all of the garden work has now been completed for the winter… yay…
about a week ago I finished cleaning and putting away the last pond pump…
Saturday I finally got around to the dahlias… after watching a few videos, I used a knife to clean out the bits of dirt that were still on the tubers and then cut them to separate those with eyes, which should produce next year…
after doing a bit of research, I left a few (after cleaning them), to see if I will be able to separate them more easily in the spring when they start to sprout…
packaged them in paper bags, put them back in the pot, which went into a box in the coolest area of the basement… and wrote on the box to remember that is where they are, lol…
we will see what shape they are come spring… sometimes when the bags are open, there is nothing but shrivelled up bits of nothing;-(…
the hope was they would work with the wooden lamp standard that we discovered up in the rafters of the garage (since its discovery, I’ve added extra garland to fill it out)…
I’d been waiting for some sunshine since they arrived and on Sunday afternoon the sun finally came out…
I rushed out and set them in the planter on the front step to gather power… then, once it was dark, I hurried out to see how they looked…
nothing, not a glimmer;-(…
on Monday, I searched through the box and found the directions, lol… apparently you need to attach the stand to them before they can work… and, that they can work in a window in the house… so I was outside again and connected them to the fastener…
fingers crossed…
that still didn’t work, sigh… yesterday I took one of them and looked carefully on the back and really pushed the on/off button…
well, that worked… took quite a while to wrap two sets around the lantern post but I am pleased with the results;-)…
went for my second Shingrix shot… wasn’t looking forward to it as the first one made my arm ache for days…
I knew that I would also be getting weighed and have my blood pressure checked which was a bit of a stress… happy to see a new scale that digitally records weight, in both kilograms and pounds… should be more accurate, lol…
the good news is that I’ve lost five pounds (with another ten to go) and the blood pressure wasn’t too bad…
I always park as far away from the clinic as possible so I can get extra steps, and enjoyed my walk to and from the office…
what a beautiful day… 5° Celsius, on November 14th, woohoo…
we got our poppies a week ago and I put the buttons on them so they won’t get lost… I’ve been wearing mine daily, even though I don’t go out much, lol…
I’d seen something on social media about scanning your poppy to read a story about a veteran;-)…
Sunday morning I came across a link that took me to a story about a fallen soldier once I scanned my poppy…
I tried it on another poppy and got another story…
on November 1st I took down the ghost from the front step… it was difficult, because the sheet had frozen into the step, lol…
then I took the poppy bird feeder that I received as a Christmas gift and tied it to the rail… this was a process, because it was cold and my fingers kept trying to stick to the metal, lol…
nearly a year ago, my eldest grandson and I began working away in the garage… he has a very organized mind…
a few weeks later, we cleaned out a spot and moved the shelves further along the wall…
the next time we worked in it, after purchasing additional hardware, we attached hooks and hung up a number of garden and winter tools… like items were gathered together and placed on the shelves… we came in when we started to get cold…
we spent another few hours another day working away in the space… more tools were hung on the other side of the space, the garbage bin was filled with broken, unusable items, two boxes were filled with giveaway items and the bench had much more space…
great strides were made each time we were in there and we were able to get the car in when it was home over the winter…
then we didn’t do anything more, because it got warm and the car didn’t need to live inside…
so, maybe it got filled up with other stuff, lol…
over the summer, it was great to be able to find tools without effort…
yesterday, I set up pumpkins with lights in them, and put a witch’s hat on the larger one…
I filled a bowl with chocolate bars and set it by the door…
we had twenty kids, about average for our neighbourhood… this was a good number considering how cold it was… I was surprised at how quiet they were – many of them just rang the doorbell, lol…
two of them were from Sturgeon Heights collecting non-perishable items for Christmas hampers… last week there was a flyer in the mailbox advising they would be coming so I had gathered a few items to donate… made sure they got candy too;-)…
the house looked good with the ghost on the steps and pumpkins in the window;-)…