net…

15 Thursday Oct 2026

Posted by sulis303 in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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big girl pants, blessed, condo, family, fish, garden, leaves, mowed, nature, net, pond, widow

the lawn was mowed one last time on Sunday…

whatever leaves are left in the front yard will stay there for all the little creatures, although there aren’t very many leaves…

the garden is a different story… currently it is difficult to see the pond as the net is nearly completely covered with leaves… the elm tree next door still has a few leaves to fall so we will likely wait for them to come down before removing the net and putting the leaves in the flowerbed closest to it…

at that point we will probably bring the fish into their winter condo…

Butterfly Gardens…

25 Friday Sep 2026

Posted by sulis303 in business, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, travel, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, birds, Butterfly Gardens, moments, nature, plants, pond, stick bugs, turtles, variety, widow

after two days at the Butchart Gardens, we visited the Butterfly Gardens which were close by…

the first thing you see is an area focussed on stick bugs and poisonous frogs… there were a lot…

then we moved into the Butterfly area… just as we arrived a keeper was letting a box of maybe 50 butterflies out… there were all types inside and one landed on my daughter and climbed up her, lol… another one, a cracker (one of my favourites) landed on the front of a man who was beside us… it stayed on him the entire time he walked through the garden…

besides butterflies, there were a few types of fish, a variety of turtles and tortoises, a flamingo, many parrots and other birds… part of their mission is to take in injured creatures…

they also have some butterflies in all their stages… from eggs, to caterpillars, to the butterflies… that was exciting to see…

the space is very large and it can be difficult to spot the butterflies, although there seem to be more in the front area… but many types and also different ways to display them…

it was fun to see so many creatures in one spot😊…

snoopervise…

19 Wednesday Aug 2026

Posted by sulis303 in family, garden, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized

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beloved, big girl pants, deck, family, garden, grandson, moments, pond, snoopervise, widow

while I was away for a few days, the back deck got replaced…

it was interesting how nervous I felt, not being there to snoopervise, lol…

luckily, I received photos and was able to check some of the work with the garden camera🤪…

once that deck was finished, they moved on to the stairs and small deck which leads into the side garden…

when I got home, I checked both spots out and am very happy with the final product…

one single board needs to be screwed in on the stairs by the side deck…

I am feeling a bit melancholy as these are the last of the decks that my beloved built… all the rest have been redone…

even when I had the pond rebuilt, I had them leave that deck just as it was…

time moves on…

decorative…

10 Friday Jul 2026

Posted by sulis303 in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, blessed, cushions, deck, decorative, garden, groupings, happy, moments, move, nature, pond, widow

even though I am alone in the garden, it makes me happy to put out all of the outdoor chair cushions as well as the decorative ones…

recently, I walked around the space and took photos of the various seating options…

there are lots of places to sit and many are little groupings…

during the day I tend to move from area to area depending on the weather…

this last one is probably the most used in the late afternoon and evening as it is in the shade by then…

I also spend a great deal of the morning by the pond as it is shady in that location in the earlier part of the day and a great spot to watch the fish😊…

continuous…

09 Thursday Jul 2026

Posted by sulis303 in family, garden, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, continuous, family, garden, leak, moments, pond, waterfall, widow

last year on July 8th, the upper pond and waterfall were being taken apart to fix the continuous leak we’d had for a few years…

when I think about it now, it was a miserable summer as the repair took a number of weeks to complete…

and I came across this photo from July 2013 when the pond was being built…

as I sat out there yesterday morning I was so happy to have everything working and no leaks…

what a different summer it will be…

disguise…

25 Thursday Jun 2026

Posted by sulis303 in business, family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, disguise, family, filter, garden, moments, net, pond, pump, widow

we bought a new net which we hope will act as a better filter for the pond, so that, hopefully, we won’t have to climb into the pond as often to clean the pump…

right now we have some plants sitting on top of it to kind of disguise it…

if it works well, we will see if we can cut it down just a bit, so it isn’t above water level…

fingers crossed that it does the job;-)…

blocks…

17 Sunday May 2026

Posted by sulis303 in family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, blessed, blocks, family, garden, moments, nature, pond, running, sparrows, waterfall, weather, widow

I can’t explain how happy I am…

Wednesday, after hours of work in and around the pond we got it cleaned, filled with water and the waterfall and second pump going;-)…

a hose was dug into the dirt and blocks tidied up from last year’s construction…

there were a dozen various sparrows snacking on the grass and clover seed that went down last Saturday, lol…

they have also been enjoying the water with baths and drinks…

the back deck is not quite set up, but I managed to get a cushion on one of the chairs and sat out enjoying the wonderful sound of the water cascading from the waterfall and over the rock…

and while we were working on the pond, Hilda the Gardener was tidying up all the flower beds, in the hope that someday we will be able to plant, lol…