Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!!!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hiatus

I know I said I would keep this blog going through the winter, but in all honesty it is not working out. My posts have dwindled to less than once a week, and comments that used to pour in are reduced to a trickle. It's a busy time of year for all of us.

So for that reason I am putting this blog on hiatus until April 1. I have already kept it going one month longer than I did last year, so that is something.

Until April, I leave you with one of my recent favourite photographs:


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Decorations

I have to cheat and show you last year's photo of our miniature grapevine deer in the garden.

 

For one thing, there are only three this year. One of them has a burnt out lightbulb and doesn't look good at night anymore.

I must also explain that the snow is not very deep. The deer that look like they are up to their chests in snow are actually lying down deer. We now have this same amount of snow on the ground, about two inches (5 cm).

Although when they started out they were painted gold, I really like the natural look of these deer. 

Camouflage

Beautiful hostas under the tree.
What are they hiding that we can't see?

Hostas Under the Willow Tree in August



This is what the base of the willow trunk looks like without the hostas to disguise it.

Base of Willow Tree in Autumn

The Proper Use for Garden Clogs

Would you believe that I sometimes put these shoes on to wander into the garden and, say, dump the countertop kitchen waste into the compost bin?



And yet I will never let these shoes touch a blade of grass?



They are my house slippers and I wear them indoors only.

The Saga of the Cold Frame

Yesterday we made the twenty-minute trek to the little town with a second-hand store that had stacks of salvaged wooden windows for sale at reasonable prices.

The store looked different as we arrived. A large yellow sign out front proclaimed “Everything in the Store 50% Off – One Day Only.” The inside of the store looked different, too. It looked neater. Somebody had gone through it, removed the piles of junky stuff and arranged everything tidily. Where were the windows?!!!

At first I panicked and then we calmly searched the entire store; sure enough, stacked neatly in a hidden corner were the windows I remembered. We found the perfect one for a cold frame, and I gathered the three sap buckets that I plan to use as planters next year. When we went to the cash the whole lot was less than $20. There was enough change to buy another sap bucket if I’d wanted one. (But everyone knows that you should group things in odd numbers, especially threes—so I didn’t want another one.)

The Perfect Window for a Cold Frame



Three Sap Buckets




So, with the window now in our possession, we put together a hardware and lumber list for the rest of the pieces (we didn’t need to buy as much lumber, because we still have a scrap board in the garage which will finally be put to use), and Mr. Wonderful went off to pick up what we needed, making a side trip along the way to buy feed for the birds.

Ready to Start Building the Cold Frame



Early this afternoon he gathered the necessary parts, and with a bit of help from The Boy, built a beautiful cold frame. He mostly followed Mag Ruffman's design, but without the floor, and with a modification shown in the Canadian Gardening model that allows for us to make it taller by adding another stackable unit below.

Cold Frame Set in Place and Open



Cold Frame Closed



It sits at the back of the yard, at the top of the slope, facing south to catch the sun. Even when the sun is low in the sky and the house casts long shadows, the cold frame will get some direct sunlight every day. Well, every day there is some. Sunny days have been in short supply this autumn. I hope that changes by winter.

Facing South in the Garden



Oh, did I mention how Mr. Wonderful got his name? (Other than me copying Sigrun, I mean?) He got it by being WONDERFUL of course! I really must say that he did a great job on this.

Sharp-Shinned Hawk

My husband's camera sits on the kitchen counter with the large zoom lens attached awaiting opportunities. This morning as he sat eating a late Sunday breakfast, opportunity arrived in the shape of an immature sharp-shinned hawk who spent about ten or fifteen minutes in the area of our backyard.

My husband grabbed the camera, alerted me, and between us we spent an interesting quarter-hour observing the behaviour of the young bird who surveyed our back garden for opportunities of his (or her) own. Sure enough, prey was there in the form of a mourning dove trying to hide in the back northeast corner where the thickest cover of trees is.

Here is the prize photo, taken as the bird spots its prey.


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Icicle Pansies

I still have pansies, but that's about it. (I still don't understand why "pansy" is sometimes synonymous with weakness -- these are some of the strongest little flowers I know; able to withstand cold and frost, they only die when the ground freezes.)

