17 Sunday May 2020
Tags
big girl pants, birds, blessed, deck, frog, garden, lunch, memories, moments, nature, pond, supper, waterfall, weather, widow
had a lovely day in the garden…
set out the cushions, tidied a bit, and then read, napped and watched a few birds…
moved from chair to chair as I followed the shade and ate lunch and supper outside…
spotted the frog for a brief minute… it has been calling for days and this was the first time I was able to see it;-)…
16 Saturday May 2020
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, family, garden, hose, losing, memories, moments, pond, vanishing, water, waterfall, widow
I’ve been watching the pond since a week ago Friday, when my son-in-law got it running…
for the last few years when the waterfall is going water vanishes from the pond in a slow but steady manner…
same thing this year… Tuesday it was quite low, but the temperature was near zero so I was afraid to use the outside hose to top it up, but I was also afraid to turn it off in case water froze in the pump and wrecked it…
it was still cold Wednesday, but I had to do something otherwise the pump was going to be sucking air and then die…
after removing a connector which had broken over the winter and reattaching the hose to the main tap, I was able to get the hose running slowly and then more quickly once I was sure it wasn’t full of ice…
took quite a while to fill the pond, but I sat in the sun with a jacket on and watched for birds, lol…
then I placed a thin rock behind the waterfall so that the water would fall directly into the pond and not onto the pads behind it…
I was very excited, because I think this might make a difference to the vanishing water…
yesterday I topped it up again, but it is losing water way more slowly…
going to watch and see what happens…
14 Thursday May 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, bird feeders, birds, chickadees, eat, flowers, garden, hand, moments, nature, seeds, treat, widow
recently spent most of the day in the garden watching the comings and goings at the bird feeder…
my goal this summer is to teach the chickadees to eat from my hand…
starting by putting food out close to my chair and sitting fairly close to the feeder so they get used to me being there…
had a few conversations with the squirrels who kept coming to eat, but I encouraged them to leave… later, I noticed two at the feeder… making up for lost time I guess…
saw juncos, song sparrows, nuthatches, and finches, but no chickadees, lol…
10 Sunday May 2020
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, car, family, garden, happy, moments, pond, pump, rims, tires, waterfall, widow
had the loveliest surprise on Friday… my son-in-law and two of my grandsons arrived in my garden… the oldest grandson was picking up my car so that the winter tires can be removed and replaced with the summer beauties – they have wonderful rims…
I stayed on the deck and they stayed on the grass… it was wonderful to see them and we had a nice visit…
while they were here my son-in-law got the pump running in the pond… I am so happy to hear the water cascading over the rocks… there was ice in the water as it has been below zero for a couple of nights…
they got the tires into their vehicle and we had to ask the moving truck that was parked right at the bottom of my driveway to back up so the car could get out…
too funny considering I haven’t taken the car out in 52 days, and the one day it needed to move, there was a truck in the way, lol…
it was great to see them as we haven’t been together since just before Christmas…
08 Friday May 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, birds, birdseed, blessed, feeders, garden, grandson, moments, nature, purple, shopping, widow
I’ve been out a few times topping up the feeders, and I even added a new one I discovered in the garage…
a friend dropped off some sunflower seed for me but I am getting a bit worried that it will run out before I can get more from the store… hopefully my grandson will be by and able to pick some up for me…
watching the new arrivals to the garden is such fun and I’ve started a list of everything I see this spring and summer…
thought I’d spotted a purple finch, but discovered that it is likely a house finch, lol…
07 Thursday May 2020
Tags
big girl pants, birds, finches, garbage, garden, Google Home, home, moments, nature, remembering, waste, widow, yard waste
today, Google Home reminded me to put out the garbage and recycling… I also remembered that tomorrow will be the first day that yard waste will be collected…
I was very happy about that because there were quite a few bags and a garbage can full of leaves, branches and old plants waiting to be disposed of…
this photo was from last week after Hilda the Gardener was here and it shows all the detritus that was needing a place to go…
this photo is from today after I moved all of the bags out to the lane… some of them were heavy…
amazing how moving a few bags makes the whole area look better…
when I went to take today’s photo I also spotted more finches at the feeder…
good day all around…
06 Wednesday May 2020
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, dahlias, flowers, garden, grow, growth, memories, nature, purple, weather, widow
for a number of days I was moving the dahlia pots outside in the morning and back into the house in the evening…
then they lived in the house for a few days as the weather was rather cool…
and I had such fun checking on them throughout the day to see if they had sprouted, and if so, to see how they had grown…
once again they’ve been moving out and back… most are coming up nicely…
watching new growth is so satisfying, particularly in this time of great unrest in our lives… still waiting for a couple to pop through the soil…
looking forward to the permanent move outside… still haven’t decided where they will each end up…
04 Monday May 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, birds, blessed, feeder, garden, moments, moon, number, take the time, widow
saw a lovely view of the moon the other day while I was bird watching in the garden…
saw a number of birds… juncos, white throated sparrows, flickers and nuthatches…
02 Saturday May 2020
a very sad morning here…
three days ago I unplugged the pump on the fish tank as I was on a Zoom call and it was very noisy… I have often done this…
when I plugged it back in, nothing happened… I tried different outlets to no avail…
I decided to put the fish into the pond but had to do some cleaning of it first… got some done, but hurt my back so waited a bit…
they seemed fine while waiting… in the middle of the night it occurred to me that one of the smaller pond pumps might work in the tank…
first thing this morning I was out in the garage finding a pump… brought it in, tested it in the sink and put it into the tank… think it is going to work in the meantime…
the water is murky, which will not likely clear up as currently there is no filter… the fish seem to be swimming about and appear much happier… this pump is even noisier than the last one, lol…
unfortunately, the biggest fish died during the night;-(…
27 Monday Apr 2020
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, dahlia, flowers, garden, growing, planted, purple, rain, tubers, weather, widow
had a busy morning in the garden yesterday…
opened my box from The Dahlia Expert and took out my eight new tubers… I’d set it on the floor out of the way for a few days after it arrived to be sure it was safe;-)…
found pots, cleaned them out and matched the tubers with the appropriate pot…
left them outside for the rest of the day hoping that the rain might give them a drink… it did rain for a very short time but not a lot…
took quite a while, but eventually all eight were nestled in their new homes…
brought them in just before dark and put them back out for the day this morning…
they will be coming in and going out for the next while as I wanted them to get a head start on growing before they can live outside permanently;-)…
so excited to watch them grow…
herbiggirlpants 