Fresh AiR

The tasks today were filled with the essence and lift of spring. First I had to go photograph a Witch Hazel in bloom at a friends garden. We had put it in I would guess, 4 years ago now and it is starting to really take hold. It's gorgeous and now I want one!

This plant is much prettier in real life, I have to work on that! The red petals transform to orange red tip and are really wonderful! We placed this shrub outside a bathroom window which helps shield the lower window from outside viewing  and yet it makes a nice view while inside looking out. You actually get to see your witch hazel blooming!
This is Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane' a truly gorgeous Witch Hazel.

Talk the Walk and Walk the Walk

Yesterday, I started my collection of recyclables and garbage for The 2nd Annual Mayors'  "Keep the County Clean" Challenge.

This was not my intent when Bo and I left the house, but it was the  broken up computer keyboard glaring at me from the ditch that made me realize that just because I don't have my 'kit' from the County should not stop me from starting to Clean Up. I must have anticipated my intentions as I was wearing my stretch gardening gloves instead of my usual driving gloves.  I decided that since we were only 5 minutes into our walk I would just start piles to be picked up and get them with the car later. Really, last year I was dragging home bags of garbage and recyclables. I do not want to do that again, it was too heavy.
So Bo and continued down the Old Danforth, here is Bo on the summer road that starts just after Purdy Road. He is off leash at this point and revels in the ditches and scents that he can check out on his own.

That is Bo on the right side of the road, barely visible, nose down doing what he loves to do, check out the stink in front of him!!
 This road is part of the original Danforth Road that ran from York (Toronto) to Kingston, Surveyed by Asa Danforth who was hired by The Crown in 1797. What I like about this particular section of the Old Danforth is that if I let my imagination run wild, I can place myself into another time. Although, I am sure that the flora was much different in and around 1797, no European Buckthorn, no dog strangling vine and the trees would have been all native and much larger. Too bad the Crown insisted that the landscape be raped of trees as a prerequisite to settling on the land. Along here, you can see huge erractics that have been rolled down the side of a drumlin that allows the farmer to create a field. The course of the road has not changed, but the sides of the road has, with invasives' and  total disregard by those who seem to think this road is a dump site.

Spring, I LOVE IT!

Everyone is writing about it, walking it and watching it, it's spring out there folks. Yes it is, step right up and enjoy! Buds are swelling and so are the feathers of the boys flying around outside the house and on my feeders. The loud, rambunctious Grackles have arrived and along with the Red Winged Blackbirds they can make quite a racket!
It, in my mind so far, this is a good spring. Forget that warm spell we have had all winter, this is now and it's spring. I like the fact that Toronto is 2 to 3 days ahead of us in the landscape, they are my harbingers of spring. Keeping it cool here means a longer more enjoyable spring only to finalize this season with some of the best lilacs in eastern Ontario. Lanes, roads, side roads and hillsides of lilacs out for a long spell and for that we need it cool please. For now it's the birds that give the clues to where we are in the season. Bo and I saw this swan with a Canada Goose at Keewatin Nature Sanctuary pond with a Canada Goose.  The ice was still on this pond last week.