Summer is winding down and the fall equinox is just around the corner. So in this, the second in a series of colour blogs, I pay tribute to our brief but beautiful summer by going GREEN. Green is the colour of life. The cells of plants and algae contain chlorophyll, a pigment that absorbs red and blue light, reflecting green back to our eyes. This wonder molecule eats sunlight and converts it into sugars via photosynthesis. All the rest of us, from mushrooms to moose, feed higher up the food chain and owe our existence to this green energy.

Seasonal Greens

Spring Greens

Green is the colour of new life after winter’s long sleep. Spring tends to be cool here in Cape Breton, and green things are slow to show. My first colour blog, Mellow Yellow, featured yellow as the colour of spring since it is the colour of some early-blooming flowers. Those sunny hues are soon followed by the first green plants to push up through the drab leaf litter. Wild strawberries, bunchberry and the dreaded ubiquitous hawkweed all arrive in mid-May. Shrubs like elderberry and raspberry also leaf out early.

This past spring was cooler than ususal, and the deciduous trees were even later to leaf out. Bright green leaves didn’t appear until the end of May, but by mid-June the Holler was finally greening up.

Young leaves give us a clue to their true colour. Early maple leaves tend to be tawny, their red hues mixing with green pigment. This yellow birch (below left) was bright green while its maple neighbours were still russet in late spring. This birch is one of my favourite trees and was also featured in Mellow Yellow, decked out in gold amidst the red maples (below right). It is an outstanding tree!

Summer Greens

By summertime all the deciduous trees and shrubs are in full leaf. The greens become richer and deeper as the chlorophyll concentrates. Here in the Holler I am surrounded by curtains of green foliage and look down upon a carpet of green. The trees veil my view of the highlands and parts of the pond, but the shady canopy offers welcome relief in the heat of summer. In time the surface of the pond is green with lily pads.

Falling for Green

Autumn is the season of spectacular fiery shades of red, orange and yellow here in Cape Breton, but I’ll put in a plug for green. I prefer the fall foliage just before ‘peak colour’, that is, while some leafy trees are still green. I find the greens offset the complementary reds, creating a stunning contrast.

Winter Green

The Colours of Winter featured some winter greenery and I’m reposting some of those photos. In my diary I use a number of adjectives to describe these shades of green, such as jade, emerald, mint, peridot, sage, moss, and olive. Why is the water so green? My guess is that the colour comes from microscopic algae suspended in the pond water and then captured in the ice lattice, but I welcome your ideas and input.

I live in a mixed forest so I see evergreens all year round. In the darkest days of December, we bring evergreens inside, putting up Christmas trees as we deck the halls with boughs of holly. A few final words on winter green. This haiku came to me while snowshoeing through the woods during a difficult time a couple of years ago. Little forest treasures can bring unexpected joy.

Green scenes around the Neighbourhood

Frogs, Blobs and Lily Pads

L’il Pond is home to many green things. Aquatic plants thrive on the muddy bottom and provide shelter and food to the many invertebrates and amphibians who call the pond home. I’ve written several frog blogs, including Frogs, Globs, and Pollywogs and Swimming with Frogs, but a Green Blog would not be complete without a Green Frog – the biggest and loudest frog of all. Many species of frogs lay their eggs in the pond. Algae feed the larvae and give the eggs their green colour.

L’il Pond gets its name from the yellow lilies that grow there. The lilies grow up and the pond drops down until green lily pads cover the surface, providing shade and cover. For more on pond lilies see Ups and Downs in the Holler. Meanwhile, the banks of the pond are lush with shrubs, grasses, ferns, and wildflowers from spring though to fall.

Sea Green

Green is not the most ubiquitous colour at the shore, but it does show up in a variety of forms. Seaweeds are actually multicellular algae rather than plants. But like plants, these marine algae contain chlorophyll and use photosynthesis to convert sunlight into sugar, and some species are edible. I like to nibble on living sea lettuce at the shore, but when it comes to kelp, I have to simmer it a long time before it’s tender enough to eat.

Seaweed and beach grasses are expected at the beach, but plants are such persistent opportunists that some landlubbers managed to take root in a tiny bit of organic material amongst the boulders of the breakwater. Never underestimate the power of plants!

There is a vast assortment of wonderful rocks at the shore, as I mentioned in Stones I have Known. I am always drawn to green rocks and many come home with me. I was a geophysicist, not a geologist, and I didn’t take any courses in hard-rock geology, so my igneous identification skills are a bit sketchy. Comments and corrections are welcome.

Forest Green

I could fill many blogs with photos of trees, and I did feature a few in Which Way is Up? and The Humbled Hiker. But in a sylvan world I’m also impressed by the way mosses, ferns, lichens, and fungi transform inanimate boulders and dead trees into lively green things.

From blue bead lily (Clintonia) carpeting the forest floor to an inviting mossy recliner on an old tree, there are many shades of green in the forest. Moss and lichens liven up the dead.

The Many Meanings of Green

Green means GO! If you get the green light, go full steam ahead. Green is the colour of ecology and our environment, from Greenpeace to green energy. Green is seen as good for the earth and us – unless it’s just greenwashing. The Green Revolution of the mid-20th century greatly increased global food production but also ramped up the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and irrigation, so perhaps not so green.

Green isn’t always good. I might look green around the gills if I ate something that was green with mould, or meat that was turning green. Or I might be green with envy if someone is rolling in the green, because green is the colour of money. If I’m a rookie, I might be called a greenhorn. Green is immature and unready, like unripened fruit.

Green is right smack-dab in the middle of the ROYGBIV rainbow spectrum. As I mentioned in Mellow Yellow, painters mix the primaries on either side, yellow and blue, to create an array of greens. One of my friends, a former colleague and fellow science geek, was surprised that I named yellow, along with red and blue, as a primary colour. As an electrical engineer, he knew that green, red, and blue are the primary colours. What gives?

