Friday, January 3, 2014

This is how my day started out!  Friday is the end of the week exercise session and I was surprised to see the frost on my car windows!

Ice scraped away and finally could see out of the windshield .. drove to our meeting area and soon our little group was traipsing around Elk Lake .. quite a trek.  And we were all so glad to see the sun after days of gloomy skies, I can tell you!

Such a beautiful day and so exhilerating to walk at a very brisk pace, all the time enjoying the sight and smells of nature along the way.

This looked like a lovely place to set and ponder the universe in a quiet setting.  Not for our group, though, as we swiftly hiked on and on.

Back home and outside for a bit .. looking ever upwards …

It felt so wonderful to look up and see those cheerful blue skies with the puffy white clouds.  Hey, this is a brand new year!  Reminder to myself.  Enjoy and anticipate the adventures to come about in this wonderful new year.

Walked around the backyard enjoying the sunshine and the beauty of this lovely little fern, all snuggled in with a mulch of oak leaves.

And some of the many – many garlic bulbs sending their green shoots up towards the sky!  Soon .. my precious .. I will add more EM to you.!!!  When the weather turns a bit warmer, I think.Spent some time pruning some branches from the plum trees .. they’ve been attacked by a series of black fungal growth.  I tried my best to stem their growth, but, sadly, the fungus spread to a number of branches, so this afternoon I started the arduous task of clipping away the affected branches.  These trees grow so well and quickly that I imagine there will be lots of new healthy grown this summer.   Seaweed, applications of EM . … will take care of that.  I didn’t take any photos of this activity!

I’d just walked over to my garlic beds, beneath the branches of the wild and crazy tree .. when suddenly I heard a quick swoosh sound overhead and suddenly saw a Coopers Hawk land in the yard, not very far from where I was standing.   He (she) had dinner clutched in its claws:

We both stayed quite, motionless.  He .. to watch for any other nearby predators?  He uttered sharp cries from time to time.  Was he calling his mate?  He would turn his head this way and that and every so often .. would call out.

Time really did stand still.   I had my camera ready and kept clicking away.  Finally, though, I stopped and just stood there, silent, watching raw nature occur before my eyes.    He saw me there and kept a watchful eye on me.  Suddenly, with a quick flap of wings, he was gone from our yard.  Gone where?  I ran to the front yard, but he would have been long gone in the few seconds that it took me to open the front gate.

I’ve seen this hawk many times … at the top of the wild and crazy tree, in nearby trees, and just flying around.  But this is the closest I’ve ever been to witness the hunt.   I felt quite honoured to be in this place at this time.  I am sure that this is a common occurrence in the back yard but I’m not always there to witness this.

So it’s been a day.  A good day.  Full of sunshine.  Walking with friends.  Witnessing a rapture in action.

Now .. time to get on with my day and un-decorate our Christmas Tree.

Although, it seems, I do tend to leave one or 2 decorations out all during the year.  Not on purpose, I don’t think,  and I do get a chuckle at seeming the odd decoration or ribbon still hanging about.

🙂