Rockhounds in Ontario and Canada

A rockhound is an amateur geologist or collector of rocks, minerals and gemstones. It’s not always about the value or selling them. Not for me. I like the history of rocks. Such ancient things, far older than even the oldest of trees. Eroded by time and the elements (mostly water) found on and under land, sea and space, small enough to fit into a pocket or far too massive to consider moving at all. How can anyone not find even the most common rock a bit interesting.

There is some difference between being an ordinary rock collector and someone who actually knows whether the rock they just picked up (because it looks interesting) is a gem, mineral, or just another rock. I’m the ordinary rock type of beachcomber, streetcomber, forestcomber, (even though only one of those is a considered a real word at this time).

I like rocks, sometimes I carry one home in my pocket. It’s a casual hobby. But, I couldn’t say for sure whether the rocks I keep are anything but an interesting looking rock. I did study geology in high school, so I know (remember) a little about how rocks are formed.

Ontario (I live in Ontario) with links found for the other Canadian provinces afterwards.

Ottawa Lapsmith and Mineral Club
The Niagara Peninsula Geological Society – St Catharines
Barrie Gem and Mineral Club (Currently inactive).
The Gem and Mineral Club of Scarborough – Toronto

The British Columbia Lapidary Society
Victoria Lapidary and Mineral Society
Ripple Rock and Gem Mineral Club – Campbell River
Port Moody Rock and Gem Club

Alberta Federation of Rock Clubs
Southern Alberta Rockhounds Association
Edmonton Tumblewood Lapidary Club
Calgary Rock and Lapidary Club

Prairie Rock and Gem Society – Regina, Saskatchewan

Montreal Gem and Mineral Club Quebec

The Central Canadian Federation of Mineralogical Societies
Mineralogical Association of Canada
Gem and Mineral Federation of Canada

Do you know all of these, what they are or even more about each of them? They are all connected to rocks in some way. Not on this list was rock piling or stacking. I’ve seen people turn them into bridges which continue to stand without anything but friction and gravity keeping them together. Also, Inukshuks, traditionally used for navigation and communication in northern Canada.

lapidary
tumbling
carving
sculpture
architecture
fossils
geology
paleontology
prospecting

List from: Virtual Museum of the History of Mineralogy

Keep Plants Instead of Pets

Get plant friendly.

Plants don’t destroy clothing or furniture, they don’t bite, drool or bark. You don’t need a bag to pick up their poop if you take them on a walk. You don’t need to take plants to the vet.

Plants can smell wonderful. You can eat some of them, if you choose. Plants are green, real living things, and stay right where you put them. You can take day trips, or longer, and not worry about what your plants have done while you were away. Plants recycle carbon dioxide into air you can breathe. Plants are easy to recycle. You can talk to plants in any language.

You don’t need a “green thumb” to be an indoor gardener. Some research into the plants that will grow well in your space, indoors, is important and will help a lot with your success rate. Usually, plants like a sunny, south facing window. If you don’t have a sunny spot look into shade plants, the ones that tend to grow under trees. But, most don’t want all day sun, which isn’t a problem as our planet revolves around the sun and no window I’ve seen has full sun glaring in all day. Some plants like extra water, some very little and watering will depend on the season. Some plants like rich soil and some thrive better in poor dirt (but not dirt from outside for indoor plants – an insect issue).

You can bring a wild (feral) plant home, they don’t bite.

You can start with a small herb garden in a window. Or, if there is a plant you really like, try it. Look for houseplants, indoor garden plants and container gardens online and see what other people are doing. You might find a local group of indoor gardeners and see what they grow. Even indoors, some plants work better than others depending on your location. Starting in Spring is generally better. Most plants are dormant over winter so don’t set yourself up for discouragement. Plan in winter, plant in spring.

If you want to spend money on your plants, look for pretty, unique, artsy pots to keep them in. Upgrade to something fancy each time you repot your plant or use something you find at the thrift store like an old teapot. Repotting doesn’t have to be messy or troublesome (garden gloves are a good idea for cactus plants) put down newspaper or a plastic bag to collect dirt and the odd bit of root or leaf that goes astray. There are plants which like being potbound/ rootbound (left in the same pot as they grow).

