Downtown

I've been riding around town a fair bit, though the weather has remained cool, often with a strong breeze either off the bay or offshore, so I'm still looking forward to weather that's actually warm.  Never-the-less, I've been downtown for coffee every week, to the library, to the harbour and to the drugstore.  This post is an amalgam of odd pictures from those trips, over several weeks, as I drive down or home again.

This magnificent Magnolia is just around a couple of corners, incredibly beautiful but only for a very short time.

There's another Magnolia I can get closer to, so here is a bit of a closer view.  Some of these petals started to turn brown almost as soon as they opened.

Across the street is a very large Canadian flag flying at a front door.  With Canada Day coming up, after our 'Freedom Convoy', it's hard to know who's being patriotic and who's protesting!  I'll give this gentleman the benefit of the doubt and assume he's being patriotic.

Over the crest of the hill and down we go, the blue water of the bay in the distance, arena on the right and curling club and fairgrounds on the left.

At the bottom of the hill is Bobi's Daycare, a local landmark, and the place where two of my caregivers sent their children in their younger years.

Recently I've favoured a route downtown on Trowbridge Street, past some magnificent historic homes.  This is the biggest of them, perhaps the biggest in Meaford.  It sold just last year, listed for $1.4 million.  The new owners are improving the outdoor landscaping a bit I think.

And did you notice this interesting upstairs door and tiny porch set into the roofline?  Quite a unique bit of architecture.

Eventually I make it to my destination, McGinty's Cafe.  Of course I have to make my way to the back and navigate an uneven bit of gravel parking lot to go up the ramp to their deck and back entrance.  Still it works, and the hospitality is amazing!

Headed home I find this front-end loader working in the parking lot of the arena.  It seemed to be moving gravel from one pile to another, a good way to keep busy if nothing else!

Around one more corner and we come to the little wishing well, built by a home handy-man.  In a breeze the sawyer on top actually draws his saw back and forth.

Not far from that is a ditch filled with tiny Forget-me-nots.

And back onto our own street, these flowers are growing on the sides of the bank leading down to a small stream.  You might think they're wild phlox, but you'd be wrong.  These are Dame's Rocket, an invasive spreading widely and easily told apart because it has four petals; Wild Phlox has five.

One Last Garden Post (For Now)

The blooms are unfolding fast here and I wanted to share a few last garden photos before moving on to other things. It's the Peonies and Lupins in bloom right now, and here are the best of them.  I wheedled myself over to the kitchen sink after breakfast, raised my chair about 6" (it does that), and looking out the window saw a bright red and pink patch of Peonies.  Wonderful!

I got out there as soon as I could.  This was my view out the window, though that back red Peony was still in sun an hour earlier.  Stunning!

Mrs. F.G. had taken these two pictures earlier for me.  She was impressed too.  This is only the second year these plants have been in.

I do like close-ups of the blooms, so I did what I could with my little iphone camera.  We only grow the 'single' Peonies, so the bees can get in to feed on the nectar.  'Double' blooms may look pretty but they prevent the bees from feeding.

This is the first year we've grown Lupins, though they were seeded last fall.  They're just scattered individual plants so far, but Lupins self-seed, so we're hoping for more as the years go by

Now it's on to my rides around town.

Garden Blooms

Suddenly, the season for blooming flowers has arrived.  Yes, we've had a sequence of flowers already over the past 6 weeks, but now we have numerous plants coming into flower at once.  I look back to my post of April 19th and we had scarcely a few tufts of green appearing, with dry brown grass, but now it will scarcely slow down until September.

We went out the other morning and saw this stunning bright orange poppy.  Mrs. F.G took the picture, as she did several below.

The first Clematis has bloomed too, a beautiful deep red one.

This is merely the first of numerous Peonies you'll see over the coming weeks, but the deepest red one.

We have several different colours of Lupins that are just coming into bloom.  Patches of Lupins or even fields of them are one of our best memories from our trips to the Maritimes.

This deep blue flower is a Spiderwort, not big and showy like the Peonies, but a nice flash of a different colour in the garden.

One of my favourites are these Pinks.  I hope they'll spread to create big patches.

Another favourite to me is this Columbine.  We've had quite a few in the past but this pink one is new this summer, another refugee from the Garden Centre which found a home here.

The temperature is certainly not feeling like summer yet, though we've had quite a few sunny days.  However, last night it rained and everything was quite wet this morning.  After the rain held off for awhile it has now started again; another indoor day for me.

Trees

Trees are one of the things I observe a lot in the spring, perhaps more than all the flowers we're seeing bloom.  Trees are like a backdrop for everything here, and I fear we take them for granted too often, especially in built-up areas.  Let me share just a few of the things I notice every spring.

   

I think my love of trees started when I had a tree fort as a youngster.  Sitting 10 feet up among the leaves was an experience I'll never forget.  I've often thought about it since and this is the ideal sort of tree I'd like for a tree fort - big low down branches that can support the weight.

Of course the big thing I look for in spring is the leaves emerging.  I've often used leaves to teach students how to identify trees but it continues to amaze me how the genetic code for leaf shape is bred into every species.  These are Silver Maple leaves.

Some tree leaves come in a different colour; this is a Honey Locust tree.

