….thanks to Amanda for hosting the Friendly Friday Photo Challenge
I adore photos of raindrops. Since we’ve only just seen the last of our snow I had to dig into the archives for these photos.
….thanks to Nancy Merrill for hosting the Photo a Week Challenge
Every week I work with fire as we bake our bread for the inn and the Farmers’ Market in an outdoor bake oven. There’s also an old fireplace in the tearoom that we light when the weather is particularly cold. I couldn’t resist including the fire from my daughter’s birthday cake. I love how it illuminates our granddaughter’s face.
….thanks to Cee for hosting the Black and White Challenge
In the warmer weather he’d be standing on water when the fountain is working.
….had to buy these when I saw them at the fruit market
…this time last year we discovered a similar visitor in our backyard
Some of you may remember the racoon we found in our deck box last year. We managed to get a couple of photos before it scurried off and never returned. All spring we’ve had a heavy metal pan sitting on top of the box so we figured that would be enough of a deterrent to keep the racoons out of the box.
When our dog Frances started to get excited and agitated around the outside of the box this week my husband suspected that the racoon had returned. We took the dog back into the house and quickly the racoon escaped. When we opened the box we found another surprise.
The mama returned shortly after but she wasn’t sure what to do.
We called Animal Control and they told us to make the area very uncomfortable by playing loud music, especially at night, and throwing in some dog fur into the box. The one thing not to do is add moth balls because they are too toxic for the babies. Apparently racoons have more than one den site so the theory is that the mother will take her babies somewhere else.
We were all set to do that but my husband didn’t want to wait until nightfall so he started by opening the box all the way. Again the mama racoon scurried away. It didn’t take long before she returned and one by one she removed her babies and waddled across the deck and the backyard, up the chain link fence and into the neighbours yard. We were afraid she was going to move into our old garage or crawl under our deck but I guess one of her other den sites is in someone else’s backyard.
….thanks to Fandango for hosting FOWC
Since January I’ve experienced the death of 7 friends and family members. It’s only April and more people that I know have passed in the last three months than I’ve experienced in the last 10 years. Is that natural? Probably.
Is it natural to feel sorrow or surprise when you haven’t had contact with people for over 20 years and then find out that they’ve passed? Probably.
Is it natural to take pleasure from fond memories of people recently deceased? Probably.
People say that we’re at that age when this will happen more often. I suppose that is probably true but I’d rather not think about it. I still think of myself as being only in my 30s or 40s. Is that natural? Well for me it is.
As I look around I see beauty in the most unusual places, especially in nature. I love the look of dried leaves and isolated berries. For many it signifies ‘death’ but it’s just the natural part of the circle of life. I suppose it signifies that new growth or rebirth will soon happen.
Signs that new life is about to rise up:
Mama Cormier 