Garden Journal Excerpts

My garden is in constant revision, as you may notice my web page is, also.
This will be a way to show some of the updates and revisions I make to the garden throughout the years from my garden journal entries. I have several books of written garden journals. In June of 2012 I began to keep sporadic notes of my time in the garden on my computer.

Monthly Excerpts from the Garden Journal of 2015

SYNOPSIS of the year

1. Pat pruned back the apple tree at the end of January to mid February. He did some pruning on the old yellow plum tree also.

2. I found the name of the fine little plant I have growing in the sundial circle in the inner garden of the front garden. It is Polygala chamaebuxus Kemniska. See below for its photo from the VIRAGS show in April.

3. Removed the big green hebe from the little rockery across the stone path from the Japanese/moss garden. Renovated the pond edges. Removed the blue spruce tree from the moss garden. It was getting too big for the space. Have replaced it with a pine tree that is to remain small. Photo of the new decorator pot containing the pendula willow, below. This renovation continued on in the next few years. The garden in 2015

4. Refinishing the gateleg table top.

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January 2015 ‎

‎Friday, ‎January ‎02, ‎2015
It is a heavy misty warmer day today. Filled the humming birds feeders. The robins are in the garden in dozens. They are eating the holly berries, but I do not think the berries are quite ready yet. Lots of pictures. There are 2 jays around and other birds. Some of them eating apples that are on the ground. The Flicker was around too.

‎Tuesday, ‎January ‎06, ‎2015
11 degrees, misty overcast day. Lots of birds around. The berries on the holly are gone.

‎Friday, ‎January ‎09, ‎2015
It has been a warmish day with sun. Event of the day is that I went to Kerrisdale and got them to give me my store credit of $965.oo for the Hasselblad, all the stuff, and the Canon Elan E just the body. They said they had an offer of $200 for the Hasselblad 50mm lens and they would take 35% as a consignment price. The rest I could take as trade credit... I ended up just giving them everything for the trade credit to be done of it. Would not have been worth it to me to haggle over one or two hundred dollars. I kept the 50mm lens and the other one that I got with the Elan 7E. So spent the rest of the afternoon... after we got home with KFC... taking the Hasselblad stuff off of my web page. The German guy did not get back to me about the $2000. and shipping. And Bevan cannot afford $1,000.00. Have some film left to use with Holga.. as if! In the garden the camillia by the back step is in bud.

‎Thursday, ‎January ‎15, ‎2015
I have found 60 photos to start doing the August album for my web page. I think I have finished the Changes pages and have them all loaded and working. I have corrected the photography page, taking out the Hasselblad and noting the sale of the Elan. So, for the August album I plan 6 pages with 5 across and 2 down. photos should be 800 x 600.

‎Monday, ‎January ‎19, ‎2015
Bright and sunny day. We had high winds and big rain a couple of days ago. There were people with power outages, but we were ok. Today, I clipped down the autumn joy sedum and binned it. Took me about 25 minutes. Doing laundry and looking up Canon stuff. The cyclamen is in bloom and so is the camillia. Shall go out for photos. Yesterday, we bought a big Sable fish from the docks fish store. Was nearly $70. had some for supper... is very good.

‎Sunday, ‎January ‎25, ‎2015
Very warm and overcast. We were to the Robbie Burns pipe band dinner and show last nite with Art and Marlene. They drove. Pat bought wine. Was very good haggis this year. Stayed up too late after watching Frost on TV, so am not up to gardening this afternoon. My infused blue orchid has five buds open white. Two other phals in bloom... yellow and the little one with variegated leaves and pink flowers. There are more crocuses in bloom now, but cannot see any in the crocus field yet.

‎Wednesday, ‎January ‎28, ‎2015
Yesterday was a big day in the garden. It was 13 degrees out. Pat pruned back the apple tree substantially. Since this summer is its low produce year anyway this should give it some time to show us its new fruiting sprouts. It was covered in blooms and apples last fall, so I am sure we won't be going without applesauce for a while. We have been eating apples for our fruit lately and they really are delicious. Pat has taken out the ashes from his stove and put them in the back compost bin. That bin should be ready to be emptied one day, as it is full to the top again. Will let the ashes settle a bit. Last time I emptied the bin I took the bin right off the pile and then moved the compost... I think I took it to the vegetable patch. I cleaned up the patio area a bit, and clipped off the dead perennials along both sides of the sidewalk. Had a look at the waterfall and think it needs a rearrangement of its rocks as a big one fell off its perch. I find I have an empty black pot that might be good for a tomatoe plant on the deck. After cleaning up a bit at the back I started on the front with sweeping up the bits of Autumn Joy sedum and stuff on the driveway. Then I spent a bit of time clipping back the perennials in the front, and taking out the bamboo roots and shoots. There are quite a lot of daisies growing again. So shall keep after them to try and keep them to a minimum. There are crocuses up everywhere but in the crocus field. I cannot understand it. The yellow ones in the crocus field were usually open first. No buds and am not even seeing the leaves. The grass is kinda long. The grape hycinth leaves are all up. The magnolia has huge buds and both of the camillias are in full flower.

‎Thursday, ‎January ‎29, ‎2015
Removed Beaver Creek Nursery from my blog. I am no longer getting updates for the catalogue and they have not been at the Rock and Alpine show for a couple of years or more. I think the lady of the team had cancer. Should have printed out their catalogue; it was full of info. Yeaaaa there is a couple of yellow crocuses up, at last. Photos of the orchids in bloom today. The infused one has 9 white blooms. Yellow one has 3 blooms that have lasted for weeks. The little one with variegated leaves has 7 pink blooms. Did not get out today, as we went shopping. In Kerrisdale cameras waited and waited for other customers to be done. The girl on the phone knew nothing helpful... said she could see my email but could not check to see if my order had been placed or was in; without an order number. Will have to phone again, I suppose.

February 2015

‎Sunday, ‎February ‎08, ‎2015
Still no word about the ink at Kerrisdale. Talked to John on the phone a few days ago. He said he would check where it was and call me back... took my number... no call back. Just will keep after them. Today I got a little white with pink middle miniature cattlaya; No name tags, but I think it is a cattlaya, from Country grocer for $14. has one bloom. We have had lots of rain lately and really nice temps above 12°. watered house plants, not the trees. There are lots of yellow crocuses up in the crocus field and the light blue ones behind the crocus in the grass, in the front strip. The camillias in bloom. The back plum tree's buds are getting fat already. Snowdrops in bloom in the moss garden. 3 clumps of them. I need to divide them and even put most of them into the crocus field. (maybe) Doing the notifications of awards on Megashot.

‎Friday, ‎February ‎13, ‎2015
Was 15° today. Bit of sun and then a little shower. I was out for about 2 hours. Cleaned up more dead plants at the front. Pruned back the roses a bit. I have a white rose for in the house. The green bin is almost full again. The humming birds and the Jays were around.

‎Wednesday, ‎February ‎18, ‎2015
Finished the dusting and vaccuming. Took me 3 days. It was sunny and warm, but a cool breeze made it a bit nippy. The camillias, crocuses have been blooming for a month. The cyclamen too. Pat finished pruning back the apple tree, and it looks really good. Phoned kerrisdale on Monday, talked to Garry... he knew I was calling about the ink. It is on order and they will call me when they have it. They had some trouble with getting it from the Canon estore, he said. I do hope they got it at the price listed on line. We had plum preserves for supper... very good. The left over juice is good with ouzo. That white phal. with the huge spray of 9 blooms looks terrific. Watered and fed the house plants yesterday.

‎Saturday, ‎February ‎21, ‎2015
Spent the whole day trying to get the camera raw and the DNG converter work to open the SX60 Raw files. I think I finally got it. just single click to open the folder to get the CR2. Have to test it next to see that the CR2 are saved. Well, also, yesterday tried to use the ink I got from Kerrisdale. Apparently I gave them the wrong URL for my ink and got 221 instead of 226. Had a fit about it and Pat took me to London Drugs and got the right ones, and extras of them all. Bloody HELL. I think I am getting too old for this shit. Was a nice day out and I should have been gardening. Or doing stuff for my August web page album or for my crocus blog photos. Good heavesn all my cr2 are now DNG. The one I tested the cr2 of July 17/13 Img 2227 = CR2 was 23.7 mb the DNG now is 41.7 mb and the jpeg is 7.99 mb.

March 2015

‎Sunday, ‎March ‎01, ‎2015
Seem to have the new camera and the raw stuff figured out. And have mostly gotten over the ink fiasco. Getting much bigger files now. We have been having some warm weather and lots of rain. We had winds the other night but never lost power. The pump for the waterfall had stopped. I checked its intake and found it really clean, but the hose seemed to have come out of its attachment end. So, got Pat looking for a hose clamp. Well when we took the hose clamp to the hose to fix it. The hose was just properly attached to its attachment end. I had done the reset button several times but it had not seemed to start up. I turned the switches on the pump to come out of the hoses. Plugged it in again and after about a minute it started pumping really fast again. Adjusted the switches to slow it down a bit and adjusted the rocks on the waterfall. Its running good now. I have no idea how those fishes made that hose appear to be lose and then attached again, or messed with the switches! Very weird. We spent most of the afternoon shopping, so I have not got anything done on my photos or on Megashot. The crocus field looks terrific and the daffodils are opening up in great clumps. The magnolia has lost its outside covers to the buds and is showing pink. The plum tree at the back is ready to burst open in bloom. Those nasty bluebell things are coming up everwhere. Have to dig them out at the back and where ever they are; well where ever they are is all over the garden, including by the pond and in the moss garden. Nasty invasive things.

‎Monday, ‎March ‎09, ‎2015
Today we changed clocks ahead an hour. We have been having some lovely weather, but I have not been out. I seem to have pulled a muscle just below my bad knee. My waterfall had stopped running and I was having a miserable time getting it to reset so was doing a lot of kneeling on rocks. Was so painful I could not put any weight on it for a couple of days. Had ice on it then to bed. Next day had a nice warm bath and it was ok again. I have been wrapping it and still resting it. Google says to RICE... rest, ice, compression and exercise. So, did the laundry yesterday, spent the afternoon before that on my feet in the kitchen making mousaka and phyllo pastry things. And been doing my Megashot chores. Am almost finished the awards congrats. Meanwhile, Pat has got the apple tree nicely pruned and has started some work on the back plum tree. So much to do on it. Today he had a nice bike ride and his model T started on battery with just 2 or 3 cranks. Yeaaaaaaa! We went out to the Chinese buffet place for supper to test it for our visitors... not a good place. Sean will be in town as Sean is playing hockey. So, Colleen and John will be in town at Howard Johnson hotel. We have tickets for a play at the Mac, and Jim and Sheila are coming too. So, the six of us are going out to dinner before. Should be fun. Marlene and Art might be coming to hockey games too... not sure about that, but there will be get togethers with them and John and Colleen, and Sean if he can get some time to join us out for dinner we hope. Certainly I hope so, or we will have to set up Pat's big swap meet table and get some extra chairs. :)) ordering in stuff works too... pizza, chinese, etc. I have managed to get this DNG converter to change my CR2 RAW files to dng so I can open them in the camera raw in my photoshop. It is taking me a while to learn how to use it. Have made notes in the DNG file about it. Its just another freaking fiddle around and time consuming. I need to shoot in the P mode on the SX60 to get it to bracket on exposure. Shooting in M does the backeting in focal distance. How crazy is that? don't think you can HDR a focal distance bracket. IN THE GARDEN the yellow plum tree is in full bloom, the crocus field is looking spectacular, the daffodils are blooming in great bunches, the rhubarb is starting to come up. There are wind flowers, camillia, hellebores, and polyanthus in bloom. The magnolia is about to open its flowers. Very early spring this year. Very mild winter. The moss garden is lush, and the weeds are too. C'est la vie.

‎Tuesday, ‎March ‎10, ‎2015
Overcast and warm. Few pictures and pulled a few blue bells out. They are coming up through the cardboard. GEEEEZ. The trout lillies or fawn lillies are looking ok. They have little blooms. The little blue shade plant is in bloom.. the one I had under the deck. (Hepatica) It likes to grow in moss. Megashot is down. Pat's relatives are going to be here next week. Should be fun. Pat is thinking of going to Europe with Lloyd for a month shortly after he gets back from Red Deer. They haven't invited me, but I insist I could not keep up to them, anyway.

‎Saturday, ‎March ‎14, ‎2015
Yesterday I had some sort of disaster with my DNG converter. It was huge and would not scroll down to the bottom. Something to do with the resolution of my new wide screen and the type size maybe. Anyway, I fetched the first DNG out of backups... this one worked... deleted all the others I had tried to download and install to fix the problem. Then extracted everything I had. Instead of dragging the files around I am going to work with them right in the folder where they ARE, then drag whatever I want to keep to the desktop, and delete anything in that original folder that I do not want, inlcuding the actual RAW conversions. So, then it will all be in one place ... makes sense. I have cleaned up the folders, and may go back over them, in time and reduce the size even more, with deleteing photos I will never use. This little camera is giving me some skookum shots! I think I will start using a larger type size in here. We had rain last nite and this morning are having rain and wind, but it is warm. 12 ok seem to have it at 12... not big enough.... 14 is kinda big, but going to leave it there.

‎Sunday, ‎March ‎15, ‎2015
Was to the orchid show and sale at the Portugese church on elk lake drive, across from the Pool/library. Got a $25 Sederia japonica. Small plant in buds and it will be fragrant. greenish white flowers with red to purple bars on the lip. The 6 to 10 flowers open in succession and are prized for their sweet fragrance. Paramount Orchids Parksville BC 250 248-7023

‎Wednesday, ‎March ‎18, ‎2015
We had dinner out at HoJo with Art and Marlene. Was not the usual good food for all of us. Had a good visit. Today, I spent about 4 - 5 hours cleaning up the light garden. Then watering and feeding them all and the trees downstairs. The cat smell is mostly gone from down there. I think the trees had a lot to do with cleaning the air. Was a fine day outside, but now my other leg was having some horrible muscle aches. But I kept on with the cleaning of the plants, anyway. My lawn needs mowing, the hedges need trimming, the petals are falling off the plum tree, off the camillias, off the magnolia. The crocuses are finished. The bluebells need to be dug out where possible. Anyway.. it is still not looking too bad. I am caught up with the awards notifications and the meet and greet on Megashot. And most of my community stuff. Have finished reading The Girl who saved the King of Sweden and am reading the 100 year old man who jumped out the window. Fun books after reading all the dire climate change/global warming stuff. Pat has so much stuff to do. He and Jim will be going to Red Deer, 2 days later he flies to Europe to travel for a month with Lloyd in the motor home. As soon as he gets back from Europe, we need to get packed and go out to Sask and then to the Model T fords meet in Cochrane... leaving our T and trailer at Lilo's place till we get back from Sask. I should be able to get some gardening done while he is away in May/June.

