The Big - Mouth Frog !!

In a small pond in a far off land there once lived a big - mouth frog. She had the biggest mouth for miles around. Rumour has it that she could put both feet in her mouth at the same time and still keep on talking !!

Room With A Harbour View !!

Fluff snapped off this memorable picture of three behemoths rising from the fogs at slack tide as they are being berthed by harbour runabout sheepherders , Biff and Buck.

Picture taken from our room.

Anchors Away ! We're Off Tomorrow !!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a few words about where I am taking Fluff tomorrow. First of all I want her to see the world - famous Hopewell Rocks on Hopewell Cape at the far end of the Bay of Fundy.... between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. These sandstone rocks have been sculptured into artistic masterpieces by the highest tides in the world over zillions of millennia.... so it is written !! I think she will thoroughly enjoy seeing them up close.

Then on to Saint John , my hometown. Samuel de Champlain sailed into the above harbour some 404 years ago last June 24th , four years BEFORE he founded Quebec City .... local joke !! In both pictures you can see Fort Howe Hotel where I organized my parents' 50th wedding anniversary back in 1983.... overlooking the harbour and surrounding area. That whole waterfront tract  below was formerly the Shanty Irish part of town ..... full of old tenement buildings. The Fort Howe Hotel 's address reads : 10 Portland Street. My greatgrandparents . my grandparents and my own dear Dad used to live at 14 Portland Street back in the late 1800s and early 1900s........ on the very site where the hotel now stands. I have booked us in here for the weekend so I guess ..... in an odd sort of way ..... I'm simply taking Fluff back to the old homestead.

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I Miss Raoul !!

I went out one sunny morning in July and there he was......hunkered down on one of my red pompom dahlias......... such a fine - looking wee "sauterelle "or grasshopper. I didn't think any more of him until I came out the following morning and found him still squatting on the same dahlia...????? The third morning I named him Raoul... pronounced with a long , drawn - out Texas drawl ! Wondering whether Raoul had simply landed there , liked the surroundings and view and pitched his tent OR had chosen that specific dahlia because of the colour....... sooo I grabbed him and set him gently on the neighbouring white dahlia named Sterling Silver ( my Dad's nickname for a big white dahlia ) , stepped back to see what Raoul would do .... if anything.

At first mio piccolo cavaletto... my wee horsie..... seemed dazed..... but within ten minutes he had flown back to the nearby red pompom dahlia.... but not to the same flower.. I grabbed him again and placed him on an adjacent cluster of green leaves. Five minutes later Raoul was back on his red dahlia.

About one week later I went out one morning and my pet grasshopper was nowhere to be found. Maybe Raoul had finally decided to break camp ..... when I looked across the lawn to the roof of my greenhouse and spotted a smiling robin.........and high above him three undertaker birds in a dead tamarack looking pretty smug......... ???????? 

Backyard Flora !!

Seen below ..........there are many species of goldenrod in North America and we are lucky enough to have two of them represented in our backyard : lance - leaved goldenrod on right and showy goldenrod on left...... not quite in full blossom yet though. The showy variety can easily grow 7-foot tall as seen in pic below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above : Yellow hawkweed : cluster and loner up close

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Brown - / black-eyed Susans ..... varieties of rubeckia everywhere along forest edge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A wall of evening primrose adorns the forest edge behind the pool. They are essentially an August wildflower here and are just starting to bloom.

 

 

 

 

 

Jimmy Cracked Corn Etc !!

As most of you know by now Fluff and I have been living in sin nigh onto 5 calendar years. Minds , souls and hearts in unison we are shackled at the ankles , knees , wrists ....  and wills.....and we like it this way. Our batteries are cabled up so a to permit one to jump start the other whenever needs be...... and today is one of those occasions.  

Baneberries !!

 

A while ago I was just sitting around here minding my own business and trying my damnedest to keep out of trouble .... so I grabbed Fluff's camera......after asking her permission , of course ............and went outside to snap off a picture or two of some of God's and Mother Nature's herbaceous creatures ........ then comment on them. What follows here is the pure , unadulterated fruit of my endeavours. 

Outside the front door under the spreading cedar tree I found these two subspeciesof baneberry growing almost side by side like next - door neighbours...... both red and white ( also named Doll's Eyes ). So much for my walk in the woods !! Now the word " bane " is not  a common utterance in everyday speech. I had often seen it used back in Shakespearean times or even in modern times with Churchill wondering whether Mussolini would prove to be a " bane or a boon " to Hitler's war effort. My father often referred jokingly to my mother as being "the bane of his life "!! I always thought he was alluding to an anglicized pronunciation of the Irish Gaelic word for a woman.... "bean "..... but this was not the case !

The noun "bane " is an Old English word connoting "that which causes death , which causes ruin , poisonous , etc . Since Old English , Dutch , German , Icelandic , Danish , Norwegian and Swedish are all related German languages  I asked my brilliant partner , Fluff , whether the root "bane " meant anything to her in modern - day Swedish ..... to which she answered  , "Why yes , in the word " baneman "...... assassin or slayer. " I told her she had made my day !!  Moral of the story , therefore...... eat strawberries , blueberries , raspberries and leave the baneberries to the birds as they are not toxic to our fine - feathered friends.