More from the Garden

The Day Lilies are the highlight at the moment, but there's a lot more than them blooming. together they add a lot of colour, and they illustrate a great variety of flower forms very well.  Here they are.

This is the first of the Dahlias and it's very small.  Mrs. F.G. is disappointed in these and probably won't plant any next year.  They're a lot of trouble as the roots have to be dug up and kept inside over the winter.

The Hostas are blooming all over the place.  This is one out front that I can get close to.

We have just one Sweet William flower out back, a bright red.

The Lavender is doing really well this year, blooming away for weeks now.

This is a new one for me, a Calendula.  I have to remember that for next summer.

One of my favourites is this Pink.  I hope it develops into a larger patch over time.

And just yesterday the Crocosmia came out in flower.  I can see this one right ouitside the front window.

One of our most distinctive and unusual plants is this Bear's Breeches.  It has leaves a bit like thistles, with the flowers on tall spikes.  Over time it can grow into a big quite striking plant.

Here's a closer look at the blooms, quite a different flower form as I mentioned.  All the flower parts are held up inside the flower, under that hood

That's all for now folks!

Day Lilies!

We're moving toward the middle of Day Lily season, and the flowers are just stunning!  I love getting down to the patio where I can see 2 or 3 of them up close.  There must be 15 different varieties now, but nearly half of them are down the side of the house which I can't access, sorry.

This is the big yellow one which bloomed first this year.  I think this may be its last bloom of the season, after 6 or 8.  I like getting these two views, showing both the full flower and a close-up of the stamens and pollen.

This morning the first bloom opened on this deep purple one.  On this one you can see the pistil sticking up higher than the stamens.

This is my view straight out the living room window in front of me.  The orange one is 'Saugeen Sunrise', my personal favourite.

And a closer look.  I can't get closer than this.

Finally another yellow/orange one, one of several more distant ones, with some of them hidden behind other plants from the spots I can access.  I'm looking forward to seeing what else comes up among all the new ones we got last year.  Just home from the dentist so I'm gonna take it easy now.  And they didn't find any new cavities.

It's Monarch Season!

It's Monarch season again as the Milkweed have flowered and the butterflies have been laying eggs.  Caterpillars are the result, starting out small and eating voraciously until they form a chrysalis.  Soon after that a new generation of Monarchs will emerge.  One of nature's magical transformations.

Mrs. F.G. had reported a caterpillar, and this was my first view, straight out the window in front of me.

Then I spotted a second one, crawling down the stem to reach another leaf.

After I reported two, Mrs. F.G. went out to search and among the plants further out in the garden she spotted a third one, obviously eating steadily away.

Of course you may have to be prepared to look underneath the leaves, which seems to be where they like to hang out.  You can also watch for those little piles of poop.

You may also find the eggs, just little white dots on the leaves.  It looks like we still have 5 or 6 unhatched eggs.  I just like the pattern of veins and cells in the leaf.

Then a Monarch butterfly showed up and spent much of the day fluttering around.  Mrs. F.G. captured these two views, first on a potato plant and then on a Hosta.  Adult butterflies are not restricted to Milkweed. and I often see them land on other flowers, but caterpillars are.

Then I managed to get two photos from inside the house, with the winter bird feeder stand only a little in the way.

All this has happened since Friday, and today we went out to check.  Maria found the buiggest one quickly, hanging upside down under a leaf, ...

and eating voraciously.

This one is growing pretty large, and will probably form a chrysalis in another couple of days.  It typically takes about 10 days or more of eating to get to that stage, and another 10 days or more in the chrysalis before the butterfly emerges.  We'll be posting more as this happens.

More from the Neighbourhood

 I've picked up a few more photos from around the two neighbourhood streets I ride, from flowers to ornaments to the construction on the Nelson Street hill.  It's a beautiful sunny day here, the first in awhile, and I've just got back from a trip downtown, with stops at the harbour, library and pharmacy.

The friendly lady around the corner has replaced her old display on a rickety stepladder with these on an old ironing board.

Her board fence is always intriguing.

Just down the street from her is this beautiful deep purple Clematis beside a front door.

Down the opposite direction on Nelson they have started the construction up the hill, replacing the pumping station at the top of the hill.

The road is down to one lane and that's regularly blocked as the loader brings up big loads of gravel for the trench.  I'm not sure what I'll do if I'm downtown during the week.

On the way home I pass this cute wishing well with a windmill of sorts mounted on the roof.

When the wind blows the woodsman moves back and forth cutting the log.  Quite clever!

And right here on our own street they've started building the 3rd last house.  After this only two vacant lots are left.  As usual they're building the roof first, sitting on the foundation.  They'll lift it off to build the walls and then put it back on top.

