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 2019

SYNOPSIS of the year

1. From a quick look at my Journal notes the orchids seem to have been blooming very well this year. my blog post with some of the orchids

2. Due to many changes on my computer stuff, including new PC, new servers on my web page, new pages for my web page, etc. I have not accomplished much in the garden in the last 4 months of the year.

3. I seemed to have got quite a lot of stuff done in January. Took back the thorn bush to about 7 feet, took down the Eucalyptus to a manageable height, potted up the pots on the deck.

4. There was a lot of time spent trying to dig out bluebells to control them, especially in the woodland. In the Spring I purchased about 20 plants from Cannor at their big sale. Some of these plants went to the VIRAGS spring show and sale, but most of them were planted into the cutting garden and the new pond surrounding area.

5. My pond pump quit in April and after puchasing a new one and getting it set up, I did some renovation to the stepping stones and surrounds of the pond. The new pots on the deck containing some herbs, some annuals, the new saxifragias, and other special plants seem to have done very well. The Commissionaires took very good care of them while we were away in the hotest part of the year.

6. When we got back from our trip the pond was down to about two thirds full. It may have been at this time that I found many of the big rocks in the pond, my good garden sprinkler and I know not what all else had been thrown in there by the two footed animals I call the pees. I filled the pond and forgot that I had the water running. Sadly, the over filling with chlorinated water killed my fish, and the under water plants did not fair very well either. So, some de-chlorinator, 10 new little fish and some new under water plants were added to the pond. By the end of the year, the plants have recovered, the new pump is running fine, and the fish seem to be slowly growing. Although I seldom see them. The waterfall constantly needs to be repaired.

7. Of course over the year the pees have been chopping at my garden, throwing cigarette butts in the pond, etc.(at the moment the cement mermaid seems to have jumped into the pond, along with some more of the rocks), disappearing any of my garden tools that are not locked up, and on and on it goes. In August they made a big production of cutting the Enlish Oak branches back with a key-hole saw. Davey Tree people are coming to repair the damage to the tree some time soon (as I type this on Jan 6th) in January 2020.

8. More time was spent in starting the lists of where plants are put in my garden. See the list at the bottom of the page for some of the plants. The teddy bears are not gardening but time was spent in gathering information on what bears I have and listing them.

The garden in 2019

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January 2019 ‎

January 1, 2019
We drove all around the town on the New Years day run with the VCCC. Was overcast, so a good driving day. We took the modern car. There were lots of people ... hot rods, Torque Masters, et al. No photos. Donuts and coffee at the Agricultural Building.

January 2, 2019
The Pot. Lisa Taylor Gallis 'Nora' (Blc.California Girl x Sc Beaufort) Orchid is in bloom. I must get its photo as it does not last very long. Not fond of the fragrance of it. It has 2 blossoms Did up the 'Scene While Riding on the Model T' under construction page and links on Travel, Progress, Model Ts, and its own under construction page for the album. It is about 5 degrees and raining. Was overcast most of the day. Going to load the blog files I have ready to go.

January 4, 2019
The sun came out today after all this rain we have had. I was out from 1 to 3 and put the Rex M. Saxifragias into a bigger pot. They are on the deck in the shade of the cedar privacy hedge. I find that I have another big off white pot, so I should be able to pot up some of the bulbs in it and keep them on the deck too. Yesterday there was an accident on Grange road just opposite Loenholm Rd. It seems there was a pedestrian hit.. a guy was lying on the ground in the fetal position. 3 saanich police cars arrived, and later another one. There were 3 ambulances. And the dog pound truck was there too. I saw the Police bring a young woman with hands cuffed behind her back to have a look at the pedestrian. Apparently her car was around behind the Parmars house where I could not see it. After the ambulance took the guy away they set up the crime scene tape (yellow stuff) and guys with blue gloves on looked at stuff. The photographer came and photo-ed it, and then they collected up his shoes and what looked like a blanket and whatever else was left on the street. This happened just about 11 am and the police were there until about 5 - 5:30. There was nothing on the news about it. Some of the people standing around were firemen first responders, the ambulance guys were paramedics. Have pictures, but nothing outstanding.

