27 Sunday Sep 2020
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, camera, Centre Court, court, dahlia, flowers, garden, moments, nature, pictures, widow
spent a few minutes with the Centre Court dahlias that I brought into the house yesterday…
they have really opened up since they came in and I had a bit of fun taking pictures…
trying to decide whether I like the dark background or the light one…
what do you think;-)…
26 Saturday Sep 2020
Posted in business, garden, life, loss, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
airlock, big girl pants, chemicals, cold, garden, hot tub, leaking, moments, pump, service, technicians, waiting, water, weather, widow
have been having some problems with the hot tub leaking for quite some time, but wasn’t certain that the water wasn’t just evaporating with the hot weather we’d been having…
finally it was clear that there was a problem so I called up the company I deal with and made an appointment…
a fellow came out on Monday morning and discovered water dripping from a portion of the pump… he thought it would be about forty dollars for the part which needed to be replaced… he worked for well over an hour and then advised that the entire pump needed to be replaced because the new piece wouldn’t fit in properly as they are now made slightly differently…
we contacted a supplier and my son-in-law went and picked up the new one so that the repair person could return the next morning to hook it up…
sadly, that didn’t happen… I made numerous calls to the store and was advised that they would pass along the message, but no one came… finally I called and asked for an actual appointment so that someone would turn up…
two fellows turned up the next morning and set about installing the new pump… they also fixed the loose jets (with silicone) so they don’t keep shooting the water out of the tub when the water level goes down a bit…
they advised the silicone needed twenty-four hours to cure and that the tub should work fine after that….
cleaned it out and partially filled it to just below the jets and waited for the point where I could finish filling it and turn it on to heat up…
after I filled it up and turned it back on, the pump made noise but the water did not move… I called again and a few hours later the guys came back and fixed an airlock in the pump… then it started to heat up…
I am going out for a hot tub soon;-)…
25 Friday Sep 2020
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, eavestrough, family, garden, leaves, moments, nature, pond, remembering, virginia creeper, widow
dragged the ladder onto the deck, hoping I could reach the eavestrough to clean it out…
had my pail ready and my gloves on, but the height was more than I could manage… was not prepared to take that last step…
moved the ladder over to the garage, set it up and it worked perfectly… was able to clean about four feet of the eavestrough… clearly it needs to be cleaned out more than once every eight years, lol…
will need helpers to clean the rest of it, but it already looks better after I cut down some of the Virginia creeper…
24 Thursday Sep 2020
Posted in garden, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, chat, friends, garden, help, house, memories, moments, neighbours, siding, widow
I have the nicest neighbours… they are basically all new(ish)… when we first moved here we became good friends with a number of neighbours, but they are all gone…
since then there have been a few inhabitants of various houses who we didn’t chat with very much…
today, the neighbour across the street came over and fixed a piece of siding at the peak of the house that had come loose during the big wind storm a while back… we had a lovely chat as he tried to get it hooked back in… he had volunteered to fix it for me, via his wife, who I had chatted with the other day when the fire trucks raced down the street… he helped me last winter when Indi got stuck at the bottom of the driveway and I couldn’t get her up the slope…
the tomatoes I’ve been eating came from the next door neighbours on my right… they have been in the house for a few years now and remind me of our friends who used to live there… he spends a lot of time tinkering in the yard and garage, lol… they spend time at the lake and moved here to help with their grandchildren and have them over on a regular basis… they got a dog a few months ago… not sure what type he is, but he is small and learning not to bark when he sees me in my garden…
the neighbours behind have been there for ten or so years so knew my beloved and they would chat over the fence all the time and share tools… the other day he offered to help with the garage cleanup…
the neighbours on the left are the newest addition… they are a young couple who also have a new puppy, which is going to be fairly large… they have both offered to pick up anything I might need when they are out and about…
I think back to the gatherings we used to have on the deck… weekend breakfasts, dinners and visits… those days are long gone…
and of course, nowadays the only visiting we do is at a distance…
still, it is lovely to know that if I need urgent help I could call on any of them…
22 Tuesday Sep 2020
Tags
bagful, beloved, big girl pants, blessed, garden, moments, nature, sauce, tomatoes, treat, widow
on Saturday my neighbours gave me a bagful of tomatoes;-)…
since then I’ve used them sliced and in a tomato, cucumber, bocconcini, cilantro and balsamic salad…
