Writer, Dabbler In Things
Three days ago our dog was in the back yard with Jackie and was oddly interested in a patch of soil under a sage plant in a raised garden box. Jackie investigated and found an unusual patch of downy fluff and fuzz. Confused, she pulled it aside and was very surprised at what she saw. … Read more
There are a LOT of crows out this morning. It’s weird and — writerbrain working overtime as it always does — frankly a bit unsettling. When I was walking Radar, we saw two complaining crows come flying out of a tree, being harassed by smaller birds. Not unusual for crows to go raiding nests for … Read more
I live near the Toronto shoreline in an area where we’re lucky enough to have various sized parks in easy walking and biking distance. It’s always been a joy to walk around because of the openness (physically, and for one’s eyes and soul to stretch a bit), and because you never know what birds you … Read more
Occasionally, a question strikes me that I can’t quite shake. Not just the big ones that will often occur to us — Why are we here? How are we here? If energy can’t be created or destroyed, what went bang in the Big Bang? — but way, way smaller. Hence part of the irritation: How … Read more
It’s been a solid week of progress and fundraising. My burgeoning moustache is definitely growing in (if slowly), and I’ve been way ahead of the curve to meet and well surpass my commitment of walking 60 km for the month. You can see my webpage and keep up with my progress here. (The mobile version … Read more
I finally heard back from the animal refuge where we had taken Fiadh–they’re understandably slammed with work and replying to people inquiring about one critter or another who was brought in must be super low priority–and there were three main elements to the news: 1) It’s a he, not a she (Fiadh still works as … Read more
We went to a friend’s pool party this past Saturday. One of our friends there had found a tiny baby bird–way more skin than fluffy down, eyes still not open, not able to move around too much and even that very unsteadily and unbalanced–on the pool deck. With no nest in sight to try to … Read more
My wife decided to try out her time lapse video option on a couple of monarch emergences today. It’s cool to watch it happen anyway, but in the time lapse you get a better view of watching the wings–super compressed and wrinkled at first–gradually straighten out to full size, pumped up (we think) from the … Read more
Somewhere between about 8-15 days, the monarch chrysalis goes from green to blue to finally clear, like in the photo here. That stage means they’re going to emerge as full-on butterflies within a few hours. So cool.
This little guy has been about six feet away from my daughter’s window for over half an hour now. He seems to be all right–breathing and moving around, and such–but I’ve never seen one so content to just hang out like this anywhere before, let alone atop a narrow bit of latticework fence. Having been … Read more