next I made coffee and had a few moments to read while I waited for my friends to arrive…
we decided not long ago to meet in the afternoon when it is warmer, as we continue to meet outdoors…
one had something else on, another connected by phone… the rest of us gathered in person…
it was a beautiful day and we sat close to the pond… both pumps were turned off to make it easier to hear one another, lol…
there were lots of visitors while we were meeting… a variety of sparrows, blue jays, squirrels, a cat and we even spotted a mouse racing through the grass… the fish swam around where we could see them as well…
strange to have such warm weather, but we certainly enjoyed it…
the morning glories are very simple… I just put one hand under the little pod and squish it with the other… then I winnow the part holding it together by blowing over my hand… the excess blows away and the seeds remain and can be popped into a container…
the datura are a bit more complicated… the seed pods are covered in very sharp spikes which try to hurt me, lol…
I now have a container for each of the two types I have grown this year… the lovely white ones and the smaller, but cute, purple ones…
it is best to wait for the pods to start cracking as they dry, which makes removing them slightly easier… the dryer they are, the easier to remove…
last night we moved the filing cabinet raised bed from the garage to the side garden…
today on this beautiful, mostly sunny, day, I lifted and repositioned a number of the rocks in that area to sit around it… some of them were rather large and heavy, lol… I have collected them from all over Manitoba…
I think the area looks good and plan on filling the raised bed with bits of wood and soil to get it ready for spring…
recently I’ve been on a roll with construction… yesterday I spent time in the garage working on the new filing cabinet raised planter…
I saw something on social media where someone used old filing cabinets to make raised flower beds… seemed like a great idea and I had a four drawer filing cabinet in the basement that needed to be cleaned out…
last week my grandson and his friend removed the drawers – which I still have to empty – and took the cabinet outside…
they put a number of holes in the new bottom to provide drainage… the metal was really thick and it took a while to produce the holes…
it was a very sad brown colour, so he spray painted it a lovely shade of gray and set it inside the garage to cure…
yesterday I dug out various bits and pieces of insulation which I cut to size and put all around the inside… and I knew where all the things I needed were, lol…
now it needs one more coat of paint before moving into the shade garden and getting filled with soil so it will be ready for spring planting…
the space in the garden is all ready… the guys had already removed the old leaking pond and filled that spot in with wood and dirt…