H Is For Hose and Horta.

Hose. Horta, Portuguese for a vegetable garden or a small farm.

This photo shows onions being watered with the help of a large hose, simulating rain. It was late in the afternoon and I couldn’t resist the way the light illuminating the young and wet onion leaves from behind was giving them a lovely translucent green appearance. This is an old photo, from 2013, back then my grandmother was still alive (this is on her yard) and my mother was still healthy (she was the one holding the hose here). I miss those times.

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Jack’s Walk

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Yesterday I noticed a lot of dead or dying trees in the forested area up by the lake so today Jack and I went back to do a bit more exploring. I know that some of the damage was caused by the emerald ash borer beetle which decimated a nearby park, but there are also a lot of dry, brittle fir trees and I don’t know what’s causing that. I’m also curious to see how healthy the underbrush is, but we need a few weeks of growing time before I’ll really be able to tell. In the meantime, the trails are easy(ish) and Jack is having fun.

 

 

Jack’s Walk

It’s another beautiful day so my boy and I went wandering around the woods up by the lake. I don’t walk those trails very often because there’s usually a lot of bugs, but it’s early in the season so I thought we’d give it a try. Jack loves new places so he had a great time and I found a few interesting trees to photograph. The first two trees are alive, but the last tree has been dead for a while. It left behind an interesting carcass, though, and was full of little sparrows as we approached it.

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Jack’s Walk

It’s a perfect day here. The sun is shining in a cloudless blue sky and it’s 21° with a light little breeze. Jack and I decided to go see if there were any flowers up yet at the park and we found daffodils. Lots of daffodils, all just newly opened and at their best. The tulips are up too, but they’re still a few days away from blooming. It was also nice to see the willows already fuzzy with new leaves. Now, I’m going to go find every excuse I can to be outside.

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F Is For Fantail Warbler and Fuinha-dos-Juncos.

Fantail Warbler. Fuinha-dos-Juncos.

Common English and Portuguese names for the bird Cisticola juncidis, here perched on a maize tassel. It’s a small insectivorous bird with a characteristic “zit…zit…zit…zit” call and a zigzagging flight, easy to spot in flight but not always easy to figure out where it landed, as it rarely chooses such a conspicuous perch as in this photo. A funny thing is the Portuguese common name, which means marten-of-the-reeds. Yes, marten as in the mustelid. I don’t know why.

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