Canada by train

This shows the route we'll be taking by train between Vancouver and Quebec City. (Click on map to enlarge.) It's too bad we can't make that extra 'hop' over to Halifax on the east coast, but that is another 18 hour train trip from Quebec City, one way.

Butchart Gardens May 1, 2009

You might be saying, "Enough with the tulips already," and it might be as we go on vacation next week. Want more? Check out Rene's tulip and blazing gazania pictures from Turkey here.

Down in the sunken garden...

... some other flowers.

A double daffodil?

Leaving by the entrance gate.

Government House grounds April 30, 2009

There are lots of camas flowers here this year.

I knew that native North Americans cooked and ate the bulbs but didn't know they also turned them into flour and made bread! The Nez Perce offered this bread to Lewis and Clark expedition travellers. Apparently the women held rights to family camas patches and used surplus bulbs for trading. I don't personally know anyone who has eaten a camas bulb... but I'd sure like to try that bread.

A teapot of towhees!

Well, no, just one. I'm completely confused as to its current name, but to me this delightful little bird is still a rufous-sided towhee.

Towhee trivia from the net:

• From their 'che-wink' call, I guess, this bird is also known as a chewink.
• Chewink is mentioned in a Robert Frost poem about blueberries.
• The towhee also known for its 'drink your teeee' call, which might have something to do with a group of them supposedly being called a 'teapot of towhees' (or a tangle of towhees). Hmm, from a murder of crows to a teapot of towhees.
• The female doesn't fly directly to the nest but lands nearby and walks to the nest.