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.

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.

Canadian Cottage Garden on 30 June 2025

 

Canadian Cottage Garden, 15 March 2025

It's 10 C this morning, 15 March 2025; spring is here and winter has come to an end. This was a winter we are happy to see the end of, very cold, a lot of snow, and hard on all of us. Right now the garden doesn’t look like much, it's still winter, it's still covered with snow, but soon it will be green and full of flowers, birds will be at the bird bath, life will return to life.     

   

Birds, robins, bird bath

 October 2024

The hidden trail, 4 October 2024

 

This brings me happiness

22 July 2024. There is a feeling of peace sitting in the garden. Well, that should be obvious, I guess . . .  but it isn't. Here we sit with the comings and goings of insects, butterflies, and birds, here we sit on a summer day, mid-afternoon, our presence isn't needed, the insects, butterflies, and birds have work to do. Now honey bees visit the garden, you didn't see many of them a few years ago. If the climate is changing, and it seems to be, then let it stop at this. We never had snails before, up to last week we had many snails. And cardinals are now seen and heard everyday, even in winter we have cardinals, and they were few and far between just a few years ago. Now I hear and see them everyday; what happened? On the news it is said that they are plentiful (while other birds are diminishing in number) because there are so many bird feeders in Montreal. Really? I wonder. Let's not spoil things with politics, even though it's difficult not to drop a few comments, but if you want peace, turn off the radio, turn off the TV, leave your IPhone in a drawer, be with nature. 

This brings me happiness

 

This is the best year for the garden! It has taken time, six? seven? years to become established; some things take time and you just have to be patient. I can see how I could have sped things up; for instance, instead of planting a few cone flowers each year and waiting for them to spread, I could have bought five or six, or more, and this would have made the garden fuller, more established, sooner rather than taking so many years. But live and learn, and learning by oneself is without the input of other people. I love to walk or sit in the garden, surrounded by flowers and bushes, and the insects and butterflies are plentiful; I think to myself that I have made this a home, or a place to visit, for them. Every day I see birds visiting the bird bath and this brings me a lot of happiness, I don't get in their way, I stay quiet, I observe them from the dining room window, and I think to myself that I have made this a place they can visit. If you make your garden a place where insects, butterflies, and birds want to visit then they will come; a barren yard, just grass, isn't all that inviting for them. A barren yard, just grass, needs a few flowers to make it inviting; a garden is almost like a room in one's home, it is an extension of one's home.