Both are true, depending on context. In painting, yellow is primary while green, mixed from yellow and blue, is secondary. But the primary colours of light (including on the screen you are looking at) are green, red, and blue. Add all three to get white light, or subtract one to get the secondary colours yellow, cyan and magenta, the colours that your printer uses.

Green Beings

Green is a popular colour for fictional characters. There are ‘little green men’ from outer space (one is called Yoda), Jiminy Cricket, Gumby, and the Jolly Green Giant. Kermit the frog sang ‘It’s not Easy being Green’. (Maybe he should move to my pond – the green frogs here have it pretty easy, lounging in the lilies.) I was doing a NYT crossword the other day and discovered that Yoshi is Mario’s flying green steed in a video game. Super Mario and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were for my son’s generation, but as a child I loved Beany and Cecil, a cartoon about a boy and his green buddy Cecil, the ‘Seasick Sea Serpent’.

Some green beings are monstrous. Envy is ‘the green-eyed monster’ according to Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello. The Grinch is mean and green, Shrek is a green ogre, and The Wicked Witch of the East was Technicolor green. Frankenstein’s Monster and the Creature from the Black Lagoon were green on the big screen. T Rex may not have been green in life, but he often gets the green monster treatment. And watch out when Bruce Bannister gets mad and transforms into the Hulk!

When I was young, I listened to Gordon Lightfoot sing Bitter Green, and in school we sang Green Grow the Rushes, O. I sometimes watched Green Acres on TV but I never read Anne of Green Gables – even though she was a fellow redhead – because it sounded too girly for this tomboy. Back in those days you could buy ‘avocado green’ appliances. My mum had an avocado green electric frying pan that she passed along to me, but it didn’t survive the purge when I left Calgary (Travels with Tundra and Spot).

A Few of My Favourite Green Things

I’m partial to many shades of green, as one peek at my wardrobe would reveal. I had trouble finding anything yellow to wear for my Mellow Yellow blog, but I could fill a whole ‘zine of me in green. Green is the colour of Ireland, and I can confirm that Eire is indeed the Emerald Isle. I brought some of that green home with me, like the shawl and scarf I’m wearing in the photo on the left. My younger self is wearing a blue tank top, but the shorts and the green plaid shirt fit the colour scheme. (I’m pretending to hold a can of beer in my left hand – a photo tradition.)

When it comes to jewellery I prefer jade to rubies or diamonds. Below are jade rings, green beaded jewellery, and green critters: a whale, an owl, a frog, and a bear biting a salmon.

Tiny green turtles were popular pets when I was growing up. My brother and I had turtle races on the dining room table and my best friend and I held a funeral for her turtle. One turtle went on the lam and vanished. I found him weeks later, down a flight of stairs and covered in dust. He must have had gone into a state of torpor, because we put him in a bowel of water and he came back to life. I still have a soft spot for turtles in their hard shells, those that live on land and those that swim in the sea.

I wrote about ‘The Little Christmas Tree’ in Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 9 (Short Stories). This photo of the little tree is from Christmas 2006, when my son and daughter-in-law were housesitting down north. And surprise! I’m wearing green. Here in Holler House, I can curl up in this cozy green corner under a blanket knitted by my daughter-in-law and read Walden.

Eat Yer Greens!

There are salad greens galore, but some of my favourite foods are also green: asparagus, artichoke, avocado, and limes. Green peas, green beans, green olives, green peppers, and green onions are all good grub.

Drink yer Greens?

I’ve had my share of green beer on St. Paddy’s Day, and while Keith’s beer isn’t green, it does come in a green can. I rooted around in the cellar and dusted off a variety of drinks in green vessels. Sadly, no Tanqueray Gin on hand to round out the selection. The scarf on the railing is the McKay tartan from my mother’s side of the family. A lovely blend of blue, green and black.

Green Machines

I’ve never had a new vehicle, so I get whatever colour I get. I called my first car The Limon, since the little green Pinto was a real lemon. You can see a bit of it below. That sweet little Fiat on the right was a rental that I drove in Scotland, England, and Wales. What fun, driving a stick-shift on the left side of narrow roads while trying to navigate! That’s me in Conwy, Wales, where my son’s father and his family come from – a beautiful fishing village with a wall and a castle.

Is the rental car green or blue? Green and blue adjoin on the colour spectrum and the car is clearly a blend of both, as is my batik shirt. But bluish greens can look bluer on a screen than in real life. As I recall, this car was bright teal, so I’m including it here with the green machines.

My beloved childhood bicycle was about the same colour as this old glass ornament from the little Christmas tree. It was the only one of that colour in the neighbourhood – a touch greener than the plentiful turquoise bikes. I don’t have any photos, but I do have many happy memories of riding that bicycle all over the place. Our bikes gave us a sense of freedom and independence.

My favourite vehicle ever was Gumby, named after the claymation character. This little rig took Tundra, my son, and myself from Calgary to California and back in 1997. Twenty five years ago Tundra and I did an epic road trip in Gumby, from the west coast of Vancouver Island to the east coast of Newfoundland and north to the Yukon in the course of a year. It was my first trip to Cape Breton and we drove all over the island. Gumby was my house on wheels for many road trips and camping trips. I still miss my Gumby. And my Tundra.

Living a Green Life

Those who know me know that I am notoriously indecisive, but one decision that was easy for me was picking the colour of the yurt. I chose green with a tan roof, colours that blend into the forest in the summer, as shown in the summer photo earlier. And this green turtle-like shape just had to be named Yurtle. Even my jacket is teal green in this photo from late 2005, taken as we were putting the final touches on the place I would call home for the next eight years.

Sue McKay Miller
September 10th, 2026