10 Saturday Aug 2024
Posted in food, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, garden, growing, memories, memory, moments, nature, orange, plants, red, ripe, Technology, tomatoes, weather, widow
this memory came up in my feed on Thursday… it was from a year ago and clearly the tomatoes were ripe and nearly ready to eat…
this one is from the garden this Thursday…
obviously these ones are quite a ways behind, lol…
09 Friday Aug 2024
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
anticipate, big girl pants, blessed, experiment, fish, friend, garden, goldfish, grow, koi, moments, nature, neighbour, pond, widow
a few weeks ago a friend brought me some koi that a neighbour had given her for me… they are a fair bit smaller than the goldfish, but I anticipate they will grow quickly…
I’ve never had (or wanted) koi, so it will be interesting to see how it goes… this photo shows one of them (mainly black and white) amongst the much larger goldfish…
my fish are fairly tough… they don’t get any special treatment so we will see how the koi manage in that environment;-)…
an experiment…
07 Wednesday Aug 2024
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beautiful, big girl pants, blessed, corms, dahlias, flowers, garden, happy, hues, Lilystone Gardens, moments, nature, pink, plants, purple, surprise, treat, weather, white, widow
I have been so excited…
for a number of years, I’ve been overwintering dahlia corms, but haven’t had tons of luck… sometimes I know what they are and other times they are a surprise when they get put away…
one white one has proven very prolific and it has produced at least a dozen blooms so far this year in three different pots…
these are about the size of my palm…
a delightful feathery one that I purchased last year at Lilystone Gardens has come back nicely and has a number of blooms and buds in one pot…
each bloom is bigger than my hand…
these have all been white so I was particularly excited to see one come up in a pot that looked like it was pinky/purple…
it is a bit smaller than the white pompom-looking ones, but stands out in all its pink and purple hues…
nature is so amazing…
06 Tuesday Aug 2024
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, digging, family, garden, garden bed, grandsons, heavy, help, moments, nature, plants, project, rock, rocks, weather, widow
doing the happy dance…
Monday, the weather was perfect for being in the garden and my middle grandson came over and worked on the most current project… the soil in this garden bed kept sliding down and covering the stepping stones…
he removed some miscellaneous rocks, dug a trench and then, with my oldest grandson, moved and placed large rocks, which were located all around the garden…
it was interesting to watch as they decided together which rock worked and looked best where…
with my direction, of course…
the rock wall looks good…
so pleased that this project, which has been on my list for quite some time, is now completed…
05 Monday Aug 2024
Posted in food, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, garden, moments, nature, nylon, pantyhose, plants, stalk, tied, tomato, veggie garden, weather, widow, wind
went out to the veggie garden the other afternoon to see how everything was doing… it had been a much cooler day…
I’ve been spending most of my time in the house in front of the tv…
discovered that a stalk on one of the tomatoes had bent right over, I think from the wind…
I found a stick, put it in alongside the injured stem and then tied a nylon strip (from pantyhose) to the stick in a few spots…
I am hopeful that it will recover because there are two nice looking tomatoes on it…
fingers crossed…
02 Friday Aug 2024
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
anniversary, beloved, big girl pants, blessed, furniture, garden, grandson, grass, irrigation, memories, moments, nature, pressure, remembering, sorry, supper, treat, weather, widow
yesterday I woke up feeling a bit sorry for myself…
it would have been our 54th wedding anniversary, but instead it is the 12th year without my beloved…
I went out early and watered the grass as we’ve been working on adding some to bald spots in the garden… my beloved loved it when the grass looked good, lol…
I also ran the irrigation system at the same time… first time I’ve done that and it worked fairly well… the pressure for the grass watering portion was not as strong as usual, but it meant that I could get all the watering done at once…
I turned the PVR on so I wouldn’t miss any Olympics, lol…
then I reorganized the lawn furniture… took a bit of effort to get the lounger where I wanted, but I think it should work for the next while… all of the cushions came out…
while there was still shade, I filled up the four bird feeders and then I sat on the back deck to read and enjoy the garden before it got too hot…
later we went out for supper as a treat from the Ottawa kids;-)…
was feeling much better by the end of the day…
01 Thursday Aug 2024
Posted in food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
basil, big girl pants, blessed, cream cheese, cucumber, garden, moments, peas, picked, plants, sandwich, sourdough, widow
this morning I went to the garden to harvest some peas…
while I was out there I discovered that the cucumber I saw on Monday had grown like crazy… apparently they like crazy heat, lol…
I collected the peas, some basil, and the lovely cucumber…
decided on a cucumber sandwich for lunch… with some fresh sourdough and cream cheese…
after peeling the cucumber, I used the mandolin to make thin slices…
enjoyed the sandwich in the garden with coleslaw I’d made on Tuesday;-)…
31 Wednesday Jul 2024
Posted in family, garden, health, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, construction, garden, gate, grandsons, memories, moments, nature, pergola, photographs, remembering, time, waterbed pond, widow
a friend sent me some photographs recently and in amongst them was this picture of my beloved in front of the just finished pergola/gate…
it had the cutest fastener on the gate… I can’t remember when we put all of the pergolas in, but at that time – many moons ago – we still had the waterbed pond beside it…
then I dug out this one from July, 2009 (a bit fuzzy), when he added a shelf for stuff to sit on while we were in the new hot tub… that was fifteen years ago🤪…
and this is how it looks today;-)…
I showed the original picture to my grandsons and it took them a minute to recognize it, lol…
it does need a trim so that the Virginia creeper isn’t overpowering it and the gate could have a prettier fastener…
time flies…
30 Tuesday Jul 2024
Posted in camping, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, camping, cocoon, comfy, cool, garden, happy, memory, moments, mosquitoes, nature, sleep-out, weather, widow
this memory came up from July 28, 2013, lol…
and this photo is from Friday morning, the 26th after a night out;-)…
it was cool with a lovely breeze, so once again no mosquitoes;-)…
the lounge chair was nice, but the air mattress is definitely more comfy…
it is so nice to have a sleep-out… like camping, without the travel, lol…
26 Friday Jul 2024
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, butterfly, discovery, eggs, flowers, garden, milkweed, moments, monarch, nature, plants, treat, widow
recently, I wrote about all the caterpillars and the butterflies that emerged and my hope that, as the milkweed has new leaves, another monarch mother might stop by and leave a few eggs…
well, on Thursday, this happened;-)…
I was very excited and after she left, and a bit of searching, made the discovery of at least four eggs…
babies, here we come;-)…
herbiggirlpants 