Cold Frame Information

Well, I am doing my research on cold frames and I thought I would share with you what I have found.

Here are some instructions for building a cold frame using an old window:

Canadian Gardening magazine
Canadian HomeWorkshop magazine

(These are the same basic instructions, just geared to two different audiences.)


Do we have what it takes to build one of these?


Illustration from http://www.canadiangardening.com.


Some cold frames make use of existing garden soil for their base. The Seasoned Gardener has detailed instructions for preparing the soil and building a cold frame to go on it.

Gardening by the Yard provides a neat idea that wouldn't work in my small suburban backyard, but might be good for people who have a lot of land and easy access to hay bales. Basically, you prepare the soil, build a wall of hay bales surrounding it, then lay a sheet of plexiglass or similar transparent material on top of the hay bales.

One of my personal favourites, ToolGirl Mag Ruffman also gives very detailed instructions for constructing a cold frame using an old window. This example contains a wooden floor and is meant to be used with pots rather than sitting on a prepared soil base.


ToolGirl Mag Ruffman with Her Newly Built Cold Frame


Photo from http://www.homeenvy.com.

These next two designs are more complex, but I love them because they are cold frames raised on tables, serving double duty as a potting shelf or bench.

Ron Hazelton has a relatively straightforward design, a cold frame raised on four legs with a simple shelf below. (The only thing with this one is that it has a flat top rather than being angled to take advantage of solar gain.)

The Western Red Cedar Lumber Association shows a rather more elaborate design allowing for two layers of pots behind a steeply angled pane. Like the previous design, this one also includes a shelf below.

I also looked into cold frames available for purchase. There are a few basic models that are carried by many online garden stores (not just the ones I happen to show here). Here is the most comprehensive listing of products I was able to find online. This page is not bad either, since it shows the most popular models of cold frames without any additional related items.

As a result of my research, I have plenty of ideas to work with. Now I hope I have the motivation to make it happen this year.

Lewisia Cotyledon In Its Pot

Lewisia Cotyledon Ready for the Cold
Originally uploaded by Philosophical Karen.

I got this beautiful pot from a Freecycler. It's the perfect size for transferring my Lewisia Cotyledon out of the ground and overwintering in a more sheltered location where it won't be subjected to a wet spring. I have two more Cotyledon, but alas no more pretty pots. (Plenty of pots, just not very "pretty" ones.)

Now I have some plants that would do well sheltered in a cold frame over winter. Hmm. A weekend project perhaps? (There are no guarantees, of course, but I would love to make this happen.)

Rainy Autumn Morning

The birds don't seem to mind the rain. I could do without it, though.



The Camperdown Elm tree, with its umbrella of tangled branches, will provide winter interest in the garden when the snow comes. Right now, it's providing a great roosting spot for these mourning doves.

Two Books

There's more to an interest in gardening than just doing gardening. As I learned on Snappy's blog earlier this year, you can take an interest in books about gardening, or that have a gardening component. So ever since I read about it on his blog, I have been meaning to read Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris, the author who gave us Chocolat. (Links are to the author's own website.)

It's a great book, full of conventional and unconventional gardening ideas, among other things. I have come away with the idea of making my own cold frame out of an old window. Not that I have ever grown anything from seed that would benefit from a cold frame, but I know where I can get my hands on an old wooden window and now I just want to try it to see how it works.


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Another book of a different kind that has inspired me lately is one by Sue Bishop. Her book, Photographing Flowers, not only contains pages and pages of flowery eye candy, but its subtitle is "Inspiration * Equipment * Technique" -- so it's full of good information on all of those, too.

I included the photograph above because I would like to be able to take more photos similar to it, and I hoped that Sue Bishop's book would help with that. We'll have to see next year, as there are no more daylilies to take photos of in the cold and dreary November weather.

Blue Jay Video

Hinterland Who's Who was a set of educational commercials about wildlife that was put out by the Canadian government. This is a video of a public service announcement that used to appear on television sets in Canada in the 1970s or so.