‎Saturday, ‎March ‎21, ‎2015
Was a nice day. Was inside mostly on the computer. Got a few more photos tweaked for the August album. Answered emails.

‎Monday, ‎March ‎30, ‎2015
Well, Colleen, and John left at some ungodly hour this morning. It has been a week of too much eating and yelling. Sean and his team lost all three of their games. Was good to see them, though. They stayed at Howard Johnsons Hotel and were quite comforatable, it seems. Art and Marlene were along for one of the games and a couple of the dinners... old Spaghetti Factory and one at Ho Jos; Then they took colleen and john to the Marina for brunch after church. Colleen and John had a visit with them. Today was a lovely day. I got a bit of weeding done.

April 2015

‎Saturday, ‎April ‎04, ‎2015
Pat has an awful cold or bronchitis. Poor guy. He still insists on going out in public with it. Today we picked up a new cappicinno maker as the old one broke and is unfixable. It is going to be a bit more complicated to run than the old one. Got it at London Drugs for about $70. Marlene called and cancelled our Easter dinner as Art has this awful cold too, apparently. I started with #80 sandpaper to sand off the gate leg table and make it useable. I really like it and want to keep it. It seems to be a very soft wood. I think we got it at Ikea for very little money years ago. I damaged it by leaving house plants on it, on what I thought was a plastic table cloth, NOT. The magnolias are still in bloom, the purple plum is in bloom, some arabis, aubretia, tulips, anemones, primulas, the tree peony has buds. The hellebores are still going and so are the camillias. The saskatoons are in bloom. I really need to get out there, but it has been dampish and I have been whimping around about my leg. I need to get out and pick off the bluebell flowers, if nothing else. The daffodils are about finished. I have been getting a few of the August photos for my old web page tweaked for the album. Have lots to go yet.

‎Tuesday, ‎April ‎07, ‎2015
Was out for a couple of hours beautiful day. mowed the lawn, pulled out quite a lot of bluebells and morning glory. Pictures yesterday of the racoon up in the tree and a squirrel today in our English Oak. The garden needs weeding but it does not seem to take a lot of time. Next, I should do the hedges. Lost a hook off my leg wrap again, dammit.

‎Wednesday, ‎April ‎08, ‎2015
another lovely day. was out for 2 1/2 hours or thereabouts. Got the little hedge, honeysuckle pilea, along the front and up the side of Prrd trimmed back. Did the Pees side of the California lilac while there. Then ran the mower over it to pick up the trimmings. Since I did some of the boxwood too, before the battery went dead, I had a few trimmings to put on the woodland path. Cut the tall branches of the eucalyptus off at about 8 feet. Still have very little in the green bin to put out. Weeded a bit, but need to do a proper job to get the roots out or the weeds will just grow again. There are quite a lot of violets and daisies again. the pot.Lisa Taylor Gallis "Nora" has 2 buds opening. I have been calling this one a miniature cattleya. The little sederia that I bougt at the orchid show is just tiny and its little buds have opened. No big fragrance as promised. Must need one of these plants that is the size of a cow to notice the fragrance.

‎Saturday, ‎April ‎11, ‎2015
Was a bit rainy on Thurs and Fri, but did little bits of weeding. Today it is cooler again and some rain. Was to Cannor to see about a free lunch as they were demonstrating the outdoor kitchen stuff and barbequing chicken wings and veggie kabobs. I brought home $41.62 worth of plants: 2 - 6packs of veggie starts... lettuces and spinach, 2 thyme to fill in the thyme circle (red), Fruit tree food spikes, Arabian Night Dahlia, a chocolate lily (Fritillaria), a Corydalis, a pink lily of the valley (Convallaria) and a red heather in bloom. Saved $6.00 with my membership. This is the last month on the membership. Got chilled out in the rain at Cannor, looking for hepatica and plants. They don't have the fish out yet. I have seen at least 2 goldfish in the pond, but have not seen Elvis lately, nor anything in the back tub, but am sure they are still in there. The marsh marigold is in bloom, the two fragrant shrubs... forget the name... white one in front and the smaller purple one at the back which is looking very good. Found a couple of rocks to put by the willow on the pond side to contain a bit more dirt on top of the roots that go into the pond. Am planning to put the spinach in the trough on the garden, and the lettuce on the deck, the Dahlia on the deck in a black pot. The chocolate lily says good in rock gardens, so it will go in the little rockery with humus added to its spot. good in woodland borders, naturializing in grass or on banks. Full sun to partial shade. The lily of the valley is pink, good as ground cover in edgings and woodland gardens. Full shade to partial shade, so is for under the deck of course. I think the things that are growing in the moss garden just along the edge of the deck are lily of the valley. They are spreading in a nice straight line, at the moment. I might have to move them, as I do not want them taking over the moss in that particular spot. The Corydalis is fragrant, tubular, blue and lacy blue gree foliage. Blooms intermittently from spring to fall. Good in borders, containers, edgings and rock gardens. Partial shade. Soil: plant in cool, rich, moist, well drained soil. The white pot with the willow is 13 wide diameter, and 8 deep. The little one is 8 wide.

‎Monday, ‎April ‎13, ‎2015
Yesterday was overcast and warmish. Bits of rain. I was out in the afternoon for a couple of hours. I transplanted the lettuces to the trough on the deck and to the trough on the strawberry patch, along with the spinach. Two spinach that did not fit are in the soil of the garden. Transplanted the 2 red (wine and roses) thyme to the thyme circle. Cleaned up the thyme circle and spread the last of the bag of soil on it. Did a bit more weeding around the front inner garden. Cleaned up some of the moss garden. It looks a lot better cleaned up. Pulling out blue bells, of course. In the front little rockery by the fern leafed peony (which is in bloom) I left a white and a maeuve blue bell. They are not as big as the blue ones. Hopefully they will not spread as rampantly. Transplanted the chocolate lily (frittalaria) into a bigger pot and have it on the deck. Have the dahlia in the garage still in its bag. should get it out into a pot but the big pots have milkweed markers in them. I see no milkweed plants coming up anywhere there are markers. Very strange. The trillium at the front has bloomed but was eaten by something probably a slug. I do not see the trilliums at the back, at all. But they might be up later. Cleaned up a few more bluebells and those species tulips around the woodland water tub. The front is looking good from the window. I plan to put the new red heather by the boxwood hedge. Will be nice next to the green when it is in bloom in the spring. The corner by the Pee's is looking kinda wild with the clematis and solomons seal and the montebretias. In the front rectangle bed on the Pees side there is a peony still coming up. I moved this peony out to the back of the old garage last year while trying to clean up the blue bells there. It is doing well at the back of the garage and this shoot out in front rectangle looks healthy. There are 3 of them in the other rectangle. One is finally turning pink... a light pink and has bigger blossoms and more of them. It is a tall plant and flops over the little honeysuckle hedge. I have to figure out where to put the corydalis. It wants these moist soil and good drainage conditions. Sounds contradictory to me. But I think it is going at the back by the nut tree, where I have been trying to establish a few primulas and shooting stars, without out too much success. The drumstick primula is blooming though, and there is another one surviving and looking quite healthy, so maybe the soil is improving. I will add more potting soil for the corydalis. I must add the manure compost to the rhubarb and the strawberry patch (which is all over that side of the garden) I got quite a few strawberries last year before the birds got them.

‎Tuesday, ‎April ‎14, ‎2015
Was inside all day. Had a nap as I am not feeling tops. chills and aches but holding that nasty cold/flu at bay. Made schnitzles for supper.. ymmm. We had a very good Twisted Grape Zinfandel with it. Finally finished my awards chores on Mega. Managed to get a few photos in the August album done.. have 3 pages tweaked and 3 to go. Getting some blog photos done up.

‎Wednesday, ‎April ‎15, ‎2015
It has been a cooking day. Made Irish Yellow broth, and Quinoa and Squash soup. Made the sausage and rice casserole for supper and made up 3/4 jar of cole slaw. Been on my feet all day. It is now 4:45 so have an hour before dinner. Ran the little vacuum around a bit to pick up most of the stuff. It froze lightly last nite and today seemed chilly to me, although the temperature said 13°.

‎Friday, ‎April ‎17, ‎2015
Was a beautiful warm day. Got to 18 degrees. Made apple pie in the morning. Did laundry in the afternoon and did a bit more sanding on the table. Have a bit more to go. I got the plants, orange trees and lettuces on the deck watered today. Am a beat bunny.

‎Sunday, ‎April ‎19, ‎2015
Was to the VIRAGS show and sale from about 11:00 to 1:30 when Pat picked me up. Got some choice plants: VIRAGS plant show and sale:
1) Double bloodroot $12.
2)Epimedium x Versicolor x sulfreum $4.
3)Hepatica seedling $3.
4) Lewisia
5) Anemone Nemarosa
6)primula amethyst $5.00
7) primula striped victorian $4.00
for a total of $34 plus $10 donation to get in.
On Saturday afternoon I developed some kind of diareaha.. seemed to be a 24 hour thing. I am feeling a bit better today, but stomach is still a bit touchy. I made the duck feast in lieu of the Easter day when Pat was too sick. Was all good. and I seem to be ok. Between bouts of trots to the bathroom, Pat helped me fix the legs on the table. He took the legs off their pins, and put glue on the pins and tapped them back in with one piece of tooth pick added to help plug the hole. Then he added new screws to the top and bottom of each leg for added stability, and tightened up the screws on the little metal cleats attaching the leg to the bottom board. I did a bit of sanding on it today. I need to do the bad side with a 220 sand paper some more. Then will finish it all off with the smallest grain of sand paper and it should be ready for the filling of the holes and then the coats of stain and light sandings. Yea!
While at the plant show I found the name of one of my willows, which I see, I still have the tag for it in its pot. At the end of April, I want to get a tall black or decorative pot to put the white plastic one into, and keep water in the bottom of the decorative pot. I also found the name of the little shrub that is evergreen and is bloom now with yellow and purple pea like blossoms. Polygala chamaebuxus Kemniska.

‎Tuesday, ‎April ‎21, ‎2015
Yesterday was a bright and sunny day. 20°. I was out for about 3 hours after lunch. Transplanted the 3 plants left from the Cannor purchase.. the red heather in the front inside garden next to the hedge at the top, the pink lily of the valley is beside the japanese lantern, the corydalis, is in the bed that is under the curly nut tree. I planted the blood root- sanguinaria canadensis, in a cedar box with no bottom, next the clematis and just under the drip line of the deck. It likes shade, moist but well drained soil, and a ph of 5.5 to 6.5, so add lime if need be. The cedar box sits next to old cement blocks that I am using as a retaining wall, so its roots should get enough lime. The light blue primula is in this same area between the cement stepping stones, so it should not get lost. The other cowichan valley primula is in the nut tree bed, along with another epimedium. The shooting star in this bed seems to have survived... at last! The new lewisia is in the lewisia bed with lots of pea gravel around it. It needs to be covered in the winter rains. The other little lewisias are coming up. While looking at the Swan Lake wild plant sale noted in Agnes Lynne's write up for the VIRAGS I see that they have false lily of the valley. I think that is what is spreading wildly in my moss garden just across the dry stream from my new pink lily of the valley. Maybe they will cross polinate! Did a bit of weeding as I went about the transplanting. Used up 2 bags of mushroom manure. Emptied the bag of pea gravel and started a new one. I could get more before my Cannor runs out the end of this month. I will go over there when Pat is away to Red Deer. Emptied a bag of potting soil and started a new one, too.

‎Friday, ‎April ‎24, ‎2015
When I was out a couple of days ago I saw a little garden snake. No camera, though. Last night we had quite a bit of rain, so the new transplants should all be watered in nicely. I see the lettuce in the trough on the garden is growing nicely. That trough had coffee grinds in it. And I added some mushroom manure and soil. It is quite cold today, and a bit rainy. No thunderstorm as they said we might have. I have finished sanding the table and have put the putty stuff into the holes and will let it dry over night. Next I sand it, and add more filler, if need be...let it dry and more sanding. Must remember to clean it after sanding with the paint thinner stuff. Then it should be ready for the stain coats, with sanding and cleaning between each coat. This is the darkest stain they had, so it may not need too many coats.

‎Sunday, ‎April ‎26, ‎2015
Made potatoe soup for lunch and made 4 pkgs of duck soup from the neck and wing bones. Was an over cast but warm day. No time outside. Did the ironing and shopped for groceries and to Chapters book store. Used bay leaves, parsley, chives, oregano, sage, rosemary from the garden to make the soup. That shithead billy bob took apart their wooden compost box and leaned the dirty wood up against my oak tree. He threw the tomatoe cages helter skelter on my irises that are next to their vegetable garden. Mrs. Pee has her garden hoed over. The lilac is in bloom and I have some in the house. I shall cut it back from their side, after it is finished blooming. The pond and the water tubs need water. Have applied another layer of filler on the table and sanded it again this morning. I am thinking that this should do it for filler.

‎Monday, ‎April ‎27, ‎2015
Scrubbed off the table on the deck and the chairs... just gave them a quick scrub with bleach. Did a load of laundry, scrubbed out the tub in the en suite and wiped up the floor. Cleaned the toilets. Pat had that nasty throwing up flu thing all last nite. We had a cup of Irish soup with an egg on toast on the side and he was okay with that at lunch time. I washed out the humming bird feeders and put the big one out again with 2 cups of food. Brought in a few lettuce leaves, dandilion leaf for each, a couple of spinach leaves, and an orgegano leaf with half for each salad with the pecans, cranberries, and kiwi for our salad. Watered the house plants, the orange trees and filled the water tub on the deck. Was over cast and about 17° today. Mrs Pee is having a gardener bring her 1 1/2 yards of top soil, some gravel and I don't know what else for her garden.

