April "Showers"?!!

I THINK spring is here... but I'm NOT SURE!

Granted - every year, the weather is a little different...

THIS year, most of our "April showers" have come as snow!

(The top photo was taken last Friday, April 11/25... The bottom one taken three days earlier on Tuesday, April 8/25...)

View By the River

When Terry and I recently went to the Miller's Oven in Manotick, we also wandered towards the river and the mill.

We wanted to see if Canada Geese were again nesting on the cliff - where we had noticed them before.

Yes! The male was strutting about, on guard...

While the female was just sitting there.

I didn't go close enough to see if the female had eggs in the nest  - but I assumed that no eggs had hatched. The birds weren't as aggressively protective as they are when they have their young.

We then went over to check out the dam. It was totally open... Lots of water rushing through with all the melting snow.

Back for Brunch

A few days ago, Terry and I headed back to the Miller's Oven Tea House, in the nearby village of Manotick. We hadn't been there all winter.

.

We had breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup...

Delicious! Definitely not "senior sized" portions!

Noticed that this little establishment - run by senior volunteers - was voted Ottawa Best Tea House in 2024. Our waitress commented that it was their second consecutive year winning.

Noted also that they have a special turkey dinner event the week before Easter...

I'll mention it to our neighbors, Earl and Mary. They often like to go.

Squirrel Neighbor

I noticed this squirrel through my kitchen window.

It was looking for food - seeds? - in the eaves trough of the shed.

Then it headed towards the pine tree beside our house.

He or she may be our next door neighbor! 

Oh-no! What Now?!

My two amaryllis plants are both in transition.

The one with leaves is slowly opening up. The other one, with no leaves, that has a beautiful large flower on top, is in trouble! The flower is too heavy for the stem, so the stem just keeled over!

First I tried putting the whole pot (with soil and flower) into a tall vase to support the stem - but the flower faced downwards.

Finally I just cut the flower off the bulb and put the stem into a vase of water. Beautiful! Now I can enjoy the flower as long as it lasts.

I'm continuing to water the bulb in hopes that it will develop leaves and continue developing for another blooming season.

Spring Snow

Yesterday, we woke up to find our world covered in SPRING SNOW!

Not what I was hoping for...

The birds didn't seem to mind it!

Terry and Earl cleared our respective driveways...

I plan to stay indoors all day.

We should be okay as long as the snow doesn’t get so heavy that the power lines come down!

(Hopefully it will all melt soon...)

Squirrel Nest Update

Until new leaves hide the squirrels' nest on our neighbor's red maple, I have a clear view of it high in the tree.

It looks in shabby condition these days - it seemed to "fall apart" the day I watched five small squirrels come out of it... (born over the winter?)... Possibly - because squirrels apparently leave the nest when they are three months old. They become independent not long after. The day I watched them burst out of thr nest, they ran up and down branches exuberantly... and the nest seemed to fall apart... To my knowledge, no squirrel has moved back in.

I looked up "How long does a squirrel's nest (drey) last ?" - and I found no definitive answer.

But I did find a very informative LOCAL online site about local squirrels: carphills.com

 https://carphills.com/?page_id=3771#:~:text=Squirrels%20nest%20in%20tree%20hollows,and%20become%20independent%20soon%20after.

There I read that black squirrels - like the ones in our yard - are part of the grey squirrel family.

I also discovered several fascinating facts about squirrels that I didn't know:

First, that squirrels can drop their tails. One website said the tails can grow back. Another said that this is just a myth... (I photographed a tail-less squirrel a month or so ago.) 

And second, that there is a species of squirrels in our region that are rarely seen because they only come out at night: the Southern flying squirrel.

Fascinating! I wonder if there are any in our neighborhood.