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Since it is the scary season, I’ll post the images I created for our photo club’s monthly challenge.  Last month asked for the eerie.  We all had a great time.  Here goes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With all gathering events pretty well shut down this year, the county fair seemed likely to also take a miss. However, the fair has been going since 1836, through wars and pestilence, and was not about to be stopped now by some pesky virus. This year’s version, health conscious, was strictly drive through.

With no one allowed out of their vehicle, the fair displays were lined up along the track in front of the historic exhibition stand.  The county heeded the call.  Cars were lined up along the road to the entrance.  Slowly, they tootled in, past the line up of proudly shined up vintage tractors, farm machinery and classic autos.  

Next was the food court where mini donuts and other goodies awaited along with a free chocolate milk and a milk calendar.  Those who weren’t hungry could pull ahead and drive on to the cattle barn where calves, goats and chickens sat fenced  beside the route for the delight of children.  One could stop and look as long as one wished.

After the livestock, cars continued on right into the cattle barn which had been converted into a venue to show off quilts, jams, children’s art work, giant pumpkins and all sorts of county vegetables.

A much truncated fair, to be sure, but one that keeps the tradition going without break.  We did without the midway, the tractor pull, the horse shows and the best dog in costume competition. So this year there was no admission, only a donation at the end if one were so inclined.  Everyone was. The donation bucket did very well and the county fair beat covid to soldier on for yet another season.

I glanced out the window and saw a big dark shape on the outside.  A shape with lots of legs.  On trotting outside to have a look, I saw a huge brown spider in the corner of the window.  This spider showed no fear of me and no inclination to go scurrying off to hide. Beside the spider was a large white egg sac firmly attached to the glass.  Brown spider seemed to be standing guard.

Since I know little about spiders, I ran to look up what could be so big and so fearless.  It turns out that my spider was a wolf spider. And, scary as she looked, the info said she was quite harmless, though she could bite handily if threatened. She is called a wolf spider  because wolf spiders don’t catch their prey in webs.  They run it down just like a hunting wolf.

However, it also said that wolf spiders attach their egg sac to themselves and tote it underneath their abdomen until the eggs hatch.  Then, ever maternal, they carry their babies around on their back for weeks until they are big enough to fend for themselves.

So, I don’t think she was protecting that egg sac on the window.   I think she might have been chowing down on the contents.  Visible around her were a number of tiny spiders, probably her young, and perhaps she had arranged a holiday picnic. 

She hung about all day, only seeking the shadows when the late, hot afternoon sun  struck the glass. She had no web to go home to as wolf spiders do not spin webs. Ever solitary, they hunt alone, using all of their keen eight eyes, two of them very large, to spot the insects she loves to eat. When living around houses and barns, she helps take care of annoying insect populations.

My spider has about 200 assorted cousins on the continent. Some wander continually, some keep to their territory, some live in burrows, some climb trees, some actively hunt, some just wait to pounce when an unwary bug strolls by. They all rely on their excellent camouflage to keep out of sight.

 

Of course life is not all nocturnal partying and juicy beetles for my wolf spider.  For all her size, shelow on the food chain and provides a tasty snack for birds, lizards and hungry rodents. My wolf spider was gone the next day. Hope she is happily hunting and not a part of someone else’s dinner.

 

 

Okay, they are adorable so I have to write about them and show my pictures. For a few days in the spring, three young red squirrels made my deck their playground. They were so inexperienced, they did not yet have the sense to be afraid of humans or humans with cameras. They chased each other about, raced through the mock orange bush and took naps on the sunny railing. I have no idea where their parents were and why they were allowed to run so heedlessly loose in a dangerous world.

They tried the peanut feeder but it is so hedged round with defenses that they had to give up. They had not yet worked out how to slurp the nectar from the hummingbird feeder so they settled on the oriole’s orange. They munched that down with gusto and ran off with the rind. I have given up on other kinds of feeders due to the incursions of the black squirrels. An upside down plastic bowl as a baffle on a pole may defeat the small chipmunks and red squirrels but the black squirrels just leap over it and greedily stuff themselves as fast as they can.

Red squirrels eat mostly nuts and seed but they will also chow down on about anything else handy such as fruit, berries, mushrooms, buds, flowers, leaves, birds’ eggs even other baby animals. Whatever birds will eat, they will happily share. The hardy little creatures are spread all across the centre of the continent from Alaska to the Atlantic. In the great northern forests, they live on spruce cones, creating large middens of empty husks below the tree where they reside

The female is fertile for only one day and will venture out of her territory to find a date. In this, she has no problem and may party with over a dozen fellows just to make sure of her family. Babies, usually three or four, are born blind and hairless in a nest of grass and leaves high in a tree. They emerge from the nest in about six weeks to start exploring. Perhaps the mama of these three was glad for a little peace and quiet at home.

