today I spent some time in the garage working on the dahlias…
I took out each of the pots which I brought in a few days ago to thaw, and removed as much soil as I could…
it took a long time, mainly because the plants were packed tight in the pots and were root bound…
now I’ve brought in one pot which all the tubers fit into…
after watching a few videos last week, the next job, in a week or so, will be to separate the tubers into ones that have eyes and package them up for the winter…
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…
took this photo of one of the poppies that is growing in the garden…
I am hoping that all of these buds will continue to grow and bloom although the temperature has been a bit crazy the last few days…
Thursday night I brought some of the plants into the house and covered those around the deck…
last night I put all of them into the garage, except for a couple of heavy ones just outside the kitchen… happily, the clematis seems to be doing fine…
I left them there all day because the temperature is going down again tonight…
I think the weather is going to be improving so they can all move back outside tomorrow…
this morning’s activities included two particular items…
I started a pot of chicken soup as I now have a cold… the aroma permeated the house throughout the day and I was very eager to eat it for supper…
it was very tasty😋…
the other, and more exciting, thing that I did was pick up my Nikon and walk around the house taking pictures of flowers and greenery… can’t even remember when I last used it…
planning to practice with the camera over the next while and see if I can’t improve my photos…
although this one is basically the same as my last camera, I am not doing near as good a job of producing great pictures…
I’ve been waiting for a slightly warmer day to top up the hot tub…
it has been running low since I got home and I haven’t been out to sit in it because when it is low it sprays all over me which isn’t that nice…
around noon I removed the dryer vent and put the hose through it… then I went outside and slid between the hot tub and the pergola so I could reach the hose and put it into the tub…
back downstairs to turn the water on and then seven long minutes out in the cold as it filled up;-)…
actually the seven minutes went by quickly and I was able to pop back into the house to turn the water off, return to the outdoors to remove the hose from the hot tub and get back into the basement to collect the hose and replace the vent in the hole in the wall that was letting in a fair bit of very cold air, lol…
now for the waiting game… it will likely be a few days before it warms back up to 103, my favourite temperature… it takes so long because the tub is only plugged in using a regular outlet…
over the last week or so I’ve put a towel at the bottom of the front door to help keep the warm in, and the cold out… apparently they are called door snakes or draft dodgers…
it has made me giggle every time I walk past as it reminds me of a dear friend’s mom… she lived in a huge, but very old, house and all winter she would throw fur coats at the bottom of various doors in the house to stop the cold from entering…
so funny, lol…
which is why I giggle when I see my towel blocking the cold from entering the house…
the snow fell for two days… my driveway is covered and I wasn’t sure that I could get out, and then back in…
I needed groceries for Thanksgiving dinner with my grandsons on Monday so yesterday I shopped online at Save-On-Foods…
you pick your items, many from the list of previous items you’ve purchased in the store, choose a delivery time (usually the next day), pay with your credit card and you are done;-)… it costs $10 for this service…
they call you in the two-hour window when they are nearly at your house, bring in the groceries and advise if there have been any substitutions…
then off the driver goes and you get to put away your groceries…
although, I need to work on figuring out how much things like mushrooms and Brussels sprouts weigh in kilograms, lol…
