Unusual things turn up in the Gabriola forest, as you know if you’ve been following Gabriolan.ca long enough to see the various trailmarker blog posts. I showed you one glass skull, but a generous and talented Gabriola photographer has now sent along (much better) photos of two more glass skulls that have appeared in the [...]
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Gabriola’s 707 Acre Community Park will have official trailmarkers soon. People who are in charge of safety-related things on Gabriola say we need them, and the Gabriola Parks and Open Spaces Advisory Committee has come up with trail names to put on the signs. (Flying Shingle article: Parks committee proposes trail names. Gabriola Sounder article: [...]
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I’ve been back and forth looking for the cable trailmarker, but it seems to have vanished altogether. Where’d it go? Did you take it? Or is it just that I am seriously disoriented?
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This caught my eye, because it’s not typical of Gabriola. It’s a poinsettia leaf, floating in a stream in the middle of the woods. Hmm. How odd. You might remember that I found a poinsettia plant in the Gabriola forest last year, but it was dead when I came across it. I’ve had a feeling [...]
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Just next to the washing machine in the Gabriola woods, there was a old car tire, nestled in the salal. I know that tire has been there for at least five years, and I’m guessing much longer than that. But what do you know? Somebody has fished out that tire, and used is as a [...]
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This appeared just a few days ago in the Gabriola woods. Rather striking, isn’t it? There are several deer skulls in use as trailmarkers on Gabriola. (These ones, those ones, and some others, too.) What’s odd about this deer skull is that the antlers have been sawn off. Why would anybody do that?
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In the middle of the Gabriola forest, somebody left a poinsettia plant on a stump. It makes an awfully useful trailmarker, I must say: before it arrived I often missed the obscure trail nearby. Not since! It’s not far from the forest vase. I think it was February when I first spotted this plant – [...]
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I wondered about trees like this — they’re here and there in the Gabriola woods. Why does the moss grow in horizontal stripes? Well. It turns out that the space between the bands of moss is where the trailmarker tape was, years ago. And then the tape fell off and left this pattern. It’s a [...]
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Last January I blogged about tree number two, which stands in the Gabriola forest, apparently just to perplex me. Well. Now I’ve found the next tree in the series, I guess – tree number three. It’s 420 metres from the tree number two, and not on a trail… unless you count an old logging road [...]
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And to think — I used to wonder if slugs could climb trees! This Gabriola slug has climbed up an alder tree and onto the roof of one of the forest birdhouses. Is he after the glue? He seems to be eating the roof-moss.
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Gabriola folks will take one look at this frog and say that frog isn’t native to Gabriola! He lives here now, though, and seems quite content where I spotted him amidst the moss. He’s in the Elder Cedar (S’ul-hween X’pey) Nature Reserve, just near one of the bridges that GALTT built for us. In case [...]
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These are the kind of trailmarkers that seem to stick around in the Gabriola forest: the unobtrusive ones made of natural material.
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The Gabriola birdhouse mystery continues — I found this one yesterday. (Other birdhouses found in the Gabriola woods so far: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth.) I’ve become quite fond of these birdhouses, and hope a few more will appear this winter. Dear birdhouse builder, whoever you are: don’t you think there should be a [...]
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See it there, nestled in the tree’s bark? One reflector. Is it a fluke (fell off bicycle, placed on tree), or is it there for the benefit of those who walk through Gabriola’s woods while the rest of us are sleeping?
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If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know about the birdhouses that have been appearing in the middle of the Gabriola woods. (So far: first, second, third, fourth, fifth.) This is the latest one. It lacks a roof, and the usual fir-cone decorations; perhaps the birdhouse-builder will return to this birdhouse and [...]
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I keep finding trees with blazes like this in the Gabriola woods. They’re all over the place. Now I’d like to talk to talk to the people who made these blazes. Are they still alive, and still on Gabriola? Gabriolore, do you know? Or how about you, Nick Doe? Anybody else?
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What do you suppose this is doing in the Gabriola woods? At first I thought it was the world’s biggest beer bottle, but no. It’s made of plastic, and the letters on the plastic say PERFEX. Is this another leftover from somebody’s forest grow-op?
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In Gabriola’s 707 Acre woods, the official trailmarkers disappear soon after they are posted. The red wooden triangles went, then the red plastic diamonds. Yet these piles of rocks remain, even though it would be ever so easy to kick the piles over and cast the stones into the outer darkness. I think it’s something [...]
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