Spring has sprung!

Spring has Sprung!
Note how the crocus on the left has pushed its way
through the dried out maple leaf.  

One of the things I love most about island life is the early arrival of spring.  When I taught on the mainland, I used to visit the island every February midterm break just to see all the flowers in bloom in Victoria.  After all,  where else in Canada would they hold an annual flower count on the first weekend of March?

So around the first of February, I impatiently begin looking for signs of spring.  The snowdrops have been around for awhile - indeed, there were some bobbing their little white heads back in December.  And for the past week or so I've noticed  green buds swelling and catkins dropping and birds beginning their nesting and mating rituals.  But I didn't see any crocuses - the true harbingers of spring.

Until today.  Today, the sun shone and the air warmed, and and all of a sudden there were flowers popping out everywhere.  I even saw camellias in bloom on a neighbour's bush, and rhodos flowering outside my friend's apartment.  I hear rumors the pink cherry blossoms are popping out in Victoria.  And I went for a nice long hike around the Holland Creek Loop in Ladysmith, just north of here, and found snowdrops and crocuses and even the first of the violets along the wooded trails.

I'll blog about the hike itself in a couple of days and post photos of the scenery, but for all my friends who are shoveling snow, here's a few photos to put a 'spring' in your step.  Please don't hate me.

Snowdrops 

Crocus

Emerging violets
It's not quite warm enough for them to hold their heads up yet -
sort of like me before that  first cup of coffee in the morning.

Crocus and snowdrops and old maple leaves

Crocuses fully opened

Crocuses reaching for the sun

Life's just ducky!

This is why I live here!

Looking from Biggs Park to downtown Nanaimo

This week, my friend Sally and I checked out Biggs Park and Jack Point, located right near the Duke Point Ferry Terminal just south of Nanaimo and about forty minutes north of my home.  Despite its proximity to the terminal, there is no traffic noise and no visible signs of the terminal with the exception of a couple of hundred feet of the 5 km round trip trail.  There is just the cry of the eagles and the caw of the ravens, the splash of the surf, the rustle of arbutus leaves and the whisper of fir trees.  Soft sandstone has been carved into beautiful shapes by the water and rain, and eroded into caves beneath tall cliffs. Driftwood in shades of reds and yellows and soft weathered greys lies haphazardly along the shoreline.
A thousand times I said 'We live in such a beautiful place!  This is amazing!"  And as much as I love these photos, they simply cannot do it justice.  Beauty and peace and nature and wildlife all at my back door......THIS is why I live here:

One of five eagles sitting in one tree

Sandstone cliffs eroded by water.  Notice the caves in the lower half.

More sandstone erosions.
This one looks like fish skeletons! 

The trees may not have leaves yet,
but the grass already has new spring growth.

Zooming in on downtown Nanaimo -
you can see the same orange containers in the photo above.

A quiet little backwash of water amid sandstone.

Beaches of driftwood and sandstone

Tall trees, calm water, blue sky -
What more could one want?

We sat here to eat our lunch....

Looking out at the lighthouse off Jack Point....

And watching the ships - some moving, some waiting.

A cormorant was also watching the ships, from atop the lighthouse -
perhaps he was the keeper? 

Colourful logs upon the shore

A tree waits for spring
on its own little island

The trail is well maintained, and most of the 32 acres is left in its natural state but for a few flights of stairs over tricky cliffs and a couple of short boardwalks over vulnerable terrain.  Despite its beauty and proximity to both Nanaimo and the ferry terminal, we saw no more than a half dozen people in the four hours we were there.  This is one more park on my 'visit again!' list.

The Small Dog Walking Club

The Small Dog Walking Club

Today I went for a walk on country roads with my friend Pat and the poms, and two of Pat's neighbours and their dogs.  Pat calls it "The Small Dog Walking Club".  Cosmo was the biggest of the four dogs.

I figured it was a good chance to play around with the new point-and-swear camera I bought yesterday, so I might not make a too-hasty decision about returning it.  Of the two hundred shots I took on the walk (plus another fifty or so around Quamichan Lake on the way home), I think twenty were usable.  All of  those were taken on the 'action' setting, as any attempt to change to anything else resulted in a meltdown (mine, not the camera's).  I'll give it one more test tomorrow, when I'm off for a hike-and-explore day with my friend Sally, before deciding whether to commit to the demon camera that requires a PhD to operate.

Here are the usable shots from my walk with The Small Dog Walking Club.

This is Beamer, a six year old shih tzu-yorkie cross (I think).

Beamer

And this is Teddy, a nine month old toy poodle.

Teddy

Both were very mannerly and a pleasure to walk with.  They were a little difficult to photograph as every time I knelt down to get a photo at their level, this happened:

Ooooh....what's that in front of your face?