My visitors looked about half grown and full of vim and vigor. After about three days, when they had exhausted my treat supply, they disappeared. I hope the little creatures made it across the big open yard to the safety of the woods. They need to enjoy life while they can since they are a favourite menu item for the local carnivores. Only about 20% survive until the age of one. If they manage that, they might last about three years. The ripest old age for a red squirrel is eight. Good luck to them all. I also hope they forget that my bird feeders may eventually be refilled.

#redsquirrels #birdfeeders #squirrels

It’s that time of the year when turtles lay their eggs. For this they seek a good gravelly place to dig a hole where they deposit their eggs and cover them over until they hatch. They will go on long marches to find just the right place. Both sexes will go in search of new territory or another wetland.

I’m used to seeing lots of turtles on this journey, especially snapping turtles. I live on the edge of a marsh where these turtles imitate underwater rocks and then snatch their unsuspecting prey as it swims by. At nesting time, these turtles leave the water, make the long, laborious climb up the treed hill and into the fields. To get to the fields, they must cross the road and that’s where they are seen making their slow, purposeful way across.

Far too many do not survive the trip. They are hit either accidentally or deliberately for there are still drivers who enjoy targeting turtles with their vehicles. There is a whole other cadre of folks who will stop to help a turtle across, making sure it is in the direction they turtle was walking. Turtles set back on the wrong side of the road will just start across again.

Some turtles love the gravel road shoulders and will dig their nests right there. Should the nest manage to escape the attentions of skunks and raccoons, the hatching babies have much reduced chances of making it across the road toward the marsh alive.

In the past few years, I have seen fewer and fewer turtles. Last year only one. This year, so far, only one, a large snapping turtle heading for the pond. This dearth of turtles is most disturbing for it is mostly the females that make the march. Road deaths have so drastically reduced the females that the ratio of females to males in some species is one female for every twelve males.

Turtles are slow but long lived. A snapping turtle may survive for a hundred years. Females, of various species, take eight to 20 years before they are mature enough to produce eggs. In the wild, they can afford this leisure because adult mortality rate is so low. Add humans, add roads, habitat loss and civilization, then slow reproduction becomes a big handicap. Perhaps a fatal one.

However, spring isn’t over yet. As I bike along my stretch of marsh front, I’ll keep watch for turtles venturing onto the dangerous pavements. Traffic will stop if it has to. I’ll dodge the big snapper’s hiss and snapping jaws, shove it gingerly across and hope against shaky hope that it gets another fifty years.

It’s spring, season of gardening hope. Grass pushes up, green and lush, the trees put out their odd little blossoms and action stirs in the flower beds. The urge comes on to rush to the garden centre, come home laden with pots of bedding plants and fistfuls of seed envelopes sporting bright photos of all the blooms and veggies that will overflow in abundance.

Ha!

I have long ago finished being fooled by these false promises. My soil consists mostly of shale gravel with a little dirt in between. The region has the second lowest rainfall in the province and the only source of water is a rural well not designed for mass watering.

After watching cheery little sprouts from the garden centre start out gamely and then collapse from heat and drought, I gave up such cruelty and decided to let nature do what it would. So the yard sports local wiregrass that can stand whatever the season throws. In drought, it simply dies down into a crisp brown mat that becomes a fire hazard and appears as dead as it can possibly be. But give it a sprinkle of rain and up come new blades and the land blushes green again. You can’t kill county grass.

The other survivors are the orange day lilies that decorate roadsides and provide a thick green border round the house. They smother weeds and defy drought with tuberous roots storing their own water. Other kinds of day lilies lack that fortitude but the orange sort are indomitable.

The young sugar maple I planted years ago put out new shoots each year trying to grow a few more feet, all in vain. Inevitably, the shoots would die off and the tree remained the same dwarf size. One dry year, it turned brown all over and gave up the ghost. Only it’s stump remains.

However, nearby, there is a big Manitoba maple that has stood there ever since I can remember. It sports a massive trunk, a great crown of leaves that never turn yellow no matter how bad the drought. Much maligned as a weed tree, this rugged species springs up unwanted along fences, in waste lots and even thrusts vigorously through the cracks between pavement and wall. My tree, sitting on bedrock a foot or so below, has put out a far ranging lateral root system and may even has been lucky enough to find a crack in the limestone, letting it send a shoot down 120 feet, the depth of the well, to where water might be found. It is kindred in spirit to the scrappy red cedars which take so enthusiastically to poor soil and jeer, like hardened gang members, at more civilized breeds gasping for moisture.

