01 Tuesday Sep 2026
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blooms, catch, magnolia, Mediterranean biome, moments, nature, scent, widow
one of my favourite trees in the Mediterranean Biome is the magnolia…
it blooms fairly regularly and can have only one flower blooming at a time or as many as six, which I spotted earlier this summer…
today, it had one glorious bloom above a spent flower…
magnolias smell delicious, although our tree is too high up to be able to catch the scent…
28 Friday Aug 2026
Posted in life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, technology, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, camera, lunar eclipse, moments, nature, settings, Technology, tripod, weather, widow
last night there was a partial lunar eclipse and, since it was lovely out, I sat on the deck with my camera and tripod and got a few pictures…
had some fun with different settings on the camera…
I spent about an hour and a half enjoying the show and only went in once it had reached the peak and my camera battery died, lol…
27 Thursday Aug 2026
Posted in business, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, eagle eyes, fun, lizards, moments, nature, plants, The Leaf, tiny, tropical biome, widow
one of the fun things about volunteering at The Leaf has been seeing how many little lizards we can spot on a shift…
one of our colleagues has eagle eyes and knows all the spaces where they might be… that has encouraged many others to search for them as we move through the biomes…
I had a great day recently and spotted six, all in the Tropical Biome 😊…
the last one is teeny tiny and I’ve spotted it a number of times…
and a colleague spotted a cute frog the other day🙂…
22 Saturday Aug 2026
Posted in health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beach, big girl pants, blessed, cottage, early, moments, nature, quiet, shore, shore birds, water, weather, widow
every morning, while at my friends’ cottage, when I woke up, I would walk down and sit on the steps leading to the beach…
usually I’d spend an hour or so watching and listening to the waves…
it was always fun to watch the shore birds as well as the gulls and pelicans in the early morning quiet…
the first and last thing I did was to run down to the beach to say hello and goodbye😊…
21 Friday Aug 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
20 Thursday Aug 2026
Posted in food, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cottage, dishes, eating, friends, fun, moments, nature, reading, snake, vacation, widow
I spent a delightful five days with friends at their family beach cottage…
delicious food, great company, naps, lots of conversation, and I was in the lake, at least once, up to my neck…
spent lots of time on the beach, early in the morning, on my own, and all together on a few days…
we walked a good portion of the beach a few times with our newly prepared walking sticks…
and walked the road to the pump, which had a snake handle…
there was also a real snake😳… which had me stomping and speaking loudly as I walked along where it had been seen…
weather was nice, lots of sunshine, a bit of wind and some rainy/overcast times… so, a bit of everything…
my particular expertise is washing the dishes…
other than that it was all about reading…
we did play ladder golf, a new game to me, (although I may have seen my grandsons play a version of it a number of years ago), which was fun…
what a treat 😊…
18 Tuesday Aug 2026
Posted in food, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, garden, mistake, moments, morning glories, nature, plants, purple beans, scarlet, scarlet runner beans, widow
I am really pleased with the new arch we installed in the spring…
the scarlet runner beans have made it to the top on one side and the morning glories have made it on the other side…
so far I’ve had three cucumbers and two feeds of purple beans from it😊…
the one thing I did wrong was plant too many seeds on the one side, lol… I will use less next year…
17 Monday Aug 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, coneflowers, garden, leggy, moments, nature, petunias, vases, widow
played a bit with a coneflower after I brought some into the house…
they last in a vase for a number of days, which is always good… they are very intricate…
I’ve also been bringing in some of the petunias as they get trimmed back… currently they are getting a bit leggy…
I’m not sure why I’ve never thought of them as cut flowers🤪…
16 Sunday Aug 2026
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
ageratum, big girl pants, deadheaded, garden, moments, nature, pretty, spent, widow
had some fun in the garden… once I figured out how to raise the flower pot with the ageratum in it so I could trim out all the spent flowers…
it looks much nicer now, and I am feeling very accomplished, lol… every little job means more time to read😂…
now the butterflies will be able to find the lovely purple flowers without any problem…
11 Tuesday Aug 2026
Posted in garden, life, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, bigger, blessed, caterpillars, chrysalis, garden, leaves, milkweed, moments, nature, net, widow
the few milkweed plants were well used… one ended up with two caterpillars, and the second, and bigger one, only had one on it…
once the leaves had all been eaten on the smaller plant, we moved the two caterpillars to the other plant…
at that point we covered it with a net hamper to protect the caterpillars from birds…
since then they have turned into chrysalises and attached themselves to the top of the hamper…
I check on them each day, and so far they are still green😊… once they turn black they will be ready to change…
excited to see them emerge…
herbiggirlpants 