The truck wouldn't start yesterday so my trip has been a bit delayed. Something always happens when I plan to go to Mayne Island. It's unbelievable. I'll either leave tomorrow night or Thursday morning. I bought my paint. I'm using Benjamin Moore's Eco Spec...

Before I leave for the cottage, I will cook up a big batch of meatballs with rice and green beans. Lorenzo has told me not to bother, but I think he'll be tired enough just dealing with the business and the kids, so I'll try to leave things well prepared. You'd think I was leaving on a long journey - it's ridiculous how anxious I get. The bunny will need fresh hay, will anyone remember to give him fresh water, are my son's soccer clothes washed, does the bird feeder need to be filled....speaking of birds!

When we were in Sidney (killing time after we missed the ferry), we walked into a bird store and had an interesting conversation with the lady who works there. She was a bird enthusiast. I told her about the mess my birds make with their feeding, and she explained that they're sorting through the feed for what they want and discarding the rest. She sold me a bag of shelled sunflower seeds and promised that I'd start seeing birds I've never seen before. She went on and on - we couldn't get out of the store. Lorenzo inched away and stood behind her back making exasperated gestures and pointing to his watch. Anyway, I filled up the feeder with the sunflower seeds, and for a few days there was not a single bird. It was as though they'd all gone on strike. Then it happened - all these birds I've never seen started visiting. Usually I get a lot of chickadees, so this is really exciting...

My daughter loves birds and she pulled out one of her bird books and now we're trying to put a name to all of our new feathered friends. I could watch them all day...

I love this time of year. My wildflower garden has suddenly exploded. It absolutely amazes me that you throw down some tiny seeds and up springs a riot of glorious colour. I have Cosmos, Golden Yarrow, Larkspur, St. John's Wort, and many others. I blended butterfly garden seeds with bee-garden seeds. It's great fun to watch all these critters hovering around my flowers...

 If it were up to me, my entire back yard would be a massive crowd of wildflowers - an urban meadow, so to speak.  Here's our girl in a field of Black-Eyed Susans growing on Galiano Island, back in 2007... Imagine your whole back yard looking like this...

But my husband prefers things contained. If it were up to him, our entire property would be a slab of concrete with a few low-maintenance shrubs thrown in - sheared to boxy precision, of course. Then he'd install a couple of lion statues...

 This is one of his jokes - this, and how he'd gleefully chase one lone pine needle around with his leaf-blower just to piss me off. When he bought it I was speechless. I'm going to paste a Green Party sticker on it. Years ago, when my three kids - all under the age of two - had just gone down for a nap, a guy across the street fired up his leaf blower. Something in my brain short-circuited. I ran outside waving my arms and basically terrified him into turning it off. Hell hath no fury like a tired Mom. Suffice to say, I hate the damn things. It's hard being married to an eco-terrorist.

Lorenzo has come a long way, though. Two years ago when I was musing about getting a planter box, he picked up his keys and left the house. The kids said, "Where did Dad go?" I said, "Beats me." The next thing I knew, he had the chop-saw set up and was a flurry of activity; huge clouds of sawdust, arms flying, cursing, chopping, cigarette hanging out his mouth... Within three hours it was there - built and painted and ready for plants. He says he likes the wildflowers...as long as they're contained. He's such a bumble-bee...

My front garden is a bit less wild, and I wish I had known about the importance of planting native species before I started on this. The more I read about this issue, the more I look at many of my plants as being illegal aliens. (ie - Hydrangeas) Anyway, it looks lovely...

I inadvertently planted things that turned out to be native after all, so that makes me happy. On the bottom left, there are Lupins. These are such fabulous flowers! They self-seed, and now they are popping up all over the place. The bright green foliage in the front with the pink & purple flowers is Wild Geranium - this will also spread very quickly. There is a Magnolia (non-native), a Japanese maple (non-native interloper) Columbine, Campanula, Sedum, Wigelia, etc. I regret planting Vinca Minor - also known as Periwinkle. It's pretty, but it's pernicious and it's taking over, so I'll have to cut a lot of it back. One of my favourite plants is growing on the shady side of my front garden...

This is called Sweet Woodruff, and it's the jolliest ground cover. It has tiny white flowers and spreads very quickly. It's a woodland plant, so it prefers a very moist, partially shady site. This would be perfect for Mayne Island. I can't wait to get going on the gardens over there. This year, Lorenzo and I planted a Dogwood. Being the official tree of British Columbia, I assumed it was a native species. This is where it gets tricky..it's native to North America, but it originates in Missouri. I don't know then, if our local insects recognize it or not. Maybe if they're tourist insects. In any case, it's a magnificent tree...

A few years ago, I was driving down Albert Street in my neighbourhood when I saw one of these trees growing in someones yard. I pulled over and just stared at it. The blossoms were so breathtaking - I recognized that it was a Dogwood, but I'd never seen one quite like this. It's a Florida Rubra and these pictures are a poor facsimile of how it really looks.

This tree cost us $150. For the price of a dinner out in a fancy restaurant, you can plant a tree that will outlive you and provide shelter and food for hundreds of birds and other insects for decades. And what a lovely sight it is - I look out the kitchen window when I'm making tea in the morning and it makes me smile.

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I'm reading a really good book. It's called "Trauma Farm" by Brian Brett. I heard him being interviewed on the CBC, talking about the joy of walking naked through the forest on his property on Salt Spring Island. This book is just wonderful...

This is one of those reads where you wished you could sit down with the author and have a really long conversation. This man is an organic farmer, a husband, a father, and a grandfather. He speaks of nature with such reverence and such passion, that it restores my hope for humankind. He talks about big agro-business, pesticides, globalization, the importance of organic farming, etc.

But he also tells really funny stories and it made me wish I lived on Salt Spring Island - it reads like a community of really down-to-earth people who support each other and enjoy a healthy distrust of authority. He tells one story about trying to capture a mouse that was behind his stove. While trying to catch it, with his face two inches from the floor, a giant wolf spider came charging right for his head. He beat it to death with a stick and said the experience scared him so much he nearly moved back to the city. Having intense arachnophobia myself, it made me wonder if I'm farm-woman material after all. Anyway, I highly recommend this book...