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 2016

SYNOPSIS of the year

1. The year of the bullfrogs: This summer there were 2 bullfrogs in the pond. The Frog Watch people could not tell me how to catch them. One frog left after a while and by October 1st both frogs were gone. I drained the pond, but did not catch the frogs. At this time I have 8 fish: a sarrosa, 2 shubunkins, and 4 commets. Have a new food for the fish and they have good color and are growing nicely. There is a shubunkin in the deck tub and a gold fish in the woodland tub. I have the Zanteschia (white) in an off white pot next to the pond and it, too is growing. I need to bring it in for the winter. Two of the willows survive; one in a tall pot the other by the pond with its roots in the water.

The garden in 2016

2. Removed the blue spruce and replaced it with more primulas, hepaticas, epimediums, shooting star, a chocolat lily, maiden hair fern, the pink pots feature, a rhodo, and am expanding the Japanese garden moss to the primula bed.

3. Removed the over grown birds nest spruce from the magnolia tree bed at the front and added a few more cement blocks and stones around the water meter. Cut back the heathers, planted annuals and will be adding more little rock garden type plants, and perennials.

4. Removed the juniper from by the front step. The globe cedar wraps around the peony tree forming a 'pot' for the peony. Planted a tiny volunteer yew tree by the stump of the juniper. The blue geraniuum should now have better exposure. There is a hyacinth in that spot, also.

5. Pat pruned the apple tree and the fig tree a year ago. This year there is an abundance of fruit on the trees. We ate fresh yellow plums and Trevor and family came over to pick some of them. The purple plum tree was loaded with fruit and we had 5 or 6 dozen fresh ones, as well as 14 packages of processed fruit, and some packaged for another pie. As at October 5th the apples need more ripening. The final crop was huge. We shared apples with Tara, Valerie and Harvey, and other friends, the deer. :) There are lots of second crop figs, but we have had a few fresh ones. The grape produced lots of grapes this year. They are good in salads.

6. The milkweed project has one showy milkweed from Dave that is in a pot and will be food for monarch larvae if I get monarchs for release next summer. I have one tuberosa milkweed growing in the cutting garden, with 2 more orange flowering ones in the tall pots. I got 2 swamp milkweed from Cannor and have them potted up in gallon size pots. They need lots of water and should bloom in pink and be fragrant.

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January 2016 ‎

‎‎Friday, ‎January ‎01, ‎2016
Was a bright and sunny day but cool.. about 5 degrees. Drove around the waterfront and back to McCalls for doughnuts on the VCCC New Years Day run. Was ok but the sun was way too bright. I wonder if they can check the ozone layer.

‎Thursday, ‎January ‎07, ‎2016
The waterfall was running very fast and when I looked over the deck at it, I see that the pond is down to below half. Had to go out and switch the flow of water to slow it down. And since the water is not turned on out there, I decided to leave the pump off until I get some rain to fill the pond again. There are leaves all over the garden, so I need to get out and clean it up. We have had frost at nite and a few sunny days with low temperatures. Pat and I have both just got over a bout of the flu and had our first full meal in about a week, tonite. I have more books to read. The gaia ones promise to be fun, actually. I have added google analytics to my web page, joined playnow on the lottery corp., have down loaded jalbum and paid $74 usd to them for a premium account... I think... I am suppose to be able to use to sell stuff on.. on their servers. I think I can keep the jalbum to use to make albums, forever. My account runs out in a year. I am suppose to be able to add this stuff to my own domain... not sure if I need to pay for the priviledge or just use my jalbums.. some of the skins allow a cart, but since the cart is through jalbum... I believe I would need to pay the annual hit... bad idea to pay them and sorry I did it. I have a year to read up on it and see if I want to use it, other than to make albums. Not sure I even want to do that for adding to my own .com page. I have almost finished the Garden Journal excerpts for 2012, so I guess I did get something done on the page. AND I have found Canon Image gateway where I have 10 GB of space and have added the photos from our trip to Sask. I have up to Winnipeg and a day or so beyond... on the way back home.. done and loaded. Gave the URL to Pat and to Colleen. Have not heard from Colleen on it, yet. Have not sent it to Fran, yet, since Colleen does not seem very interested. There won't be calendars this year. Joshua said he used Staples and was pleased with the results. He also made cards using them, too.

‎Saturday, ‎January ‎09, ‎2016
Filled the hummingbird feeder - 1 cup, yesterday. It was sunny and 6 degrees today. The hummingbird was around to eat. I left apple peels on the deck railing yesterday and they were gone. I wonder if it was the jays. Today I left the popcorn scraps out on the railing. We were out to dinner at the chinese buffet place, with Sheas. Was delicious food. Found a nice looking new guestbook. Free... not much advertising, or pay $15 USD per year.. nahh. http://www.smartgb.com/ Will remove the old guestbook text and add it as my first comment in the new book. Have had a look at the blog page and moved the dragon over one more blockquote and will leave it as is.

‎Sunday, ‎January ‎10, ‎2016
I have the guestbook added. It is not quite what I expected. It is a link to click on and the guestbook is there. It has posts reviewed by me before they are loaded. Should be fairly safe. The hummingbird food is out and the birds are eating. There has been at least 2 of them. The other birds are eating the apple peels I put out on the deck railing.

‎Tuesday, ‎January ‎12, ‎2016
It is rainy today. Not enough rain to fill the pond yet, though. I finished the Garden Journal Excerpts for 2012, and have the new guestbook working. Started the Journal Entries for 2013 page. There is only one spot where you can find the Journal Entries.. on the gardening page drop down menu. I don't really want everyone to find this. It is just for my information.

‎Saturday, ‎January ‎16, ‎2016
Cattleya intermedia (Oriata x Aquinll) species has one bloom. deep magenta lip the rest is maueve color. Pictures today. Also of the phal. that was the blue infused plant, has ten blossoms in white. The pond is slowly refilling.. still have the pump turned off. I did see at least one fish in there so I imagine the rest of them survive. It is warmer today, but bits of rain. I spent some time reading about running the jalbum, have the guestbook working.

‎Sunday, ‎January ‎17, ‎2016

We were to the IMAx at 10:00 to see the Van Gough thing. Then for chicken soup at The chicken Chalet. Home and then back down to the VCCC run out to Matticks at the end of a very nice run. It rained some, but not too bad in the Bentley. Had seafood chowder at Matticks and went to the plant place and found a blue polyanthus I had to have, and a delosperma or Ice Plant called fire spinner which has been grown on Vancouver Island. Likes light well drained soil, drought tolerant. Long lasting tricolored daisy like flowers with contrasting centers, evergreen foliage. 2 plants for $2.75. 4" - 6" and spread of 15 to 20 inches. I think I will put it in the little rockery at the back. The new poly goes in the polyanthus collection bed. Got a little bit done on the Journal Entries page for 2013 on my web page. Was warm out today. I must get out and do some more clean up and cutting back shrubs and evergreens.

‎Monday, ‎January ‎18, ‎2016
Was out for 2 hours,. 10 degrees and over cast. I cleaned up the Agave plant and cut out a few blackberries along the driveways strip. The green bin is almost full of dried plant material. I pulled the water iris pots out of the pond and split them into smaller bunches. They were quite tight in their pots because they are stuffed full of roots. I put what I hope is dead roots back into the edges and the bottom of the pots to get the plants up to the top of the pots. Moved rocks around behind the pots to make the edge better. I see those nasty blue bells are trying to come up where ever they can, despite my covering them with cardboard and newspater and mulch. Dammit. I may need to give them another covering of cardboard. I filled the pond and have the waterfall running again. There are at least 3 gold fish in there. The daffodils and snow drops are sending up sprouts, but I don't see crocus leaves yet. The cyclamen has a few blooms. Hosed off the side walk by the suite's door. I am constantly bringing in tree debris from the cedars. The cedars have a lot of dry leaves from the drought last summer. I will be able to get 36 months of the jalbum if I convert my Pro account to the standard or whatever its called. I get 10 GB of storage for about 25.00 usd a year. They will change this account for me. Then I will have to keep paying them for the storage space until I learn how to upload these albums to my web page. I don't think I will need a commercial account. If I find I do, I can always go for it again and pay the big bucks. I have yet to find other accounts on jalbum that are commercial. Anyway, I should be able to get a Megashot account to do any selling that I want to try and do. IF this megashot ever gets finished!

‎Tuesday, ‎January ‎19, ‎2016
Went to Canadian Tire to get a colander and garden gloves. Made a new pond skimmer out of the colander. I wired the 5 1/2 foot bamaboo stick to the handle of the colander and covered this with duct tape. This should be good for another few years of skimming the pond. It should work for scaping the leaves off the moss garden, and maybe even for a plum plucker. It was about 8 degrees and overcast today. Did not get out to garden though. Jalbum have converted my account to a Premium account where I have 10 gb of space.. for 36 months. The hosting space for commercial costs more. I should get $15.71 back from them... they said it would take a few days.

‎Friday, ‎January ‎22, ‎2016
Lovely warm day 13 or 14 degrees and sunny. watered and fed the house plants and trees. made 3 jars of apple sauce and am getting the laundry done. clipped most of the plants on the deck back ... the montebreias and water iris are starting to come up. In the moss garden the snowdrops are in buds. The cyclamen along the old sidewalk has a few blooms.

‎Thursday, ‎January ‎28, ‎2016
Sun was shining, it was 13 degrees, so I got my gardening duds on, took out the compost, got my camera and was out taking a few photos and the wind came up, and the rain came down! Of course, I scurried into the house. We have had a lot of rain lately, so the garden is quite soggy. Yesterday, I swept off the deck and clipped most of the deck plants back. It looks ok and the garden is looking ok too. The pond is good, with the irises cleaned up. On my old web page, I am getting the Garden Journal pages done up. Am half way finished Sept for 2013. Amazing the things I see put into this journal... needless to say, not all of it gets into the garden journal entries. I now have jAlbum and 3 years of the hosting space of 10 GB. I intend to make albums and then embed them into my web page. Perhaps someday I may figure out how to add them without over writing anything. I updated my Quick Time today, and glory halleluya, my web page music still plays. I have added Google Analytics to my page and am learning how to read it and get the information. I have orchids in bloom... a species little cattelaya, the white phal with 10 blooms, the hai maria thing with colored foliage, and some african violets. The Pixie bloomed (2) a little while ago and lady slipper Grace Ann had 2 blooms and long hanging twisty petals. It is finished blooming too. Now, 3/4 of an hour later, the sun is out again, clouds are gone. I'm not falling for that again. I have a nasty cold, caught when we were out to the Imax on Sunday. Updated my Itunes a few days ago, and my ipad has a new ios update. I had to connect it to my computer, and run itunes to make it update. I really should back it up to my computer.. have to learn how first.

February 2016

‎Monday, ‎February ‎01, ‎2016
Was about 7 degrees, some sun, some clouds. Watched the trucks and men dig holes for what is going to be new poles for the over head phone and hydro wires; in the morning. Watered the house plants and the trees. Am doing a lot of new stuff.. google analytics on my page, new guestbook for my page, and jAlbum to make albums to embed on my page. These albums will allow comments. There is some nice skins in that software. I have a license and 3 years of hosting space for up to 10 gb of albums... should hold a lot of albums. Have this video/audio email making program from Joshua. Have to figure out how to use it. And then there is the converter thing that changes the Audacity files which should be exported as WAV, into .mp3 for audio. There will be all the video things to explore on it. I am half way through the Changes Garden Journal excerpts for 2013... on note pad, for my gardening page. These started at 2012, and then there will albums for these changes in the garden each year. I think I start these changes albums in 2009 or 08. I mostly have blog photos for them.

‎Friday, ‎February ‎05, ‎2016
We had a lot of rain today and warm .. 10 temps. I did a lot of stuff on the computer today. But did not seem to get anything done. In the garden there are yellow crocuses up in the crocus field. Yesterday the Hydro guys finished putting up the new pole across the street from us and the one further up the street has a night lamp on it. This lights up the street and adds light pollution to the sky where before, I was able to observe the moon and stars. Have many pictures of this two day installation of poles and all the stuff they attached to the poles. While they were adding stuff to the poles with 3 or 4 trucks with equipment on them, people had to drive around the trucks, and so messed up the edge of the crocus field. The Hydro people had a landscape company put dirt on the ruts and grass seed on top of that. The new dirt is just on the edge of the crocus field. The Yellow crocuses look ok coming up next to the black dirt. While out looking at this I noticed there are more branches knocked off the plum tree. Well, I might take to moving those garbage cans onto their own propery, instead of beneath the plum tree. Such nasty neighbors. I think it is time I down sized and moved.

‎Saturday, ‎February ‎06, ‎2016
Very nice overcast day, 10 temps. I printed an apx 10 in X 8 in copy of the roses by the front door (2500 X 2038) at 300 dpi. Had to reduce it in size to make it fit onto the printed page. Have it framed, the matting is too light, but fits nicely, and hung in the living room. I think it looks good. Am calling it Irish Cottage Door with Roses. A walk around the garden and a few photos of yellow and light blue crocuses. There are daffodils in bud, with short stems. The polyanthus are showing growth and some with buds. Lots of clean up to do yet. There was a dead fish in the pond... one of the bigger ones. I will need to get more fish, when it warms up. There are traces of bunnies in the back garden. Since I took away the ugly fence I had built in front of the burning bush sprout those people have managed to break this sprout over sideways... have no idea if it will survive. I now have 2 cedars growing in that corner and hope they fill out between them to make a privacy wall. I think I will plant boxwood in front of them, just to give the twits something to mangle.

‎Tuesday, ‎February ‎09, ‎2016
Yesterday was a beautiful day, and today was even warmer to 14 degrees. I did not get out though, as I am still suffering this wretched cold. There was a lovely pinky sunset just after 5:30 tonite. While out photographing it I noticed the pump was shut down. Just earlier in the day, it seemed to be running perfectly. So, it is turned off for the night. I will have to fix it tomorrow. Must check the reset button first. Pat had left the garage door open and said it smelled like pot out there when he went to close it, earlier. So, makes me think I really should check that reset button first. I don't know how those fish do that.

‎Wednesday, ‎February ‎10, ‎2016
Another lovely day. My cold is almost gone. I vacuumed the house. It looks and smells a lot better. Had Romeo's pizza for supper for my reward. Plugged the pump in again and it ran just fine. First tested the plug in with a light bulb and the reset button did not seem to be the problem. So, it runs now. I need to find the filter that is missing from the pump, and that takes draining the pond. Well, its possible to do that. Godaddy renewed my SSL certificate. The dates do not seem to show it as a renewal date. It seems to be good until some day in Aug of 2017, now... for a cost of $101.00. I have now put it OFF of the auto renewal. It should now be good till August 2017, I think. I will certainly NOT renew it, especially at that price. I cannot get a refund, if I cancel the damn thing. I DID find my Google Analytics ... not much activity. The Russians are gone. Wonder what they ripped off. Was looking at a new StatCounter for my blog. It seems to be an extra complication to add it for mobile. To hell with it for now.

‎ February ‎12, ‎2016
Yesterday, I text chatted with Wolter at Go Daddy. He sent my $101.99 credit back to my credit card... they took it from my old visa. It should be in my credit card account with in 6 - 8 business days. There is a week end so make that 8 to 10 days. If it does not credit back to that old visa I need to contact Go daddy again and they will put the credit towards 5 months of hosting time. I really hope it goes through the credit card. Firefox is no longer able to play my Quick Time to listen to the music on my old web page. So, I won't be using FireFox unless I can get an older copy, but I might lose my bookmarks. I should see if I can import them to Chrome, or maybe just move the ones I use. Yesterday I got the laundry done. So, I feel nicely caught up in house stuff. I vacuumed the house on Wednesday. Watered the house plants and fed and watered the orange trees yesterday, too. Today, I was outside from 1:30 to 4:30. Was a lovely warm afternoon, but rained buckets in the morining. Pat was out too... pruned the fig tree and the apple tree. I got the perennials cut back. Trimmed a bit off the holly tree where the apple tree was growing into it. Cleaned up the little rockery at the back and planted the new ice plant into it. Raked the leaves off the grass. While cleaning up along the top of the stepping stone path I see that there are Hycinths trying to grow up through the stones. So I removed the stones where they are growing and added more top soil. Have the few stones on the strawberry patch side of the rockery. There is still more clipping to do of the heather and the herbs and all that stuff. I set the willow in the white box upright, after punching a hole in the bottom for the water to escape. Cleaned up most of the blue bells. This smothering them worked fairly well by the pond and at the back of the woodland. They are still coming up at the front where the fawn lilies grow. I may just have to smother them there too and get new fawn lillies and columbines, honesty and whatever else is growing back there. The species tulips are just as bad and the blue bells. I need to clean them out of the iris bed. Should be able to dig it all over and renew the irisies at the same time. I cut back the old perennials on the Pee's side and cut back the clematis. It has long buds on it and the Japanese anemone is about 8 inches tall. Clipped back the rose a bit and left the thorny clippings by the stump of firethhorn. I see they broke down the firetorn sprout that was growing out of the stump. They have also broken down that corner of the honyesuckle hedge. I put new little boxwood shoots into the ground, by the firethorn stump and some under the broken honeysuckle... I need more boxwood along there, so it grows into a nice hedge and I can cut the honeysuckle to the ground. .. or leave it to protect the boxwood while it grows. I raked some of the dirt that the Hydro guys left at the front higher up over the crocus field, especially where those twits set their garbage bins under the plum tree.. which has branches broken off it... left the branches there too. There were lots of little crocus leaves coming up there. And a few yellow ones in bloom,. There is more to do, but for all the time I have spent out there, this garden is not too bad, if I must say so myself.

‎Sunday, ‎February ‎14, ‎2016
It was a rainy day yesterday. Pat dropped me off at the Church on Elk Lake Drive for the Orchid show. I spent $94.53 on 4 orchids and the entry fee. Orchids: From Paramount Orchids, Calgary 1)cattleya Wilsmara Kolishri - fragrance, in bloom with lovely raceme of spotted burgundy with gold on the inner flower for $28. and tax to $31.36. 2) Lc Secret Love HSinying - $20. 3) Phrag. Sedenii - Schlimii X longifolium - 22.00. The Phrag and the Lc are from the Asian guy at the gate of the Victoria Orchid Society. 4) Milt. Breathless 'Beauty' - 15.17 The lady said the Milt. will not need repotting until after it blooms next year. Can ordcr from them. It is a pansy orchid. Red/wine with stripped lower fat petal. It is $20 in their on line catelogue. I will need to repot the orchids soon. I see it has been 2 years since I did that in March 2014. I will need one or two new larger pots. When the arial roots are out of the pot the plant is looking for food and moisture and it is time to change its bark, etc. Add charcoal. Awful pushy people at the orchid show and sale. The ones I noticed always seemed to be trying to stand in the same spot where I was. I believe they were Portugese and they can stand and push anywhere they want to, its their church after all. Today was a heavy misty day. We went on the VCCC run out to Island View Beach. Lots of cars out there... amazing. Then got home before 3:00 and we had the duck feast. We have half of the duck left this time. The pump has slowed down a bit, so I will need to increase its flow, I think, for now. I am a beat bunny now with dishes done. Still have to list the orchids on the orchids page. I believe I now have the orchids lists caught up. With the new ones there are now 33 orchids with 2 that look like they are on their last gasp. The old Milt. and the Andean Fire are not doing well. The Milt has never been good and the Andean Fire seems to have gone down hill since its last repotting. I have another Cat that is drooping too... it is the unknown one that I bought at Mr. Grocer about a year ago. It was in bloom. When I looked at its potting media it was all soggy around the roots with moss. I ripped some of the soggy out, but I should have just totally repotted it. I will get about 4 more bigger pots... plastic pink for Pixie and a burgundy or dark green small one for the new mini cat that is in bloom now.