Oddly, peonies can take the worst and still produce lush blooms. Also yucca, which I thought was a southern desert inhabitant, stays green and puts out tall, impressive stalks of creamy blossoms against a backdrop of brown grass. No matter how dry and hot, blue devil, or viper’s bugloss (wonderful name), thrusts up out of the dormant lawn, ready to stab anything that dares touch its blue flower stalks. In the flower bed, gold and pink yarrow still have enough wild yarrow in them to stay alive no matter what.

And, of course, there are the ubiquitous lilacs, lining the roadsides, filling the air with heady perfume in the spring, surviving and spreading a century after the homesteaders who planted them are long gone.

So every spring I pass up the garden centres, wishing best of luck to all the geraniums, marigolds, impatiens, zinnias and nasturtiums on their way to pleasant new homes. By not buying them myself, I am sparing their lives. Among my orange lilies, yuccas and yarrow, I’ll do just fine.

Now that snow has melted away and I hike down the road for exercise, I decided to vary the view by seeing what has shown up in the ditches. Most interestingly, it was beer cans scattered vigorously along the stretch of less than half a mile I was inspecting.

Alongside the beer cans were the beer bottles and then the empties of hard liquor. All of these must have been tossed out the window of a whizzing vehicle. So one can only assume that their contents were consumed while the driver was at the wheel. It could be that only passengers indulged but one has to suspect not really.

I could have counted the beer cans but the number might have reached dozens. Some shiny new and others in various states of crumpled decay, indicating that this pitching practice has been going on for some time. Bud Light was a big favourite but Coors and Molsen Canadian were also strongly represented. Other beers, like Stella Artois and Lucky Lager joined the crowd along with assorted vodka spiked waters and flavoured sodas, indicating a wide range of tastes and refinement.

Curiously, the beer cans and bottles were punctuated with a many empty containers of Boost, the powerful nutritional drink designed to bring failing systems back from the brink. Less frequent, but also there, were cans from Red Bull and other caffeine blasted energy drinks. Combine enough Smirnoff, Boost and Red Bull and you might have a human torpedo behind the wheel.

This stretch of road is long, straight and uninhabited, the perfect place to pitch one’s empties and step on the gas. Sometimes my neighbour and I grit our teeth when a roaring engine hits the double curve by our houses, spewing up a great cloud of dust as sliding tires chew the shoulder. The pasture fence has multiple patches from vehicle encounters. Both ends of the metal driveway tiles are bashed in. The roadside survivalist oak tree bears a livid scar on its side. The ornamental pine in the yard grows at a drunken angle from being flattened when yet another speeder lost the pavement.

So, on my walks I stay far off to the side when I hear that telltale engine snarl. Though I haven’t actually seen anyone guzzling at the wheel, very suspicious evidence lies at my feet. The ditches tell me to take very good care indeed.

Bonus Finds: Someone’s socks and a microwave oven. No explanation.

At the end of February, cold and frozen, spring seems far away. However, the days are noticeably longer and the odd spate of warmth creates patches of brown in the snow. But no matter the weather, the inevitable signs of new season show up.

Canada geese and ducks begin to arrive and gather in crowds on the along the edge of the frozen pond. When there is a bit of melting, they swim. When the cold nights freeze again, they are forced back to shore. At the bird feeder, red-winged blackbirds appear and the dark-eyed juncos depart for their summer in the north.

Walking to school, as a kid, the trill of the red-winged blackbirds from the marsh was a delightful sound. It meant we could soon shed winter footwear and put on shoes. The first day in shoes, after trudging along in heavy galoshes, always felt like walking on air.

Not long after the geese, the pair of mute swans fly in. Odd as they look standing about on the ice, they are already eager to set up house and get started on this year’s family. They are an invasive species from Eurasia, aggressive, territorial and eating large amounts of aquatic plants other birds need. Very ornamental though.

I hike back in the fields and see that the wind has taken cedars that died in the last major drought, smack down on the fences. Farther back, I discover a mesh of cedar branches which turns out to be a hunting blind built by some hunter in hunting season. It is placed to spot deer venturing out into the open. It is complete with green plastic chair, empty beer cans and a carpet of cigarette butts on the ground. Someone was a heavy smoker. Perhaps I will try it out in the summer as a photography blind.

