You'll Have to Believe Me

     This is one of those posts that really needed a camera. Needless to say I didn't have the camera so I'll have to do a description.

      On my bike ride last night, I noticed some people looking in through a chain link fence. My curiosity got the best of me and I had to stop and see what they were looking at.

      To my surprise there was a cow moose and two calves. All three were about 15 m (50 ft) from the fence. Here moose browse which means that they graze on the tips of brush and trees. These three went about their business very calmly and did not worry about their audience. They kept moving from shrub to shrub. the calves were on adult food too.

      All of a sudden the cow grabbed a young poplar about 4 m (13 ft) high and pulled it down to get to the leaves on top. Every time she let go of the tree to get a couple of bites the tree went back up. I could see that it was only a matter of time before the tree would break. Sure enough it broke and the little guys joined in a very tasty feast. I had never seen a moose take down a tree or heard about a moose taking down a tree to get at the tender new shoots.

    In many areas we see moose in ponds or rivers and they have their heads underwater dining on water plants.  You see this in Sharon's The Odd Essay blog. Here you rarely see a moose in water. Instead they just eat the new growth of trees. It's amazing how much they eat in a few minutes.

    So I watched the moose for about ten minutes and headed for home. Why didn't I go back with my camera? At the time I was watching it was very dark in the woods. It would have been tough to get any kind of photo.

     All of this took place about 500 m  (1600 ft)  from my house.

Corn on the Cob

     I like growing vegetable gardens. Eating vegetables from the garden is the payoff for all the effort. I won't call gardening work because I like all parts of the process.

     I think there's no better tasting food than that which  comes fresh out of the garden.

     I was raised on a farm and Mom and Dad always had a huge vegetable garden. I remember not liking weeding the garden. However, I do remember the great food from the garden.  Mom would have boxes of tomatoes at the door. When we came home from school and went to do our chores we took 3 or 4 tomatoes from the box and ate them like apples.

    We had a huge corn supply. When Mom had corn for supper that's all there was...only corn and tea. Yes, I know some people will think this is weird but it was a feast for us.

    So today was the first day for eating my corn  crop this year. Now I had to have more than corn because the micro manager won't buy in to having just corn. You have to have other food along with the corn.

    So here  is part of the process to get  the corn to the plate.

The corn patch

By this time of year corn looks a little ragged

Cobs have been carefully selected

And the husks have been taken off

And the corn hits my plate

Sometimes You Don't Find What You're Looking For

     Last Sunday I went for a walk at Heritage Ranch. I described Heritage Ranch here.

     My intention was to try to see some birds and maybe get some photos.  Heritage Ranch is scenic so I thought I might get photos of the area.
   
     There were huge cumulus clouds on the horizon so I thought I might find a good position for a photo.

     Well, I didn't find what I was after. I got led astray. Sometimes you run into other things and get sidetracked from your original goal.

     First, I was surprised to see so many late blooms in the meadow area and in the brush beside the river. Next, some horses looked as if they wanted to be photographed. The horse photos led me to find other horse photos.

     So with these two things getting in my way I saw few birds and forgot about landscape. I did see pelicans soaring on some good updrafts. 

     Now I like plants but I haven't put in the effort to identify them. Some of these I know and some I was able to find in the guidebook. I hope you enjoy what I found.

 I think this is potentilla that got away.

     

Oh I did get some cloud!

I did get a landscape.

I tried Hard !

     A few days ago when it was full moon I looked out and saw the picture I wanted. Things were just right for me to get the big full moon and a small silhouette of spruce tree across the moon. 

     So I focused the camera and zoom zoomed and took a photo. Hm Not bad but not exactly what I wanted.

     Okay! Try a few more. I take a good look at the photos and then try something else. No way. Things got worse.

    Now I hope I learned a few things. My point and shot will sense one part of the image. I wasn't very careful checking what was sensed. I think the branch and the moon got mixed up and hand holding a zoom isn't the greatest when you're 75.