January 6, 2019
It was very windy for a little while last nite. I was watching the tall skinny blue tree (Eucalyptus) whip around in the wind. So today, since it was just overcast and not raining, we took that tree down to about 3.5 feet tall. I cut the thick trunk into stove sized pieces and the rest might be kindling and compost bin. While I was at it, I started taking down the thorn bush, which had grown into a tree as high as a house. I got it all cut down to about 6 - 7 feet tall. I might need to take it down even more, so that I can keep it pruned... or take it out entirely. The holly tree is just across a small path from it. The holly has prickly leaves and the firethorn, of course, has vicious thorns. The thorn bush has some really thick branches, so it may not be salvageable. Where it sits might be a good spot for the pink pots arrangement. As it is I have designs on putting the pink pots on the Germander next to the thornbush, and in front of the yew. The rhubarb is showing buds already. I pruned the apple tree back a bit today too. It needs a lot of work yet, but the fruiting buds are getting fat already. We are having a very warm winter, so far. The orange trees even seem to be surviving outside. I thought I might have their brown pots for bulbs after the trees died. So, maybe a bigger pot for each orange tree? They have not shown any blooms yet and it is well over 7 years since I planted the pits. I was out from 12:30 to 3:00. I have sore arm muscles, but am very pleased with how much I got done out there. I still need to cut up and dispose of the thorny bush, and some of the blue tree. Cut back some of the perennials at the back. Things are really early this year. Most of the perennials are showing new growth. Bulbs are poking up little nubbins of leaves. The dutch irises are really tall. I must get my bulbs planted out. I have crocuses, dutch irises, hyaciths, and some tulips. I might just put them in the cutting garden until I can get them situated.
I got a blog post done today. Yesterday I tried to find the names of my Hudson Bay Charity bears... I have some of them, but not all. I must make a list of them and the year of each one. There is some interesting history here. Hudson Bay Company was formed in 1670 and is still a viable company. Michael facetimed with Pat today from the Wadena care home, with Fran. She thinks she is dying and would like to end it. This just makes me think of the Proctors and Dave was happy about Rosemary deciding it was time to go and she did. Her funeral was a celebration of her life rather than a mourning of her passing. Which, I think, is the way it should be when we reach the end. It is the children with horrible diseases that are so sad to see. Or victims of some horrible deranged person. Well, enough of that.

January 7, 2019
Did laundry. Was outside from 1 to 4. Was sunny and only about 6 degrees. Cut up the branches from the Eucalyptus tree. Dug out a deer fern from by the new rhodo and moved it in two pieces to the corner at the other end of the house by the down spout. Hope it takes root. Put a bag of potting soil in the area by the new rhodo. Planted some of the bulbs - I forget which ones - along the front of the little stone wall. Put bone meal on them. Filled the smaller off white pot with potting soil and put bulbs into it... a hyacith or 2 and crocuses, I think. Filled the deck pots with potting soil. Planted bulbs in the pink pot, also. In the spring I will get heliotrope for the pink pot and basil for the green pot. Filled the patio pots (except the orange trees) with potting soil and planted a few bulbs into a couple of them. I still have a big off white pot that is empty. After getting the pots finished I put a bag of soil along in front of the fig tree and planted bulbs at the edge of the stepping stones. Used another bag of potting soil along the edge of the middle sidewalk by the cutting garden and planted small bulbs. Have scilla left to plant. The dutch iris bulbs seemed to be dead and moldy. I doubt if they will grow.

January 10, 2019
Overcast, warm day. Its up to 11 degrees. A couple of days ago Comox area had a foot and half of snow. People with power out again. We were okay. I got the ironing done this morning. I have found a way to put the music back on my pages. I got 12 pages revised, and yet to load them. It works!!! I was out in the garden from 1 to 2:30. Put a bag of manure on the rhubarb and strawberries. Clipped back the heather by the back corner of the little rockery. Dragged a couple of thorn bush branches to the bin, cut them up and have a few more for the wood pile. Took the wheel barrow to the front with a bag of potting soil. Planted the muscari, big blue smile around the water meter, gave them bone meal and have the bag of dirt spread around in this magnolia tree bed. Clipped back the Irish heather and the other heather by the bamboo. Took some debris to the green bin. Bulbs are poking up all over the garden. The orange trees seem to be surviving, despite a few light frosts. There is a red anemone in bloom in the front by the David.

