three yellows
On Sunday, we went for a drive along New Brunswick Route 615, eventually travelling from Mactaquac to Nackawic. A pleasant drive, climbing into the hills of this part of New Brunswick.
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Early into our drive, a theme suggested itself … the yellow flowers of spring. These included the daffodil and the blazing Forsythia (Forsythia sp.) … a deciduous shrub with copious yellow blooms.
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Another yellow flower crowding the edges of almost every ditch, was Tussilago farfara or Coltsfoot. The flowers have been in bloom a couple of weeks and will soon set their white fluffy seed. After the flowers have faded, the leaves will appear, big green ears seemingly unrelated to the yellow flowers of spring.
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At the foot of a farmer’s field, we saw another yellow flower, usually found in wooded wet areas or in hardwoods. The mottled green and purple leaves are the first identifying feature. Close-up, the nodding yellow flower with its recurved petals and drooping stamens show this is the Dog’s Tooth Violet, or Yellow Trout-lily (Erythronium americanum).
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Today, my yellow tulips are blooming, yet another addition to the yellow flowers of this season.
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All my best,
Jane
more of the winter wren
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winter wren – scribble bird
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up-turned tail
bright eye
tiny, he occupies
the mossy stage, attends
to all his audience
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earnest performer
beak and feathered
throat
maneuver air
orchestral synchrony
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bright burble
trills and runs
mimic
interplay
of pebble and brook
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spring chorus – winter wren
This morning I added a new bird to our spring chorus singers – the winter wren.
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It is the first I have heard of him this year. At 6:45, just after dawn, he began his amazing song. His tweets and runs and burbling sound so joyful and each song lasts about seven seconds, very long for any bird song. He may be a winter wren but to me he is always the ‘scribble bird’.
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To hear the winter wren sing, click here .
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He joins my growing list of morning singers:
- black and white warbler – ‘sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet’
- American robin – ‘cherry up cheery-eee’
- nuthatch – ‘yank, yank, yank, yank’
- phoebe – nasal ‘fee-bee’
- snipe – winnowing
- our neighbour’s rooster
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I often include elements of the morning bird chorus in my poetry. This poem, written about the Salmon River Covered Bridge, is in my poetry book in the shelter of the covered bridge (Chapel Street Editions, 2017). To obtain a copy of the book, go to Chapel Street Editions or contact me through the comments.
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The Salmon River Bridge, near Sussex, Kings County, was built across the Kennebecasis River in 1908. Today it is used as a rest area. In the absence of traffic, wild life occupies the bridge. Virginia creeper covers one corner of the roof and rose bushes crowd the edges of the road.
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scribble
Salmon Bridge
Kennebecasis #7.5
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The robin, chary. Her beak drips
with wet meadow grass and chickweed.
She clucks, longs to add another strand
to her nest in the rafters,
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woven with the trill of a scribble bird,
a winter wren delirious. And downy
woodpeckers, wing-flare and scrabble,
flirt in the willows, weeping.
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A warbler (yellow blur-bird)
and a red-wing, toweeeee.
Pink roses, meadowsweet
chip, chip, chip, so-wary-we
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and beneath the bridge
in soft mud beside pulled grass
the bleary track of a black bear
claws and pads
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Published, in the shelter of the covered bridge, Chapel Street Editions, 2017
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All my best,
Jane
New mystery novel – How Her Garden Grew
Merry, Merry
Quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
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Announcement: My new mystery novel ‘How Her Garden Grew‘ is now available on Amazon in paperback. The Kindle version will be available in a few days.
‘How Her Garden Grew’ is the first in my series of Kaye Eliot mysteries. Kaye is a busy mother with a business to run, two active children and an accountant husband who can’t seem to get free of tax time! The books will take us back to the 1990’s, to a time before cell phones and computers were a key ingredient of family life.
‘How Her Garden Grew’ is a novel about coping with stress, the strength of family, the problems of community, a century-old garden and a strange character called the Grinning Tun.
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In the 1990s, Kaye Eliot comes to Acadia Creek to spend a quiet summer with her two children. But instead of passing stress-free days of swimming and hiking, she finds herself embedded in mystery after mystery. A missing vagrant and a gang of thieves have the community worried. Neighbours seem determined to occupy all of Kaye’s time and energy in restoration of an old flower garden. To add to the mayhem, Kaye and her kids have stumbled on a century-old legend of a treasure buried on the property, a packet of forgotten letters from a woman named Maria Merriweather and an old map of the garden. And they dig up a sinister sea shell. A sea shell who looks like a grinning skull and will not stay where he is put. Can Kaye recover her calm or will she be the victim of neighbors, vagrants, thieves and a shell called the Grinning Tun? Restoring Maria’s garden seems a great idea, until Kaye discovers how Maria’s garden grew.
