eggs…

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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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;-)…

irises…

29 Monday Jun 2020

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a few days ago a great friend came by for a garden visit…

she brought me some gorgeous dark purple Japanese irises and a branch of lovely mock orange blossoms…

we had a nice time as we checked out everything growing in the garden and then watched the birds for ages… she knows lots about birds so I even learned a little, lol…

the house finch couple came by to visit and the house sparrows had a feeding frenzy as the parents and babies flew around and parents fed some babies and encouraged others to find their own seeds…

it was such fun to watch the way the youngsters fluttered their wings… and tried to land in various places… a few times I thought they were going to land right on us…

the sound was amazing as everyone was chatting and calling their family members, clearly wanting to be recognized, lol…

great fun to spend time with someone else who can happily listen to the water and bird watch for hours at a time;-)…

softball…

28 Sunday Jun 2020

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today I was particularly missing my beloved…

as I still had to plant the last few alyssum and couldn’t find a container I liked, I decided to brave the shed and choose something from in there… it is a mess and needs someone to clean and tidy it up and that would have been something he would have done, likely tossing things I thought we should keep and keeping things I thought were junk, lol…

anyway, I moved the recycling bin and opened the door… it seemed to catch on the Virginia creeper, which needs to be trimmed, and I was waving the vines away from my head when I heard lots of buzzing… and as I looked up I spotted many wasps flying around my head… I stepped back and saw a softball sized nest on the inside of the door…

lucky for me, I wasn’t stung… yikes…

my beloved would have sorted that nest out no problem… I found spray in the house, consulted with my son-in-law on the best time to use it, but can’t yet as it is too windy… guess that door is going to stay open until tomorrow, lol…

I moved away and found a container in the garage and finished the last bit of planting…

for my lunch I had leftover pork and beans and because it was so hot, ate them cold… he often ate them that way… the other way he liked them was warmed up with a fried egg on top, euuuwwww…

funny what you remember;-)…

tradition…

27 Saturday Jun 2020

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many years ago, when the girls were little, I started the tradition of singing happy birthday to them, the number of times as they were old… so if you were ten, you would get happy birthday sung to you ten times…

might have been a mistake, because they still expect that even when they are turning big numbers, lol… and they still ask for it…

last night I set an alarm for this morning so I could sing before the birthday boy headed to work, lol…

this past year, I have sent emails and texts with pictures and just a few calls…

might not have been my most brilliant idea, lol… but it has been fun…

mask…

26 Friday Jun 2020

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yesterday I went for a doctor’s appointment… had arranged to get my car back from my grandson who has been using it while I’ve been staying home…

it was the first time in three months that I have entered a building that wasn’t my house, lol…

this was also the first time I’ve worn my mask and had it on the whole time I was there…

had to manage a few new processes… only one door is used to enter and exit the building… and it wasn’t the one I was used to… got in a few extra steps…

the process for bloodwork is basically the same – waiting… although there are way fewer chairs, the gate is partially closed, and there was sanitizer everywhere…

I did giggle looking at the chairs in all the waiting rooms… to ensure separation, for every chair you could sit in, two or three were turned to the wall… looked like a snake, lol…

the other thing that made me giggle was the fact that my iPhone didn’t recognize me with my mask on, lol… if I am going out more, I might need to add me with a mask on for it to recognize me, lol…

butterfly…

24 Wednesday Jun 2020

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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;-)…

cushions…

24 Wednesday Jun 2020

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this morning I was up and about fairly early so that I could get the garden ready for a visit with a friend…

I’ve been quite lazy lately and have only put out a few chair cushions rather than all of them, but today I brought all of them out, including a few decorative ones that have been living on the couch, lol…

the garden looked great, freshly mowed and whipper snipped…

the veronica is blooming and the bees are all over it… the daisies are mostly open and the dahlias have buds on them… the lobelia is thinking of trailing and alyssum is growing nicely and starting to scent the air…

baskets are doing well and both ponds are flowing beautifully…

on warm days, visits need to happen before noon as there is little shade for the remainder of the afternoon…

the weather was perfect and finches and squirrels dropped by… we had a great time and enjoyed ourselves immensely;-)…

so nice to spend time with friends… going to organize some more of that;-)…

garden…

23 Tuesday Jun 2020

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after the busy day yesterday with the boys here, today I spent a fabulous time in the garden…

the grass is beautifully manicured and the sound is quite wonderful… the waterfall looks great and I am so happy to have it running at full capacity again thanks to my son-in-law… even the rocks have been placed perfectly to cover the new pump…

the pump in the bathtub pond looks and sounds lovely as well… it was a little cool but the wind wasn’t blowing so it felt calm…

to top things off, a house finch couple stopped by for lunch…

because I am not leaving the house, this time in the garden is even more special and I am enjoyed reading and listening to the sounds in the garden…

what a blessing retirement is proving to be…

three…

22 Monday Jun 2020

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three things caused problems on Saturday… the sink leaked, the internet stopped working, and my tv lost its signal…

made me rather grumpy, particularly as I was trying to help someone with something online…

today my son-in-law and grandsons came over for supper and for the middle one to mow my grass… he also moved and filled all the bird feeders…

while they were here my son-in-law fixed three things, which made me very happy…

he installed a new pump and got the waterfall running… he fixed the small pump in the garage pond and it is running beautifully… and he figured out the problem with my sink and got it working… what a treat…

I truly am blessed;-)…

figure…

20 Saturday Jun 2020

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Father’s Day… remembering my beloved…

I’ve been thinking a lot about all those who are missing that special person… the one who fits as the father figure… whether a father, husband, brother, son…

it is over eight years since I lost my beloved… you’d think that enough time had passed that it wouldn’t be hard, but today is hard… time doesn’t matter…

this picture popped out in my photos the last week… I’ve been going back to it ever since, lol…

he had many of the same traits as my dad… honest, accepting, caring, hard working, supportive, kind, generous…

good traits for everyone;-)…

if you know someone who has lost their special person, check in with them;-)…