‎Monday, ‎February ‎15, ‎2016
Made duck soup and have 4 pkgs to freeze.

‎Tuesday, ‎February ‎16, ‎2016
Clipped the white rose back. It has quite long leaf sprouts already. Clipped back the Tree peony. I think it will need some fertilizer. Got the pump running again. My left eye is sore and bloodshot again. Wonder if this has to do with this wretched cold I have. It is sunny out, but think I will stay in due to my eye and tiredness, too. Was up quite late last nite.

‎Thursday, ‎February ‎18, ‎2016
To Cannors for charcoal and pots for the orchids. Lots of them need repotting. And it is time to repot the violets also. I have 2 larger clay pots in from on the deck and washed with a bit of bleach. I have a black one for the new little Cat that is in bloom and a big pink one for the pixie. So, of course I can put one of the others into the old pixie pot. The pixie in its new pot will have to go beside the light garden because it will be too tall in its new pot. I see from my TD rewards that were at $1.79 and were at $1.00; that the Go Daddy credit has gone back into my account. I should probably remove the SSL thing from all the pages. Blah.

‎Saturday, ‎February ‎20, ‎2016
Sunshine, 10 degrees. Was only out to take photos and have a look around the garden. The crocus field is outstanding. I don't think the people on the trail take the time to smell the crocuses, though. Maybe their dogs do. Did some ipad stuff today. The ipad is not much faster, but at least I know I don't need to back it up. I do not understand why I cannot back up though. I seem to have lots of space left. Can't remember what I started with. It says I have 47 or so, GB available. I just have no idea. It is an older chip, so it won't be as fast ... it was fast enough when I bought it. It has been updated and so many 'things' added to it. I think I disabled some of them today, especially in notifications which I never use. If I need to have it back as the last update was, I suppose I just restore. Who knows? Mozilla has gone insane over these privacy issues. Like who cares? I have nothing to hide... use my identity. HA Added some stuff to the discussion on Megashot in my community: In the garden. All about pollinators.. bee like things.

‎Sunday, ‎February ‎21, ‎2016
Cooler today and a bit of rain. I got a start on repotting my house plants. Have the Pixie Cat. in a huge pink pot. It has been 2 years since I repotted them, so they are leaping out of their pots. One of them had a lot of roots attached to the clay pot. I hope it survives in its new potting mix. I will repot the lady slippers even though the roots are not running out of the pots. It took me 2 hours to get 4 orchids repotted... cleaned pots, etc.

‎Tuesday, ‎February ‎23, ‎2016
Was a sunny day .. 9 degrees.

‎Wednesday, ‎February ‎24, ‎2016
Nice day. Probably about 12 degrees and overcast. I was out in the garden for 2 hours. I raked dirt off the lower part of the bouelvard planting and onto the crocus field. Then packed it down with the rake, then added grass seed all along. I added a bit more topsoil on our driveway end. Hopefully the grass will grow before the birds eat it all. I scattered some grass clippings on it, up to about the middle. I clipped back the perennials. Most of them have buds popping up. Left some of the clippings on the flower bed and added topsoil to the perennials... 3 peonies, a veronica, a baby's breath looking thing and a lupine. The wretched daisies and violets will have to be dug out. I need hollyhock replacements... or maybe something that likes an acid soil. The bed on the otherside needs more attention. I think there may be bluebells coming up in it. I should add some mushroom manure to each side, too. Was to Canadian tire earlier and got 2 more bags of orchid media for $22.00. The house plants and trees need watering.

‎Thursday, ‎February ‎25, ‎2016
was out for a couple of hours. was about 13 - 14 degrees and sunny. The green bin is full. Had to rake over the mud and grass seed where the ..probably the postman.. had made a little ridge by driving on the edge of the soil. Got most of the clipping down of perennials etc done. There is still weeding to do. wretched daisies are still coming up in the crocus field. The rhubarb has little shoots. There are foxgloves coming up on the cutting garden and in pots.

‎Friday, ‎February ‎26, ‎2016
rainy overcast 12 degree day. Repotted 7 more orchids. Have a pkg of orchid mix soaking out on the deck. dry mix is suppose to be very bad for the roots... ooops. A couple of them had dry mix added and were watered. I am doing Phals.. I think the store bought ones may have been the ones with dry mix. Was at this for 3 hours including the clean up. Dumped the used mix over the deck railing on the Pees side. This morning I did a top up of my phone account. They said if I did the auto top up thing I could keep my $76 unspent money. So, I did the auto top up thing when my account gets lower than 5.00 every 30 days. I should be good for 3 years the way I spend.

‎Saturday, ‎February ‎27, ‎2016
Was an overcast warmish day with bits of sun and rain. In the afternoon I cleaned up and repotted another tray of orchids. I have the phals. on one tray and the paphs on another. The Cats and all others are on 2 other trays, with the African Violets on a tray, and the cactus on a tray. After I finish the last tray of orchids I will repot the African Violets. This will leave the cactus and the plants in the living room. I am thinking of throwing out that tall tree like thing. It is in a big pink pot. the pink pot should be able to join my collection of pink pots outside. When I take out the spruce tree that is too big for its spot, I could arrange the pots in that area, along with the little pine tree from the rockery at the back. This should free up some space for more moss where the pots are now. Also, there are some pieces of a tree that the hydro guys cut down. They are moss covered and I should rescue them for my moss garden, too. I need to take out the straggley skimmia from under the deck and perhaps grow some more moss in that area, and look for some deep shade plants.

March 2016

‎Tuesday, ‎March ‎01, ‎2016
Yesterday I finished repotting the orchids and did the laundry. Today it was pouring rain. I went to the museum and got photos of the mammoth, the John Lennon car, and some other stuff. Terrible gray sky. I now have 2 white orchids in bloom. One just finishing, the other starting... but I repotted it anyway.

‎Saturday, ‎March ‎05, ‎2016
Finished potting the African violets 3 days ago. Now have them sitting on the old microwave stand. Have my teddy bears from the pass through cupboard up on top of the computer desk. The African violets seem to be happy enough by the window for light and coolness and recovering from the potting. There are 11 of them. I filled the hummingbird feeder yesterday and I see there are humming birds feeding. The orchids seem to be doing ok. I might lose the Andean Fire. Pat was out taking off more branches... off the fig and the plum tree. I was just out earlier to collect new daffodils for in the house.

‎Tuesday, ‎March ‎08, ‎2016
overcast day, about 11 degrees. The crocuses seemed to have all been mashed to the ground except the white one. Some kid or dog probably did that. We have had rain and overcast days lately. One day it got up to 14 degrees. The Pixie orchid has another bud on it! and the White phal has 4 big blossoms. the polys or primulas are blooming, and the hellebores, and the daffodils, and the magnolia is in bud, as well as the yellow plum tree. We go out to dinner tonite to HoJos so maybe tomorrow I will get out. Waterfall is running good.

‎Wednesday, ‎March ‎09, ‎2016
We have had fairly heavy rains today, and some heavy gusts of wind. Got 6 grow lights for the light garden today and a matt for the deck. The lights were 9.88 or so, each. The matt was an unbelieveable 36.00. Prices for things have just gone up so much in the last year or two. The pixie cat. has at least 2 blooms coming out. I shall put new light tubes in the top and the bottm layer of the light garden and leave the middle one with just 2 tubes, as I am going to put the African Violets back there in a few days.

‎Friday, ‎March ‎11, ‎2016
I have all the light tubes showing light on the light garden. I have decided to repot the cactus, rather than throw them out. I should do the living room plants also, except the big one. This may not get done until after the 17th. I am making up stuff for our St. Patrick day meal with the corned beef. I have made vegetable whip (as the potato), will be making the green dip, the Irish yellow broth, and the crepes ahead of time. Will make the bacon and beer braised cabbage on the day, and put the crepes together on the day, also. We go for helicopter ride on Sunday, if the weather is fit. Saturday, I shall make the soup. Monday, the dip and tuesday the crepes. So that leaves Wednesday, in case I need more time for any reason. We have been having 9 - 10 degree days with showers. The other night we had high winds and lots of rain. Our power did not go out, as it did for some people. The crocuses are finished, and the blooms on the harry lauders walking stick are finished.

‎Monday, ‎March ‎14, ‎2016
Was some sun, some rain today. Last nite we phoned Dan. He is doing fine. He had a stroke about 3 weeks ago, drove himself to the hospital, but they frigged him around and he could get no attention. So he drove home, and called an ambulance. Finally got into the new stroke/heart area and they looked after him. Kept him in for a week. He goes to therapy next. He sounds good. Caught it early enough, despite the stupid stuff at the hospital. Were on a VCCC run yesterday and could not go on the helicopter as it was too rainy and windy. Today, I watered and fed the plants, took some photos. After lunch I cleaned the windows in dining room and the living room and dusted/cleaned. Then vacuumed. At about 2:00 we went for gas and lottery tickets at the co-op and on to the grocery for buttermilk, eggs, etc. at the co-op. We got home and I made the Irish soda bread... 4 loaves. We will test it tomorrow with lunch. Supper of salmon, shredded potatoes, cole slaw, left over veggies.. was all good. So, I need to finish cleaning in the bathroom and vacume downstairs and in my room. I fed and watered the plants and trees today. I need to make the crepes and then on the 17th I will make the cabbage and the corned beef, and the crepes... serve the appies... Pat wants them put onto crackers... ok but will also put the chips out and crackers and people can do their own appies. Then there will be Irish yellow broth with the soda bread, the entre, and the crepes. We should all be stuffed by the time we are finished. Just will not do big servings.

‎Tuesday, ‎March ‎15, ‎2016
cleaned the bathroom, including window. Cleaned the window above the sinks. Made the crepes. So need to finish vacuming and do the patio door's glass. It is amazing how much cleaner the glass looks. The Pixie has 2 blooms open and the Lisa Talor has 2 buds. The white phal with its huge blossoms is still looking good. Most of the plants look like they are surviving the transplants. The living room and dining room windows are cleaned, vaccumed and dusted. We had quite a lot of sun today, but the temperatures were lower. The plum tree is spectacular in bloom... just sparkling white.

‎Sunday, ‎March ‎20, ‎2016
I have been looking at the Saanich Ecology plan stuff. EDPA I find I have so very many of the invasive plants in my own garden. There is that daphne laurel bush that is a horrible thing that poisons people animals and the soil around it. I must get rid of it immediately. I have ivy, cottoneaster, vinca major or minor, goutweed, bluebells, english or spanish, fennel, cyclamen, buddleia (butterfly bush) bachelor buttons, and I don't know what else might be lurking out there masquerading as a decorative garden plant. Even the St.John's wort is on the list. And so it should be as it spreads like crazy. Perhaps, I will worry about one of them at a time, to get them under control. The oxeye daisies and thistles are also on the invasive list. The bluebells will not be killed by herbicides, they have to be dug out. At the moment I am trying to smother them. The goutweed could be killed with round up, I think. I will need a replacement for it. Yesterday we went to Duncan for a Antique chapter meeting. I did a bit of down sizing in the afternoon after reading a magazine article about it. Later we went to dinner at the Crooked Goose and I had the delicious crab cakes from the Appy menu. 2 cakes came with a lovely salad and a nice sauce on them. Yumm. I find that I should be doing my storage backup manually, so did a bit of that last night too. That whole storage disk is a mess. I doubt that I will ever clean it up, though. Too big of a chore.

‎Monday, ‎March ‎21, ‎2016
Was outside from 2 to 5. The fawn lillies are doing really very well. I spent most of my time out there today pulling the bluebells out of the woodland. Am also getting rid of the bachelor button things too; as well as the morning glory, any blackberries, thistles and lemon balm. The area where I covered the bluebells with cardboard and then leaf mulch is free of the plants. This leaf mulch is going to be very good soil in the woodland. If I do not let them go to seed, maybe I will get them under contol. I am almost finished cleaning out the area from the fence to the water tub. The cyclamen are spreading. They are on the invasive plants list, so shall keep them under control, too. I took out the daphne shrub, bagged it and will burn it once it has dried out and the leaves all die. The polyanthus/primula along in front of the iris are doing very well. I have to keep the violets out of there. I am thinking of chopping down the stump that the water tub sits on. I think it is deteriating, rotting away. I began to take down the alberta blue spruce between the pond and the primula bed. I will be moving the mini pine tree to that spot, when I take down the spruce. It was too big and crowding out the curly hazelnut tree. The epimedium under the hazelnut looks realy good. Hazel red/bronze leaves and pale yellow blossoms. The bed is coming along nicely, with native plants and the primulas. The hepatica needs more moss around it. I hope to expand the moss into the area where I take down the spruce. Have to keep those bluebells under control, too. There are a few coming up on the far side of the pond where I smothered them with cardboard last Fall. Shall be sure to keep them from seeding also. The dark magenta/purple polys are spreading madly. I need to clean up the moss garden, after I finish the woodland purging of the blue bells. The sweet cicely in the woodland smells heavenly when I break a piece of it off. It is like a variagated fern and smells of anise. I should be able to use it in bouquets.

‎Tuesday, ‎March ‎22, ‎2016
Was 15 degrees today. Was out from 2 till 4:30. Have sore back muscles and they are going to be worse after today. Did more cleaning up of the bluebells, and picked up the ones from yesterday and threw them in the green bin. Moved the water tub off the stump as the stump is rotting. The fish is still in there. I emptied half the water out while moving it and so had to refill it. I have finished weeding the woodland up to the tub now. It is looking pretty good. If I keep adding leaf mulch in the Fall and pulling out the blue bells I might get them under control. It sprinkled a bit on me. After I moved the tub I spent some time clipping up the spruce tree branches onto the trail with the bigger pieces going to the wood pile for kindling. I got my printer ink from Kerrisdale this morning. I have 110.21 in my credit account with them. Talked about getting a mirrorless camera and the young guy said that is the way to go. Said Sony A6000 at about $700.00 or the newer Sony 6300 that is just now out at double that price. Fuji XT10 is one to consider also.

‎Thursday, ‎March ‎24, ‎2016
Tara and Freyja to visit today. She is so tall and active and only 3. Talks in full sentences and runs everywhere. Tara is looking much better since she had a few days off. So, no time outside today. Rested yesterday too. My back is feeling better, but still have sore muscles. We walked by the creek by the blue bridge today and I do not see any fawn lilies. The ivy and blue bells have totally taken over that patch of lillies. So sad. There is no way I will be able to eradicate them and keep up with getting them out of my garden.

‎Friday, ‎March ‎25, ‎2016
Lovely sunny day. did some more weeding in the woodland. Have finished up to the end of the Saskatoons up to the first cedar. The front of the irises is cleaned up about half way. I have to remove the species tulips that have become invasive, as well. While weeding by the first cedar and the saskatoons I found I have two leaves of a fawn lily growing there at the back of the bed. I do think the blue bells are diminishing. The hyacinths are in bloom all over the garden. I should get their pictures. I started Freyja's album on Canon and sent Tara a link. It works well for her. Now I need to get the rest of the photos in there.. 15 of them. I doubt she will want prints, so I am downsizing them to 900 pixels on longest side.

‎Saturday, ‎March ‎26, ‎2016
Was out for about 3 hours. Nice day, sun some cloud. was about 13 degrees. Just right for gardening. The soil is still damp so this makes it easier to dig out weeds. I dug out weeds in the what used to be the vegetable patch. I put one bag of mushroom manure down... mostly on the rhubarb and strawberries. Some of the perennials are coming up, so I am having some success with my cutting garden. Back at the woodland area I weeded in the iris bed past the yew tree. Then clipped the germander back to about 4 - 6 inches. It was very stringy and wild. Also cut off all the saxitalis species lilies in the area off at the same height. I have about 1/4 of this germander left to clip down, but I just ran out of energy. I see I have a serious wisteria rooted in behind the yew tree and just under Sheila's fence. This is going to have to be cut off, beneath the soil and any roots pulled out that I can get. And cut off from its feeder stem thing. The wisteria is interesting blooming up in the western red cedars but it is getting out of hand. I seem to have a lot of plants that are getting out of hand. I do seem to be getting the violets under control. The germander should be great this year. I am sure it will sprout up again. No big loss if it does not. The cedars look good with nothing under them, actually. Some photos today. Need to do blog post for the museum day, then should be good to get back to the garden posts. I got some more finished on the Journal Entries page for 2013 and hope to finish it tonite. Just have December left to code and then I can load it. Yesterday I did an album for Freyja's photos on Canon. Had a look at what I have left to do on the Sask 2015 album... lots! Am going to do the car meet on a new album and link Harry and Rose to it. I don't think I will make it password protected. Will try it out on Pat first, of course.

‎Sunday, ‎March ‎27, ‎2016
Easter Sunday. Some sun, bits of rain. Was in the house most of the day, cooking the Stroganoff for our dinner. Delicious. Have one frozen blue pkg left over. The little trillium at the front is in bloom. We have Flickers, Jays added to our usual birds. And I can hear the cedar waxwings. I see the young eagles hunting above the trees. Seems like there is more than the old pair in the area. The petals from the plum blooms are falling and making a mess in the pond and on the moss. Seems like that wretched Telus got me again for $10. Spent a couple of dollars on sms trying to get some dolt to credit my account with the $10. they took, and then just added the amount to the money held in my account without extending my expiry date for another month. I tried to get them to reimburse me for the $10 but it seems impossible to do. I shall phone them and talk to a person on regular hours. I believe they have a help line where it will not cost me anything. I can use the land line, if necessary. I have taken that damned auto top up OFF the settings of my account. So, for the wear and tear on my mind and time, I might just let it slide, and get on with my life. Wretches. Other people get thinking they need all these 'plans'. I don't spend even a fraction of the $100 a year I pay them... which works out to less than $10 a month. Seems like people are easily sold on stuff they do not need. It is just keeping up with everyone else... peer pressure I suppose. Or parents keeping up with the children to keep them safe or keep track of them. I am a dinosaur, but a content one. I don't want to be tied to my freaking phone. Anyway, I am good till March 27, 2017. Who knows? I may be dead by then. Especially if I have to deal with Telus any more. I finished my Journal Entries page for 2013 and checked it over. It is ready to upload to my web page, but am too distraught to do it just now. Tomorow will be soon enough.

