07 Saturday Sep 2024
Posted in business, family, health, life, moments, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, bouquet, family, flowers, gift, moments, nature, pass-through, subscription, widow
spent a little time with the last of my bouquet subscription flowers…
I had divided the bouquet into two vases, but they were pretty much done, so I collected the last of the good ones and put them into two small vases…
one in the bathroom and one on the pass-through…
I am already missing the weekly beauties…
18 Sunday Aug 2024
Posted in health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, flowers, lilies, moments, nature, neighbourhood, walk, weather, widow
went for a walk around the neighbourhood on Tuesday morning… it was a cool and sunny day…
apparently I was caught up by lilies on the walk, lol…
I did catch a few other flowers…
that was fun;-)…
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…
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;-)…
16 Tuesday Jul 2024
Posted in food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
basil, beans, big girl pants, blessed, cucumbers, garden, moments, nature, peas, plants, rain, some, tomatoes, veggie garden, weather, widow
all of the rain has made some of the veggie garden plants quite happy…
the tomatoes are doing well and growing bigger each day…
the peapods are filling out rather nicely and I had my first peas… from just one pod, lol…
the beans are growing up the arch but don’t have any flowers yet and the cucumbers are very slow in flowering…
I think that I may need to plant more beans and even cucumbers… sadly the butternut squash seed did not produce…
and, finally the basil has started to fill the pot;-)…
14 Sunday Jul 2024
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, clematis, comparison, family, flowering, flowers, garden, growth, moments, nature, plants, purple, remembering, weather, widow
the clematis on the south side of the house has been outdoing itself this season… maybe it likes all the rain, lol…
I would say there are maybe a hundred buds or blossoms… and that is after two serious thunderstorms which knocked tons of petals off…
came across this photo from July, 2013…
at that point it was probably five or six years old… before this one we had probably planted five or six that all died…
nice to have the comparison as it is easy to forgot how much something has grown…
29 Saturday Jun 2024
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, decimated, family, garden, happy, milkweed, moments, monarch caterpillars, nature, photos, plants, pond, twenty, widow
on Tuesday we counted twenty monarch caterpillars on the milkweed in the garden…
they were all over the newest batch that was recently planted and have nearly decimated all the leaves…
they were also on the ones near the waterfall which were planted last summer… we’ve now taken out all the poppies so there is more room to be able to see the caterpillars…
there were none on the ones from last year which were located around the edge of the pond… these were the ones that I planted in a spot where I could see and photograph any butterflies, eggs and caterpillars that came along, lol…
there were some chives next to them so when Hilda the Gardener was here the other day I had her take them out… maybe the butterflies don’t like the smell…
so excited to have so many;-)…
22 Saturday Jun 2024
Posted in family, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, travel, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, family, feeder, fluttering, happy, hummingbirds, moments, nature, sound, treat, weather, widow, wings
we’ve been watching the hummingbird feeder since we arrived and on Tuesday, when we were at the table eating our supper we spotted the first one… having their meal too;-)…
Wednesday, while we were eating lunch, two of them had a little confrontation over who got to eat first…
Friday, while I was on the lower deck reading in the sun, one came right up to me before flying off… once you’ve heard a hummingbird, you always recognize the sound of their wings fluttering, lol…
what a treat;-)…
20 Thursday Jun 2024
Posted in family, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, travel, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cottage, family, happy, lake, low key, moments, nature, rain, ventured, water, waves, weather, widow
our first whole day at the cottage was low key…
the sun came out occasionally, but the wind was busy the entire day and there was a fair amount of rain…
we ventured out a few times to watch the waves and listen to the birds…
in between, we read and napped and watched nature take its course out the windows…
my daughter got this lovely shot on her new Galaxy android… between the raindrops, lol…
it take wonderful pictures…
18 Tuesday Jun 2024
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, columbine, family, flowers, garden, moments, nature, phone camera, plants, purple, Technology, trick, widow
the other day my daughter taught me a great trick for photographing flowers that haven’t turned up… this was her before photo…
as she was taking the picture she put the camera on reverse and set it below the flower…
what a great idea… here is one I took…
how cool is that…
herbiggirlpants 