13 Friday Jun 2025
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cushions, flowers, fountains, furniture, garden, goldfish, happy, moments, nature, pond, sanctuary, weather, widow
the garden looked lovely today…
all the chair cushions were out and the throw cushions as well…
the daisies were blooming and the fish were happily swimming about after I topped up the pond…
even the new bee fountains, a Christmas gift, were out…
rearranged a bit of the furniture and think I like it…
what a great day to spend time in this sanctuary😍…
19 Friday Jul 2024
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, birds, blessed, bunnies, garden, miffed, moments, nature, sanctuary, squirrels, sun, weather, widow
this morning as I was sitting in the garden quietly reading my book, birds, squirrels and bunnies wandered through…
they are used to me sitting out there and don’t really mind me particularly as they pretty much know that I have no plans to hurt them…
although this morning I was a little miffed with the squirrels because they have figured out a way to get onto the two bird feeders that I thought were safe from them, sigh…
but all in all, a wonderful garden sanctuary;-)…
09 Monday Oct 2023
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blessing, garden, moments, nature, pond, sanctuary, space, sun, thankful, weather, widow
I wrote this blog a few weeks ago and today seems like the perfect day to post it… so much to be thankful for;-)…
I’d been sitting on the back deck thinking about what a gift this space is…
it is my own lake/cottage/cabin vacation space… recently, one of the people who come to mow for me, mentioned what a lovely yard it was and how they didn’t think they could stay in the house, lol…
I get teased because most days I put all the chair cushions out and even the decorative cushions, although there will only be me in the garden… but it looks so lovely when everything is set up…
throughout the day I move from area to area as I follow the shade… and, of course, the views are different in each space…
I am loving the hammock chair, which is a replacement for the hammock lounger that I’ve had for a number of years… this new one fits my body much better…
the flowers blooming also make me happy and I enjoy checking to see what has a new bud, or if there is a caterpillar on the parsley or milkweed… listening and watching the birds who stop by for a snack, drink or bath… watching the fish as they swim around in the pond…
and this year, the amazing number of water lily flowers that just keep on popping up and opening throughout the day…
I realize what a blessing this wonderful sanctuary is, and that I have the time to enjoy it;-)…
an all-summer-long vacation;-)…
29 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cushions, dahlias, flowers, garden, moments, nature, odour, plants, purple, sanctuary, The Dahlia Expert, water, weather, widow
I was up at 6:30 am watching the Olympics;-)…
I had made my mind up to water the garden first thing because it has been getting hot so early in the day…
I think the temperature only reached 28 Celsius which feels cool after the hot days we’ve been dealing with…
it turned out to be a beautiful day, other than the odour of smoke in the air… luckily, you could smell the smoke, but the sky was clear…
after watering, I put out all the cushions and wandered around checking out flowers…
the planter with the milkweed and morning glories in it was looking spectacular as the morning glories have overtaken the container… not sure that the monarchs can find the milkweed anymore…
the dahlias are doing well and one of the buds on the Robann Regal plant has started to open…
excited to see it fully open…
I also realized that there are more buds starting on the Mick’s Peppermint… that plant is huge and didn’t look like it was going to have more than a few flowers… interesting that the second flower was about half the size of the first one, although it is hard to see that in my photo… and the colours are different on every flower;-)…
sat and enjoyed the view…
I love my garden sanctuary…
08 Tuesday Sep 2020
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, happy place, Highlights, Instagram, memories, moments, nature, pictures, plants, pond, sanctuary, Stories, widow
recently it was pointed out to me that I don’t show much of my garden on Instagram…
that is because I usually focus on close ups of the flowers in the garden, lol…
when I joined Instagram my focus was photos of flowers and I have continued to concentrate on that theme over the years with the odd picture of critters and chocolate included…
this is rather funny as I spend most of my days in this renewing space…
a few days ago I took a number of photos in the garden once all the cushions were out and then put them up in my Stories…
it was a fun process and I had to relearn how to do a few things;-)…
now there are Highlights of the garden… of course the funny thing is that the garden is not at its best as we are moving into Fall… maybe next year I can start earlier in the season so others can see this sanctuary throughout the entire summer…
I love my garden and wonder how this crazy summer would have been without it…
23 Sunday Aug 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, butterfly bush, chickadees, fish, flowers, garden, moments, nature, nuthatch, overwinter, pictures, plants, pond, purple, sanctuary, squirrels, time, widow
spent the morning in the garden watching chickadees, monarchs, nuthatches, squirrels and fish…
the nuthatch was not interested in a photo op and even the chickadees were not particularly cooperative…
the monarch was happily guzzling nectar from the butterfly bush, so I was able to get a number of photos… I am very happy to finally have this plant in the garden and hope that I can get some seeds from it for next year or maybe even try to bring it into the house to see if it will overwinter…
it looks like there will be two more water lily flowers with a possible third one… very exciting…
I hadn’t been out in the garden for a few days and really enjoyed time with the members of my garden sanctuary;-)…
04 Tuesday Jun 2019
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
so excited to get home yesterday because I received a message from my gardener, Hilda, advising she had been by and done some planting…
it looks great and I can hardly wait to see what happens when she tackles the bed across the yard, lol…
20 Wednesday Feb 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
10 week recovery, big girl pants, goldfinches, healing place, hot tub, miss him, poppies, sanctuary, snow covered garden, so much snow, visitors
it was a long day today… I woke up with a headache and felt out of sorts all day long…
have just come in from a restorative hot tub and as I was getting into the tub I realized that the headache is finally gone, thank goodness…
as I was sitting there looking out at the snow covered garden I thought back to the 10 weeks I spent there this summer as I was recovering from my surgery… it gave me time to think about all that had happened since George’s death…
the garden is a sanctuary where birds, animals and people come to rest and recuperate from life’s events… this year we had our largest crop of spring poppies ever… Crystal thought her dad had something to do with it, lol…
poppies
I had been hoping to have the pond redone, but that didn’t end up happening… the weather was quite lovely for most of my recovery time and as soon as I was able I was out on the deck and once I could manage the steps I moved to my favourite spot at the back of the garden beside the biggest pond… we were visited by a leopard frog again this year, although we hadn’t seen any over the last few years…
of course there were lots of birds… actually an amazing array… we had purple finches, goldfinches, nuthatches, chickadees and a variety of sparrows… one day I looked out and found at least 5 male goldfinches at the feeder…
goldfinch at the feeder…
the garden has always been a healing place for me and I found that spending time there helped with the grieving process, not just for me, but for many of those who visited me over those many weeks…
right now, I can’t even see the pond from the hot tub because there is so much snow… we haven’t had this much in many years… after work tonight I went out and shoveled to the hot tub so that I would be able to walk out in my slippers later on…
had those big girl pants on and was thinking of all the times George would be sure to shovel the area to and around the hot tub so that I would have an easy walk to get there in the evening…
I sure do miss him…
herbiggirlpants 