #40: Rough Sowbug (which I have always called damp-dry bug). One of three that I saw.


Picture #41: A family of wire worms. I looked them up in my insect field guide but couldn't find them. Anyway, when I was a kid, I called them wire worms.


Picture #42: And, finally, a stump-based flower pot!

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#28-31)

At about 11 A.M. the clouds started to clear and I could tell that it would be sunny the rest of the day. So, I started planning what I'd get done around the yard.

Now that I have my compost pile set up, I decided to finally empty four bags of leaves that have been in my back yard for about a month. I figured there'd be an earthworm or two under them but nothing could prepare me for what else I found...

Picture #28: Earthworm


Picture #29: Earthworm with whip-tail (15-second video). The way the "tail" was moving to push the worm across the pavement was interesting so I thought I'd try to capture it in video but I'm afraid the most interesting part is the audio. Listen to the clinking of my dog's tags and her chomping of the grass next to me! It sounds like bad sound effects in a Giant Worm B-movie.



Picture #30: Soil Centipede (This one had 132 feet, not 100 as the name suggests. ;-)


Picture #31: Hornet nest with larvae. Yes, the beginnings of a hornet nest inside the bag of rotting leaves!

Yard — a word worth a 1000 pictures (#27)

Two rainy days in a row. But this time I was surrounded by a cacophony of bird song. I was hoping to photograph these birds so I ran inside to grab my camera. When I returned, I realized that I could only hear them — they were hidden in the trees!

One thing I could see though was how saturated the colours of nature are on overcast days. Just like these rain-soaked, wind-swept poppies.

Picture #27: Rain-soaked Poppies