If you are a Canadian of a certain age the format and voice will be instantly recognizable. This video is about the blue jay.


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A few interesting links:

• The current Hinterland Who's Who web page for the blue jay. It contains quite a bit of detailed information.


• A link to the HWW page about the grey squirrel.


• (The next link is sometimes noisy, so hit the mute button if you need to.)
  A link to the Hinterland Who's Who web site.

More Garden Visitors

We are moving some food sources in hopes of luring animals closer to the house. You will see that it has allowed us to take some interesting photos of garden visitors.

For example, after moving the peanut feeder to the deck, we have found that the squirrels are spending time closer to the house. I can now tell the difference between male and female squirrels. I pretty much pictured them all as male, but some of the most dominant and aggressive animals have turned out to be female.



Very occasionally a blue jay will fly over to the deck and peck at a peanut shell, but for the most part they are loving the new low waste feed in the gazebo feeder by the willow tree. (Although, with the blue jays around, it's not so much "low waste" anymore -- they toss their beaks through it looking specifically for peanuts and corn and the ground is littered with smaller seed.)

Ah well, being a good-looking bird lets them get away with a lot. Here is a glamour shot of one of the blue jays who visits the feeder.



There is also an interesting bird hanging around, one that I have never encountered close up before. I had my suspicions that it might not be a regular crow, but what do I know? So when my husband got a couple of photos of the large black bird by the deck, I got out the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Central and Eastern North America and checked it out.

Sure enough, its wedge-shaped tail, heavy bill, large size and solitary habit lead me to believe this is a Common Raven (Corvus corax) and not an American Crow (Corvus brachyrhyncos).


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Here is another photo (large size version) that really captures the spirit of this bird.

Garden Panorama

I found a new photography toy to play with. It is autostitch, a program for "stitching" two or more photos together into one large photo.

When I tried it using four photos of my backyard taken on August 11, I got the following result:


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com. If you want to use it, you must credit this web site.

You might want to see a larger version of this to appreciate it fully. [I added this after reading Alison's comment that she couldn't see the "All Sizes" button. I also specified that it would only work if you actually have a Flickr account.]

If you have a Flickr account, you can click on the photo, which takes you to the Flickr page, then click on "All Sizes" at the top of the photo to see a larger version.

(I think this is the way it works. If you have a different experience, please let me know so I can put the correct information here.)

Happy Halloween!

Well, I promised a few people I would show some Halloween decorations, so here they are. First we have the doorway that the kids approach to get their candy:



My "Harry Potter" sign doesn't show, nor my blinking pumpkin lights (they happened to blink off when I snapped the photo). What you do see is our two carved pumpkins, Frankie and Froggy, and the fake pumpkin lamp on top of the table.

When the kids come to the door, they have to pass a motion-detecting plaque (not shown) that has a green-skinned vampire on it who wakes up and sings "Wild Thing". It is very funny for the older kids, but the little ones sometimes get scared.

Here are close-ups of Frankie and Froggy (Frankie has a blue light in him, while Froggy has a regular candle):





We bought a pumpkin carving kit that included the cut-out patterns, and the stick-in plastic eyes. If you would like an idea of what the eyes look like when they are not in the pumpkin, here they are being modelled by a willing participant:


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com. If you want to use them, you must credit this web site.

Webster's Falls

This morning (early!) my photography class went on a field trip to Webster's Falls, which is part of the Bruce Trail.



It was a beautiful place to take photographs. I stuck to my determination to take all my photos with manual settings. It was frustrating, but ultimately rewarding. Although I missed a lot of shots (about one-quarter) because of silly mistakes, it meant that the shots that did turn out were more valuable to me.

I like this picture of an iron gate with a stone pillar. It was the lantern that originally attracted me.



And here is more of my fascination with wrought iron.



This one has a fence, but is also a portrait. (Yes, you've seen him before and he belongs to me.)



(He was soaking wet because he had walked down to the base of the falls.)

The weather was very strange. Always cold, but one minute bright and sunny, the next it would snow, and then it would clear up though with big white clouds in the blue sky. It was very awkward weather for photography. On the way home we were driving out of sunny clear weather towards a storm. Not a great destination, but it made an interesting photo through the windshield of the car.


