Hops in the Snow
Hops in the Snow
Category Archives: urban nature-pockets
Autumn Long Grass
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Late Autumn Grass
This season I’ve been noticing the beauty of the long grasses where they have found a home to grow in the city – the edges of gardens, yards, fencelines, along parks and ditches. Banks of tawny brown, punctuated by flame-licks of bright yellow; tufts of orange and red – jewels of the natural world. Once you start noticing them, these gems are everywhere! A little taste of the countryside, here in the usual paths of urban life.
Seed Pods
It is our quiet time
We do not speak, because the voices are within us.
It is our quiet time
We do not walk, because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time
We do not dance, because the music has lifted us to a place where the spirit is.
It is our quiet time. We rest with all of nature. We wake when the seven sisters wake.
We greet them in the sky over the opening of the kiva.
~Nancy Wood
Earth Prayers From Around the World
Edited by Roberts & Amidon
Fall Fruit
Prairie Classic!
silver and red
Sturdy Northern Grapes
Autumn Lane
The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.
~Autumn, Emily Dickinson
Autumn Robin – One of Many!
Fall Floral
Ladybug’s Friend
September Lavender
Sweet Pea Blossom and Pod
September sunflower
Collected from this morning’s walk.
Lovely to see lingering blossoms!
This morning all the neighbourhood squirrels are out industriously clipping and dropping long green spruce cones from the trees, creating a steady “plunk” throughout the alleys.
Our resident squirrel – a yearling who has set up shop under our garden shed – is nimbly flowing out to the slender branch tips of the bur oak in his quest for the last remnants of acorns, occasionally slipping in the insubstantial branches and hanging precariously with a squeak! of alarm.
Where’s Waldo!
Although no other squirrel is after his treasure mine, he must contend with a curious blue jay who stops by from time to time.
Winged Creatures
This afternoon in the back yard I looked up to see the sky filled with a huge (for here – 50+) flock of gulls! Prepping to migrate? No scavenging apparent – they’re all wheeling around, staying airborne. The flock slowly drifts off SE…
Meanwhile on the ground, and equally rare, is a flock of winged ants(?), milling about on the walk, surrounded by a host of wingless ant attendants… or predators – they are hauling off the occasional winged corpse. This happened once or twice earlier this summer, too – we watched, fascinated, as a host of winged creatures were escorted out of the ant-home entrance (in that case, a crack in a stump) by agitated ants. Eventually flying off, looking like tree fluff on the rise – a halo of fast-beating wings surrounding each in the sunlight.
New nature word! BOSKY
Bosky. Covered in bushes or underwood; full of thickets. Love it! Makes me want to head down to the river valley and visit some thickets now!
Bosky Dogwood
Maybe the earliest appearance in a book is Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “My many boskie acres, and my unshrubd downe. IV, I, 81 Ah, how I long for some boskie acres of my own!
My old favourite, Sir Walter Scott, in Lady of the Lake (which I haven’t read – but obsessively revisited Ivanhoe! Which has lots of great nature writing in it, come to think of it) says “The bosky thickets.”
This great word came into my world through Ross King’s, Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven, Continue reading
Our backyard hollyhocks were humming with activity this sunny August afternoon! There must be a hive within 3 miles of our place – maybe from the Nature Centre, just down the river. Someone did the waggle dance about our place!
Honeybee!
Field to Forest 