cucumbers…

15 Friday May 2026

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized

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arches, beans, big girl pants, blessed, cucumbers, family, garden, light, planter, plants, weather, widow, wire

next part of the project was to install two arches where I am hoping to grow cucumbers and beans and morning glories;-)…

they will be located between the pond and the deck…

I’m hopeful that the light will help grow more veggies and brighten up that section of the garden;-)…

now the arches are in, two planters from other areas of the garden will be placed under them to hold the plants, once the grass/clover comes through the dirt/compost/sand… fingers crossed…

we picked up some wire and fastened it to the arches using zip ties…

it will be interesting to see how long it takes to cover the arches with greenery…

lava…

14 Thursday May 2026

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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…

threshold…

12 Tuesday May 2026

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big girl pants, blessed, family, grandson, housemate, moments, noisy, repaired, Technology, threshold, video call, widow

for many, many, months the threshold on the front door has been loose…

this week my housemate removed the metal and the old wood…

there was a bit of laughter regarding the tiny size and rustiness of the screws that were taken out…

a new piece of wood was positioned, which sits on the top step of the stairs and should provide more strength in the future… stronger screws and the metal strip reinstalled…

looks great and there is no longer any movement when it is stepped on…

woohoo;-)…

of course, this all took place while I was on a video call with my kids in Ottawa… there was hardly any noise, except for drilling and hammering 🤪…

cedars…

09 Saturday May 2026

Posted by sulis303 in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, blessed, cedars, family, garden, moments, nature, project, trimmed, widow

yesterday we began the newest garden project…

we started with trimming the cedars at the back of the garden…

we filled two bags with branches…

it is always a process to decide when enough has been trimmed, and it is time to stop, lol…

step one, done…

appear…

30 Thursday Apr 2026

Posted by sulis303 in family, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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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…

April…

29 Wednesday Apr 2026

Posted by sulis303 in family, garden, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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April, big girl pants, blessed, cover, family, garden, hot tub, moments, repair, widow

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…

shed…

23 Thursday Apr 2026

Posted by sulis303 in family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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big girl pants, blessed, family, garden, lawn furniture, moments, nature, rain barrel, reading, shed, Spring, weather, widow

had a great day in the garden yesterday… at last it was nice enough to put the cushions back on the deck…

sat on the top deck reading in the sun for ages… eventually I had to move to the lower deck to sit in the shade because it was so hot…

I tried to open the shed to bring out the rest of the lawn furniture, with no success…

but, I turned over the water barrel and yard waste bin, and emptied pots into the yard waste bin…

then there was sitting, lunch, and reading for the remainder of the afternoon…

once my housemate arrived home, he got the shed open and brought out some of the furniture…

summer is coming 😊…

chilled…

21 Tuesday Apr 2026

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big girl pants, birthday treat, blessed, blizzard, chilled, Dairy Queen, delicious, family, food, gloves, grandson, moments, weather, widow

was treated to a blizzard to celebrate my birthday…

was kind of funny, because I was cold after getting chilled in an air conditioned restaurant…

so I sat there eating the blizzard in my winter coat, with the seat warmer going, and gloves on…

but it was a wonderful treat… and half of it did go into the freezer for another day, lol…

brioche…

20 Monday Apr 2026

Posted by sulis303 in business, family, food, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized

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beef tartare, big girl pants, birthday eve dinner, blessed, brioche, delicious, dinner, family, food, Gather Craft Kitchen and Bar, happy, moments, new menu, The Leaf, widow

had dinner at Gather Craft Kitchen and Bar on Friday after my volunteer shift to celebrate my birthday eve…

the new menu looks great and we enjoyed everything we had…

we shared the brioche with butter and honey… the bread was warm and the butter soft… delicious… the look on my grandson’s face reminded me of the cartoon dog Snuffles, that rose into the air after eating something tasty…