‎Thursday, ‎April ‎30, ‎2015
Pat left for Red Deer at the crack of dawn, yesterday. He is feeling better after his 'flu' that he thinks he may have got food poisoning from what ever he ate at Cowichan Bay when he was up there the day before on his motorcycle. Yesterday I was over to Cannor to get ten mushroom manure and 2 pea gravel, a tall plastic pot that looks like cement (going to move the pendula willow into it beside the pond and keep the soil wet below the willow), some new good gloves, 2 pkgs of St.Bridget anemones, 5 perennials - a big blue hosta, a purple flowering epimedium, the moss looking thing, a red and white columbine, a lovely wine red leaved thing, and a lupine that looks wine colored, a heliotrope, fruit tree fertilizer stakes. Shall list them all in the purchases, when they get delivered on Friday. The second coat of stain is dried on the table. It is looking quite good and smooth. I think I will do one more light sanding and a light coat of stain. I did the chairs with too much stain and they need to be polished off some more to get rid of the excess that feels slightly sticky. It is quite dark already. I think I will not do the legs as it may turn out like the chairs as I am not going to be sanding them, so the top is much darker than the bottom, but it is smooth. There are lots of birds around the trees and singing in the early morning. The tulips are in full swing, the ferns are growing in the moss garden under the deck, the tree peony is big and in full bloom. The boulevard strip is finished blooming, and the crocuses and grape hyacinths are long and tall in the tall grass and starting to harden off. There are bluebells everywhere. So, I need to get them dug out at the side of the pond before I proceed with my willow and the remaking of that side of the pond. We have had bits of rain over the last week. I think my transplants got watered in. The lewisia on the little rockery is looking pretty good. It has two little ones coming up too. The other older ones are in bloom. The magenta azalyea on the Pees side of the house is in bloom. There are lots of lizards about, and some white butterflies, a brilliant little blue that I really should try to photo. Was out and mowed the grass, including some of the crocuses and the grape hyacinths. Cut down the lemon balm and quite a few daisies. Emptied a bag of grass clippings at the back. Filled the pond and fixed the waterfall. Cut down a few black bamboo. Am thinking of making a Japanese fence.

‎

May 2015

Friday, ‎May ‎01, ‎2015
Walked to the lottery ticket store to get a ticket and mail Fran's Mom's day card. Got home and rested up a bit then moved the Cannor nursery delivery of dirt into the garage.. just the manure as these neighbors tend to take anything that is not tied down. This pot should work great for the pendula willow. Shall put the willow in a tall black pot with its roots hanging down, set the pot on a pot in the new off white pot, and arrange it beside the pond. I think I will move the cedar box from under the deck to behind the water fall. put whole newspaper 'bricks' all over this area by the pees side of the pond to kill the bluebells, or slow them down, any way. Need a good place for the new hosta. Saw the humming bird have a bath in the water fall then sit up in the tree finishing the bath by fluffing out its feathers and cleaning with its bill. We have lots of birds around and lots of little lizards. I saw a dragon fly yesterday, too. There are fish in the pond, but I have only seen one at a time. I have not seen Elvis and don't know if he lives or not.

‎Saturday, ‎May ‎02, ‎2015
Cleaned out the deck tub in search of Elvis. Elvis no longer lives. There is a huge set of lily roots growing in the detris in the bottom of the pot, so I have decided to leave it there and have a mud bottom. There is another lily sprouting off out of its pot, so left the pot there too. Filled it again by carrying the water in the big sprinkler pot. Watered all the pots, transplanted the heliotrope. Then topped the pots up with potting soil. Fed banana skin to the roses and had a look at the Pees side. All those plants are looking super. Must be the bleach she feeds them. ha! I will need to get over there and cut back the little popcorn bushes. The front and back needs grass edging and cleaning up of the stone paths. Watered the new plants and around the back a bit. The wind and sun really dries everything out.

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎03, ‎2015
From my blog post of today: At the moment I am cleaning up the blue bells along the side of the pond that borders the neighbors (the pees). I pulled off the foliage and blooms and covered it all with several thicknesses of newspaper. I will be covering this with the cedar mulch I have in reserve, from years ago. I have moved an old bottomless cedar trough into this area and am trying to fill it with some of the excess garden soil. I plan to put my new big blue hosta into this trough. I hope the blue bells do not grow through all the barriers. I will be putting leaves on them in the Autumn also to help slow them down a bit. I will be putting the pendula willow into the new tall decorative pot. I plan to have the bottom of this pot contain water where the roots of the willow can happily dip and sip, out of its long tall black pot, that is raised to be level with the top of the decorative tall pot. (I have widened one of the holes in the bottom of the black pot so the roots can get out a little better) The willow looks rather shabby compared to the pot. I do hope it improves over time. The other willow that I planted by the pond edge last Autumn, with its roots in the water is looking so very much better in this situation. Pictures later after the plants are in place. blog of 2015 The lilac is in bloom and the fragrance is all over the back garden. Heavenly! The cutting garden is showing some life. The plants are actually taking hold. The rhubarb is a disaster, I don't understand it. I fed it mushroom manure and it is now all wilted. I will just have to get a new one and plant it somewhere else. The strawberries around it are doing great. They are tall and in bloom. I should get some straw to put around them to keep the berries clean. The milkweeds in the black pots are finally showing some growth. So the monarch project is on again! I just have to multiply the number of milkweeds, as I understand these monarch larvae eat voraciously. The deck is looking good with the less clutter and will be even better when I get the willow and the chocolate lily moved. I have a small space by the pond where I can add a shade plant. Maybe another astilbe. I have all kinds of birds in the garden lately. There were house finches bathing at the edge of the pond today. Yesterday the humming bird had a bath in the waterfall and then sat in the plum tree to finish preening. There are lots of birds finding something to eat in all of the trees.... bugs, I imagine.

‎Thursday, ‎May ‎07, ‎2015
After lunch and eating planters peanuts, I went out. It is a lovely sunny day. I dug up the bamboo runners in the thyme circle. I liberated 4 rectangle cement blocks from under the bench to lower it, as it is too high. I put flat stones under the feet and it seems about an inch or two lower and level now. I also moved it back in its niche, a bit. I added organic compost from a bag, to the thyme circle and hope the thyme regrows in the area where the runners depleted the soil. Watered around the front a bit and tried to wash more of the birdie doo doo off the window. Not much success there. I put the bamboo roots under the deck... probably too close to the house. Can always dig it up. I don't think it will grow, anyway. The old cedar box I had moved to the pees side of the pond was not working... was too high for the planting of the new big hosta. So, took that down and used the boards to put under the new white tall decorator box that I am going to put the pendula willow into. I have the decorator pot set and levelled and now need to transfer the willow to the black pot that fits into the top of the decorator pot, with holes for the roots to run out of the black pot and into the moist soil at the bottom of the decorator pot. I have cardboard and newspaper blocks covering the bluebells and hope they get smothered. There are cedar boards behind the waterfall, covering the bluebells, so this should slow them down a bit. I moved a primula from under the tall yellow thing to the other side of the cement block next to the pond edge. Hope it shows some bloom next year. I have a space behind this large yellow blooming thing and next to the clematis where I can put the new big hosts. I need to make a slightly raised area to hold the dirt for the hosta. There are a lot of roots in this area, so I want the hosta to have a fighting chance of getting established. I need to trim the shrubs around the pond and add the cedar mulch over top of the newspapers, carboard, etc. I hope this keeps the bluebells in check. There will be space for more plants, but I think decorator pots will be in order. Will see how this works out. I have 4 cement rectangle blocks that I liberated from under the bench legs. Not sure what I will do with them... time will tell me where I need them. Maybe under the deck in my shade sitting area. The ferns under the deck are spreading nicely. I must try and transfer some from the old evergreen one by the compost bin, to under the deck. It grows huge and will make a good screen. I think I will remove the skimmia, as it looks really scraggly. So, if I can plant some of the huge fern as a second screen this should enhance the shade garden and keep those pees out of my face.

‎Friday, ‎May ‎08, ‎2015
Not much energy today. It was a lovely day, sunshine and about 20 degrees. I made beef stew and had soup for lunch. Sanded the table and applied a layer of that stuff Pat left me. I got a hair in the layer and made wrinkles in the surface while trying to remove it. So, tomorrow I should sand it again and get it smooth, dust it off and wipe it down with paint thinner before applying what I hope will be the last layer. Otherwise, I could not seem to move beyond the couch and I am still tired. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Got a bit done on the congrats on winners stuff last night and did up a photo of the month for Whimsies, flares. Ate too much stew and nuts. Am reading the book about the Bushes ... disgusting. I think I will move the tall decorator pot back a bit from where I have it now and put the four cecement blocks in that vicinity to level the new pot and to walk upon on that side of the pond. This still needs more work before I can add the bark mulch over the cardboard and newspaper barriers. Thinking of making the new hosta place under the deck... take out the skimmia which is really straggly. Still needs more work and thought put into the shade garden area.

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎10, ‎2015
Yesterday I did a lot of heavy garden stuff. Moved the decorative pot around on the pees side of the pond. Recovered up the bluebells with the cardboard and newspaper stuff. Put 3 of the cement blocks I had liberated from under the bench along the pond side of the newly positioned decorator pot. Then I put the new big blue hosta on the other side of the tall yellow plant next to the clematis with a bag of community compost added on top of the area it is planted to. This has a lot of roots under it, so hope the hosta can survive. It was really quite root bound. I have one cement block left to use. Watered all around and filled the pond. I will let this settle for a day or so and see how I like it the way it is. I also cleaned the leaf and twig debrie out of the evergreen shrub and trimmed it back a bit. Trimmed off some of the plum tree dead stuff. I was out of energy by this time and found these branches really hard to cut. I will need to try from the deck with the long pole pruner to see if I can get more dead branches out of it. The delphinium is looking rather bedraggled as I was bumping into it a lot. Was about 27 degrees yesterday, so I wore short sleeves. I see my farmers tan developing already. The motion detection light has been coming on at night the last two nights. This morning I was looking out the bedroom window to see if there was any traces of the critter or cause of the light going on. I suspect it is a raccoon, but there is no pond damage, so don't know what it might be. While looking out the window I saw a brown bunny in the back grass patch. Good bunny, did not seem interested in plants but the grass. So, it got to be picture time of the rabbit and after it left. I ran the DNG converter on this folder of photos. The ones of the rabbit that I took through the window do show some dullness ... probably from the extra glass that is not exactly clean. There was a wren cleaning on the plum tree and what I thought was a rufous - very red - humming bird at the feeder. Lots of birds in the garden, chattering and singing. It is a nice day, again. The water in the woodland garden tub is down to half. This wind and warm weather really seem to take a toll on the water levels in the pond and the tubs. Unless there is something coming for a drink! Have finished reading The Family about the Bushes... nasty kind of people, by Kitty Kelly. Am now reading Feeding Frenzy by Mahon or mcMahon. just bought it on ipad. So, I have lots of reading and gardening to keep me busy. Pat emailed a couple of times from his tablet on his gmail. Their trip seems to be going ok, except for the mishaps that Elly is suffering.

‎Tuesday, ‎May ‎12, ‎2015
Lovely day out again. Warm and overcast. Was out from abut 10:30 to 1:30. Moved the Pendula willow into its long black pot which is in the tall decorator pot. Levelled a couple of the cement blocks .. I have one block left. The pees side of the pond is covered with cardboard, newspaper and old cedar trough boards. Watered it all... the decorator pot is almost full of water and the pond is full again. I put a bit of clay soil in the bottom of the long black pot. I hope there is enough soil in the pot and that the roots will extend downward to the water in the pot. I will need to keep it moist for the willow. I planted the corms for the fancy anemones in the fig tree bed by digging a trench with the hoe and throwing the corms in it. Then I used up the last bag of community compost on top of them. The little corydallis need some packed around it too, as it seemed to be too high out of the ground. I still need to do an epimedium, the special columbine, the lupin and the moss like thing that likes dry and well drained... gravel, in fact. I filled the woodland tub with water and watered around the beds a bit. and lo and behold the big trillium is coming up. It looks really healthy, too! Got a picture of the really red house finch or purple finch. It has a marvelous song. I am actually getting some Megashot congrats stuff done. But all my time is going to read this Natchez is Burning book. Going to make the fried chicken and have an early supper/late lunch, then might have soup way later for supper. Have to be sure to get up early tomorrow to get to my appointment with Dr Cuthbert.

‎Thursday, ‎May ‎14, ‎2015
Was a bit bummed after Dr. Cuthburt appointment, yesterday. Had to do another test, right away in the lab downstairs. She seemed worried about my counts, red counts up, and etc., so, they are going to schedule me for 2 phlobotomies, back to back with a lab in between them. eeeek. Got goodies and lottery tickets at westburns.. or whatever they are called and then walked up Pandora to Douglas past city hall to catch the bus, more walkies through the park after getting off the bus. I don't want to go past that nasty pit bull at Dingy's house. Let someone else be its bitten victim. Today I planted the last of the plants I had on hand into the fig tree bed, with the long handled hoe, since bending seems to be killing me today. Mowed the lawn including the crocus field. The leaves are all quite brown so they are already ready to be mowed. I see there is more bamboo coming up in the thyme circle. I picked a big empty bottle of CC and a bag of some kind of garbage out of the front boulevard strip today. Damn pig. Some strange bumping noises going on this evening around here. bloody hell.

‎Friday, ‎May ‎15, ‎2015
Was a nice day - 20°. Weeded the back stepping stones up past the fig tree bed. Cut back the grass at the top edge of this area. Put some round stones in the edging. The irish moss and the corsican mint is looking nice and green. The moss in this area is going yellow. Watered all around the area. Was out for about 2 hours. Put out the blue box today. Am slowly getting the congrats done on Megashot ... so boring. Am reading Natchez Burning... nearly finished it already. Its a thick tomb.. 800 pages. Very good read. There will be, I think, 3 more in the series of this book.

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎17, ‎2015
lovely day again. Gardening from about 1:30 to 4:30. Have dragged the pea gravel to on the garden. Put about half of the cedar bark stuff on the exposed cardboard and newspaper by the pees side of the pond. Have weeded the back stepping stones from the old sidewalk back to the pond area, and cleaned off the moss up to the red Japanese maple. It all seems to be getting easier to control, once I get at it. The fig tree bed needs more compost, but there are no plants beneath the fig tree, so will leave it for now. My transplanted lupin seems to be surviving. The willow in the decorator plant looks ok. Hope the cedar bark does not run into the pond. I read ahead in the Natchez Burning book. Of course they survive, at least most of them. Book 2 of the series is out in hard cover as at April 15. I can wait for the paperback. BB king died on Thursday at 80 some. So he was playing all over the US from 1940 onward. He is from Mississippi. Imagine. Went to Memphis to get started, it seems. I am not really that big on his rythm and blues stuff, but he plays a fanstic guitar.

