Jack Frost

"Jack Frost is a fairy small; I'm sure he's out today.  He nipped my nose and pinched my toes when I went out to play."

Ever since the sun's arrival last week, we have awakened to a lovely coating of frost.  The temperature is zero or minus one but quickly warms up to 8 to 10 degrees celsius.  Right now I am watching the fog work its way back up the hill to Fernwood. 

Just spotted a rather large bald-headed eagle circling the large trees in Larry Gouthro Park, one block east of us.  He must be in search of breakfast (hopefully not the squirrels).  We noticed many piles of discarded Douglas Fir seed pods at the base of the trees in the park recently.  Now we know why we never see the red squirrel in our yard.  I miss them. 

While living in our Langley home, the red squirrels romped through the forested greenspace bordering the yard and visited regularly.  In this picture, 'mother' squirrel was showing her offspring where the "goods" could be found.  Initially we started feeding the black sunflower seeds to the birds but soon the word was out and we soon had other visitors - raccoons, grey squirrels (of course), pileated woodpeckers, stellar jays, and owls (although these last three were not there for the seeds). 

Here in Powell River, we mostly have nocturnal quests in the yard - mostly deer and raccoon, although they do not limit their visits to night (as you can see in this picture).  On a couple of occasions we had a hawk scout out the yard.  Oh, and there is a mess of pigeons, crows and stellar jays that hang in our neighbourhood. 

Well, I need to get back to work now.  Today, while we were at Springtime Nursery, I realized I had forgotten to allow space in the garden for potatoes so I need to reconfigure my plans.  While there, we purchased our onion sets - got 80 each of the white, yellow, red and spanish.  Hopefully, we will have a better onion harvest this year.  Last year we tried to buy onion sets once we had moved here, but alas all sources had sold out of them and we had none.  Trying to grow onion from seed in June is expecting a miracle.  We are fast learners though and this year we are ready!