Tag Archives: garden

joy…

31 Thursday Dec 2020

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last evening I spent time on Instagram… people tend to put up their nine most liked photos of the year, but I decided to put up my nine favourite ones…

I was thinking they would be flowers, with maybe a bird or piece of chocolate included…

once I finished, there were seven with flowers, one bird and a monarch butterfly…

looking through the pictures reminded me of some wonderful times over this past year…

my orchids, which provide such joy for me all year long…

planting, growing and enjoying morning glories, datura and dahlias…

time spent, with and without cameras, viewing the birds in the garden…

a rose along the sidewalk on one of the walks I took this year, with my daughter in my ear;-)…

the amazing time I spent over the summer with eggs, caterpillars and butterflies… and the day my grandson and I watched the butterflies appear…

time with hearts and flower bouquets…

the water lily flowers that erupted in the pond… had the most blooms ever this summer… and I hope to overwinter them in the aquarium…

lovely reminders of a crazy, but wonderfully special year…

miss…

05 Saturday Dec 2020

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sitting in the hot tub last night, remembering my beloved on what would have been his 72nd birthday, I was reminded of all the fun things we have done together during our forty plus years…

I’d been wanting a hot tub since our anniversary many years ago when he rented one for a weekend, but we couldn’t afford one until 2009…

once I chose the one I wanted, he built a deck to put it on, and then a deck to go in front of it… easy to get to, it is now perfect for dips… he never loved the hot tub the way I did, but wanted me to be happy…

when we had friends over (you remember that, right?) for a hot tub, if we needed a drink or towel or anything, we’d bang on the wall of the house and he would come out to see what was required, lol… he’d also take photos when I wanted them…

with the new security light/camera on the garage, I have to go to the side door of the garage and turn off the power so that the light doesn’t keep coming on while I’m in the tub… thankfully the deck goes right there so it is easy to get to and from…

some of our best talks happened late at night in this hot tub… I sure do miss him…

aphids…

16 Monday Nov 2020

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I brought in one of the pots with datura in it, hoping it would last through the winter… I didn’t spray it with soap like I did for the other plants I brought in…

I have now discovered that it brought aphids into the house and they were feasting on my avocado plant…

I put the avocado in the tub and soaked it with the soapy water and covered it with a bag… after leaving it for a day I removed the bag and put the plant in a room without any plants in it… there were still lots of aphids so I cut off some leaves and nearly drowned it in the soapy water…

then I cut down the datura to the base… after soaping it up I will watch to see how it does…

fingers crossed that this will get rid of them and the avocado will be happy…

downy…

10 Tuesday Nov 2020

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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…

corms…

04 Wednesday Nov 2020

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had a lovely time on the deck this afternoon with the dahlias…

I had watched a video from Dahlias by Julie on how to separate them and was looking forward to the process…

turned out it is much more difficult than I learned… not sure I ever spotted the eyes… it will be interesting to see if any of them grow when planted in the spring, lol…

in the end I put the corms that I separated into a paper bag which then went into a dark basement closet…

but it was a beautiful afternoon…

downspout…

03 Tuesday Nov 2020

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I was still in bed when the doorbell rang…

ran downstairs to find Travis and Wayne from Bresara Window Cleaning here to clean the eavestroughs…

they were getting an early start on this beautiful day… they had cancelled a few weeks ago when the weather turned and everything was frozen, so they were going all out to get their appointments caught up…

they did a great job and now the loose eavestrough is connected so I won’t have to worry that it will fall into the hot tub when I’m in it;-)…

apparently, in the spring, we will have to replace a downspout which has cracked…

maybe there won’t be so many icicles over the hot tub this winter…

and while they were working on my eavestroughs, my neighbour had his ladders up and was installing his Christmas lights on his eavestroughs…

heavy…

02 Monday Nov 2020

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it has been below zero for a number of days and I had not remembered to empty the rain barrel… a lot of water had frozen in it and it was too heavy for me to flip it…

today, the temperature went to double digits and I just went out and opened the tap… and the water is running freely…

tomorrow, when it is empty I will turn it over for the winter;-)…

saved by the warm weather…

suet…

31 Saturday Oct 2020

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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…

stripes…

23 Friday Oct 2020

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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…

trying…

22 Thursday Oct 2020

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last night my grandson came over just after dark to bring me a few items and do some jobs around the garden… here he is arriving, thanks to my new camera…

and the goodies he brought… I’m excited to try the purple popcorn…

he took the pump out of the pond, moved the heavy furniture onto the back deck, and then we spent time trying to catch fish…

two cellphone flashlights lit up the pond as he searched for the fish… amazingly he caught one of the shubunkins… quite a feat as they look mainly black in the pond and by then it was very dark out, lol…

I’ve been masking up now whenever he is over because of where he works… last night I ended up taking off my glasses as they kept fogging up, so I was trying not to fall into the pond… which was a feat as there are a bunch of rocks that have been pulled out of the water and are all over the deck, lol…

because I knew he was coming I had made our favourite red curry lentils and packaged up some for him to take home, along with a couple of items for the others… he was sad to hear he had to share the lentils;-)…

had some of mine for breakfast…