‎Monday, ‎May ‎18, ‎2015
being very lazy today. It is a fine day out there but I have not been out at all. Doing megashot stuff and reading the Feeding Frenzy book on ipad. I noticed I have a little red lewisia in bloom.. maybe rediviva. the little white ones are in prolific bloom. have pictures from yesterday to load. Also added pipe to the down spout from the eaves to the corner by the deck and made the pipe run towards the top of this deck area. I need more pipe, preferably a flexible, perferated pipe to carry the water higher up and then it can trickle back down the slope beside the deck and hopefully under that side of the deck. With the rains in winter and the open decking the clay soil under the deck gets really soggy and water logged and so the moss and ferns grow nicely. I pulled the grass out of the bed beside the old garage and dug out dandilions and weeds to the end of the old garage, but not around the back. The French lavendar is covered with blooms and is getting nicely bushy. lots of bees on it.

‎Wednesday, ‎May ‎20, ‎2015
Tomorrow at 2:00 I need to be at the Royal Jubilee for my first phlobotomy. then a lab on the 1st or second of June, followed by a visit to Dr. C on the 4th at 2:00 and another phlobotomy on the 5th at 3:00. Pat is home on the 8th, and I will probably have another lab to do for Dr. C. the followng week. Took a cab to the Thrifty's yesterday... cost 12.00 and was even less on the way back. Have not been doing much gardening, trying to recuperate from the high blood counts shock. No, I don't get headaches. I think I should go off red meat as much as possible. I have finished the liver and will now be on fish and chicken, fruit and vegetables. I brought home blueberries X2 and a big basket of strawberries, 3 bananas. Have a broccoli and frozen spinach, carrots, parsnip, onions, peppers, etc. Dragged the orange trees outside. Worked good to drag the big plastic with them on it. Had to have a nap, and then later had a visit from the Wilderness Committee guy, H. Breen (Howard?). Signed the petition to try stop the pipeline. We had a great old talk about all the shit that's happening. Get a calendar and some other stuff to read. I wonder if my brown bunny is the one that is mentioned as endangered. It does not seem to be multiplying... I only see one at a time. Yesterday, I saw a crow capture a lizard from in the eaves trough. Have daisies and a pink rose in the house for fragrance. Am going to finish the bot stuff on Megashot tonite.

‎Thursday, ‎May ‎21, ‎2015
to the jubilee about $30 cab ride. Was far too early but they took me in. Did their usual let some twit practise on me and then the IV team guy, garry, Asian, came and did the IV thing. Since I was there with a half hour cab time I was way too early, and they took me way too early. I was finished by 2:30 and so home and actually feeling better. No KFC. Next go is the lab on June 1 or 2 and then the Office on the 4th and the next phlobotomy on the 5th. It is very warm out and no rain.

‎Friday, ‎May ‎22, ‎2015
We had a prairie thunder and lightning storm last night and then a great down pour of rain at about 5:00 this morning. Don't know how much rain, but the bird bath is about half full The rain gauge shows a little over half an inch, but it is kinda protected so my best guess would be 3/4 of an inch. I had left the garbage bins open to wash out and air out. The green bin was full of water which I tried to dump on the woodland area.. most of it went on the path and hedge. The black bin had about 6 inches in it and dumped it down the driveway. Dug the bamboo out of the thyme circle, pulled grass out of the irises, cut off a few more bamboo shoots to reduce the size of the clump. Filled the orange tree pots with a bit more potting soil. While digging out the bamboo shoots I noticed that the rain did not penetrate very deep at all, it was dry beneath the top inch. Well, we could use a little more of that rain. Dead headed the pink rose. The milkweed in the garden patch is growing.. maybe more of them too. One in the pot is getting really big.

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎24, ‎2015
Did nothing yesterday, just cut off a couple more twiggy branches from the plum tree; and took photos today. Spent the morning on Megashot, and this evening updating my Photography page and the Links page. I don't really need a guestbook but not sure what I will do with that page, yet, so left it. I don't feel like learning how to do the word press, right now.

‎Tuesday, ‎May ‎26, ‎2015
Nice day yesterday, spent most of the day reading Saanich tree stuff urban forest. Got some links corrected and some stuff on the photography page fixed. Still don't know what I want to do about my guestbook page. got caught up in Megashot bot stuff. Someone is down rating my stuff in explore. So, today I had to get out and get groceries. Got 3 new longer tops for over skinny legged pants. Got scotch and looked for hooks for the tension bandage. The fish at Pets west cost $1.29 and up. Went over on the bus and caught a cab back for $10.25 plus $1. tip. It got quite warm today. I have to wear long sleeves cause my bruises from the practising nurse, opal, are horrible all purple and green. The shitheads are going to stop that, I won't be in early. I will check my watch before I go down that hallway, next time. So they don't have time to do the test nurse before the IV team person arrives.

‎Wednesday, ‎May ‎27, ‎2015
Watered the house, deck, and patio plants. Watered around the back a bit. There IS a fish in the back woodland tub. I should only need one for the tub on the deck, but will probably get a few more for the pond. I have seen at least 4 in the pond. It is a truly lovely day out there. Weeded the moss garden. It is looking pretty good! The hepatica is doing great in the moss. Pulled out some ferns and those weedy three colored things that smell like oranges when broken. I only need to top up the pea gravel a bit, and it should be good for awhile. I was out from about 1:30 to 5:30. The plants in the fig tree bed are doing fine. The epimediums and others across the stepping stones from the fig tree are looking good too. I should have a fine show of primulas next year. The little hosta looks fine, and the big new one looks good too. The older dark green edged in cream color is spreading. Maybe I will be able to divide it. The violets seem to be under control. I think the next thing to do for the moss garden will be to take out the old scraggly skimmia. The cutting garden actually has plants coming up. Lots of glads and the dahlia I got on sale and stuffed in the ground. Lots of weeds too. I shall give that whole area more mushroom manure. The tall bearded irises need to be thinned out, everywhere. There were not many blooms but lots of good big foliage, so they must be getting too much nitrogen.... maybe some wood ashes? I need a fennal for that area for the swallowtail butterflies. The only butterflies I am seeing are the white ones, now. The bees seem to have diminished. There were lots on the French lavender and now only a few. I counted 2 on the thyme circle the other day. The rhodos and roses are in bloom, the ones on the Pees side are finished. There was a dead bird near the clematis that climbs the deck. Looked like it had been dead for a few days. It was one of the little ones with the yellow on its feathers. Not sure what they are.

‎Thursday, ‎May ‎28, ‎2015
Very warm day.. 29°, but because of our watering ... the Pees and me... it seems quite muggy out there. Another thunderstorm on the way? I was out for a couple of hours and weeded and edged the thyme circle. Dug out more bambo shoot roots. There was a swallowtail butterfly on the rhodo!! Yeaaaa... didn't have my camera. Now I really must get some fennal growing in the cutting garden! There are sparrows bathing in the waterfall. A hawk screeching. So we must have hawks nesting in the area too. Cool... more birds this year. Watered a bit in the front after supper. Mostly on the thyme circle. Tomorrow I should go to Cannor and get a fish or two and a fennel.

‎Friday, ‎May ‎29, ‎2015
Went over to Cannor. Was hot out! Got a fennel, but all their fish are in quarntine.. for 3 or 4 more days. Well hell! Got back by 3:00 opened up the house, but really don't feel like doing anything. Am tired and hungry, so had cheese, fish on crackers and a kiwi, couple of cookies, glass of milk for an early supper or late lunch.. whatever, while I read the paper. There were swallowtails in the park and at the garden center. I think I will just get my fish or two somewhere else. There is birdsong and a bit of a breeze. I did not have a good night last night. So, I think I will go down for a nap, to get some rest, and then I can be awake at night and read or do computer stuff, since I seem to have to be awake at night. I was doing good for a couple of days, keeping regular hours, until last night. It was the night of the black cat. After waking up from my nap on the couch at about 8:00 I was on my computer when I heard a great crash. Yikes! I found that the table cloth had been pulled off the table and the things on it tipped water spilled out of the flower vase. What the hell? Then the cat cried. It was hiding in the living room by this time. A very nice fluffy black cat, but it had been outside and was dirty. I finally got it settled down to pet it and shoost it out the front door. It was still scared, but I had settled down. whew! I suppose it sneaked in here while I was sleeping with the door open. I think it belongs to the people that were renting, next door to Shauna next door. It was brushed and fluffy, just had dirt on it... was probably playing in the dirt somewhere. Didn't check for collar... should have. People are not suppose to let their cats run free. Had a very late supper of bacon and eggs and a toast with peanut butter milk instead of wine. Got a blog post done and nothing on megashot.

‎Saturday, ‎May ‎30, ‎2015
28° with a bit of breeze. Left the house about 2:00 and walked to the lottery ticket store. Jack's was closed until 4:00. Went to the ice cream place and got a cone of lovely cherry stuff for about $4. Since they were closing at 3:00 I went to the pizza slice place to eat my ice cream. Then over to the lottery ticket store, got tickets (won $2 on my old ones, so that cost me $15) Sat there and read their magazines for half an hour before Jack's was sure to be open. Got my wor won ton small soup.. $11. and got home before 5:00. I am getting better at this walking. I shall have to keep it up. Monday I go for lab.. before 10:00 so shall cab it over there and walk back... maybe find a book or 2. Can still see my great bruises.. the girls at the lab will be sure to ask about them. oh well. I bought no junk food, of any kind. Had juice and cappuccino and water and the ice cream and weighed 154.0 when I got home. Am going to have war won ton for supper and no junk of any kind and see how I am doing tomorrow morning. Half the won ton soup for supper at about 7:30, half the chardonay, a bit of grano pando, fortune cookie, yogurt. Watered at the front a bit and same at the back, cleaned out the waterfall run. It is quite cool out there now, with the watering. Also, beginning to get dark at 9:00

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎31, ‎2015
Overcast, cooler day, only about 21°. Threw a can full of coffee grounds on the rhodos .. not the one on the Pees side.

‎Monday, ‎June ‎01, ‎2015
Took a cab to the Royal Oak mall... got Krishman, again. Was $7.15. The lab was packed. Read my ecology pages while waiting.. got the Salish Sea one read and got called up. Then shopped around the Mall. Got 3 new books for $21 and some groceries and lottery tickets of course. Walked home, carrying all the stuff, so had to rest a couple of times... but made it back. It is an overcast cooler day, so that helped. We were suppose to have rain today but none yet at 11:00 pm. After lunch of the last of the war one ton soup I read a bit and then napped for an hour or two. Not getting any gardening done dammitt. Got a blog post done, emailed Pat last nite, and did an interesting tutorial in photoshop on creating a reflection... very cool. Guess I will have a very late supper ... Spanish style... of the rest of the meat balls and previously cooked vegetables.

June 2015

‎Tuesday, ‎June ‎02, ‎2015
We had a bit of rain last nite not nearly enough. I transplanted the fennel into a black pot. The pump was running very slow. It had somehow magically turned down its volume of flow by the controls on the flow outlets. Those clever fishes. I fixed it to run faster, of course. Picked about 20 strawberries today. Had a walk about the garden. I am too lazy or tired to do any gardening although it is a perfect day for it.... cooler and overcast. I hope we get more rain. Jeff from the RBC phoned this morning and will get in touch with Pat a few days after he gets home. It is very quiet out there today at 2:00 o'clock. No traffic, no lawn mowers, very few birds.

‎Thursday, ‎June ‎04, ‎2015
overcast in the am. Sure looked like it would rain, but nothing. dragged the garbage bins back. Washed the bedding. Caught cab to Dr. Cuthbert office then shopped at the Westburn Gorcery, walked up to Douglas past the old Bay and caught the bus. Forgot about looking for a fish. A go daddy person phoned just as I was leaving the house. Have no time to do my web page word press or anythng ... am not inclined to learn it right now, either. Am reading Bernard Cornwells Stonehenge.. good book, of course. My lab tests appeared to be good. certainly feel much better, but am going to have to lose this extra weight I put on while Pat was gone... junk food, fool that I am. Tomorrow I go to Jubilee for another phleb. .. but not as much this time. Dr. Cuthbert said they are not to be using me as a guinea pig for those new nurses to probe around on. The bruises I had were horrible last time. So, only the IV team nurses from now on. I hope that bitch that was in charge of that gets busted down to bed pan carrier.

‎Friday, ‎June ‎05, ‎2015
Watered the house plants. Went to my phleb and got there at 2:30. The bitch did not come near me. I guess Dr. C. kicked some ass around there, although she sounded very very mild when she phoned them. I got Arlene, and the other twits did nothing to prep me or take my blood pressure. I had to tell Arlene that I was to give a lesser amount this time and she could not find it on the chart.. I told her that I thought Dr. C. may have phoned it in. She finally found it in the scribbles on my chart. Arlene had to do everything, including fetch my apple juice. There were 2 IV nurses in the room. Arlene had trouble getting blood from my wrist and had to restart another needle on my right arm in the elbow. I only had to give 300 this time. Some poor lady was crying in the bed next to me, saying she did not want to go to the hospital... the bitch got her into a wheel chair and took her out past me... Arlene merely offered to move her tray, and let the bitch deal with it. Gawd ahmighty... I was nearly in tears myself watching this assinine display of nursing. The two iv team nurses wore little badges on their left saying RN on them. If they are RNs I wonder what these other 'nurses' are. Nurses aides? Practical nurses? When I got home I ordered up KFC ... 10 piece bucket with coleslaw and chips and delivery plus tax all came to $32.00.. the creepy delivery guy tried to keep all of the change from $35... I made him give me a looney back... just to let him know. Too pissed about things to do anything much on Megashot bot stuff after this, but I did get a bit done in the morning, so... I just need to finish the contests congrats and it is going pretty quickly, actaully. Was a hot day out... I had to wear a sweater cause I don't care to go about with my bandages or bruises showing. Well tomorrow will definitely be a better day. My thermostat is telling me I am too hot on the inside and clammy outside, so I suppose I might need to eat some ice and open a window.

‎Sunday, ‎June ‎07, ‎2015
I was in the garden from 1:00 to 3:30. Got the Pees side cleaned up. Clipped back the camillia, cleaned up the rhodos and azalea, cut all the daylillies back off the sidewalk and cleaned up along the edge of their sidewalk. The plants all look healthy. There was a few dried bamboo stems and leaves, so it looked like someone was ripping at that plant. Mowed the front grass. It was about 23° out there. Pretty warm to be working in a dark t-shirt. The simplicity rose has blackspot and the clematis has that mildew on it. The Pees all use that sidewalk and then at the end of it they have those garbage bins sitting next to the house. leaving them maybe 1 1/2 to 2 feet to get past the bins every time they go anywhere.

