Early spring wonder: Coltsfoot

If you happen to be driving along a backroad on the Bruce Peninsula in early spring, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the dandelions have come early. Those bright yellow flowers sprinkled along a roadside ditch or covering a knoll beside a pasture in early March sure look like them. This hillside is covered with…

Masses of midges in one last fling

They’re baaaaack. In the last couple of days, my windowsills have accumulated drifts of tiny black bug corpses. I’ll clean up the mess one day and there’s that much more the next day. I always thought of this buggy onslaught as a spring ritual so I decided to find out more about why these critters,…