Jack’s Walk

It is a dreary, rainy day here and tomorrow is scheduled to be the same. Overall, this has been a much wetter spring than we’re used to and at this point I think the growing things would rather have sunshine. I would, too. Jack and I did manage to get to the park before the heavy rain started and we saw our first goslings of the year, but mamas and papas were closely on guard so we kept our distance. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. We did find these beautiful trees in blossom and they lit up my day. I’m not sure what they are. They look like cherry blossoms, but I couldn’t find anything to identify them. They were planted a few years ago and this is the first time I’ve seen flowers. To be honest, I’ve mostly ignored them until now. The light in the photos is grim, but I haven’t got the energy to play around and try to fix it. Even in bad light, though, they’re beautiful. I like the way the willows in the background accent the pink. I suppose this is what the parks department had in mind when they were planted and they just needed time to grow up a bit.

Jack’s Walk

It’s leaf day! Around our house that means that the baby leaves are finally big enough to camouflage the highschool up the street. There’s nothing wrong with the highschool, they keep it well maintained, but I prefer to look at leaves. The city where I live plants a lot of trees free of charge. Technically they sit on city land (which is about 5 meters in from the center of the street), but they become the property and responsibility of the homeowner. About 20 years ago they planted red maples down my street and I happened to be home when they got to my house. It was near 5 pm and it had obviously been along day for the lads. There were only 2 trees left in their trailer and they were about to plant one of them in my side yard when I decided to ask if I could have them both. One fellow looked at the trees, looked at my yard, looked back at the trees again and shrugged. “Sure, why not” he said as he grabbed his shovel and started to dig. For once, I was in the right spot at the right time and was bold enough to open my mouth and ask for what I wanted. And it worked. Those 2 trees are now big and strong and shade my house all day long. Lucky me.

The Art of Book Design: The Animal Story Book

Andrew Lang. The Animal Storybook. New York [etc.] Longmans, Green, and co. 1904

Via: The Internet Archive

Jack’s Walk

The trout lilies are open! Everywhere you look the forest floor is speckled with their bright and cheerful yellow flowers. I’m sorry to report, though, that the white trilliums are still not open. There are lots of them around, but I couldn’t find a single one with an open bloom. Just out of curiosity I looked back to last year’s spring photos and on May 7 (a year ago today) I shot quite a few open white trilliums. I hope that means that this year’s flowers will present themselves soon.

Flowers and Aliens

First, remember the not black tulips? Seems like the package contained two varieties, with the pink ones being earlier and the almost black ones being later. Here they finally are:

Next one is true kingcups that grow along our little creek. I wanted to get closer but then chose dry feet…

Dungbeetles are no aliens, Sorry to disappoint you. But I quite like them.

This, OTOH, is aliens. I guess at some point they are replaced every year by ordinary fern plants, but this is not something that just grows, it’s the result of extraterrestrial mingling.

Jack’s Walk

It’s been an absolutely glorious day here, full of sunshine and flowers and bees. The tulips around our neighbourhood are opening up in a riot of colour and down the street hyacinths are in full deep purple bloom. We’ve had a day and a half of sunshine and it seems that’s exactly what was needed to kick spring into gear. Yesterday morning the trees were only just a bit fuzzy, but this afternoon there are actual leaves popping out all over. It isn’t quite leaf day yet, but I think it might be tomorrow. Everything is growing so quickly. Overnight my hydrangeas sprouted leaves and I swear my grass has put on 2 or 3 inches of growth since yesterday morning. It’s like someone waved a magic wand and said ‘go, hurry.’ So imagine my surprise to arrive at the park this afternoon and find all of the tulips there still tightly closed. Oh well, it obviously isn’t their day yet.

Let’s Play 9: Goodbye!

This concludes our series with some more animals from the wait line for the wild water ride, in which #1 learned an important lesson about agency, autonomy, consent and respect.

On our second day we went straight for that attraction since it tends to have the longest waiting times. We still needed almost an hour, which #1 used for bickering about how it was a stupid ride and she didn’t want to go anyway. We told her that of course she didn’t have to, but we wouldn’t leave the line since the rest of the family wanted to go on the ride, so she decided to come along.

