What a lovely afternoon....

Ogopogo...?

Another of those shaky, blurry videos, that may or may not show Canada's version of the Loch Ness Monster.......again, may I express a sincere wish to see video of Big Foot, a sea monster, or a UFO that didn't make me almost motion sick to watch.  However, I'm not saying I would do any better at filming at such a moment!  View, and draw your own conclusions.........

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-buzz/b-c-man-believes-video-proves-existence-ogopogo-152803810.html

The Story of Chloe

 
It was dark when the truck slowed and stopped on the side of a remote dirt road.  The door opened, and a small dog was forced out onto the shoulder.  The truck sped away, leaving the dog behind, alone in the night.

Hours later, someone driving home along the road saw the forlorn figure of a dog and pulled over.  The dog was still standing there, waiting for the people she thought loved her to come back.  The driver put the dog in the car and took her home.

Chloe, as she was named, was found to be almost hairless.  Her eyes were swollen and hazed over from infection.  Her rescuer surmised that there was no way Chloe had gotten to the side of that remote road on her own.  Someone must have found Chloe's health issues too much to deal with, and instead of seeking help, simply abandoned her and drove away.  Unfortunately, Chloe's rescuer was also unable to provide her with the help she so desperately needed, and that's when the Northumberland Humane Society became involved.   Chloe was surrendered to an animal cruelty investigator and taken immediately to a veterinarian, where she was found to be suffering from severe skin dermatitis and swollen eyes.  One of her eyes had an ulcer over much of the cornea, impairing her vision considerably.

Chloe's residence at the shelter has been punctuated by daily administration of 4 kinds of eye medication.  She was put on anti-biotics to control her skin and eye infection.  The vet requested medicated baths for Chloe every other day and placed a cone around her neck to stop her scratching at her already damaged eyes.

On the follow-up visit, the vet was pleased with Chloe's progress.  The staff at the Northumberland Humane Society had been diligent with the little dog's medications and because of this Chloe's eyes were less swollen, allowing the vet to ascertain the probable source of Chloe's eye issues - she had entropion, which is a condition where the eyelids roll downwards, causing the eyelashes to scrape the surface of the eyeball each and every time the eye blinks.  Chloe had most likely been suffering from this condition for a long time, so long in fact that her corneas had become ulcerated.  

Chloe, in spite of her health issues, has shown a remarkable and resilient spirit.  She takes in stride the application of eye drops and salves throughout the day, every day.  She tolerates standing in the tub soaking in medicated shampoo, she bears with being sprayed with strong smelling solutions to help  her skin heal, and even forgives having pills forced into her on the occasions when she won't eat them in food.  She still wears the cone around her neck to prevent her scratching and seems accepting of it.  She enjoys going on short walks and spending time with the staff and volunteers.  She loves riding in the van, even when these trips usually end with another visit to the vet!  Physically, Chloe is responding well to her treatments.  Her hair is slowly growing back and her eyes are clearing.  It's thought that her right eye in particular will never be normal, having been scraped by eyelashes for too long, but there is marked improvement noticeable.  Surgery will correct the entropy, and at last Chloe will be able to live without the torment of her cornea's being scratched each and every time she blinks. 

One of the most rewarding things about working in the the field of animal welfare is being able to help animals like Chloe.  Once her treatment is complete and she has recovered from her surgery, we will be looking for a permanent home for her.  She will most likely need to eat a hypoallergenic food for possibly the rest of her life, and some permanent vision impairment will remain, but other than that, we are hopeful that Chloe will be able to live a normal life.  Chloe will never again have to know the despair of being left, ill and alone, on the side of an unfamiliar road.

Like all Humane Societies, the Northumberland Humane Society is a non-funded facility.  It relies on donations and it's own fund-raising efforts to survive and help animals like Chloe.  If you would like to donate towards Chloe's treatment and surgery, please go to www.northumberlandhumanesociety.com , call us 905-885-4131, or mail us a cheque made out to Northumberland Humane Society.

