Happy Pollinator Week!!!!

 It's such a beautiful time of the year to celebrate our essential pollinators. Please head down to Terra Nova Park and check out our Victory Gardens for Diversity Garden. We've got signs so you can do your own tour of the gardens and find out what we are growing. Those purple flowers at the top of the photo are lacy phacelia we planted in the spring. They are fantastic food for bees!

 Can't wait until these sunflowers are blooming and full of visiting bees.

 Many Thanks to the David Suzuki Richmond ButterflyWay Project for giving us some of these amazing perennials including Douglas aster and Goldenrod. Check out their website and tour the butterfly gardens during Pollinator Week!

We've started harvesting some of the food plants and developing recipes for our workshops coming up in the fall. 

 

Check out the vetch that is blooming in the garden for many species of bees. Occasionally they will sun themselves on the warm wooden boards of the garden beds.

So grateful for the bees that buzz-pollinated these big fat blueberries!

Be sure to head to the water to see the natural beauty of the other non-pollinating critters at Terra Nova Park!

Don't forget to download and print our Nature Bingo cards to play on your nature walk. (Click the links for pdfs.) If you go to my Beespeaker blog, you'll find three more cards. Have fun!

Card 1: Gumweed

 

 Card 2: Thistle

Card 3: Chives

Daily Moss

 Some of my friends have been taking photos of moss every day and I have joined them on this quest. It's simple. When you go outside to get some fresh air and fill your senses from nature's offerings just find some moss. I confess I don't know much about moss, and I think that's part of its appeal. It's sensual delights comfort me and give the cognitive part of my brain a rest.

 Even the labels I put on the photo files have the quality of found poetry:

finger moss
oak moss
birch moss
fairy moss
carpet
bee nest
nuzzle
mood
salmonberry petal
poplar bud 

There are clues to the phenology: detritus from trees and shrubs fall on the moss and lay there like a seasonal gift.

I notice the company moss keeps: bark textures and the lichens they like to nudge up against. Cling to. Like I would like to cling to you. This pleasure now forbidden, seems even more desirable.

 I notice how they change when it rains, drinking in the moisture and giving us the gift of their viridity.

Hidden, subtle, ubiquitous, and never boring, moss is a good companion. An introvert we can share out secrets with. The longing.

 The moss would like you to admire its beauty. Daily.

You don't have to know its botany, chemistry or astronomy. It is there for you to love unconditionally.

It soaks up the harsh sounds of the city and mean gossip and transforms it into a gentle murmur of assurance.

It holds time for next time.

It doesn't need labels because it know that stickers and price tags are not far behind.

It is moss. It is.

The Ancient Wisdom of Horsetail

A small group of us were able to do some (safely distanced) gardening at Terra Nova yesterday. We found the beds full of field horsetail (Equisetum arvense). Such a fascinating plant! Equisetums are related to plants from the Carboniferous period. They were here before the dinosaurs! Giant horsetail forests have become the stored carbon that became the fuels we use now in our everyday lives. This ancient plant connects us to the past. Contemporary gardeners see this plant as a nasty weed that interferes with their garden plans, and try to kill it with herbicides. We really need to see the benefits of this plant and learn to work around it and make good use of it.

There are plants with thin stems and thick stems. The thick stems develop flower-like structures that produce powdery spores—a dust that is similar to pollen. Why is it called horsetail? Some people think it looks like the tail of a horse. I think it looks more like a squirrel tail. What do you think?

The plants are high in silica and the gritty stems have been used by Coast Salish as a sandpaper to finish surfaces of wooden objects. The plants were also useful as pot scrubbers.

Did you know you can take a bath with this plant? If you put it in your tub it will help you have shiny hair and strong fingernails because of the minerals in the horsetail.  Since it's high in Magnesium it will help soothe aching muscles, just like epsom salts. I like to make a bath tub tea bag so the plant material doesn't make a mess. It would also make an awesome foot bath/scrub for tired and aching feet.

Lori Snyder makes an infused vinegar (acetum) with field horsetail. Simply loosely fill a jar with young plants (not older than two months) and fill the jar with apple cider vinegar. Infuse for 2-6 weeks and then strain and use it to make a mineral rich salad dressing.

CAUTION: This is a medicinal plant. Only use young shoots and ingest sparingly.

 

When it’s time for me to put my veggie and flower starts in the ground I walk around the back alleys and collect horsetail and dry it in my back porch. Then I crumble it up and sprinkle it on the soil around the plants to deter slugs. This also gives the soil a mineral boost. Plant diva Cease Wyss says it’s like Viagra for your soil! Just be sure to wear a mask when working with the dry plant to avoid inhaling the silica dust. 

