31 Friday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, nature, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, deadheading, flowers, garden, Hilda the Gardener, nature, pictures, plants, pond, widow
had a great day: phone calls with two special friends, a garden visit with another great friend, and three hours with Hilda the Gardener where I did a lot of deadheading…
the garden looks very nice…
come by for a visit;-)…
15 Wednesday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, moments, morning glories, nature, photos, plants, pond, purple, Tea, wandered, widow
woke up to quiet this morning… the power was off so nothing in the house or neighbourhood was running… was thinking I wasn’t going to get any tea, but just fifteen minutes later it came back on…
took my cup of tea outside and spent some time in the garden…
wandered around admiring all the flowers…
also happy to get a few shots of the various critters who stopped by…
I need to get back into the pond to deal with the algae but it was a little cool today, so I will do that in the next few days…
14 Tuesday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blossom, fish, flowers, garden, moments, nature, patience, pictures, plants, pond, water lily, widow
the water lilies are doing very well and I think the fish are enjoying the shade they provide…
I purchased two from RPGC and have been checking daily in the hope that there might be a bud coming…
on July 10 I spotted something that might prove to be one…
I’ve been checking everyday and was thrilled to discover I was right…
it takes a long time for one to emerge from the base of the pot and climb up through a couple of feet of water…
waited patiently… and on Sunday it popped to the surface…
yesterday, it opened a little bit and today it opened completely;-)…
07 Tuesday Jul 2020
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, family, fish, flowers, friends, garden, grandsons, memories, moments, nature, pond, purple, stronger, sunshine, widow
another busy day…
up early, put out all the cushions and had my breakfast in the garden… lots of visits from the house finch couple and the chickadees…
went into the pond to clean the pump and filled half a pail with string algae… waterfall is looking better now and the flow is much stronger…
then a good friend came over for a garden visit and we had a lovely time… the garden is looking nice and there are still five or six caterpillars to search out on the milkweed…
she had just left when the lawn mowing service (the middle grandson) arrived… we had a visit before he started and just as he was done the chauffeur (oldest grandson) arrived with a new umbrella which will provide shade in the afternoon sun… we couldn’t put it up as we are waiting for the base to arrive…
then, before I knew it, they were all gone and I was back in the peace and quiet;-)…
lots of reading and nature watching for the rest of the day…
04 Saturday Jul 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, caterpillars, flowers, garden, instar, lifecycle, milkweed, molt, moments, nature, plants, pond, weather, widow
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;-)…
29 Monday Jun 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement
Tags
babies, big girl pants, birds, blessed, flowers, friends, garden, house finches, irises, learning, moments, nature, pond, purple, sparrows, sunshine, time, treat, widow
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;-)…
24 Wednesday Jun 2020
Posted in garden, life, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, cushions, flowers, friends, garden, lazy, memories, moments, nature, pond, weather, widow
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;-)…
23 Tuesday Jun 2020
Posted in family, garden, health, life, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, garden, house finch, manicured, memories, nature, pond, pump, retirement, son-in-law, sound, sun, waterfall, widow
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…
22 Monday Jun 2020
Posted in family, food, garden, life, moments, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, computer, family, garden, grandson, leak, moments, pond, sink, supper, Technology, three, time, widow
three things caused problems on Saturday… the sink leaked, the internet stopped working, and my tv lost its signal…
made me rather grumpy, particularly as I was trying to help someone with something online…
today my son-in-law and grandsons came over for supper and for the middle one to mow my grass… he also moved and filled all the bird feeders…
while they were here my son-in-law fixed three things, which made me very happy…
he installed a new pump and got the waterfall running… he fixed the small pump in the garage pond and it is running beautifully… and he figured out the problem with my sink and got it working… what a treat…
I truly am blessed;-)…
17 Wednesday Jun 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, ceramic, dahlia, flowers, garden, growing, happy, moments, nature, plants, pond, weather, widow
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…
herbiggirlpants 