As you can see by the photos below, we think Chloe may be part Shar pei.  Her face however, leads us to think she may have some pug in her ancestry as well.

 

 

 
 

 

Today's Humorous Nugget

These jokes that land in my in-box.......from time to time I get one that affords me a good laugh.....

 

"A little old lady from  Wisconsin had worked in and around her family dairy farms since she was old enough to walk, with hours of hard work and little compensation.

When canned Carnation Milk became available in grocery stores in the 1940s, she read an advertisement offering $5,000 for the best slogan.  The producers wanted a rhyme beginning with 'Carnation Milk is best of all.'

She thought to herself, I know everything there is to know about milk and dairy farms.  I can do this!  She sent in her entry, and several weeks later, a black car pulled up in front of her house.

 

A large man got out, knocked on her door and said, 'Ma'am,.....The president of Carnation milk absolutely LOVED your entry.....So much, in fact, that we are here to award you $1,000 even though we will not be able to use it for our advertisements!'

 

He did, however, have one printed up to hang on his office wall.....

 

 True story!!!"

--
Save the Earth, it's the only planet with chocolate.






--

Oct. 4th 2011

After 3 or 4 days of solid rain, (we seem to run to rainy springs and falls in this climate) the pond has overflowed.  This isn't my only dilemma, however.  The tadpoles that appeared in July are showing no signs of turning into frogs......they just swim happily around in a perpetual state of childhood with seemingly no worry about the impending winter.  I am definitely not housing them indoors in an aquarium, but we have decided we may heat the pond this winter instead of draining it, thus saving the hassle of netting and relocating 6 fish, countless snails and well over 100 tadpoles.  Do tadpoles ever winter over and defer their transformation to frogs until spring?  Is this failure-to-launch that I'm seeing with these tadpoles in any way normal?  Any naturalists who happen to land here and read this are welcome to weigh in with any advice.........

Then there's composting.......it sounds so easy, doesn't it?  You fill a container with layers of vegetable kitchen waste, leaves, grass clippings, and earth.  In 4-6 weeks you open up the bottom of the container and out pours a rich, dark soil with the consistency of crumbly chocolate cake.   You then dig this miracle fertilizer into your gardens, resulting in bumper crops of vegetables and 20 foot high flowers which are the envy of the neighborhood.  Not so my attempts.  My composter seems to be some kind of preservation chamber.  The vegetables I throw in there look exactly the same as they did at the beginning of the summer.  A thousand years from now archaeologists will open my composter and wonder at the mummified examples of 21st century food contained within.  What was the purpose, they'll ask, of this effort?  Was this a storage chamber to keep food fresh?  Was it some kind of offering?  Maybe ancient aliens were experimenting with preserving food so that it would last throughout long space voyages.  So what I am doing wrong?  How does such a simple and basic concept as the breaking down of waste products defeat me??  I've tried turning it, I've tried moistening it.  I've tried giving it dirty looks.  I'm an epic FAIL at composting!

We had one or two casualties in the front flower bed this year, the results of work and renovation being done to the front of the house.  This, and the onset of fall with it's lessening light and cooler temperatures has slayed most of the perennials.  There are still some spectacular islands of colour here and there, however........

 

 

 

September 4th 2011

I've discovered that summertime in the garden doesn't lend itself to jounalizing.  Summertime in the garden is all about puttering and weeding and a sense of satisfaction, completion and just plain enjoying.  There really isn't much to write about.

Not that I haven't taken a few photos......

 
Spring brought out these Alpine Asters, the only Aster that blooms in spring rather than fall....

 

 
The Snowball bush bloomed beautifully.....

 

 
There was a real show of Irises.......

 

 
The flowers of the Honeysuckle vine echoed the colour of the evening sun shining through the fence....

 

 
 
Phlox are probably among my favorite of all garden flowers, with their endless variety of colour and lovely scent.

 

The pond took on an established, overgrown look this summer, a little piece of wildness in an suburban backyard and home to snails, frogs, dragonfly larvae, and small fish. 

 
 
 
I like this photo of one of the resident frogs overseeing his/her multiple offspring tadpoles. 

