The first time I saw giant puffballs this year was on Sunday September 11th.  When I studied them several years ago I discovered that they approximately doubled in volume every day (the volume of a sphere is 4/3 πr3). E.g. a 6 cm diameter puffball, grew to about 7.6 cmmore…

On Saturday August 21st four of us hiked the Maitland Trail from where the CPR station was located (before it was moved to the new location closer to the shore) to the corner of Salford and Black Hole Road where Jenkins is located. It was a pleasant two hour hike,more…

On Friday August 19th Holly Westbrook lead a group of 16 walkers along the Goderich beach explaining the importance of sand dunes for protection of the shore line.  I found the Dune Planting Guide published by “The Coastal Centre- The Lake Huron Centre for Coastal Conservation”  very interesting and informative.more…

Some interesting insects in our garden were a black swallowtail caterpillar on a dill plant and a black swallowtail butterfly. The spicebush swallowtail butterfly is similar to a black swallowtail except its ‘tail’ is much longer.  I also saw a butterfly which I first mistook for a small monarch, untilmore…

In the last part of July I was first in Kelowna and then in Calgary. My daughter in Kelowna took me on a hike in part of the Mission Creek Greenway, but with a temperature in the 30s I found it too hot hiking in the sun,  so instead wemore…

The bench in last week’s Trail talk was one on the Maitland Trail on the section between River Line and Sharpes Creek Line.  I installed it so that hikers could rest after climbing up the hill that I labeled Skunk cabbage hill after the large number of skunk cabbages onmore…

The bench in memory of Tom Lobb was another very recent addition on the George G. Newton Nature Reserve. Helen Lobb submitted this remembrance of Tom, ”In a phrase as quoted by Steve Bowers “Tom was a true champion of the Woods!” Tom had an amazing amount of knowledge about plants,more…

The bench in last week’s trail talk was a very recent addition on the George G. Newton Nature Reserve Trail. The bench was built by Bob Budd in honour of his friend Bill Johnston.  It features white cedar planks from Bob’s farm, finished with beeswax collected from Bill’s bees. Itmore…

The bench in last week’s trail talk was a bench on the Naftel’s Creek Conservation area blue trail. The very creative bench this week was only installed this year on one of the area’s shorter trails. Unfortunately vandals removed the only bench on the Front road trail, which was shown in Trailmore…