Due North - Baker Lake Bound

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I guess this is my official announcement - give or take some paperwork - I'm headed to Baker Lake to teach highschool! Right now, I'm feeling somewhere between exuberant and overwhelmed by the insane list of things to do before I leave. I've included a link to Treena's Travels - a blog which not only does a great job of describing life in Baker Lake, but has first-rate photos too. Up until I found this blog, I was having a tough time finding pictures of town.

I know almost everyone that I talk with regularly knows this "news" and I've obviously been hinting for the last little while that something was up. I was hoping to find some perfect picture in my stash to go with the anouncement, but I've mostly used up the best of my photos from Repusle Bay - so I settled on a satellite photo.

I'm sure I'll have more to write about this in the near future - but for now, I should probably get some sleep so that I can function at work and manage to get the dog walked.

Good night,

Jennith

Re-Enacting our Childhood Foolishness

My best friend from grade school, myself and her son are fooling around for the camera. Both she and I are blinkers, so I decided to pick one with my eyes open until my photoshop skills advance to the point where I can paste eyes from one pic to another. We had a really relaxed and fun visit - and I saw her mom for the first time in 20 years. Time flies doesn't it. Hopefully, I can catch them on the return end of their trip and spend a bit more time just hanging out.

Finally - some gardening weather

So, I'm nearly done the near term tasks in the garden. I've gotten most of my perrenials in the ground and I'm even starting to mulch parts of the garden. The lawn in coming in in most of the spots I reseeded and everything is just coming together. Above is a wonderful plant - new to me - called lithodora that is helping form the short edge of my sunny perrenial garden. There is still lots to do, but I'm going ot have to take a break from non essential tasks in order to deal with some other priorities.

A few more pictures from Repulse Bay

My teaching placement in Nunavut lasted about 5 weeks from the beginning of April until the first week of May. By the time I left, the sun was going down at about 11:30 pm and rising at 2 am. Which was altogether pretty cool. The top picture was taken the day that Peter (the other student that did a placement in the same community) and I went for a hike out over the ice to an island. We actually cut the hike short because the wind picked up and you can see how much it was reducing the visibility. You can just barely make out the town on the far side. The other picture we took when the adjudicator came to town. He'd lived in Pond Inlet for several years and took all of us including many of the local teachers and we built an igloo. I'm not sure if it was "up-to-code", but it was a really neat experience with a bunch of fun and interesting people. The parka used to belong to my Aunt Andrea from when she lived in Thunder Bay. I don't think it would fly in Paris, but it was plenty fashionable for the north, and functional to boot.

Mimulus

Here is the fun and funky - monkey flower. My perenials book says that everyone should try to grow one at least once in there life time. So far I'm duly impressed. They've got some annual mimulus at work - so I might try planting some of that instead of impatient's in the front.

Turning over a new leaf - Raspberry Ice Heuchara

In the last few months my life has sort of taken a paradigm shift and I've (to overuse a cliche) turned over a new leaf. The Heuchara leaf (aka fancy coral bells - a fun and exciting perennial plant now located as the centerpiece of my woodland garden) above is doing well in its new home. I got a good chunk of my remaining perennials planted last night and I hope to finish the rest of what I have already purchased in the next day or 2. I'm also hoping that everything will get a move on it when the weather turns sunny and seasonally warm over the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted. The new grass is starting to look like lawn and everything planted is coming together nicely. I expect the columbine to flower in the next few days and I'm starting to see germination in the wildflower garden. I do have a few plants that tipped over in the wind and therefore got a bit dried out in spite of the rain last week. I've planted most of them and they seem to be perking up a bit. I'm more than half done the edge of the back and probably 3/4 done the centre of the back. I do have one more bed to dig in the back, but I'm going to wait and let the new grass get settled a bit before trampling it. I also have 2 more beds to dig on the side, but I'm waiting until I get the ladder out and clean the gutters so that all of my work doesn't get pummelled the next time it rains.

Tonight is the 2nd anniversary of Andrew Desmond's fatal motorcycle accident and a bunch of us are going out for a candle light vigil and dessert. Its strange the impact that Andrew has left on us. I'm really glad that Geoff organized the memorial. It'll be good to have some folks to share Andrew stories with.

Anywho - back to thesissing like a madwomen - :D Look for more pictures soon. I'm also contemplating getting a new camera of the DSLR type (yes, honest I've been taking all of my pictures with a nice point and shoot.) Any advice would be appreciated. I'm going to take a few months to research and stuff - so no hurry.

Cheers,

JP

Johnson's Blue Wild Geranium

Looking cool in the shade, this geranium is brightening the woodlands.

Bilberry Ice Spiderwort

I haven't been much in the garden between working and some interesting news that I'm waiting to post for just a little while longer. I have a bunch of perrenials to plant still, so hopefully I can work on that a bit tomorrow. I've mostly filled in the central bed and the woodland bed, although a few more pansies mingt be in order. The rest is mostly ground cover. The lawn is filling in nicely, but I should tackle some new ground, just as soon as it starts to look safe to walk on the new stuff.

