Category: Environment

A Slug/Snail Art Day…

The Cedar Journal May 23, 2021

Many of my regulars to my blog know that I have been volunteering at a local community garden since COVID made me stay closer to home.

As with any garden or garden season there are challenges with the balance of nature. Nature knows what is needed and what is not needed to maintain a balance. We humans think we are so smart so most of us try to “fix” what we perceive as “problems” in our personal or community gardens.

I usually don’t get too wrapped up in “fixing” what nature is throwing my way. Although frustrating to see my Dahlias being munched to nothing overnight can be a bit overwhelming.

Or all the sweet little pumpkins that I raised all Spring with love and care to become a wonderful salad for the snails and slugs at the community garden once they were planted.

My sweet little pumpkins heading out into the big bad world full of unknown threats!

Then, I had an idea… what if we give these creatures some job appreciation! Everyone is trying to kill them, or relocate them.

I am going to try snail/slug art appreciation to see if I can encourage them to relocate out of my garden and into the art scene. Once they become famous they can buy small greens and will leave my pumpkin plants, dahlias, and broccoli alone.

Here is the first of the Snail/Slug art exhibition…

U-turn: A portrait in travel by Sam Snail

In Search of Peace: A one slug journey on plastic. By Sidney Slug

Just Hanging: Art on irises, Modern. By Sir Herman Slug Black

Early to Rise: On Onions, Modern. Sir Herman Slug Black

Death of Friends: The Real Tragic End from Alcoholism. By Unknown

Whatever your challenges in life, more will always follow…

Flowers

The Cedar Journal November 19, 2020

I wrote last week that it was difficult to believe that it was November with flowers still blooming. A week later and I still feel the same as last week as I captured these images this morning.

Wordless Wednesday

The Cedar Journal October 21, 2020

Birders?

The Cedar Journal August 3, 2020

We love nature and we love exploring it in our human powered floating vessel. We have joked over our years of blogging that we might upend the birding world with some of our sightings. Please don’t fear bird bloggers we will not become the new birding community influencers with our most recent outdoor adventure.

We started our morning riding our bikes from our camping to the bird observation tower that is located on the far Eastern edge of the Weerribben National Park. We rode fast to try to beat the rain clouds. we suffered a short delay as I experienced an unexpected acrobatic bike fall that resulted in road rash and a very bruised ego. At 54 I don’t recover nearly as quickly from such events.

On our bike route, and within view of the observation tower, the Hubby spotted his first photo note worthy bird of the day, a spoonbill wading in the water.

Once we reached the tower we were greeted by another birder. The enthusiastic older man was instantly impressed with the Hubby’s Nikon camera. Well… at least in the camera brand. He was also a Nikon owner but had a huge birder zoom lens attached. I have learned that talking about lens size in the birding world is a great conversation ice breaker. Soon the Hubby and this older birder were discussing all the birds that the man had spotted from this tower on past visits.

As the guys were discussing the finer points of the birding world I took this photo of a small reed bird.

Soon the other bird observer announced it was time for coffee and left us alone on the tower. The wind blew but the rain storm didn’t appear as we watched a pair of storks fly overhead.

A stork flying past the observation tower.

Once we had enough of looking at birds from the tower we biked to another location with a bird observation point. Before we arrived we had our best close up sighting of the day, a stork.

This stork was hanging around in a backyard of someone’s house.

The other observation deck. Not nearly as clean or as nice as the tower we had just visited.

The end of our birding tour brought us into Kalenberg and this site. A stork nest and the stork. No babies were seen.

Earth Day Garden

The Cedar Journal April 22, 2020

I started the day with my hands in the earth. To feel a connection to what we came from and what we will return to at the end. The rich earthy smell of well composted dirt. The grainy feel of the worm litter dirt, the pounding of the rock hard dry dirt that has resulted in the weeks with no rain.

The blue plastic rain barrel that I covered with reed and bamboo spout to make it look more Earth friendly. It drains into a small pond at the apex of the ZEN garden.

Worm droppings from a local earth worm farm adds much needed nutrients into the soil

Dirt gives the nutrients to the plants and the earth knows exactly what plants will grow for each kind of dirt.

I am working on a new volunteer project now that my plans for my normal volunteering has been interrupted. Just like dirt, I can change.

Plenty of opportunity to excel with weeds to pull and treasures to find.

There is a local Biological garden that is within walking distance from our house. When they turned tulip fields into a park several years ago a group of local people envisioned a local biological garden on some of the park land. They received approval from the local government and started the work.

The gate with information on the opening times.

I was a fan from the start and watched as the volunteers transformed it into a beautiful productive huge garden that first year. They sold the produce from the garden to anyone who wandered in from the parks trails.

Part of the original garden was a small garden that was created from brick with a tree in the middle.

Each morning for about a week now I go and get connected to the Earth. I pull at the weeds, beat the soil loose from the clumps of really hard dirt that has suffered from the lack of recent rainfall, I feel the freedom and silences of the early morning in the garden. I meditate on the current crisis and the people I love with my hands caked in dust and dirt.

I hope on this Earth Day my readers were able to do the same. There is one sure result from this current situation. The earth will survive, the dirt will continue to be dirt and nature will heal any damage us humans have inflicted upon it’s wonderful surface.