January 14, 2019
It has become a bit cooler with light frosts over night.. like -2 and 9 or 8 in the sun. Yesterday we went to Sooke - Mom's cafe with the VCCC people. Big turnout. Too much sun while driving but nice drive anyway. I did a lot of sorting out of the charity bears last night and then Very early this morning I bought on line from the Bay, Vancouver the charity bear John Rae for $21.99 + $8.00 delivery, and tax to a total of $33.59. Beige bear with vest. Today the temperature has gone from 3 to 6 degrees from 9 o'clock to about 11 o'clock in sunshine. Watered the house plants. The pixie orchid has 3 big candy pink flowers, the BCL. lisa still has its 2 blossoms. The big Xmas cactus has quite a few little buds on one area of the plant. Pictures. In the last few days I made borscht, cole slaw, harvard beets, jellied salad with pinapple and cottage cheese. Its nice to have stuff on hand. Tonight we are going to have mussels and a bagette, salad. I have been redoing the music on my web page and it seems to be working. Am up to the 'P' photography page. Flickr is not great. People treat it like facebook. faveing everything. some of them follow you and you go look at why and find they have followed thousands of people and are collecting thousands of followers in return. How very useless and phony is that?

January 17, 2019
Was out from 1:30 to 3:30. Skimmed cig butts out of pond. and then dragged the firethorn branches down to the patio and started cutting them up. Am about half finished. But have 2 big branches to cut up, probably for firewood. It was about 10 degrees and overcast. I am getting the JE 2018 page finished. Have to do photos yet and make up the under construction page for garden 2018. Got a lot of stuff done in the garden last year despite being away for so much of the year.

January 18, 2019
Made a fantastic discovery today. I CAN open the CR2 files in my copy of photoshop. SO, it is a good thing I saved my pictures to the hard drive Storage. I deleted the RAW files from most of my photos, but can still access them in the storage. EXCEPT the 2018 ones. Any files I saved to storage and later deleted on the F drive still exist in storage. NOT -- on further searches.. all the deleted ones are GONE. Why oh why did I never realize that photoshop opens the CR2 Raw files!!!! ***NOT. OMG there are very few CR2... BUT the temperary files I can convert to dng and extract and can be opened in camera RAW in adobe
We were to London Drugs in Colwood for a drive today. While there I decided to price out the new Ipad Pro and got a few good bits of advice from Adam there. He says I should get the 11 inch and 512 GB version. In looking at photoshop for ipad it is a monthly cost. To hell. I can use my old windows 7 and the one I photoshop that I have now. Adam said that a lot of people are not even getting phones but are using VOIP... like Skype, etc.

January 19, 2019
Pam and Mike came over on the 9:00 ferry. He had a meeting and she came to see my garden and have lunch. It was sunny and just a bit cool. We went about the garden and she got a few plants. A hebe, some of the Irish plant from in the west coast planter, cyclamen bunch, not sure what else. She collected all the eucalyptus branches she could find. We came in and had borscht and liverworst for lunch. Then she went to pick up Mike. We had a bit of visit and then it was time for supper. We went to Boston Pizza. noisy, but good ribs. Then they were off to catch the ferry home.

January 20, 2019
Went to the Grid and came home with far more photos than I thought I would need. Was very sunny bright. Pat walked quite a bit. We met Marlene and Art for supper at 6:00 at Milos. Was just ok.

January 21, 2019
After lunch Pat took me over to the clinic to see what had become of the referral to a new Haemeotologist. Had to wait to 1:00 to get in. Kathleen no longer works there.. oh dear. Dr. T had sent the request for referral out on Dec. 20th. Dr. T is now on holidays till mid February. The new girl said it takes some time to get the referral. So, need to wait to hear back from them. She did not think they were able to get the one(s) I wanted. Getting photos from the grid done up and posted to Flickr.

January 23, 2019
Was sunny and 10 degrees. Was up way late last night after watching Dr. Zivago on TV. Terrible story... not at all as I seem to remember it. Was out from 1:00 to 3:30. Got more firethorn branches chopped up. There is two long branches to be cut for firewood size, with the saw, left to do as yet. The bin is full again. Dumped some apples. The apples are shrivelled and there are not many left. Cigarette butts in the pond and around the pond again.

January 24, 2019
Overcast. About 10 degrees. Was out from 1 to 3. Pat cut the 2 long firethorn branches into firewood pieces. I cut off the thorns and we have a bit more wood curing. The bin is full and packed down. I clipped back the germander and dug out blue bells. Hope the fawn lillies survived.

