The Maple trees are just about to come into flower, they look like catkins, but they're flowers between bud and full bloom. The cottonwood trees are golden and fragrant. We saw three Steller's Jays this afternoon, but the one photo I managed to get of them was distant and did not do justice to BC's provincial bird. When they flew, they were even more beautiful, the weak sun catching their blue plumage.There was no programme this afternoon - thank goodness, I had no help for this afternoon, so Kris and I took a field trip to look for salamander spawn or tadpoles.
This morning I received some letters from a school that had been in for one of the programmes. One boy wrote,
'The field trip was awesome, and when I say field trip I really mean 'field' trip.' I have no idea what he meant by that.
However. Kris and I went to one of the Regional Parks for the afternoon. I am so lucky to be able to go to these places with experienced environmental interpreters, it brings the already spectacular places we go to even more alive.
We stopped in White Rock to eat fish and chips. These were by far the best fish and chips I've had in Canada. I took the card from the place. My friend Yvonne told me last week that she keeps a list of really good places she finds so that when she has visitors she knows where to take them, copy that.
We went to a different part of Campbell Valley regional park to look for the salamanders. We fished through many huge balls of frogspawn, but that was all it turned out to be.
I wouldn't in any case know the difference and until we find some salamander spawn for me to compare, I never will. We did however see the biggest frog I have personally ever seen. Kris poked at it with a stick, gingerly at first, then harder, then a good old prod, but it just couldn't be bothered. I think I stood on another one, but it must have survived, it jumped into the pond with a huge plop.Earlier, back home on the range, much earlier in fact, Ben rang me at about 3 am to say he had arrived safely, which was good, but it was upsetting later to get up and see his bedroom all empty.
4 comments:
Schnee, you are a poet, with a poet's eye and ear. Your place sounds like paradise. The photographs are wonderful. My daughter, Josie, asked me to print the one of the frog.
Why thank-you Lenten. It is indeed very beautiful here and there is so much more still to explore. I'm glad Josie liked / could use the frog picture.
Hmm...All field trips take classroom children into the field (or world), but not all field trips take children into actual fields. Did you take those kids outside and to a field? Dawn
Nope, it's all forest, bog-forest to be precise. But it would certainly be true to say they were outside. Perhaps the great outdoors is all field to some of them :)
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