last day of June

Well, here we find ourselves at the end of June and what a lovely month it's been.

Lately it's been raining every other day or so, and when it rains it comes down with a vengeance. But today's rain is the steady kind.

I took a wander about the garden after Wednesday's deluge. There's more rain to come this weekend which may be unfortunate for celebrations here of Canada's 150th birthday.  The rain seems to come the day after Ontario gets it. A funny kind of forecast.

The purple clematis has survived remarkably well

after this side of the composter collapsed on them in their early growth this spring.

looking down on them from the deck

I leave my perch to get a closer shot. Their pistil and stamen are like flowers themselves.

The Echinacea on the other side of the composter are beginning to open

Some flowers seem especially prehistoric to me in their exoticism.

The coral bells are blooming in the middle garden, the yellow lilies beyond.

coral bells- they almost tinkle

Our lawn is more weeds than grass. All the rain has brought out mushrooms that I'm convinced are from the mushroom compost we got two years ago, but Wally won't let me eat them, knowing a sad story of someone he once knew who couldn't differentiate a poisonous one, so we err on the side of caution.

Mallow grows like a weed. It grew where I lived in Ontario and we encourage it here,

even this one, growing out of the crack between the concrete and the asphalt.

It has no scent to speak of, but it's as pretty as a wild rose.

Suddenly I saw a butterfly land on our front porch window and it let me take its picture.

It's an Appalachian Brown butterfly. Considering we live in the neighbourhood of the old range that makes up the north end of the American Appalachians, it makes sense to find a butterfly with this name. I've been seeing big yellow and black swallowtails for the last few days as well but they move too fast to focus on one.

There's a pretty pale flower about to bloom

in a discounted flower grouping we bought a few weeks ago.

Here's another shot of the same kind of flower that has already begun to open.

one of the Pinks in the same pot

We have Pinks blooming for the last 2 weeks in the middle garden

They are so frilly and feminine and romantic.

a wonderful piece of driftwood that I dragged home from the sea ( well, to the car anyway)

It sits in that middle garden as well.

The baby Harelson Apples are coming along nicely.

looking down the hill at Wally's garden with the little peach tree beyond, still braced from last year's heavy load of peaches. A currant bush sits to the right of it.

The Dill is growing fast, all self-seeded from last year's Dill. The red chard are filling in but the radishes have taken off and I don't care for them all that much. I will look for ways to cook them.

The beans are beginning their climb, and behind them, barely glimpsed, is the lettuce which I'm out clipping for our salad almost every night.

The 2 little grapevines are looking raggedy.

We need to figure out some kind of permanent arbour for them.

So far none of the birds are interested in the baby grapes.

Last year they beat me to them.

We still have a few perennials to plant.

Wally's been wanting a roses for the longest time. Though we already got one last week that he planted in the middle garden, it has no blooms.  We caved in at sale time earlier this week on this incredibly gorgeous heritage plant.

Closer up, it smells good enough to eat!

It is known for growing its flowers in clusters.

Crazy beautiful!

The wee roses on the humungous wild rose bush out back of the cabin are filling in quickly.

Their sweet scent fills the air.

This morning- Friday- the rain, as I said is a gentle steady soak. A mist rolls through the hayfield.

The pink mallow in the lily garden has made this sore spot somewhat palatable.

I look forward to the day when we can remove the old cement stairs, sidewalk and even the asphalt, and put the ramp in a less prominent spot as it has proved to be most useful. I'd like a big verandah in place of all of this.

The garden is loving this semi-tropical weather, never too hot, never too cold.

Muji awaits his breakfast.   He's been playing me for kibble instead of his proper meal first for the last 3 weeks or more. Because of his digestive disorders, he must eat his wet food first. I've never had to deal with such persnicketiness in a pet which tests my patience.

Eventually hunger takes over and he succumbs

.It would be funny if it wasn't happening to me 😉

Another coloured pencil drawing. I overdid the left eye and took a chance erasing it and redoing it.

The version on the right is where I'll leave off, the eye corrected as well as the neck, with some extra shading to the body and arms and hair. All subtle changes. Of course there's still room for improvement but I'm ready to move on.

And so it goes. July is almost upon us.

And yet, we have only this moment.

presence

rainy drive and an orange visitor

There's a reason why I should post more often. One never knows what is going to come up.

On Saturday we made another venture down the road for a series of errands.

We kept to the slow road at first, through rural towns. This snake-like corrugated steel Quonset building seems no longer in use, returning to the land as it rusts and becomes overgrown.