January 27, 2019
Been doing some computer stuff, some flickr stuff, some sorting out of the teddy bear stuff, managed to add my Google Play music to my music and somehow managed to add them to my playlist - good oldies, I think. I did buy this music after all. I can't find the other older music I bought with the nexus phone. Oh well. I don't think I can get the CR2 files or the DNG files that I deleted. They are not available in Storage, and won't be in back up, of course. Oh well, probably will never need them anyway. I have to convert any CR2 to DNG as my photoshop is not set up to use the newer camera RAW files. Much political crapo going on with China, US, and all over actually. Big storms all over too. Was out to get a few pictures yesterday. A few snowdrops in bloom, the odd crocus, yellow crocus in the crocus field, cyclamens, water hawthorn, a couple of polyanthus. The Pixie orchid now has 6 big pink blossoms. Was out after lunch. About 12:30 to 4:00. Cleaned up the patio area. Dragged one of the big white pots up the old sidewalk and have it set in front of the yew. Dug out the germander and a couple of rocks. Have to level it, better. The other big white pot is on the patio in line with the one at the back of the old sidewalk. It might work. Then I dug out more blue bells. I am getting the them cleaned up. This smothering them seems to work. There is only one coming up in the far side of the pond, which I will dig out. There are bulbs of all kinds poking their noses up. I found some little brown bulbs in the woodland. They are not like the blue bells. I hope they are the fawn lilies. I brought 2 of them up to the deck and put them in a black pot with potting soil. They had little sprouts on them. So, shall see what they turn into. Hopefully I have not destroyed too many of the fawn lillies. I will get more of them, if I have to, once the blue bells are gone. I heap leaves on the back in the fall, and I should be getting some good leaf mold in the woodland. The mock orange bush is spreading out. It seems to like to be pruned and likes the spot it is in, under the Japanese cedar. The green bin is heaping full.

January 29, 2019
Yesterday, we went up to Walbran Park in the Grid. and out to the co-op for gas and lottery tickets. I used the $10 gift card from Arthur for mentioning Pat when he signed up at the Co-op. Today, it was 10 degrees, sun. I set up the roast beef in the pressure cooker and got supper ready to turn the stove on, etc. Then was out from 2:00 to 4:30. I have almost all of the visible blue bells pulled out. Rearranged the dried leaves, and have some covering the path, now. This leaf mold is making some really good soil back in the woodland. I do hope I have not destroyed the fawn lilies. Must wait and see if they come up. Straightened the pot at the far end of the sidewalk and liberated a few more rocks. Trimmed back the mock orange a bit and the big fern. Did Flickr stuff. Some guy with a Hasellblad mirrorless camera faved a couple of my Model T photos. Hmmmm. That Hasselblad costs over $8K and that is body only. Yikes.

January 30, 2019
Was overcast and about 8 degrees. Was out in the back garden cleaning up more woodland. Did a bit of clipping of dry branches on the Japanese cedar. Clipped a bit of the lily of the valley shrub back. Cut the big fern back off the sidewalk. Dug out more blue bells. Am up to the water tub with cleaning up blue bells and all. The species tulips are spreading all over that back border. I think I will have to start controlling them. The iris bed needs a make over, too, I think.

February 2019

February 4, 2019
We have had freezing temperatures over night for the past 3 days. This morning it is still about -5. There is a skiff of snow and all the roads are icey. The humming bird feeder was frozen to the table. I poured hot water on it to release it. Put out the flat looking feeder for the birds while I unthaw the old glass one. The birds are around but I don't see them feeding at the fresh one put out, yet. Starting to finish the March album. Have 4 pages done and 11 to go. Have reduced the original by one page of 15. I have no idea why I did so many crocuses.

February 9, 2019
We have had over night frosts and just a few degrees above freezing during the day, with some sun. Yesterday we had about 4 inches of snow. It mostly melted leaving an icey mess around the streets. Over night we had big wind gusts. I have finished a couple of the March album pages, with 8 left to tweak before I make the album. 15 photos in 3 rows of 5 for 15 pages. Really is too many and there are lots of photos of each kind of plant... crocuses, dafs, magnolia, etc. Put out new hummingbird food. Have been bringing the feeder in at night so it is unthawed in the morning.

February 11, 2019
It has been just around the freezing mark for the last few days. And we have had snow. It melts a bit and we get more over night or the next day. The chairs on the deck look to be piled up with more than a foot of this light fluffy snow. It is very bright out with the snow reflections. Pat has had his wood stove going in the late evening and its nice and toasty in his room to watch t.v. We have been very lucky. Our power has always been on. I think the orange trees are finished. It has been too cold for them. I ordered Rex Murfitt's 2 books from a place in London through ABE books. I could not get on my Amazon account. Guess that doesn't matter. I did not use it anyway. Google plus is being taken down, and so is hangouts. There will be something to replace them, but I am sure I don't care.... never used it anyway. I have almost finished tweaking photos for March up to the 8th page.... so seven more pages to go after that.