But one of the big things I've noticed since moving here is that different leaves develop at different times.  These are the trees behind our house.  All the leaves that appear to be fully open are maples, but all the others are White Ash which are much slower to develop.

Similarly, just around the corner is an elm tree, with leaves fully out, but just across the street is another White Ash, leaves just getting started.  Sorry about all the wires!

The evergreens are quite different, the new growth coming in on the end of the twigs of this spruce looking a very bright shade of green.

And a few trees actually have easily visible flowers, like these Horse Chestnut 'candles'.  Perhaps the most intricate tree flours I know.  All the above photos were taken within two blocks of home.

I Admit It, I'm a Royalist

Celebrations of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee have been underway in the UK this weekend, and I'm glad to admit I'm a royalist.  I enjoy the history, and pomp and pageantry involved, and stories of the Royal Family themselves, for better or worse!

So we watched a little of the celebrations, and I actually snapped some shots off the TV screen.  I think the last time I did that was for the first moon landing, in 1969, but my relationship with the Queen and photography goes back further than that.  It was during the Queen's tour of Canada in 1959 that we travelled to Stratford to watch her drive slowly by in her motorcade, heading for the Stratford Festival Theatre.  I had my small Brownie camera and successfully snapped a picture of the Queen smiling out the car window beside me.

So skip on if you're not interested, while I record the event for my own posterity!

The scene in Westminster Abbey as the boys choir processes out.

The Queen speaking to an admirer.

The famous balcony scene, featuring only 'senior working Royals'.

From the right Price Edward and his family, Prince William and his family, the Queen, Prince Charles and Camilla, Princess Anne and her husband, The Duke of Kent and his wife, the Duke of Gloucester and his wife.

While the Queen, Camilla and Catherine look up at the flypast with Prince Louis, Prince Charles looks down at Louis waving, the star of the show.

I said I was a royalist, but I'm not sure I'm a monarchist, which to me is a political position.  Here in Canada it seems to me almost irrelevant as the Queen has only a miniscule role in our government, and that only a symbolic one.

So why am I a royalist?  First, I respect the Queen personally for her dedication and commitment over 70 years.  Second, I admit I find the stories of the family fascinating.  We've been to both Windsor and Balmoral Castles, and it's definitely a lifestyle I could enjoy.

And finally there's the history.  Many may not be aware that the British Royal Family gets its legitimacy as an unbroken line of succession, from Scotland, not England.  The most obvious gap in the English line of succession was of course after Elizabeth I, as she never married and her father's other children preceded her in death.  

Scottish succession had proceeded unbroken for hundreds of years before that, from the great Robert the Bruce onwards, becoming the /Stewart Dynasty.  Eventually along came James Stuart VI of Scotland who was actually next in succession to the English throne as well, and became King of England  together with Scotland.  Eventually the countries merged under the United Kingdom flag.

And of course I'm a Stewart myself, my grandmother having been a Stuart.  I was named after her.  the spelling of Stewart was changed to Stuart by Mary Queen of Scots because she was brought up from a very early age in France.  Stuart is the French spelling of Stewart, but I go by Stewart.

There's Too Much Going On Around Here!

There's just too much going on around here to leave me with time for blogging as much as I'd like.

Now that it's warmer weather (note I did not say 'warm'), I'm trying to get out every day, for a long ride as much as I can.  Or sit on the patio and enjoy the amazing collection of plants we've built up.  Two more were purchased today.

When I can I get downtown to the library or coffee shop, though there's still often a chilly breeze off the bay.  And I do like to have a good book to read a bit of every day.

We've had an upheaval in our caregiving, with a new lady from a different agency coming five nights a week.  That's good because we're not missing as many nights, but between she and I we're having a hard time getting the evening routine straight.

And we've been making adjustments to my wheelchair and its cushion.  It's too complicated to explain, and takes lots of scheduling with 2 or 3 people at a time, but I think we're making progress.

Blogger hasn't been letting me make comments on any of your blogs, which is frustrating if nothing else.  I think I have that problem sorted out, so you may see comments shortly.

And I'll get another post up once I've had time to download the photos.

The Garden

Mrs. F.G. has been out in the garden hour after hour, day after day.  She grew what seem like thousands of plants from seed and bought more from nurseries.  It's been a LOT of work!  But the garden is looking great!  And things are all growing fast now.  I so enjoy getting out there on our deck and patio and inspecting all the plants put in over the past two years.  

There always seem to be a poppy, or two, or three, in bloom.

And the patch of bright yellow Leopard's Bane is the brightest spot in the garden just now.

We have several beautiful plants of Solomon's Seal.

And of course the veggies are growing, some of the smaller and faster growers are ready to eat already  We're having this lettuce in salads, and I had two nice radishes for lunch today.

The veggies planted in the new circular raised beds, fenced to keep the rabbits at bay, are doing well.  These are peas and bok choy.

There are of course a few weeds.  This is one of the prettier ones which even Mrs. F.G. tolerates, with its tiny pink bloom.  This is Herb Robert, a wild member of the geranium family, and commonly found all along the Niagara Escarpment here.

But my favourite at the moment is this one plant we know as Manitoulin Daisy.  We bought it in a nursery, but it's actually a fairly rare flower that grows on the limestone barrens of Manitoulin Island, where we've spent time in the past.  The flower reminds me of those wonderful years.