Hail and Dill
We came home from a lovely, although cold and wet, two days in the Rockies, to find our garden thoroughly hailed. The old van has pockmarks on every panel except the back one, where the rust spots are. The pears and apples will be bruised this year. And we need to rake up the greens scattered and crushed across the lawn. But we figure we got off pretty lucky. No new roof this time. No broken windows. No broken branches. Or heads.
We’ve collected some treasures with broken stems – an otherwise intact delphineum bloom, most of the dill from one flower bed. Dill with tomatoes and cucumber for dinner, I think.
Maureen
More Wild Kingdom
Besides the crows and magpies, our visitors include grackles, sparrows, robins, a very large bunny, bees swarming the veronica and voracious squirrels. It’s amazing what a couple of bird baths and a lush garden will encourage.
Maureen
Crows
In the last few months we’ve had crows hanging around the house. My mom says it’s because they know I’m writing about them. I think they like the garden and the bird baths.
They seem to get along, most of the time, with the resident magpies. In the spring a magpie was hanging out with a pair of crows, and seemed immensely pleased with itself. “Look at me; I’m at the big kids table!”
But now there are babies, crows and magpies, and there’s no getting along. There’s no sleeping, either! Damn birds are up at five in the morning, babies squawking for their parents, parents cawing to their babies. And scolding us every time we venture into the yard.
It’s like living in the middle of Wild Kingdom, in the centre of Calgary.
Maureen
Spring?
It’s March 2, and it’s been warm and melty for two weeks. I’ve spotted a few things growing in my garden – some garlic greens close to the house on the south side, and daffodil tips pushing their way through a layer of leaves on the east side. And if I look at the grass where the snow has just melted and tilt my head just right, I can convince myself I see green.
Now, I know that anyone who knows Calgary, or who’s up to their eyeballs in snow, might not believe me, so I’ve attached proof (see photo).
As a gardener living in a bizarre climate, I’ve decided that the very first signs of green mean it’s the beginning of spring (not that we won’t have more snow, of course). And so I now declare that spring has arrived in Calgary.
Maureen
