Experience of a lifetime!

 If any of you haven't figured it out yet,

I love the great outdoors and everything that

goes along with it.

Except wood ticks, not sure why God put them on earth. Yuck!

And in all the things I am involved with I meet a lot of 

interesting people.

I think we first met Amelie at one of our garden club meetings and the

next year I met her partner Shawn at a gardening symposium.

He was giving a talk about birds! 

And I guess he would know a thing or two about them since

he is a professor at University Ste. Anne.

He's an ornithologist. (bird specialist to us ordinary folk)

They are always present at our Seedy Saturdays to represent 

the students from the University Ste. Anne with 

all the plants they have grown in the university

greenhouse.

Last year before Covid hit, I asked Shawn if he would

come and talk to the garden club about birds.

Unfortunately he couldn't make it, but he did offer

for the club to come with him on his Saw-whet owl 

research nights.  

Well of course!  Even if nobody from the garden club

would be interested, I know we would be!

Before we could set a date to go, Covid hit.

He could only take 4 people at a time and they had to be 

students.  But if ever a student couldn't make it he would 

let me know.

Last night I got a text from him asking if Dave and I were interested.

I was so excited I could barely contain myself.

I mean, who wouldn't be excited about going out in the cold,

forest at night! Well I was anyway...but I'm a bit

strange...or so I've been told.

So we all met at the lighthouse on the university grounds.

We marched to the woods behind the university while it was still

a bit light out to set up the nets.  

The nets are very lightweight and are specially designed for

this purpose. It's not something you can 

go and buy anywhere.  Only a few specific companies

make them and you have to prove that

you have a permit from the government to study birds.

They also have a speaker that emits

the call of other Saw-whet owls.

Then we went back to the lighthouse and waited...and waited...

after 30 minutes we set back out to the woods.

By this time it's rather dark out and you have to watch

your footing.

Our first foray out was unproductive. Nothing.

So we went back to the lighthouse for another

30 minutes.

While we waited Shawn explained a bit of what

they would do if we caught one. And also about this tiny owl.

-the female is larger than the male

-they only weigh between 54-151grams

-they're approx 6-8 inches high

-they have a certain pigment under their wings that

is detected under UV light and determines their age

-their main diet in this area are voles and mice

-they are cute as buttons and so, so soft! (ok, I added that)

So we went back to the net.  Once again no luck.

But the third time was the charm! We had one!

It took a few minutes to take it out of the netting, but Professor Shawn

was very, very gently taking it out.  The less stress that is 

put on these animals the better. 

We brought it back to the lighthouse to begin taking 

data about this cutie patootie 

(ya, ya, I know not very scientific language but you'd be calling it that also if you'd been there)

It was weighed, measured and it's age determined and then banded.

Showing a proper grip on the owl called the "backpack grip"

The UV light showing the pink pigment that tells
us it's a juvenile

Getting ready to have a band put on

Teeny tiny bands all numbered.

They even record from what direction it came from, the wind speed,

temperature and moon cycle. 

Then after we fawned over it for a few minutes, it was let go. 

It was determined that is was a female from this year.

Another hold they use to make sure it doesn't get hurt.

Honestly, how cute it this!!

After everything was done, they went and took the net down.

We just want to thank Professor Shawn for letting us tag along

with his research last night.  We would do it again in a heartbeat!

We hope after Covid is done that we will be able to bring the garden club

to experience this.

Have a  Blessed evening

Lisa

Man of many talents

 Things are cooling off here in Southwest Nova Scotia.

The time also changed this past weekend.  

Something that drives me nuts!

But anyway, we had one last warm Sunday.

So I cleaned up my strawberry beds to put them to 

sleep for the winter. I also noticed that there was still some parsley, cilantro 

and green onions that had popped up in the warm temps we had.

I even found one last feed of beet greens.

In this neck of the woods, green onions, shallots, scallions

whatever you want to call them are used a bit differently 

than other places. 

We have a few local, ethnic dishes (rappie pie and chicken fricot)

that salted green onions are a staple.

All this is it's shallots and lots and lots of salt.

The shallots are chopped and then added to the bottle 

and salt is added and they keep forever.

It adds a lovely flavour to boiled chicken, stew meat

etc...but obviously don't put too much.

Please excuse this post, for some reason Blogger is adding empty

lines in some places and not in others.

Every year I have a hard time  making carrots germinate.

Well last year I found out  the trick and I had plenty of

carrots.  But I still get paranoid they won't come up

and I wayyyy over plant carrots.

So thanks to my cold cellar, hubby built,  I have plenty of room to

store them.  We are trying the dry method in shavings and Dave

has learned to can!  Oh my.  That's pretty much all I can say.

Well when I was campaigning I was too busy to can, plus the dog attack

left me without the use of my right hand for several weeksv

so Dave took up the slack.  

I think he likes it.  He's  made salsa, spaghetti sauce, 

pickled hot pepper, yellow beans and carrots, carrots and more

carrots!! He's also discovered pressure canning

which I'm too afraid to do.

And some of our carrots grew a bit.  That's Dave's size 12 sexy foot

you're staring at beside the carrot.

We planted regular carrots and rainbow carrots, so it makes 

lovely jars.

Saturday was a bit chilly, but I bundled up and planted tulips

while Dave planted the garlic.

I also made him his favourite.

Butter pecan tarts.

I have to spoil him somehow.

Have a Blessed Day