Elevated veggie patch and garden goodness

I have been meaning to post a garden update for some time, and since this baby shows no sign of arriving (currently 3 days overdue), I now have opportunity to do so!

After such a positive start to the seedlings we began indoors in April, most of them seemed to grow too tall, too fast, and became weak and scraggly, flopping over into dead, or... mostly-dead status. Some of them survived being transplanted, but most of our success is from direct-seeding into these beautiful elevated gardens that Mark built in late spring. The structures are made from cedar, and the outer "wabi-sabi" boards were scrounged from around our neighbourhood on garbage night. Hooray for upcycling and saving things from landfill!

He built them for a number of reasons: to make weeding easier, avoid bunny problems (not that we've really had a problem there), and hopefully alleviate our previous earwig problems (so far, so good)! Unfortunately they haven't stopped our biggest enemy: the squirrel. A perennial problem, this year they're just being malicious and contemptibly obnoxious — rather than an occasional bite out of a zucchini or cucumber, they're going straight to the stalk to take the plant down at it's source. And they seemed truly offended by our potato plants — those were completely and ruthlessly destroyed. And they stole our first (and so far only) tiny watermelon fruit! Jerks! So we've had to cover the gardens with netting, which makes harvesting and weeding tricky, and if the plants grow through the netting, it makes for a rather tangled mess... but at least our veggies don't get eaten.

I've been enjoying picking my daily greens: kale and lettuce salads with fresh dill and/or basil; kale for crackers; kale for smoothies... I find as long as you put in a frozen banana, a bit of maple syrup, an apple, or an orange for sweetness, you can get a lot of greens in a smoothie and still have it be quite palatable. And I generally prefer smoothies over juicing so I get all the fibre and none of the waste/cleanup. Some favourite combos of late:

• kale, cucumber, basil, orange, lime, frozen banana, chia seed, hemp seed, turmeric, cayenne pepper
• kale, celery, carrot, apple, orange, lime, basil, mint, chia seed, hemp seed, ginger

And our grapes are going to be very prolific this year! Last year was the first time since Mark planted them four years earlier that we had any grapes, and we were thrilled to get the four bunches we did. This year there are too many bunches to count! Once they start to ripen and entice the birds, we'll have to net these too — though I do think we'll have enough to share this year!

Mark's mad carpentry skills strike again! :)

Dill, basil, kale, peas, YUM!

Look how many bunches of grapes! So exciting!

I find this intrepid bunch hilarious!

A walk in the woods

On Sunday afternoon we went up to Gatineau Park to go for a walk in the woods. It was lovely, the undergrowth still low to the ground, making a lovely carpet for the towering trees above. The hoards and hoards of mosquitos on the other hand... 

So when we crossed one of the secondary roads in the park, we decided to take it on the way back instead. And on this short stretch of road we saw more wildlife than we did in the forest! A stunning swallowtail butterfly, a deer, a beaver, and a turtle laying eggs!

It's hard to see here, but she had dug a hole and was filling it with so many soft-shelled white, glistening eggs.
I sure hope she goes back into the forest after, away from the road!

“We need the tonic of wildness... At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us... We can never have enough of nature.” 

                                                         ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

Festival of tulips

This year marks the 61st annual Tulip Festival in Ottawa. A festival that was established in 1953, after Canada granted safe haven to the Dutch Royal Family during the German Occupation of the Netherlands during the second World War. In thanks, tulips have been given to Canada every year since.

The National Capital Commission (NCC) plants lush, dense gardens of tulips all over the city, but the largest display is in Commissioner's Park, beside Dow's Lake, where nearly 300,000 tulips are in bloom! It is a stunning effect, and people visit from all over the world to come and see them.

Unfurling

After seeming like it wasn't going to arrive at all, spring has fully sprung here, and it is glorious. The daffodils are trumpeting, the tulips are exploding, the trees are budding, and everything else is unfurling in infinite shades of green.