After a while, they became used to the camera, and I was able to get a few more shots:

The route is one Pat and the Poms and I have travelled before, with very little traffic and a few fun farm animals enroute.  We passed some chickens running around a field, and some horses in a paddock,

and then came to the little farm where we've always said hello to two donkeys and some sheep.  The sheep were in a field well away from the road this time,

and there was only one donkey waiting to say hi to us.

Sadly,  the interference of a passerby had resulted in the death of one of the donkeys, as noted by this sign the owner posted on the fence:

It is a sharp and tragic reminder that one should never feed other people's animals without their permission.

I'm lonely now!

We stopped to say hello to the donkey, and then continued on our way.  Further down the road a sweet yellow lab named Tessa came to greet us through the gate to her yard.  She reminded me a lot of my Emma, both in her build and in the thwack thwack thwack of her happy lab tail.

On the walk back, we saw an eagle fly across towards the huge nest Pat had told me about, and I was able to test out the zoom to capture a shot of the eagle sitting in the nest by the time we drew even with it.

Beamer was hitching a ride home in her Mama's arms, so I snapped a few more of her as well.

Beamer gets a lift

Pat requested I take one more shot, this one of the Fashionable Dog Walker's Outfit being modelled by Teddy's mom - coordinated leggings, runners and poop bag!

Matching poop bags and shoe laces! 

It was a lovely walk, and so nice to meet two of Cosmo's and Lexi's canine friends.  See you again, Beamer and Teddy!

Bye! 

Nothing to see here.....

Bought a new point and shoot camera.  It is basically a more recent version of the Sony point and shoot I had before and really liked.  But of course they changed everything, the manual is written by someone who has English as maybe a second third fourth  doesn't speak English at all, and I can't figure out how to use it. So no photos.  No stories.  Just a lot of frustration.

Besides, none of you "I don't do facebook" readers commented on the last blog post, so there's no reason for me to post another blog yet.  I'm clicker-trained, remember!  Bwahahahahaha!

RASTA and the Goat(s) of Many Colours

The two new goats at RASTA, who have been named Simon and Garfunkel, are colourful little guys. Simon has reddish-brown and white hair, and Garfunkel has - well - a funky reddish streak in his otherwise black hair.  I know people who pay big bucks to get their hair streaked like that!

Simon

Garfunkel

When I uploaded the photos I took last week, I saw something else that was colourful - their eyes, especially Simon's eyes.

Eye shade changes in every shot

I did a little research and discovered that the pupils of goats' eyes are rectangular to give great peripheral vision as a safeguard against predators, and also good frontal vision for fleeing from harm. You can easily see the rectangular pupil in this photo:

Rectangular pupils

This rectangular pupil, however, also helps account for a diversity of colours when photographed.  As rectangular pupils tend to be wider than circular pupils, they catch the flash of the camera differently. As well, animals like goats have something called a tapetal layer behind the retina, which helps them see in the dark.   Shining a light (such as the flash of a camera) into these eyes creates 'eyeshine', a brightness which often shows as two glowing alien-looking orbs in amateur animal photography. Since eyeshine is a type of iridescence, it varies with the angle of the camera - and a wider rectangular pupil provides more angles. Furthermore, since the colour of the tapetal layer varies by the animal's coat colour, a more colourful or multi-coloured animal may reflect more variations in eyeshine than a more solid, less colourful animal.  As Simon is more 'patchy' and colourful in coat, I conclude this is why his eye colours are so varied in the photos.

Ol' Blue Eyes

At least that's how I understand the mind-boggling photo-babble I found from my somewhat brief google search. So...let's move on to other activities at the sanctuary.  Like feeding time, 'cuz that's always fun:

We began by feeding the senior pigs in their pen, but invited Tango, Romeo and Toby to join them.

Age has its privilege

Line forms here! 

Trying to move from the senior pigs' pen to the younger pigs' pen can be a challenge when you are lugging a wagon of food through the mud and have some greedy hungry equines trying to help, not to mention a very large steer making sure we knew he was hungry too.

Hey, there's still food in here!

Don't forget me - I need some too! 

Once into the younger pigs' pen, we decided to move right through to the higher dryer ground of the goats' pen and invite the younger pigs to follow us.  They didn't need to be asked twice:

Follow that wagon! 

The goats didn't mind - there was plenty for everyone and they just turned their backs on the piggy herd as they tasted their veggies and fruits:

Carrot scramble!  

Carrots, yum!

Hey, you gonna eat that piece of apple?

Aw, c'mon, share! 

Server!  More apples and carrots here please! 

Over near the barn, Sergio the goose made a ruckus just to remind us that he and Sarah and Splash might like a treat or too as well - some grain, perhaps, might make a tasty snack.

I dunno why they always treat the pigs first! 

One last round with treats for Theo and a few more for Tango, Romeo and Toby, and party time was over.

That's all folks!