30 Friday Jul 2021
Posted in life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
anthurium, big girl pants, blessed, flowers, gift, memories, moments, nature, plants, plastic, purple, widow
I’ve been so focussed on the garden I forgot to share the excitement in the dining room…
this anthurium, which I received as a birthday gift five years ago, flowered once last year after not blooming for four years…
on July 7th I spotted this new bloom;-)…
now it is open and beautiful… although it looks like plastic, lol… once open it lasts for ages…
nature truly is amazing…
29 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cushions, dahlias, flowers, garden, moments, nature, odour, plants, purple, sanctuary, The Dahlia Expert, water, weather, widow
I was up at 6:30 am watching the Olympics;-)…
I had made my mind up to water the garden first thing because it has been getting hot so early in the day…
I think the temperature only reached 28 Celsius which feels cool after the hot days we’ve been dealing with…
it turned out to be a beautiful day, other than the odour of smoke in the air… luckily, you could smell the smoke, but the sky was clear…
after watering, I put out all the cushions and wandered around checking out flowers…
the planter with the milkweed and morning glories in it was looking spectacular as the morning glories have overtaken the container… not sure that the monarchs can find the milkweed anymore…
the dahlias are doing well and one of the buds on the Robann Regal plant has started to open…
excited to see it fully open…
I also realized that there are more buds starting on the Mick’s Peppermint… that plant is huge and didn’t look like it was going to have more than a few flowers… interesting that the second flower was about half the size of the first one, although it is hard to see that in my photo… and the colours are different on every flower;-)…
sat and enjoyed the view…
I love my garden sanctuary…
28 Wednesday Jul 2021
Posted in food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, cucumber, flowers, food, garden, growing, happy, moments, nature, plants, prickly, sweep, weather, widow
this is the first time I have planted/grown cucumbers and I’ve been surprised at how prickly they are…
the cucumber plants had a ton of flowers on them, but no actual cucumbers…
I read online that I should take a broom and sweep over them… this is supposed to help with pollination…
I decided to give it a try the other day… found one of my beloved’s brushes and brushed over as many of the flowers as I could… that was on Saturday…
today, this is what I spotted… plus two others…
not sure if it was the brushing or whether I just had to wait a bit longer, lol…
but I am absolutely thrilled…
27 Tuesday Jul 2021
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, coffee, deck, friends, garden, moments, nature, solar lights, Technology, time, together, treat, weekly meeting, widow
together at last;-)…
last night I made coffee, set out cushions on the deck, and watched some Olympics while I waited for my BS friends…
everyone is now two weeks since being double vaxed and we met outdoors… one was away, but everyone else turned up in person…
it was the first time we’ve been physically together for our Monday evening gatherings in more than eighteen months…
I was pleased that the coffee turned out as it had been a very long time since I’d made any, but apparently the muscle memory was there, lol… and they told me it was good;-)…
we’ve been meeting via Skype each Monday, but it just hasn’t been the same…we’ve also found that we could only meet in that manner for about an hour as it is so much more tiring…
what a treat to be together… we had snacks, laughs and lots of chat…
after everyone left, I took a wander around the garden as the solar lights came on…
a delightful evening…
26 Monday Jul 2021
Posted in business, food, health, life, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, breakfast, early, food, fun, garden, happy, memories, moments, Olympics, overkill, remembering, retirement, sports, streaming, Technology, weather, widow
I love the Olympics and have watched them for years… I remember a trip we took once and how we had to have access to TVs at the end of each day so that I could keep up with what was happening, lol…
I like to watch in real time so that means reorganizing my sleep schedule to get the best results…
for these ones I couldn’t decide how I felt about them going ahead this year… but now they are happening, I am in… I usually get a Canada Day t-shirt and had purchased one a while ago, but on July 1st I decided not to wear it… as the games began, I put it on;-)…
on Friday I was up at 5:30 am to watch the opening ceremony and ordered McDonald’s for breakfast so I didn’t have to stop watching to make something…
at one point during the first day I was switching between tv channels and streaming on my phone at the same time and I considered turning on the laptop as well… in the end I decided the laptop would be overkill…
