Over the past year, I’ve been updating this website by paring down and consolidating but also elaborating on blog topics, mostly in the context of what was available or happening around the time of their publication. Sometimes I added a quick update, but sometimes I overhauled it. And so I have a lot more visitors than before (still modest, though), because it’s good to enjoy the simple stuff.
Now that I’ve combed through my content history and brought it up to a certain standard, I’m ready to redirect my attention to what else this little Big City, Little Homestead website could do. (I am having trouble coming up with a new name, or even a reason to change it. I do not want to become a content mill; posting to the socials is just not something I’m naturally inclined to do, nor am I particularly good at it.) I expect to continue making 4 to 6 blog posts a year, projects to build and observations I make about nature or whatever. But that’s just holding a pattern, and I’m looking to shake something up. I have an upcoming new-roof project, and last October, I changed up the basic configuration of my front yard so I have some new ideas to update the landscaping. I’ll blog about both of these when they’re underway. But I want to do something else, something more.
A photo archive-and-use project
So for now, I’ll introduce a new project that’s an extension of an effort I began during the pandemic. That’s when I began organizing, harmonizing, and sometimes publicizing my photos and other resources – and I did so exhaustively. It continued on a monthly basis, for years, because I was going through 20+ years of digital and scanned photographs.
I’d had a bunch of digital photos in roughly year-by-year order in the Pictures folder of a backup drive, but they were also scattered across various Cloud services. I downloaded and gathered them all together, and processed them using Dropbox and a program called jhead. ‘Process’ meant change the filenames to a date-time stamp* which looks like “2025-03-19 21:03:46.jpg” or whatever the extension was for the file type (.heic, .mov, .png). It was well over 100 Gb of data, though the biggest folders were after 2016, which is when I got my iPhone 6 (whee!).
*Note for non-techies: these programs can give files a date-time stamp, and also reset the file-save date/time stamp, because all photos have internal EXIF data. EXIF data indicates when the photo was taken, and, if taken with a smart phone or GPS-enabled camera, the location coordinates. If you uploaded the photo to social media and then downloaded it again, it will not have this data, which gets stripped out for privacy reasons.
Once I had their confirmed dates, I put them all into a set of folders on a computer (with a backup): Archive/Year/Month/Subject – wow, that helps! Plus a few other folders for images that weren’t for their own sake, but to keep track of shopping, inventory, interesting words on a page….
Based on this huge extended-pandemic curation project, my new photo project will be rather small – but it’s something that you could do, too! I’m going through the photos I’ve taken over the years and updating my iNaturalist profile with these observations. Check it out and follow me:
https://www.inaturalist.org/lifelists/janerette
In fact, I started my iNaturalist profile rather late, or fairly recently, when I did the Bioblitz of August 2023.
How iNaturalist?
One of the key things that enables this project is because, in the photo organizing project, I had to actually look at them to compare duplicate and similar versions of photos. You want to keep the good vs. the bad. Often, if I had pics of animals or really interesting plants, I added “iNaturalist” to the folder or the file name so that I could handle it later. I also did this for FeederWatch (from November–April), and Bird Mapper for crash victims. (These efforts now done, across the years.) Now I get to slowly go through the archive again for more nature examples.
Here’s one: This photo was taken with a Kodak digital camera. I can find approximately where I took it near Elgin, ON. It’s a grouse. You’ll have to take my word for it that it was grouse, but the photo was taken in 2011, so zooming in on the photo will be limited due to photo resolution of the time. I might have a closer one in my archives. Other members of iNaturalist can confirm if they think it’s a Ruffed, Spruce, or Sharp-tailed grouse. Also, other users in that area may have already identified other grouse, which increases the probability of guessing which species it is, even if the photo isn’t that distinguishing.
As soon as I’ve entered this in iNaturalist (Add photo, then add details), I will update this blog post to the link of its observation.
Again: why?
The reason to enter all these old nature pics is because these sightings are factual proof, and therefore census data: the time and location that a species was sighted, so that it can be counted in scientific studies and (hopefully) found again and, if need be, protected.