‎Monday, ‎March ‎28, ‎2016
Was up till 4:30 last nite with the Telus stuff and this email thing that takes me to my info at mmmee account instead of to my mmmee at shaw. Well got texting with Michael from Godaddy in sales. He could not do anything for this email thing. I really doubt if Trevor would understand my problem, either. I have a number for the hosting people but will probably not call them. Michael sent me part of our converstation in email, and said he would send the rest. Then I got this .zip file to open from some strange Admin (not) account at shaw.ca. Well, then I sent that to Shaw as a spam report. Have not heard back from them. I doubt if it was from Michael. He sold me 'privacy' for my two domains... com and .me for 3 years, used up my 12.95 credit and paid godaddy $44.64 . Now a dns will not show my name and address except on the .ca one, which I will probably transfer to Trevor's care, some day... or maybe will learn how to use it as a commercial account for my photos, and jAlbum. At the moment I am planning on embedding the jAlbum albums. It is easier. I do not want the email, share, and whatever else that wonderful Turtle theme does... I can stop them ... click on the album and then, something or other... its on my JAlbum Folder info; and go to pages to set up these things. I can remove the advertising link, too, but they want some credit for the albums.. The link they put on there is not offensive. I would probably leave it, as I did the other little album creator thing I used for July. Michael complimented me on my web page. Said it looked good and that it is nice to see someone doing codeing, now. He first asked me if that was a Word Press... I think he knew it wasn't... was trying to determine what it was, I guess. Also updated my Jalbum ... I get the updates for a year from some time at the end of December. Don't think I really need them, though I guess I can have them, since the old skins will still work, should I ever give it its own dedicated domain and albums... maybe for a commercial. I would get a new FTP for it too. My old one is sooooo mixed up. Good thing I can remember how to use it. Was out in the garden from 1:30 to 4:30. Took out the Germander up to the firethorn, and dug the dirt off the rocks in front of it. Then decided to cut back the firethorn and the holly to a decent size and shape. The firethorn has very thick twisted branches inside. I am thinking of taking it out totally. I have about 1/3 of it down but there is no way it will fit in the bin. It shall have to leave the rest on the woodland trail, I guess. And taking out the little eucalyptus also. This will free up the space around the cedars. The holly will block the view from old sheila's place... at least partly anyway. Also took out a few fern fronds from the big, old fern by the compost bin. Am having a hot toddy made from brandy, honey, lemon juice and hot water. Just what the doctor ordered. I really need to get those mossy wood blocks from by the hydro pole. I need them to make my sitting area under the deck The skimmia under there is blooming this year. well well. A bit more sun seems to help it. I shall prune it back some again... maybe after bloom. The chocolat lily (fritillia something or other) is in bloom in a black pot on the deck. It has a volunteer tree with it. Maybe this can go into the woodland. But I will be taking out the spruce behind the polys, and was going to put the chocolat lilly there. I can always cut down the tree, If It is not indigenous, or I do not like it. Sandy's plant on the deck looks like it is expanding. I need to keep it in its pot until I see it bloom. I cleaned up the plants on the deck, they need fertilizing. SURE enough the .zip file from the fake shaw admin contained a trojan horse.. so says my anti-virus.. good catch... but I could have opened it by the time the anti virus told me.

‎Tuesday, ‎March ‎29, ‎2016
Removed the desk top notifier from the programs on my computer. I think it was what was making my auto forms go to the info at mmmee.com. I had set this up from on Godaddy email. Ha! Some of those people at godaddy do not seem to know much about the products they sell. Changed the revised date on JE2013. Added another album to Travel for 2014 and changed the travel menu for all the pages that need it. There is about 20 pages.. the poetry (each page has the drop down menu) and Change(which is the first 2012 Journal Entry), JE2013, and then all the main ones. Did a scan of the computer. It was a lovely day out. I just got out for a few minutes and dragged some prickly branches back to the woodland trail.

‎Wednesday, ‎March ‎30, ‎2016
Very warm today...17 or 18. Moved the rest of the prickly branches to the woodland path and some to the bin. Mowed the back and came in at 5:00 when Pat called me and helped me pull that garage door shut. It swells with the rain in winter and gets stuck halfway open until it dries out. I have started the Journal entries for 2014, page.

‎Thursday, ‎March ‎31, ‎2016
Was out from 1:30 to 4:30. Bright and sunny day. 18 or 20 degrees. I chopped down the spruce tree with the ax and the pruning saw. Got spruce needles all over my head. I moved the little pine tree from the rockery to the Japanese/Moss garden. I can now sit on the steps and see the waterfall.. looking over the primulas and the Japanese maple and the moss. I hope to get the moss growing further out towards the primulas, soon. It is lovely, luxerious dark green moss. Then I cleaned the leaves and the blue bells off the moss. Moved a bunch of snowdrops to under the deck. If I get time I will divide that clump and plant them in the crocus field. Would be good to do it now while the ground is damp and workable. Was tired ... that chopping took a lot out of me. The magnolia is losing its petals. So, I guess it was the show of the month for March. The plum is finished blooming and the petals are on the moss and the pond. Skimmed a bit off the pond. The new pond skimmer is a bit too long. I might cut its handle off a bit.

April 2016

‎Saturday, ‎April ‎02, ‎2016
Yesterday I brought 13 of the wood pieces from by the hydro pole over to my patio area in the back garden. These are cut into fireplace size pieces and are mossy.... on the north side of them, of course. :) They are very heavy because they are soggy with moisture. I have four of them moved to under the deck in the fern/moss garden. I did a bit of repositioning of some of the old stumps and boards and stepping stones. Cleaned up a bit of the leaves and old fern fronds. There is lots more to do. The fern fronds are starting to grow now. The moss is slowly expanding. I think I have another one of those nasty daphnes under there, that I will have to take out. It does not really look right there anymore than the one in the woodland did. I am sure this area will be better with it taken out. One of the new cedars that I had planted a year ago has dried and died, so it is gone and has been replaced with a tiny volunteer one that I have had in a pot for the last while. The little one in the wooden deck container is growing, along with its attendant columbines and the vining thing (forget its name -- but it refuses to go up the trellis, so I might take that trellis out and put it over in front of the Pees garbage cans. Maybe I can get sweet peas to grow up this trellis, or a clematis, even. :) The purple plum is in full bloom now. I got a bit done on my Journal entries 2014 page. Today I was out for about 3 hours. Its a nice sunny day about 17 - 19 degrees. Have moved all but one of the 13 wood pieces under the deck and placed them. Shall move the last one under there for when ever I may need it. I removed the daphne.. including roots this time. Hope I got it all. Wretched toxic things spread like crezy. The bluebells are going to need another going over.. hopefully some will have the bulbs come out. Filled the pond and widened the feed into the pond from the waterfall. The moss was growing and might have been blocking it. I have established a new little area where the ferns and moss will be encouraged. This is next to the house at the Pees end of the deck, leaving the 6 or 7 feet of cedars, popcorn shrub, bluebells, bamboo, a rhodo, clematis, daylillies, vinca and anything else that might be growing there to fill in that space on the Pees side of this area. There is a bleeding heart plant that is doing quite well there. I might need another one for in the new little spot too. I throw stuff over the deck, so this area is starting to get a rather woodsy soil on top of the clay. I hope the violets do well there too. They are lovely in spots where I have left them to grow without taking over the flower bed. Am starting the processing of 18 photos I have chosen to use on my blog from the day at the Museum in March. Must get on with it before April is over. Not doing anything on Megashot. Why should I, when very few people bother getting back to my photos?

‎Monday, ‎April ‎04, ‎2016
Had a bit of rain over nite and will probably get more today. Yesterday I watered and fed the light garden, the deck plants, the orange trees, and the patio pots. I did not get out yesterday, and probably won't today either. Saturday the 9th is the Rock and Alpines show and sale. I should check for shade plants.. native ferns and the little shrub that has pink blossoms.

‎Wednesday, ‎April ‎06, ‎2016
Spent 2 hours outside today. Clipped off the cedar from on the deck... the one that is getting under the eaves. The one further towards the Pees still is tall and blocks the view from their deck. I took off about a foot and a half off the top. It was really annoying to find a ball of foliage thrown up into the top of the cedars. This appeared to be a recent shitheaded thing, as the foliage was not too dried out. I, at first thought it was a birds nest. After clipping down the cedar I took most of the clippings to the woodland trail behind the garage and clipped them up onto the trail. I dug dandilions out of the grass and the flower beds. Cleaned up the old fronds of the deer fern, by the back step. The deer ferns are indigineous. They are spreading under the deck. The woodland plants along Shawna's side of the old garage are at their best. Bleeding heart, the anemorella, and the other blue flowering plants are in bloom. The cyclamens are spreading. Somehow, I think they will be easy to control. They have nice, decorative leaves, and are spectacular in bloom. I brought in dandilions, a few tulips and daffodils in for a litte boquet. We have a frog in the pond. Picture shows it to be much smaller than a bull frog. It looks to be about 3 inches long by 2 inches wide, at the very most. I must review our indigineous frogs. After an early supper we went to Lindsay and Casa Linda to see the story on the restoration etc of the stream and the building of the trail in the area of the bridge. Big turnout of people. We decided to follow the group who were going to learn about invasive species... but could not even hear the guy. The trail got to be a bit too much for me, so we cut out and went home, after an hour of this. The rest went to the river to measure turbidity, etc. I think they had the better guide. Anyway, the big turnout, I believe, added about $1000 dollars to the cause. I have removed two daphne's from my property. The ivy is next to go. The woods along the stream are full of ivy. When no one is looking, and after the fawn lilies are finished, I am going to apply some round up to the ivy, by the blue bridge on gerda.... and maybe make a show of cutting the stuff out of other places. I think most of the people who were there were just there to find out about what is happening with the bridge and when. Well, apparently the trail is going to have some board walks. There are other trails back of the Royal Oak Mall that have bridges and boards walks, that we never even heard about them being built. The river looks good back there too. I must walk there again, some time. Compared to that area of the river, our part of it is horrible. There were very few able bodied looking people for new recruits. There was a contingent of young people... 12 yrs, maybe, who had official looking clothes and were going to be in charge of helping measure the quality of the water with the other group. Good Stuff. Ian was there and said he had been preparing the children at several schools... I think he said something like 650 kids, for their walks along the river. An upcoming event. These may be recruits and hopefully their parents will be too. I cannot do this, as much as I would like to. So, I will stick to my own routine when I have time and the energy. Too freaking many dogs!!! We did not stay to see what they had to say when they all returned to the tent.

‎Thursday, ‎April ‎07, ‎2016
sent this email to the Frog watch. excerpts from letter to the Frog Watch People: Hello I believe I have a juvenile bull frog in my garden pond. It is about 3 inches long and maybe 2 inches wide at the back legs. It makes the noise: Sometimes, when approaching a shoreline, you may hear frogs leaping into the water with loud splashes and “eep!” cries; these are juvenile Bullfrogs, avoiding you as a potential predator. - - as indicated in the information on your website. In the photo the frog is sitting on the mossy cement block lining the pond. Its a small pond; about 9 feet in diameter. What shall I do about this frog?
The fern leaf peony is in bloom, and a lewisia redivida. Must get pictures. The temperature got up to 21 or 22 today. 70 fahrenheit... seems much hotter than what 70 used to feel like.

‎Friday, ‎April ‎08, ‎2016
Was out from 3 to 4:30. Very warm day. 22 degrees. Mowed back and front grass. Found another nasty daphne in the driveway strip and added it to the others. Dug out dandilions and weeds along the driveway strip Pictures of sunrise this morning, and plants later in the am. Got another photo of the frog in the afternoon. Don't know if it is a green frog or a juvenile bull frog. We have lewisia davidia, strawberries, lots of tulips, the last of the daffodils, the plum tree, the apple, in bloom. The woodland plants in bloom. The front little rockery plants in bloom. The primulas in bloom. I will probably see a lot of these plants at the rock and alpine show tomorrow.

‎Saturday, ‎April ‎09, ‎2016
VIRAGS plant show and sale from 11:00 to 1:00. got 7 woodland/moss garden plants - - sword fern, licorice fern, maiden hair fern, and then Star flower, Erythronium, miners small leaf lettuce, (blooms at the end of the stems it seems, not in the middle of the leaf), hepatica. And a geum rivale, purple, and yellow Peony tree, and won the door prize and chose an aubretia. Plan to put it on the rocks of the waterfall. Hope it works. And then I got an Echeveria princess.. like the one Pam gave me. I need to bring it in with the orange trees. Apparently it will not go dormant. Needs little water and sun from the east. It is just little so do not pot it on to too big of a pot. Should like it to eventually have a nice decorative plot. I need some good idea for the pink pots and so have to empty them and start over. I think I may have a primula in the big one along with some very leafy tulips. The big pot could hold a small azalyea, perhaps. The smallest one can just be moss. I pulled the Irish moss out of the pot with Dave's milkweed plant. It seems to be the only one to survive. We will see what some of these other things really are... maybe they are milkweeds..hope so. The bronze fennel is growing well in its pot on the deck. It too can be put out into the 'cutting garden' Although I see I am having some luck with perennials catching hold and lots of foxgloves this year. Maybe I can transfer the seeds to the front rectangles this Autumn. The two lupins are doing ok out front. One is a pale pink.. not too exciting. I shall try to get a purple one. I need to dig out blue bells from the rectangle on the Pees side. Perhaps I can add lupins, foxgloves, maybe a hollyhock to that area. There are some outdoor japanese orchids available from the Glasshouse Specialty plants.. Bryan Emery... have his card from this purple haired lady who was looking after his sales place. .. orchids, alpines, succulents, heirloom vegetables, antique geraniums, rare plants it says.. Didn't see any alpines. there is not a web page listed on this card. Lokotos or some such name is the place where I got the echeveria..no card. I think she said it is on Oldfield road.. big sign.

‎Sunday, ‎April ‎10, ‎2016
Was out from 3:30 to about 4:30. Dug out the false lily of the valley and put under the deck, just under the window. No doubt they will spread everywhere. Got some good leaf mold from the back of the woodland and put it in the bottom of two of the holes where I had removed those invasive plants. Then I transplanted the new Hepatica in one of the holes and the star flower in the other. Its leaves look a bit like hawthorn leaves. It is just tiny. put moss around the top of the improved soil in the holes. Then I got trapped into removing bluebells in the woodland. I need to pick up the ones I pulled out and put them into the green bin after tomorrow. The bin is heaping full and at the curbside right now. We had KFC for supper.. $13.64 for two dinners with 3 pieces of chicken, cold slaw chips and gravey, with a coupon. Good deal. Got a blog post done for March 8th, today. Well, only a month behind. Diane and Tom will be over for supper tomorrow. Will make pork chops and stuff.

‎Monday, ‎April ‎11, ‎2016
was cloudy but warm. I did not do any gardening. Did a few photos for my blog. Made the dinner, and Tom and Diane were over... left about 9 as they had to get back to Ferry's place. She is 96 and just had a fall. .. seems to be one of many she has had and tried to ignore, or have them ignore, anyway. Sounds like she does not want to be in a care home, ever, but she will have to go, some time soon. Have tulips and ferns in the house for bouquet.

‎Tuesday, ‎April ‎12, ‎2016
Spent half the night trying to update my ipad. REMIND ME TO NEVER UP DATE the IPAD AGAIN. Finally finished it in the morning. Did a restore to factory defaults and then managed to add my books back into it and my music. Don't care about photos. This is not where I do my photography. All the apps I had are gone... the bird stuff was kinda cool, but never used it. Can always get it again, if I want to, I suppose. I now have a keychain that I can use to ... whatever... it is linked to my cell phone to receive sms to do this recovery of the ipad.. This privacy crap is driving me crazy. I just want to read books and maybe collect music and movies with my itunes. Google has the best maps and navigation stuff, so, my nexus phone should do that stuff, if ever I learned to use it. Don't care though. I have Pat's Picks on my google stuff which is kinda cool. Anyway, spent the afternoon napping and am a better person for it. More about the ipad ... I think the servers were too busy to finish the update. I was suppose to force it to continue by holding down the 2 buttons again, I think. .. I restored it using itunes... god knows if I could ever do that again. My PC seems synced to my ipad, or can be, anyway. So, here I am, newly 'formatted ipad'. This renewal of things needs thinking about. What is the significance? Down sizing? :) Today was a warmish, overcast day with bits of rain. Good day for a nap.

‎Wednesday, ‎April ‎13, ‎2016
Watered the house plants and orange trees. Was to the chicken soup place .. chicken chalet.. for lunch. It seemed a lot to eat to me today. Was too much pasta in the soup. Was all warm and good anyway. Was out in the garden from about 2:30 to 4:30 and chopped up the fire thorn and holly into the bin. Chopped up the bits of spruce onto the woodland path. There is a bit of room in the bin. Is an overcast day, with bits of rain... a 2 sweater day. We mailed off our cheques to the income tax a couple of days ago. I am getting a few blog posts done, but nothing on my web page lately.

‎Thursday, ‎April ‎14, ‎2016
Was out from 1:30 to 4:00. It was raining very lightly, so stayed out. It was a 2 sweater day.. about 13 degrees. I weeded the primula bed from the side walk up to the curve in the path. Moved the pink pots a bit and planted the miner's minor lettuce in a medium sized pot. I am going to have to take the tulips out of the big pot as they are crowding out the primula that I have in there. The dark magenta colored primula - - Purple with a red lined eye - - is really spreading and so is the pink one. The yellow ones are not doing as well. The newer ones are taller and looking good. I accidentally took out the dark blue one and really need to get a replacement for it. Very nice double in a rich royal blue. Must check for one in the iris bed border. The moss is looking pretty good along the stepping stones. The hosta is coming up and the indoor cyclamen is growing... they did say it was an outdoor one. The other cyclamens are spreading like crazy. I will have space for the chocolate lily and its attendant tree close to the new little pine. I seem to have another plant that looks a lot like the chocolate lilly coming up in the primula bed. I have to find out what that volunteer tree might be. Looks rather like long narrow serrated leaves on red stems.... hope it is indigeneous. pulled out some bluebells at the back of the waterfall, where they were growing furiously out from under the cedar boards I put on them. I left all the clippings over them and threw more oak leaves on them. I put more clay into the water fall, and put the door prize aubretia into the rocks of the water fall. This plant is on the opposite side of the waterfall where a violet has taken hold and is blooming. I have violets blooming everywhere, and the fragrance is wonderfull. They are so hard to control, though, when they are left to grow. I must take them out of the iberis at the front, for sure. I plan to put the sword fern along by the cedars where the Pees have trashed the privacy hedge, just where the outlet from the down spout of the eaves trough now sits. This should ensure enough water for the fern. The licorice fern might go higher up in the fern/moss garden, next to the clematis. I want to put the maiden hair fern in the moss garden near the pink pots, but will see how it goes after doing more weeding in the moss/Japanese garden. Mrs. Pee seems to have a gardener who, today, has dug out a strip along our side of their driveway. I am curious about what is going in there... not wide enough for a plant border. Will have to wait and see. The grass at the front boulevard seems to be growning. It is very patchy, while the crocus field has rather tall grass, clover and whatnot all growing in it. Maybe will mow it in a couple of weeks, as I think the crocus leaves are starting to brown.

‎Friday, ‎April ‎15, ‎2016
Was a 2 sweater day although it was warmer than yesterday. No rain, but it was cloudy and a bit breezy. Was out from 1:30 to 4:30. Transplanted the maidenhair fern near the pink pots. it is in a clay hole on a raised mound of compost and pea gravel. Transplanted the sword fern by the deck cedars, just where the down spout from the eaves empties out. It is mounded up a bit with compost in the bottom. This one can get 6 feet tall. I think we have one back by the old compost bin. Transplanted the licorice fern next to the mossy cement block by the Rhodo. Its planting hole has rotted stump pieces with compost and covered with moss. The licorice fern grows on mossy rocks or pieces of rotting trees, could be sitting up in the tree on old bark. Polypodium Hesperium can take drier conditions, this one grows in rock walls and on mossy rocks. The rains of Autumn release it from dormancy, so it is dormant in summer but still wants a bit of rain now and then, in the summer. Transplanted the chocolat lily, fritillia of some kind, in the newly liberated area between the harry lauders walking stick and the deck rhodo, a bit to the front of the little pine tree. This plant came with a volunteer tree or shrub. It has long pointed, serrated leaves on red stems. Not sure what it is. I can always cut it down if it gets out of hand. I dug compost out of the bottom of the old compost bin. Added this to the transplants and then some around the primulas, epimediums and any other plant in this side of the round stepping stones. I found that the white hellebore was crowding out the little white azalea and killing it. So I dug it all out and put a few pieces under the deck and a couple of the roots in the back corner of the woodland. Cleaned up the moss from the primulas back under the deck to the dry stream. Watered it all a bit before I came in. The hostas are coming up, including the little one in the front. I do not seem to have a dark blue double primula so it is on my wish list. The yellow blooming epimedium is looking really good. The hepaticas need more moss, I think. The little trillium at the front has gone pink, and the two at the back are not up yet. The apple tree is in full bloom. I was at 147.5 lbs when I got in from gardening. The frog is still around, but I have not seen it or got a picture to see if it is growing into a bull frog. Have heard nothing further back from the eco department or who ever they were I emailed about it.