No doubt there are plenty more surprises but I will have to wait until the water blocking the lane goes down and the sticky black mud dries enough to get near the pond. Meanwhile, green blades of grass show where the snow gives way and, no doubt, the indestructible thistle crop is busily plotting how far it can spread this year. Still to come is the final sign of spring: the busy march of ants across the kitchen counter.

This winter has been warmer than usual but the ice on the beaver pond holds up enough for a trip back to check out how the pond engineers are spending the winter. They are at home deep in their beaver lodge snacking on tasty twigs and perhaps binge watching Netflix. They are far too busy in the summer for such idle distractions.

Their dam, which creates the pond, is three fields long yet, in summer, it only takes a single small breach to bring the inspectors out to fix the hole. Highly sensitive to running water, the beavers. In winter, when the water freezes, they don’t need to bother.

Their lodge, a large dome of mud and branches, can only be reached on foot in the winter. Fortunately for the inhabitants, the lodge becomes a frozen fortress, repelling the coyotes, foxes and wolves who smell a warm meal just a few feet down but cannot dig it out through the icy hardness. Evidence that they have tried hard is all around. They probably heard the beavers laughing at them too.

I don’t know if they ever come outside the winter. In fact, I don’t see how they could through all that ice. And why bother? The former farm pond, now just a deeper spot in the large beaver pond, is crammed with stored branches as their larder. A diet of wet bark may not be to everyone’s taste but seems to be a beaver delicacy. They are well stocked and have digestive systems way tougher than ours.

We all might wish we were as cosy and secure. The beavers might have a couple of young kits in there also which they will introduce the world in the spring. After a year or so of intensive engineering school, the kits will be kicked out to create their own ponds elsewhere. New babies need the space. Beavers are back in the region for good after so many long decades of being creatures only seen in books. Let’s be grateful for more water and more wetlands, more wildlife and, just maybe, some push back against our regular summer droughts, all thanks to this industrious rodent with the toothy smile. May it’s winter rest be full of holiday delights.

The winter winds are howling and the pond, filled to capacity with autumn rains, is frozen over, spilling long fingers of ice into the old dead furrows of a hundred years ago. Now that Australia is on fire, let us remember that we too can suffer overwhelming drought.

The county , never big on rainfall, suffered such a drought only a couple of summers ago and became also vulnerable to fire. The grass, well adapted, simply turns a crispy brown and dies at the surface, hoarding its tiny spark of life somewhere inside its equally dry and withered root. Lawnmowers are forgotten. The pastures are eaten to ground by hungry cattle. With no new grass, farmers have to break out bales of hay for them in the middle of the summer.

It’s not long before crops stop growing, standing about in stunted rows and exhibiting swathes of yellow where desperately seeking roots cannot find a drop of moisture to sustain them. As drought goes on, shrubs and bushes drop curled leaves. Residents watch the sky, cheering on any shrunken gray cloud that might promise a shower but never delivers. Wells run dry. People resort to the vigorous water hauling businesses that will, for a price, send a truck to fill up the water tanks and reservoirs the prudent have installed to get through the dry times.

Eventually, the trees are struck, first the small ones then the great oaks and maples giving up, turning orange and shedding their leaves long before autumn. Dark banks of mud appear in the marshes. My large wetland pond shrinks to a murky puddle where ducks, geese and swans battle to feed on the few remaining water plants that is their diet. The swans are especially hard hit because they are in the midst of molting, unable to fly away in search of food elsewhere. They set out on foot with their hungry, almost full grown young ones but are frustrated by page wire fences, roads and more dry fields beyond. Their plight is very visible, their breasts blackened with mud from when they couldn’t find enough water to swim. Volunteers from the wildlife refuge come for them even though capturing a large, angry swan is no easy undertaking.

Eventually, it rains. Grass, first to wither and appear hopelessly dead, puts up green shoots at the first hint of moisture. If showers continue, larger plants will produce fresh buds. An eager mist of green spreads over the land. It isn’t until the following spring that the true toll shows up. There are trees that never again put out new leaves but only raise the stark bare limbs of the truly dead. A drive down any road reveals the casualties in the form of gray skeletons huddled together where the soil was too thin to hold the water they needed to stay alive.

Like Australia, our drought lands become a fire hazard. The county issues a complete fire ban with big fines for a bonfire and constant fears that someone careless idiot will toss a cigarette butt into the tindery grass at the roadside or the flammable red cedars everywhere. So Australia, though we do not have the roaring monster conflagrations in our neighbourhood that you do, in our small way, we do understand. Climate change is coming upon us all. Time to get our butts in gear and do something about it now.