Rural

We had a visitor the other night. We get a revolving parade of animals some more welcome then others...this one was stealthy, while the other paraded down the street as if out for an afternoon stroll. One visitor made me smile with delight, the other...every so rudely ate the empty quail egg from my decorative bird's nest on my front porch.  And then it b umped into my heavy garden bench sitting by the front door and moved that a few feet, not my kind of visitor... I've got too many childhood encounters with bears to ever be comfortable with them this close. Camping, and living among their world has makes me observant, but cautious.  After eating the quail egg, the bear decided to try out the path to the front garden, and despite its size, not one blossom was bruised...I will give it that. The young buck was a visitor who waltzed down the street in front of our house. It's fuzzy two point antlers proudly held high, and it brought a smile to our faces...it was curious and bo

Take a brush, and paint my world with Emeralds...all the tones of verdant green. Leave me with diamonds glittering among the twigs, newborn buds opening into treasures in my garden. Spring has arrived in the Okanagan, leaving us with glittering drops of dew, and caws from the crows who are annoyed at Bella our grey tabby wandering the backyard. Nature choose a regal tone of purple and the brilliance of yellow to welcome spring. The small iris in the garden deepest dark purple, and the Mahonia a glaring yellow, the sparkling blossoms of the wild cherry so white as they bounce in the breeze. So paint my world with colors that only nature can imagine. Jen @ Rural

ca·coph·o·ny /kəˈkäfənē/ Learn to pronounce noun a harsh discordant mixture of sounds. "a cacophony of deafening alarm bells" Spring is a clashing of momentous sounds, and sights...but none quite so remarkable right now as the melodious tones of the Cedar Waxwings in the trees, mixed with the honking and trumpeting of the geese, and swans along with the querulous quacking of the ducks. I was fortunate one evening to witness the beauty of natures pilots as they mingled, and soared into the evening sky. The beautiful bird song in the background is the Cedar Waxwings behind where I was standing.  It was cold enough to make me realize that spring is only a date on the calendar here as I burrowed my hands deeper into the pockets of my downfill jacket during my walk last night... ...I deeply regretted leaving my gloves behind. The fallow unused fields stretched out in front of me, white snow mingled with black m

Albert Camus: In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. Mid Winter...the point where many people either flee the country for warmer climates or hunker down and try to get through the rotating snowstorms without expending too much effort wielding the snow shovel. We're neither fleeing or hunkering...yes it's been bitterly cold. There was a snap happening...not the crisp green garden pea plucked from a green tendril kind of snap. It was alternating blowing wind, multiple power outages, chilling temperatures, and masses of snow that seem to be flummoxing even the most hardened Okanaganer's resolve. That spell is over now...and here we are settling into the depths... Watching the snow fall off in mini avalanches of fluffy meringue from the dark trees standing tall outside the ice-covered windows. Looking out at the snow covered landscape, where for a few days hardly anyone ventured out in the intense cold. The snow co

As winter drags it's ragged edges together to curtain the shortest day of the year... ...I'm sitting at the computer.  Reminiscing, thinking....warming up ...  Chai tea giving off a steady waft of heat, heavy with cream.  Steam from each sip fogging my glasses blurring the sight of the heavy wet snowflakes falling insistently outside our windows.  Bella's tucked up cozily in her basket. Warming up after returning from her escorted day trip outside into the cold.  Now curled up in a catlike semi-circle, grey polka dotted tummy hidden under a turquoise blanket. The glow from reflected snow lights up the inside of the house at this time of year, but it comes courtesy of the white carpet outside.  The unusual warmth accompanying this current snowfall is melting the icicles on the roofline. Our dreams of a short winter have allowed us to be fooled into momentarily thinking it might be February instead of December.  Wishful thinking...but i

The forest calls and the woods whisper...                                        ....they beckon come in,                                                                               spend some time. Sunlight glistens on tiny droplets turning them into diamonds before rushing over to streak between towering trees in a race to the ground. Mushrooms lie in wait under nursery logs, clinging like crowded crowns filled with fungi jewels on the edge of the slippery wood, hidden under dripping cedar fronds. It's magical and hushed in the woods, a delicate dance of light and shadows flitting across the path. Silence presses against the rugged bark of the fir tree, a fitting hiking companion to the mountain. Moisture drifts up from the path, coating foliage, leaving it glistening, shiny and still. The rhythmic flop of wet pants easing over wet boots keeps time as we walk. Each serpentine twist of the path, and every footstep with its hard push up the hill widens t

It's only the second day of Autumn, and all puns aside.. I've Fall-en in love with this season all over again... The soft warming tones of russets, and golds, the way the colors on the trees have just barely started to glow. It's beautiful and favors us with a glow. It's as if the trees are teasing us by tossing their leaves secretly behind our backs...twinkling down so quietly. Autumn is a graceful ageing process, the reverse of spring when everything is reborn, now it's dying, falling, leaving us...and yet across the world, there is renewal. We're still in the honeymoon stage of this season, it's all new, and oh so beautiful. Remarkable, and remarked upon by nearly everyone. Chock full of a colorful texture that will stay for a while, until suddenly the landscape will reveal it's self as an empty house...bereft, forlorn, windows gaping open sadly. The branches will tighten up with the howling wind, and the once vibrant jewel