Over the last week, the rhubarb has gone from just a tiny shoot to flowering!
Me thinks some rhubarb crisp is in my immediate future :)

Not sure what this plant is, but the leaves hold diamond-like beads of morning dew (or rain) all day.

We somehow completely missed harvesting our fiddleheads this year!
We blinked, and we missed it.

Forget-me-nots in the front lawn.

Hydrangea.

I love how the grape vine tendrils look like rusted metal.

Relegated to the shadows

We've lost so much snow in the last week. A couple of mild days and some rain have taken care of most of it, and relegated the dregs to those cold, shadowy spots where the sun doesn't quite reach. Or at least that's how it was until yesterday, when the temperature dropped sharply, turning the spring rain into a most unwelcome spring snow.

On Monday temperatures miraculously, gloriously soared into the mid-twenties! Windows were flung wide, laundry was hung on the line, life was good. Less than 24 hours later, we plummeted over a huge 40 degree precipice to minus 15. If we hadn't already had six months of this, this brief lapse into winter might not be so bad...

But! There are little shoots of daffodils and crocuses beginning to bravely peek above the soil. The pussy willows are popping. And I have seen a single robin. I know it's coming, but I'm finding I have to dig so very deep into the dregs of my patience to weather what I truly, truly hope is the very last of this Unending Winter...

At the beginning of April, there were a few days where it was just mild enough,
and the deck was snow-free so that Mark could start work on the harvest table.

The last of the snow before the snow came yet again.

Signs of life!

One of the few indicators I have that spring is coming.
Grow, brave little shoots, grow!

This is getting ridiculous.

Spring (technically) arrived on Thursday. But not in Ottawa (or much of the rest of Ontario). I awoke this morning to the second snowstorm since the arrival of Spring, and it is newly deflating each time. We are still buried under mounds of snow, and save for a few very sporadic days, the temperatures have been below zero, with windchills far below that... This winter has been long and cold, and the lack of any sort of hint that spring is around the corner is depressing...

Today. The roads were clear yesterday.

Still several feet of snow... Booooo, winter. Boo.

This sketch by Rick Mercer pretty much sums up my incessant and naively optimistic looking at the long-term forecast for signs of hope. Now I don't even believe the 5 at the end of this 7-day forecast...

Currently -4 with a windchill of -12. Yup.

How I yearn to hang laundry on the line again, go outside with just a light jacket, go for long walks in the warm sunshine, or see the crocuses pushing up through traces of snow.

So until things turn around here, I've decided I'm not going to look out the window anymore, and will only be listening to steel drum music and watching movies set in Hawaii.

Wintery weekend in Vermont

For the long weekend, Mark and I went to Vermont with a bunch of friends for what has become an annual weekend excursion of wintery fun! You have your choice of skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, or just relaxing in the chalet by the fire or in the hot tub. And of course there's always lots of feasting and merriment.

Conditions could not have been more perfect for snowshoeing, as the area had just received several feet of fresh, beautiful powder (which made for a terrible drive down, but was great once we got there).

The first day we went to Gifford Woods State Park, and followed someone's snowshoe tracks along the campground road, but when that trail looped back toward the parking lot, we veered off into the forest following the yellow blazes on the trees. Mark had to break our path, as we were the first on the trail since the fresh snowfall. And in doing so we discovered a bizarre winter phenomenon that occurs when there's this much fresh, powdery snow. 

Because the yellow blazes on the trees were sporadic, and there had been so much fresh snow to completely obscure the previous tracks, it was difficult to know exactly where to create the path. Generally this doesn't matter when snowshoeing, as you can go wherever you want, which is one of the many things that makes it so awesome. But we discovered that when Mark stepped off the trail into fresh, undisturbed snow, it suddenly created a startling and incredibly loud 'fwhoomp!' sound as the snow in a large radius collapses, shaking the ground and the trees in the vicinity and echoing through the air, creating an event that feels not unlike a tiny earthquake. Which, when you're happily tromping through a very quiet winter forest, is rather terrifying. 