then there was a delicious toasted tomato sandwich which reminded me of the wonderful ones that my beloved made… it took me the longest time to figure out one of the reasons they were so delicious was the huge amount of miracle whip he put on them;-)…
today I finished them up with a day-long tomato sauce with spaghetti and a chicken leg and thigh…
what a great treat…
20 Sunday Sep 2020
Posted in family, garden, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, cleaning, family, garage, garden, grandsons, moments, stuff, widow
yesterday and today I spent a good portion of the afternoon in the garage…
I haven’t done anything with it since my beloved died… and that was eight years ago, sigh…
I still don’t know where stuff is or even what stuff is in there…
last month I had the roof reshingled and now I’ve decided to make cleaning and sorting it out my fall project…
it is going to take a lot of time, but for now my plan is to fill the garbage can each week with junk and set aside things I want and things I can give away…
this picture might look like a before, but it is actually the after of yesterday’s effort…
three shelving units were cleared off, the garbage can was filled, the next door neighbour took some firewood and the neighbour behind took the fancy woodworking wood that I discovered…
boxes were set up and put on the shelves for gardening, pumps, plants, bubble makers and fish supplies… and I found a couple of things I can use… brought one item in for another little project, and gathered scrap metal for my son-in-law…
today my middle grandson finished emptying the final few shelves, loaded up boxes with bits of wood to take home for their fire pit, washed down all the shelves, put the items back on the shelves and mowed the grass…
the oldest moved the ladders, picked up items at various stores, trimmed the Virginia creeper and loaded the wood into the car…
it is kind of exciting to really know where some stuff is…
looking great;-)…
17 Thursday Sep 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, dahlias, flowers, frost, garden, hibiscus, inside, mandevilla, moments, nature, weather, widow
in preparation for the colder weather I’ve now brought in the three plants that live in the house…
last week the Japanese maple came in and settled back in beside the living room window… the leaf colours had already started to change…
a few days back, the mandevilla came in… I added fresh earth and sprayed it with insecticide to remove any creepy crawlers that might have wanted to take a trip…
it had been hanging outside and really wanted to lean forward… eventually three elastics helped make it stand up straight… hope it doesn’t decide to fall over in the dining room…
yesterday I brought the hibiscus inside…. excited to see it has buds on it;-)…
might also bring in a couple of others to see if they can survive the winter in the house…
and tonight I’ve covered the dahlias… the temperature is likely going to -4 Celsius… four of them have buds and I’m hoping they get to open… for two of them, it will be the first time they bloom and I am interested to see how they look…
16 Wednesday Sep 2020
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, technology, Uncategorized, weather
my grandson came by to get the fish tank ready for the goldfish to come into their condo…
the pump had stopped working in the spring and we hadn’t dealt with it over the summer… he ran it over to the fish store and they discovered the problem and it is fine now…
the tank had lots of dirty water in it and we tried various disgusting methods to empty it… after a number of ideas failed, we brought in the wet-vac and it worked great…
it is now empty and all of the bits and pieces have been scrubbed and are waiting to go back in… next week he will bring some new purple gravel and we will get it set up…
likely around Thanksgiving we will bring the fish in;-)…
09 Wednesday Sep 2020
the weather has taken quite a turn… for the last few days it has been mainly sunny but rather chilly…
so, I’ve barely been out to the garden, or the world… I’ve even done most of my walking on the treadmill…
a bit of a preview to what the next six or seven months are likely going to be…
and I’m not sure I’m liking it…
today I did go out and spray the hibiscus with a soapy solution which should remove any little bugs… I decided to only test the solution on one plant… just in case, lol…
will see how it looks tomorrow before I spray the rest;-)…
08 Tuesday Sep 2020
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, happy place, Highlights, Instagram, memories, moments, nature, pictures, plants, pond, sanctuary, Stories, widow
recently it was pointed out to me that I don’t show much of my garden on Instagram…
that is because I usually focus on close ups of the flowers in the garden, lol…
when I joined Instagram my focus was photos of flowers and I have continued to concentrate on that theme over the years with the odd picture of critters and chocolate included…
this is rather funny as I spend most of my days in this renewing space…
a few days ago I took a number of photos in the garden once all the cushions were out and then put them up in my Stories…
it was a fun process and I had to relearn how to do a few things;-)…
now there are Highlights of the garden… of course the funny thing is that the garden is not at its best as we are moving into Fall… maybe next year I can start earlier in the season so others can see this sanctuary throughout the entire summer…
I love my garden and wonder how this crazy summer would have been without it…
