08 Saturday Aug 2020
Posted in life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
blessed, big girl pants, nature, widow, bedroom, treat, moments, dragonflies, photo
twice in July I have had dragonflies land on the screen in my bedroom…
although they sit there for hours, it is very hard to get a photo that shows their wings;-)…
I love dragonflies so it is a treat when they come to visit;-)…
03 Monday Aug 2020
Posted in health, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, coneflower, early, flowers, moments, morning glories, nature, pictures, pinky, purple, roses, walk, widow
on my walk this morning all the photos of flowers that I took were pinky/purple, lol…
although it was a holiday and I left the house a bit later than normal, there were few people out and about…
26 Sunday Jul 2020
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, butterfly, chrysalis, experience, family, fun times, garden, grandson, lily of the valley, milkweed, moments, monarch, nature, photos, plants, Pokémon, time, widow
yesterday morning my youngest grandson was dropped off at ten by his two older brothers who were heading off to a two-day Pokémon event…
about fifteen minutes after they left he spotted the first of our monarchs as it emerged from the lily of the valley where they had gone to turn into their chrysalis stage… I had been watching this chrysalis for a number of days as it was the only one we could find…
perfect timing, and he spotted three more as they came out to dry their wings…
the first one had a wasp attached to its wing and it took me quite a while to get it off… not sure if that hurt it or whether the wasp had already injured it…
the others eventually flew off after their wings dried out, but this little male spent most of the day with us… finally it was gone, so we are hoping that it was able to fly…
what a wonderful experience to share together;-)…
14 Tuesday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blossom, fish, flowers, garden, moments, nature, patience, pictures, plants, pond, water lily, widow
the water lilies are doing very well and I think the fish are enjoying the shade they provide…
I purchased two from RPGC and have been checking daily in the hope that there might be a bud coming…
on July 10 I spotted something that might prove to be one…
I’ve been checking everyday and was thrilled to discover I was right…
it takes a long time for one to emerge from the base of the pot and climb up through a couple of feet of water…
waited patiently… and on Sunday it popped to the surface…
yesterday, it opened a little bit and today it opened completely;-)…
10 Friday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, chrysalis, eggs, garden, grandson, moments, monarch, moving, nature, searching, widow
my caterpillars are on the move…
there is only one small sized one left on the milkweed… and I have found two new eggs so that is exciting…
my grandson spotted a caterpillar crawling in the lily of the valley, so I am going to lay down on the deck and see if I can find some in their chrysalis stage…
spent quite some time this morning laying on a lounge cushion and lifting leaves in the lily of the valley searching…
eventually I found one chrysalis… I also marked the leaf so I can spot it again…
will need to keep looking…
04 Saturday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, flowers, garden, instar, lifecycle, milkweed, molt, moments, nature, plants, pond, weather, widow
it was overcast when I got up yesterday morning, but I went out before 7:30 to see what flowers were blooming and what the caterpillars were up to…
there were a bunch of morning glories and two dahlias were almost completely open…
the caterpillars were going through some of their instars… during the caterpillar stage they molt five times…
I was very excited to spot the largest one with the molt left on the leaf… after a while I noticed that another much smaller one went through the process…
this was exciting as I’d never seen this piece of the lifecycle previously…
the remainder of the day was spent quietly as I was not feeling well, so I slept and read in the shade, although I did check out the caterpillars now and again;-)…
30 Tuesday Jun 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, eggs, flowers, garden, milkweed, moments, monarch, nature, pictures, plants, widow
so excited to have spotted monarch eggs on the milkweed…
after a bit of research I discovered that it takes four days for them to hatch…
I’ve been checking every day to see if any have popped out… and I found some;-)… they are the teeniest little things…
I’ve watched them before, but only when they were large, so it is very cool to see them at such a small size…
a number of times each day I check over, under and around the edges of the leaves…
now I know to look under the leaves with brown spots as they don’t always eat right through the leaves at this stage… it appears they like the newest leaves as they are clearly more tender…
sometimes it is easy to spot them and other times I don’t see any, lol…
very exciting;-)…
24 Wednesday Jun 2020
Posted in garden, life, loss, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, butterfly, eggs, excited, flowers, garden, memories, milkweed, moments, nature, pictures, widow
just after my friend left yesterday a monarch butterfly flew through the garden and spotted the milkweed… it landed on it a number of times… I was thrilled…
it flitted all around the space as well as flying over the house and into the neighbour’s yard…
I sat and watched for the longest time… at one point I squished the oranges on the deck so the juice might be appealing, but no luck…
after looking closely at my photos, it looks quite beaten up…
in the evening, I spotted some eggs on the milkweed… I am reminded of the year that I got some wonderful pictures of the caterpillar to butterfly stages…
so very excited… can hardly wait to see if we get caterpillars;-)…
11 Monday May 2020
Posted in business, life, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, camera, connectivity, exciting, iPhone, memories, moments, Nikon, photos, pictures, Technology, widow, wifi
I’ve had my current Nikon camera over a year and a half… one of the reasons I upgraded, rather than repair my previous camera, had to do with technology…
newer cameras connect with computers and phones in a much simpler manner so I figured that it made sense to have those options…
sadly, just weeks after I obtained it, that technology stopped working… I went and spoke with the people at the camera store… they offered a few suggestions, which I tried a few times, but the wi-fi and bluetooth would just not work…
I gave up because it was very frustrating and I had tried everything they suggested…
I’ve been a bit disappointed in the quality of my photos and using the camera less… to get photos from the camera I would have to remove the memory card and plug it into either my computer or iPhone…
a few days ago, as I was taking some photos out the front window, I noticed a new icon at the bottom left of the screen… right away I pulled out my phone and connected to the app which was still on my phone…
I was beside myself, because now it was working… and also had a message advising they had fixed a problem with remote connectivity… so, not only can I copy pictures to my iPhone remotely, I can take pictures using my phone as the shutter release button… this is very handy when taking some photos as you don’t move the camera when depressing the button…
this is the first camera photo using the iPhone to take it…
yay, excited to see what else it will do for me…
04 Monday May 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, birds, blessed, feeder, garden, moments, moon, number, take the time, widow
saw a lovely view of the moon the other day while I was bird watching in the garden…
saw a number of birds… juncos, white throated sparrows, flickers and nuthatches…
