snake…

20 Thursday Aug 2026

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I spent a delightful five days with friends at their family beach cottage…

delicious food, great company, naps, lots of conversation, and I was in the lake, at least once, up to my neck…

spent lots of time on the beach, early in the morning, on my own, and all together on a few days…

we walked a good portion of the beach a few times with our newly prepared walking sticks…

and walked the road to the pump, which had a snake handle…

there was also a real snake😳… which had me stomping and speaking loudly as I walked along where it had been seen…

weather was nice, lots of sunshine, a bit of wind and some rainy/overcast times… so, a bit of everything…

my particular expertise is washing the dishes…

other than that it was all about reading…

we did play ladder golf, a new game to me, (although I may have seen my grandsons play a version of it a number of years ago), which was fun…

what a treat 😊…

snoopervise…

19 Wednesday Aug 2026

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while I was away for a few days, the back deck got replaced…

it was interesting how nervous I felt, not being there to snoopervise, lol…

luckily, I received photos and was able to check some of the work with the garden camera🤪…

once that deck was finished, they moved on to the stairs and small deck which leads into the side garden…

when I got home, I checked both spots out and am very happy with the final product…

one single board needs to be screwed in on the stairs by the side deck…

I am feeling a bit melancholy as these are the last of the decks that my beloved built… all the rest have been redone…

even when I had the pond rebuilt, I had them leave that deck just as it was…

time moves on…

scarlet…

18 Tuesday Aug 2026

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I am really pleased with the new arch we installed in the spring…

the scarlet runner beans have made it to the top on one side and the morning glories have made it on the other side…

so far I’ve had three cucumbers and two feeds of purple beans from it😊…

the one thing I did wrong was plant too many seeds on the one side, lol… I will use less next year…

leggy…

17 Monday Aug 2026

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played a bit with a coneflower after I brought some into the house…

they last in a vase for a number of days, which is always good… they are very intricate…

I’ve also been bringing in some of the petunias as they get trimmed back… currently they are getting a bit leggy…

I’m not sure why I’ve never thought of them as cut flowers🤪…

spent…

16 Sunday Aug 2026

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had some fun in the garden… once I figured out how to raise the flower pot with the ageratum in it so I could trim out all the spent flowers…

it looks much nicer now, and I am feeling very accomplished, lol… every little job means more time to read😂…

now the butterflies will be able to find the lovely purple flowers without any problem…

navigate…

15 Saturday Aug 2026

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the garden has been very busy with visitors lately…

the bunnies have been stopping by, some of them rather tiny…

the young red squirrels seem to spend their time chasing one another through the area, including right under my chair as I’m reading, lol…

a variety of cats have been checking out the pond as they navigate through the garden on their way to who knows where…

and the monarchs have snacked, laid eggs, which became caterpillars and chrysalises… now we are waiting for three of them to eclose…

nature is such a treat to watch 😊…

trip…

13 Thursday Aug 2026

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my daughter recently sent me this postcard to remind me how close we are to our big trip…

for my birthday – the big 75 – I decided to take the train through the Rockies and visit gardens on Vancouver Island…

planning started last summer, and we had to book our train trip by December to be able to travel in September… crazy, lol…

next we searched for gardens that we would like to visit, besides the Butchart Gardens, which were first on the list…

then came looking at other spots in and around Victoria that we would like to see… we are going to have as many afternoon teas as possible, lol…

finding accommodations for our stay took a bit of work, but we found a lovely AirBnB close to the Butchart Gardens (and a Butterfly garden)… our second place to stay is a cute little hotel that faces the ocean in Victoria…

and finally, first class flights were booked back home… as I haven’t travelled for ages, the flights were covered by points… how cool is that;-)…

now to think about what I need to pack for a train trip and fall on Vancouver Island…

viewed…

12 Wednesday Aug 2026

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busy day…

Hilda the Gardener came by in the morning to do some tidying and trimming…

viewed a tiny portion of the eclipse…

went grocery shopping for some time away…

had fun making treats for the ‘away’ time…

and got a bit of time on the deck with my current book and something to drink😊…

bigger…

11 Tuesday Aug 2026

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the few milkweed plants were well used… one ended up with two caterpillars, and the second, and bigger one, only had one on it…

once the leaves had all been eaten on the smaller plant, we moved the two caterpillars to the other plant…

at that point we covered it with a net hamper to protect the caterpillars from birds…

since then they have turned into chrysalises and attached themselves to the top of the hamper…

I check on them each day, and so far they are still green😊… once they turn black they will be ready to change…

excited to see them emerge…