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.




© The Cedar Journal, 2020, all rights reserved
The adventures of a cedar canoe
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.
© The Cedar Journal, 2020, all rights reserved
© The Cedar Journal, 2020, all rights reserved.
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.
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.
©️ The Cedar Journal, 2020, all rights reserved.
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.
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.
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.
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.
©️ The Cedar Journal, 2020, all rights reserved.
I have to face it, I do not like it when people talk trash about me. In the past, I have been called crazy, selfish, witch, and many other very un-flattering things. Some of those did have the effect intended and pissed me off.
So now it is my turn to talk trash about some of my fellow humans.