November in the rain

 I have had this huge boquet of roses in the house for 2 weeks.  The bush outside still has blooms on it.  The white rose is still blooming also.

 We had Art and Marlene over for a Duck dinner awhile ago.  She left the autumn colors boquet.  There is a bit of this boquet left, but the roses lost all of their petals so today was the end of them.  It is raining and coolish.  I had intended to go out and rake leaves, but it started raining lightly and that put an end to the gardening.

 This is a survivor on the deck.  I like the contrast in the dark deck colors and the shining white little daisies.  This would work as one of my series of 'survivors' that I print and hang.  I will need to reprint one of the two I have up, so far, and get it new matting.

 I found this Turk's Cap Lily at a roadside stop along the Yellowhead Highway, in the Blue River area.  There are quite a few of these wild lilies growing there.  Its great to see that they survive.  I have joined the Canadian Wildlife Federation Photo Club.  I entered this one in the November Flora contest.  The winners are chosen by popular vote.  So, come vote for me:  http://cwf-fcf.org/en/do-something/contests-winners/popular-vote-monthly-contest/     You need to register and qualify to add your own photos.  Since I am a support of CWF and have been for years, I get their calendars.  There is some excellent photography on them. 

This is another HDR - merged 3 bracketed photos in photoshop -- of the Athabasca Falls, from our Rocky Mountaineer train trip.  Was a grand trip! 

Last week I received milkweed seeds from Dave Dube in Oregon.  He grew the milkweed seeds because he was interested in restoring habitat for Monarch butterfllies.  This is something I am interested in doing as well.  I have pots out on the garden - 6 with the Davis, showy milkweed and 8 with the other kind he sent.  In the house, next to my light garden, I have 12 pots with seeds that should germinate soon.  I have 12 more of the Davis seeds being stratified in the fridge.  If my plants grow and I get enough of them to support a few monarchs I will get some monarchs for release.  I do hope I can sp0ecify the gender.  I will look into it through butterfly gardens in Sidney.  Hopefully, they will be able to supply the butterflies to me.  I am quite excited about this project.  We have some information and links to Dave's you tube videos in our Community called Butterflies are Free, on Megashot.net.  Come join us.  Registration on the site is free.  We have contests, communities, critiques, and more.  There will be a Version 2 of the site, that will be just as user friendly, with all of the proposed features completed plus some new ones.  Here is the Butterfies are Free Monarchs discussion:  http://www.megashot.net/mega/ms-full-comm_forum-details.php?keythread=eed1d47804acf98ce0708a15509bb53a&threadval=c6f033cf7070e048e7051e3365fd1f13&forumthreadId=230&forumkeyId=538

November in the rain is all about planning for next year.  Along with the Milkweed project, I hope to find some more of the Canadian wild flowers for my garden.  While reading the Saanich website, I have found so much information about endangered species, where to find the wildflowers, how to protect any tree you have in your 'urban forest'.  Here is a start to explore:  http://www.saanich.ca/parkrec/parks/trees/treebylaw.html

I just noticed that our Mayor has declared November 3 as tree planting day.  Well... I missed it, drat!
http://www.saanich.ca/parkrec/parks/trees/treeappreciation.html