10 Tuesday Nov 2020
Posted in garden, life, loss, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, bird feeders, birds, blessed, downy, garden, moments, nature, photos, pictures, snow, suet, widow
sat in the sun in the living room and watched the birds at the feeders…
finally found one that likes the homemade suet;-)… yay for the downy woodpecker…
nice to see the house finches again…
I’ve only ever seen them in the garden…
31 Saturday Oct 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, birds, cold, feeders, garden, moments, nature, suet, sunflower seeds, treat, weather, widow
had some fun in the kitchen a few days ago after I took out the garbage from the den closet cleanup…
last week I found a recipe for homemade suet and added a few of the items to my grocery order so that I could make some for the birds…
it seems like a simple recipe with just 5 ingredients…
while making this, tomato sauce for my supper was simmering on the stove…
I made a double recipe so hope the birds like it, lol…
I used a sushi container and another container I found… after melting and mixing everything together, they went into the freezer to solidify…
I’ve put some out front in the suet holder and also put a bit in one of the saucers in the garden… so far it doesn’t seem to have the birds swarming to it;-(…
my problem now is that I am nearly out of sunflower seeds and won’t likely be getting any for at least a few weeks…
23 Friday Oct 2020
Posted in food, garden, life, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, birds, birdseed, blessed, feeder, food, garden, identify, moments, nature, stripes, watching, weather, widow
had fun going through my various bird books and apps because I saw a very interesting bird on the deck yesterday… it was a touch bigger than a sparrow but with stripes on its front with a black dot on its chest… couldn’t find it in any of the books…
there was a house finch there too and I haven’t seen any of them for quite a while…
at one point I saw three chickadees at a feeder in the front yard at the same time… rare to see more than one…
was going from the front to the back throughout the day checking on the guests…
didn’t get any pictures except this one when I headed to the front yard to fill the feeders…
brought the pail of seeds into the kitchen to make filling the feeders easier…
21 Wednesday Oct 2020
Posted in family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, birds, deck, family, feed, garden, moments, nature, shovelled, snow, surprise, widow
woke up to this…
we often get a bit of snow before Halloween, but it usually disappears… not sure that is going to happen this year…
I went out to the garden, dug the shovels out of the garage and shovelled off the top deck and by the hot tub… I set up a few spots for bird seed…
this winter I am going to keep the top deck clear so that I can feed the birds… last year the kids didn’t come by to shovel and my guy only does the bottom so the deck became impassible… still need to figure out how to attach a feeder to the deck…
with retirement, I can clean the deck whenever it works best for me, or a little at a time, lol…
06 Tuesday Oct 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, birds, blessed, crunch, Fall, garden, leaves, listen, moments, nature, noise, photos, pine siskins, pond, widow
spent a lovely afternoon in the garden before the rain…
pulled more leaves out of the pond… more are coming down into it every day…
I read and listened to the birds as they crunched through the leaves looking for bugs and seeds… considering how small they are, they made a lot of noise…
flocks of white-throated, song, and house sparrows, as well as pine siskins landed in the grass and around the pond where they would carefully jump from rock to rock to get a drink…
then off they went…
05 Monday Oct 2020
Posted in garden, health, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
after, big girl pants, birds, cleaning, feeders, garage, garden, goldfish, moments, nature, pictures, pond, squirrels, widow
spent an hour in the garage sorting and organizing… I laughed because I always think about the before picture after I’ve done the work, lol…
also was in the garden for a couple of hours watching the goldfish and birds move about…
I filled feeders and put them in different spots…
it is always interesting to see how long it takes the birds and squirrels to find them again, lol…
02 Wednesday Sep 2020
Posted in business, family, health, life, moments, nature, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, birds, Cornell Lab, datura, family, flowers, garden, learning, migration, moments, nature, weather, widow
it was rather chilly yesterday morning… I wore pants, a long sleeve shirt and my spring/fall jacket for my walk;-(…
after the walk, with my daughter on the phone, I had breakfast and checked out the garden, but it was still chilly, lol…
deadheaded the datura in the front flower bed, did some reading and watched a very informative webinar on bird migration…
seemed like a busy day, lol…
27 Thursday Aug 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, birds, blessed, feeder, garden, Merlin, moments, nature, pond, water lily, widow
well, what a day yesterday was… spent the majority of it in the garden, watching the water lily and all the birds flitting about the space… maybe they are starting to head south, sigh…
first to the feeder came the Downy Woodpecker… it was there for a while before flying off… believe that is the first one I’ve seen this summer…
the White-breasted Nuthatch popped by, and posed for a photo;-)…
next were the chickadees, and there were a lot of them, but sadly, they didn’t want to eat out of my hand…
and then, a Tennessee Warbler stopped by the pond for a drink… my Merlin Bird ID was certainly well used, lol…
my neighbour gave me celery out of his garden and a friend brought me carrots and parsley from her garden plot…
02 Sunday Aug 2020
Tags
big girl pants, birds, blessed, dinner, entertain, family, flowers, garden, goldfish, grandson, memories, moments, pond, squirrels, treat, widow
a lovely Sunday…
spent most of the day in the garden, watching squirrels, chickadees, butterflies and goldfish…
watched a little red squirrel make hundreds of trips across the upper deck to collect sunflowers for its stash… saw the frog and a purple house finch, read and napped in the garden…
brought out some of the flowers I received yesterday to enjoy…
so happy to have this space to entertain and was pleased to have visitors from out of town… enjoyed steak and lobster for dinner and some quiet late night star gazing…
we were quite late in eating and I giggled a bit when I realized that I didn’t remember to take a picture of my supper…
29 Monday Jun 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement
Tags
babies, big girl pants, birds, blessed, flowers, friends, garden, house finches, irises, learning, moments, nature, pond, purple, sparrows, sunshine, time, treat, widow
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;-)…
