Autumn Birds

The robin was posing for me in the plum tree that was dressed in its best Autumn colors.

It was a long shot at the Jay as it was sitting at the top of one of the cedar trees.

There has been many more birds in the garden recently.  With the high winds we had a few days ago lots of apples were on the ground again.  I picked them up and put a couple dozen of them across the road into the deer pasture.  Pat picked a large bucket full off the tree and put half of them through the juicer for about a quart of apple juice.  I guess we could freeze this juice if we make more.  There are lots of apples left on the tree.

I have finally got the house cleaned up.  It looks a lot better.  Our Scotish guests will be here in a few days and we both have hospital and doctors appointments that seem to be filling up the calendar for November.  I have been walking more and so have had less and less time on the computer, which is not an entirely bad thing.  I need to up date my page to add yet another under construction page for our St.Lawrence Seaway and Rideau Canal cruises. I am only 5 years behind in making the albums!

Megashot is growing like crazy.  I must find the time to continue the meet and greet to new members.  Actually, it works good, I think, for me to be a few days behind in this.  This gives them a bit of time to look around and figure out how to do things, maybe upload a few photos, etc.  They can always use a bit of encouragement at this point in time.

Spring Color and Composting Service

This robin was checking out the strawberry patch. I transplanted about a dozen new little plants last Spring. They might produce this year, but I should keep the fruit production to a minimum while the plants get established.
The colors and simplicity as well as the shadow and light of this photo intrigued me. If it was not a bug, I might print it and hang it in my new yellow kitchen. :-))

The fruit trees are coming into bloom, as well as all the camillias, azalyeas, rhodos, forsythias, winter jasmine and so many others. The streets of the city are beautiful and fragrant. The Spring blooming bulbs are livening up gardens and boulevards. The hum of lawn mowers and the screech of trimmers is much in evidence.

Yesterday was another sunny glorious day. We got a deli sandwich lunch and drove out to the Songhees area to have our picnic. After that I walked, shooting for this months Victoria Grid Project photo group on Flickr. .. more on this later.

Last August I signed up for a composting service that has made my gardening much easier. They drop off a big green compost bin. I add all clippings and tree trimmings to the bin. They pick up all the compostable material and leave me a 20L bag of compost, monthly for a fee of $20.00. During the first few months my bin was full to overflowing, as I loaded all the piles of shrub clippings and tree trimmings that were lying around the garden. The last few months I have had very little in the bin, except for the kitchen compost. I have six bags of compost to use in the reseeding of bits of lawn in my garden, in the vegetable garden and the flower beds. My old compost bin at the back will need to be emptied someday, also.

The morals of the story

This is a photo of a robin sitting on my deck railing taken some time in Dec or Nov when we had some snow this year. Contrary to the story below; our robins stay around all winter and do not migrate. Our Island robins seem to grow to a rather huge size, while our deer are much smaller than the regular mainland deer. There must be a moral in there somewhere. :)

THIS BIRD HAS AN INTERESTING STORY: All of his little friends left for southern climes, but he stayed on in my backyard. It started snowing this day, and he was getting cold and so finally started flying south too. He only got a short distance though when his wings started to get ice on them, and he fell to the ground in a barnyard and was quickly covered with snow. He must have wondered why he had waited so long to fly south and resigned himself to a harsh and lonely death when a horse happened along. To add insult to injury, the horse dumped a load on manure on the bird (if you know what I mean). By now this poor bird must have surely been bemoaning what an ignoble death he faced, but the manure was warm, and it was not too long before the warmth started to revive the bird. Apparently happy to be alive, the bird started singing. At this point, a cat came walking by. The cat heard the bird, uncovered it, and ate it. Now all good stories have a moral, and this must be a very good story because it has four morals.
1-Don’t procrastinate or you’ll get snowed under.
2-Every horse’s ass that dumps sh*t on you is not necessarily your enemy.
3-Every cat that takes sh*t off you is not necessarily your friend.
4-If you’re happy, for goodness sake keep your mouth shut.
A Flickr internet friend put this on his Flickr account. I thought it was quite fun and worth repeating. His photo is much better suited to the story.

I have been for both of my labs yesterday and today and can now get on with my life. The mamogram was no where near the horror stories I have heard. The ultrasound went much the same as the first one. Results to the drs... I don't expect any problems.

We saw Maria today and finalized our plans for our trip on the Russian River Cruise and the Baltic countries, finishing with a few days in Amsterdam. This should be fun. I must start to do a bit of research on the places mentioned in the itinerary.