Rain Today

"Like a rice farmer in an upside-down paddy, you stand amidst the self-harvesting stalks of the rain.  Thin as chopsticks and chopstick-straight, greenish-gray as the strings of the ocean's zither, the stalks hang from the clouds by their roots and shake free their bursting grains.  The rice bowl of your collar is soon overflowing.  When you hunch your shoulders, they make rain sushi." 

~ Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

The downspout is broken. 

Lady MacGyver strikes to save the day!

Now I have a lovely water feature / concrete fountain*!  And hopefully, no internal water damage to the house.  Fingers crossed, the rain is still coming down...

Things learned today before 9 a.m.:

1. Wet skinny jeans are really hard to get out of
2. The red jacket is wind-proof - not water-proof
3. Need to clean the eaves!
4. It's good to have concrete blocks lying around
5. A shower curtain could have made it all easier
6. I could use more rain buckets

* I just might be too lazy to take it apart... maybe I should leave it as a base for my rock (concrete) garden (add that to the list!).

Pop's Pow!

After working in the community garden and touring Joanne's, I looked at mine last night with mixed feelings and a huge dose of impatience. 

The front lacked colour -- it's all a medium green now the lilacs and irises have finished blooming.  I should be glad for not many bright yellow spots (dandelions).  And, it's doing o.k. in the food department.  There's also a lot of potential for future colourful blooms... but it isn't here NOW! 

The backyard had, however, some immediate promise: A peek of colour on two poppy buds! 

This morning - POW!  They'd bloomed! 

 

Two dark red-pink single blossoms - one with fringed petals - give a visual punch way above their size (~ 5 cm).  

Aside from the striking colours, these two poppy plants are also different in that they're bushy with multiple buds per plant. 

I'm really excited now to see what the other poppies will be.   And, with these to look at, I'm a little happier while waiting for the others. 

Pattern Recognition

I am invisible! That's my latest conclusion after two in-service and fairly empty buses passed me at the bus stop. 

I decided to walk to the LRT station to put some much needed steps on Fitty when I managed an exciting sighting.  Well, first a hearing.  A very loud, urgent two-toned squawk (dee-dum... a seventh?) had me scanning the area until I spotted a beaked head poking out of a telephone (electrical?) pole. 

It continued to shriek; I took photos. 

From the black band around its neck and its head shape I guessed it likely a baby northern flicker.  (Assuming their young had similar markings and were just smaller in size.) 

It continued to shriek.

Did it think I was a threat?  (Um... if you weren't so loud I wouldn't have even noticed you.) Or was it just hungry? 

I decided to move on -- there's nothing I could really do and maybe its parents would make an appearance once I was gone. 

How different this baby was from the robins I saw earlier in the morning. 





Granted, they were likely further in their development since they were out of the nest and half-rolling-half-flying-all-flapping in our backyard.  But they seemed to know the importance of being silent.

If I'm quiet maybe no one will notice.  If I don't make a peep and don't move, maybe that strange lady in the window won't see me and go away -- after all, we're speckled and can blend in. 

So, was I blending in too well at the bus stop?  Black and pink floral top, black and white polka dot skirt, (mismatched) black and white stripped socks*, floral sun hat...

Nope.  They probably saw me quite clearly for what I was -- a strange bird. 

(Left: Peekaboo... / Below: The coach.)

First Harvest

"Are we going to eat the tomato?" 

The safety veil worked!  A strawberry managed to fully ripen without being snatched or eaten.  Which meant it was ready for us to eat! 

The little "tomato" was almost too small to share, but we managed.  Though (below), Paul did want more. 

The verdict: It tastes like a strawberry!