One of my favourite sights of spring: larch trees in flower. The upright pink ones are the elegant, showy females in their rosy party dresses – the males are the compact pollen-bearers, in tidy yellow-brown suits, clinging to the undersides of the branches. You can see a couple of females and a male in this photo I snapped late last week.
Infinity is just so big that by comparison bigness itself looks really titchy.
~Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
O riotous spring! My hayfever has hayfever, and the three of us (because of course the two hayfevers are their own monstrous entities) have a cold on top of it all.
But it’s cause for celebration! Why, you may ask? Well, let me tell you:
If you’ve been following Flowery Prose for a while, you may remember that in July of 2016 my brother, my hubby, and I took a trip out to the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary, near Cochrane, Alberta. We had such an amazing time on the interactive tour that we decided to go again in early March of this year. What a treat! The wolfdogs were still sporting their fluffy winter coats and the absence of green grass and leaves on the trees gave us a different perspective than we had in the summer. The Sanctuary has taken in more wolfdogs since we were last there, and staff and volunteers have built more enclosures to comfortably house them.
Photo courtesy R. Normandeau. We did the interactive tour once again and had a blast feeding and meeting some of the beautiful residents of the Sanctuary, as well as learning more about wolfdogs and the unfortunate reasons a rescue like this is so badly needed. The highlight of the trip, however, was when the wolfdogs all spontaneously set up a chorus of howling, joining together to sing for us. My brother was quick on the draw with his cellphone and he generously allowed me to share with you the audiofile he recorded:
So wonderful! If you’re interested in learning more about – and/or supporting – the work that the Sanctuary does, click here. If you plan to travel in this part of Alberta, it’s a highly recommended stop – the staff are incredible and it is guaranteed that you will totally fall in love with the wolfdogs. ♥
Up close with a beautiful pink long-stemmed rose. 🙂
“Come on in, the water’s fine!”
It always amazes me to see American dippers hunt in freezing water – and it’s even more amazing to think that during our crazy cold winters, there are tasty tidbits in there to feed on!
(Photo taken by R. Normandeau in January 2018, Beaver Flats, Kananaskis Country).
What birds are currently making their appearance in your area? (Feel free to link to photos/posts on your blog or social media if you wish!).
No need to leave the city to find ice falls! A quick wintery stroll in Fish Creek Provincial Park in early March yielded this frosty view. (If you live in or are visiting Calgary next winter and you’re looking to check these out, head to the ranch house off of Bow Bottom Trail SE and hike across the first bridge you see from the parking lot. Follow the river to see the falls, or climb above them to reach some cool caves).
It seems that the big spring melt may finally (!) be on its way, so this area will be taking on a more liquid form very soon….
If you embroider and are on the hunt for new patterns, I recently discovered that the DMC website has about a zillion five hundred or so available for free. Download away and enjoy stitching!
My favourite recipe of this past week? Judi’s Sweet Potato and Apple Latkes, found here. They are the ultimate in comfort food and are a breeze to make. I could probably eat these every day. I’m totally not exaggerating here; they are that tasty.
It’s a few years old now (it was published in 2013), but if you haven’t already checked out Deborah Madison’s cookbook Vegetable Literacy, go grab a copy from the library pronto. If you have a passion for cooking and gardening, you’ll delight in this breathtakingly-photographed tome. The recipes look amazing but I can’t stop drooling at (on?) the pictures. (And this one of the reasons why we sometimes find water-damaged books at the library, lol). Take a look at the author describing her book in this video.
The Spring issue of The Gardener for Canadian Climates will be out shortly on newsstands across Canada and a couple of articles I wrote are inside: “Carrot Cousins” and ” Preventing Common Lawn Problems.” The magazine also features the annual Plant Picks section, which I always love contributing to. And will you get a load of that cover? WOW. We don’t have many print gardening magazines left in Canada, and I would encourage gardening enthusiasts to support this amazing publication if possible.
Do you have any “tidbits” you want to share this week? – favourite or new recipes, interesting links or news items you’ve come across, fascinating blog posts you or someone else have put up? Feel free to mention them in the comments!
