Views from the Backdoor

Happy Memorial Day, I wonder how my American friends are celebrating this lovely holiday. Sadly, it’s not a holiday for us.

I’m participating in a series called Views from the Backdoor with my friend Cecilia from Illinois. C runs a blog about her ‘farmy’ called The Kitchen’s Garden and she takes wonderful photos of her animals whom she has aptly named. She also shares a view from her back door every day — the differences are palpable, from frost to thaw; a few days ago C suggested that the fellowship of the Farmy post pictures of their own back doors and a series began — see page one, page two and page three. C has followers from all over the world, from her native New Zealand to the U.S. even South America and Africa! The back door views are wonderful. Do pop over and give her a visit, she has a wonderfully friendly writing style and her posts aren’t too long ;-)! But the most fun is following along with the farmy characters day to day!

This is my view from the back door, well, this one is from the cottage
I couldn’t decide which one to post.

Daytime view at the cottage (we don’t actually have a back door, but this is the view from the one and only door!)

This is an oil painting I painted in 2004 of the same view. It looks like our little birch finally bit the bullet.

This is a panoramic view of our back yard in Toronto, Canada.
Such a shame that the crab apple tree is past its prime, but the Lilac is doing great!

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The Garden in Bloom

Spring is my favourite time of year. It’s a time of rebirth and renewal. It’s a time to shed the heavy coats and gloves and socks and boots and dawn lighter, airier garments. It’s a time to enjoy the greenery and the burst of colour the garden has to offer.

The beautiful crab apple tree in full bloom. She is just so happy we got rid of that towering shady elm!

We live in the city, and so our lot is not huge, but it’s a decent size for some interesting landscaping. Last fall, as many of you already know, we hard-scaped the back yard and removed all the grass. It never really grew well anyway. Our big huge Elm made sure of that. We also had a smaller elm removed from in front of the kitchen window. We knew the crab apple would be very happy because we did.

The Azalea in full bloom.

My friend Norma has beautiful Azaleas in her rural garden. She is even lucky enough to get deer from time to time! Our back yard faces east, so we really only get the morning sun. It’s still a little cool to sit outside, but I’m hoping that by next weekend we will be able to.

The hostas and ferns are shooting up like crazy beside my little ‘thinker’

I’m finding that the garden takes turns on allowing a different variety to flourish each year; the periwinkle is flowering so much this year, more than I can recall in the past. The violets are not doing as well. Perhaps next year it will be their time again. Or the Lily of the Valley.

A surprise in the back 40!

And so, I’ll leave you with a little surprise down by the back shed: our very own Trillium. The Trillium is Ontario’s official flower and it is illegal to pick them, or even uproot them; you can get fined if you are caught. They supposedly flower every seven years! We noticed this little gem about 5 years ago, when it flowered last (OK, so maybe Trilliums weren’t good at math). We don’t know how it got here, but we sure feel lucky that it is here! And flowering so beautifully. See you Miss Trillium, hopefully in another 5 years!

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