I have slowed down slightly… apparently I need a bit more sleep these days…
the great thing about streaming is that I can watch some of the sports that I enjoy most but which don’t always get shown on tv…
the surfing, gymnastics and dressage have been lovely to watch, even if not exactly as they happened…
I’ve even taken the laptop out into the garden so that I can enjoy the weather and not miss anything, lol…
so happy to be able to watch whenever and wherever… retirement is a lovely thing;-)…
25 Sunday Jul 2021
Posted in business, family, garden, life, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, fun, garden, Google Home, grandson, iPhone, link, moments, plug, pond, Technology, water, waterfall, widow
been wishing that I didn’t have to climb behind the planter every time I need to turn the waterfall on and off…
I decided to look online to see if there was something I could use outside to control the plug…
I was so excited to find a KASA TP-Link outdoor plug… KASA is part of my Google Home system, and the plug was reasonably priced…
my grandson picked it up for me and it was easy to add to my Google Home… well, he added it, lol… I can even add another item to the plug as it has two outlets…
this is going to make dealing with the waterfall so much easier, and I’ve been having fun turning it on and off;-)…
24 Saturday Jul 2021
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, Facebook, family, forty-two, health, hospital, memories, moments, octopus, recovery, rowing, surgery, Technology, widow
Facebook brought up some interesting memories on this day from the last number of years…
eleven years ago it was a mention of spending the night at the hospital and having a procedure the following day… it doesn’t say that would be the first of forty–two days that I spent in that same hospital…
ten years ago we were in Courtenay, BC learning how to cook octopus, as we gathered fresh shrimp for our supper…
nine years ago, I was home recovering from a big surgery unable to lift even a couple of pounds, with a friend staying over to look after me;-)…
four years ago, I was watching my grandson participate in his first rowing competition…
quite the variety, lol…
23 Friday Jul 2021
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, dahlia, flowers, food, garden, moments, nature, plants, pond, rain, spitting, The Dahlia Expert, tomatoes, water lily, weather, widow
a few days ago, I spent the day in the house, other than a few short walks around the garden when it wasn’t raining…
I was happy to find one of the tomatoes starting to turn colour… there are a lot, so it is going to be fun to snack on them as they ripen…
the water lily opened again, even in the rain… I took this picture from upstairs…
and I brought in the Mick’s pepper dahlia bloom to enjoy inside…
seemed odd to not be outside much… but, every time I stepped out the door it was spitting…
22 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in food, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
activity, big girl pants, birds, blessed, close, garden, moments, nature, open, pictures, pond, purple, squirrels, water lily, weather, widow
hot and partly overcast today, but not nearly as smokey…
and lots of activity in the garden…
must have counted six squirrels at one time and took a few pictures of different ones eating… none of the gray squirrels wanted to have their photos taken, lol…
there was also a great deal of bird action… dozens of house sparrows, numerous finches and chickadees, as well as at least one nuthatch…
such a wonderful way to spend the day;-)…
the water lily bloom continues to open with the light and close as the evening arrives…
21 Wednesday Jul 2021
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
aquarium, babies, big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, happy, lilies, moments, nature, overwinter, pictures, plants, pond, shubunkins, watching, water, widow
was very surprised to see a water lily flower in the pond a few days ago…
I’d been watching for buds, but hadn’t spotted any… these two lilies had overwintered in the aquarium so I wasn’t sure how they would do, which made it even more thrilling…
I took many, many pictures trying to get just the right one… it is difficult to take one that shows the yellow in the centre of the flower correctly…
eventually, I put down a cushion and laid on it taking pictures and then watching the fish…
the waterfall has been off for a few days and they seem to come out from under the bridge more often…
I must have laid there for half an hour watching to see if I could spot the babies…
so far, I’ve seen two shubunkins (the multi-coloured ones) and at least two goldfish… the goldfish (yellow) are hard to spot as they look black… I tried to get pictures but they hide really well and are also very quick…
but what a fun time watching…
