This moody valley

I just happened to look out the window while I was on the phone a week or more ago. I saw a black western sky...so I went to the deck and wow! Black indeed and moving in fast. I ran for my camera.

Weather seems to be a major topic of conversation here where our February summer did a ton of damage to our apple crop. This area provides 25 percent of Ontario's apples... not this year. It will affect many in this area economically as did the poor snow season for skiers. We depend on apples, some other types of farming, skiing and tourists... all pretty much weather dependent. Hard to see ahead when it looks bleak right now for so many.

So this black sky - what did it mean? We had a tornado blow through here two years ago, ruining a few orchards and ski chalets as it bounced along a north easterly route. Luckily no lives were lost... but black sky as seen in this photo could mean a similar event, though I don't see a funnel shaped cloud.

The storm moved in quickly, the wind howled suddenly, whining and moaning around the eves. The sky turned grey from the blue-black it was and the rain bucketed down, flattening whatever fragile plants were trying to grow. And then later:

The sky lightened and evening fell with all the glorious colours of a fabulous sunset.

It's moody  - this valley. There are mornings like today - I woke with sun streaming in my window, forcing my eyelids to pop up like bread in a toaster.

It lured me outdoors to fill the one feeder I leave out now, and put out the small silo feeder and the hummer feeder that sits on my deck. The two male hummers were most impatient...with only one, they take turns guarding it. And a female showed up, just like the female rose breasted gros beak... let the guys find the places to build nests and get moving, then arrive in time to do the real work of making a family... or at least it seems like that, though often in bird world, they seem to share the duties of sitting on eggs and feeding young. All this beautiful sun had me thinking family, nesting, spring, new life.

Then the sky clouded over - and it's been like that all day, mild, warm even, but cloudy one minute, sunny the next. As I said a moody valley right now. But fascinating in its moods, almost like people whose changeability can also be fascinating... but Nature does it on a much grander scale.

So here's to Ma Nature for tomorrow - Happy Mother's Day - and to all my friends who are mothers - the same good wishes, and to those who act like mothers or who are substitute mothers with your caring and devotion, here's to you as well. May the day break well and bring you each joy!

Chowing down

Even though were into June - nearly the middle, and despite what forecasters predicted, we've had only a few brief days of extraordinary heat. Enough to bring all the iris in my garden out. They are remarkable as are most flowers this year. Lush, abundant, magnificent in colour.

But because it's been cool, at least that's what I assume, the little birds are back at my feeders. This morning, the bright cadmium yellow bits of sunlight were singing and playing among the high branches and landing on all the feeders devouring seed.

They were joined by several finches, a few chickdees, though only a few and a couple of jays, a white-breasted nuthatch, several woodpeckers, both hairy and downie, red wing blackbirds, a couple of mourning doves with their soft cooing and grackles. My lone starling is nurturing her babes at the moment. She's inhabited the owl box,and I'll have a real cleaning job to do once her brood has fledged. Starlings are the messiest housekeepers, worse even than I am.

Several swallows are also sitting. Six of the boxes are full. And there are ongoing hummer wars as two ruby-throated males duke it out over what I think is only one female... maybe two. Those feeders are closely guarded and give me lots of entertainment when the battles are in full force. I've been narrowly missed by a couple of buzzing missiles while seated on the deck trying to enjoy coffee, but dodging fast flyers instead.

Ah spring!

Sad though that while the cool weather has meant I get to see more of some of my favourite birds, the farmers are concerned about crops and storms continue to plague many places around the globe...once again making me wonder what's down the road with climate change and can we do enough soon enough? I'm not as optimistic as I once was.

But for this evening, after a long day at the computer making charts and notes and agendae for meetings, I'm going to enjoy the birds's songs and their busy flight to gather a few more seeds before dark.

Have a super evening.

Stormy weather

Lately we've been experiencing (like most of world) some very different spring weather. Recently we had a series of amazing thunderstorm cells passing by. Tornadoes also occurred in parts of southern Ontario.

Then the sun came out. It always amazes me how the sun lights up the world. It's something we take so for granted.

If you have big sky such as where I live - you can easily see the difference sunshine makes. Here the black sky of the storm just passed, is a great backdrop for the trees east of me and along the roadside.

The blue sky that followed the storm also shows clearly the form that a storm takes - with this circular shaped cloud being the last edge of the gray skies for a short while anyway.

Weather affects so much of what we do, and it in turn is affected by what we do - climate change being the biggest problem. The current wildfires and floods, as well as the severity of the tornadoes are, I believe, evidence of how the carbon emissions are changing our climate and weather. We so casually throw pollution into the atmosphere with our excessive use of electricity, gasoline for vehicles, coal fired generators, - the list is pretty long. Many people are concerned but it takes concrete action to make change. I hope we're not too late.