‎Tuesday, ‎April ‎19, ‎2016
Sunday we were out in the model t on a VCCC drive and ended up at ... Camosen campus near us, where Pat Jone is an instructor in mechanical stuff, in this fantastic new building. yesterday (Monday) we had record breaking high temps of 24. Pat was on the roof blowing the gutters out with his vacuum/blower machine. I swept off the deck and most of the patio, until he came and blew the rest off with the machine. Much easier and faster than sweeping. I hosed down the deck and patio. Today was hot again. I walked back from the lab in 45 minutes. We took a deli lunch and went to Playfair park, where I walked a bit more around the park. The most of the rhodos are fenced off cause they are adding some watering stuff to it. Then I slept after we got home. There is construction every where and there was a nasty 3 car accident on Quadra today. So, I have had no time to garden... April is flying by and will be over soon. I am reading Our Last Invention by Barrat .. spelling, seems to think we have another 20 years before this intelligence explosion is upon us and the machines take over. My Pat says it is science fiction. Kurzweils book scared the whoo whoo outta me... this one is even worse. Well, we had such a lovely day today. If the machines don't get us maybe the earthquakes or climate change will. Interesting times we live in.

‎Wednesday, ‎April ‎20, ‎2016
Hot.. 27 degrees. I really need to wear my hat and no black stuff out there!. Finished transplanting the purchases. Watered all the deck plants, watered around the back a bit. The new aubretia transplant on the water fall was drooping. The sword fern seems to be doing ok, as do the other transplants to the moss garden area. Filled the water tub in the woodland.. almost. The frog is still around. Has lots of spots on it. its a mottled frog. Lots of bird song, and hawks or eaglets flying above our little woods. Made a couple of salads this morning.. egg salad for lunch. We will have potato salad for supper with cold left over chicken. I will give Pat some of his tomatoes over a lettuce leaf for his supper salad. I suppose we could have some boiled frozen vegetables, and the cranberries.

‎Thursday, ‎April ‎21, ‎2016
was a bit cooler today. Was out from about 3 to 5. Finished weeding the stepping stones path along the primula bed and around the other side of the Japanese/moss garden. Put new pea gravel along the dry stream. Emptied a bag of pea gravel. Have to finish weeding around the pond and the last few stepping stones out to the old sidewalk. The moss garden is coming along nicely. All the transplants seem to be doing ok. Photos after supper. The front garden needs attention. The hedges, especially. I got another blog post done and made chicken soup in the am. Was a lovely day. The frog is still around and the robin is carrying away mouths full of earth worms. The lilac is in bloom and adds the lovely fragrance to the back garden. The tulips are in bloom and some of the columbines. The apple tree is dropping its petals. The pink peony tree is in full bloom and has that subtle fragrance. The wisteria is blooming in the tall western red cedar trees. It looks sooo cool. The rhodos and azalea on the pees side are coming into bloom. The lily of the valley there have bloomed despite the pees dumping all the camillia blooms on them. The camas seems to be mostly finished blooming. It seems to be spreading, even though it has gout weed below it and grows in clay. The rhubarb seems to be dying. The stems are very thin. The strawberries are big and in bloom. Maybe that rhubarb will be better next year. I shall not harvest it this year. The cutting garden has several perennials coming up. I put the geum in the cutting garden, too. So, perhaps this part of the garden will eventually be producing bouquets. :) I see no sign of the trilliums in the woodland. But they were really late last year. The little one at the front has had two blooms and is pink, so it is finished.

‎Friday, ‎April ‎22, ‎2016
we had a bit of rain over nite and today is cooler, at 21 with a breeze and cloudy. Made a big batch of spaghetti sauce and the avocado jellied salad, before lunch. Used some fresh rosemary, oregano, chives, parsley in the spaghetti sauce. Was out from about 2:30 to 4:30. Trimmed one side of the big hedge and the trimmer ran out of charge. I clipped down the cedar that surrounds the peony tree and found that there are new leaves coming up out the the bottom of the peony. So, I trimmed the branches out of the middle, leaveing what I hope will be a surrounding edging of cedar greenery that will make it look like a pot that the peony tree is planted in. Now the peony tree should be able to get more sun, rain and air movement around it. It has 16 big blossoms on it now. One of the branches is leaning over, as it is no longer supported by the cedar. I should tie it up, maybe. I piled some of the clippings into the wheel barrow, as it began to rain, so had to come in. I want to make the other cedar around the trunk of the sweet gum tree into a more Japanese like form. I want to get the inside of the Peony tree's cedar looking Japanese-ish also. Good day to clip the hedge, as it is cooler and now raining lightly. I need to think of something to do with the ratty looking honeysuckle hedge. Perhaps I can grow some boxwood clippings under it, and take it out when the boxwoods take hold. Mrs. Pee trashed the upper corner of it sometime last winter... can't imagine how she or baby Pee managed that, while cleaning their garbage cans. Have lilacs in the house ... beautiful fragrance. Pat seems to think it is a bit too much. Saw mr. Pee ... he was friendly and smiling. He is looking better than I have seen him for some time now. Pat thinks they have sold the store.

‎Saturday, ‎April ‎23, ‎2016
Did photos and some photo shop for a blog post, in the morning. Today is cloudy and about 15 degrees. Was out from about 2:30 to 5:00. Finished trimming the hedges at the top and the one down the Pees side. Raked out the grass and pulled it off, dug out weeds and violets from under the hedges. I have stuck boxwood clippings in the part of the honeysuckle pilea hedge (at the top) that the Pees have broken down. God knows how they manage this trashy behavior with no apology or offer to fix it. . . as if they would know how. Trimmed back the California lilac, and have more to do on it yet. Took a load of clippings to the back and dumped them on the trail, as the bin is full. Monday is pick up day, so I should be able to get the woodland path clear again, soon. After the hedge trimmer ran out of charge, I raked out the grass and weeded, then got out the lawn mower. Mowed my grass, the Pees strip (to pick up my clippings). Mowed down the crocus field that is growing some huge clover stuff. God knows where that came from. I have yet to do the little honeysuckle hedge. There are lots of weeds in the front that need attention. The dandilions are going to seed. In the photos this morning, I have one of the little plums forming on the purple plum tree. The apple tree is just losing its petals, but it too, will have a good crop this year. The cutting garden actually has some flower growing. The milkweed looks a lot like foxgloves once it leafs out. If I get monarchs from eastern canada they should eat that milkweed that grows east of the rockies. After I finished the grass, borders, we went to the KFC store and got supper plus more for me for when Pat is away to Red Deer (2 meals of it). I was very tired, and think I might go to bed early. Have to find a good book on my ipad, to read. My wrists and hands are sore from holding the trimmer.

‎Monday, ‎April ‎25, ‎2016
Watered the inside plants yesterday. It was a lightly rainy day so was other wise in the house. Did some blog stuff. Today was out from 1:00 to 4:30. Used the trimmer to do the honeysuckle hedge.. did a very bad job. Am thinking of taking that little hedge out. Maybe replace it with boxwood clippings. Dug out some dandilions and daisies. The front needs some serious weeding. I took down the birds nest spruce. It was much bigger than it said it would be. So, I have the stump to cut off yet. Hauled the weeds and spruce trimmings to the back. Keeping the spruce on the woodland path. It is getting heaped up with boxwood trimmings etc. Am thinking of taking out the heathers that have become too big for their spot as well. The magnolia looks better already. I don't know how this got so weedy. I thought I had it all under control. I have to figure out what to do with the area around the meter reading spot. It is so damn ugly. Maybe I will just let the violets and the other stuff go... nah... Maybe make circles of thyme or something, so the pissass meter maid can find it and manage to read the thing. The violets and daisies are every where.

‎Wednesday, ‎April ‎27, ‎2016
yesterday I took the birds nest spruce down to a small stump with the pruning saw. Did some more pruning of the California lilac. Weeded a bit. Today, was out from about 2:00 to 5:30. weeded that front bed under the magnolia tree. Lots of violets in the iberis. Edged the grass. and dug over the very hard clay with the pointy end of the rock hammer. Dug some of the vetch out of the grass, but it is never ending. This breaks up the clay very well. half a wheel barrow of weeds to the bin, that is full, of course; with the spruce still on the woodland path. Watered around the back a bit and filled the pond. The frog is still around, but it does not seem to be getting bigger. Spent some time looking at what to do with these new open spaces I have from taking out the over grown shrubs. Well, I think I may take out the overgrown heathers in the front, too. Well maybe not the irish heather just yet. The other one is looking bedraggled cause I have to cut it back from the meter maids job of looking at the meter 4 times a year. Bloody hell. I might put the new yellow tree peony in the front triangle by the white rose. Pat and Jim left at the crack of dawn for Red Deer. Pat's ankle is hurting after all his hauling the boxes out to the car. Tomorrow I go to see Dr. C at 9:30. So, must be sure to get up when the radio comes on.

‎Saturday, ‎April ‎30, ‎2016
Beautiful sunny day. Spent the morning on facebook, catching up on all my 'friends'. I noticed an article in the Times Colonist about the buses somewhere on the lower mainland threatening strike. They belong to the same union, different chapter number, that our victoria bus workers belong to. I may copy the article and put it into my next blog post. Later as I must get some gardening done today! Had a late lunch and went out about 3:30 to 7:30. Weeded the stone path and the iris and surrounding beds and down to the thyme circle. Got the thyme circle and bench area finished. Spent some time trying to make the cedar bush that is around the trunk of the sweet gum tree into a Japanese style bush. It needs more work, maybe. The wood is a nice red color, so I hope to get it looking nice with wood exposed. . . . kinda like a big bonsai. Water everywhere in the front lightly. Am thinking that azalyeas might look good in the area where I took out the big birds nest spruce, and will probably take out the big heather also. Shall attempt to keep the Irish heather nicely pruned. The stone path looks good. The thyme has to fill in the spots where the bamboo roots ran. I wonder if bamboo roots kill other plants or starve them for nutrients. The alliums are in bloom and the little rock plants also. Am thinking of adding the new yellow peony tree to the front rose area next to the deck railing. I could cut the bottom off the pot it is in now and just dig the pot down slightly. The western red cedar is blooming and the first blooms of the clematis by the back deck are open. The tulips are still blooming and the pink peony tree is finishng up.

May 2016

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎01, ‎2016
Lovely day again. 22 degrees. I now have 2 frogs in the water garden. I see the fish once in a while, so the frogs are not eating the fish. I will need to send that email about the frogs on to the designated person that the ever so busy phd of this has dumped the work on. Ah well... I have a better photo now I guess and now have 2 frogs. Pat emailed. They will be spending the day in Canmore getting the car fixed, and then on the road Monday to be home late tuesday. Watered the deck plants. Sandy's plant was all wilted. That sun is very hot on my head. I will need to wear my hat out in the garden today.

‎Monday, ‎May ‎02, ‎2016
Take the bus to the Royal Oak exchange where I walk to Cannor and get some fish, then get home by bus, again. I have seen swallow like birds zipping around this morning. They might be swifts. Cannor had no little fish and the few they had were $10.oo each. I got a valerine, a thyme, 2 petunias and a six pack of tall cosmos. It was quite hot by the time I got home at 4:00. Bok Choy and mushrooms for supper, no shrimp or soy sauce in it.

‎Tuesday, ‎May ‎03, ‎2016
Woke up at 5:00. The bedroom door was shut ... must have done that when putting away my jeans and red sweater before getting into bed. I think we had a bit of rain last night. I was going to read when I went to bed, fell asleep and dropped my ipad on the floor.

‎Wednesday, ‎May ‎04, ‎2016
Am very lazy today... no ambition. Watered the house plants, the orange trees, the new purchases on the deck. Vacumed kitchen dining big bath and quickly around living rooms. Am sleepy at 5:15 while waiting for my pork chops to cook. Did a blog yesterday. We were suppose to have rain yesterday and today but only got cloud cover and a few drips of rain. Not doing any Megashot stuff. Did do a bit of Facebook stuff a few days ago. Pat phoned .. they are at Silver Star, should be home tomorrow late afternoon. Hope they have supper on the boat.

‎Thursday, ‎May ‎05, ‎2016
Did a blog post and finished the laundry. I seem to have my energy back again. After lunch I watered all around the back and up the driveway cedars. I skimmed a bit off the pond. Have not seen the frogs for a couple of days. There are lots of lizards. The milkweed - tuberosa that I bought at the store is coming up, at last. And the one Dave gave me that I have in the pot is up with leaves that look a lot like foxgloves. So, looking around the back garden I see I MIGHT have more milkweeds.. and I don't know which ones they might be from the seeds that Dave sent me. I see on his facebook page, he has had a female monarch on his milkweeds and she has laid eggs. Very early for the butterflys this year too. I have 2 bags of sand, and 2 of pebbles. I am going to add a bag of sand, a bag of manure and a bag of top soil to the area I have removed the spruce and where I will be taking out the heather. I should dig out some compost from the old bin, too and add it to the planting holes. Then I shall transplant the delespora, petunias and snap dragons that I just bought. Then cover the new area with that bit of bark mulch I have on hand. I see the white columbine is up in the cutting garden, and the lovely mauve one is boooming in the flower bed by the old garage. There are lots of dark blue columbines around the garden too. The clematis on the grape stick is in bloom, and the one climbing up the deck has lots of buds. The one on the cedars by the herbs is a dark wine color. They are all very nice. The trilliums are not up. The mock orange is flopping all over where they should be growing. Saw one of the frogs... the one that sits in the grass. Was really hoping they were gone.

‎Friday, ‎May ‎06, ‎2016
Watered the deck plants this morning. at 4:20 it is 29 degrees .. that sun is sooo hot. Pat took me to Cannor to get fish. There were only a few small ones.. shubunkins. They expected the supply to arrive in about 2 hours... well did not have 2 hours, so got 6 shubunkins.. grey with some gold colors. There are 4 in the pond and 2 in the deck tub. I seem to have lost elvis #2 some time ago. So, this will have to be Elvis #3.. two of them. I only see one frog today... the one that sits in the grass. There is a little wren hopping around the plum tree. Watered at the front for an hour, by hand, 7:30 to 8:30. Am tired. It was so hot today.

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎08, ‎2016
Mothers day. Fran is doing great. Pat sent flowers and phoned her today. It is about 19 some cloud some sun. Was out from 2:30 to 5:30. Renovating the Magnolia bed. Severely clipped back the big heather next to the bamboo. It might grow again. Don't care if it does or not. There are no bamboo shoots under it or in the irises, or in the thyme circle. Moved the square cement blocks around and added to square ones from the path by the oak tree. Looks better, now I think. clipped back the Irish heather. clipped some of the heather into the bin and put it out. Have lots of tree clippings to go into the bin when it is emptied, again. Mixed a bag of sand, of top soil, and mushroom manure and added it to the front magnolis bed, to the yellow oregano, some to the thyme circle and have a pot full to transplant the new annual purchases into the Magnolia bed. The spot is looking much better now ... smaller as there is more cement and the path in is stone. I need one more big round stone in that bed. Must go out in the van to the beach and get a big round one. I think one of those arondock chairs would book good sitting out there on the cement... maybe a red one. :). I have to spread out the dirt and finish the transplants... hopefully tomorrow. Watered a bit at the back and had to restart my pump. When I got it started with the reset button, the Pees car in their back drive started to beep its alarm. GAWD AHMIGHTY. Of course, I immediately suspect them of having something to do with my pump quitting... stealing my power some how. Now that is rather silly... but holy hell why would my reset button set off their vehicle alarm? Anyway, am happy with what I got done today. I should get out and do photos. The reno of the primula bed is beginning to get the area covered with plants. The moss needs encouragement. Spent yesterday reading the Canadian ice etc cruises to the arctic. Watched the Puffins documentary on CBC streaming docs. Then got re reading Monarch stuff and bumble bee stuff too late.. about 11:30. Was interesting. I have a lot of the plants that they suggest for butterfly gardens for our area. Maybe I should put the bronze fennel into the Magnolia bed with the annuals. I have room for the new rock plant in the little rockery by the West Coast planter. Oh yeah, I must finish the transplants tomorrow, and maybe even weed a bit more in the front. Grass needs cutting too. I could plant the 'Sandy Smith' plant in the little rockery, too, or maybe the Magnolia bed. The soil in this area is actually not too bad. Lot of bamboo leaves though. With all this cement around the water meter I will need these petunias and ladies mantle flowers to fill in. Maybe thyme can become the ground cover around the cement. Topped up the containers with the mixed dirt, too. My rock hammer worked great for setting in the new cement blocks and stones. There are a lot of good columbines. The mauve one in the bed by the Oriental poppies, the white one in the cutting garden just by the strawberries. Dark, royal blue ones every where. I must try and save seed for them and try plant the seed in the front Magnolia bed. The pink lupine and the purple of the french lavendar look great in bloom together.

‎Tuesday, ‎May ‎10, ‎2016
Yesterday I was out from 1:30 to 5:30. It was about 20 with sun. I weeded a bit in the woodland while checking for the trilliums. I think one of them may be coming up. I need to clip that mock orange back. Maybe try and start cuttings for the front garden and maybe even for the rock and alpine sale. I transplanted the valerine to the cutting garden, near the yew hedge. Then watered around the back garden rooms. Cleaned out the clogged pump and filled the pond. Then I transplanted the ice plant, the 6 cosmos, the 6 snapdragons and the 2 super petunias into the new bed by the magnolia. This took more time, as I was digging holes with the rock hammer through the roots. After putting them into the holes with a bit of the sand, manure and topsoil mix, I added mushroom manure to top dress them. Also added manure to the containers, and around the front garden rooms. Missed the sun dial circle. Then watered around the front. The roses are in full bloom. The tall bearded irises and the Siberian irises are in full bloom and will be finished soon. The hostas are up. Blue one by the pond, the yellow edged leaves one by the rhodo in the moss garden, two small blue ones by the bench, and the tiny blue one in the primula/moss garden. There are 2 frogs I think they are male and a female. They do not seem to be getting any bigger. I must find out if my fish will eat the frogs eggs. I had made potatoe salad and microwaved beets before lunch, made the sausages, after lunch, and so had just to warm up the supper when I got in and showered. We drank a whole bottle of wine with supper, did the dishes and watched a Murdock on tv and watched some news. Then I was playing on my computer till mid-night. Had to get up at 8:00 this morning and go for my lab test, today. Am too tired and go down for a nap after we get back from McDonalds. It was a bit cooler today, with sun. The ground is really dry already. Its going to be a scorching drought this summer. There are fires in Alberta (fort McMurray and more) and in B.C. Peace River area and more. I don't know about Sask and Manitoba.