 

 
Now that September's here, it's all about these glowing Black-eyes susans, and the Stonecrop and Fall Asters are promising to be colourful.  And at the end of the day, the huge, lavender-edged white flowers of the Evening fragrance toloache open and exhale their subtle yet exotic perfume into the twilight.

 

 

 

 

 

The Joy of a Water Garden

There is just something about a pond......even the smallest backyard pond reflects the sky, foliage and sparkles in the sun.  I see myself getting into water gardening in a big way, one of these days.  For now, a pre-formed shell sunk into the ground, with another, smaller shell raised on blocks and pouring into the lower one serves a purpose of providing me with untold peacefulness.

The lower shell has 'shelves' on it where you can place pots of water plants.  This year I couldn't resist a graceful Papyrus plant.

  In water gardening jargon it's known as a peripheral, a plant placed on the edges of a pond but still needing its roots covered in water.  Other peripherals include many types of Irises (I have blue Siberian Irises around our pond) and Cattails. 

Other essentials for the pond include floating plants, examples of which are Water Hyacinths, Water Lettuce and Duckweed.  Water Hyacinths are known for their beautiful lavender flowers and prolific habit!  My four Hyacinths will probably have multiplied to about four-hundred by mid-summer, and I will be sneaking up to people's doorsteps in the dead of night and leaving Water Hyacinths in tubs, just to get rid of them!  Floating plants inhibit the growth of algae by shading the pond.  They also give life-saving purchase to unwary birds that lean over too far to drink and fall in!

Submerged plants like Horn-wort and Water Violet live under the surface and oxygenate the pond, while plants that enjoy moist soil near ponds but don't need their roots to be soggy include Turtle Head and Water Forget-Me-Not, both of which I have added.  Joining the Papyrus on shelves in the pond are Blue Rush, Variegated Sweet Flag, Marsh Marigolds and a Rain Lily from last year that spent the winter in an aquarium.

Wildlife will be attracted to a backyard pond, even in an urban area.  Frogs and birds visit ours.  I plan to raise tadpoles in the pond this year, frogs and toads needing all the help they can get. 

I think the transience of a pond is partly what attracts me.....there is a sense of impermanence about it that is oddly comforting.  At the end of the season, most of the plants die or go dormant, the water is drained or freezes, and the wildlife migrates or hibernates; still, I know I can start it over again next season and change it around as the moods hits.   Plus I know that wherever we move to, I can set up a pond and have the same sense of peace and spirit come to me as I sit beside it!  

 

A Fascinating Exploration

Visits to Louisa always include something fascinating that she's found on her explorations.  Recently, she drove me along lonely gravel Pleasant Bay road, at the end of which sits this amazing old ruin.  In spite of the utter and pervading sense of abandonment and decay, one could get an idea of what it must have been like when it was a working farm.  Surrounded now by a tangle of overgrowth, the rooms and roof collapsing, there is nonetheless a feeling of dignity about the old place......

 

A fairly good sized house it was, impossible to tell how many rooms since exploring inside was impossible due to collapsing floors and beams hanging.  Peering in the glassless windows and standing just inside the front door, however, one could see the lath and plaster structure of the walls, the remains of the main staircase and brick fireplace.   Outside, the broken remains of the front steps led into a wide porch area.   It was easy to catch an echo of times past here, of guests coming to call and being welcomed inside.

 

 
 

You can't help but wonder who lived here.  How many rites of passage occurred within these walls, births, marriages, deaths?  At one time such a large house must have had a large family living within it, children would have played on the lawn, the rooms would have echoed with their voices!

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since it's impossible for me to wander in and photograph such a place and not be at least half-alert to the possibility of a ghostly encounter, I did wonder when I checked out the following photo later.  According to my go-to guy for paranormal information it may indicate the presence of a male spirit.  I wonder if ghosts see their surroundings in the same manner as we do?  Would spirits who may be residing here see the house as it once was, or do they see the ruined aspect of it?  It seems kind of sad to imagine a ghost that once lived here in life wandering through these decaying rooms......