For another 2011 example, in the same part of Ontario (on the Frontenac Arch), I helped two turtles cross the road, and then submitted their photos and locations to the Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas. One of them turned out to be a Blanding’s turtle, which is on the IUCN Threatened list, especially in Ontario:
I’ve yet to submit these turtles to iNaturalist – unless Ontario Nature combined its atlas data into a project there. I just sorted that project (<link ) by date and didn’t see ‘my’ turtles there, so I should do that first thing!
Other early spring notes:
Other than that, I don’t have much to report. After a huge amount of snow this winter, it has almost entirely melted, and my yard cleanup has begun.
I’m sad to report that two of my gold fish, possibly three, did not survive the winter in my pond, and I blame my lack of attention for two of them. I recovered two bodies this morning, after the ice cover broke up, and I think they must have died last week, when the pond ran out of water under thick snow cover. The tree steals from the pond; when I realized I couldn’t hear the water running but I could hear the pump, you know the pond is running on empty. The fish had to bury themselves in the mud on the bottom, and I rushed to replenish the water but it may have been a day or even an hour late. I won’t be overwintering them like that again, if I can help it.
Of the two that remain, I’ve seen one swimming, and (my report the next morning) now the other. I think I’ll get them one more companion, and give a “feeder” fish or an unwanted goldfish a permanent home. Goldfish are social. I’ve had them for 9 years or so. I can’t let them be too bored or lonely.
The sparrows were very chatty in the back yard, today. I’ve cleaned the bird feeder, but will leave them up – snow is still possible for the next several weeks, and rainy days are no fun for foraging.
Finally, this time last year, I tossed off this message on this page (under a different title and slug), barely even seen by anyone. It’s just a reminder that poison is a last resort, and how to handle rodents when you see a sudden surge of them, because there’s always a reason why. Here you go:
Vous avez peut-être remarqué qu'avec les travaux aux égouts la semaine dernière, les rats ont évacué les égouts et ont trouvé refuge dans nos cours.
Veuillez retirer tout poison que vous avez utilisé pour essayer de les tuer. Il cible d’autres espèces, comme les écureuils, et je ne veux pas que nos (« mes », je les appelle, bien qu’ils soient des animaux sauvages) écureuils subissent la mort horrible que procure le poison. Il est illégal de piéger et de tuer des animaux sauvages, et j’ai eu le cœur brisé de voir quelqu’un dans ce quartier le faire en toute ignorance, car cela ne résout aucun problème qui ne pourrait être résolu autrement. (Il y a un écureuil noir avec une tache blanche sur la queue qui me manque particulièrement, et ses enfants aussi. Elle s'appelait Gladys.)
Les travaux sur les égouts sont presque terminés et les rats peuvent désormais regagner leur habitat habituel. Vous pouvez les aider à y retourner en leur rendant leurs nouveaux emplacements hostiles, en les piégeant dans des pièges vivants Hav-A-Hart et en les ramenant à l'égout. C'est ce que je vais faire.
You may have noticed that with the work on the sewers last week, the rats have evacuated the sewers and sought refuge in our yards.
Please remove any poison that you have put out to try to kill them. It targets other species, like squirrels, and I do not want our (“my,” I call them, though they are wildlife) squirrels to suffer the horrible death that poison provides. It’s illegal to trap and kill wildlife, and I have been heartbroken by someone in this neighbourhood doing so in all ignorance that it solves no problem that couldn’t be solved another way. (There is one black squirrel with a white spot on her tail, and her progeny, that I will forever miss. Her name was Gladys.)
The work on the sewers is almost done, and the rats can now return to their usual habitat. You can help them return there by making their new locations hostile to them, and by trapping them in live Hav-A-Hart traps and returning them to the sewer. This is what I plan to do.
One more thing before you go: Vernal Pools for World Frog Day!
I’d always wanted to write an article about vernal pools, but I thought the city parks here that would have them would be devoid of life except closest to the river. And I don’t have a large or connected enough property to create them myself, for amphibian benefit. But if you get outside, in the “wasteland” around our neighbourhoods, as well as suburbia and everywhere not too bounded by concrete barriers, you can find them. Here’s a lovely article about doing exactly that, featuring the Spotted Salamander.
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