‎Thursday, ‎May ‎12, ‎2016
Today, I did some picture stuff in the morning and after lunch, I dragged the oranges out to the back, pruned them a bit and watered them and the patio planters. Watered the deck plants. I added a board to the back of the old garage and tied the Jasmine to it with twine. Clipped the jasmines to shape both of them. I have 3 jasmine clippings in my deck pots, hoping to grow one to climb the trellis on the deck to keep snopping Pees from peering at me on my deck. Watered under the deck. Pat got home at about 3:00 so I came in and put away the groceries. Since we are going out for dungeness crab at 5:30, I shall stay in and maybe get the watering done tomorrow. I saw a gold fish in the deck tub... so now that tub has the gold fish and 2 shubunkins. Well, I plan to get some gold fish food... maybe they will have some smaller stuff at the pet store. I could use a few bags of potting soil, maybe from Canadian Tire, some grocery shopping day. I think the plan to put arabis under the magnolia tree is going to work very well. And maybe the yellow peony tree.. undecided about it yet. Could use more tulip bulbs under the fig tree. It is about 22 today, and the sun is quite hot.

‎Friday, ‎May ‎13, ‎2016
Got another blog post finished.. part #7 of April 8th. Still have 2 more April 8 posts to do, and then all the rest of April. The 2 bull frogs are growing. I have to get an email off to that frog watch person, and find out what to do about them. Pat thinks this is more humane than smacking them with my big hammer once I catch them and put them in a plastic bag. I watered the front garden for an hour and a half this morning. I think I will do the back after supper. It is 26 degrees today.

‎Saturday, ‎May ‎14, ‎2016
Did not get the back watered yesterday. Today is cooler. I think the watering restrictions start tomorrow, so I must get out there today. Did an email to Kerri Davis as suggested, about the bull frogs. Copied the mail and pictures to the Frog folder in My Pictures #16. Did a blog post with pictures, and copied the blog post to FaceBook. Next, I will see if the Saanich web site and the Colquitiz Restoration sites have anything to help me on this frog stuff. As usual the B.C. Government offices are useless. Watered around the back for a couple of hours. The woodland tub is full. The deck tub seems to evaporate quickly. More sun, I guess. Clipped up some of the heather and cedar clippings and have a few sticks for the wood pile and the bin is half full. Still have lots to cut up. It is cloudy and quite cool out. I might have another little milkweed in a black pot. Will keep an eye on it to see what it might be. There is a display and talk about Monarchs at the Museum in a trailer sort of set up. It is June 17 from 12 to 4. I must go. Hope they have milkweed starts for us. the roses are in full bloom, so are the rhodos, the fire thorn .. what is left of it is thick with white blossoms. It looks so good behind the variegated holly tree. It is also growing out again from the severe pruning I gave it earlier. The germander, also is coming up again after I cut it back right to the ground. All of the clematis are blooming like crazy. I have some very nice columbines self seeded too. The white one, the maeve one, the royal blue ones, some light blue ones, a specially bought wine colored one. I think I will take out the michaelmas daisies that are in front of the mini rose in the fig bed. These daisies are taking over the whole fig tree bed. I may renovate the bed under the holly tree that goes over to the stepping stone path. It is looking rather ratty. The michaelmas daisies can go in there... and maybe some milkweed if I can find some.... or translant Dave's milkweed there. I might have another milkweed in the other black pot... must keep an eye on it.

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎15, ‎2016
Was overcast and 22 today. It felt cooler. No rain though. Took pictures all around the garden today. Watered and fed the house, deck and patio plants. Was outside from about 1:30 to 4:00. Mowed the grass. Put the clippings in the old compost bin. Took a cut along the other side of the street, but the mower and I had run out of charge. Weeded at the front boulevard strip from our driveway to the spirea bush. Liberated a nice flat rock. Not sure where I will use it. The rhodos on the Pees side are finished blooming. The rest of them are just getting started. That area between the houses must be a heat trap. The big light pink lupine will soon be finished blooming. There is another darker pink one in bud in front of the peonies. The peonies are opening their buds. The big one has a blush of pink on its blooms, at last. I guess I should feed those plants mushroom manure. The french lavender is doing great. Lots of honey bees on it. The rhodos also have bees. I am considering taking out that honeysuckle hedge. It is really ratty. I now have 2 milkweed in pots, and maybe more in the cutting garden. But that might be wishful thinking. Dave says it takes three years for them to mature to blooming size. I also have the milkweed tuberosa that I got at Cannors. It should have the colorful blooms and be nectar food for butterflies. The cutting garden is actually coming along... I shall feed it mushroom manure, too. The front plum tree has lots of plums on it. They are almost as big as the back garden plums. Lots of little grapes forming. and the figs are getting bigger, too. The oriental poppies are spectacular for as long as they last. The roses are incredible. The newly planted annuals are all doing great. They just need to be kept moist, me thinks. The wretched frogs are still around. I fed the fish, they seem to have eaten it. I did not see them eat in the pond or in the deck tub. But I did glimpse shubunkins in both places. After supper I had a look at the pond.. no frogs, But I did see 3 big goldfish chasing each other and a little shubunkin trailing along behind them.

‎Tuesday, ‎May ‎17, ‎2016
Yesterday was a very busy day. It was about 22 degrees and overcast. I did laundry. Noticed that the pump had quit running. Tried the reset button. nothing but a few drips. The pump was running. Nothing plugging it up. Had a look in the T hose attachment and found that the holes were both almost closed. How do those fish do that? Reset the openings and the water came pouring out and over the water fall. After lunch we went to get lottery tickets at the Co-op gas and the car told us to stop the coolant was low. We got water from a person where we had stopped and topped it up. Now, Pat is having the car looked at on Friday. This is the same thing that happened to Jim and Pat on the way home. He paid 2400 or something like that to have this fixed at Canmore. Found the box for the pump and it has this cool attachment as a filter. I can add the filter things inside it and twist off one half of this big egg shapped plastic container to take the filers out and clean them. This gizmo came with my old pump, so I have to find filters that fit it. My present pump is Aqua Scape 1000 gph. The box also has the foam thing that I attach to its own plastic filter thing. Its plastic filter part fell off and is in the bottom of the pond. This filter thing actually turns into the pump, so it should not fall off. Made ceasar salad with anchovies for supper with left over raviolie and sauce. Tonite we will have ceasar salad and left over breaded chicken bits. Just before supper I saw a humming bird that looked very ill sitting on the humming bird feeder, wobbling around, fluffing its feathers and sticking its tongue out. It looked like it was choking on something. Old weird is feeding humming birds this year, I heard her say. I never saw any humming birds behaving like that before in all the years I have been feeding them. I got pictures and the bird does not look very well. Watched tv for a couple of hours from 8:00 and then read links from Skype.. for another hour or so. So, today I am taking it easy. May even have a nap. Today its 20 degrees. The frogs are still in the pond. No reply from the Kerrie Davis person about them. They are getting bigger. Posted them to my facebook page and to my blog. Dave figured they were bull frogs too. Pat saw the goldfish and the shubunkin yesterday too. I wonder if the frogs got the other 3 shubunkins. There is a gold fish and 2 shubunkin in the tub garden on the deck.

‎Wednesday, ‎May ‎18, ‎2016
cool day with a breeze. Interesting but useless email from Frog Watch. Seems its not their job to do anything but sit on their asses and send out emails. Dave Fraser advised me to contact that Pumimina PH.d about catching frogs. :))), The buck passing has gone full circle. I did not see the frogs today. I might have to pump out the pond to catch them? Pat says to sneak up on them and capture them with my long handled pond skimmer. Maybe, if I just got a long stick and swacked them, I am allowed to freeze the frog and after a day can dispose of it in the regular garbage. For the Government people; according to the email, it is expensive to eradicate the bullfrogs. ho hum... there is no way I am going to eradicate all the bull frogs that are in the water system from Elk Lake to the Gorge. Last year there was a little tree frog calling. I have not heard one this year. I was really hopeful that we had our frog chorus back, like it was when we first moved into this place.. 28 years ago. After the construction in Loenholm Place, the frogs quit singing, and that was not long after our place was built. I got out to weed in the front garden for about 3 hours today. Weeded the stone path and the surrounding plants. I cleaned the bamboo leaves off the thyme circle and discovered more bamboo shoots... pulled them out. The thyme looks healthy despite the bamboo, so I just need to keep watering it. But, no bees on it. The rest of the rock plants look good. Am getting a few new ones established. Cleaned the vetch out from around the perennial snap dragon... white flowers now in bloom. I want it to spread out, so will watch that it does not get over run by the vetch or campanella. The campanula is spreading nicely amount the little rock wall, at last. There was a bamboo shoot in the new annual bed, too. The black bamboo looks so nice though. I will thin it out some more, too and take off the bottom leaves. Really like that plant, even though it is a bit of work to keep in bounds. The yellow oregano and the little pink geranium spread is looking good, next to the thyme circle. The inner garden is looking interesting with the tri-colored semperviums (or whatever they are... they are native to here, as is the kinnikinnick that is taking hold across the stone path from them, as ground cover under the California lilac). I weeded up to the smoke bush before it was time to come in. It is looking good. The cedar hedge is growing. The bed in front of it looks rather wild, with solomons seal, montebretia, a jackamani clematis, and a few mallows sprouting up. Not sure what I will change about that area, if anything. Just keep on leaf mulching to improve the soil. The roses have a heavenly fragrance and are in full bloom. Finished a blog post this am... for April 8th. Lots of other stuff happened in April. I may never catch up my blogging.

‎Friday, ‎May ‎20, ‎2016
Yesterday we got groceries and some rhubarb and strawberries. I made pie in the afternoon and then we went to Boston Pizza for ribs. I see only one frog today. While I was out gardening there was a blue heron croaking high up in a tree across the road. I was hoping it would go visit my pond and check out the frog. I finished weeding the front. Had a wheel barrow half full of weeds, daisies, lemon balm. It is very dry. We had a few spits of rain night before last, but nothing really discernable in the rain gage. It was only 17 earlier today, but when I was out side at 1:30 the sun was just blazing down. A hat helped. Came in at 4:00. Threw my navy pants in the garbage as Pat was having fits about how they looked. The back seam has the outside sewing unravelling, but the inside one is still intact. He says I really can have new gardening pants. So, maybe I will go and find some nice comfortable ones, just the same as these were. I have lots of old pants, including a very comfortable old pair of jeans. Anyway, am happy with getting finished weeding the front. I could use a few more pinks by the plum tree in the front. Could add some manure to that bed and sand to imrove the soil. Maybe the old bark mulch.. I have a bit of it left and compost from the old bin.

‎Saturday, ‎May ‎21, ‎2016
Its a very coolish day. Finally got up to 20 degrees but did not feel like it with the cloud cover. I played more Spartacus and got up to $100.32. Was out from 2:30 to 4:30 watering all over the back. There is only one frog today. One of the shubunkins in the deck pot ate a whole bunch of the fish food, but did not see any of the others. There is a gold fish in the woodland tub, and I saw 2 gold fish in the pond. Hope there is more left. After watering I sprinkled cayenne generously over the area where the fogs sit. There are no frogs sitting there at 8:00 PM. Don't know if they are sitting somewhere else, though. Guess I will wait and see if they show up again. If I fill out that government form I will probably just say that they left... as one of them left before I put down the cayenne, anyway. At least I had only seen one frog for a couple of days. I will try cloves, too, if they come back; and all around the pond edges. I think the milkweed has to get out of the pot and into the ground where I can keep it watered. Perhaps behind the old garage. and get rid of some of the daylillies or maybe all of them.

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎22, ‎2016
The wretched frog is still on the grass clump. Added the serrated metal part off the old wax paper roll to the grass and added cloves. I clipped up twigs and have the brush pile down to about half. Put cayene pepper down for the frog, but it was still back sitting on the grass. Put the curled up wax paper piece of metal on the grass and added cloves to the moss and the grass where the frogs sit. did not see the frog after that. I have 3 big gold fish for sure and saw 2 of the shubunkins when I fed them. Saw 2 of the shubunkins in the deck tub. The white water iris are in bloom. Saw a swallow tail butter fly feeding on the rhodos. It paid no attention to the fennel.

‎Monday, ‎May ‎23, ‎2016
Overcast and 17 this morning. I was up till 4:00 last night. Idiot! am ok, just tired. We had capacinno today as the parade was happening downtown so Pat did not go to chinatown. Saw a frog sitting on the moss, then went out to photo it and it was gone. Have not seen it again. Do not know where it might be sitting, if it is still around here. One of the frogs left a few days before I started to put cayene and cloves around. While feeding the fish and looking for the frog the nut hatch was on the waterfall at the top, trying to have a bath. My pictures are all blurry. After lunch and making the cucumber salad, I was out to finish chopping up the brush pile. While doing this I ran water on the front plum tree bed by letting the hose run. Checked it and the water had run down just to the edge of the boards so I guess it got a good soaking. I did this with the hose in 3 different spots for the rectangle bed. When I finished with the brush pile, I watered around the rest of the front garden. It has been about 17 and overcast all day, but no rain. Must have been out from 2:00 to 4:30.

‎Tuesday, ‎May ‎24, ‎2016
was out in the garden from about 2:00 to 4:30. Weeded the stepping stones at the back and started to clip back the cedars at the back. Am about half finished. And reaching as high as I can. The wretched frog is back, sitting on the other side of the pond now, where the roots from the irises sits in a lump. Put cloves on that spot and around the other sitting spots. Found a long time dead gold fish in the pond... its grey colored so it has been there for a long time. I recently saw 4 gold fish and 2 shubunkins. So, I do not think the frogs are eating them. Weeded the little rockery, too. The butterfly was back. It is missing one of its tails. It only feeds on the lighter colored rhodo and does not seem able to find anything else it likes. It seems to ignore the fennel. I suppose the parsley is not big enough to attract its attention. The beef roast turned out too dry. Will not be putting it in the oven again, after I have done it in the pressure cooker.

‎Wednesday, ‎25 ‎May, ‎2016
terrible day to day. the frog is back. found another dead fish grey colored and floating on the surface. and worst of all Windows 10 some how decided to install... so I had to let it... it would not stop. Bloody hell. Tried to install my printer and messed up the driver... now it will not install properly... not even from disk. There is a bunch of shit on Windows 10 that I surely do not need. They do backup...hope that works better than the crap I have now. I did get my Chrome entered as default browser, I think. Watered around the back for about an hour. We go out to ho jo's for supper with art and marlene tonite, so I think I will just go and enjoy.

‎Thursday, ‎May ‎26, ‎2016
Saw 2 frogs and pictured them this morning. In the afternoon they were gone. I do believe there are 3 gold fish and at least 2 shubunkins. I was out from 2:30 to 4:00. Finished trimming the cedar hedge and the herbs in the back corner. Cleaned off the wisteria shoots and found some ivy growing in that corner. Hope I got it all. It was quite warm when I was out, but by the time I went in there was a cold breeze. Was just out at 9:30 and it is really chilly. Feels like it could snow. The ground all around the garden is really dry. Don't feel like doing any picture stuff.

‎Friday, ‎27 ‎May, ‎2016
I went out on the deck and the frog lept into the pond... must have seen me coming. It 'errrptt'. Then I never saw it again. Did not go out today, even though it would have been a good day for gardening... cool. Found the photo editor on Win 10 but have to learn how to use it. Photoshop is still the best I think. Reading about Neandrathals cave in France. email back from the PHd at FrogWatch. They just want me to fill out their form and send them pictures. Maybe I will tell her that I will drain my pond and try catch the frog or any frogs that are still in the pond. These are not big bull frogs. And maybe my goldfish eat the tadpoles too. The frogs do not seem to be eating the fish. Government employees... bah.

‎Saturday, ‎28 ‎May, ‎2016
Tried to fill out the frog form and got nowhere.. it would not submit. Wasted the whole morning at it. Finally sent the PHd the information and told her she can use it to fill out the form if she wishes. Said I hadn't seen the frogs for a couple of days but if they reappeared I would drain my pond and try to net them and eradicate them as suggested on their web site. Saw both frogs today. I think I still have all my fish. Pat and I are considering getting a pellet gun and practising shooting

‎Sunday, ‎May ‎29, ‎2016
We have had nearly half an inch of rain over the past 2 days and the temps have been coolor... It has been nice, even though I did not get out to garden. We grocery shopped, gas stop and lottery tickets, went for a little drive. Orr's meats are now into a grocery store across from the Beach Hotel or whatever it is called. I found out how to RECOVER (bookmarked) my Windows 7 and am now back on Win 7. Microsoft HAS been forcing us to UPDATE to Win 10. There are a lot of complaints about it. Hopefully they will reconsider their underhanded manouvers. My printer is back on line. I have my CCleaner again. My email is a mess, and I have to figure out how to fix it.. I told them I did not want to learn another damn thing when the popup asked me ... GAWD Ahmighty ... WHO'S MACHINE IS THIS??? Trevor's web page is old.. maybe no new stuff for a year. He must be busy with all his clients and the Windows 10 crap. I seem to be doing ok for now, without his assistance. Both frogs were seen today, but I do not see them now at 8:30.

June 2016

‎Wednesday, ‎June ‎01, ‎2016
The frogs have been around every day. We have had cooler weather and had about a half inch of rain, we are promised more today but I don't see it yet. My water restriction days are Wednesday and Saturday, from 4:00 am to 10:00 am, and 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm. We have a very dry level 3 drought declared. All the fruit trees seem to be producing nicely. I shall have to get out and water them. I got the cedars at the back corner cut back as high as I could reach and cleaned up the wisteria corner and the irises a bit. The milkweeds are growing, the little rockery needs a bit of weeding but is filling out with little plants. The pinks are in bloom.

‎Thursday, ‎June ‎02, ‎2016
we had nearly another half inch of rain last nite. Cooler temperatures but I am inside doing laundry. Left my computer on last nite as I believe it does a defrag thing in the middle of the night.

‎Sunday, ‎June ‎05, ‎2016
Yesterday it was 29 degrees. In the evening I watered from 7:30 to 9:00, at the back and a bit at the front. It is 30 degrees today. Was out clipping back the bamboo shoots and dead heading some of the roses. Added more cedar clippings to the bin. cleaned up the thyme circle. Brought in 6 strawberries. They are very tasty. Finished watering the front plum tree and watered the thyme circle, the annuals and the roses a bit. cleaned up a bit under the deck.

‎Monday, ‎June ‎06, ‎2016
Another hot day up to the high 20's. We have managed to keep the bedroom reasonably cool with the fan going and window open. Did not have the stove going at supper time, so the kitchen dining room are both ok with the cross ventialation from the patio door and the window in the dining room open. Watered the house plants today. I have picked a dozen strawberries and there is more coming. I seem to have to get them before the birds, or those other unmentionable birds next door.