 

 

 

 

 Note the little patch of light that's bi-sected by the slanted beam.  A trick of the light, or the presence of spiritual energy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing's for sure, they knew how to build houses in those days.  We remarked to each other about the triple-brick thickness of the walls.  The elements are wearing them slowly away, but it's hard to imagine a house built now-a-days lasting as long with no up-keep.

 
 

After checking out the house we worked our way through some undergrowth and found ourselves in a large field, which clearly had been used for crops up until quite recently.  Across this stood the old barn, with a graceful old willow tree standing sentinel next to it.

  The wind had died down by then and an oriole was singing its head off up in the willow tree as we approached.  Again I got that sense of what once was, I felt as though we were walking in the tracks of perhaps generations of farmers who had tended this land.  Once the barn would have housed livestock and stored all the implements used to work this farm.  The air would have been alive with animal noises and the sounds of an active farm life.  Now there was only the song of the oriole, and a sense of utter quietude.

 

 

 

 

I love barns.  Check out the overhead beams of this one.

 

And the farmer's collection of screws and washers and all the odds and ends one would need during the run of a day on the farm would have been stored in jars, only the rusted lids are left, attached to the beam.....

 

 


As we walked back down the overgrown driveway to the car, we told the old house we'd be back, and said thank you for letting us look around. 

To me, exploring an old place like this beats a trip to the mall any day of the week!  And it's so nice to have a best friend like Louisa who feels the same way!  To us, scrambling through brambly undergrowth and wandering amongst ruined houses and abandoned barns is all part of a great day!

May 7th 2011

Planted Lady's Mantle, Periwinkle and some Lilies, all of which were given to me today (thanks Cathy!).  Oddly, now that it's spring and I'm gardening like someone obsessed, I have little to say in this gardening journal of mine......it's just all about planting and fertilizing and weeding and transplanting and creative staring, my mind a liberated, meditative blank the entire time.  Whenever I straighten up from my hunched position over one garden or another and chance to look around, there is sure to be a grackle in my line of sight.  Is it me or are there more of these handsome birds around than usual this year? 

Of course, it' s mostly about bulbs this time of year.  The Daffodils have been out in full force for awhile now, but I only have a few of them.  They look lovely with the evening light shining through them.

 

Hyacinths are pretty and fragrant, and the Tulips are about to pop.  I'm guessing one of the most pleasant occupations in the entire world must be trying to decide what your favorite flower is!

 

 

 

 

A Ghostly Encounter?

Flipping through a book on haunted castles of the British Isles (there are a lot of them!)  I happened upon a small entry about Dunollie Castle in Oban, Scotland.

It strikes me as kind of interesting, because 21 years ago almost to the day, Louisa and I visited Oban, and had an interesting experience at this very castle.  At the time, we were told that there were no known accounts of paranormal activity at Dunollie and all through the subsequent years I have never read anything remotely interesting about the castle, until today. 

The castle ruin is located on a rocky promentory overlooking the Firth of Lorn.  It was once the seat of the MacDougall family and is still owned by them.  (The photograph to the left is not one I took, by the way.)

It was just past sunset on that long ago May evening as Louisa and I walked along the waterfront, enjoying the bracing breeze from off the Firth.  We decided to take a walk up to the castle, as we had been told that the view was breathtaking and the walk up lined with bluebells.   My journal entry, written later that same evening, goes thusly;