The first time it happened, we didn't know what it was, and I thought perhaps it had been a very small, (and very localized?) earthquake, or perhaps there was some blasting nearby, or maybe we had just collapsed a small bridge over a creek far beneath us under the snow. But it kept happening every now and again, and we realized what it was, and then we could actually replicate it. However every time it did happen, it made my heart skip a beat to feel the ground drop beneath me, so the next day we found a trail that had already been made, and followed their tracks. Much more relaxing!

Even though it was a bit out of the way, we came home via the Adirondacks and Lake Placid, and it was so wonderful to see those mountains again, as it's been a while since we were last there. So worth the detour to see my favourite view.

It was such a fantastic weekend, a last hurrah for winter. Now, I am officially ready for spring!

Trailblazing at Gifford Woods State Park.

Snowshoeing at Chittenden Brook campground, Green Mountain National Forest.

My favourite view. Algonguin is the highest peak in the centre, with Wright the first bump to the left
(the 3rd and 4th peaks we've hiked),  Colden on the far left, and Wall Face on the right.

Whiteface Mountain is the white peak on the middle-left. Adirondacks, New York.

Snowshoe in a bog

Conditions haven't been great this winter for snowshoeing. Most of the snow we have, fell in December. January gave us some bitter, bitter days, and a couple of warm spells, which really just led to ice. Not much accumulation to speak of. The trails have been so well-packed that you don't need snowshoes at all.

But last night we got about a foot of lovely soft snow — perfect conditions to get out for a snowshoe. And what a beautiful day it was! It's amazing how a fresh dusting of snow can create the most magical landscape. After spending a bit of time shovelling out the car this morning, we went to Mer Bleue to hike around the bog trail. I love bogs; there's something magical about being out among those old, shrivelled, scrubby trees. Even if the bog itself is entirely hidden...

Winter walk

A white-washed day making a world of whites and greys

Snowflakes on lashes

Snowshoes not actually required on the well-trodden path

So good to be out in the trees again

Must do better to get all the hair in the hood next time...

Friendsgiving, local meat, and my 300th post!

Now the green conifers stand out in a sea of gold

And suddenly, it was fall. Full-on. Trees are aflame with vibrant colours, fluttering to the ground, painting trails with rusty gold. It seems that the trees were green just yesterday, with only a tinge of the colours to come, but now they're suddenly scarlet orange.

To celebrate this (sadly) brief, but oh-so-wonderful time of year, we had some good friends over for a potluck feast of epic proportions, but not before a lovely hike in Gatineau Park together to fully soak in the delicious colours and that unmistakable scent of fall — what is that? Is it the fallen leaves? The earth readying itself for its winter slumber? Anyway, it's an incredible smell, that makes you happy and content with each deep breath.

What's more glorious than walking through a sunny forest in Autumn?

Happiness is: hiking

arm in arm, exploring

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early fall forest

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leaves just beginning to turn

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gentle forest streams, babbling softly

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sun-dappled light dancing on moss-covered rocks

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can't decide if it's mitten weather yet or not

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acorns, with and without their hats

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stitch-like marks etched in birch bark

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that point where I decide to tuck my pants into my socks to keep critters out (ridiculous. I know this.)

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so good to be in the forest again

Look closer

A new destination offers so many new sights for the eyes to delight in. Unsurprisingly, the west coast of Canada is no different, and has stunningly beautiful landscapes in all directions: soaring trees dripping with moss, imposing granite peaks, and vast stretches of ocean extending off into the horizon (or entirely obscured in fog), and if you look a little bit closer, there are so many incredible textures and colours to get lost in...

Fossilized rocks.

Golden ochre sea weeds and cream barnacles.

Some sort of ewwy, awesome, slimy sea worts on a rock. Anyone know what these are? 

Burrows etched through layers of tree rings.