    Now maybe it would take some extra lighting on the tree to show up the branch as the photos a few minutes later didn't show much branch and the moon was right out of focus. So I guess I'll have to decide which one I want to focus on.

    I like to think I learned something. We'll see when the next full moon happens if it's not cloudy.

I almost got this one, but I didn't get the branch across the moon

I got the branch sort of but the moon got fuzzy

The tree was fine but the moon did something funny

       As I was doing this I was thinking of music with moon in it in some way. I was thinking of Elvis's Blue Moon. Now you can't have Blue Moon because that's mine. What else can you think of?

Do No Harm

    I just finished reading "Do No Harm" by Henry Marsh. Do no harm is an idea that medicine bases its  practice on so the title is most appropriate. Much of what Henry Marsh writes about is not doing harm and how he agonized over that situation.

   I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as it gave a look into the brain, brain surgery and medical practice.

    For most of us the brain is a mystery. For neurosurgeons like Henry Marsh, they know it's parts, how it works and what they can do. He tells about all the different tumors which may be found in the brain. Each type of tumor has a special method of surgery. For some tumors surgery is not an option. In many cases the tumor grows back and is worse than the first time.

   Henry Marsh finds it difficult when a patient or family wants more surgery and Henry Marsh knows that very little if any good will be accomplished. There are times when surgery should not be done and Marsh did the surgery. This bothered him.

    Another common brain surgery is clamping off aneurysms and repairing other blood vessel problems. Then in surgery he has to work around blood vessels as a major proportion of our blood is in the head and if a vessel is cut it gets very bloody in a hurry.

   Henry Marsh was very honest about mistakes he made and it bothered him terribly. He made sure that patients were aware of the risks.

    Henry Marsh was very honest about his opinions of the health system and how you have to jump through the hoops. Many times it's useless to jump through hoops.

    I enjoyed this book and highly recommend that you read it.

Heritage Ranch

       Heritage Ranch is  400 acre property in my city that was bought by the province and given to the city for park space. There are several Km of river bank. There's valley bottom and escarpment and some land on top. Much of the valley bottom is old quarries that have been rehabilitated as ponds. There are huge piles of overburden. There are quite a few aces of very good native habitat.

      The powers that be at the time decided to call the area Heritage Ranch and center the area around an equestrian theme. The equestrian set up is still there and has gone through some good times and bad times. There are many other activities in this area such as trails used for walking, cycling and skiing. The ponds have been stocked with fish. 

     Heritage Ranch is one of my favorite places so I decided to spend a few hours there this afternoon. I was hoping to get flower shots and some images that caught my eye. There were also cloud banks around. Who knows what you might see on the river?

     I'm not a horse person but that's what caught my eye and before you know it I had a lot of horse photos. 

      One thing I couldn't find was a sign for the place.

      

A couple of horses not used for trail riding today

Fancy one horse"vehicle"

Fancy team coach

Rig used for summer rides

Tack room

Ready for a trail ride

       Now there just happened to be a wedding to take place. The wedding party was to be driven to the altar with the fancy vehicles. The wedding and reception were to occur down in the valley. There are many excellent sites for a wedding and a barbecue was set up for the reception.

You always need a couple of good wranglers

My Animal Was Back!

      There are many Jackrabbits in my city area. Sometimes I see them on a daily basis and then sometimes they are visiting someone else. They sometimes have their resting place in my yard and use it for a week. They are free to come and go in my yard as long as they don't touch my garden. Well, one of these fine creatures has touched my garden and he is banned. 

     When the plants are new and small, the jackrabbit can do a lot of damage in a few minutes.

     So since I don't have gates, I have had to set up some barricades. I've also had to board up some areas under the fence where the piker knows he can enter. 

    Today I left one of the barricades down and I found this guy ensconced in the middle of my back yard. He wasn't to pleased about leaving. I was within three meters ( 10 ft)  of him before he caught on that I meant business. I told him that, "I would kick his butt if he didn't leave immediately."
  
    It did make it easy to get some photos.