Flowers from the back yard

These flower photos were all taken on May 30-31, 2010.

A beautiful fragrant peony in the back yard.

Another peony. The heat last week made the peonies open early and also put an early end to the wonderful blooms.

A closeup of a lilac bloom - if it's not windy, the scent in the air is heavenly.

Some kind of daisy.

I think this is called Huchera. Very dramatic foliage.

Peonies and lilacs in the back yard

Blanding's Turtle

Diary of a turtle.

May 29th: We came back from walking the dogs to find a turtle in our back yard! Here, it seems the turtle is trying to get camouflaged with the yellow Kong. Well, at least its neck matches... :) So I looked up the turtles of Ontario to identify the turtle.

Meet a BLANDING'S TURTLE. This is undoubtedly a female, because it was so far from the water. This is the description from Natural Resources Canada:

This medium-sized turtle is easily recognized by its bright yellow chin and throat and extremely long neck. It is sometimes called a "semi-box turtle" because of its high-domed shell and partially hinged plastron. Blanding's Turtles are a Threatened Species in Ontario and protected under Ontario's Endangered Species Act.

We walked up to the turtle.

She was scared so she pulled in her head, legs and tail. I was wearing a red shirt and turtles (a) have good vision and (b) are scared of red.

We think this was the same turtle that was trapped in our yard last year, so we 'walked' it out of the yard. They actually can move at a decent pace, I was surprised because I always thought turtles were very slow.

And walked...

Freedom! So we saved her from getting trapped in our backyard.

May 30th: The next day, we were very surprised to see the turtle again, but this time in the front yard.

Here she is again, we think she's looking for a place to lay her eggs.

A close up of Lady Turtle Blandings.

Watching the Robins - from babies to leaving the nest

May 17th: The mama robin feeding her young.

May 21st: Mama Robin guarding her babies in the nest.

May 24th: The robin babies alone in their nest, waiting for mama to come back with some food.

May 26th: Baby robin.

May 27th: Leaving the nest

May 27th: the first Baby Robin to leave the nest

Action in the water

Two families of Canada Geese with their babies. They like going up on the hill by the lake, but not too far from the water. Tawny likes chasing the geese, but the momma and papa keep a good watch so the always make it into the water with their babies before Tawny can reach them.

I've been trying to get an action shot of Tawny just entering the water and making a big splash. I haven't quite got it - it's quite hard to do that! This one is a fraction of a second early - she's just pushed off with her back legs to make a big jump for the Kong which has landed in the water a little bit ahead of her.

And this photo is a bit late. But it does show the amazing wake that she creates.

And this one is only marginally late. You can see how Tawny tilts her head up so she keeps her nose out of the water as she sinks down, just before she gets her forward momentum going.

"Oh, I'm so tired. I'm just going to stand here a moment with my eyes closed."

Tadpole Hunting

This blog entry is a guest entry by Taz!

Tadpoles - the objective. Oh they are so much fun!!!

Hunting tadpoles requires extreme skill and concentration. And it's a lot of fun too! Did I mention that already?

Then a giant leap of faith, hoping that the tadpole doesn't see your shadow or movement and swim away.

The pounce!

Missed again!

But you have to get the water off, so a good shake helps get all the water off your head.

Tawny loves the Kong. This one developed a hole in it and still floated, but you had to squeeze the water out of it every throw or else it would sink, which it has now done... :( If you look just above her ear on the right side of the photo you can see one of those pesky deer flies!

Lilacs and a chipmunk

May 15 - a closeup of our neighbour's beautiful lilacs - a wonderful sight when you are going down the road.

May 16 - the little chipmunk that lives in the rocks by the sun deck. This is the critter that Taz always wants to catch when he runs out the door when we let him out.

Enjoying the water

It was a beautiful day to be outside!

And even better if you can levitate over the water... :)

Look up, for good things come from the sky, and not just rain...

Oh look! A Kong!!!! I must catch it NOW!

Meanwhile, tadpoles everywhere are petrified at the merest sign of the shadow of Taz the Hunter!!!

When you play in the water, you have to shake yourself off afterwards.

And shake.

And shake.

And shake again!!

Don't laugh at me - you would get funny grimaces on your face if you shake vigorously like I do!

After shaking like that, any good dog is exhausted.

But 15 seconds later, Tawny is all ready to go again!!

A while later, after being dried off, Tawny looks fluffy, but really tired.

Enjoying the outdoors

This is a close up of the flowers on the Purple Sandcherry. The dark red foliage is really stunning.

This is a crab apple tree. Yesterday it was covered, yes COVERED, in blossoms, but they seem to have fallen off today.

Here is Tawny, enjoying a visit to the salad bar. It's really funny to watch Tawny and Taz when we take them out in the afternoon because the very very first thing they do is to head for the tall grass and start chowing down.

Tawny says there are two major positive things about swimming. #1. it's a lot of fun. #2. her hair gets dampened down so she looks like she still has her slim girlish figure! :)

I saw this dragonfly when we were down by the water, it was clinging onto the leg of the bench that I was sitting on. I thought that perhaps it had just hatched (is that the proper word to use?) from its cocoon and its wing was curled over because it was drying out. After having a chance to zoom in on the photo and look at it more carefully, I think this dragonfly is missing the companion to the curled-over wing from the other side. This is too bad, because dragonflies eat a lot of mosquitoes and other annoying insects. We like dragonflies.