‎Wednesday, ‎June ‎08, ‎2016
It has cooled off nicely, rained a tiny bit this morning... hope we get more over night or tomorrow. Saw the frogs yesterday but not today. Did not get out and garden. Have no energy. Sent Dave milkweed photos and doing more photos for blog posts. It is rivers to oceans week. CWF wants me to take my plastic footprint. I use far too much plastic, I know! With the wild weather we have been having all over the world, its too late to care. Mother nature is going to take care of herself, and we have to die out as a species or learn to reduce our numbers and live more in tune with nature. There are already countries full of starving people. Hopefully we will have the laws to let us bow out gracefully when we are no longer comfortable. Children are committing suicide in record numbers... imagine... out of the mouths of babes. A couple of days ago I put 2 milkweed seeds in a plastic pot.. keeping it moist, have covered the seeds with dirt. Might take 3 weeks to germinate if it germinates at all. Eating a few strawberries lately. Sandy Smith's plant is coming into bloom. Its going to be a lovely thing. It seems to want a bit of shade, so I will put it in the front garden rockery, maybe. I have a feeling it will spread out once it gets established. Magnolia tree bed, maybe? I thought I might put some sedums for ground cover there. I need a trip to the nurseries to look at stuff. The milkweed has me worried. If we get Cathy again when we go to sask, I will make mention of it and the sandy smith plant. And bring them both to the patio area for her convenience. Put the Sandy plant into a bigger pot, maybe? I did see a big gold fish in the pond yesterday, so I guess they have been at the bottom where it might be cooler for them. Lots of birdsong at 4:00 am.

‎Thursday, ‎June ‎09, ‎2016
It is 20 degrees today. I was out watering from 1:00 to 3:30. Watered the back except the driveway strip part of the woodland. Watered all around the front except the driveway strip. Am tired, but going to make roast chicken for supper. I believe I have another milkweed in the black pot... so that is 3 of them, one in each of the tall black pots. I rolled the screen out over the area of the pond where the frogs ususually sit. Hopefully this will make the pond less attractive to them. Sandy Smith's little plant is coming into bloom. The annuals are doing okay in the front. There are some plants actually taking hold in the cutting garden. The soil needs more improvement and more water. Brought in 6 more strawberries today. The thyme circle is blooming.

‎Friday, ‎June ‎10, ‎2016
cooler and a bit of a breeze. The frog appeared on the screen about lunch time. Did not see it before. It really likes that grass patch. I think I will next attach a plastic to the screen and put salt on the plastic. Be sure the salt cannot get into the water. Sandy's plant is in bloom. It looks like some kind of campanula. Chased the frog off the screen, had lunch, went shopping and back by 1:30. The frog is UNDER the screen on the grass. I moved the screen lower into the water and tried to flatten it out more over the grass; and off my little blue leafed willow. There was a dragon fly passing over the deck today.

‎Monday, ‎June ‎13, ‎2016
Trevor was over from 11:00 to 12:00 to fix my computer after its forcing me to Windows 10 and my attempt to revert to Win7. Trevor reset my backer upper thing with the new clean system as the first backup and there will be Thursday... or Wednesday... not sure which for backups at 5:00 or 1700 hours. I have a new Thunderbird Program for my shaw mail. I am setting up folders and moving anything from old windows live mail to the new one. There is not much to save as I pretty well trashed all my old emails. Not a big loss... I never needed to go back to them much, and I have the newer ones like Canon's Image space and ehealth. I forwarded the old emails to myself, and so I have them in Thunderbird now. This morning I got pretty excited about a Tamron lens for my crop Canon.. It is $499 (not sure if that's Canadian or US) with free shipping to Canada.. I will need to decide soon, as the discount only runs for a few days yet.. it was a notice from photo.net that I must send to the new thunderbird and get looking it up. The frogs were still around this morning. I was out watering from 1:00 to 4:00, watered front and back. I turned the edges of the frog screen up and hope this discourages the frogs. I don't think I will save the frog watch emails as I have them copied out onto notepad and copies went to gmail. I think I am finished with them anyway. More bother than they were helpful.

‎Wednesday, ‎June ‎15, ‎2016
Have decided not to get the Tamron 16 - 300, f/3.5 - 6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro Lens for Canon, just now. The frog and I think there is only one, now sits in the pond on foliage, next to the screen. It cannot get on the screen cause I turned the edges up and have the rest of the screen fairly flat against the moss, grass and the water, so it cannot crawl over the screen or under it to get to its favourite sitting spot. I saw two big gold fish zipping around the bottom of the pond, so I think my fish are ok. I will get more when we get back from Sask. Brought in about 20 strawberries for supper, Sandy's plant is lovely and is in bloom. I believe it is some kind of campanula. The creeping campanulas on the front little rockery have finally taken off and are blooming and spreading. I need to put it out in the ground, but hope Kathy keeps it watered, if its on the deck, when we are away. The milkweed seed I planted on the 6th has germinated (1 of the 2) today. So, 10 days for them to germinate. I must make newspaper pots for more of them when we get back, so that maybe I will have some starts to plant out. I am going to leave the ones in the big black pots in the pots and ask Kathy to keep them watered. The silvery milkweed has buds ..has had buds for days now. Dave's are in bloom. There was a humming bird at the deck foxglove. The montebretias are in bloom, so the hummers should have more food soon. It is only 17. Hoping we get some rain. We are to go to the Peninsula Streams walk at 6:45 after supper. We should see what progress there is on the renovation of that bridge at Wilkenson and about Lindsay.

‎Saturday, ‎June ‎18, ‎2016
Both milkweed seeds have germinated. I might take them along with me on the trip to Sask. They are fairly slow growing I think. It was only 12 or 13 today. We were suppose to get rain. but nothing yet. I watered around the front, dead headed all the roses. I see the peace rose is sending up a nice green leaves shoot, so it will live. Dead headed the french lavender. Transplanted Sandys campanula to the front inner garden. It was putting roots out the bottom of its clay pot. It now has potting soil around it, in a larger hole of clay. Moved another piece of rooted thyme to the thyme circle. Started taking down the pickly juniper by the front step. It is all dry and brown inside and the outside is getting too big and floppy. I will take it all down. The bin is full again. Yesterday we went for lunch at Sassys and then Pat dropped me off at the Butterfly gardens. There was a little trailer with a couple of girls who were suppose to be experts on the at risk species. The museum and the robert bateman foundation are sponsoring this, I believe. One of them told me that we don't have monarchs on the island. She said the other butterflies should like my milkweed. Well, went to the butterfly gardens ($33.20) for an annual pass) till 3:00 and Pat picked me up, we got KFC and rested till dinner time. The butterflies were mostly all tattered. I got a good shot of a Blue Morpho. It had been sitting on a guys fingers and then flew off and sat very still on a tree for a long time. I wonder what he had on his hand to make it so attracted and to make it slow down like that.

‎Monday, ‎June ‎20, ‎2016
were to the Model T day run yesterday. Breakfast by Rocky and Anne. A good run, with too many questions. It was perfect temperature for riding on the T. The T ran fairly well. 10 cars at $10.00 per car helps pay for the hall, plus $100.00 from VCCC to help pay for the food. It was a Collins production. Watched The Morse/Lewis detective thing... nearly 2 hours... was really good episode. Today, am doing laundry. Took the garbage bins out at 4:30 as I was awake and we had forgot about them last evening. Is 23 today, but feels cooler to me. Cloudy and bit of a breeze. Have not seen the frog for a couple of days. Sure hope it is gone. Pat phoned the secruity people today and they charge $25.00 a visit. We will be gone aproximately 3 weeks, starting June 28. and they will visit every second day, and will water house plants. I shall move the plants out to by the patio door and put any extras on the kitchen counter. Don't care about the big pot in the living room. Might need a good excuse to throw it out. The humming birds are visiting the montebretias. They can't wait for the flowers to be all open. Up to 25 degrees when I was out watering the back from 3:30 to 4:30. Saw the wretched frog or frogs not sure as I saw them at different times. One crawled under the screen and scurried out, into the pond. God knows how it got under there. The other one was sitting with its head up, like a green frog might do, on the foliage near the water fall. 7 more strawberries harvested.

‎Wednesday, ‎June ‎22, ‎2016
Yesterday was about 23 degrees. A frog was on the screen and when it tried to jump into the pond it got caught on the screen and probably did some damage to itself trying to climb over the rough edges. It was a rather big one. Later in the day, another one jumped into the pond from somewhere in the waterfall vacinity.. I did not see it. I replanted the little milkweed into a bigger pot and spritzed them to moisten the soil. I dragged the light garden to the patio door and they will be there with the drapes open for the duration. Viktor will water them every third visit... like 6 days. I am dragging the 3 black pots to the patio area where he will water plants too. Last nite my computer when to a black screen and said windows is shutting down to protect your computer. OMG so it shut down, and I booted it back up again. Lately we have been getting these phone calls with no one there... this following some scammers trying to get Patrick Meehan for money by pretending they were from ICBC. Glad I did not go for it... Pat said if they really were from ICBC collections they would send a letter. today it got up to 25 with clouds, very muggy out there. Wish it would rain! I got the pots moved to the patio area and watered them all. Mowed the grass, pulled out some lambs ears from Shawna's side, cut back the front lupin and spread some seed in the roadside across the street. This is a pink lupin. The wild ones are mostly dark royal blue. Put a few seeds in the woodland area. Watered a bit at the front. Did not see the frogs today. Was out from 2 to 4:30. there was some kind of butterfly in the bamboo.. . interesting. The humming birds love the montebretia.

‎Saturday, ‎June ‎25, ‎2016
today is a lovely day, and the high pressure has let up. We have had nearly an inch of rain over Wednesday nite, Thursday and Friday. I have moved the black pots to the patio area for Victor to water with the other patio pots. I am beginning to like the plants by the patio door. They seem to like it better there too. I may just leave them there and put my chair against the wall, where the plants were. I will have to keep the plants to a minimum, and move them a bit back from the glass so I can close the curtains at nite. I have not seen the frogs for a couple of days, but that does not mean that they are not still there. I have seen a fish in each of the water features. Watered all the patio, deck and house plants today, and watered around the front a bit, and curled up the garden hose. The garden is not doing too badly. I have to get thyme growing back in the bare spots in the circle. I have lots of healthy thyme growing in the stone path. I could move some of it, maybe when the rains start. The garden will need weeding and clipping back things when we get back, of course, but it is looking not too bad at all. I will probably take out the juniper by the front deck, totally. And keep the firethorn closely clipped back. The ferns and moss are doing ok for the middle of summer, at least this summer when we have had some firecely hot weather. I see where if I take off a whole branch of the English oak, it might not be getting the pees pants caught in it. Really wish they would move that damn laundery post over to at least the middle of their vegetable garden area. This would give the clothes plenty of room without getting tangled in the oak. Gert and BillyBob and Shannon now seem to be doing the gardening, with new raised beds .. lots of flower pots.. one with corn in it. :))) I have not seen the old baggage for a long time, except out cleaning up her garbage cans. I suspect she has the beginnings of dementia. A while ago she was out in her lovely pink silk dress/pants thing and big garden gloves, hoeing around the front flowers. One of the kids came home and shooed her into the house, since then I have not seen her doing gardening . Old weird has mellowed since her daughter is paying more attention to her, but we are still getting those phone calls with no one at the other end... at least no one who wants to talk... it IS most damnedably annoying. THAT is probably the point of the calls, of course.

‎Monday, ‎June ‎27, ‎2016
Must have been 39 degrees today. Was up really early and started getting ready to move stuff to the van for our trip. I now have most of the food in the fridge in the van, except the frozen stuff from the freezer that is going into the little cooler with ice. If need be, I will add more stuff to the ice bag, after emptying it to the little cooler chest. All this in the morning, and make coffee to fill the thermos. Am very tired at 8:30 ... was up and down those stairs carrying stuff all day.

July 2016

‎Wednesday, ‎July ‎20, ‎2016
We got back home on the 19th. Spent an evening with Lloyd and Pam came over. We went to Spaghetti house... for dinner on Pat. We had a lot of rainy weather, and a deluge at Medicine Hat. Saw Fran for a week, she is doing a lot better and looks really good. Two overnites with John and Colleen, a dinner out with Eileen and Don on Pat and overnite. They had some trouble with the ISP company and are very busy with Toastmasters too. I had a bit of time to see Eileens garden. It all looks so good. They are selling off the farm equipment. She said they will stay in the farm house and garden, and probably keep the quarter section in the family. Then we went to see Al Hunt and met his new wife, Marie. They are in a new home and seem to be very happy. Then up to Waskesui, and La Ronge. Back down to Regina with an overnite with Dan and Carol. They both look pretty good, too. They had some emergency/shortage of staff, so, we went to look for a Unity campervan. A new one would be $164 K plus tax etc. Would not be able to get one for 6 or more months. We had Chinese food at Dan and Carols with Jordan and Tyler, who is now living with them. Tyler is supposedly the general contracter for the new building. I brought home a little silver plant from the Kramer campsite at Battleford... very nice campsite. They have snakes. They had fireworks but I was too tired to set up the tripod so my fireworks are not great. Got home on the 19th, mid day. Got the van unloaded and started laundry. The stew for supper was not done enough. Is very warm out today. Moved my house plants back to their corner, cleaned out my bedroom closet... should really throw out old shoes that I never wear. I won't miss them cause I never look at them. Really like my new red sandals. Had a tub bath last nite and used body lotion on face and arms...skin feels really good today. The Commissionaire guy took good care of the house and patio plants. The milkweed is blooming, one orange and one pink which is probably the showy Davis plant that the Monarchs like. The milkweed that I started just before we left has survived ...2 of them in the pot. So, I think I will start more of them. The yellow plums are ready and very good. Lots of them on the ground. There are tons of purple plums on the ground and some branches. God only knows what those people have been doing to that tree. Miserable wretches. The rest of the garden is very very dry. The frog is still there. The pond is about 2/3 full and the pump is still running. I am going to pump it out and get rid of the frog. I have 2 new teddy bears. One a green regina rough rider bear. the other one is smaller and lovely and soft. Kept it on the bed in the camper van.

‎Saturday, ‎July ‎23, ‎2016
Yesterday we had a couple of mm of rain in the early morning. Trevor, Liz, Liam and Owen came over and picked plums from 11:00 to 12:00. Trevor had Liam on his shoulders to pick the really high ones. The ladder was too tippy I thought, but Trevor had it up for a while. I would not let Pat stand on it where he had it set, was really tippy. Nice kids and Liz is really nice too. We were both played out after lunch. Got the house plants, deck plants, and patio plants watered and fed. I really need to get out and water. There is a small white fragrant jasmine growing in one of the deck pots where I stuck in a few clippings. I shall move it to the cedar hox that has the trellis in it. Hopefully I can get it to climb the trellis and block the Pees view unto my deck. Yeeaaaaaaa! Pat said he saw an ambulance at their house this morning... before capiccino time. But the ambulance guys went away without a person, so it must have been a false alarm. Shawna's house is up for sale at $549,900. There was an open house and I went to see. It has possibilities for a good sized suite in the basement. Needs another bathroom upstairs and another one down. Pat thinks there is no room for a driveway to the back along the cedars. There was lots of interest, lots of people at the open house. Emailed and Facebook messaged Tara... she does not sound too interested. I guess it would be hard to duplicate the day care for Freyja and the quiet neighbourhood with lots of kids. Watered around the back after supper for about an hour.

‎Sunday, ‎July ‎24, ‎2016
It was 26 degrees, sunny with a light breeze today. I cleaned up the fallen plums at the front, and dead headed peonies and a few other perennials. Cut out all the bamboo I could find. The bin is full from Pat's taking down the creeper off the pole the other day. Now it is even more full. Water the plum tree really good and then watered around the front... must have been out there for 2 1/2 hours. Got in at 3:45. Did an email to Eileen with pictures and did a couple of posts on Facebook. I need to do a blog post yet.

‎Tuesday, ‎July ‎26, ‎2016
Yesterday Pat cleaned the creeper off the driveway. I cleaned up a bit more in the driveway strip. Watered quite thoroughly, by hand, around the back garden. Brought in the lily blossoms from Tara's lily. Very fragrant. 26 degrees, sunny. Cleaned out the water tub feature on the deck. There is a shubunkin in it. Today, I cleaned and added feed to the humming bird feeder. The frog is still sitting out on the moss, now, since I put the skimmer over the grass clump. It does not seem to have grown much, unless it is a different one. It is a very dark color. It is 27 degrees and sunny again. Had early supper and went to the Music in the Park at Brydon Park. Was really quite good. The band played for about 1 3/4 hours. Old Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc tunes. They were really very good.

‎Wednesday, ‎July ‎27, ‎2016
Went to Genoa Bay on the Scoot for lunch. Was hot sunny day. ok ride but I really do not fit on that bike. Threw out my old leather jacket cause the zipper opened up and got caught trying to open it. Ok.. one thing down sized. :) Gotta keep this up. Kalamari for lunch. There were no crab cakes on the menu. The Bay was full of yatchs... lots of big ones. Got back about 4:00. The frog is nowhere to be seen today.

‎Thursday, ‎July ‎28, ‎2016
very warm day.. 26 or 27. I did the menues for the Travel of 2016 Sask and loaded them. We had 2 figs last nite, after supper.

‎Friday, ‎July ‎29, ‎2016
Was a beautiful day. We got lunch at Thrifty's and went out to the secret lagoon, just beyound the old gravel pit development called Royal Bay. My broccolli salad was too hard to chew. Brought it home and chopped it finer and had it for supper. Was good with Basa fish, corn, and small potatoes. Did not find any more figs. clipped off some of the leaves and branches over the sidewalk. We are eating plums with icecream. Nor have a I watered out there. Did not see the frog either. On about the 2nd we plan to go to Tahsis and beyond in the camper van. We saw a unity from Ontario today, so I suppose they are out there. Sandra King from Megashot died of cancer a few days ago. I sent around a few megamails to some people about it to comment on her guestbook if they cared to. Most of them did, except the Indians.

August 2016

‎Monday, ‎August ‎01, ‎2016
was about 24 today. Watered house, deck and patio plants. Watered the front plum tree, the roses, the thyme circle and around the rest of the front a bit. Watered the fig tree and the area around it, a bit. Pat picked another little fig. The yellow plums are getting over ripe. The purple ones will soon be ready. Emptied the shrub from the back garbage can into the green bin. Have added clippings to the green bin and it is almost full again. We will be away up island for a few days starting tomorrow before lunch.

