Pano June 14th

June 14th, 2007

A beautiful summer morning. (although it is still officially spring! :^)

A hard working weekend

Sorry, I have no photos. I dropped my camera a few weeks ago, and the LCD screen broke so I have had to send it for repairs. The camera still functions, except for the display of course (I took the photos of the sodding "blind", and posted those photos last weekend). However, since you can't see what will be in your photo and you can't see what the control settings are, it was pretty difficult to use. Hopefully I will get the camera back soon.

But what about this weekend?

Freda and I worked very hard this weekend. Here is some of what we did:

• shopped around for some appropriate patio stones for the bottom of the stairs from the deck, we found something that fit the space almost perfectly at Home Depot.
  
• put together our home made composter - made with scraps of 2x4 and a short piece of chain link fencing that was in the garage.
  
• went to seed some packages of wildflowers that we had, only to discover that area we intended to seed had a healthy crop of thistles! It took me about 4 1/2 hours to fork them out. We spread them out for the sun to wilt them & kill them. I wonder if we can put them in the compost bin after that?
• planted "snow in summer" and another perennial (seed) on the top of the septic bed. Hopefully it will germinate and take over as ground cover there.
• created a few small flower beds in the back yard.
• we had planted peonies in our front flower bed, but we couldn't see any ants on them so their buds wouldn't open. Freda called a few nurseries and found that ants apparently do not like that setup, so we had to move the peonies, so we:
• discussed a location for the peony bed - decided to create a somewhat curvy shaped bed beside the driveway
• found and moved three big rocks to anchor the ends and the middle of the new peony bed
• mixed up a bunch of peat moss, black earth, and compost to create a nice soil for the peony bed
• pulled back all the rocks from the peonies, dug out the five peonies, and transplanted them in the new peony bed
• planted three new roses that we shopped for in three of the holes left in the front flower bed: Iceberg, Adelaide Hoodless (hardy Parkland series, but not as hardy as Explorer series), and Freda's favourite rose Morden Centennial (an explorer rose).
• planted two bee balm plants in the remaining two holes from the peonies.
• although it was threatening to rain (it never did) Freda decided to take the opportunity to dig out a rose that did not survive the winter and planed an aster that she transplanted from another flower bed.

So, all in all, a very hard working but productive weekend!

What can you do about incompetence?

This is the former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli. He resigned following his flip-flops over whether he knew or did not know about the RCMP's involvement in the US' "rendition" of Maher Arar to Syria, where Arar was tortured.

Around the time this was going on in Sept/Oct of last year(but before Commissioner Zccardelli's resignation), I heard Maher Arar's lawyer being interviewed on the radio. At the end of the interview, it went something like this (not a transcript, clearly!):
Announcer: So it sounds like Mr. Zaccardelli was just incompetent. But what can you do about someone who is incompetent?
Lawyer: Well, in law we have a term for incompetence. We call it negligence.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well, more than you might think. We shall have to see what the future brings.

Sodding the back yard

This is the before photo. Before we did the sod, we had to prepare. While I was digging a French drain for the runoff from the downspout (behind the corner of the solarium at left), Freda was raking up rocks from the yard. Those large rocks laid in a line there were ones that I dug up in the process of creating the French Drain. BTW, the French Drain has nothing to do with the French, it is named after a man named French who invented it.

After I was finished with the French Drain, I helped Freda rake up the rocks from the back yard. We had a lot of rocks in the topsoil because it was unscreened - unscreened topsoil is the gift that keeps on giving (wry smile). We decided to get sod instead of grass seed since the soil itself isn't very good. After we raked up five full wheelbarrow loads of rocks, we spread out sphagnum moss (peat moss) and then spread bone meal (natural fertilizer) on top of that.


This photo was taken on Sunday. We had a number of friends help us with laying the sod. The sod was supposed to be delivered around 1pm. I called around 1pm and the office said it would be a bit later - say 3pm. I called at 2:55pm and was told that they hadn't cut sod the previous day or night because it was so warm, so the sod would be another 2-3 hrs later. It eventually arrived at 7pm. Because of the delays, we had to keep calling our friends who were going to help us lay the sod to let them know about the delay.

You may notice that we only got about the first 20 feet of the yard sodded. This is because (a) sod is quite expensive and (b) we knew we wouldn't be able to prepare more of the yard even if we could have afforded more sod!

Of course, we have been watering the sod regularly to keep it green & protect our investment in it.

pictures

Watching the trappers set up to catch the otters.
Update May 30th: The otters escaped. The traps are now gone.


The City of Ottawa came by and placed a couple of stakes (see orange lines on left side of photo by road).
Update May 30th: The street sign & stop sign are now installed.


Here's Tawny sitting by the stake for the stop sign.


Apr 23rd - it was very windy. Shingles blown off houses all over Ottawa. We were lucky - didn't happen to us.
Update May 30th: It turns out that we may have lost a shingle on the garage roof.

Pano Apr 7/07

Saturday April 7th, 2007
There was a bitter cold window today. That didn't stop Tawny from swimming.

Tawny actually gave us quite a shock today. Well, she got a shock too, to be honest. Tawny was walking on the ice on the lake and suddenly the collapsed under her, and she got thoroughly and totally dunked! Our worry about this, of course, would be if she ended up under the ice and could not see how to get out from under the ice. That didn't happen today, thankfully. Although Tawny shook quite a number of times after she got out of the water (which did did right smartly after the dunking!), her coat was covered in little icicles by the time we got home.

Tawny antics & occupations

Saturday April 7th
Occupation: Lumberjack

Friday April 6th
Occupation: Icebreaker (not the conversational type, though)
Tuesday April 3rd
Occupation: Goose spotter

Tired after all that playing

Tawny really wore herself out after a lot of playing on Saturday morning. Afterwards, she lay on the deck for a long time, soaking up the sun's warm rays...

The phrase "it's a dog's life" certainly should now mean a life of relaxation and fun, with no worries. The phrase apparently dates from the 16th century, when it would have meant “a life of misery, or of miserable subserviency” (according to World Wide Words).

Eastern White Jumbo Snow Worm (very rare!)

This is a photo of the elusive Eastern White Jumbo Snow Worm. Due to its colouration, it is rarely seen except in winter and is generally seen only on milder winter days. This soft-bodied invertebrate is a much larger distant genetic relative of the Ice Worm (click here for Ice Worm info), but has adapted to tolerate milder winter temperatures and can survive year round in Eastern Canada by hibernating in the warmer months.

The Eastern White Jumbo Snow Worm is very slow-moving, and due to its low metabolic rate, one good feeding a year is usually sufficient. After a large feeding the creature generally goes into hibernation in small burrows underground. Although the Eastern White Jumbo Snow Worm can tolerate milder temperatures, extremely hot summers can severely decimate the dormant population so global warming poses a severe threat to this rare species.

The Eastern White Jumbo Snow Worm is a very shy creature and easily alarmed. Although it is most active in narrow temperature range of -5C to +3C, when frightened it freezes in position. To observe the movement, one must make an observation, leave and then return some time later. You will find the Eastern White Jumbo Snow Worm has moved. The worm is never seen in bright sunlight conditions, as they die quickly when exposed to direct sunlight with its strong UV content, and are more vulnerable to predators such as birds.