04 Saturday Jul 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
arch, big girl pants, blessed, climb, garden, growing, moments, morning glories, nature, widow
the plants on the new arch are just taking off…
the morning glories have just begun to climb up along the deck side and I am hoping for many flowers before too long…
the other side has a number of plants growing… cucumbers and beans, including scarlet runners…
I am hoping they might invite the hummingbirds to the garden…
I may have planted too many🤪…
03 Friday Jul 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, family, garden, housemate, invisible, moments, nature, trimmed, virginia creeper, weather, widow
apparently, the virginia creeper is the happiest plant in the garden…
it is growing by leaps and bounds…
along the garage it has been trying to make its way back into the eavestrough and it also thinks it should get to the hot tub, lol…
the baskets were nearly invisible on the other side of the garden…
my housemate was able to get it all back under control in just a few minutes… looks so much better now…
it will probably look like that again in a few weeks😊…
02 Thursday Jul 2026
Posted in food, garden, life, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, garden, growing, happier, lemon, lemon tree, moments, nature, new leaves, widow
the lemon tree is very happy outside…
it has new leaves sprouting all over… much happier than when it went out last year…
all this from a seed out of a kitchen lemon… I can’t, for the life of me, remember when it was first planted;-)…
01 Wednesday Jul 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blossoms, coneflower, driveway, garden, happy, nature, period, widow
it always amazes me how much better plants do in the place they like…
a perfect example is the coneflower…
previously we had tried one in the bed by the pond and it died off…
last year we planted one along the driveway, beside the chimney… it had two flowers, which made me very happy…
this year I counted at least a dozen blossoms… looking forward to seeing them as they open…
the blossoms are different sizes, so they should open over a period of time;-)…
clearly they like the strong sun in that spot and are very happy 😁
25 Thursday Jun 2026
Posted in business, family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
we bought a new net which we hope will act as a better filter for the pond, so that, hopefully, we won’t have to climb into the pond as often to clean the pump…
right now we have some plants sitting on top of it to kind of disguise it…
if it works well, we will see if we can cut it down just a bit, so it isn’t above water level…
fingers crossed that it does the job;-)…
22 Monday Jun 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
ageratum, big girl pants, garden, moments, monarch, monarch butterfly, nature, plant, widow
spotted a monarch butterfly in the garden…
it was very interested in the ageratum…
and I’m very happy as there are two of these plants in the garden;-)…
woohoo…
21 Sunday Jun 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
had fun finding a few columbine plants with flowers that the bunnies haven’t discovered yet…
they are both in the raised pond bed and kind of hidden;-)…
they should be fine, even if discovered, as the bunnies seem to prefer the leaves, not the flowers;-)…
16 Tuesday Jun 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, garden, hardware, hardware cloth, moments, morning glories, nature, pallet, planter, widow
a few days ago, I planted morning glory seeds in the pallet planter box…
had some strange idea that the squirrels wouldn’t want to eat the seeds, lol…
checked it yesterday only to discover that the squirrels like to dig in the fresh soil, even if they ignored the seeds…
found a piece of hardware cloth that fit perfectly, so pinned it in…
let’s see if they can get past that;-)…
12 Friday Jun 2026
Posted in family, garden, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, big job, blessed, cover, emptied, family, garden, grandson, hot tub, housemate, moments, repaired, saw, screws, widow
the hot tub was emptied a few weeks ago and we’ve been waiting for a friend to look at the broken side of the lid to see if there is a way to fix it… they weren’t available so my housemate decided to see what he could do…
we finally got around to moving it away from the wall and looking to see what might work to repair it…
many screws have been removed, and we now know what the issue was regarding the right side lid…
all new screws and bolts were purchased and a new backing inside the body of the tub was installed on both sides to make the opening and closing mechanism stronger…
it took quite some time to get it sorted and then replace all the rusted screws that hold the eight panels around the tub…
while it was out and empty, a tiny portion of the deck that it sits up against was sawn off, which made a huge difference when the tub was back in place… now the side that rubbed against the gate opens easily…
next, the tub was filled and the pump turned back on… it will be another day or so before the temperature is back to normal…
the lid works properly… I am so happy;-)…
started with a new set of chemicals and looking forward to my first hot tub…
11 Thursday Jun 2026
Posted in garden, health, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, damaged, garden, hostas, marble-sized, moments, nature, poppies, thunderstorm, weather, widow, windows
the storm on Tuesday was quite something…
I was worried the hail was going to come right through the windows even though it was only marble-sized in our neighbourhood…
yesterday when I wandered around the garden, I could see how much the hail had damaged the plants…
the hostas took a real beating and the poppies were knocked over by a branch which fell down from the elm tree next door…
but their colour still popped;-)…
herbiggirlpants 