Geum - and other exciting garden news

The geum, above, is still blooming in its new home in my sunny perrenials bed and there is quite a bit of action in the garden including:

1. The wildflower seeds I planted have started to germinate.
2. I'm nearly done reseeding the back yard and the grass seed has also started to germinate. (The only down side is that it has gone in germinated in a spot where I'd decided to enlarge one of the beds... so now I'll have to leave it or kill the new grass.)
3. The wildflower bed is basically planted and it turned out pretty nice. I'll have to see how it fills in.
4. I'm struggling with the sunny bed which I extended all around. But that means I need to mainly plant short plants that preferably bloom for a good bit of the summer/fall and so now I have some tall plants needing new homes.
5. 3 of my overwintered geraniums are starting to bush out while the remaining ones are hanging in.
6. I got most of the plants photographed for my garden journal/handbook and a few more of the sunny perrenials planted today. I still have way more to do that I figure I'll find time for, but I'm sure I'll work it out as I go. I'm usually not even started yet.
7. The hostas in the front are up and starting to look like plants.
8. The transplanted spearamint survived nicely - although I fear it'll be a while before I have time to deal with the bag of fresh mint in the fridge... maybe too long. I'll have to think of something.
9. The larger animal damaged serviceberry has some good leaves out now and the smaller one is making a valient effort. I'll have to research what I can do to help it (i.e. fertalize or no).
10. The lillies of the valley in the front are finally thriving, although unfortunately they've popped up right under my bleeding heart this year.
11. I've been planning which branches to prune, but I'm still missing my shears :S.
12.I'm not allowed to buy more plants until the ones I have in are in... except maybe some of the monkshead that is on for very cheap.

And now it is time for sleep. :D

Then in Naujaat (Now-yat)

a) Jenn, Intrepid Arctic Explorer
b) Sunset, near midnight, April, Naujaat (Repulse Bay), Nunavut
c) Boats in winter
d) Sunrise at 2 am, April 2000, Naujaat (Repulse Bay), Nunavut

I remembered that once upon a time I took pictures that didn't go directly on my computer and so I dug up my old photo album and scanned in a few pictures from my teaching placement in Nunavut. They say that once you go up north, it gets in your blood, and calls to you every time the northern lights are in the sky. Even if it is the low point of the solar cycle (i.e. the northern lights have been pretty quiet lately), I still hear that call... sometimes its as quiet as the sunrise on a windless day and other times, like today, its like the roar of a skidoo engine speeding across the ice.

The Woodland Garden

So, it still needs a few plants and some finishing touches and I have to work on the boarder and mulch and add some rocks... and you get the idea, there is a long list of tweaking before I'll call it finished, and so of it has to wait until the season is in full swing before I dare planting it, but here is the basic layout - in a few years I hope this is an impressive spot.

Do my armpits smell?

This little chickadee is giving itself the sniff test as its chickadee dating season and you wouldn't want to put off a potential mate with smelly pits :P?

Dicentra in focus

Sorry.. here it is in focus. I love the shape of the leaves. I'll have to get around to mulching soon.

Dicentra Planted in the Woodland Garden

Here it is... planted in front of an old chunk of wood I found kicking around.

Garden Pics as Promised

So, I've started by taking mug shots of the plants I'm planting so I can create a photo journal for my mom - so she'll know what she is looking at next year. Here is the bleeding heart - the centre-piece of the woodland garden - although I'm still considering an Astilbe or Coral Bells.

Swiss Cheese Rock

Inspired by the wild

Obviously, I've been lucky enough to spend a bit of time hiking about in my favourite garden - nature. Above, another shot from Awenda Provincial Park, a bunch of hepatica has burst from the cover of dead leaves in a cheery bouquet. I'm getting ready to plant my own garden - largely perrenials at this point - including a woodland shade garden. I've tried to pick native plants as much as possible - although there are a few hard to resist plants that have come from afar. I've got bunchberry, jacob's ladder, ostrich fern, maiden fern, periwinkle, veronica, woodruff, violets, geum, ajuga, bleeding heart, lily-of-the-valley, echinaecea, and quite a few others. I'm pretty excited. I'll be posting pictures soon as one of my goals is to photo document my garden (with instructions for my parents for next year). I'm still toying with ideas to includes some rocks (mainly for a spot to stand so I can water the plants) and what kind of border or paths I want. In the mean time, I've been working hard in the daylight hours I've been free to do so to reseed the patches of lawn that need it (i.e. the entire back yard and a good chunk of the sides in the front.) and work 3 jobs. Funny, I'm actually loving being busy. Cheers, JP

Standing Water

This wetland, likely seasonal, was full of warm and woodsy colours and chirping frogs. I really have to go to Awenda this summer or fall to see what its like. Although I suspect that spring might be one of its most charming seasons.

Warped Trilliums

I wonder what is wrong with them... They were the only ones that we saw that looked like this.

Dutchman's Breeches

I haven't seen any of these yet on the Bruce Trail - but there were plenty at awenda.