Around the Neighbourhood

I feel like I'm going round in an endless circle of posts, from the garden to around the neighbourhood, to the harbour, and back to the garden.  But there is often new stuff to photograph, and it surely contributes to my daily mental health.  We've definitely had enough RAIN now!  It is supposed to be sunny tomorrow but then it's another week with mostly rain.  Bah humbug!

I can't remember if I've showed you this before, a nice ornament on a fence around the corner.

This is my favourite lichen covered boulder, which reminds me of the ones in the old stone fencerow at our last home.

And a new ornament at the same home, a small model of a bicycle held about 6 feet in the air.  I'd say it's less than a foot long and 6 inches high.

Two of many orange Day Lilies that I see in big patches.

A beautiful red Rose.

And a nice line of Petunias along the side of a driveway.  They always have a line of flowers here, but they've been different every year.

AND WE'VE HAD ENOUGH RAIN!!!  Mrs. F,G. is getting worried about the garden getting waterlogged. Plants are starting to fall over.  The grass was cut two days ago and already needs cutting again.  AND I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO GET OUT FOR A RIDE ALL WEEK!!!  And .... it's forecast to rain again every day next week.  I don't believe it's July; it feels like fall already.

Canada has Appointed its First Indigenous Governor-General!

I was delighted to read in the news the other day that Mary Simon, an Inuk from Kuujjuac on Ungava Bay in northern Quebec has been appointed our first Indigenous Governor-General.  It couldn't come at a better time given the recent announcements about grave sites found at former residential schools.  Canadians are finally waking up to the reality of Indigenous suffering resulting from Canadian government policies over the past 150 years.

Mary Simon was the child of an Inuk mother and a white father, the manager of the local Hudson Bay Trading Post, who had fallen in love with the north.  She was brought up in a traditional lifestyle, in her words 'camping, living on the land and hunting, fishing and gathering food'.

She was born in Kangisualuujjuac, but grew up in nearby Kuujjuac, where she attended a federal day school until Grade Six.  After that she completed high school by correspondence and homeschooling by her father.  She has been an advocate for Indigenous rights for her entire career, serving as Canada's first Arctic Ambassador and our Ambassador to Denmark.

She has received numerous honours, including 6 Honourary Degrees, and is bilingual in both English and Inuktitut.  Her lack of fluency in French has disappointed many Quebecers, but it seems a lot to expect a Governor-General to be tri-lingual!  Simon served as a lead negotiator for the historic James Bay Agreement, she served as an Inuit negotiator for the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution, and she was elected President of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization in 2006, serving for 6 years.  

Simon's appointment has been welcomed by Indigenous leaders across Canada.  And I welcome it too!

On the very same day I think it was, a historic agreement was signed by the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan, the same nation that announced the finding of 751 possible graves three weeks ago.  Here the Chief, Cadmus Delorme, the Saskatchewan Premier, Scott Moe and Prime Minister Trudeau participate in the signing ceremony.

The 'Sixties Scoop' has flown under the radar of Indigenous Residential Schools, perhaps because there are no graves to discover and no sites to remember them by.  But 1951 amendments to the Indian Act allowed child welfare agencies to 'scoop' children off reserves if they felt they would do better in white adoptive families and the white education system.  

True, the living conditions were not as bad and death rates have not been an issue, but the loss of culture and the resulting inter-generational trauma have been just about as serious.  Children have ended up unable to fit in either white society or their communities back home; 20,000 children were 'scooped' in about two decades.

A little-noticed piece of recent legislation has allowed Indigenous communities to take back authority for child welfare, and the Cowessess First Nation is the first to do so.  Numerous other bands are negotiating similar agreements.  As the Chief said, there will be a lot of work to make this happen, but signing the agreement is a historic step.

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Note on Terms - in case you've forgotten, 'Indigenous' refers to all Indian, Metis and Inuit peoples in /Canada.  'Inuit' are those who live in the Arctic.  'Metis' are peoples of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry, most typically fur traders who married Indigenous wives.  'First Nations' are only those Indigenous bands identified under the Indian Act and exclude the Metis and Inuit.

Critters in the Garden

 We've had a number of critters spotted in the garden recently, mostly spotted and photographed by Mrs. F.G. who is always out inspecting her garden.  Not today though, it's been raining, again.

The most annoying one is the rabbit, ever since one nibbled down two of her beautiful Clematis last year.  Sadly, the foxes failed to get this one.

The tiny ant was dragging away this fly, several times its own size.

And then there was the spider, a large green garden spider in a Marigold.

As she watched it attached a fly that came too close,

obviously dispatching it, as it was lying upside down and dead moments later.

She also captured this small White Geometer or White Spring Moth.

Of course the birds come and go, mostly American Robins and Grackles these days, but Blue Jays do fly through and scream once or twice.

And the best picture I got the other day when a Monarch fluttered through and sat still for about 3 seconds!  Thanks to Mrs. F.G. for all but the last two pictures.