My Unkown Plant - Finally Named

Last year I posted pics of a garden plant I had, yet couldn't identify it. Was told to bring it to our local nursery in when it's in full bloom, which is now, June. So I took it to one of the flowering spikes in and got an answer. It is a Valerian!
As noted on one site ... "In the 16th century Valerian plant served as a perfume. Today the plant’s root covered with hairs is widely used for medicinal purposes; it serves as a sedative. It is of common knowledge that a cup of Valerian tea reduces stress, and aids falling asleep with no difficulties. It is a perfect aromatherapy herb for the bath as well. Valerian makes nice flower arrangements."

I can attest to the to aroma, and putting it in flower arrangements, but haven't tried the tea/stress part :) Sounds too complicated for me, so I'll just enjoy it's beauty and fragrances.

What I will do tho, is figure out the proper location and how to get it to seed properly so I can ensure more propagation next yr. Just love this plant!

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Tap, Tap, Tap, Who's There?

Last week was one just of those weeks, where we felt like we were going in circles. Spring was really in the air, with temperatures way above our highs, in fact setting several days on record with temps of 14-16C.


Everything seems to come out ... Sitting in the living room I would hear every so often this tap, tap, tap. It would stop and then start up again. I had a feeling I knew what it was having experienced something the same last year. A bird had come down our chimney and was caught in the fire box! Not having yet cleaned the glass nor removed the ashes from our February fires I couldn't visually see in without opening the door. You could hear a bit of wing flutter as it would go back up on top of the fire box.


Last year we went through a production of trying to free the bird in the same situation. I contacted our chimney cleaning company for guidance, friends offered suggestions, all which lead to getting out our the sheets we use to cover our plants in the fall when frost is called for, stretching them over the entrance all in attempt to capture/wrap it up when it flies out. Didn't work, it ended up flying out the side, hitting the window then resting on the far kitchen cabinets. A broom was then used, which the bird got onto and I slowly directed towards our patio doors and hoping it would take flight out the door of our screened in deck area. That worked AOK.


So, let's forget all the props, just open the doors and wait ... didn't take long and out it flew,


hitting the windows a few times ... it rested on the window sill ...
then easily found its way to the patio door and flew out the porch door. There it rested, fluffed itself a few times, made some calling sounds and was gone.


I am still not sure what kind of bird it is. There is one called a Chimney Swift, commonly known for this spring behaviour as it looks for nesting areas, but it appears to be a much smaller bird with a smaller beak. This one from my books looks like a European Starling.


On the same theme of what spring brings out ... mornings are still cools so I was wearing a mock turkle neck, and hoodie sweat and a light jacket ... pretty much covered, no? I go into the "Canine Suite" to let our pregnant girls out and all of a sudden feel something touch, kinda 'pinch' the back of my neck/shoulders. I wack my upper back in reaction. Get the girls out and feel another 'pinch'! Ouch, this is more like a 'bite'. So I rip off all my layers and don't I find a hornet or wasp (I never know the difference) attached inside my top! These will guys come out, especially here in the country when the weather warms up, but are pretty 'groggy'. They usually don't 'attack' us. Guess I was in the wrong spot at the wrong time, as this guy lost flying ability. He bit me at least 3 x & I developed large hard whelts that were itchy! TG no other reactions.

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Post Ice Storm Beauty

Just wanted to share some of the pictures I took 2 days after our ice storm. The skies cleared, we had a slightly lower than freezing drop in temperature, plus there was a light dusting of snow over night.
The existing water/ice froze, then the trees got a dusting of snow. This is one of our lawn shrubs all sparklie.By noon the sun was strong enough that where it hit it was melting the ice/snow. Those trees more heavily hit were like white lights as they shone through the sun.

Looking way up, here's one of our taller trees by our driveway.The trees that were in the shade were keeping their frosty, frozen icicle look.

We then went into a deep freeze, temperatures down around -20C, -27C with the windchill. Today it is starting to moderate with temps going just above 0C this weekend.

