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.