‎Monday, ‎June ‎08, ‎2015
was out to canadian tire and got 6 more solar lights for: $12.00 and to Pets West and picked up 3 fish for $4.33. To grocery store. Caught a cab home. $10.45. Caught the bus over there and waited way long... the tops of my feet in my sandals were burninng. Got home and put the fish in old elvis tub on the deck. Rested a bit, and started the stir fry. Pat got home about 5:30... very tired. He had a bit of stir fry, and frozen yogurt with strawberries. It has been very hot in the motor home with no a/c. He is one beat bunny. After dinner I went out and picked the strawberries... there is a blue package full. So, I should water... I heard on the radio this am that the watering days for even days are Wed and Sat. Will check it. We are very dry. The grass is still green, though. I need to cut off the bamboo shoots and let the roots run, and keep cutting off the shoots, maybe. Will see how it goes. I turned the fan on above the bed for himself. He did not want to try it as his ankle is swollen and no doubt very sore. He has finally crashed at 8:30. I picked a whole blue package of strawberries and there are still a few more on there. I must water.

‎Tuesday, ‎June ‎09, ‎2015
Got laundry done today and meals cooked. I have a start on some Manhatten clam chowder that I will make up tomorrow. Pat is out for lunch again. I activated my SSL Certificate on mmmee.com. It is good for a year. I got a badge from go daddy to put on the site. This is all pretty cool. I spent the day adding the badge to 10 pages, and making corrections. Guestbook is dormant for now. Cleaned up my mmmee at shaw mail. the Info at mmmee.com is now working pretty good! I like that outlook program. I will have to get it to replace my wretched live mail on the mmmee at shaw. I have 1000 mb of space on the Info one == can purge and add more. It was a fine day out there and not too hot. Would have been a good gardening day. Tomorrow I should get out. Everything is so dry. I had to speed up the waterfall flow again. I have not seen the 3 new fish in the deck tub. Guess they are surviving.

‎Wednesday, ‎June ‎10, ‎2015
Got a whole bunch of stuff done today. Made the Manhatten Clam Chowder in the am. It is very spicey, but good. We had a cup full for supper. Made the beef short ribs for supper in the pressure cooker. They were very good. Popcorn for lunch as Pat was away with Bruce etc. for lunch. Then out in the garden from about 2:00 to 4:30. mowed the back grass. cut back fig and grapes. watered by hand a bit. Then set up the sprinkler at the back. It has pretty good coverage. Then in the front, cut off all the bamboo shoots I could find. Left the roots to grow. No doubt they will sprout more shoots up. I have dug the roots out of the thyme circle, so that place now needs more thyme to grow over the bare spots where the roots ran. Pulled out a few daisies from around the french lavender. Saw one of the little goldfish in the tub. There was a robin eating the Saskatoons, and they are not even ripe... still red. So, I was busy all day. Now 8:00 and I am a beat bunny.

‎Friday, ‎June ‎12, ‎2015
Yesterday we went out to the big O tire place and Pat got the tire fixed on the passat. There was a small nail in it causing it to lose air. They did it for free. Got home by the scenic route. Then went for groceries. Had the air conditioner going full tilt as it was hot in the car. Got home and just in front of the garage the car quit. Not sure what is wrong. Pat got Andy Jones to come tow it to the garage where they have it for fixing. $70. cash for Andy. After lunch I watered and fed house plants, deck plants and the trees. Am watering around the back from 3:30 to 4:30, with the sprinkler. Watered under the deck and filled the pond by hand and sprinkled a bit in the woodland by hand. Last night I could not find the site meter on my web page or on my blog. So wondered it my new ssl certificate did that. Learned that I had the up to date SSL certificate. Today when I turned on my computer I found that the site meter was there. It is just a black square now. So, it is semi hidden. :) Just click above the blogger button to find it! oh yeah! I was going to get google analytics which is free and does not sound too terrible to add... but now I will not do it. Google already owns too much of me. Saw the funniest thing while out watering. A red admiral butterfly was fluttering along about 6 inches off the ground. A little wall lizard was running and leaping at it. The butterfly just fluttered along like it knew how high the lizard could jump So then the butterfly settled down to something on the corsican mint.. maybe the little flowers nectar. I let a bit of the spray mist near it and it did not move. Maybe it was after the moisture.

‎Saturday, ‎June ‎13, ‎2015
Was a lovely day out again. I set the spray sprinkler to do the inner front garden, spraying from the Pees side over the garden, and blocking off the Pees strip of grass. It worked fairly well and I got pretty good coverage. Left it on for about an hour and a half. Then I changed the spray to go along the front garden area by the street. That was on for a couple of hours. Meanwhile I was cleaning up the stone path in the inner garden at the front, and then I quickly did a clean up of the strip between our driveways. By the time I looked at the sprinkler again it had a river of water running across the front of our driveway. Hmmmm... the water seemed to have seeped through the grass and on to the street. So, finished the driveway strip after turning off the sprinkler. Got back into the house at 4:45. Dusty, tired, and hot. I wonder if its all worth the bother.

‎Sunday, ‎June ‎14, ‎2015
Was up last nite till all hours.. 3:00 I think. Slept in till capiccinno time. Made lunch and was going to go for a nap, but decided to rescue the rocks from the pond. So, pumped it out till there was about 10 - 12 inches left. Ran the water down both sides of the pond and the middle. It all went under the deck, so the moss and ferns should be doing fine now. While it was pumping out, I clipped back the Lebanon cedar. Crawled into the pond using the step under the cedar. Threw out some of the leaves and mud, but left most of it. Found about 4 rocks and the turtle. Refilled the pond and repositioned the rocks. Have the water fall running really full bore. It looks good going through the mossy waterfall. Sounds pretty good too. There are 3 or 4 fish... quite big... about 4 or 5 inches. They seem to be surviving the water change. They all came to the top and hung around the water fall. Guess they need the warmth and the oxygen. Took me about 3 hours to get it done. So it looks pretty good with the rocks levelled a bit more, and the shrub pruned back, the iris cleaned up. The new hosta has lots of buds on it. So that transplant worked! I need to put more bamboo stakes around that perennial next to the decorative pot and then put string around it to hold it upright and in place. It is golden in bloom and actually lights up that corner of the pond when in bloom. I need more rocks for behind the water fall to shore it all up and make it into a bigger mountain. There are admirals, cabbage butterflies and swallow tails around. I have a pdf of our butterflies from Agnes Lynn at the rock and alpines/natural history people. I have to figure out how to attach this pdf to my web page. Maybe call it flying flowers. As I type this up in March 2017 I have learned how to add the pdfs to my page. Was a lovely day out today. Did some facebook and some megashot. . . boring. I need to do up a Summer/Winter page for the Playtime and choose a spring/autumn to feature. Dave Dube has monarch photos of female laying eggs in his garden on the milkweed, whose leaves look like the one I have growning in a pot. Great... I have one plant, and maybe 3 of the others with darker leaves and colorful blooms. This one that the West Coast monarch likes has pink and white blooms. They grow like crazy once established. Since they mow the deer pasture, I shall have to take the seeds I have farther afield and scatter them this late summer and watch for, hopefully eventual results. The one I want is called showy or speciosa... well its not very showy, compared to the orange and yellow ones. The leaves need to be hairy for the first instar of the larvae, so says Dube. He should know. So, maybe next year I can try to find some monarchs to order for release into my garden... just a few. My bronze fennell is finally taking hold and will grow. I need to get it out into the garden by the peonies, and hope it grows there, despite the bamboo. Will cut back the bamboo roots and spray them with the stuff I have and hope it slows them down a bit. The butterflies won't be eating bamboo.

‎Tuesday, ‎June ‎16, ‎2015
Warm day. We spent the day getting things done before we travel on next Monday. Got the taxes paid at city hall... huge koi in the tank out side near the entry. Pat got more travel books from BCAA. Lunch at the Mexican place at Broadmead. After lunch and a home visit... washroom, etc., we headed out to Saanichton ? to get the oil changed in the Van. Pat dropped me at the Brentwood Bay Nursery while he went to the oil change place at the corner of Benvenouto and ?. It took about an hour. I was finished shopping for plants when he came to pick me up. I got 3 thyme, a tall scaboisia, and a lovely candelabra primula (red). Actually, I got charged for 5 perennials at $3.69. For $14.46. I thought they were having a sale with 30% off. $3.69 seems a high price for these small, I think they call them 4 inch perennials. Well, they are retiring their Facebook page says. They have quite a lot of plants out yet. She says she doesn't want to retire, he does. This is her retirement job, she said. Nice lady. But the place is getting to be a bit run down in appearance. Big prices on the big pots of not too special perennials. I have no more room. But I do plan to remove a couple of shrubs from the Japanese garden area.... the big spruce and that nice lily of the valley shrub that is getting crowded out by the Harry Lauders walking stick. ... as is the spruce. I like the nut tree, and it does produce nuts, so it wins and stays. I can always prune it to fit the Japanese garden too. I was just totally tired and had to nap when we got back.

July 2015

‎Thursday, ‎July ‎23, ‎2015
We got back from the Prairies on July 21 in mid afternoon. It was about 27°. We unloaded the van. Just as we started to unload Kathy was coming to check the house. She left us to it, and has not been back yet. She seems to have done 9 days at $30 per day I think. Maybe $25. They had one week of very hot weather and she was watering roses and stuff at the front and the back deck plants. I had unplugged the pump and the pond is not down very much. The agave bloomed, the bamboo is shooting up in several places. My big milkweed seems to have dried up but I seem to have several of the wrong kind growing. Oh well ... I will order some from somewhere on line, me thinks. There were quite a few of them blooming along the ditches in Alberta, Sask, and Manitoba. The same kind that Dave is feeding his newly arrived female monarch that is laying eggs that have morfed into catapillars. Lots of them. I started the laundry on Monday, and finished washing on Tuesday. Grocery shopping. Have yet to do ironing. Yesterday I watered deck plants and inside plants. The begonias are toast and the yellow lady slipper that bloomed so well until I killed it when repotting, is out of its misery of trying to recover. Threw out a little African violet that was struggling from day one, also. I pulled out some of the vetch on the front grass. It comes out easily. We need to cut up the parts of the magnolia tree that Pat took out when bringing the trailer home, before we left. The magnolia seems like it might survive at half the size. I might take that big birds nest spruce out and improve that soil and the messy plantings. . . maybe another heather. They are easier to manage. I have a nice little campanula from Ralph and Sandy that will go in that bed or maybe in the rock garden, although it was growing in good loam in semi shade at their place. I made sure Kasparsky was running after its automatic update. Microsoft up dated and made changes to skype that we HAD to do, so got that sorted. Downloaded 10.35 GB of photos. The new little loading machine works good. I changed the CR2 to dng with that new little program and it worked well, also. Have started to get my emails caught up. The contest entries I was doing before we left have all been demoted ... restarted a couple of them. Have a few winners which is nice to see. Defrosted the little freezer yesterday, by unplugging it after taking the frozen stuff to the suite freezer. It was easy to do. I thought I had to drag it out to the deck to let it drain. We did not need to do that ... just wiped out the water after it had melted and returned the food to it. Am making schnitzle for supper and hope to get a start on ironing and the gardening today and maybe finish the email stuff. No ironing done. But found a recipe for plum and pepper chutney that I shall try. The yellow plum is loaded and the plums are ready. We have our second fig of the year for supper tonite. I watered around the back, filled the back black water tub. There is a fish in it. Filled the pond. There is at least one fish in it. Cut back the fig quite a bit. It is still over grown. Was out from 2 til 4:45. Is ok temperatures but the sun is bright. Got some email done and cleaned up the Sask. #1 folder, a bit.

‎Friday, ‎July ‎24, ‎2015
It is raining lightly all day. Must have at least a quarter of an inch by now...10:00 pm. Got two blue pkgs of Plum and Pepper Chutney made. Have a very nasty cold. Did not get anymore photos looked at, nor any ironing done. Perfect day for ironing as it is coolish.

‎Saturday, ‎July ‎25, ‎2015
Got the Model T page updated.. have yet to upload it. Need to do the travel page for Sask 15 the year of fire. Got most of the ironing done. It is a cooler day. My cold has played me out but I think I am winning. We had light rain all yesterday and emptied about 1/4 inch this am. We may still get a bit more. Cathie was over and paid her the $250. She is worth it. Have to learn how to set my backup thing to record only once a week. Finally got it working by mucking about and shut down the computer to make it start again at the orginal settings. There is too much stuff for the number of backups that are on the drive. So, once a week may fix that. Might have to ask Trevor.

‎Sunday, ‎July ‎26, ‎2015
cooler cloudy morning. We had a good down pour and some thunder about 11:00. After lunch I finished the ironing. Deleted quite a lot of photos. I may have to delete the dng files. I can always redo the dng. My acronis does not want to do backup, cause there is no space on the disk. I emptied the rain gauge of 1/2 inch of rain at 5:30. The sun is out and everything is fresh and green. Except the grass of course. I made 3 blue pkgs of corn chowder with enough left over for a taste of it for supper. Pat brought in 2 more figs.. one for tonite and one for later. The 'vivid' jpegs turned out pretty good. It doesn't do RAW in that mode. Its great for shooting out the window... it is continuous shooting. I can lower the saturation in Photoshop. I did a bit of rating in Explore... looking for Ursula's ...did not find anything. Have roses in the house. Only the white rose is blooming. I have picked a few lbs. of plums in anticipation of making a rum pot this year. There are still tons of plums for making into fruit or puree.. . both, I hope.

July 26, 2015
see the rum pot recipe of 2015 1 1/2 cup of blueberries added 1/2 cup of sugar plus 2 tbspns - let stand for 30 minutes added 1 cup of brandy after 30 minutes... no stirring the brandy covers the blue berries nicely. added 3 cups of yellow plums.. lots of juice... added 1/4 cup of sugar and a couple of ounzes of brandy. The fruit is covered with liquid, but not stirred Put saran on top of the pot and put it in the fridge downstairs... fridge not turned on. Stir the pot gently in a couple of days... and add strawberries. Check for black berries. etc. black berries, strawberries, cherries added more rum more sugar Made 8 cups of chicken stock. finished at 10:30. Am very tired.

‎Wednesday, ‎July ‎29, ‎2015
Stirred the rum pot... the sugar is sitting on the bottom... must get it dissolved in the brandy. Did 4 loads of washing. two more figs into the house. There are lots more out there on the tree. Marie sent a text saying what a good time she had last year and what were we doing for the long week end. Told her I am sick and tired and have not heard back from her. My damn cold is hanging on. did my first tweet today to Dave Dube. good to have someone to practise with. Added Dave Dube's monarchs video to Butterflies are Free. He is having some good success.