Some houses are so refurbished, they seem like new.

This seems to have two new additions, each of its 3 parts has a door.

This concoction might have been thought out a little more. I think it's a beauty parlour of all things.

After out first stop, we thought we'd go through Berwick to catch the highway.

It was a thriving apple community in its day, and still very rural in its vibe.

Lovely little clapboard houses with generous porches

with some grander buildings

like this one turned into a restaurant

The highway proved to be very dicey

as the wind and rain 

had become too much for safe driving.

Wally slowed down

slow enough to capture these images through the blowing rain

Holstein cows on a farm

We were hydroplaning despite slowing down and knew we had to get off the road.

It didn't seem sloped enough to drain the fast and heavy amount of water.

Coming into Kingston, the rain seemed to abate somewhat.

Here's that sweet home I show you every time.

There seemed to be more houses than ever with For Sale signs on them.

This one with its spectacular front porch has sold.

Another lovely scene though not all had this charm.

This one had a barn for a garage.

We made it to Middleton where the only true charity shop is for miles,

the Sally Ann (Salvation Army). 

It hardly seemed worth the effort what with taking our lives in our hands and the impolite welcome we received from one of the workers in the back room. Ah well, people get tired.

We drove back to Kingston before we got on the highway again, hoping it would be drier.

Here is common scene of an overgrown farmfield.

The north mountain has a headland here I'd never seen before but for the low clouds.

Nearing our neck of the woods, the land rises 

until it becomes the old mountains.

That's a raven in the sky.

Our road has some remnants of old farms on it. This strange view of a barn reveals its secret on the right. The drop reveals where the doors would open on that right end for whatever animals it was built for that grazed on the sloping fields.

Even closer to us, an old Victorian that was a pale sage green til recently.

I always enjoy this cottagey style house with the big shed dormer.

There's usually an old golden retriever outside who barks at us when we walk by

.

and home again, home again, jiggedy-jig. Well, a little more jiggedy than jig.

Wally and I get out of the car and explore where he will plant

a little blue spruce we bought 2 months ago.

The little wild roses that insinuate themselves everywhere (even the lawn) are growing beside the huge old ash. We don't know how long it will take for the small blue spruce to grow, but we're hedging our bets that it won't be a problem for a long while. I'd really like a Christmas tree to block my view of the road in winter.

 

So that was Saturday.

Yesterday...

Yesterday morning I heard a chip,chip, chipping out my screened window and was surprised to see a male cardinal edging nearer to the window almost as if he was trying to peer in.

Cardinals are very shy, hence those blurry shots I got of one earlier in the spring. Also their call is very loud, not this gentle chip, chipping sound.

Then suddenly I saw why the unusual behaviour. There was a cat below us, walking the hedgerow. It was a young orange cat, and when I called to it, it came toward me. That's when I knew it wasn't another of the local feral cats. I quickly got myself outside, scooped it up and put it in a crate. I called my neighbour who knows everybody and he said it appeared to be abandoned and that he'd been feeding it for the last month. The neighbour next to him have kids who play with it so that it had become quite friendly.

I called a cat rescue lady who established a foster mama for me within the hour. I was astounded.

I made the little guy comfortable in the back vestibule as he was very unhappy with Babu and Muji nosing around, growling and hissing at them. Locked in the vestibule, he began to cry,

 so I sat with him for a bit. 

Skittish with me at first

It was hard to get pictures of him for the rescue lady

but as I sat with him, he soon calmed down.

In fact he became so quiet through the afternoon that I feared he might have escaped-

but that was impossible. Still, I didn't want to check on him for fear of starting him up again,

When the foster mama showed up late in the afternoon, it was raining buckets.

When I led her to the vestibule, I told her I didn't know what to expect as he had been so quiet.

There was the little boy snoozing in the crate that he had been so eager to escape.

This long time kitty mama had just gone through a period where she had lost 4 senior cats in succession to the ailments of old age. She was taking time off work when she saw my pictures of him and determined immediately that he was the boy for her. Driving all the way from Dartmouth to Aylesford to get flea and worming medication, then to me and home again, I was amazed by the way the Universe works when you do the right thing.

This kind woman had him named before she left.  Sam, perhaps.

I can't believe it was resolved so quickly and kindly.

My coloured pencil picture that I  showed you in the last post needed some finishing touches  It seems somewhat anti-climactic after all those pictures of the cute baby, but here it is for what it's worth.

"The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention"

                                                                                        Oscar Wilde