‎Monday, ‎August ‎08, ‎2016
We went to Tahsis on the 2nd, via lunch at the York St. cafe in Duncan, to Nanaimo with a stop at Cabelas (camping gear) and got a plastic 6 egg keeper and a wire toaster thing. Took the scenic route to Campbell River and went to the Thunderbird campground. No vacancy, so we stayed in the overflow, no hook ups spot. Right across from the toilets so that was handy, and great Shaw open wi-fi. We had free pink salmon and a guy filleted it for us too. Delicious. The next dat we travelled t0 Gold River and down to the dock on Nootka Sound where the Uchuck III comes in. Had lunch right beside the water. We were very fortunate to get the spot, as all the parking was taken. Fine lunch of left over salmon sandwiches. We still have half of the fish frozen. Then on to Thasis on the winding, narrow rough gravel road that went up and down mountains and around hair pin turns. Nasty business, but Pat managed to drive the 68 km in about 1 3/4 hrs. There is one campsite in town and there was room for us. Nice enough place. We had beans and spam for supper and went for a walk to what we thought was a pub. Well it had been a pub and perhaps a motel, right by the water. But it was all old and no longer inhabited, although there were a few rooms with open windows, so I suppose there were some occupants. All the retail stalls were closed. Pat thinks that in the past, in its hay days before the mill up there closed it would have been a busy place. Were I younger and had the capital I might even consider redeveloping the place, as a fly in remote tourist destination. Especially with all the 'green' ecology and environment stuff now. One could even have a farm with chickens and cows for local consumption. I imagine Nootka Air flies in there OR, one could have their own boat for cargo and for tourists to leave from various points, as does the Uchuck. This is a fine opportunity for someone with a bit of cash, I would think. I brought home some seeds from a local lupine that I am going to plant and hope they germinate. This area is very dry, so any farming would need irrigation... there is plenty of water. Not sure if it is salt water or not. Well, it could be collected in winter time, too. I don't know what kind of sewer, water system there is. The return trip over that road was far better with a few rest stops and slower going. We got to Gold River and shopped Fields store for a few items... pants and shorts for me and a golf shirt for Pat. Lunch on a shady parking spot, and back to the Thunderbird -- same spot -- for camping over nite. We got KFC. Both having trouble with our shaken spam and beans from the night before. We had a leisurely trip back to Victoria with photo stop at the Carvings, a stop for blue glass (3 items for $10), lunch at Qualicum beach and more photos, and a stop at the Highwayman hotel for photos.. at Union Bay. Home and unpacked in good time to make supper and tubby bath. I am going to make a photo album on the Travel page of this 4 day eventful adventure. The van was kinda dusty, but Pat cleaned it up yesterday. otherwise it too survived the rough roads ok.
The yellow plums are over ripe, but we have still eaten a few since we were back. The purple plums are purple but hard. They should be ready soon. The figs have lots of big green ones and they, too should be ready soon. The grape vine is loaded. I moved the orchid to the deck, also the milkweed starts. My house plants or doing ok, violets in bloom. The garden is very dry. There is still a frog in the pond. The frog is smallish. I am letting the water evaporate. When the plums are finished falling I will pump it out and clean it up.

‎Tuesday, ‎August ‎09, ‎2016
Watered the house, deck, and patio plants. It has been cloudy and warm. Some places around town got rain but we did not get a drop. I must water the fruit trees tomorrow. The cutting garden is looking pathetic. I must see about setting up a soaker hose. Thursday we go for supper with Art and Marlene at the James Bay Inn. After that I must get out and do gardening stuff. I will leave the milkweeds in the big black pots, and plant the new ones that I am growing out to the cutting garden, behind the old garage and anywhere else I can plant one. The Potted ones are doing fine. I might be able to take a piece off the silver leaved one and put it in the garden. I saw an incana pink flower and a white flowered one at cannor today. I got a very expensive bag of dirt and my cannor membership. I need to buy $100 worth of stuff and get to use the $20.00 coupon. Used to be $25.00. So, I might rush the clean up of the pond so that I can get gold fish ... bigger ones are expensive. . . to make up my $100.00 purchase and get the free delivery. Now need to buy $50.00 worth of stuff to get free delivery.

‎Wednesday, ‎August ‎10, ‎2016
Was out for about 2 hours after lunch. Cut the roses back from the door and have a bunch in the house. Watered the front plum tree and all around the front. Clipped back dried flower heads. Cleaned the pump from the water garden and reset the water fall. Lots of plums lying around... waiting till they all fall before cleaning out the pond. Started the web page links for the Tahsis trip.

‎Monday, ‎August ‎15, ‎2016
Have loaded the pages with the Tahsis links on it and the under construction page. Watered around the back a bit and filled a 5 gallon bucket 3/4 full to get dechlorinated over nite. knocked a few plums down and need to clean them up - - maybe while the pond is draining tomorrow. I seem to have about 4 smaller fish including shubunkins and two larger ones. Today was a busy day, what with getting groceries, wine and some shopping at Canadian Tire. Then drove out to the Oceanside campground and paid the $5 to empty the tanks. We need to fill up the water and probably the gas tank before we use it again. Angela and Kelly will be at Goldstream from 17 to 28th. I told her we are away from 19th to 23rd. Car stuff on 20th and 21st I think, and Trevor be here on 23. So, yeah I will be busy on those days. Trevor, Liz, Liam and Owen came and picked some of the plums.

‎August ‎16, ‎2016
It has been in the mid to high 20's for the last week and promises to continue. I need to start watering more often. Today, I drained the pond in the morning and after lunch I scooped out a lot of the mud, twigs and plums. Cleaned up the water plants a bit. I managed to find 4 fish and transfer them to the 5 gallon bucket with the pond skimmer. The frog was in the mud. I think I bashed it, but it escapted. Seems it could crawl up the edges of the pond. Sure hope it is gone. Filled the pond, and set the pump to run at the same speed again. Washed mud off the stones, meanwhile watering the moss and plants around the pond. I think the little salix boydii is dead. oh well. I won't need another one of them. There is still more clean up to do in the moss/Japanese garden and along the stepping stones. I must get the michaelmas daisies out of the fig tree bed. they just spread everywhere. I need to renovate the border from the fig tree to the holly, ... add more new soil and manure. Behind the old garage should hold some milkweed plants. I am going to get some incanta milkweed from Cannor... they are pink and much like the showy one that I have from Dave. I need to plant the lupines I have from Gold River and start some more milkweed seeds. I have one hardening off on the deck. I transplanted it into a slightly larger pot. It is growing roots now I guess cause it has stopped growing taller. I filled the humming bird feeder the other day and I noticed one at the feeder tonite. Tomorrow morning I will put the fish back in the pond. There are four of them. One really big one. I did not find the shubunkins. I suppose they went out with the mud. In the afternoon, I will go to cannor, and spend $100 and use my $20 coupon and get free delivery. I will get more dirt, all the milkweeds ... 3, maybe. Gloves, orange tree fertilizer, and more all purpose fertilizer, a shallower pot for the big pixie orchid, more fish, some of them nicely colored shubunkins, maybe, a few big goldfish.

‎Wednesday, ‎August ‎17, ‎2016
Put the 4 big gold fish into the pond. The water seems a bit murky. Hope it settles out. Was very hot today... only 25 - 26 yet it felt horribly hot when I was at Cannor. Spent $149 on plants, dirt, gloves, fertilizers, one pot and a nice big sarosa (4 - 5 inch size) gold fish and 2 smaller ones. Have 10 new perennials including 2 incarnata milkweeds. Was up to $137 but am back to $100. now. DRAT.

‎Thursday, ‎August ‎18, ‎2016
Fed the orchids, and watered them and the rest of the house plants. Fed and watered the deck plants. I have new fertilizer for the fruit trees, so I gave them some, put a bit of soil over top of the fertilizer and watered them. Watered and fed the rest of the patio plants with the all purpose plant food. I moved the tray from the deck to the garden. Moved pots to the patio area to put up the plants that I just bought into larger pots. Have an off white pot and saucer beside the pond for the zandeschia. The blooms will be white. The plant gets big so it will need the whole pot to itself. I found a place to order monarch butterflies for release and another place for information about the swamp milkweed... I have just bought 2 of them. They will go into the largest pots I have... I may liberate a tall black pot from the deck where the bronze fennel is growing. I think the swallow tail that I saw feeding on the rhodo must have been a male patrolling for females because it was not interested in the fennel, and I saw no catepillars. We are in a heat wave. Today it was 30.. a record breaking high for this day. It was reported as 32. This weather is to go on for a week, yet, maybe more. I am going to make the meatloaf and squash and baked potatoe in the stove downstairs.

‎Friday, ‎August ‎19, ‎2016
Took out the blue box at about 9:00 and started watering at the front. Did perennial dead heading while waiting for the plum tree to get watered. Some Paki woman in a beat up white pick up truck and no English, thought she should have some of the plums, and when I told her no, she thought she might buy some and I told her no.. that I use them myself. and if she wanted plums to go plant her own tree. How, I wonder, did she get a drivers license with no English. So bloody annoying, these people who think they are just entitled. No doubt she will be by to steal some. I took some more pieces out of the front juniper and washed more of its dead needles down. It is 31 or 32 again today.

‎Monday, ‎August ‎22, ‎2016
Got home yesterday ... very tired. The frog is back. today is cooler, its only 21, but the sun is hot on my skin. Facebook talk to Angela ... they will be here Thursday before 12 for lunch of potatoe salad, green salad, salmon loaf, lemonade, barqs, frozen yogurt. Thinking of doing up a canon image album for the Harris home and garden and the track days to send to ... and maybe around to all the emails on the list if Pat says its ok. Was out in the afternoon. Transplanted the Zantedeschia into a off white pot with old garden soil in the bottom and some green weeds and potting soil on top. Found a small yew tree and potted it up in a gallon pot, the same with a little oak tree. Watered the pots and all around the pond and moss garden. There are 2 shubunkins, the new sarosa, new big gold fish, 2 new little ones, and the 4 that I actually saved when cleaning the pond. One of the 4 is very big, another is big and the other 2 are a bit smaller. So there should be 10 fish in the pond. The frog does not seem interested in eating them, at least he cannot seem to catch them if he is trying to eat them. The water is murky from the work I did around the edges yesterday.

‎Wednesday, ‎August ‎24, ‎2016
Was out in the morning and the afternoon. I dragged the bronze fennel down the stairs and to the cutting garden. I am going to plant it in the cutting garden and use its big pot for one of the milkweek incarnata.. swamp milkweed. Weeded along the stepping stones in the back and around the primula bed. I transplanted the new candleabra primula in the back near the harry lauders walking stick bush. watered it in real good and watered around the back-bottom area. dead headed more perennials along beside the old garage. Transplanted the pussy toes thing I brought from Battleford into the front inner bed by the edge of the path, next to the Sandy's plant (campanula) moved a piece of thyme to the thyme circle and watered all around the front and some on the plum tree. Took the pixie orchid out of the big pink pot and into the new wide shallower pot that I just got. Put the extra bark into the bottom of the pink pot added more potting soil and put the Xmas cactus into the big pink pot. Washed off the deck and watered the plants a bit. I broke the stick of the pond skimmer, so I need to add a stick to the colander.. duct tape and wire to attach it. I missed the frog cause the damn thing broke and I was really close to the wretched frog, too. should have used the stick. It was really hot out today. Maybe 26 or 28.

‎Sunday, ‎August ‎28, ‎2016
Repaired the pond skimmer with new bamboo stick/handle, wire and duct tape. It is a much cooler day today. Was out from about 2 to 4. Skimmed with the skimmer. Did not see the frog. I think I actually have only 8 fish. Cut back the rest of the prickly juniper tree and have the stump and needles to deal with yet. As the green bin is full, all the juniper is on the woodland trail waiting to be chopped up into the bin. We had light rain while I was out there. Not enough to really matter. I put blue geranium roots into the area between the bamboo and the magnolia. I do hope they take hold. This geranium has lovely evergreen foliage and pretty blue flowers, but does not bloom very much. I picked up purple plums off the ground. Have cleaned and pitted 2 1/2 dozen, boiled gently in 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar and a healthy dolop of brandy, for 15 minutes. I will freeze them in plastic. I have another dozen and half that should be ok to eat. They are washed and look ok ... no cracks or blemishes on them. I went directly to work upon getting in, in the kitchen to make the spaghetti sauce. Very tired. I was up pretty late last night. I added the test track blurb to the list on the Cars / RROC list of my web page.

‎Monday, ‎August ‎29, ‎2016
The perfect day. About 19 with sun some cloud. We had a very nice lunch at the Bistro in the mall. Duck confit and gnocchi, very good. We got home and proceeded directly to pick the purple plums. We brought in 22 lbs of them. And there are many more up there in the tree that need to be picked from the ladder. I cleaned, pitted, and processed 16 dozen.. maybe half of them, in 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup brandy with 2 dozen pitted plums, simmered for 5 - 10 minutes and packaged in the blue plastic boxes for freezing. I was on my feet from 1 to 4:30.

‎Wednesday, ‎August ‎31, ‎2016
I brought in about 2 dozen more plums. Used 3 dozen for a pie and have cleaned and mixed up another 3 - 5 dozen for pie, froze that in a big baggie. The baked pie looks really good. We have kept out about 6 - 8 dozen for eating. It is cooler today and there has been very light rain. I am going to have to water inside and out again.

September 2016

‎Thursday, ‎September ‎01, ‎2016
Watered and fed house and deck plants. It is much cooler and lightly rainy today.

‎Friday, ‎September ‎02, ‎2016
Picked up about a dozen more ground plums, with maybe half of them for eating. Used the others & the ones saved in the fridge for about another dozen into fruit mix to be frozen. The grapes are ready to eat. The vine is loaded with them. Delicious. We are enjoying the fresh plums. We had over half inch of rain in the last few days. Today it is 20 degrees and some cloud some sun.. the perfect day. Was out in the afternoon. Put three 10kg bags of mushroom manure on the pots, trays, strawberries, and the cutting garden. Transplanted a swamp milkweed into a 2 gallon pot. Moved the tray from on the deck down to the garden on the edge between the little rockery and the strawberries. I now have a few extra rocks and 8 or 10 red bricks. did a cup of hummingbird feeder. The bird is around checking out the red montebretias on the deck. Everything looks so much better after the rain.

‎Saturday, ‎September ‎03, ‎2016
Was another perfect day outside. 20 degrees some sun and some clouds. I emptied a big white deck pot and washed it. It had those reed/grass things that were geting into everything. They have roots that go all the way to hell in search of water. I dumped all the roots and plants over the deck by the cedars. I have a bag of mushroom manure and 1/2 bag of soil that I am using to rejuvenate the deck pots. I moved a white jasmine into the cedar pot and hope it climbs the trellis. It is a rooted clipping from my big one. Very fragrant. That pot also has a very small cedar.. might be a globe cedar. I am going to transplant the other swamp milkweed into the white pot. One of the gold/yellow flowering ones that I have in a big pot is in bloom now... not the specieosa (showy) but whatever those other seeds are that Dave sent to me. I want to start more of them, and the wild lupines I collected at Tahsis. I have found a local nursery that sells native plants. Now to get Pat to take me there. http://russellnursery.com/natives/ The frog is nowhere to be seen.

‎Sunday, ‎September ‎04, ‎2016
Another lovely day. The frog was there and all the fish seem to be in their pond. I made chicken soup. When I was getting parsley from the deck pot I was attacked by wasps. They must have a nest in there. We went for Greek food at the greek fest tonite. It is noisy, wasps, couldn't wait to get home.

‎Monday, ‎September ‎05, ‎2016
Very cool cloudy day with spits of rain. We were suppose to get real rain. Finished cleaning up the deck pots and adding more mushrom manure and potting soil. Put one of the swamp milkweeds into the extra big off-white pot, with all new potting soil and manure. Added the new monarda to the pot. When reading the potting soil I see that it has fertilizer in it. Took all the plants except one foxglove out of the delphinium pot. So, hopefully, the delphinium should be nice next year. I have 5 four inch pots with wild Tahsis lupines in them.. 3 or so per pot. I pulled the moss and foxgloves off the top of the delphinium pot. Moved this stuff down to the moss garden between the little pine tree and the mountain laurel. I have a pink pot that was liberated from the light garden filled with dirt and added moss to the top of it and put it with the pink pot display. Cleaned up these pots too, and gave them more manure and dirt. Cleaned up some leaves, violets and debris off this area of the primula/moss bed. There are more plums down and a few apples. I should probably deal with them tomorrow. I emptied the old feather pillow ... I think it has fleece in it too, into the green bin. I potted on the rest of the Cannor plants into the next larger pots... might be a gallon in squares. Anyway, the Japanese anemone, prince henry, got a bigger green pot, that might be 2 gallons. It should grow to 3 feet and spread. I love these anemones. Once established they are marvelous, autumn flowers. I hope the pink pin cushion flower survives. The rest should be good. I have 3 fifty litre bags of that potting soil left, which is really good. Just thinking that I might want to add the new anemone to the front area by the white rose. I need to finish cutting back the juniper. I have a tiny yew tree waiting to be put in its place. I think I should take the ax to the juniper stubs and get as much of it out of there as I can get out. The humming bird has been around at the feeder and the montebreias. The frog was on the grass and all the fish are accounted for. Washed the deck off after all the dirting. The two little heliotrope are now in the parsley pot. The cyclamens and the autumn crocuses are in bloom. The little milkweed seedlings are not growing at all... must be getting some really good roots. The showy milkweed plant from Dave did not form seeds, although it did bloom with a heavenly fragrance. The swamp milkweeds are suppose to be pink and fragrant too.

‎Tuesday, ‎September ‎06, ‎2016
Cooler day and very light rain. I chopped up over half of the juniper branches for the green bin. Picked up about 3 1/2 dozen plums and made one more blue pkg of fruit in syrup as well as have about another dozen for eating. Have some grapes in the house and used some in the salad. Pictures this am. Ran the little dust buster on a stick around the kitchen, and bathroom and dining room. This only takes a few minutes to type but I am very very tired today. Saved the potatoe water and the beet water for making borscht.

‎Thursday, ‎September ‎08, ‎2016
I picked up more plums and made 2 more pkgs for freezing for fruit. Also brought in a few grapes. Lovely day out. The green bin is full so I did not get any more juniper cut up. I have all the plants potted up. The frog was not seen today, but it was sitting on the grass yesterday. All the fish are accounted for. The humming bird was around, too. The shubunkins are really growing! Hope to have new little fish next year. Would be nice to see some new sarrosa. The Tranzedescia --spelling -- is really tall since I moved it to its pot. I must mulch it over winter. The new candelabra primrose is looking good too. There should be a good show of primrose next year if I keep them watered.

‎Monday, ‎September ‎12, ‎2016
Watered the deck and patio plants. Filled the water tubs and the pond. The fish are really growing. The shubunkins look good, nicely colored. That new food I am feeding them really does make a difference in enhancing their color. Watered around the back a bit after filling the pond.The newly potted plants are looking ok. The candelabra primrose has survived and is thriving in its spot in the moss garden. The little primula in the big pink pot seems to have buds! Emailed Dave Dube again. He is going to send me some of the silvery leafted milkweed seeds. We got back from the Campbell River/Gold River trip yesterday. The car ran really very well and Pat did a fine job of driving it. We did not have the top up and did not get rained on. Was a very good meet. Must have been about 20 cars. We leave on Wednesday for the Can Am in Spokane and be back the following Monday or Tuesday.

‎Tuesday, ‎September ‎20, ‎2016
We got home yesterday. We have 3/4 inch of rain over the time we were away to Spokan. Brought home a few small rocks from the palouse area of Washington (around Spokan, of course). The fish survive and are doing fine.. growing even. I picked up about a dozen of the plums from under the tree.. lots on the ground and spoiled. Someone has been in there and stomped down one side of the current bush. Did up the Antiques note for the Island Challenge 2016 for the list.

‎Wednesday, ‎September ‎21, ‎2016
Got the laundry done yesterday. We have 2 figs in the house, ate one today. There are more ripening out on the tree. We are having a beautiful day. 20 - 21 degrees and sunny, with blue skies. I was out gardening from about 1 to 4. Cleaned up the irises on the cutting garden edge and knocked over the dead stump of the wisteria. It bloomed up in the cedar tree this year. I reset the stones in the waterfall and slowed the pump down a bit. The waterfall looks pretty good, but the water seems to get cloudy from the pump and it is making waves that go all across the pond. Didn't see the fish when I went out to feed them. clipped back the firethorn bush and pulled out the celery tasting herb thing cause it is all dry and gone to seed. Emptied the white garbage bin that Andy and Tara left and covered it. Am thinking of leaving it open when it starts raining and covering it again when it is full to keep out the mosquitoes. Clipped back the grape and brought in 2 bunches of grapes. Delicious. I ate them all except a few I have left to put into the salad. Brought in some michaelmas daisies that were hanging over the sidewalk and have them for a boquet in my room. Cut some of the cotteneaster off as it was covering the plugin. It has lots of berries on it. Am thinking of cutting it out or maybe way back. There some new birds in the garden. They might be cedar waxwings, but I'm not sure. I have not seen the frog since we got back from the Spokan trip.