‎Friday, ‎July ‎31, ‎2015
Watered at the back. Brought the black pots closer to the front and watered the back by hand, filled the pond. Watered the orange trees and the deck plants. I have 3 more figs brought in today, ate 2 of them. Its about 27 degrees out. Not too bad while I was out there. The total figs with today's is 9 figs so far Brought in 6 dozen plums and cleaned and pitted them. Boiled them for 5 minutes with 1/4 cup sugar and a dash of brandy per 3 dozen. I have 5 glass pint size jars to be frozen. I am dumping out last years preserves that I did not freeze. They smell ok, but never tasted them.

August 2015

‎Saturday, ‎August ‎01, ‎2015
Nice day. About 27. About 2:00 I went out to deal with the top of the creeper that Pat had cut down and stuffed in the green bin to make it full. I chopped most of the magnolia, leaving the leaves and some twigs on the path. The leaves of the magnolia are dry and are going to make some nice leaf mulch, I think. I dragged the creeper out of the bin and put it at the back, where the magnolia was, to dry out. The green bin is about 1/4 full now. I had quite a few sticks to add to the wood pile and a cardboard box full of kindling twigs. Watered the patio plants with just a sprinkle. Picked 3 more figs, 2 of which are almost jam. There are quite a few out there yet. Total figs so far is 12 This took me until about 4:30... all on a bowl of popcorn and a cup of capiccino. I put the potatoe in to bake and the pork chops with garlic under them. I have picked 4 more plums, to eat and 2 of which I have to put on top of the pork chops when they have browned with a bit of brown sugar on top of the plums. Email back from Marie.. she has lots of people to visit so she says, so she won't be here. Seems I am not only sick and tired but have had a sex change too, unless you know another female called Mark. Emails from Dave Dube talkin Monarchs in his yard, etc. Have got a couple of photos done up for the mmmee Prairies 2015 album, and one for the MTFCA 50th anniversary done up.

‎Monday, ‎August ‎03, ‎2015
I took yesterday off and had a good nap. Today was a nice enough day, cooler in the am, but when I was out after lunch it was quite warm. I dragged the blackberries out of the strip between the driveways and dumped them across the road. I cut back the bloom stems of the agave... there were 3 of them to cut up and put into the bin, and some of the old dead strap leaves. I finished cleaning up the magnolia branches, except the big ones that Pat will cut up with the saw. There are leaves and twigs on the woodland path. I cleaned the vetch out out of the grass by the driveway across from the bamboo. Watered around the back a bit. I brought in 4 more figs and there were 2 on the ground, spoiled. The total figs now stands at 18. I only got one photo finished today. a comment made on megashot.

‎Thursday, ‎August ‎06, ‎2015
Tuesday we went for lunch at the sushi place after our meeting with Michael... nothing new there, we will leave things as they are. Yesterday, it was cooler and sure looked like we were going to get the rain they promised, but it didn't happen. I cleaned up the thyme circle, and clipped back all the big bamboo shoots. Started to dead head the French lavender.. got about 1/4 finished. Pulled the vetch out of the grass by our driveway. Watered at the back in the evening with the sprinkler for about an hour. Watered the roses and the thyme circle a bit. The 3 new thyme plants look dried up and dead. Brought in 2 figs and there was one on the tree that had was jam and had bug holes in it so I threw it away. Today I brought in 2 figs.. So the total figs now should be 23. I was out in the afternoon and mowed the grass, cut off sprouting trees along the Pees side in the little hedge and took blackberries out of that hedge too. Dead headed a bit. Cut most of the seeds off of one rhodo and weeded under it. Gave it a bit of water. Weeded a bit in the shade/moss/fern garden. Watered the deck and patio plants by hand. The green bin is stuffed full. There was a surprising amount of grass clippings. and all of yesteredays bamboo clippings filled it up.

‎Saturday, ‎August ‎08, ‎2015
Well, it is 1:30 in morning.. yesterday was Friday On Friday I did up 3 pickle jars of yellow plums (1 1/2 cups each) plus a smaller jar. Must have used about 5 - 6 dozen plums. They are getting too ripe and falling off the tree. Watered the house plants. After supper I managed to misplace all my F drive . data... pictures, music, documents, videos; by trying to get my freaking Acronis backup shit head program to work. I made it lose my permissions for the data files... and the new ones disappeared. Well... long story short, I evenually did a RESTORE my backups in Acronis from the MARGARET-PC backup. and all the data backed up and I have the data back. I put the #15 pictures into my storage file. I think the music is there too.. will have to redo the rest in my storage, including these desktop folders. So, I hope all the rest of the computer is working ok, if not I will have to call trevor... Picked 3 more figs for the total is now 26 a bit of rain this afternoon, not enough by a long shot. I checked more computer files and find 2 that are empty because I probably set them up under the old F folder which I deleted a while ago. There is nothing salvageable in storage and the backup will only return the same empty stuff. I deleted the back up it had done on Sat. and so lost the work I had done on the 2015 files for mmmee and calendars. Dammit.. I was trying to make more space for the wretched Acronis to add backups. Still can't read the .tib files, and don't know how to fix that. Don't understand why it is using so much space either. I will be putting things into the H drive for storage on a regular basis, now. To hell with Backup. At least I will be keeping my work safe from it. Must call Trevor about it sometime. Very tired after last nite.

‎Monday, ‎August ‎10, ‎2015
Yesterday we went to the Imax saw the steam train thing. Was really quite good. Walked around the inner harbor.. the place is crawling with tourists. Then we went out for supper of share a rack of ribs at the Boston Pizza place. Always good. Then, fool that I am, I was up till 4:00 am doing megashot views and looking for the names of those mountains I am taking pictures of every year. I have learned the Mt. Rundle one, and of course Castle Mountain and the Bow river, the 3 Sisters are in this Banff area too. Today, I got up at 9:00 and made the peach pie before lunch. The peaches are not ripe, so I added a few of the yellow plums and hope they add some good flavour. So, today we have used/eaten about a dozen plums with another half dozen in the house. I picked 2 more figs, so the total is now at 28.

‎Thursday, ‎August ‎13, ‎2015
yesterday brought in 4 figs making the total 32. It is very dry out. We are in a drought they tell us.

‎Friday, ‎August ‎14, ‎2015
Went for my LAB today late. JoAnne had trouble getting blood. Picked one more fig for a total of 33 It is sprinkling a bit and also brought in a bunch of grapes. Stirred the rumpot and brought some of it into one of the cole slaw jars. It was overflowing. Watered and fed the house, deck and patio plants. Watered the back rhodo with 2 green buckets of water. Watered the milkweeds in the pots and a bit on the garden. Filled all the water tubs and the pond. I see there are a few purple plums on the tree but I cannot reach them. I need to cut a branch off that tree that is falling over their strip of grass. The old baggage is putting her garbage bins under the tree and the garbage guys knock branches off the tree when they collect the garbage.

‎Monday, ‎August ‎17, ‎2015
Making Irish green broth soup double batch, and doing laundry. Stirred the rum pots. Picked 2 more figs yesterday for total of 35. Pat brought in a dozen purple plums today. It is the harvest for the year. Next year should be the big harvest again. We have had just a few spits of rain, so I should keep watering I suppose.

‎Tuesday, ‎August ‎18, ‎2015
Made squash quinoa tomato soup with 6 blue pkgs in the deep freeze. Ken Anderson is dying... he says he danced his dance and the piper now needs to be paid. He is not afraid.. and 'I am so outta here".

‎Thursday, ‎August ‎20, ‎2015
Went to Matticks Farm for lunch yesterday. Today I made 9 pkgs of Mulligatawny Soup. Lovely day out there 20 degrees.

‎Friday, ‎August ‎21, ‎2015
Made 4 pkgs of ham bean onion soup. It is tasty and very thick.. will need cream or milk added when heating maybe. Made 7 pkgs of diet soup .. cabbage and vegetables... very thick needs milk or water added when heating Ken Anderson died yesterday. I will note it on his poetry page.

‎Saturday, ‎August ‎22, ‎2015
Finished the updates on my web pages. Removed the sitemeter, added the SSL certificate badge, put in the 2015 travel things. Watered the house plants, deck plants and the patio plants. Watered the back for about half an hour and gave the fig tree extra water. Filled the water tubs and pond. There are 2 more figs that are going to be ready in a couple of days. Made a peach pie. The Acronis did a back up. I have no idea where it went. Trevor is going to be here at 9 am on Friday the 28th to fix it and have a look at Kasparsky setting. I made Kasparasky do a total scan last nite. It did the E, H and F drives. It showed a lot of backups that it scanned. It took a long time to do the back up drive.

‎Sunday, ‎August ‎23, ‎2015
Made 8 of the new blue 3 cup pkgs of minestrone soup and one 2 1/2 cup pkg. It is quite thick and can have water added. Actually finished it just after mid nite. I have put the soup beef bones on to steep in the pressure cooker and will turn it off over nite. This will be a tomatoe beef stock. Added salt pepper and bay leaf. The whole kitchen smells pretty good. The minestrone tastes good, too. Was a nice day out, again. Pat went off to a barbeque with some bike people after a light lunch. Hopefully, I will lose a few ounces today, as I did not eat much for lunch or for our late supper of rice, salmon steaks, and green peas, white wine and peach pie. Pat is finally gaining some weight, and I seem to be stuck at 150. I think I need to get down to at least 145 in the next 5 weeks. Did my nails and hair this morning. Uploaded the updated pages of my web site today. Added Ken's obit to his poetry page. Sooo, now I should be able to get back to doing my Sask 15 stuff, hopefully. ‎Monday, ‎August ‎24, ‎2015 Made 11 cups of very rich beef stock with tomatoe, potato, carrots, bay leaves and added beef bouillon envelopes (3). ‎Tuesday, ‎August ‎25, ‎2015 Made 9 new 3 cup pkgs of seafood chowder - prairie style. I have moved some of the soups downstairs to the freezer. I now have the rum pot up here. Made 4 of the new pkgs of Classic Pea with Ham Soup. Made 6 pkgs of vegtable with Ham Stock from the smoked hock and vegetable scraps. Made 4 one cup pkgs of chicken stock with left over bones, browned. Saved the bones over to the chicken stock bag. Picked 2 more figs for a total of 37.

‎Wednesday, ‎August ‎26, ‎2015
Made 6 pkgs of borscht with 1/2 one for testing. Made pkgs of borscht vegetable stock with a chicken bouillon in it.

‎Saturday, ‎August ‎29, ‎2015
We were to the Greek food week end last nite. good food. I finished the 18 bean soup last nite after being out. I have 7 pkgs to freeze. We have had about a half inch of the 2.5 inches that had been predicted. The predictions are for more rain on Monday and Tuesday.

‎Monday, ‎August ‎31, ‎2015
Yesterday we had another fig to put the total up to 38. Emptied one inch of water out of the water gauge. It is raining again and is quite cool out there. I need to fix the hose clamp back on to the hose of the water fall in the pond. And take the little willow out of its plastic pot and put it into the broken clay pot I have on the deck. Made potato soup for lunch with one pkg left over. Made Manhattan chowder with salmon stock, and the bits of salmon added to the chowder with clams. Did the laundry today and cleaned up the bedroom and its suite a bit. Brie from Godaddy called today to talk about the stuff I have on my account that I am not using. We removed the c panel from the .com hosting and now have the 'ultimate' hosting on that account. Was reimbursed the cost of the c panel and we added it on to the ultimate hosting to pay it up to 2018... I think. My domains are all renewable in 2019. I don't have the "managed" Word Press anymore. It was on the c panel that was on the . com hosting. I believe I have about $12.70 credit in my account from this transaction, but I do not see this credit anywhere in the account stuff which is impossible for me to follow. I think I still have the SSL certificate. When Trevor was over to fix my backupper thing and change to the new antivirus on the 28th, we spoke of having him host my word press and he will help me set it up.... When I have time. So, I want the mmmee.ca account for The Word Press. And I want the mmmee.me for Megashot if ever it gets finished, and I am able to have it on my own domanin... this is also for the future, I guess. But I am running out of time!

September 2015

‎Monday, ‎September ‎07, ‎2015
On Wednesday, Sept 2 I made and froze 4 pkgs of shrimp bisque. Its very good. We had some for lunch. Friday we were out to the Greek fest for supper again. Don't recall what I did on Thursday, or Tuesday. well, actually this is mid night on Sunday. I emptied an inch of rain out of the gauge as it rained quite a bit Saturday night. On Saturday, Pat helped me put the hose clamp back onto the hose to the water fall on the pump. I planted the little blue leaved willow by the pond. I thought it had big roots on it and I would need to cut the plastic pot off it; but the big roots that were attached to it and I thought, dropping into the pond, were broken off. So, I just emptied it out of the pot and planted it beside the pond. I guess I will have to keep it watered. I cleaned up a bit of the moss before the big rain came. Dumped some of the plum drop into the green bin and some I threw under the deck. Meanwhile, the cabbage rolls were burning in the oven in the house. Dammit. I pulled most of the burnt cabbage off and froze them. We had some for supper and they were just ok, not great. Today, Sunday, I cleaned up the bamboo sticks on the patio and the steel plant stakes from behind the garage are back in the garage. I removed the ugly plant black plastic flats I had tied up next to the Pees garbage cans. The cans are still on display across from my entry way. The blockheads. I started to remove a limb from the yellow plum tree and am about half way through sawing the limb off. Using the little pruning saw, or whatever it is called. It works pretty good. The Pond is full and the waterfall is running good. Made clam sauce with spaghetti, and browned butter with mizhithra cheese, for supper for Pat. I had clam sauce and the cheese on mine, no browned butter. and baked peppers. We had yellow plum preserves with frozen vanilla yogurt for desert. There is a hollyhock , michaelmas daisies and the pink lilly looking thing, next to the blue lily of the nile plants, cyclamens and fall crocuses blooming in the garden. A delphinium(royal blue) and one montebresia (red) blooming on the deck. One moth orchid blooming in the house and a couple of the african violets. I am slowly getting rid of some of these house plants that are not preforming.