February 16, 2019
We have had snow and more snow the last few days. Did get out to the Lab and now have to phone the Clinic Tuesday morning to see Dr.T. Have appointment with Dr. W on the 28th.
I have been obessing about picture frames the last few days. Drop shadow can be made in photoshop. Make a selection on the new layer and go to that blending place and choose drop shadow.. proceed to make the shadow. Similiar procedure to make shadows for any object you set the selection around. That's cool. I must review the making reflections procedure too someday. I have found my old picture frames in PSP. under image/picture frames. Trouble is with PSP the default opening for jpeg turns to opening with PSP. To fix that I have to go to computer and set my defaults back to the windows setings. Dammit. Any file I take into PSP reverts to opening with PSP. nasty. I have to learn how to fix that. Playing with photo editor on my nexus phone. Cool stuff, even some frames, if I can find them on there.
I am up to page 10 of the March album photo tweaking. So 6 more pages to go. We have a sunny day today with 6 degrees. The snow is melting. It did not freeze last nite.

February 25, 2019
Most of the snow is melted but it is cold this morning despite the sun shining and its at about 4 degrees. Yesterday Pat took me around the Grid and I got some pretty good grid photos. I have finally figured out how to process the RAW files.. Convert them to DNG (make sure it opens in Adobe PS 5 or whatever it is I have. Where it automatically opens in camera raw. The DNG files are much bigger than the CR2 and of course the jpegs are much smaller than the CR2, but seem to me to contain much more detail than the Jpegs, even if I opened them in camera raw by right clicking the jpegs. I watered the house plants this morning. Ironed Pat's 2 shirts. Its good to get this stuff done.

March 2019

March 2, 2019
Finished loading the grid photos on Flickr, for February. Have learned about the Frames in Photoshop. Am 1.50 ahead in Playnow today. Made vegetable and beef soup from the short ribs bones and the stock from the bones and one of the ribs for the beef. Have 4 packages left to freeze. Had a bowl of soup with supper and left over pizza.
We have had over night frosts and temps up to 7 - 8 degrees with sun for the last week or so. Was to see Dr. Wass and go for my next lab for her in June, as I seem to be doing ok. Last pleb on Nov 27... so June is like 7 months then have to wait another month to get the time in the Jubilee. My knee flared up and I was unable to put any weight on it for the last week. It is just now getting better. Have no idea what caused this. I have one of the Rex Murfitt books. Am disappointed in the pictures... they are all this horrible light sepia color. I wonder if this is a mistake or a dud...I should email that Mackey place that published them and ask.

March 8, 2019
It froze last night and was -2 on the thermometer this morning. Now, at 1:00 it is up to 8 degrees with sunshine. I have wasted the morning trying to do up a copy of the Leg buildings, only to find that I have a perfectly good photo in the Web Page album from the same date on Nov 1, 2015. Fed and watered house plants. The orange trees have died in the freezing temperatures. I left them out on purpose as they are too messy and have to be moved in and out of the house. So this shall liberate 3 more brown pots for rock plants.
There are 3 cigarette butts in the pond. A few days ago I found that my front of the table deck chair had been moved to sit next to the house beside the tall white pot. It seemed to be moved the night we were out to Lakes Restuarant.... the 6th or 7th. Seems shithead is begging for attention again. What a total twat. I haven't seen the old lady Pee for a long time. No laundry on the line. She must be really sick, or have dementia and gone to mental hospital.
I have set up a Pinterest account mainly to get that 'board' of Alpine plants pinned so I can easily find it. My link to Robaire's board where I pinned them from does not work as a link on my blog. I need to repair those blog links someday. I have done a couple of blog posts about the snow, etc. and should get on with finishing the big snow of February, instead of wasting time on this photoshop stuff. And finish my March album.

March 10, 2019
Froze last night. The humming bird feeder and table top were frozen this morning. We changed time today. 8 became 9 o'clock. There was some chain sawing noise on Friday morning. We went for a walk to the bridge off Gerda and then walked in the woods where there seems to be a plan for the trail. There is much storm damage. The brush under the hydro tower has been cut down a bit. There are bits of garbage and a couch with a large piece of what looks like plywood off to one side. There is a good flow in the river under the Loenholm bridge. There may have been some clean up going on there. Across the road from the Syrians place there is bunches of garbage in the black berries. They don't seem to have had this trashy habbit of theirs explained: that we don't do that in Canada.

