Edmund Fitzgerald

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This Day In History

Greetings!

A new feature at Jane's Jewels will be the occasional 'This Day In History'. Today's story takes place on Lake Superior, that huge, treacherous, yet oh so beautiful Great Lake. I lived in Thunder Bay for six years during my late teens/early twenties, and what I remember most about my time there was the wind, which never seemed to stop blowing.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that made headlines after sinking in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew. When launched on June 8, 1958, she was the largest boat on the Great Lakes, and remains the largest boat to have sunk there. Nicknamed the "Mighty Fitz", "Fitz", or "Big Fitz", the ship suffered a series of mishaps during her launch: it took three attempts to break the champagne bottle used to christen her and she collided with a pier when she entered the water. (Wiki)

Gordon Lightfoot immortalized this tragedy in his haunting 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'. This song quite often comes to mind when I hear or see the word November; in fact that's how I ended up profiling this story. 

Hiking Day in Timmins

Second Annual Hiking Day

Warm and sunny, just like we planned.

Long hike and short hike.

Did not want the hot chocolate at the end of the hike the cold juice box was more to my liking.

We walked a gentle 4 km, discussing the Hersey Lake area, trees and mushrooms.

Timmins Naturalists
Wintergreen Fund for Conservation

Purple Iris

Purple Iris

This was sitting in my draft folder since the summer.

Delete or add, well here it is.

I enjoy seeing the contrast of flower colours in the swamps and forest floor.

Ontario Wildflowers

eHow information

Location Map

Garden Growth and Spotted Tussock Moth

Oxygen is growing in my garden big time this year. Last year I did not have any peas, but this year the garden is able to keep up to the grabbing hands of my guys and the little ones next door. The carrots are great and the goldfinches are already plucking at the sunflowers. The kids are learning what the finches sound like when they are flying overhead. They now know 2 birds by their sound, robin and goldfinch.

Last year, no corn. This year I am sure we will get 10 cobs of corns!

Morning Glory's are taking over everything. They are up the corn and sunflowers, tangled in the peas and wrapped around the carrots. The pretty flowers they produce will attract the humming birds soon. The garden is a little too crowded this year, but I just can not bring myself to remove anything, after last years poor showing.

Timmins is starting a community garden program, I think it will be up and running next spring. Stay tuned in - when I know, you will know

I guess the Earth Machine composter in the middle of all this growing is using some of the O2, but is also producing some great soil for next year.

You can not see the pair of goldfinches on the sunflowers, I did not know they were there until after I took the picture.

While walking back into the house a little Spotted Tussock Moth (Lophocampa maculata) was walking across the grass. I brought it into the house and put it on my young lads bare back. He is very use to his Dad doing things like this. He did not jump, he barely looked up from his computer. "Ya dad what is it"?

He played with it as I looked it up online. Ya just got to love how easy it is to identify anything with a few key strokes. To see what the adult will look like or for more information check out the links below.

Ontario Natural Heritage Information

Royal Alberta Museum

Bug Guy

Wild Orange Daylily - Learn something new every day

You can see the map to see where I was, but I did not know we had these around.

I have never seen them around Timmins before. They are very nice looking. I came across this little patch of plants while out looking at a property for a Toronto client. They are actually growing on his property along the road. I figure they must have been planted there many years ago since much of the land in the area is long abandoned fields.

Look close at the pictures and you will see the rain. Did it ever come down while I was taking the pictures. I was on the way back to the truck, but I just had to stop and get some pictures. You can see one flower is full of water and in another picture you can see the rain coming down on the road.

What I have learned about the plant is it has become an invasive species here in Ontario. It is a plant that does very well and will push native species out. It is considered an invasive species in southern Ontario, maybe it would be considered a protected species here in the North.

Let me know if you see more of these plants around, or other interesting plants. Send me pictures I will post them here.

eNature information

Invasive Ontario Plants

Oxygen grows in the garden too

So far I have nothing growing, but the snow is gone.

I finished turning the small garden in the back yard. I am behind on starting seeds and did not get it done this weekend again. next weekend is the long weekend so I will have time to play - I hope.

Since oxygen also grows in the garden, soon it will be producing.  I can plant carrots and peas next weekend in the garden the flowers and other vegetables will have to wait until June.