‎Monday, ‎September ‎07, ‎2015
Made up the left over cabbage into creamed cabbage with cheese. After lunch I went out to finish taking off the limb of the plum tree. Sawed it all the way through, but it was intertwined with other branches on the top and would not come down. Finally got it down after twisting it around, and Pat cut the final bit with the pole pruner. I had been using the pole pruner to try to cut the twined branches but kept getting the saw caught because the big end was not stationary. Pat gave me his special plank to put over the pond so that the cut limb would not damage the pond, but fall on the plank. It worked. I also had a blue recylce box over the willow on the corner to protect it too. Started to take down the spruce tree that is too big for the space it is in, beside the Harry Lauder Walking stick nut tree. I will take the spruce out totally. The little lily of the valley shrub is crowded too. Maybe it can move to where I take out the spruce. Then, hopefully, I can get the moss spreading to under the area and over to the other side. I should get pictures for the 2015 year of my old web page. We have quite a lot of wood to cut up for storage in the garage. I must move my bags of dirt... maybe behind the garage where the Pees can't get at them to steal them. My milkweed from Dave is doing fine in its pot. Apparently they spread by the roots sending up shoots so maybe I could see it there is a cutting I could take and put into the garden. But somewhere that it will get more sun. Water is what it chiefly needs. Should go out to Marigold (they are closing) and see if they have any milkweed. I need a few thyme now that it has started raining. The ones I put in are dead, I think. There are lots of honey bees on the michaelmas daisies.

‎Tuesday, ‎September ‎08, ‎2015
Mixed up a few spice mixes, in the morning. Pat showed me where I have blue packages stored above the stove in that cupboard. OMG, and I have been buying packages and packages! I was out from 1:00 to 3:30 cutting up twigs from yesterday's branch removals. This sure opens up the area and light around the pond. I am thinking of taking out all of the spruce tree. I am using the twigs from this shrub on the woodland path. The leaves I put back there are getting packed down. No doubt it will be good leaf mulch someday. Maybe I can scoop it onto the woodland plants and get some chipped rock for the woodland path. Or just keep putting the leaves on the path... there are lots of bamboo leaves to move back there. Nothing much seems to growing around the bamboo leaves.

‎Thursday, ‎September ‎10, ‎2015
We ate the last big fig today for a total of 39. There are lots of little ones on the tree yet. Cleaned out the filter on the pump. Was up way too late last nite so am just too tired today. Packed my clothes and camera stuff, made a list for what else I have to do. Was a beautiful warm day out there. Watered the house plants yesterday. We leave for the Island Tour . Malahat Challenge of years ago, tomorrow a.m. This year it is in Nanaimo. Pat has the car all fixed , polished and in the trailer. Hope it runs very well through the tour.

‎Monday, ‎September ‎14, ‎2015
Made 5 of the 3 cup pkgs of very thick Lentil soup. Is a nice autumn day... cool, bit of cloud, but no rain. The cyclamens are blooming, the michaelmas daisies, the pink lily like things (nerines?) next to the lily of the Nile, and the heathers.

‎Tuesday, ‎September ‎15, ‎2015
Nice cool day. Taking some time off this am... did most of the cross word puzzle in the paper. Made spaghetti sauce with one pkg left over to freeze. Was outside for about 2 hrs. Mowed the grass and started the clean up on the little rockery. I am taking out the big green hebe. It is too big and leggy. I wonder if there is a minature hebe. Brought in two little figs. One looked good and ripe but was dry. Pat ate his half and some of mine.

‎Monday, ‎September ‎21, ‎2015
Home from the Can Am yesterday. Emptied a quarter inch of rain out of the gauge. Was sunny and coolish. Cut leaves off the fig tree to try to make them ripen. Hope it works. Brought in one more very dark round smaller one. Swept up the sawdust from the removal of the strawberry tree (arbutus) There are lots of bees on the michaelmas daisies.

‎Friday, ‎September ‎25, ‎2015
Brought in another fig and there are 2 more out there that are getting brown. So this should bring the total of eaten figs to 41. We had about a quarter of an inch of rain over yesterday and last nite. The temperatures are cooler now. Have watered the house plants. Last evening we had a Dungess Crab Feast, with baguette, balsamic vinagraite, a nice salad, and too much wine. Pat cooked and cleaned them and did a fine job. 12 minutes for each of them in boiling water. delicious but a $40 meal.. and that was just for the crab. Would have been at least twice that if we had gone out for it, or over to Pt. Angeles for the crab fest. Hope to get the can am and the Island challenge pages noted and loaded to my web page.

‎Saturday, ‎September ‎26, ‎2015
Playing with photoshop till 3:00.

‎Wednesday, ‎September ‎30, ‎2015
2 more figs on Monday. total figs is now 43. Have been doing a bit of gardening, cleaning up the little rockery, cut back some of the lilac bush and cut off the spent blossoms. Removed more fig tree leaves. Did laundry yesterday (still need to finish it today) and walked the river with the Peninsula Stream group that Ian Bruce is trying to establish to restore the Colquitz river and other water ways on the peninsula. Got some good photos. It was a bright and sunny day, from 5:30 to 6:30. red berries in the picture are Hawthorn. They talked of alders along the banks of the stream holding the bank together and slowing down the erosion. The vegetation in parts of the park is totally trampled down to bare compacted ground, too much ivy everywhere is the only thing surviving. There was one dogwood... tiny thing, and a witch hazel, a skunk cabbage. The tall evergreens seem to be cedars.. western red cedar maybe. Talked of building split rail fences to channel people along the paths, talked of building rock weirs to add oxygenation to the river, talked of adding all the gravel we can get to the stream as the fish need it to spawn. They dig into the gravel and add lay their egss in it. We looked over one of the bridges and Ian said if the water were drained off, we would find 700 to 1000 or so fish in the stream. Salmon, cutthroat trout, and one or two more species that I did not hear. Spawning season is coming soon, and we should walk the river and go to that spot with the weird weir in it and up stream a bit to a resting spot (or whatever it is called) (like a wide spot in the river with calm water just before the weir) and try to count the salmon. I was very tired after the walk. Must make a point of getting to bed at a decent hour. There was a moon eclipse on Monday the 28th that I have photos of. Apparently this happens only every 25 or so(according to this URL, that information I read is wrong, as there is another one next year, it seems) years. http://www.mreclipse.com/Special/LEprimer.html My eclipsed moon did not look red but was just black. Finished the laundry. Mowed the lawn. Finished cutting up the lilac branches. Removed the black berry on Shawna's side of the creeper. Filled the pond and watered a bit around it, while cleaning up the moss and the cement and stone paths. Watered around the patio plants a bit, and the little rockery and the veggie garden. Moved the white plastic pots out to the recyle for this week. Any binners can help themselves. I did not get the water iris divided yet. I am considering moving the variegated lily of the valley shrub to where I am taking out the spruce tree. The little pine tree might be a better idea to move to that spot. A smaller tree will allow a view to the polyanthuses and the epimediums and stuff along beside the round cement stepping stones.

October 2015

‎Monday, ‎October ‎05, ‎2015
brought in 3 more figs today to total 46 It has been a lovely warm day. Got nothing done, but grocery shopped. Am reading a book about McKenzie King by Allan Levine. We were out for dinner last nite with Art and Marlene to the 4 mile restuarant. Pictures of the garden today. Creeper, oak tree, etc turning colors.

‎Thursday, ‎October ‎08, ‎2015
3 more figs and there is at least a half dozen more. Total figs of 49. The leaves are tuning yellow and falling. Hope we get a bit more sunshine for them. I raked leaves off the grass around the front plum tree. Raked the leaves off the thyme circle and weeded it a bit. Cut out a bamboo runner from in the front rectangle bed. The hollyhocks in there seem to have died this year. Clipped the white rose down serverely and have a bouquet of them on the dinner table. There are lots of birds around the yard and across the street in the little forest.

‎Friday, ‎October ‎09, ‎2015
four more figs and 2 that were moldy. There are still lots out there. Total figs 53. Grocery shopped, made pumpkin pie and a kiche lorraine with the left over pie shell, for supper. Last nite I worked on the Changes - garden journal excerpts page and have it figured out how to do it. I don't really need the full menue but what the heck... its there. The journal entries start about June 2012. Takes up a lot of space. I must reduce the size of the type, maybe. I like the photo I used on it. Was a lovely day out today. overcast and some sun, quite warm. We did not get the promised rain.

‎Sunday, ‎October ‎11, ‎2015
Brought in 6 more figs for total of 59. There was a moldy one. Skimmed leaves off the pond. The water is quite clear. The 5 fish I saw are getting quite big.. maybe 4 - 6 inches. They are all gold colored. The leaves are all glorious colors. We had rain yesterday so emptied .5 inch of rain out today. I have spent hours and hours photoshopping John's photo from the summer. Gave him new teeth... maybe a bit too white. Making the duck feast for tonite supper, with pumpkin pie for dessert. Yesterday I watered the house plants, fed the orchids and cleaned up the violets. I must see if I can get some miniature ones.

‎Monday, ‎October ‎12, ‎2015
Rainy Fall day. Made duck stock overnite and then made up 3 old pkgs of duck soup with enough left over for lunch. This soup is very thick and can have water added. Tastes good. Should probably have a shot of brandy in it for a day like today. Made up 7 cups (plastic pots) of 1st run duck stock and 4 of 2nd run duck stock.

‎Tuesday, ‎October ‎13, ‎2015
Pat had a fig right off the tree... total 60 I walked from Dr. C's office to Chatham street where Pat parks and got there about 10. Got home and made stir fry... took forever and I thought it was going to be a treat. Was not that great. Went directly for a nap after.. and slept till Pat woke me up at 4. Did not want to wake up. Beans and Ham for supper was better than the stirfry. Got some picture stuff done... this family photos are not going quickly... have 3 more to do then will load to my old megashot.. family stuff. Will want to have some of the church at Lebret added too. As I code this page in March 2017 Megashot has been taken off line, so the photos are no longer on line.. just as well. I have space on the cloud with Canon for photos where I can add a password.

‎Wednesday, ‎October ‎14, ‎2015
Brought in 4 more figs total 64. and the wretched squirrel has been eating at 3 or 4 of them... spoiled, half of a fig on the ground. It is a beautiful sunny autumn day. The mock orange is in full bloom and smells heavenly. Cut back the butterfly bush so that I could get photos of it. Great autumn color in the creeper and the pin oak. The sumacs are not showing any great color, especially next to the pin oak. The sweet gum tree is turning.. mostly at the top. I guess the heat from the house and the protection from the hedges keeps the bottom warmer.

‎Friday, ‎October ‎16, ‎2015
brought in a dozen figs. Total is up to 76. Washed and froze about 8 of them in a syrup as per the freezing figs recipe. Hope they are ok for the winter eating. I have 5 left on the counter for eating and there are still lots on the tree. Is a lovely Autumn day again with sunshine.

‎Monday, ‎October ‎19, ‎2015
brought in 6 more figs. Total is up to 82 Raked the leaves off the crocus field and the grape hycinths that are up already. Then ran the lawn mower over them and over the pissy Pees bit of grass to pick up the leaves. Mowed the top strip as well, of course. Had a bag of mulched leaves and grass that I put on the back by the fence in the woodland corner. Did laundry, grocery shopped, walked to the voting poll. So, been busy all day.

‎Tuesday, ‎October ‎20, ‎2015
Brought in 13 figs today. Total is up to 95. Was out for about 3 1/2 hours. Mowed the back and dumped the bag of leaves and grass at the back of the woodland along the fence. Cleaned up the little rockery. I have set in a piece of the globaria (I think) from the little rockery at the front. Hope it takes hold. Skimmed off the pond and filled it. Clipped some of the cottoneaster back. Clipped back some of the michaelmas daisies. Ran the mower along the old sidewalk by the iris. This seemed to clean up the sidewalk nicely. At the front, I pulled out the bamboo shoots that were growing up by the smoke bush. Clipped back the clematis and the montebretia. Took a wheel barrow load of clippings to the bin and since it did not all fit, I left some on the woodland path. We need more rain. It just sprinkled a bit yestereday and there was high humidity and overcast but no rain today.. bit of sun. Justin Trudeau and the Liberals got a hugh majority in the election last nite. 185 seats. The NDP lost a lot of seats and so did the conservatives and Stephen Harper.

‎Friday, ‎October ‎30, ‎2015
Brought in more figs.. 6 or 8. There are lots on the tree and lots fallen on the ground. I raked leaves at the back and filled the bin with them. skimmed off the pond. Raked leaves at the front and mulched them with the mower for a bag and a half of leaves. Put this mulch on the woodland back by the fence. Was out from 2 to 5. It is a nice Fall day. Emptied one inch of water out of the rain gauge. Am reading on ipad and hard copy. Getting a few more photos processed from the Sask trip. Maybe when I finish this I can do up the album for my Travel page.

November 2015

‎Sunday, ‎November ‎01, ‎2015
I emptied 2 inches of rain from the gauge 2 days ago. With all the rain we had that day and night there were flooded homes, and power outages in the city. We were fine! On Saturday, it was a bit rainy, but nice about the time the Halloween kids came around. We only had about 36 of them. Today we went to the IMAX for two shows and then went to the Steamship grill for lobster. Sheila and Jim joined us. Was delicious! I have 61 photos added to my Sask 2015 album on Megashot. I must be about 1/4 finished the album.

‎Friday, ‎November ‎06, ‎2015
Lots of figs on the tree, the tree has dropped most of its leaves. I got a lot done around the house today. Washed the bedding and the laundry. Made 2 jars of cole slaw. Made beef/vegetable soup and have one pkg frozen. So there were 9 or 10 piles of wash. At least 12 times up and down the stairs. It is a grey day and bits of misty rain. Spare time spent looking at Penninsula streams and Saanich site. Sent my Otter pictures to the guy from the River restoration group, who thinks he is a hotshot at video. He won't be using it he said.

‎Monday, ‎November ‎09, ‎2015
Yesterday was outside from 2 to 4 raking leaves off the plants and shrubs. Put a couple of wheel barrow loads of leaves into the green bin and some down on the woodland path. Mowed the rest and put the mulched leaves on the woodland along the old garage and under the rhodo at the back of the garage. That rhodo has had a hard summer and has dried, dead leaves at the ends of some of the branches. I should probably prune it back. The moss is looking pretty good. I hope it spreads towards the fig tree some more this winter.

‎Wednesday, ‎November ‎11, ‎2015
Was out raking leaves from 2 to 4. Put the mulched bag full of leaves on the strawberries and the dahlia. Cut back some of the thorn bush and put it in the bin along with a bit of the yew tree.

‎Thursday, ‎November ‎12, ‎2015
Emptied 2 inches of water out of gauge at about 8:00 pm. Ran the Backer Upper and it ran and backed up F and C ... no bad sectors mentioned. Whereas, the automatic run said I had a bad sector. It called data STORAGE and it has 335.89 GB. The C drive (SSD) has 49.90 GB. So this is what Trevor mentioned... that I should run it manually. OK.. now I know I can do it, manually. Pissy thing.