March 13, 2019
Was to the VIRAGS meeting last night and Pat too. Paid my dues $20, bought raffle tickets, listened to presentation of John Mitchell from Edinborough Royal Botantic garden, was interesting. The history of the place did not exactly hold my attention. It was the make overs that were interesting. I was not inspired to sign up for anything at the show. There seemed to be lots of new people... hope they all signed up. It has been sunny but coolish the last few days. The crocuses are coming up. The boxwood hedge seems to be straightened up again after the snow pounded it down in spots. Rained a bit yesterday.

March 14, 2019
About 10 degrees today and overcast. Made Borscht..lunch and froze 1 big blue pkg. Made cole slaw, made lemonaide.

March 17, 2019
Yesterday was very warm compared to what we have been having. It must have got up to at least 14 degrees, sunny. Pat took me to Cannor at about 11:30. They were having a big flat sale of their last year's perennials. All you can pile into a flat for $20.00. Of course I was the last one there. Never-the-less, I came away with 30 plants in my flat, a mossy saxifrage not in the flat sale, and a pair of good gloves: all for $34.50. My membership is good till the end of May. My intention was to get these plants and take some to the VIRAGS show and sale. Well, after looking at them and listing them, I seem to have only 5 or 6 left for the VIRAGS. I will see how they are in a couple of weeks. I have columbines, verbascums, little golden rods, pink veronica, pink thread leaf coreopsis, a pink baby's breath, heuchera, milkweeds, and many other treasures. I expect to build up the soil in the cutting garden and add them. I also have a large white pot, and 3 brown pots from the orange trees. There is room for some in the little front rockery. I need to move the big gentian out of the little rockery at the back and make a gentian bed somewhere. Perhaps behind the old garage. Must get rid of all the bluebells there. The crocus field is looking much better. The bulbs I put into the deck pots are not up yet. What the hell? We go to the vccc car run today and up to Naniamo for the Antiques meeting tomorrow, so I don't get out till Tuesday. I have finally got back to my March album...Finished page 13. Only have 2 more pages of photos, of the 15 pages, to tweak yet. It is another lovely sunny day, this St.Patrick's Day. Went on the VCCC run. Skimmed the pond taking out cigarette butts.

March 19, 2019
Sunny, 18 degrees. Watered house plants and deck plants. Scrubbed out the tub, did laundry. Made avocado jello salad, and a roast chicken feast for supper. Put a few more small stones onto the Saxafraga pot and clipped the honeysuckle a bit. Cleaned up the water tub pots. Tweaked one row of the March album.

March 20, 2019
Was sunny and 18 degrees. Was out in the garden for a couple of hours. Dug out more bluebells. I am mostly finished the bluebells in the woodland. The fawn lillies are coming up despite my digging around them!! Dragged a big white pot up to the deck. filled the bottom with clay from under the deck with carboard over the drain holes. Brought a big bag of container soil up to the deck and filled the pot about 3/4 full, packed down a bit. I think I will be putting the gentian from last year's VIRAGS show and sale into this pot. It is a gentian depresso.(I can find NO gentiana depresso.) The one in the little rockery is a gentian septemfidia Lagodechiana. I think I will leave it in the rock garden and move the little evergreen. It has little leaves and so does the depresso in its pot. So it survived our being away to Sask..July and to Scandinavia ..Aug and sick in Sept. I think the Commissionaire guys took really good care of my house and deck plants last year. Putting lovage(put lovage on the side.. it quite overwhelming in the potato salad) and chives in the salads for supper. Shrimp and avocado on lettuce, and potato salad with some cold chicken. Going to be yummm. Got 20 songs from google music .. Clearance Clearwater Survival. All good stuff. sent them to myself by gmail from phone and dragged them into the Good Oldies playlist.

March 22, 2019
This morning did not look very good for gardening, so I finished Page 14 of the March album. It will start raining again in a couple of days. So after lunch the sun came out and no rain. Was a perfect gardening day. Was out from 1 to 4. Cleaned up the cutting garden. Threw twigs and leaves in the big green bin on the garden and then took it to the compost bin. The Compost bin is nearly full now. The fallen leaves, over the last few years are beginning to make a good leaf mulch on the cutting garden. The crocuses that I put in last fall are finally coming up now. Some of the other perennials are just beginning to show. The rhubarb is up ... hope it grows some proper stems this year. It looks pretty good. The strawberries do no look great. Hope to get the little rockery cleaned up next and the back grass mowed. I cut off a long stem of the wisteria, so this will slow it down a bit I think. I dug up 2 plants of the magenta Primula and 2 of the double pink ones, added potting mix and watered them. They are all in buds. I am hoping they open up of the show as I am taking them. Have a soapworte to take, and the ice plant that I started from a cutting. There will be more to take from the Cannor plants, cleverly disguguised with the cannor tags removed and my own stakes added. One of the little golden rods might not be growing. I have one for me and one for the show. I am thinking of putting the golden allysum, the golden rod and the Arabis old gold into the big white pot. And there will be one Arabis for the show.

