Tag Archives: nature

obsessed…

05 Sunday Jul 2020

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maybe, just maybe, I am obsessed with the Monarchs… I can’t even think of how many times I have gone by the milkweed to check on the caterpillars, lol…

saw more butterflies landing in the plant and maybe leaving eggs;-)…

there are small caterpillars, medium sized caterpillars and large caterpillars…

such fun to see where they are on the plant and how much they have munched through…

both of the biggest caterpillars vanished this morning… I was worried they had fallen off the milkweed because they were in leaves that were bent way over…

wasn’t sure if they were getting ready for the next step, but then found both of them in the lily of the valley… so I put them back on the milkweed…

now that I’ve done some research maybe they were moving on… apparently they can travel up to ten metres away from the milkweed to move to the chrysalish stage…

if they move again I will just search to see where they end up…

molt…

04 Saturday Jul 2020

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it was overcast when I got up yesterday morning, but I went out before 7:30 to see what flowers were blooming and what the caterpillars were up to…

there were a bunch of morning glories and two dahlias were almost completely open…

the caterpillars were going through some of their instars… during the caterpillar stage they molt five times…

I was very excited to spot the largest one with the molt left on the leaf… after a while I noticed that another much smaller one went through the process…

this was exciting as I’d never seen this piece of the lifecycle previously…

the remainder of the day was spent quietly as I was not feeling well, so I slept and read in the shade, although I did check out the caterpillars now and again;-)…

fluffing…

03 Friday Jul 2020

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what a full and hot day…

Hilda the Gardener came by to do some weeding… she has been busy and hasn’t been here since May so there were lots of weeds for her to deal with, lol… her comment was that possibly the fluffing of the earth when she loosened it last time, made a great space for the weeds to come back;-)… so clearly I shouldn’t weed, lol…

she filled four large bags, and I filled one very small pail;-)…

but it looks lovely everywhere including behind the back deck… she also brought some purple gladioli and added them to the flower bed… below are before and after photos… they do not do justice to her work;-)…

and then my books arrived from Chapters/Indigo… nine in total… lots to read for the next while…

this batch are hard cover, not my favourite, but they were all a great price;-)…

eggs…

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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so excited to have spotted monarch eggs on the milkweed…

after a bit of research I discovered that it takes four days for them to hatch…

I’ve been checking every day to see if any have popped out… and I found some;-)… they are the teeniest little things…

I’ve watched them before, but only when they were large, so it is very cool to see them at such a small size…

a number of times each day I check over, under and around the edges of the leaves…

now I know to look under the leaves with brown spots as they don’t always eat right through the leaves at this stage… it appears they like the newest leaves as they are clearly more tender…

sometimes it is easy to spot them and other times I don’t see any, lol…

very exciting;-)…

irises…

29 Monday Jun 2020

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a few days ago a great friend came by for a garden visit…

she brought me some gorgeous dark purple Japanese irises and a branch of lovely mock orange blossoms…

we had a nice time as we checked out everything growing in the garden and then watched the birds for ages… she knows lots about birds so I even learned a little, lol…

the house finch couple came by to visit and the house sparrows had a feeding frenzy as the parents and babies flew around and parents fed some babies and encouraged others to find their own seeds…

it was such fun to watch the way the youngsters fluttered their wings… and tried to land in various places… a few times I thought they were going to land right on us…

the sound was amazing as everyone was chatting and calling their family members, clearly wanting to be recognized, lol…

great fun to spend time with someone else who can happily listen to the water and bird watch for hours at a time;-)…

softball…

28 Sunday Jun 2020

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today I was particularly missing my beloved…

as I still had to plant the last few alyssum and couldn’t find a container I liked, I decided to brave the shed and choose something from in there… it is a mess and needs someone to clean and tidy it up and that would have been something he would have done, likely tossing things I thought we should keep and keeping things I thought were junk, lol…

anyway, I moved the recycling bin and opened the door… it seemed to catch on the Virginia creeper, which needs to be trimmed, and I was waving the vines away from my head when I heard lots of buzzing… and as I looked up I spotted many wasps flying around my head… I stepped back and saw a softball sized nest on the inside of the door…

lucky for me, I wasn’t stung… yikes…

my beloved would have sorted that nest out no problem… I found spray in the house, consulted with my son-in-law on the best time to use it, but can’t yet as it is too windy… guess that door is going to stay open until tomorrow, lol…

I moved away and found a container in the garage and finished the last bit of planting…

for my lunch I had leftover pork and beans and because it was so hot, ate them cold… he often ate them that way… the other way he liked them was warmed up with a fried egg on top, euuuwwww…

funny what you remember;-)…

butterfly…

24 Wednesday Jun 2020

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just after my friend left yesterday a monarch butterfly flew through the garden and spotted the milkweed… it landed on it a number of times… I was thrilled…

it flitted all around the space as well as flying over the house and into the neighbour’s yard…

I sat and watched for the longest time… at one point I squished the oranges on the deck so the juice might be appealing, but no luck…

after looking closely at my photos, it looks quite beaten up…

in the evening, I spotted some eggs on the milkweed… I am reminded of the year that I got some wonderful pictures of the caterpillar to butterfly stages…

so very excited… can hardly wait to see if we get caterpillars;-)…

cushions…

24 Wednesday Jun 2020

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this morning I was up and about fairly early so that I could get the garden ready for a visit with a friend…

I’ve been quite lazy lately and have only put out a few chair cushions rather than all of them, but today I brought all of them out, including a few decorative ones that have been living on the couch, lol…

the garden looked great, freshly mowed and whipper snipped…

the veronica is blooming and the bees are all over it… the daisies are mostly open and the dahlias have buds on them… the lobelia is thinking of trailing and alyssum is growing nicely and starting to scent the air…

baskets are doing well and both ponds are flowing beautifully…

on warm days, visits need to happen before noon as there is little shade for the remainder of the afternoon…

the weather was perfect and finches and squirrels dropped by… we had a great time and enjoyed ourselves immensely;-)…

so nice to spend time with friends… going to organize some more of that;-)…

garden…

23 Tuesday Jun 2020

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after the busy day yesterday with the boys here, today I spent a fabulous time in the garden…

the grass is beautifully manicured and the sound is quite wonderful… the waterfall looks great and I am so happy to have it running at full capacity again thanks to my son-in-law… even the rocks have been placed perfectly to cover the new pump…

the pump in the bathtub pond looks and sounds lovely as well… it was a little cool but the wind wasn’t blowing so it felt calm…

to top things off, a house finch couple stopped by for lunch…

because I am not leaving the house, this time in the garden is even more special and I am enjoyed reading and listening to the sounds in the garden…

what a blessing retirement is proving to be…

ceramic…

17 Wednesday Jun 2020

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one of the pots around the pond was a black pail that I had put a dahlia in and then a butterfly bush as the dahlia didn’t grow… could be the problem was no drainage…

a few days ago, I pulled a ceramic pot out from under the deck and repotted the butterfly bush into it along with one of the pansies that had been in too much shade…

looks much better, I think.. hope the plants like this one better…