Rabbit Returned

The days are getting longer by about a minute a day, so when we get home around 4:30 p.m. it is still a little bright outside, it isn't dark as it was on Christmas Day. Anyhow, we arrive home and I go outside and leave a carrot, cut into pieces, for the rabbit. Yesterday I noticed the rabbit is leaving little gifts, rabbit poops, where I leave the carrot, and the rabbit gave me a good laugh over this. I am not certain he even liked carrots when I first left them for him, but now he visits everyday for his carrot snack. Yesterday, he arrived within minutes of my leaving his snack; after I left his carrot beside the bird bath, he appeared as though he had been waiting for me to leave the carrot and go away. This rabbit brings me a lot of happiness, now we both stand by the window looking outside at the rabbit as he eats the carrots that are left for him. Video online 04 January 2026.

A year ago today

Here are photos of this day in 2024, a year ago today. A year later it's -15 C and snowing, so far one of the colder winters on record. 

The day after Christmas, 26 December 2013

 

Christmas Eve, 2025

Arriving home Christmas Eve. It was dark and cold and snowing. Even in winter the garden is a place of life, seeing a rabbit digging in the snow and eating some grass. The garden is an invitation to birds, insects, and urban wildlife.

Crows, photographs of crows

 Crows, photographed in 2020 and 2021.

Video: Honey bees collecting pollen

Here is a second short video, of honey bees collecting pollen from lavender. Online since 20 October 2025.

Or, cut and paste the following, 

https://youtube.com/shorts/2Dr9y_voM40?si=FVXXH-GxZGSxHfPE

Canadian Cottage Garden, early evening

 Photographs taken on 05 September 2025, around 6:30 p.m., as the days are getting shorter.

Canadian Cottage Garden on 3 September 2025

Fall is not far away, the days are shorter, the sunshine is not as hot, the nights are cooler, there is the smell of fall in the air, birds are flying south, bears prepare to hibernate, and the garden is closing down. While flowers are dying back we know that they will return in eight months, that’s eight long cold months. Cruel months. Monochromatic months of sense deprivation. No wonder we celebrate summer, tolerate winter, see winter as something to survive and put behind us, and in November we already count the months to spring.

The garden on 3 September 2025

Canadian Cottage Garden on 11 August 2025

 It’s 33 C. What’s good for the garden may not be good for the gardener.