Plucky Spring Arrivals

 Winter has been rainy but not overly cold this year with hardly any snow at all, but nothing lasts forever. While hardly impressive by prairie standards, we did get a dusting of snow along the beach which made summer feel even further away, but did make for some pretty landscapes of tankers and birds.

 While I was mildly affronted by the snow, I'm sure it came as a bit of a shock to the clusters of daffodils that were trying to establish themselves along the seawall and bring a little bit of colour and cheer to the neighborhood.

 Fortunately I had the day off and could spend a little bit of time balanced on the slippery hillside with my macro lens taking some closeups of icy blossoms before the sun rose and melted away the majority of the ice.

Prepping the balcony garden

Every spring there is a big plant sale at the VanDusen garden, and every few years we manage to make our way down to take advantage of it (and fight old ladies over the last kale). This year we went with our gardening aficionado friends Ginna and Travis, and even managed to snag a friend with a ride of theirs, making it far more pleasant than taking the bus.

We were quite early so there was plenty to see and choose from. Kathryn was even sweet enough to pose with all her new acquisitions for a little photo in the checkout line. I unfortunately underestimated how much space we had available on the balcony so she didn't get as much as she might have if I wasn't along, but we still have a lot of nice new things in our little garden. All told we now have tomatoes, rosemary, fuchsias, tomatoes, miniature rose, kale, and a sundew now adorning our apartment.

Kathryn has been making so many nice little pots in her ceramics course that I wanted to be sure to highlight at least one of them with a plant. Neither of us are huge cactus fans, but they had a goodly assortment of succulents, so I picked one out to perch on the living room window and put some of her hard work to good use. 

Fall blooms and garden harvests

 A few years ago, Kathryn had a New Years resolution to grow something from a seed, and that idea quickly grew into a sizeable balcony garden with a nice selection of tasty vegetables, savoury spices, and hummingbird-friendly flowers. Much like her father, she enjoys growing hot peppers, and while not AS hot as the ones Bevan cultivates, these ones have been pleasantly fiery and recently helped out with a turkey curry.

 This is her second year of growing tomatoes and they have done very well although the extreme heat of this summer has kept them a little more parched than would be ideal, even after nightly waterings. Still, that cluster of delicious multicoloured fruits goes to show that her efforts are far from in vain.

 Rounding out the set, a few years ago Valerie brought several cuttings from her hoya plant, which had always been a favorite of Kathryn's. Since then, not only have the plants thrived and grown several feet of vines which are currently weaving around the vertical blinds by the balcony, but for the first time every they are blossoming. There are currently 4 little clusters of waxy, earthy-smelling flowers which have all opened in the last few days, much to our delight.

Mayne Island Japanese Garden

 While both sets of parents were in town, we took a short visit to the Gulf Islands, and in one little jaunt we took a day to explore Mayne Island. As luck would have it the "Tour des Isles" was taking place that very weekend and we found ourselves with locals eager to drive us to the sites and showcase their home. So what began as a trip to a nearby harbor quickly escalated into royal treatment with chauffeured excursions.

 One spot immediately suggested by our guide was the Japanese garden, which was an absolutely stunning place to spent an hour in relatively quiet contemplation. Originally built to commemorate the early Japanese settlers of the island, many of whom were unfairly imprisoned during World War 2, it evokes an exotic feel to this little west coast town.

(click on the panorama below to enlarge it)

 We had never heard of this garden, so it came as a delightful and unexpected surprise. The combination of plants and sculptures made for a very pleasing landscape to relax and explore at our leisure.

Santa Barbara Mission

 On our drive from Los Angeles to Monterey, we stopped in the town of Santa Barbara to visit their Franciscan mission (click on the image below to enlarge it). Various iterations and improvements on this place of worship have been underway since 1786 and it represents just one of the missions dotting along the California coast.

 The main courtyard houses an enormous fig tree which really benefits from a wide angle lens to try and capture just how completely it fills the area and provides a delightful cooling shade. This courtyard was also home to several species of birds and a number of small lizards which could be found sunning themselves on trees or rocks.

 This side gate was a small feature of the entire mission, but for me captured more of what I had expected from an early-settlement California "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" sort of holy place. While the modern mission is very appealing, this part of the wall felt a bit like looking through time to the original building of long ago.

Seasonal Mushrooms

 Amidse the panic and frenzy that was my midterms week came a moment of calm when Kathryn insisted I come out (and bring my macro lens) to see a secret she had to share. After a short walk we came to a frequently trod corner of Stanley Park which had become home to an astonishing variety of mushrooms in a very small area. The brown woody one below is the outlier which we are unable to identify, but any amateur mycologists are welcome to chime in via the comments.

 We looked this one up in our mushroom guide and believe it is a Fragile Russula which are apparently inedible, not that we'd really want to be cooking anything that turned up a few meters from the parking lot in the first place.

 Fans of Super Mario Brothers and the Grateful Dead alike can probably recognize this Fly Amanita mushroom, famous for both giving you an extra hitpoint against flying turtles and being a hallucinogen. Although it has a proud history amongst Siberian shamans and is apparently quite popular at rural Lithuanian wedding feasts, we decided to only enjoy it through our camera.