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So what or who is the Grinning Tun? The Grinning Tun is a sea shell, plucked from the sands of a faraway tropical shore. But this is a sea shell with a difference. It will not stay put! Shove it in the warming oven and, next morning, it sits on top of the stove. Bury it in the ground and it is found in the root cellar. And it grins. It thinks of the possibilities. And it links a mystery in the 1990’s with one in the 1870’s.
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To get your copy of ‘How Her Garden Grew’, go to Amazon here. If you are in the Fredericton area, I will be reading from the book and signing copies at the Authors Coffee House in Nasonworth later in May (more details soon)!
Hope you enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it!
All my best,
Jane
spring chorus – snipe
For the last two mornings, about 9:00, about one and a half hours after sunrise, I hear a song that is not a song. A winnowing ‘hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,’ like a repeated, trailing set of high pitched notes, echoes in the grey woods. This is the mating display and call of a snipe. The amazing thing is, the call is not coming from the snipe’s throat, but from its feathers. As it flies, the air moving through the tail feathers makes the ‘call.’ To hear this sound, visit here.
The snipe is a bird of wetlands and marshes. It has a long bill and black, white and brown feathers. There is still lots of snow on the ground but this bird seems anxious to get on with the season.
The only other birds singing this morning were the crows and our neighbour’s rooster!
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next Authors Coffee House
Interested in history? The next reader in the Authors Coffee House series will be Dr Ross Hebb who will read from his books about Maritimers in World War I, ‘In Their Own Words’! Reading is next week on Thursday March 21st at noon and a hot lunch will be served. Hope to see you there!
Fifth book in the Meniscus Series – Meniscus: Karst Topography
When they return from a mission to recruit new Humans to the Village at Themble Hill, the Slain find the women have been taken by an alien transport. The men undertake a rescue mission but do the women need saving???
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Review of Meniscus: Crossing The Churn, first book in the series:
I have never read a book that uses so few words to inspire so much emotion …
only 139 pages long, with each page holding 100 words or less per page … You will be amazed at how potent her words are!
I give this 5 stars for its power, its uniqueness, the fabulous graphics, and a terrific story.
Liza O’Connor, The Multiverses of Liza O’Connor
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The Series follows the adventures of a group of Humans on the alien Planet of Meniscus. On Meniscus, Humans live in bondage and are not allowed to build relationships with one another. When a small group escapes the over-lords, they work together to build a new community, battling the elements, local wild life and dangerous aliens. Meniscus is the story of how Humans work to overcome any hardship.
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Meniscus: Karst Topography
After working to build a new town at Themble Hill, the Humans think they are safe from their Dock-winder over-seers. But a transport pays the town a visit and the women are taken to the city of Prell to return to lives of servitude and hardship. The Slain journey to Prell to locate the women and procure their release, only to find the women may not need rescue at all. Moreover, Odymn is not in Prell and Daniel (one of the Slain) is convinced she did not survive. Back in Themble Hill, Odymn struggles with her injuries, using her skill at parkour to recover her strength and mobility. But will she and Daniel ever be re-united?
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Meniscus: Karst Topography is available on Amazon and at Westminster Books in Fredericton.
If you like science fiction and adventure, there is still time to catch up on the Series. The books are written as narrative poetry, 10-20,000 words, and each is a quick read! A love story with lots of action and adventure. Edited by Lee Thompson.
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Meniscus: Crossing the Churn A woman on a dystopian planet wants freedom and discovers that sometimes fate returns you to where you began; the story of the meeting of Odymn and the Slain, Daniel.
Meniscus: One Point Five – Forty Missing Days When Daniel is injured, Odymn and a furry Argenop work to return him to health; the story of how Odymn’s past trauma may get in the way of her romance with the Slain.
Meniscus: South from Sintha Daniel tries to right the wrongs he has done and learns he must bear the consequences of his actions; the story of how the Slain returns six of his contracts to their homes.
Meniscus: Winter by the Water-climb A group of people try to build the first human community on a dystopian planet and discover that their former masters have found a way to follow them; story of Odymn and Daniel’s first winter together on Meniscus and how they help six survivors of a transport crash.
Meniscus: The Village at Themble Hill A group of people try to overcome the hardships of living together in the first human community on a dystopian planet; the story of what happens when parkour-loving Odymn breaks a leg.
Meniscus: Karst Topography A group of the Slain go on a mission to rescue the woman of Themble Hill; the story of how Daniel and Odymn deal with separation.
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All my best
Alexandra (a.k.a. Jane)