For more information, please check out these links:

Emery Herbals

Yarrow Willard 

Please support Cease Wyss's Tea Company: Raven Hummingbird Tea

Hummingbirds and Spring Bees

Last night I dreamt a hummingbird hovered to close to my face she was a blurr. She landed on my hand and I felt the lightness of her, and her soft wings. In many cultures, hummingbirds are sacred, carrying messages of hope and solace, a symbol of resilient beauty.

This reminded me of an experience I had 17 years ago which inspired me to write the poem below. I'm surprised at how relevant it is to me today.

a hummingbird in the house

Patiently, she waited for me

on the windowsill of the cabin,

breathing lightly,

as if this moment had been destined to happen

for a long time.

waiting is lost time

She had tried to fly through the windows that look onto Storm Bay.

when will this be over?

My instinct was simply to pick her up and let her go,

and so I did.

We entered this lost time together.

She flew away instantly,

the bird that is a ghost,

halfway in this world and yet of the next.

waiting is wasted time

I looked anxiously at the Dharma clock.

we wait

we pray

we sing

and then we fly through an open door

LDW July13/03, for H

Hummingbirds also remind me of my friend Donna Lewis, who had a real affinity for them. I called her my sweet hummingbird.


And here's my first attempts at videoing the bees that inspire me so much. Bit of a learning curve, but it's coming!

Here's my first attempt at a video of a bumble bee queen in the White Icicle currant bush.

Here's a worker bumble bee in lungwort.

Family Day Fun at Terra Nova with Victory Gardens for Diversity!

What a glorious day we had for the launch of Victory Gardens for Diversity! Many thanks for the lovely time we had at the little red barn.

As we prepared the tables for some creative action, one honeybee from the Sharing Farm apiary was trying to be extra helpful.

One of the reasons I love collaborating is because I get to spend time with some of my favorite people: Lori Snyder, Jenn Pearson, Catherine Shapiro (in photos below) and Crystal Lee. Do check out their artist bios at the link on the right of this blog.

Using wind-fallen materials gathered by yours truly, we invited participants to create a "nest" or sculptural piece which would later be returned to the birds for them to use as nesting materials.

The "eggs" that you see were made out of playdough that Crystal Lee made with kitchen ingredients and dyed with carrots and beets!

There's the lovely Catherine Shapiro (on the front left) making her sculpture with our guests. Catherine is giving an artist talk at the library at VanDusen Gardens on April 15. Reservations recommended!

Lori Snyder suggested these nests could be attatched to an Alice band or ribbon and made into fascinators, which I think is an awesome idea!

The batting in the background is unbleached cotton. You can also put out human hair, string, yarn and raw wool for the birds, but make sure it is cut less that six inches in length so they don't get tangled in it. You can put materials out in a bowl, net bag, or suet feeder. Natural fibres are best.

Lori Snyder spoke about the important of making your own medicines from sustainable local sources. She has made her own incense from Christmas trees!

The fragrance of the powder used to create the incense was the essence of the forest itself!

Here's a peek at the barn owls I talked about on our tree walk.

Photo by Crystal Lee

Another honeybee came and visited the pot of rosehip tea Lori prepared for us!

Photo by Crystal Lee

Yours truly, Madame Beespeaker channeling Frieda Kahlo and Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus!

Lori Snyder is a member of the David Suzuki Butterfly Rangers and we'll be collaborating with them to add more butterfly habitat to the site!

Lori Snyder was separating medicinal milkweed seeds from their fluffy bits, so she gave us the chaff to add to the nests.

 

Participants also made impressions from the tree pieces with the natural play dough.

 We installed some of the nests in the nearby trellis. It was so cool to see everyone's unique creations!

Next, I lead a tree walk on the site, with the assistance of Lori Snyder, who always has amazing plant knowledge to share. We agree it's good medicine to hug a beautiful beech tree!

I hadn't noticed this fungus on the weeping birch in the archway on the west side of the farm. I'll have to ask Michael Griffith about that.

Pussywillows are blooming alongside the red osier dogwood!

The beaver lodge on the right is a formidable structure, but the inhabitants were being shy and hunkering away from human eyes.

Finally, leave it to the youngest person on our tree tour to discover a very cold bumblebee queen hunkered down in a purple crocus blossom! She'll have a drink of nectar and then find her spot under the ground to wait until it's warmer and there's more food available. You might keep some sugar dissolved in water (50/50) to feed queens that emerge prematurely.