A bee hive at Mountainview School

 Photographs taken on 15 April 2024.

Snow on April 4 , 2024

 20 to 30 cm of heavy wet snow last night and into today.

Return of the crows

Summery weather has arrived, early this year, it's been +20 - +25 C since last Friday, and I've been outside raking the grass of last winter's debris; litter, dirt, twigs, some fast food wrappings, all of it collected in the snow over the last four or five months of winter. Fresh air, blue sky, birds singing, plants coming up, buds on trees and bushes, and a feeling of renewal, and genuine renewal, and how quickly we forget what we've just been through: a long winter, short days, heating bills. One of the first things I did when this good weather arrived was put water in the bird bath and almost right away there was a crow visiting, usually in the morning. Perhaps this is the time, in the spring, when crows visit the most, not only for a drink of water but to soak their food in water, and after they leave there are peculiar white stringy things they've found in the garbage at a local Chinese restaurant. Later there will be more birds at the bird bath; however, crows are always welcome and are certainly entertaining. 

Photos taken from our dining room window with an IPhone.

Added photos

Somewhere on Mount Royal

It was the end of April 2011; I was walking on Mount Royal, the mountain at the center of Montreal and a very popular park. The spirit of trees is not only in the tree, it's in the shadow of the trees, it's in the roots and branches and the seasonal change of leaves, from green to fall's variety of colours to these bare branches and the carpet of leaves on the ground. 

The day after the snow

 it was back to spring . . .

Snow in late April

Over 19 cm. of snow fell yesterday, a new record for snow falling on April 19; twenty-four hours later most of it has melted. 

And now it's back to life and getting on with spring, turning the world green after a long, cold, white winter.

The Garden in mid-April

The garden doesn't look like much in early spring but there are a few birds visiting the bird bath, a Cardinal sitting at the dining room window not knowing he was being observed, a few other birds happily eating whatever it is they find on the ground. It doesn't look like much but the snow has finally melted and I've unwrapped a few plants, an overgrown box hedge, three rose bushes, and they're all alive. I haven't removed mulch from the garden, we'll see soon enough what is under last years leaves. Irises and day lilies are coming up and there are buds on the lilac bush that I cut down to ground level years ago, it has survived my pruning and is now about seven feet tall, bravo for life! 

Photos taken yesterday, 15 April 2022.

"The Break-Up" by A.M. Klein

The Break-Up

by A.M. Klein

They suck and whisper it in mercury,
the thermometers. It is shouted red
from all the Aprils hanging on the walls.
In the dockyard stalls
the stevedores, their hooks rusty, wonder; the
wintering sailors in the taverns bet.

A week, and it will crack! Here's money that
a fortnight sees the floes, the smokestacks red!
Outside The Anchor's glass, St. Lawrence lies
rigid and white and wise,
nor ripple and dip, but fathom-frozen flat.
There are no hammers will break that granite lid.

But it will come! Some dead of night with boom
to wake the wagering city, it will break,
will crack, will melt its muscle-bound tides
and raise from their iced tomb
the pyramided fish, the unlockered ships,
and last year's blue and bloated suicides.

[1945-46] [1948]

"Lyrics of Air" by Louis Dudek

Lyrics of Air

by Louis Dudek

This April air has texture
of soft scented ocean on my face --
no ripple against the skin
but open waves, parabolas from some April place
in the sky, like silk between the fingers
from old Cathay, blown about, or like gigantic roses
whose petals, waving, fall on my face
with a faultless petaline smoothness.

Delicate as a pear, this milk-white air,
to pour over the crust of windy March.
Give me a mouthful of such air, digestible as water,
to rarify in the bones and flow
                                    upward, until
from the bud of my cold lips poetic leaves may grow.

Small Perfect Things (DC Books, Montreal, 1991)