Down by the Harbour

On Saturday last, I went out for a ride, heading down to the harbour.  I stopped at my favourite coffee shop and picked up my usual coffee from my favourite barista, taking it to go.  I went down to the harbour to sit and relax a bit.  There were people and cars everywhere, a dance recital apparently, in Meaford Hall.  It was chaos until I got down there.

I was surprised to see a pair of swans out in the harbour, and as they tipped up in search of food, I realized our harbour must be pretty shallow from all the sediment the Bighead River brings down.  They were a long way away.

After awhile they swam over quite close, as if they could recognize a person who might feed them.  Mute Swans are an introduced species in North America, easily identified by their orange beaks.  They mate for life and in this area, do not migrate.

Sitting there I was hearing music, and looking around I spotted a gentleman sitting on a bench on the far side of the harbour, playing his saxophne!

I was down there again yesterday, and found two municipal staff testing a nearby fire hydrant.

Then I heard a growl coming from down the dock at Richardsons.  Watching I saw their big crane approach their dock carrying a small sailboat. gently lowering it back into the harbour.

And all the time I was down there on Saturday, I was serenaded by a good saxophonist playing some nice jazz!  Always something interesting going on down at the harbour!

Flowers by the Furry Gnome

A day or two after Mrs. F.G. I was out in the garden myself, drawn by the first of our large Peonies, a bright pink one, bursting into flower.  We have several of these bright flowers which will dominate the colour for the next couple of weeks, but I think this one is my favourite.

When Dominion Nurseries in Georgetown was going out of business, they held an open house where  gardeners could come and dig up Peonies for free, since the fields would soon be bulldozed.  We got several and the six we still have are the descendants of those plants.

All of our Peonies are 'singles', with wide-open flowers which the bees can get into easily.

The pistils and stamens are an open lesson in botany!

We have several Columbine, which I think of as the 'travelling' plants in the garden.  They self-seed easily, so we never knw where they're going to pop up the next year!

The first of the Pinks are starting to bloom, another of my favourites.

Jacob's Ladder is a beautiful blue flower, and this time I was able to get a separate flower stem, which shows the flowers much more clearly.

Our tall Allium in a distant corner of the garden are in bloom.

And the beautiful little Coral Bells are adding a bright touch.

And finally, you may remember the big White Ash trees we had removed last fall.  Rather than pay a huge sum to have the stumps removed, we chose to keep them, providing another spot for Mrs. F.G. to display some plants.  Quite effective I think.

Flowers by Mrs. F.G.

The other day Mrs. F.G. came and got my phone to go out in the garden and get some pictures.  She was thinking of one flower, I forget which one, but she just carried on and got a lot of nice shots of emerging flowers.  The garden is changing rapidly these days, amid the rampant growth of dozens of plants.

We have two Rhododendrons, which have incredibly beautiful flowers, even though the plants have stayed quite small.

We've also got a small Azalea, which looks white to me, but which Mrs. F.G. claims is a very light pink.  Her eyes are much better than mine!

This year she has planted lots of Marigolds which will brighten up several corners of the garden.

The Maidenhair Fern is unfolding quickly, in my mind the prettiest of ferns.

The Forget-me-knots continue to spread through the garden.

The delicate flowers of the Solomon's Seal hang beneath its stem like tiny bells.

And out by the front door the first of our many Clematis has burst into bloom.  These blooms are quite large and completely white.

I'll add this close-up, my only contribution to this post!

Hummingbird!

I was sitting at the window as usual, doing some morning exercises, when I noticed a blur around the pink Bleeding Heart right in front of me.  I looked more carefully and it was a Hummingbird, a Ruby-throated, by far the most common kind we see here.  I grabbed my camera and tried to get some pictures.  Even at the best of times it moved so fast it seemed blurred, and the wings were just a blur all the time.

It hovered first at the farthest blossoms, and I had to be quick to get it in my lens.

Then it moved to the closest flower and went patiently (although it always seemed to be in a hurry), from blossom to blossom.  It was almost too close and vibrating too fast for the camera to focus.  However, given the general lack of birds I've been seeing at all this year, this was a prize!

Trees

 As I ride around town and we go on drives, I regularly see trees that have been ruthlessly trimmed by hydro crews.  Sometime there's virtually a hole in the centre of the branches.  I'm always observing trees, noting what species they are, and thinking about whether they're healthy or not.

In the distance, partly blocked by our own maple tree, you see two lare Sugar Maples out on the golf course.  The right hand tree looks unhealthy to me, and since it's a beautiful tree, I'm concerned.

A closer look shows the difference.  Sorry about the tree trunk blocking the view.  This is the tree that spurred me to write this post.

So while I was out the other day I got a clear view.  The difference between the two trees is troubling!  As they say on the news, 'This is a developing story'.

While I was looking past our own Sugar Maple, I noted a healthy coating of greenish lichen.  It only shows up in certain atmospheric conditions, but it intrigues me.  This is not a sign of poor health as far as I know, but it's interesting.

Then driving downtown I spotted this poor specimen, a deep V cut out of the top to accommodate the hydro lines.

And here's my favourite chestnut tree, half of the top completely removed!

But it still has amazing flowers!

Pilgrimage to Lilac Lane

On Sunday we made our annual pilgrimage to a stretch of trail we know as 'Lilac Lane'.  It's a 200 yard stretch of the Georgian Trail at Craigleith, right beside the old railway station which was a point of departure for skiers coming from Toronto to Blue Mountain years ago.  It's about half an hour east of here.

The lilacs ranged in colour from white to a pale purple, as if they've faded over the decades, but the scent is wonderful.

The bushes are along both side of the trail, the former bed of the Northern Railway.  You can see the bushes are large and about 10 feet back from the trail, so photography with a phone is a bit of a challenge.

It's now the Georgian Trail, heavily used by both pedestrians and cyclists.  

This is the kind of view you get of the lilacs, and the trail drops off quickly into a ditch on each side, so I couldn't go any closer in my chair.

We were a week late for the freshest blooms, so some of them were looking a bit brown.

Never-the-less I did my best.

This was my favourite, a deeper purple than any other I saw.