March 23, 2019
Wash, up and dressed at 6 this morning. I couldn't sleep. So, had breakfast, did the ironing, and made capacinno, then tweaked one row of photos. Had popcorn for early lunch and was out by 1:00 until 4:00. It looked like rain in the morning but the afternoon was the perfect gardening day. Weeded the fig tree bed to the holly tree. Dumping the weeds and stuff into the green compost bin. I cleaned up some of the edges, along the back. I need to renovate the edge where the pinks were very long and stringy. Weeded and cleaned the little rockery. I see I have a stemless gnetian growing quite nicely. The lewisia davidia is full of buds and there are a few of the other kind, up and seeding around a bit. I need to add some top dressing and renew the pea gravel mulch. The daphne is in bud, too. Raked the grass (had weeded it a bit too). Put the leaves and debris on the woodland path. Also raked up some of the leaves from under the bay tree and put them on the woodland path. Have daffodils in the house. I have a very sore left shoulder. It has been like this for months, whenever I exercise the muscle at the shoulder. Hot water on it helps. I guess I should find some muscle relaxant stuff to use. Next I should mow the grass, and put down some top dressing and rake grass seed into it. I don't know if this old grass seed i have is viable anymore, it's pretty old.

March 24, 2019
Was about 18 today. Was out from 2:30 to 5:30. Bagged lots of leaves from off the cutting garden and the corner of the pond next to the waterfall. Put several bags of leaves on the woodland path by the garage. Cleaned the edge of the little rockery, added a bit of compost to the rockery and a bit more pea gravel. It all looks good. I might have room for some cutting garden plants... columbines? next to the yew trees where I removed the leaves. The soil is very good under this place where the leaves have been sitting for a few years. Started the clean up of the pond and moss garden by removing more leaves and debris by the cutting garden entry and the bay tree. Clipped the lily of the valley shrub and the false bamboo. Tamped down the green bin a bit to add the weedy debris. All this took longer than I expected. So, I still have the pond area, the moss garden and the stepping stones paths to clean up. The veronica, the maltese cross and a few crocuses, and self seeded malvas (I think) are germinating. only a couple of columbines. The tall bearded iris are looking pretty good in their corner of the cutting garden. Been throwing all the cig butts back on the Pees garden. There must be at least a dozen of them. The shithead was throwing these butts into the dry leaves around my garden. The garden looks so good when it is trimmed and cleaned up.
Today I added $65 to the Mary account, so I should be ahead by nearly $200 by now.

March 25, 2019
Overcast, cooler day. Was out from 1:00 to 3:00. Dug dandilions out of the grass path. Clipped down perennials in the front garden, clipped back the french lavender a bit. Dug out 2 pieces of the Japanese anemone and moved them to the back woodland garden where I had smothered the anemone with leaves. The soil under all these leaves at the back is very good soil. I should dig soil from back there to use in the flower beds as top dressing, but be sure to not take any blue bells with it.

March 26, 2019
The sun is coming out. We had some rain last night. Did a bit of sorting out of the deck plants and moved some of them into a spot where they will get more sunshine. I have another cutting of the ice plant in a little pot and one of the cuttings of the Rex Murfit saxifragia in the cement pot is tiny but growing nicely. I must set up more of these tiny pots and take cuttings of each of the saxifragias I have growing in the big white pot, so I can put them out in the little rockery. I have one of the more common ones growing out in the little rockery in the back. But am thinking, since they like some shade, especially in summer, they might do very well in the little rockery in the front garden. It looks like the primulas I set up for the VIRAGS sale, are going to survive and might even have open blooms. Washed the deck window/door. Took 2 hours and I am totally exhausted. Made supper and fell asleep on the couch right after cleaning up the kitchen.