While it is supposed to be good for killing flies (hence Fly Amanita), it is potentially very dangerous as well and was a favorite poison during the Roman era.

Cathedral Grove

For shame. This has been lying in my post queue way to long. Sorry big, beautiful 600 year old trees. Yes, one of those guys was alive and well when Christopher Columbus was sailing across the ocean blue. That one below I believe.  This is Cathedral Grove which the highway from Nanaimo to Port Alberni and the Pacific Rim splits in half.  Its very accessible on both sides of the road.  It makes it crowded but what can you do.

There are only a few stands of these enourmous old growth trees left in British Columbia.  Most are not protected. These were logged once upon a time as many stumps still bear the marks of spring boards.  We are lucky that so many in this area were spared.  It is important to know that logging continues right next to these protected areas.  The surveyors are very good and preservering sightlines from highways.  Sometime walk off the number 1 highway west of Banff (don't get lost). Very quickly you will likely find yourself in either a block surveyed for cutting or the junk left behind.  All those little roads with the radio numbers are logging roads.

Its very intimidating to look up and find yourself unable to really make out the topds of the trees.  I think it would be cool to be a bird or a squirrel and be able to go from the forest floor to the canopy in seconds.  Oh that gives me a GoPro idea. I wander if I can attach one to a bow and arrow... Stand by for that!

Indulging my Plant Lust

With Geordie and I's move to the 4th floor on the west side of the building I can finally indulge my plant lust..... oh yes....  My geraniums have exploded.  I thought I was going to lose them for awhile but they rallied and have been blooming non stop.  I see alot of balconies with geraniums so they must like this side of things.

I also got some marigolds.  Now I have something for Day of the Dead for my skulls and bone dolls!  It started with one flower and then more came.  The English mint that I took out of that pot and put in another is bent on world domination. I sense a Dr. No scenario only its an English Mint stroking a white spider mite. 

Best part is the T O M A T O E !  I have been wanting home grown tomatoes near forever it seems.  I found a patio roma variety so I got it and it has been producing like nobody's business.  I have done BLTs, and fresh toms with home grown basil, fig infused balsamic vineger and mozza cheese.  Hmmmm Baby!  I'm a bit worried about it now because of the heat wave and the yellowed leaves but I continue to enjoy the wee bit of gardening I can do out there.  The orchid continues to struggle..... so the epic continues.

Blodel Conservatory- birdies and plants

Finally, Geordie and I got our buts on a lovely day to the Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park.  It is on Little Mountain, south of False Creek.  The conservatory is the dome thing in the background.  Where the photo was taken is a quarry type garden.

Inside the Bloedel Conservatory were a plethora of exotic, tropical and desert plants and birds.  Below is a bromeliad.  There were also pitcher plants, orchids, various palms, ferns and flowering trees and shrubs.  A good place for a variety of camera lenses.  My favorite was bird spotting.

Speaking of some of the birds we saw, this is Rosie an African Grey Parrot.  African Grays are native to the Congo and one of the most intelligent of animals among dolphins and chimps.  We were fortunate enough to hear many of her odd sounds including clicks, clucks, chirps, warbles and funny noises.  I am not a huge advocate of parrots in captivity because of their intelligence but so much of their habitat is in trouble that this is often the only recourse. 

Snowshoe Peak

Behold the glorious peak of Mount Hollyburn and the vista that is Vancouver...... Yes.     Apparently on a clear day you can see Mt. Baker.  Could not have climbed that without snowshoes. I was told the best way to descend with snowshoes is just running downhill. I prefer sliding.

More Who Trees.  Nice and bowed over with snow.  Those are tree tops. The snow is so deep and packed that we were walking around the tops of trees. It doesn't look that way but there was at least 10 feet of snow beneath us.

And it wouldn't be an outing without a spherical panorama. I love the vista at the top of the photo. It gives a new perspective. This is taken just below the peak of Hollyburn Mountain. To get here you have to go into the back country about one kilometre. This was taken near where the snowshoer fell of a cliff but we are careful and we did not go much past this point. In the back country caution always wins.

Fanciful Frozen Forms

Both Geordie and myself were intrigued with snow covered trees. Hemlocks in particular look like 'Who Trees'.  Like the ones in 'The Grinch Who Stole Christmas".  Sometimes you can see fanciful shapes.  Geordie had to point out to me the elephant head formed by the snow and tree below.

".

In a meadow up on Hollyburn the ice had created these beautiful feathery formations.  So delicate.  We lacked a decent macro lens for a detailed close up.  Or perhaps it looks like tiny trees.  In such a tiny thing there is so much detail. So amazing.

This is a neat bit of landscape too.  The snow built up along the one side then it looks like the tree blew or pressure from the snow pushed it to one side.  It looks to me like a white hand or maybe a tentacle coming to grasp the tree. Tree type I think may be a hemlock.