When we were all seated, properly belted in and the boat started to move she said “I don’t want to!”. Mr yelled for them to stop the boat, they let her out and we took the ride without her, which was exactly not what she wanted as evidenced by the 2 hours that she kept complaining about how it had been unnecessary for us to stop the ride and that she would have been OK to go with us.

Well, kid, no means no, and if you actually mean “yes”, you need to say that.

Her little sister, who is usually the kindest person on earth and too often the target of her older sister’s cruelties, frustration and meanness, couldn’t keep herself from talking about how that was the coolest ride in the whole park for two straight days and we only had half a heart to stop her…

My absolute favourite, as hippos are my favourites. Mr. wants to email Lego about whether this can be bought as a set and put it inthe front yard (so it can become a Pokestop. Yes. he’s serious).

Anyway, the design of that ride is mean. What you can see from the outside is the boats disappear around the corner, emerge at the top and then go down the steep ride. What you cannot see is that they first haul you up and then you don’t go forward to the steep ride but are turned 90° and go down a different ride backwards. You then travel the hidden dinosaur valley (obviously no pics here) before you go up again for the final ride.

It was fun.

All in all, the whole trip was fun even though it was exhausting. We were absolutely lucky with the weather as t was summer temperatures, making all the water attractions enjoyable. Now we have some arctic air with snowfall on Saturday…

Jack’s Walk

Jack and I went to the park this morning instead of the woods so we could check the progress of the tulips, but there’s been very little progress since the last time we checked a few days ago. A bit of sunshine might help, but there hasn’t been much of that in the past few weeks and if the forecast is to be believed 7 of the next 10 days are going to be rainy. Sigh. We really don’t need any rain. The river and creeks are running high with localized areas of flooding and the ground is soggy just about everywhere. I know it’s the season of mud, but does it have to be muddy every single bloody day? Oh well, rain or shine the flowers will bloom eventually and just to prove that point we did find heaps of open daffodils all around the duck pond. They’re making their own sunshine.

Jack’s Walk

Jack and I searched the forest today looking for open trilliums and we could only find one. It’s a red one which isn’t surprising because the red trilliums always show up first in our woods and it was in perfect condition which is surprising because the red ones seem to wither almost as soon as they bloom. There are masses of trilliums this year, but it’s been cold and damp and they’re slow to open. Last year many of them didn’t open for much the same reason so I’ve got my fingers crossed for better this year.

I did try using a mirror to take this photo, but I couldn’t make it work. It reflected too much sky and looked awful. Instead, I got down on my hands and knees as usual (hence the shaking blur) and pretended I didn’t hear those noises I made getting back up.

Let’s Play: At Legoland 6

My favourite part is probably the mini world, where they rebuild cities and places in Lego. I could have spent hours there.

Also a whiptail found that a balcony in Venice is the perfect place for its nest.

Jack’s Walk

This shape of this young trillium reminded me of a hummingbird.

Roo

A stately specimen from Lofty.

This picture is of a well built male kangaroo that I saw out of the window right on dusk, complete with a “Wot U Lookin At?” expression on its face. It’s still very dry hereabouts and the slight runoff from our driveway grew a little green grass for it to munch. Fortunately it paused just long enough for me to reach around and fire off this shot. A few seconds later it bounded out of sight.

Let’s Play: At the Legoland 5

No, really, I don’t like rollercoasters. Maybe it’s an acquired taste or one you need to learn young, but it’s not my fun part. I rode my first one last summer and before even considering this one I researched whether it was faster (no way!) or slower than the one in Spain. I don’t like the sudden movements, though I was not fighting unconsciousness this time as I did in Spain. It’s not like I don’t like speed as such, there’s some fast stuff i really like, just not this. So enjoy the pics from the “harbour trip” in small boats at slower than walking pace.

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Jack’s Walk

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Jack’s Walk

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The Art of Book Design: The Animal Story Book

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Flowers and Aliens

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Jack’s Walk

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Let’s Play 9: Goodbye!

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Jack’s Walk

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Let’s Play: At Legoland 6

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Jack’s Walk

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Roo

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Let’s Play: At the Legoland 5

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