a dear friend brought my favourite fish and chips, from Captain’s Table and we had a great visit…
after she left I went out, filled the garbage bin with more goodies from the garage, and set it out for tomorrow’s pickup…
then I wandered around the yard and took some pictures of the Virginia creeper… it is a vivid and glorious colour although many of the leaves have already dropped…
I’ve been contemplating how lucky I am to have the time to spend on such activities;-)…
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 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…
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 hibiscusinside…. 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…
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;-)…
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;-)…
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…
I searched through my photos and it looks like August 11 was the first time I took a photo of the buds on the mandevilla… this was the first time this summer that this houseplant has even started to get buds…
this morning, 26 days later, the first bloom is open…
they take an incredible amount of time to open;-)…
happy to check out the garden after being gone for a short time… enjoyed walking through and seeing what was about to bloom, what had just about finished and checking for caterpillars… unfortunately I haven’t found any more monarch or swallowtail babies…
I had asked my grandson to come by and water it while I was away and was very happy that he did…
the front flowers were a bit sad, as he hadn’t remembered to water them. but a quick dose of water and they all revived…
the ability of most plants to recover from thirst is quite amazing, lol…
herbiggirlpants 