Tag Archives: nature

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…

cats…

17 Wednesday Jun 2020

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there has been lots of activity in the garden recently…

these critters were photographed over the last few days…

today the forecast mentioned thunderstorms and rain but I decided to put out all of the cushions anyway… it ended up sunny and hot for most of the day…

looks very quiet, lol…

but this morning there were red and gray squirrels, the frog, chipping sparrows, a bunny that shot across the garden, dragonflies and two cats, one that I haven’t seen previously…

and during that entire period a robin, that I couldn’t see, sang…

I am enjoying every moment that I spend here…

toppled…

14 Sunday Jun 2020

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the wind has been blowing a lot in the last few days…

today, it was so strong that it toppled the elephant ear plant in the pond… I had thought it was secure, but all of a sudden it blew over… dug out my water shoes, found some very large rocks, and climbed in and stood it back up, circled it with the rocks as well as adding a few on top of it…

the rocks were so big, it raised the water level and a few of the lily pads went back under the water, lol…

I didn’t spot the frog, but a number of house sparrows and a few chipping sparrows stopped by to drink and have a bath…

the chickadees have returned and two of them were really looking around… I was wondering if they were searching for a spot to nest as I hadn’t seen this particular behaviour previously…

froggie…

12 Friday Jun 2020

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saw the frog a number of times yesterday while I was listening to a program on my iPhone…

it has hopped past me a few times over the last while but never when I have a camera in my hand…

yesterday froggie was out sunning on the rocks around the edge of the pond… when it jumps in it swims across in just a few seconds…

according to research it appears to be a common frog… interesting, as for the last few years we had leopard frogs…

got some nice pictures;-)…

and another exciting thing is that the water lily leaves are just starting to rise above the water… this first photo was from last night and only the top corner of one lily pad was peeking out of the water…

now four lily pads are above water on one plant and two on the second plant…

outing…

11 Thursday Jun 2020

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just home from a wonderful gathering with my best buddies… we haven’t been together since my birthday in April, when they came and wished me a happy birthday at a distance with signs and a card…

this was the first time that I have left the house, and driven the car, since mid-March…

everyone brought their own dishes, silverware and mugs, and I even brought my chair, which worked out really well as it has a little table attached where I could put my tea and camera…

we sat – physically distancing, of course – around a lovely fire in our host’s backyard, celebrating another birthday and enjoyed a visit while eating lemon cake with fresh raspberries which she had baked for us… (cake photo from the chef)…

we talked about birds, celebrations, family and wind chimes… and we learned that wind chimes can have different sounds attributed to them… the ones we were listening to were the song of a meadowlark…

it was cool, but we all brought warm clothes and were quite comfortable… a bit crazy that gloves were needed…

it was an excellent first outing and I felt good about getting out for the first time since the pandemic began, although I did wash my hands as soon as I got into the house, lol…

thanks for the picture Pat

my clothes smell like a campfire… what a treat…

fluff…

09 Tuesday Jun 2020

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started one of the sticker pages in my book… and worked on it between tasks in the kitchen…

I chose the dandelion because as I sat in the garden yesterday the fluff from the cottonwoods made it look like it was snowing…

not sure where the tree or trees are, but they sure are producing a lot of fluff, lol…

when I look out the front window it would be easy to imagine that it is the seeds from the dandelions…