Wildlife and Habitat

squirrel number five getting relocated to another part of the forest. a group moved in were nibbling on the nursery stock so they got a ride down the road about a mile. honestly my cat would have caught them all so this is how I like to manage them, the rest of the year they're harmless

tree frogs find funny places to hang out #treefrog

little guy was hiding along a trail, very young just relying on camouflage #bunny

out for a walk this morning. pepsi found some moose poo. and a shot of our soil here where the horses keep disturbing the grass, it's not exactly "sandy" soil, it's pure sand hah.

larch are so cool when they leaf out. needle out? #larch

sandbar willow, I went out and cut some bundles for a local landscaper yesterday, they need them for a restoration project. We cut this stand last spring and wow did it bounce back. Seems I have a willow coppice going. It's in a nice spot near our dugout, and an orchard in the works #willow

shmaven guarding the nursery #guardcat

path along our pond where we've been creating a food forest by slowly replacing aspen with other stuff. the aspen aren't getting removed, just pruned to let light in and to keep new ones from getting tall. using syntropic agroforestry principals to build soil

site of our new orchard, an old hayfield I’ve been re-wilding for ten years. starting with fifty apples this spring, and I’ll go from there. the limitation is mostly caging them for deer and rabbits, voles. rich heavy clay soil next to a wetland.

canada mayflower along a forest trail. #canadamayflower #nativeplants

rescued nannyberry tree, a friend who does tree service pulled some out for a customer and gave me one. trimmed back with some kind of root system, it lives in my compost pile for now, excited to see if it leafs out. so many fruit trees are removed for just growing in the wrong place, would be fun to try and salvage them.

our soil here is aeolian sand, blown in from a nearby river and probably left over from ancient lake agassiz. over the centuries there has been areas of true sand dunes here in the middle of the prairies, and only recently overgrown with aspen, wild raspberry, chokecherry, saskatoon and hazel. it’s rolling hills of sand, where I’ve excavated and drilled a well it’s 99% pure sand to at least 20 ft. anywhere the thin 1” of topsoil is disturbed the sand persists, in the photo here is a place my horses like to roll around for a sand bath.

there’s a greenhouse squirrel who might think I just put out a buffet of seeds, so added some squirrel defences #squirreldefences

aspen getting fluffy

found out about this interesting tourist attraction, some unusually contorted aspen trees.

forest floor is so cool in the spring. We have a mix of Canada mayflower, wild sarsaparilla and hazel coming up along the trails. The sarsaparilla is a good snack when it’s small, the little tripod stalks taste like celery

rabbits eat tree bark over the winter, and they enjoy apple more than the native trees. this damage isn’t so bad, the lower limbs should probably go anyway, and I can just bridge graft the rest. next winter the tree guards will be higher, happy that I put them on in the fall.

willow trees with giant burlap in high park, Toronto #highpark

some very large maple trees at woodbine beach in Toronto #woodbinebeach

#walkingtrail

a beaver wandered into our yard this morning and he’s chilling out behind the house. we put our dogs in the garage so he can have a rest. he must be on his way to the next stream some miles away #beaver

this lichen will probably outlive the aspen tree, it grows along my favourite walking trail.. i should take a photo next year and see if it’s getting larger. #lichen

the tree holding our trailcam, and it was in the perfect spot.. luckily camera fine. our YouTube channel featuring this cam has one video that’s run away with over 40k views, so I just put some fresh batteries in it and will see what’s running around the forest this spring, and when we have a few weeks of clips will be adding more videos #trailcamera

moose poop kinda looks like chocolates #moose

we have a forest moose #forestmoose #moose #moosepoo

found a cool lichen #lichen #lichens

wildlife pond at night #pond #wildlifepond

forest donkey #donkey #forestdonkey

found some ferns pushing up first fronds #fern #fernfronds #northerngardening

think I got all the Japanese garden elements going on with this cherry flowering over the new pond. It’s a work in progress. #japanesegarden #wildlifepond