Domesticity

There are so many birds here in the harbour area that I could easily overload the posts with pictures of them. I was delighted today to see mother duck with her 12 (count them, 12) ducklings, newly hatched last week and all of them still present and accounted for. There are 4 drakes that seem to have a shared interest in the family and stay close to her and the brood, which may explain their survival so far.

The geese are careful parents too, very protective of their young and of each other. Their reputation for being untidy neighbours is, alas, well-earned.

Particularly devoted partners and parents are the swans,

doing everything.....

....in synchrony

Up tails all!

And then there is the domestic partnership, blessed harmony on the home front between all the four-footed ones. Merry, the camera-shy newcomer, has settled in. She has taken to knocking my paintbrushes off the worktable at night - forgiven, so far.

Mothers Day

My Mother
by Ann Taylor (1782-1866)

Who fed me from her gentle breast,
And hush'd me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.

When sleep forsook my open eye,
Who was it sung sweet hushaby,
And rock'd me that I should not cry?
My Mother.

Who ran to help me when I fell
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother.

And can I ever cease to be
Affectionate and kind to thee,
Who wast so very kind to me,
My Mother.
From Festivals and Fairs, The Illustrated Fairy Gazette



Where are the fairy places?

I had heard that along one of our main roads and up a certain drive there is a path that leads to trillium woods.
So on this Mother's Day we went looking....









and there they were...








Lovely starry trilliums in a fairy dell,






more and more of them, a vision of beauty.





Eventually we turned back to the not-so distant sound of traffic, then across the road and down to the lake,


where mothers and children paddled together beside still waters, on Mothers Day.


"Nature - the gentlest mother is,
Impatient of no child -" Emily Dickenson

Easter Weekend

It is deceptively sunny this Easter weekend. The wind is sharp, driving in a cold spray from the lake.
Not everyone minds the cold...

...and there are sunny places in which to rest a while among the early violets.
















I know, there are beautiful gardens and natural landscapes that are simply covered with flowers like these and more, profusions of snowdrops or daffodils or bluebells, all in their proper season. There used to be woods near here that were starred with masses of trilliums in the spring. In their place now are streets of new houses with neat oblongs of green lawn and small beds or planters of garden centre flowers, and only fragments of the woodlands and wild flowers remain.
Before the bulldozers moved in I took along some plastic bags and a trowel on my morning walks and brought home clumps of bulbs and roots, wild geraniums, and some surprises too. I dug them in and waited for spring, and behold, they rose again!

Happy Easter, everyone.