The proclivity humans have towards plants is certainly not unique to the millennial generation: Houseplants are a concept that is believed to have originated in ancient Greece and Rome as early as 500 BC and in China as early as 200 CE. After all, the first imagined paradise on Earth was the Garden of Eden.

A well-cultivated plant can far outlive even our beloved pets, and can propagate more plants and literally grow alongside you and your family. “I think about the plants that are in my childhood home, and most of them are actually older than I am,” Blank reflects. “Plants have a weird connection to time. There’s a plant in my parent’s home that was propagated from my grandparents’ home and that plant has given life to plants in my friends’ homes, and there’s something so magical about that. This is why I find plants so compelling.”

Source – Why are more millennials buying into plant parenthood?

On a side note, the parent thing bothers me. I am never going to be a parent to an animal (non-human) or a plant. I don’t even want to be. Animals are not children, they grow up to be adult animals and it seems really needy to call yourself the parent of an animal that should have the respect of being an adult, a creature capable of managing it’s own life. We make animals/pets dependent, which is not at all the role of a good parent. You could say the same about indoor plants, but, they don’t seem to suffer for it as much as the animals do.

Canadian Vintage Postcards

I have been a history fan since the day I first noticed old buildings with the carved and sculpted stonework, the majestic columns and the extras, like gargoyles. My Mother loves antiques. We still have some of the massive pieces of furniture which she told me were called Canadiana, over 100 years old made from trees far older than that even. The wood has become soft to the touch and the colour is lighter than the finished wooden furniture.

Anyway, nothing lasts forever. Isn’t that the sad part of history, architecture and antiques?

This is why I have always enjoyed finding vintage and antique postcards of old Canadian cities, towns and places I have been in the current time. In the old postcards you can see some of what once was and how a building (still standing) looked when it was new. The street views are my favourites. Horses still in the streets, sometimes sharing it with vehicles and sometimes, just horses and buggies. People along the sidewalks, some close enough to see a pattern in their clothes and the trimmings on their hats. Those were real, living people. Not a design someone created to add features to an illustration.

What do you think about when you see an old postcard? Travels? History? Collectibles and antiques? Maybe you see them for the art they are too?

Threatened Chimney Swifts Make Nests in Old Places

A threatened bird, the chimney swift, only stops flying to land on vertical perches inside hollow trees, chimneys of old buildings, abandoned wells, grain silos, air shafts, barns, sheds and derelict houses.

The population is threatened due to habitat loss. Interesting as so much of their habitat has adapted to live alongside people. There are many animals living in urban environments but I hadn’t heard of the chimney swifts before.

Apples and Sweet Peas (2007)

An old brother and sister lived at this house until they died. No family were left to carry on with it.

The fields were being used by a neighbour, rented or bought the land (I forget which now). He stopped along the road when he saw me taking photos. Was concerned about what I was doing. But, happy to tell me the story of the place after we talked to him. At the end of the conversation he suggested we pick all the apples we wanted from the trees at the back of the house. He even invited us to come back again and pick more.

I did go back a few times to this house. I met more of the family on another occasion. Later we dug up wild garlic and daffodil bulbs which grew in the long grass. Most of the daffodils came up (three years later) in our own front yard.

Recycle a Christmas Tree in the Garden

Don’t be intimidated by a real tree versus an artificial Christmas tree, you can keep it alive and plant it again. Your Christmas tree doesn’t have to become abandoned at the curb.

We don’t honour our Christmas trees very well once the season is over. As a kid, we only had one real tree in our house. My brother was allergic to the real trees so we had an artificial tree every year after that first real tree. I liked the artificial trees. The best thing about them was putting up the same tree every year, like an old friend. So, I never had to throw away a Christmas tree.

Later, when I had a place of my own, I bought my own artificial tree. I also bought a small pine tree at the local grocery store. It was a small tree. It came in a small pot with a few cheap sort of decorations and a star on top. A poor woman’s mobile Christmas tree. I liked it. I’d forgotten the experience of having a tree with a natural scent. It also needed watering but I was careful to keep it balanced between too much water or not enough. I kept that tree well all during the holidays. I even added some of my coffee grounds as extra compost. That worked well – kept it from drying out.

