20 Wednesday May 2026
Posted in family, food, garden, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
. soup, bbq, big girl pants, blessed, chicken, family, food, Glowy, grandson, homemade, moments, spatchcocked, widow
on Sunday we (well, my housemate) cooked a spatchcocked chicken on Glowy for dinner…
afterwards I took the leftover bones and meat and started chicken soup…
finished it in the morning and had a delicious cup of soup for lunch;-)…
19 Tuesday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, boards, cleaned, eavestroughs, family, garden, grandson, ladders, moments, sails, weather, widow
my middle grandson came over on Saturday to help with some projects…
it started with removing the virginia creeper from the house and garage eavestroughs which involved a few ladders, big boards, buckets, and a number of yardwaste bags, lol…
from there he worked with his brother on adding copper mesh to boards to go along the garage to keep the squirrels out… hopefully it works…
the final piece of work was helping with getting the sails up in the garden…
happy we got so much done, particularly since then the weather has been cold🤪…
17 Sunday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blocks, family, garden, moments, nature, pond, running, sparrows, waterfall, weather, widow
I can’t explain how happy I am…
Wednesday, after hours of work in and around the pond we got it cleaned, filled with water and the waterfall and second pump going;-)…
a hose was dug into the dirt and blocks tidied up from last year’s construction…
there were a dozen various sparrows snacking on the grass and clover seed that went down last Saturday, lol…
they have also been enjoying the water with baths and drinks…
the back deck is not quite set up, but I managed to get a cushion on one of the chairs and sat out enjoying the wonderful sound of the water cascading from the waterfall and over the rock…
and while we were working on the pond, Hilda the Gardener was tidying up all the flower beds, in the hope that someday we will be able to plant, lol…
16 Saturday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, circulating, family, garden, moments, music, pond, prep, pumps, widow, working
started work on the pond…
first step was to empty out the water… that was done last Saturday…
on Wednesday, after using the wet-vac and vacuuming the leaves and other crud out of the bottom, the pumps were set in place…
then the water flowed in and the pumps started circulating… which also means the waterfall began making wonderful music…
what a treat…
15 Friday May 2026
Posted in family, food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
arches, beans, big girl pants, blessed, cucumbers, family, garden, light, planter, plants, weather, widow, wire
next part of the project was to install two arches where I am hoping to grow cucumbers and beans and morning glories;-)…
they will be located between the pond and the deck…
I’m hopeful that the light will help grow more veggies and brighten up that section of the garden;-)…
now the arches are in, two planters from other areas of the garden will be placed under them to hold the plants, once the grass/clover comes through the dirt/compost/sand… fingers crossed…
we picked up some wire and fastened it to the arches using zip ties…
it will be interesting to see how long it takes to cover the arches with greenery…
14 Thursday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, bonsai, family, garden, Japanese Maple, lava, moments, nature, planted, widow
the Japanese Maple bonsai has moved into a new and much bigger pot…
holes were punched into the bottom and soil, compost, sand, and fertilizer went into the new pot with some used lava rocks…
it looks like a very large container for a small plant, but the hope is that the trunk will grow larger in the bigger pot…
it was moved back into the house and will start transitioning to the garden over the next few weeks… after the summer in the garden, it will move back into the house for the winter…
13 Wednesday May 2026
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
the other day I picked up a hanging basket that was “free” because we spent a zillion dollars on groceries, lol…
the plan is to use it in the front planter beside the door as it had lots of plants and flowers flowing down the sides…
brought it out of the garage today to get a bit of sun because it still isn’t warm enough for it to go into the pot, lol…
while it was sitting out, a lovely big bumblebee stopped by for some pollen…
it buzzed around the various flowers for quite a few minutes before heading off to find other treats…
what a great start to the day…
11 Monday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
spent time in the garden Saturday morning…
the job was to level out the ground as much as possible…
soil, compost and sand were mixed by the wheelbarrow full and then dumped and levelled across the grass using a handmade levelling rake…
it took quite awhile but eventually the space seems much flatter…
next, a mix of grass and clover seed was spread over the entire area and then gently raked in…
finally, the entire area was watered…
now to wait for it to grow…
10 Sunday May 2026
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
17 years, big girl pants, blessed, conversations, garden, hot tub, memories, moments, Mother's Day, mothers, widow
this morning I went out for a Mother’s Day hot tub…
it has been 17 years since the first day of hot tubbing in the garden which was on Mother’s Day in 2009;-)…
amazing to think of all the laughter, deep conversations, and fun, shared in this little tub of warm water…
always a wonderful reminder on Mother’s Day…
09 Saturday May 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
yesterday we began the newest garden project…
we started with trimming the cedars at the back of the garden…
we filled two bags with branches…
it is always a process to decide when enough has been trimmed, and it is time to stop, lol…
step one, done…
herbiggirlpants 