"The view was beautiful, but the atmosphere around that little ruin was uncomfortable.  After scrambling to the top I found myself stopped short on the very edge of a very nasty cliff, almost as though an invisible hand had brought me to a halt before I plunged over.  It was getting hard to see in the twilight.  I wondered where Louisa had got to, we had gotten separated somehow on the way up.  She had taken another path which had led into the castle.  I followed her and noticed an ancient looking celtic cross - someone was buried there.  I couldn't see Louisa - or hear her, although she must have gone up the stairs and into the castle to look through the second floor window.  For some reason I didn't want to call out to her.  She appeared above me however, in the window and I joined her.  We sat down on a ledge with our legs dangling into what would have been the ground floor, but of course the ceiling was gone.  We began to feel very uncomfortable - I can't describe the feeling.  It was rather a cold urgency - and a feeling that someone was coming.  We both decided we didn't want to be there anymore and wanted to run down the short flight of stone spiral stairs, but you can't because there's no railing and you have to lean into the wall to not fall.  It was getting quite dark now, and when we got back outside we ran away down the path like it was for our lives to get away from the place.  I couldn't shake the feeling of fear until we were well away.  I don't know if we spooked ourselves, or whether there was something there.  Sandy informed me the next morning that the little castle has a very mundane history, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Of course, there are few things more desolate than a ruined castle at dusk.  The wind blows through the jagged, uneven windows and whistles about the enclosed spaces of stone....If there are rooks they soon become quiet and the place becomes all still and cold.  An interesting experience."

Well, apparently Dunollie Castle has long been haunted by a spectral piper in full Highland dress.  It's been witnessed fairly frequently.  But the first I've read of it is today. 

Learn more about Dunollie Castle here - http://www.castleuk.net/castle_lists_scotland/49/dunolliecastle.htm

It's kind of funny but the next day we visited Glencoe, reputedly one of the most haunted places in the world because an entire clan was massacred there.  It's known as the 'Vale of Tears' because of the death that occurred.  Didn't sense a damn thing.  It just seemed like a pretty valley to me. 

One day I plan to re-visit Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and explore as many ghostly haunts as I can.  You can't move over there without tripping over a ghost story.  It's like being a kid in a candy store for a paranormal enthusiast!

 

 

Earth Day

Today being a holiday, I decided to do what I always do on Earth Day - clean up some trash.  It never ceases to amaze and disgust me how dirty humans can be, and lately the spillway beside our home has been bothering me.....this pretty little stream which is suburban habitat for Red Wing Blackbirds, Muskrat, Frogs and many other wild creatures is also filled with garbage......or at least it was until I got busy.......

I'm not sure why there is a chair in there......who throws a perfectly good desk chair into a stream?  In addition to furniture there were numerous plastic bottles.  Yes, some were some water bottles but many more were soft or milk drink bottles and fruit or energy drinks.  Because of this I'm not sure why everyone is so down on JUST the plastic water bottle, but if anyone can explain it I'd be glad to listen! 

This pond is a big attractant for the neighbourhood children, as any body of water usually is.  But it makes me kind of sad to see how much trash they seem to generate.  Sandals, singly or in pairs, plastic toys and food wrappers are commonly left behind after their play sessions.

The factory across the street is also responsible for a big portion of the garbage I picked up today.  I gathered up lots of foam packing, plastic strapping, and case-lot labels clearly identifying a certain factory as the culprit.......as much as I am glad there is still SOME industry in the area employing people, I wish this particular facility could be a bit more environmentally conscious.

Despite tripping and falling face-first into the stream and filling my boots with water, I managed to fill a 35 x 50 size garbage bag with trash.

 

And if you're at all interested in seeing yours truly rooting through this bag and displaying the various odd items I picked up, click this link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oebGwsFp3z0

Wondering....what up with all the Navy League of Canada stuff......?

Fast food and coffee establishments were responsible for a good half of this mess....every one of them within a 50 kilometre radius was well represented.   And why does everything have to be so over-packaged these days?  Those little foil juice bags  with the included straws were everywhere......just finish your drink and toss the empty container aside seems to be the mindset for many if not most. 

The rest was soggy newspapers (I'm guessing most of them from a local child who throws the bundle of papers he's supposed to be delivering to people into the field on the other side of the spillway...it's been witnessed), and miscellaneous shreds of plastic and stuff I couldn't even put a name to.

Then came sorting.......it bothered me to think of all that plastic just ending up in a landfill.  The end result was two smallish bags of recyclables and one large bag of garbage.  And of course one pair of extremely wet boots and two pairs of soggy gloves!  AND most importantly the satisfaction of looking into the spillway and seeing it trash-free, at least for now.