We had to go to town yesterday, for a Vet appointment which couldn’t be postponed. There was a wind warning out for the area with gusts to 70k predicted. We picked Piper up from the vet as soon as we could, and, while he was still pretty dopey, jumped on the boat and were home before the storm began. Our weather station clocked the gusts at 54km last night.

After I have perhaps mentioned fire related topics a few times lately on my social media sites, the grand algorithm in the sky started sending me links to articles related to forest fires. One such article described wood boring beetles who rush to freshly burned forests to lay their eggs in the charred bark of the trees. Closely following the beetles are woodpeckers who come to feed on the beetles. After the woodpeckers and beetles are gone, smaller birds like wrens will use the holes remaining to make a nest.

I thought to myself, “that’s interesting,” and took my camera up to the site of the fire and, wouldn’t you know, it’s already happening here.

I spend a good deal of my time these days poring over seed catalogs and eyeing the growing stack of seed packages on the table. I have made a planting time table, and designed a guide of what will be planted where and beside whom. There will be a wide variety of new veggies to try to grow this year, along with 17 types of tomatoes. The garden will be bursting.

I am hoping to sell the vegetable starts again this year, but if no one wants them, perhaps I can sell the veggies themselves to islanders. I really just like the fun of growing different plants from seed.

There is already lettuce, spinach, and annual hibiscus started in the living room next to the sweet potatoes. They are all sitting on heat mats which were bought last year with the profits from the plant sale.

JPod came by mid-day. They are resident Orca who feed on Chinook. There looked to be eight or ten of them but it is hard to tell when they will neither stay still for photos nor all come up for a breath at the same time.

All in all a beautiful Valentines Day on the nature channel, although

some what windy