‎Friday, ‎September ‎23, ‎2016
It is a lightly raining day with cooler temperatures. Used a couple of apples from the garden for the soup of the day. Made puffs. We heard some sort of animal chattering away in the back yard last nite. I thought probably racoons but did not see one. The fish are all there and the pond/waterfall does not seem to have been touched. Brought in one stem of the Amaryillis belladona - big pink lily like flowers - and added it to the michaelmas daisies boquet. Spectacular show this year. The lily of the nile were good too. There is about 3 weeks between their bloom times, as the lily of the nile now has green seed heads on it. Next spring I should dig all the bulbs out of the bed where the holly tree is, and rejuvenate that bed... move the big michaelmas daisies there and get rid of the old ones and the campanulas. I might have space for milkweed or two there. I should get more tulips for the cutting garden. I do want to get out to Russel Nursery for a blooming pink bush... the name of which escapes me at the moment.

‎Saturday, ‎September ‎24, ‎2016
Was a fine day out there today. I walked along the trail both ways to each bridge. On the trail off Loenholm there is a well worn path to a mess of garbage left in a spot just off the trail. There are trees cut down, in that area. The river is very low, right now. No salmon to be seen. Did a walk about the garden, but did not do any work, just some thinking about more renovations. I think I will take out the cottoneaster and take the willow out of the tall white pot and put the willow where the cottoneaster was... under the plugin. Am thinking of removing the little hedge of pilea honeysuckle from all over the garden. It has become to old and straggled. I could get landscaping ties for along the Pees side, since they have a tendancy to weed eater things to death. Hopefully, the cedar hedge along there will spread out more. I need more thyme for in the thyme circle. I am having trouble regrowing bare patches in that circle, where the bamboo roots have been growing and were killed with round up at the edges of the circle. I need to finish taking out the juniper and get started on more Fall cleanup.

‎Sunday, ‎September ‎25, ‎2016
Seems to be very warm today. It is 20 C. Watered the house plants. Did capiccinno, lunch, and out with Pat to look at the new bridge on Wilkinson. It is going to be quite a bit higher, wider, there are curbs and sidewalks. Some of the trail seems to be built along the river, too. This is going to look good for that part of the river. Still lots of black berries and probably ivy, too. The fish are all accounted for and the waterfall is running fine. It is 4:30, so I am not going to have time to fill the green bin before it goes out to the curb tonite. There will be the winter months to put things out.

‎Monday, ‎September ‎26, ‎2016
Was a perfect gardening day. Got out at about 2 till 4:30. My lawn mower was not plugged in properly, so I could not mow. I cleaned up around the purple plum tree. Then clipped up more of the juniper, and cleaned up more around its stump and took more off the stump with the axe and pruning saw. Moved the dead needles and leaves to the bed under the magnolia tree. Hopefully it will make good mulch. All the fish are there and eating. There are no frogs.

‎Wednesday, ‎September ‎28, ‎2016
Yesterday we went for lunch at the Chicken Soup store and then shopping for the Duck at Fairway. Mowed the lawn. Everytthing is so dry out there.. Another perfect gardening day, but I am making soup again. Made the Thai califlower soup in the morning and have 2 pkgs to freeze. I made more of the Italian sauisage meatball and Savoy Cabbage Soup. 4 meatball soup to freeze and one to eat tomorrow. Made 4 1/2 cups of vegetable stock from the peelings with olive oil and fennel seed added. It tastes good. Made 9 cups of chicken stock from the old vegetable and chicken scraps and bones.

‎Thursday, ‎September ‎29, ‎2016
I managed to get the juniper stump taken down to soil level, moved most of the needles and leaves onto the bed under the Magnolia tree. Transplanted the tiny yew tree in the place of the juniper. The globe cedar wraps almost entirely around the peony tree. The peony seems to still have lots of leaf mulch on it. Cleaned up the bed under the magnolia tree.. just to the other side of the magnolia. The violets are still growing in the iberis. Earlier this year they bloomed and looked quite nice, so that is probably why they are taking over the iberis now. While taking the plants and bamboo leaves off the Trilium circle, I discovered that the Trillium is just beneath the surface and ready to pop up, so I covered it up again with some dirt from its circle. I am getting used to this area that I call the magnolia tree bed, since I took out the birds nest spruce that was way too big for its spot. The bamboo leaves are whitish and fall over the area and over the thyme bed. They are a fairly effective mulch for keeping the violets in check. The trillium seems to survive them, but I always clean the bamboo leaves off of it. The snapdragons I planted in a row behind the cement blocks may survive. They look quite healthy just now, actually. They are mulched with the juniper needles. The Bamboo only has one little sprout in the area of the bridal veil spirea. Sure hope it has quit running.

October 2016

‎Saturday, ‎October ‎01, ‎2016
Yesterday I made 6 pkgs of Irish Yellow Broth soup, and had a lunch also, with a double batch. It is very thick and can have milk added to it when preparing it for lunch and maybe even a wee drop of the brandy. I did a bit of gardening by dead heading the roses. Today it is a bit cooler still, and light misty rain. Fed the fish just once today. I don't believe they get fed once it gets cooler. The water hawthorn is starting to produce leaves again. Some of the plum tree leaves are beginning to fall and the pond needs constant skimming. I got the Ca Am info for the Model Ts page done up with a bit of help from Pat and loaded it to the old web page. I am working on a few pictures that I am considering sending to them for the video they are making. Had a more relaxing day today and read a few pages of the John A. MacDonald book. Neither Josh Holder or David Dube emailed me back. I must have them convinced that I am way too busy just now! But I still need to send away for the showy milkweed seeds to grow over winter. Should do that tomorrow.

‎Monday, ‎October ‎03, ‎2016
brought in 2 figs, 3 fallen apples and a plum. Made applesauce with plum. Its a cooler day. Leaves are turning colors. Cyclamen, michaelmas daisies, amaryillis blooming. Got the bit of ironing done. Sat up till midnight watching 2 hours of the Black Panthers stuff, on the CBC passionate eye.

‎Tuesday, ‎October ‎04, ‎2016
Made squash quinoa tomatoe soup 5 pkgs.

‎Wednesday, ‎October ‎05, ‎2016
Watered and fed house plants. Downloaded the September garden photos. Walk along the prak trail and saw the mess just off the trail with trees cut down and garbage strewn around. I need to report this to Saanich yet. The leaves are starting to turn colors. The michaelmas daisies, amaryillis and cyclamens look pretty nice. Some of the snapdragons from this summer are blooming now. I hope they behave like perennials. They are in the magnolia tree bed, that might be home to annuals.. maybe.

‎Thursday, ‎October ‎06, ‎2016
was a nice day. Lunch at Tim's and drove about, saw Tara for a short visit delivering mail. at 11:30 pm it is very windy. Hope the power does not go off. Earlier made 4 pkgs of classic pea soup with ham bone. The hurricane Matthew is to hit Florida tonite after ravishing the carribean... bahamas, hati, etc.

‎Saturday, ‎October ‎08, ‎2016
Lots of rain and a coolish day. At 11:00 emptied the rain gauge of 1.5 inches. It was full. I have the hai maria orchid in bloom, the unknown pink.. small plant that was almost destroyed, a yellow grocery store phal. and a pink phal. has buds. The African violets are doing ok. The leaves are all turning colors. There is very good color this year. Made chicken cordon blue yesterday. It was good. The sauce is a mustard and swiss cheese sauce and have lots of it left over.

‎Monday, ‎October ‎10, ‎2016
Thanks giving day dinner, yesterday. Today the sun is shining and it is 13 degrees. The trees are turning colors. Very good colors this year. Getting the laundry done. Have a few pictures of the leaves, garden. Made 8 cups of duck stock and have the second run simmering.

‎Tuesday, ‎October ‎11, ‎2016
Made 4 pkgs of shrimp bisque and one to eat... its a double batch. Made 5 second run duck stock and used 2 in the shrimp bisque. Made 4.5 cups of good vegetable stock. Brought in a fig to finish ripening, and 4 apples to make sauce. I think the apples are ready to harvest. Its a cool and sunny day.

‎Thursday, ‎October ‎13, ‎2016
Yesterday I moved deck chairs and blue box stuff to the garage. Moved the orange trees and the echeveria into Rachael's room. Pat cut off the pin oak branches that were brushing the garage roof. This oak tree has beautiful color this year. The tree is getting very very tall, with long spreading branches. All of the trees and vines have very good color this year. We were to get high winds and lots of rain. We got more rain but neither Pat nor I noticed any high winds. There are more storms on the way, the weather people tell us. Hopefully, we will miss the worst of it again. Added 3 pkgs of Leek, Potato soup to the freezers. I have 49 packages of soup frozen, and more duck stock and vegetable stock.

‎Friday, ‎October ‎14, ‎2016
Its windy and rainy. The winds are not too strong yet. I brought in 6 apples and made 1 pkg of applesauce with them. Brought in 9 figs. They need to ripen for a few days. There are lots more figs out there that are turning color. Made 5 cups of vegetable stock. Am getting the beans soaking overnight to make the minestrone soup. Have started supper eary because I am afraid we might lose power. They have been promising us heavy rains and big winds for the last few days. We just had a bit of thunder and lightning last night and a bit of wind. We have not lost power yet, despite all the dire warnings. I see that I am paid up with JAlbum until 2019, so I think I will just carry on with the embedding of any albums I get done. I will still have the albums should I ever learn how to add them to my page without destroying any of it.

‎Saturday, ‎October ‎15, ‎2016
made 10 pkgs of minestrone soup and 5 pkgs of beef stock, four of which I shall use to make the diet cabbage soup. Was a bit rainy and windy, but the wind has died down now at 7:30. Finished reading the Sir John A. MacDonald book and started the Steve Jobs one today. Last nite I watched the Citizen Four movie on my ipad. I have to learn how to transfer it to my desk top Windows machine. Great documentary on Snowden, Greenwald, and Poitras, who leaked his first whistle blower stuff about the NSA spying on everyone, all over the world. He was in Hong Kong when he contacted them and then he went to Russia. The US cancelled his passport, so he lived in the Airport, Moscow for 40 days until Putin allowed him to move to live in Moscow, and the US cannot touch him. At this time his stay in Russia has been extended for another year. His girlfriend, Lindsay Mills has joined him there. Wikileaks, Assaunge, helped him with the incryptian of the emails, and I think helped him get to Russia. Greenwald and his partner, David Miranda live in Brazil. I think Assaunge is also in Russia. Not sure where Poitras is right now.

‎Sunday, ‎October ‎16, ‎2016
Made a double batch of pineapple raisin sauce. Its a bit rainy and cool and cloudy. The storm warnings were greatly exaggerated. We never had power outage, and not even close to flooding. Was up way too late last nite.

‎Friday, ‎October ‎21, ‎2016
I got a couple of blog posts done, yesterday and today. It is raining and coolish.. 12 degrees. Am doing some work on the JE2014.. have up to May done. proof reading and adding the bit of html.

‎Saturday, ‎October ‎22, ‎2016
was out for a couple of hours. Brought in 14 figs and 30 fallen apples. Raked the leaves at the front and piled them at the curb. Filled the green bin with fig leaves, juniper clippings and some of the pin oak twigs. I have almost all of the juniper disposed of. Raked off the thyme circle and added bits of thyme from the stone path unto the bare patches. Pressed them down with my foot and hope they set roots. Otherwise things are not looking too bad. The Japanese/moss garden needs to be cleaned off. The skimmia has 3 or 4 berries on it this year.. glory be! I did not see it blooming. Raked off the Pees grass too. I need to get the buddleia cut back soon. It is growing new little leaves. All the trees have spectacular color this year. Got a bit done on my JE2014 done up, so I should be able to at least get that finished this year. I see on my GoDaddy account that I can upload files to my mmmee.com page I need to get Trevor to help me arrange this so that I can add my jAlbum albums. It cannot be that difficult.

‎Sunday, ‎October ‎23, ‎2016
Sun and some cloud... nice autumn day. I made an apple pie and 2 pkgs of apple sauce. Brought in another 2 dozen bruised apples for sauce or eating. This has taken me from about 12:30 to 4:30. They are very sweet now and ready for harvesting. I don't want to bring them in until absolutely necessary. Filled the humming bird feeder. Cut back the long stems of the iceberg rose and have them in the house for bouquet.

‎Monday, ‎October ‎24, ‎2016
Made up 4 pkgs of apple sauce and brought in another 3 dozen apples. It takes about 6 apples to make one pkg. It was a very nice day out.. about 15 degrees.

‎Wednesday, ‎October ‎26, ‎2016
Rainy, dark day. Is 10 degrees. I made up 2 pkgs of apple sauce and have brought in more apples, with a bagfull of 28 for the Rantas. Got the laundry done up.

‎Thursday, ‎October ‎27, ‎2016
Did up 4 pkgs of apple sauce and 1 pkg of apple pie filling. Its raining off and on today. Picked up the leaves I had raked at the front. The grass has really been growing and the crocus leaves are coming up. Got a bit done on the JE2014 page.

‎Monday, ‎October ‎31, ‎2016
Brought in all the apples with help from Pat. Raked the leaves at the back. Put fig leaves in the back bin until it was full and put the apple tree leaves into the green bin. Cut back the buddlea bush. Brought in a tray of little plant starting things for starting the 30 seeds of milkweed. It is a bit rainy but not when I was out and it is warmish. Went out after a late lunch and got in about 3:30 and am tired, you might say, bagged myself.

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November 2016

‎Wednesday, ‎November ‎02, ‎2016
Washed the apples and tried to sort them. There is not many really good ones, so I will be making more apple sauce and pie filling. We had 227 mm of rain in October.. which was quite a bit, but the record is 318 in 2003.

‎Friday, ‎November ‎04, ‎2016‎
Was overcast and cool. Raked leaves and dumped 2 wheel barrows full on the woodland. Brushed off the moss garden. Of course, I raked the leaves off of all the small rock plants and the thyme circle. This morning there were robins on the thorn berries, humming bird at the feeder, a flicker in the cedar tree... pictures of them. I did some stuff on the facebook megashot group, that is the mother of the pages. Added Dube as a member. There are a bunch of people I do not know and some people I know to be A holes, added as members. No good photographers, except Dube and maybe Shawn Smith, Tammy is not too bad. No one is making comments, it seems except me. .

‎Tuesday, ‎November ‎08, ‎2016
Was out from about 2:30 to 4:00. Raked leaves and mulched them. Emptied 2 lawn mower bags of leaf mulch to the woodland area. Put some of the leaves behind the bamboo and the bench. Moved more thyme into the thyme circle to fill in bare spots. I dug this stuff out of the stone path. Added a boxwood cutting to the edging along the Pees side grass. Am going to cut back the honeysuckle pillea. It looks ratty. Cut back both Jackamani clematis. Apparently we got up to 16 degrees today. I spent a bit of time rearranging my folders in gmail in preparation for the new MegashotS... yeah the extra s is suppose to allow us to get on to Flickr... good luck.

‎Tuesday, ‎November ‎15, ‎2016
Tara was over on Saturday 12th after work and took home a big bag of apples. Freja apparently loves apples. I have made apple butter.. 1/4 batch in the slow cooker. Pat has pronounced it good. Made the apple butter before the 12th. Lots of leaves have fallen and I have not got out to rake them. Its raining again. Watered the house plants and trees. All the green leaves are/have fallen off the orange trees. Except one tree. Have no idea what is happening. The different thing I did to them was to fertilized them ... end of Sept.. I think.

‎Friday, ‎November ‎18, ‎2016
It was coolish.. about 8 degrees and misty overcast. I was out from about 1:00 to 3:30, raking leaves and mower mulching them. I put a lot of them in the rose bed, behind the bench before I mulched them. The mulched ones I put on the garden beds around the back, mostly on the woodland. There is still about one quarter of the leaves on the tree. So, there will be more raking and mulching to be done. The moss got a bit of a clean up. It is looking nice and fluffy. Moved some stones around on the waterfall. Raked the leaves on the back grass. All of the moss needs to be cleaned up thoroughly. I have 6 Dutch irises called lion king that need to be planted. They grow to about 2 feet high. They are later than the tulips, and later than the tall bearded Iris, so they may go into the newly renovated bed by the magnolia tree. The burgundy snap dragons might survived there and might need some arabis moved to that area for ground cover.

‎Saturday, ‎November ‎26, ‎2016
Watered the house plants and orange trees yesterday. The lowest branch broke off at the trunk of the front tree. It seems to be decayed. We have been getting more and more rain. The leaves are almost all off the trees. I have roses in the house and pictures of the snap dragons in bloom and the camillia blossoms. The burgundy phal. orchid has 2 blossoms on it. The yellow one is finished. It is overcast and light rain. The robins were eating holly berries. I might have one good picture of them. The hummingbirds do not seem to be very interested in their feeder, but they are around. Maybe they eat insects over the winter. Made 6 jars of vegetable stock made with spices and chicken schmoltz. Made wine jello shots. the recipe of 2 cups water, 2 pkgs of jello and 4 oz of wine makes 2 ice cube trays of the shots. Used cherry and lemon jello. I might serve them with apple slices, and perhaps cheese slices.

‎Monday, ‎November ‎28, ‎2016
There was traces of frost on the ground this morning. Sunshine but only 8 degrees. We went to Dinner at that Mary's blue moon or whatever the name of it is, in Sidney, then to the Shaw ocean discovery acqarium for a talk about the ocean waters of the Pacific north, from 6:30 to get a seat and then the lecture from 7 to 8, and then questions for another few minutes. Home by 8:45.

December 2016

‎Tuesday, ‎December ‎06, ‎2016
It has been cooler lately and last night we had a bit of snow. The streets are icey, but it is about 3 degrees so there is a bit of melting going on. This should make it really icey for Pat to go to his car club meeting tonight. The humming bird should now be able to get at its food, as I just washed the ice off of the feeding holes.

‎Friday, ‎December ‎09, ‎2016
It snowed last nite, about 4 cm. Pat shovelled off the driveway. It has been above 0 during the day. Now (7) we are getting light rain and the snow is slowly disappearing. I have been bringing in the humming bird feeder over nite so it does not freeze. With this rain, maybe it won't freeze tonite.

‎Sunday, ‎December ‎11, ‎2016
It has been raining and nearly all the snow is gone. We will have shrimp newburg for supper tonite.

‎Wednesday, ‎December ‎14, ‎2016
It has been cooler this week. We have a skiff of snow and ice on the water table. It was zero or one below today. Made an extra pkg of potato soup. Spent a couple of hours looking at this Disquis program to add comments and advertising to my site. Looks too complicated so have left it.

‎Tuesday, ‎December ‎27, ‎2016
Our 47th anniversary, maybe. It is about 7 degrees and lightly raining. Made beef stew and harvard beets.

‎Wednesday, ‎December ‎28, ‎2016
8 degrees today. A flock of robins at the berry trees this morning. Saw a racoon coming down the back garden steps from Rachael's kitchen window. Did a marinade with pepsi for the next steak. On Dec 26th we got the new convection oven/toaster from the Bay at Mayfair for $189... say $190.

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Continue on to Journal Entries for 2017

Back to Journal Entries for 2015

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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:

(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