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Gardening is for the Birds

The garden is fighting the good fight, but it cannot avoid the inevitable. Everything is dying as winter approaches rapidly.

I should have known yesterday when I saw the first slate-backed juncoes near the birdfeeder that winter is nearly upon us. Yes, it seems they brought a blast of cold air with them and we have had snow and sleet as well as rain.

I didn't get any good photos of juncoes yet, but I have a couple of funny ones of mourning doves.

A Peaceful Mourning Dove



They Like to Sit on the Arbour Bench



And Here Too, It Seems



So yesterday we went to our local place that sells birdseed in huge bulk bags. It's hard to describe this store. I guess it is a farm and feed store. Here we can buy dried corncobs for the squirrels, and peanuts in the shell for our peanut feeder.

A Feeder that Holds Peanuts in the Shell



This is the feeder that holds peanuts in the shell. This photo was taken at around 4:00 in the afternoon. Earlier in the day the feeder was FULL of peanuts. Mostly the squirrels get them, but we have also seen a blue jay and the downy woodpecker take notice of these at different times.

We are also trying a couple of different mixes of seed. A mixture of nyjer seed and chopped, shelled sunflower seed for the small birds. (We got a new feeder for this, since our existing one is past its prime.) You can sort of see the new feeder at the far right of this photo.

Trying New Birdseed



The wooden feeder contains a mix of "low waste" seeds in place of black oil sunflower. We decided to try this to see how the birds like it. So far, so good. Lots of little birds, but not so many large ones.

And speaking of large birds, "our" downy woodpecker seems to find our yard a welcoming place. As we had hoped, he found the suet basket that we put on the willow tree. He has now returned enough times to earn a name. May I introduce you to "Wally Woodpecker"?

Wally Woodpecker Is Now a Frequent Visitor


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

My New Home Business

My New Home Business
Originally uploaded by Philosophical Karen.

Hey everybody! I wanted to share my new home business with you. Do you need your magic wand repaired?

(Just kidding! Of course it is only my new Halloween decoration. I am a Harry Potter fanatic, so I could not resist this sign.)

I took this photo with my new camera phone. I think it turned out okay.

The Front Garden

We had bright sunny weather today, so I was able to get the last of my bulbs planted. I hadn’t meant to buy any more bulbs, but when I saw a planting kit of 40 mixed pink daffodils (they came in a canvas bag with a trowel and some fertilizer), I couldn’t resist.

So today I planted 20 in our front garden and as a gift to my mother I planted the other 20 in hers. The great advantage of actually planting the bulbs as part of the gift is that now she does not have to worry about doing it herself in the ever-shorter time we have before the ground starts to freeze.

Front Garden with Autumn Colours



In the photo above, most notably missing now are the corkscrew hazel bushes. They fell prey to Eastern Filbert Blight. Because the spores of that disease are in the air now, we will not be replacing the corkscrew hazels, even though we have never had a garden without them as long as we have had a garden to call our own (almost 15 years).

Eastern Filbert Blight on Corkscrew Hazel



Once you see the lesions, the spores are already spreading. It’s difficult to eradicate without destroying the whole plant (so that’s what we did). Here is a picture of one of the corkscrew hazels from early June.

Corkscrew Hazel in Better Days



I neglected to mention that the evening class I am taking is a photography course at the local community college. (In Canada, a community college confers two-year diplomas, while a university confers undergraduate and post-graduate degrees.)

My class is just a personal interest course, but it is taught by the same man who does some of the diploma courses in photography. I took this photo of echinacea for class. (I was able to take this photo using manual settings, without letting the camera do the work. That is new for me. This course has been very useful!)

Echinacea Two Weeks Ago



Here is that same flower today. There is a little worm on top of it but it doesn't show up very well.

Echinacea Today



Other autumn photos of the front garden today include this close up of creeping jenny and English ivy.

Creeping Jenny and English Ivy



Also, this close up of the burning bush euonymous, showing a couple of red berries.

Burning Bush Euonymous


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.