October walk to Panama Hill Park
It was coolish today, but no rain. We have been having light frosts over night. The humming birds are looking kinda chilled when they cannot get their frozen food. I have one of the feeders in the house to put out in the morning with warm food for them now.
Saanich now owns all of this Panama Flats area. I am glad I got a few photos of it when it was being farmed. I believe it is going to be allowed to turn into a bog. It is, in actuality, a peat bog. It had sluice gates to drain it for the farming. In the winter people used to be able to skate on it a few decades ago. I hope the pond area remains as is and not part of the bog. In the winter, more recently there has been lots of water fowl feeding on the flooded crop area. I hope it remains that way, and the bog revives.
I was out gardening for about 3 hours this afternoon. I cleaned leaves off the moss garden and paths. I ran the mower over all the grass areas in the front and back and ended up with two mower bags full of nice chopped up leaves. This is added to the vegetable garden. I must get some high nitrogen fertilizer to add to this mix. There are more leaves on the front tree, so I should have a good thick layer of leaf mulch on the veg. garden by the end of the season. I cut back a stringy low cedar.. well cut the bottom branches off, and it now looks rather windswept, in my best attempt at a Japanese bonsai writ large. I cut back the Jackamani clematis and cleaned up the daylilies and the simplicity rose, a bit. Its good to get the exercise and to be on top of the garden clean up. I wonder how the plants survived when I was not so diligent about leaf clean up!
Do you know what butterfly that cattapiller is going to turn into? I must look for it in my butterfly book.
2 comments:
Tiger moth caterpillar. Wooly worm.
From looking a the bands, my granny would tell you that your winter will begin with a long cold spell, turn milder, then another shorter cold spell. I trust her hornet nest predictions more than I do the wooly worms.
Just across the mts. in North Carolina, one town has a Wooly-Worm festival each fall.
If I were able, I could days at a time in that bog area of yours; beautiful photos.
:-)
thanks for the name. There seem to be quite a few of these wooly worms out and about at this time of the year.
I shall be paying close attention to our winter now!
Yes this rather wild park is a marvelous place. The trail into it starts right across the street from us, too. A river runs through it. :)
Thanks for the compliments. Our trees have very good color this year.
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