Tuesday, July 2, 2024

After a work call and an early lunch, we headed out towards Quadra Village. It was another urban walk, with stops at Fairway Market to check out the curious and mysterious Asian fare, and three different thrift shops looking for craft supplies and general oddities. We stopped at Crystal Pool to watch the lap swimmers inside and the day campers outside.

It's true though that nature is all around us if you choose to look at it. We were grateful for the tree cover which turned the walk from a baking hot hike to a gentle, cool stroll. Only when walking past the hi-rise construction sites did things get super hot. The chestnut trees are setting their spiky fruit and the broad leaves were so welcome.

We passed two wildflower drifts in the gap between sidewalk and fence or parking lot and building. From a distance they looked like iceland poppies but were actually an orange daisy relative.

On the walk home, we detoured down Vancouver Street which is full of smaller, older houses in various states of repair. Lots of lawn gone to seed, which only a few years ago would be considered an eyesore, but these days is excellent habitat for our smaller non-human relatives. And the folks who did keep their yards up have created beautiful front flower and vegetable gardens. Not many lawns here.

One garden in particular was stunning, full of dahlias, poppies with huge, almost peony-like clusters and more flowers large and small. And at the corners were huge stalks of green with yellow buds about to bloom. The stalks were often over six feet tall. They seem too tall to be delphiniums or lupins. I want to go back in two weeks and take more pictures.

In that same garden, we were visited by a massive cream and brown butterfly, checking out the poppies. It stayed around long enough for a good, long look before heading off to the neighbour's. That was about it for wildlife today. Very little birdsong on this walk and from the state of the gardens, not many deer make it up this way.