This Be Wine Country

Love at first sight. Unfortunately the luggage monkeys destroyed my huge tun of wine.  Well not really.  They were decorating a lawn (empty) but I couldn't help going up to one and hugging it in the glorious fall weather of Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Now for the context.  Geordie, Peter, Sharon and myself took a drive around Niagara-on-the-Lake wine country.  Lots of orchards, nuts, cheese and a winery or two or three or thirty.  The different colours of the grape vines are different species of grape for different wine types.

This is a peek into one of the operating wineries.  This one is an ecologically run one that utilizes solar energy and no chemicals.  Very nice.  It smelled really good in there too.  It had a scent of oak casks mostly.  It was a great day driving about lovely countryside.

Butchart Gardens

Butchart gardens is pretty pricey for a bunch of plants. Never the less we went.  We were there in the late afternoon and stayed for fireworks.  I got to ride on this little bronze statue named Annabelle sculpted by Nathan Scott.

This is the sunken garden.  On the top right you can see some people. It is this old bit of limestone left behind when the whole place was a quarry. You can climb up it and look over the plants and trees.  We were there over the September long weekend so the summer plants were still blooming nicely.

As always, Geordie has his fish-eye and took another planet panorama.  I think this is in the Japanese garden.  It is a very nice bushy sphere.  The path running throw it is a nice divider and gives it some pleasing symme'tree'.

As always you can click on the little planet panorama above to enlarge it.

Puttin' the Fun in Fungus

So I've gotten into mushrooms lately. I want to know which ones I can eat, pickle, saute or make certain hallucinogenic tea out of. I also want to know which ones will not make my duodenum try to exit out my left ear.  So to that effect I got a book and made poor Geordie take pictures of fungi! I am not yet perfect on my IDs so if anyone thinks something is different I really want to know.   The one below I believe is a Red-Belted Polypore a very tough fungus. Inedible.

NO idea what that cute yellow one is. Some kind of Stropharia maybe. Didn't taste it just poked it a bit. If you know type me a note!

This is not a wet pile of bear crap. It is this very hard shiny black fungus on a fallen tree. Maybe a disease sort of thing. Again I don't know. It was very prevalent in this one area of fallen trees. Conifers. Spruce and some ceder in the area. So mushrooming is a challenge. I am not yet confident of my IDs but pretty sure I ID'd some nommable morels and a huge chanterelle in the Chilcotins that I could probably have picked  and sold to a restaurant for $$$. In the meantime I will continue to learn my shroomies!

Lynn Canyon

Geordie and I used what is turning out to be the only nice day this Spring to hike Lynn Canyon. If we had a bit more forethought we may have done the back country but as it turns out we had a great time puttering around. We did get off the designated path though (don't be like us as it can be dangerous). Lynn Canyon is a nice secret place in North Van but it seems to be getting popular with tour buses. When we left there were tour groups and a large crowd on the Suspension Bridge so arrive early to beat the rush. Morning is best. Then there is just birds and the occasional dog walkers. The odd bear comes through too. The Bridge is 50 metres above the canyon and was independently built around 1912.

This was a good spot for birds. We watched American Dippers brave the cold waters. It was freezing cold from all the melt waters so I will give it some more time before I go swimming and wading. Careful where you do this though as the waters are fast.

Some of the trees are 100 years old. There are a few spots that have been logged a long time ago and you can still see some springboard hacks. Geordie has a fondness for little trees growing out of an old stump or nursury tree.  The photo below was taken with his fisheye lens.

Jungle Fever

The Amazon Canopy stretches in parts over 200 feet in the air. You can see over it for miles. The photo below was taken at 135 feet. It seems truly endless. In the canopy we saw birds that never go down to the forest floor, insects and monkeys. The light hits it directly and so all sorts of plants grow that cannot survive in the shadows of the forest floor below.

The Amazon Jungle is so dense that while hiking we lost someone. He was found 15 minutes later and he was smart and just stayed where he was. What light there is is dappled except in places where a tree fell down clearing out a space where light can hit the forest floor promoting new growth.

Vines, palms and huge old mahoganies all like different levels of light, soil and water. Despite the 30 degree heat it was cool in the undergrowth that we hiked through. Humid though as it is very moist. We hiked through swamps and lagoons and up some mountains over a few days and got a nice cross section of all the different sub-systems that make up the ecosystem that is the Amazon Rainforest.

Macro Madness

 A few years back my father-in-law passed off some vintage lenses he wasn't using and there was a nice 50mm prime in there. Hooked up to some $10 extension tubes from ebay, I have been able to start experimenting with macro photography to a degree I was unable to previously. Below is a closeup of the nasal cavity of a deer skull that Kathryn cleaned up herself a few years back.

 This beautiful lattice is actually a decaying leaf Kathryn found on the ground. It looks totally unremarkable from a distance, but when you zoom in you can see an amazing fractal mesh left behind as the softer parts of the leaf rotted away.

 Its great fun to find abstract patterns and landscapes in commonplace objects, but its also fun to have a closer look at very small things. The barnacle cluster below is smaller than your pinky fingernail but with my new setup, everyone can get a nice closeup look.

All the pictures above are larger than they appear in the blog here, and if you click on them they will enlarge for easier viewing.