It's been a hard time for the dogs as their time outside was limited with the paw freezing temps.

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Hay Fields With Evening Fog

Last night Mike and I had an errand to run in town. As we travelled the back roads, the farmer's fields with the bails of hay tell the story that summer, well, it's 1/2 over. The temperature varied, rain in areas, dropping from 22C down to 16C as the cold front was going through and causing ground fog to appear. There was a smell of freshness in the air ...

BUT, GOSH, would the real summer please step foward!!!

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Deer Oh Deer

Was headed out yesterday morning around 9am to take Mike's car into town for servicing, and I no sooner pull out of the driveway, a few hundred yards down and doesn't a doe walk across the road. I slowed down to where she went into the bush, at the same time scrambling to turn on my camera, put down the passenger window, hoping she didn't go too far in. I'm trying to go slow, not to spook her, hold the camera up, find the zoom ... no such luck .. here's the 1st shot ...

Crop out the extras, enlarge the pic and you can see she's eye balling me ...
then she walked a little deeper into the bush, nibbled a few leaves and took one last look at me before she headed into deeper brush.

It must be about 2 weeks ago now, just about at the same place, a doe & her new born crossed the road not too far in front of me ... shucks, I didn't have my camera! Next time I'll remember to have it on and ready ... we are very well treed in and you have to be spot on time wise to capture the hidden wild life that surrounds us.

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Hoya - Indoor Glory

One of my favourite indoor plants at this time of year is my Hoya plant. It is a hanging one and has oblong green leaves. In the late spring to early summer tho it is spectacular not only in the flowers, but its fragrance! OH my, especially in the evenings, it is so sweet, it oozes out from our dining room ... unbelievable! Wish the web had a scent scratch pad :) The flowers are hard to explain as it's a bundle of them, gosh maybe some 40 stems on my variety that come together in a 1/2 moon shape hanging down.

Each individual stem then has a small flower bud which has about 4 layers placed on top of one another, glossy, almost waxy like, that are star shaped with a darker center one that is 'felt' like. Am hoping you can see in this pic some tindy (shiny) droplets that look like water but infact they are sticky. Below is a variation (of many) I found on the main Hoya Plant website.

Ooooo, this one is such a pretty ruby red colour! I might just have to (order) do more indoor gardening!
http://www.hoyaplants.com/ Check them out ... they are easy to grow in good indirect lighting & easy to start from a shoot.

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Lilac Capital of Ontario

Did you know??? the lilac Capital of Ontario is a very small town just west of Ottawa called Franktown. We live just around the corner from it. Our road boosts several groupings in spots where cedars, especially, don't line the edges. It is now June and many of the lilacs are finishing their blooming ... the constant rainy weather the last few weeks hasn't help them maintain their blooms. Sadly their beauty & smell will soon be gone.

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Agility @ our National Equestrian Park

These agility trials are held at our National Equestrian Park. The same place as many of you into horse jumping would have seen Big Ben of Perth, Ont (just minutes from us) compete. In his prime he won many awards here. I had the pleasure of seeing him several times here and also sponsored an award that Jill Henselwood won one yr.

Here is the fountain & pond that is viewed upon entering the main grassed ring areas.

This pic is taken from across the pond. Several families of Canada Geese were there, watching intently over their brood. I could count 13 babies in this family.

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Good Morning Mr. Blue Jay!

A Blue Jay from our deck

As we start our Blog, now the beginning of May/09 just off our deck is a Blue Jay making itself at home. Nice to see colour coming to life, even if it's mostly the dandilions popping up all over.

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Our old girl "Opal" lazing in the sun

Just outside, what we call our Canine Suite is our deck where our puppies play, our pregnant girls & our 'house mice' enjoy doing what they want. Here's our oldest girl, our foundation girl, our ROMC girl enjoying the May afternoon sunshine. Oh, what life is like as a dog!

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