‎Saturday, ‎November ‎14, ‎2015
Emptied 2 inches of water out of gauge at 10:00 am The gauge was over flowing, so there was probably even more than those 2 inches of rain, as it was raining quite heavily yesterday. The wretched backer upper ran on its schedule and misfired again... bad sector. I ran it manually and got a good copy, but cannot figure out how to see these backups. What a dammit thing. Then in the afternoon, I tried to reply to Pennisula Streams by clicking on the email they left, and it kept going to info@mmmee.com. I got so upset and confused and annoyed with this thing that I phoned Go Daddy about it. It was NOT them, but my freaking LIVE MAIL from Microsoft, so now I don't click on that email, but do reply to or Ctrl + R or click the reply too... GAWD AHMIGHTY. Microsoft is doing everything it can to get us to go to Windows 10 and the new Office bundle thing where we get a TB of cloud storage. I am not going for it. Apple had a big event in September and did a movie of their new Ipad Pro and all their new stuff.. the watch, etc. Amazing stuff. I started to re-read the Kurweil book The Age of Spiritual Machines, again. Am nearly finished the Elon Musk book, in hard copy. This technology stuff really is taking over.

‎Sunday, ‎November ‎15, ‎2015
River walk with the Peninsula streams group from 12:45 to 2:15. The sun came out but it was not above 10 degrees. We saw no fish. Our aim to do any work is to go with the gathering gravel and rocks to do the Lindsy St portion after they build the bridge and the trail along that portion of the river. Apparently the fish fence was robbed of fish.. down by Tillicum. But otherwise they are not getting very many fish this year. The frothy collections of bubbles are natural and ok for the river. Its called turbidity.

‎Monday, ‎November ‎16, ‎2015
Walked home from Royal Oak mall after having my blood tests for Dr. Terrice done. Lunch of miso soup at the Japanese place next to Dominos pizza. Shopped for groceries. Emptied 1 inch of water at about 7:30 pm. Did not see any fish in the river as I ran past the bridge. I made it home in about 35 minutes and Pat was sweeping leaves off the deck when I got home at 10:43. There are lots of leaves to rake up. I can put them on the woodland path behind the garage. They will break down over time. It is suppose to be raining and colder for the rest of the week. I need to bring in my orange trees as there was light frost on the ground in the morning. I have not heard or seen the black cat for a few days. I hope someone has taken it to spca or to their home.

‎Tuesday, ‎November ‎17, ‎2015
big winds and lots of rain. Emptied the rain gauge... it was over flowing so we had more than 2 inches of rain. Have a lady slipper in bud and the white phal has buds. Moved the orange trees into Rachael's room. They need feeding, the leaves are all yellow. ISIS hit Paris and killed 129 people. France has bombed 3 places in Syria and killed I don't know how many jihadists and innocent people. Horrible. Canada is going to take 25,000 refugees in before the new year.

‎Friday, ‎November ‎20, ‎2015
This morning there was news that the ISIS had hit a hotel in Mali. Killing I do not know how many people. I cried. Pope Francis is saying it is the End of Days. the Moslims have prophecies about the end of days, also. In the after noon I was out and raked leaves. Put a wheel barrow full of leaves from the side of the driveway into the green bin. The bin is almost full. Also added some raked leaves from the back garden. In the front I raked and added leaves to the rose bed at the front and to the area behind the bamboo. Ran the mower over grass at the front, up the Pees five feet, and then over the grass. I added leaves to the grass path after raking leaves off all the plants in the inner garden and mower mulched them. The leaves from the thyme circle went under the bench. Added a bag of mulched leaves to the Veggie garden, and some to the rhodo behind the old garage.

‎Saturday, ‎November ‎21, ‎2015
We have had some fairly heavy frost over the last two nights. I got the orange trees in, just in time. There is ice on the water table and it is only about 3 degrees. The pixie orchid and a yellow phal. are in bloom with a lady slipper in bud soon to open. it is Philippenense Grace Ann x Nancy. Cleaned and disinfected clay pots from on the deck. Repotted the miniature cattelaya that I bought at the grocery store. It's leaves were beginning to wilt. When I looked at the medium it was all soggy moss. I picked most of it out and put it into a slightly larger clay pot. It has roots going over the side of the pot.. I left them on and outside the new pot. I read where if you stuff them into the pot, they will most probably die. I am letting this plant dry out for a day or two, then will water it again. Have been reading orchid stuff all day. Hopefully, some of it will stick in my mind.

‎Wednesday, ‎November ‎25, ‎2015
On Sunday, we went down to the fish fence and listened to big Chris tell us a lot of good stuff about the fish. A woman was raking the debris out of the fence. Unfortunately there were no fish to see. Apparently there is a very low number of fish running this year in our river. We then walked more to marigold and violet and along this part of the river... called swan creek. They have had a very active group here for several years. There is the wattle fence, but the willow sticks did not root... the wattles are still in place holding the soil back and hopefully the native plants will grow. They put a lot of landscape fabric down to keep the blackberries from growing, and planted native plants in holes in the fabric. Ian says the fabric will have to be taken out. Pat looked it up and it bio degrades after about 20 years. We looked at how the riffles were made in a few places. There were some big rocks used! Today I planted a western red cedar that I brought home with me, in the park just across the street from us. Also skimmed off the pond. It is quite cold today and has been for the last few days. While trying to pull the dead leaf off the slipper orchid that is in bloom I broke off a new big growth off the plant. I have stuck it back in the pot and am hoping it decides to grow roots. The Isis crap continues. The last stupidity was that Turkey shot down a Russian bomber, they claimed was invading Turkish air space. It happened very near the border of Iraq where the Russians were bombing some ISIS area. What madness! It is so scary when you have madmen in charge of these awful weapons. ISIS seemed to be mostly young people who want to bring on the End Days, so they can all go to paradise and live happily ever after. Canada is going to bring in 25,000 refugees... women and children, no young men without families. Brussels is still shut down so that they do not get hit by the crazy suicide terrorists. I am reading Gwynne Dyers book.. Don't Panic.. about ISIS. Seems to be calming me down.

‎Saturday, ‎November ‎28, ‎2015
There has been frost the last few nites. I watered and fed the plants and trees today. In the last few days I have rediscovered my Canaon Image Gateway that has 10 gb of space. I am loading the Sask 2015 album to it. I might delete them all from Megashot. I have removed the people, for starters. I must re read the stuff on it. I don't know why I did not use it before... I had registered with the SX 60 serial number, and for some reason promptly forgot about it. Its easy to use, on my desktop, and there are thousands more things I can do with it with my phone, but do I want to?

December 2015

‎Thursday, ‎December ‎03, ‎2015
We went to Finest at Sea on Erie street, for about 5 lbs of ling cod bones. Also picked up a piece of Sable Fish. $20.00... bones were free. I made about 12 cups of fish stock, and have about 1.5 lbs of fish meat to add to the Fish stew. I saw the recipe in the paper, and so had to make fish stock. We have had high winds today but it is 13 degrees. Before that we had some cold weather with over night frosts.

‎Friday, ‎December ‎04, ‎2015
Was out from 12:30 to 3:00. Raked the leaves and put most of them on the woodland trail. Clipped back 2 of the heathers at the front and some of the michaelmas daisies. The Pees thrashed the corner of the honeysuckle hedge by their front. I cleaned out the dead branches and then put in 4 boxwood twigs to change the hedge to boxwood.. We were suppose to be getting a windy storm and lots of rain, but it has not happened yet.

‎Monday, ‎December ‎07, ‎2015
Emptied 1 inch of rain out of the gauge. We had winds, but not really bad. We did not lose our power. The pixie is finished blooming. I have psyche (2 little red blossoms), the lady slipper, the hai marie discolor (foliage), a yellow phal, and the big white phal with many buds. The violets were in bloom but are resting now. I made the fish stew on Sunday. It was okay, but I am going to be calling it a soup, now. The fish stock was very jelly like. Today I made coleslaw. Sat up last nite and watched The Late Great Planet earth movie with Hal Lindsay and Orsten Welles. Made in 1979. watched on utube. Clothes are definitely from the era. Bible prophecy ... it is hard to refute this line of thinking as presented in the movie. Having read the book back then, it has always stuck in my mind to reread it again. The way things are going now, it sure does look true. It is all about the mid east.. North and South Americas do not seem to fit into these prophecies. Read and watched the speech from the throne and the oval office address by Obama. I am still scared silly.

‎December ‎12, ‎2015
Yesterday was a bright, sunny day with no wind or rain. Today we are back to rain and suppose to get winds later in the day. We have had a few days of high wind and lots of rain. I just emptied 2 inches of rain out of the rain gauge. The lady slipper has 4 blooms, the yellow phal still has its 2 blossoms, the little red psyche has its 2 red blooms, the ludisia discolor (hai maria) has lots of blooms, the phal that was the infused blue one is opening the first of its 8 buds, in white. 2 african violets in bloom. I put the christmas cactus in the living room a few weeks ago, and lo and behold it is getting buds!

‎Wednesday, ‎December ‎23, ‎2015
Got a bit of work done on the Changes page, which is really the Journal Entries page, of my old web page. Am doing the excerpts from the journal for 2012.. am up to Sept, but only started these jounrals in June 2012, When I finish the 2012 one I shall do a new page and call it changes2013.. I do not want to make these pages too obvious, on the web site... they will be semi hidden.

‎Tuesday, ‎December ‎29, ‎2015
Have been doing a lot of baking and cooking. Xmas has come and gone. Have had cooler weather. To Marlene and Arts for Xmas day. I have added Google analytics to my .com web page. Am thinking about getting jalbum.. the one with ecommerce on it and then get a skin with the shopping cart. I could make a page and figure out how to load it to the .ca ... maybe ...or get a new domain...a new mmmee domain... for the jalbum and commerce. The jalbum sale is on until Jan 2. Pictures taken and printed for Pat's Tengai.. it is old enough for the vintage plate and cheaper insurance. Pictures of the orchids.

‎Wednesday, ‎December ‎30, ‎2015
I have been doing too much new stuff lately. I managed to set up google analytics on my mmmee com site and am learning how to read it. Yesterday, I paid for a Pro license for jAlbum. Trying to learn how to use this too. I am slowly getting the Change (garden journal excerpts) page finished for 2012. Then I will be wanting to do photo albums for each year.. starting 2009, I think. That is why I am searching this jAlbum to be able to add photo albums. I can phone Michael... I believe his name is... to find out how to add these albums when I get them done. Have to get some skins that I want to use... they are free, and I can get some for the commercial page that I might like to make on my mmmee ca account. It just goes on to more and more stuff! And nothing gets done in the garden. I have photos of the orchids that I should do up for my blog before the end of the year... like today!
Earthquake in Greater Victoria at 11:39 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015. Initially reported as 4.8 or 4.9 by U.S. Geological Survey, as a 4.3 by Natural Resources Canada. Seems we have been having clusters of these little shakings.
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Continue on to Journal Entries for 2016

Back to Journal Entries for 2014

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Welcome to the bottom of the page

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Annual Gardening pages

January - we occasionally get snow.
February - more rain, and some bulbs up
March - first spring bulbs blooming
April - rock plants blooming, grass needs mowing, fruit trees blooming
May - the garden is in full swing
June - lovely warm days of medium temperatures and roses in bloom
July - we need to water a lot in the summer as we do not often get rain.
August - the Fall perennials starting to bloom and fruit is ripening
September - harvest time in the vegetable garden and time to plant the winter garden
October - glorious fall colors and sunsets, fruit ripening and rains begin again
November - sometimes a lovely month with the Fall colors and warm rains
December - more rain, the garden is mostly greens and browns, very peaceful.
Water and Japanese Gardening - I built my pond with its 8 - 9 foot diameter
Fruit and Vegetables - grapes, figs, pears, apples, plums, and vegtables
Garden paths and Garden art - I have converted most of the lawn to gardens and paths
Rock and Alpines - I have a few small alpines in various spots around the garden
Woodland garden - I am trying to establish a few indigenous plants in this area.
Indoor gardening - orchids, cacti, African violets
Bugs - butterflies, birds, animals
From the Market - photos of bought produce or flowers
At the Show - there are a number of gardeing shows I attend annually
Mushrooms, lichens
Boquets - Creating flower arrangements for the house and for show is an
added benefit for creatativity as well as visual satisfaction.
Miscellaneous - in case I cannot decide where something belongs
Annual Journal Notes - This is the first page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2012 when I began to keep my garden notes on my computer. See the bottom of this first page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2013 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2013 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2014 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2014 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2015 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2015 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2016 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2016 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2017 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2017 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2018 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2018 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2019 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2019 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2020 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2020 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2021 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2021 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2022 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2022 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Outline of the garden changes - This is the first page of a series of three giving a tour of the my garden.
A description of the garden rooms - This is the second page of a series of three giving a tour of the my garden, and showing the creation of the garden rooms as well as some of the renovations over the years.
Annual Garden changes photo albums The third page of the series will be annual photo albums of the changes in the garden for the year, beginning in 2009.

Annual Photo Albums

• Garden 2022 - Put in 2022 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2021 - Put in 2021 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2020 - Put in 2020 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2019 - Put in 2019 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2018 - Put in 2018 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2017 - Put in 2017 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2016 - Put in 2016 stuff here. magnolia bed reno.


• Garden 2015 - drought, pond edges renovations,


• Garden 2014 - Put in 2014 stuff here milkweed, pond reno....Finished.


• Garden 2013 - Put in 2013 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2012 - Put in 2012 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2011 - Put in 2011 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2010 - Put in 2010 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2009 - Put in 2009 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2008 - Put in 2008 stuff here....Finished.



• Garden 2007 - Put in 2007 stuff here.



• Garden 2006 - Put in 2006 stuff here.



• Garden 2005 - Put in 2005 stuff here.



• Garden 2004 - Put in 2004 stuff here.



• Garden 2003 - Put in 2003 stuff here.



• Garden 2002 - Put in 2002 stuff here.



• Garden 2001 - Put in 2001 stuff here.




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Links:

Links:

(VHS) Victoria Horticultural Society: http://www.vichortsociety.org

(HCP) Horticultural Center of the Pacific: http://www.hcp.ca

(VIRAGS) - Vancouver Island Rock & Alpine: http://www.virags.ca/

Victoria Orchid Society: http://www.victoriaorchidsociety.ca

Native plants: - http://russellnursery.com/natives/

Plant photos by common name: - http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/browse_imgs/plant_com_1.html