16 Saturday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, circulating, family, garden, moments, music, pond, prep, pumps, widow, working
started work on the pond…
first step was to empty out the water… that was done last Saturday…
on Wednesday, after using the wet-vac and vacuuming the leaves and other crud out of the bottom, the pumps were set in place…
then the water flowed in and the pumps started circulating… which also means the waterfall began making wonderful music…
what a treat…
14 Thursday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, bonsai, family, garden, Japanese Maple, lava, moments, nature, planted, widow
the Japanese Maple bonsai has moved into a new and much bigger pot…
holes were punched into the bottom and soil, compost, sand, and fertilizer went into the new pot with some used lava rocks…
it looks like a very large container for a small plant, but the hope is that the trunk will grow larger in the bigger pot…
it was moved back into the house and will start transitioning to the garden over the next few weeks… after the summer in the garden, it will move back into the house for the winter…
13 Wednesday May 2026
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
the other day I picked up a hanging basket that was “free” because we spent a zillion dollars on groceries, lol…
the plan is to use it in the front planter beside the door as it had lots of plants and flowers flowing down the sides…
brought it out of the garage today to get a bit of sun because it still isn’t warm enough for it to go into the pot, lol…
while it was sitting out, a lovely big bumblebee stopped by for some pollen…
it buzzed around the various flowers for quite a few minutes before heading off to find other treats…
what a great start to the day…
11 Monday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
spent time in the garden Saturday morning…
the job was to level out the ground as much as possible…
soil, compost and sand were mixed by the wheelbarrow full and then dumped and levelled across the grass using a handmade levelling rake…
it took quite awhile but eventually the space seems much flatter…
next, a mix of grass and clover seed was spread over the entire area and then gently raked in…
finally, the entire area was watered…
now to wait for it to grow…
03 Sunday May 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, garden, grandson, grass, moments, planters, pump, raking, reading, tarp, weather, widow
spent time in the garden on a lovely day…
used the pond pump to empty the water on top of the tarp and then took the tarp off the pond…
took a few minutes to lay it out on the grass to dry out…
we moved a few planters to new places and will see if they stay in those spots…
did a little bit of raking of leaves, but there is still a lot to do…
and also spent some time reading in one of the chairs which recently came out of the shed…
30 Thursday Apr 2026
Posted in family, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
appear, big girl pants, blessed, bonsai, family, grandson, Japanese Maple, moments, nature, plants, slow process, widow, wire
had fun watching my grandson start to work on his Japanese Maple bonsai…
we picked up the Japanese Maple last spring and it lived in the garden for the summer and moved into the living room in the fall…
over the winter it lost all of its leaves, but new ones have just started to appear;-)…
lots of bits were trimmed off and quite a few types of wire were used to begin the process of bending branches to new spots…
this is the second try as the first one he worked on didn’t make it…
kind of exciting to see how it will turn out, although it is a very slow process…
29 Wednesday Apr 2026
Posted in family, garden, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
last night was my first in the hot tub for a really long time…
a screw had come loose on the left side cover and it took quite a while before we were able to screw it back in… then it needed to be filled and it took me ages to get that done…
looking for photos of it, I found this note about the day the hot tub arrived —- April 29, 2009…
and this one from my first hot tub on Mother’s Day, 2009…
the area around the tub has changed a lot since its arrival…
these photos reminded me when the right hand cover came off and was repaired…
these photos were taken on April 28, 2023…
apparently, the end of April has been an important period for the hot tub…
next up will be emptying the tub and figuring out if we can make the right side more stable for opening and closing…
28 Tuesday Apr 2026
Posted in business, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, cloudy, four hours, helpers, hot tub, moments, move, neighbours, professional, reading, u-haul, widow
spent the morning between reading and watching the move-out next door…
luckily, there were lots of helpers, although it still took four hours to fill the u-haul, two trucks, and two cars before they left…
an hour or so later, as the sky was clouding over, a hired crew came to move the hot tub to its new home…
next up will be seeing who moves in;-)
26 Sunday Apr 2026
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blew, deck, feet, garden, moments, nature, slippers, sunshine, weather, widow, wind
sat out on the deck on Thursday morning…
it was fairly warm, but windy…
I took my slippers off to get some sun on my feet and had one foot on a slipper, but crossed my leg with the other…
all of a sudden the second slipper blew right off the deck, lol…
I hopped on down, brought it back up onto the deck, and slid both of them under my foot;-)…
25 Saturday Apr 2026
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, English Garden, friends, frogs, moments, nature, scarf, tails, walk, weather, widow, windy
went for a walk to the English Garden on Thursday morning… it was so windy that I couldn’t wear my hat, and my scarf ended up with the tails blowing behind me…
had a little break beside Sargent Sundae as I waited for my walking buddies…
hadn’t been yet this spring so it was interesting to see the state of the gardens as it has not been long since the snow melted…
the gardens were clean and tidy, but not much was growing yet, lol…
we did come across some photographers who were looking for birds;-)…
the most fun was counting the frogs by the pergola… in just a few minutes I saw at least twelve…
got all my steps in between walking to, around, and home from the Gardens…
herbiggirlpants 