Once Christmas was over I undecorated the artificial tree and put it away in it’s box. Then I undecorated the real tree and kept it on my kitchen table, right in the middle as it had been all along. I kept the tree just at the point of being dry until Spring. Somehow plants always seem to know when Spring starts. It began to get new growth and I moved it to a window space for the extra light.

I knew I’d need to find a new and better home for my real tree, soon. Luckily, I have a few family members with houses and lots of yards/ gardens.

Real Christmas Tree Lovers

How to Care for your Holiday Tree During and After the Holiday Season

During the holiday season, keep your potted Christmas tree watered and in a cool place. Don’t over water. It is better for the tree to be a bit on the dry side rather than too wet. Avoid leaving Christmas tree lights on for long hours at a time. The lights will dry the tree out a little. But, the lights also take away rest time for the tree. A tree likes several hours of darkness, just as it would have if it were outside.

After the holidays, keep the tree outside for a couple of months. Give it some water and try to find a sheltered spot. Some people cover the whole tree with burlap as extra protection. However, this could be over protecting the tree as it does need to adapt to being outside and begin thriving in the area it’s going to be growing in. It would be smarter to cover the base of the tree, protecting the roots from the cold while they are still above ground level and exposed to the cold. You could go around the neighbourhood and take branches from discarded Christmas trees to use as mulch and cover for your own tree base. When you plant the tree keep the branches to line the hole and mulch the dirt you pile over the planted tree roots.

Planting Your Living Christmas Tree Outside

Once the ground outside has thawed enough you can plant the tree in the ground. Give it space to grow. Don’t plant a tree in a place where it will become a nuisance in years to come, plan ahead and expect your tree will grow to double it’s size in just a few years.

Dig a hole at least as deep as the pot the tree is already used to being in. Dig deeper and loosen the dirt which will be under the tree. If you have compost stick it in the bottom of the hole, think of it as tree food. Dig the hole wider than the tree roots as it could be pot bound (have roots which have grown a lot and want room to grow beyond the boundary of the pot they are in). It will be easier for your tree to grow in soil which has been moved (it will also help it compete with anything else which is already rooted in the area).

Before you unpot the tree, water it well. This will help you get it out of the pot without a lot of stress to yourself or the tree. It should slip out easily (unless it has become pot bound). Don’t be afraid of cutting or disturbing the tree roots. You need to tug and unwind the roots before you plant the tree. If you leave the roots in a close, twisted knot they won’t enjoy their new space and reach out to grow in it. Untangling the roots (at least a little) gives them a head start.

Plant your Living Tree

Not Every Real Tree Can be Saved

A cut Christmas tree can not grow in any garden. If you buy a Christmas tree which has been cut at the bottom of the trunk, with all the roots sliced off, all you can really do is keep it comfortable until it dies or goes out for recycling as compost. The least you can do is make sure it goes back to the soil from whence it came.

A cut tree can be put out in your garden to become compost or mulch. You need to take time and cut the tree up. If you toss it out whole or in bigger pieces it will take a very long time to compost, years even. The smaller you chop it up the faster it will become part of your garden soil. Of course, if you dig a hole and bury it all, the tree will compost faster too.

Pine tree mulch is especially great for any garden plants that need/ like acidic soil. Think about the flowers/ plants you see growing in an area with pine trees local to you. Those are the plants which will be fine with added mulch from your Christmas tree.

A bare root tree could struggle and manage to survive, but it depends on how much root was left on the tree when it was uprooted (dug up).

If you want a large tree – be prepared to be a tree killer. The large trees available for Christmas are always cut trees because the tree sellers want a tree they can package up easily, transport and sell to the consumer.

If you want a potted tree, which can be replanted – be prepared to have smaller tree. Likely your potted tree will not be huge but it will be at least a little heavy with the pot and the potted root systems which have been saved along with the tree.

trees