standoff…

12 Saturday Jul 2025

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on Friday evening the doorbell cam advised there was an animal in the front yard (bit fuzzy)…

I ran downstairs to watch out the window and was quite happy watching the two deer…

until one started to eat the plants in one of the planters…

I knocked on the window but it didn’t scare it…

stared right back at me…

and as I watched them head to the hostas next door, I went outside to scare them away…

but they really didn’t want to go… they even started walking towards me, but after about a three minute standoff, they finally crossed the street and headed toward the creek…

shelling…

11 Friday Jul 2025

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this morning I picked the peas from the side garden;-)…

had to use the step stool to get the higher ones and my housemate picked the last couple that I couldn’t reach…

I spent a lovely fifteen minutes shelling them…

then boiled and ate them for lunch…

yum, what a treat;-)…

sardines…

10 Thursday Jul 2025

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today, as I was making my lunch, I was reminded of my dad…

he loved sardines and would often make a sardine sandwich for his lunch when he was home…

when he worked he had a cheese sandwich every single day🤪…

back to the sardines, lol…

he would smash them up in a bowl with a fork and a bit of the oil from the container and then put the mix onto white bread…

I mashed mine up and then topped up some premium crackers with the mixture… tasty and went well with the cucumber, onion, tomato salad which I also made…

sweet memory;-)…

piccata…

09 Wednesday Jul 2025

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today, we celebrated one of our group’s birthdays by spending the afternoon at Pine Ridge Hollow…

we drove out in a hybrid electric car and spent a couple of hours wandering through all the shops…

we followed that up with an excellent dinner at the restaurant…

our meal started with beet chips and goat cheese ranch dipping sauce, oh my, so tasty…

four members of the group had pickerel piccata while I had the lamb shank…

my lamb was braised and flame-grilled, came with tabbouleh, fennel slaw, whipped labneh, and a drizzle of chermoula… I had to look up a number of the items on Google but they made a delightful combination;-)…

everyone’s meal was delicious and just a touch different than expected…

the birthday “girl” had schmoo, while others enjoyed the frozen lemon meringue…

we conscripted a fellow restaurant member as they were leaving to take our traditional photo…’you can see we were having a lot of fun;-)…

a leisurely drive home ended another of our special days…

disintegrate…

08 Tuesday Jul 2025

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so happy to see that the morning glories are opening…

the butterfly bench hasn’t had any open lately but the planter by the backdoor has been blooming over the last few days… today there were three…

then, as I was driving out of the garage, I stopped the car, got out and took photos of the blooms by the large garage door…

the blooms don’t last long and if it rains they kind of disintegrate, so I wanted to be sure to get a photo of them;-)…

fixing???

07 Monday Jul 2025

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we’ve been working on the pond to try and fix the leak that only seems to happen when the waterfall is running…

we purchased a new hose from a pond store and it took a while to get here… then we had to wait for a good day to work on it…

took extra help to pull the old hose and insert the new one… next a new connection to the pump had to be purchased and finally on Sunday evening the waterfall was turned on… the pump hadn’t been cleaned, but the water was coming through the waterfall much stronger that previously…

we thought the problem was where the water meets the deck on the deck side…

this how it looked at the end of Tuesday…

and it was still leaking, sigh…

this is how it looked on Thursday, although we may be getting closer to the problem…

qualifying…

06 Sunday Jul 2025

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lovely start to the day on Saturday, with a 4:30 am hot tub… it was cool, sky was just beginning to lighten, birds were singing, and clouds drifted above…

back to sleep for a while and then got to watch qualifying for Sunday’s F1 race at Silverstone…

and one of my favourites got pole position…

was able to turn off the fans and open all the windows to get some fresh, cool, air into the house, which was wonderful after the last few days of sizzling heat…

out in the garden I spotted a house finch couple enjoying snacks at one of the feeders…

the rest of the day was quiet and peaceful…

frogs…

05 Saturday Jul 2025

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spent a morning in the English Gardens…

before I started my shift, I took photos of the water lilies and frogs in the Leo Mol lily pond…

as a volunteer, I walked around welcoming visitors, taking photos for them, and visiting with some of the guests…

I also saw many birds, particularly yellow warblers, that were flitting through the garden…

as I was leaving, it was great fun to watch a staff person catching frogs from the water lily pond and then moving them to the bigger, natural pond…

there was concern that the shallow water in the lily pond could be a detriment to their health on these hot days…

glad I got my photos when I did;-)…

coneflower…

03 Thursday Jul 2025

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the coneflower has finally bloomed… this one was planted on the south side of the house, next to the furnace vents… I think this is a much better spot than the pergola garden…

whenever the hose has been put out it has gotten water and has been growing nicely since it was planted…

not too long ago it produced a bud and it has slowly been opening over the last few weeks…

the petals still need to bend completely, but it is looking pretty good now;-)…

seeing it reminds me of how every year I would buy one, we’d plant it in the garden, and then in the spring my beloved would pull it out thinking it was a weed, lol…

memories 😉…