March 29, 2019
We have not had any of the promised rain this week. I got the door to the deck cleaned up on Wednesday. Took me 2 hours and I was totally exhausted. Yesterday, Thursday, I made up the page for the plants that I am taking to the VIRAGS sale.. only 8 of them. And decided that my ipad2 was not going to be restored. I guess it IS the dead battery, so that's the end of it. As soon as Pat is finished doing the income tax I will go and get my new ipad Pro from London Drugs. I can see my books, music and movies I bought with them on my itunes. The icloud says I only used 3.95 and I am allowed 5 gb so I have no idea what those emails I got saying I needed to delete some stuff or buy more space on the cloud, were all about. I have not received another one. Maybe they were phishing emails, but they looked authentic. My new pro is going to have face identification. Man that's scarey. Pat uses his thumb on his phone.
Today it got to be 15 degrees. I was out from 1:30 to 4:30, doing odds and ends stuff. I planted the big pot of the unnamed columbine in the cutting garden. I am marking the plants with bamboo stakes. Transplanted the mossy saxifragia in the little rockery at the back, and the gentian depresso... no one has ever heard of that name... into the little rockery by the strawberry jar. Did some fixing of the cement blocks surrounding the pond. While I was there, I dug the violets out of the primulas that grow between the walking blocks and the viewing blocks. Divided some of those primulas and put them on the other side of the walking blocks. Cleaned up a bit of the debrie but still have lots to do around the pond. Moved some stones around the willow with the red bark and pussy willows, and filled in a bit more around the roots of the willow with potting compost. I have the little pots up on the deck for starting cuttings of things, perhaps for next years show and sale. Washed off the deck and hosed off the patio area. I have 2 smaller pink pots to add to the pink pots that are now on the deck. Not sure what is going to be put in these smaller pots. Maybe just moss and stones. The pink pots are to complete the set up of the pink pots.

March 30, 2019
Is sunny and up to 18 degrees. Since we are going out tonite I am not gardening as I will get too dirty. Have been out to see what is coming up. The Triliums at the front seem to be putting up sprouts. The little one, of course, is up. The stinky one in the pot on the patio is up. I am planning where the Cannor plants might go. The Columbines will go into the cutting garden. Last years unnamed plant that looks like a primula auricola might go in its own pot on the deck... is already in a clay pot with a broken side... so it will need to come out of there when I find out what it is. The blue corydalis and one of the globe flowers will go in the big white pot I think, as they both like shade and cool and kept moist. I think the three yellow plants... the variegated arabis, the golden rod and the allysum should fit into the plum tree stump bed. I do not know where to put the pink stuff... probably in the cutting garden.. babys breath, 2 pink thread leaf coreopsis, 2 pink red fox veronicas; the blue abretia goies to the little rockery. The Soulmate milkweed and the white milkweed will each go into a tall black pot where I can keep an eye on them. I think I do have some Soulmates coming up from last year's seeded ones from Medicinal Seeds. There is space for the white arenaria in the little rockery at the back, The 2 mullens (verbascum) will go to the cutting garden, the pink soapwort (saponia) is a ground cover so might go into the cutting garden, also. There are 2 asiatic primroses that should go into the primula bed... but one of them will go with the corydalis and the globe flower. Hopefully this will fill out the cutting garden, which will need watering and attention while these plants get established. With no travel plans except back to sask, perhaps this will work this year, if I can water them and then mulch them well with compost for the sunner. I want to move any fawn lillies that are growning in the path into the moss garden/primula bed area. I don't know where the Heuchera will go. Like shade so It might go under the deck where it can be kept watered.
Have finished tweaking the photos for the March album.

April, 2019

April 1, 2019
Yesterday it got to be quite warm; up to 18 in the afternoon. I did laundry, grocery shopped with Pat, and Pat took me out to the grid in Fernwood area to shoot for the group. Downloaded the March photos.
Today I made crepes and crepes St. Jaques, made coleslaw, flattened the pork for schnitzle, in the am. More shopping in the afternoon.

April 2, 2019
The hyacinths are in bloom and perfuming the whole garden. Daffodils are out. Last evening at about dusk, I saw a couple of the fish in the pond. They looked really quite big. This morning I watched the humming bird bathing on the rock of the waterfall. I cleaned up the plants for the VIRAGS plant sale .. there are 8 of them.. 2 double pink primulas, and 2 deep magenta/purple primula, an ice plant, from Cannor: 1 arabis, 1 Soapwort, and 1 little lemon golden rod. Watered the deck plants. In the afternoon I was out for a couple of hours. Cleaned up the side of the pond along the boxwood hedge, some of the plants in the pond. The willows are both cleaned up. More soil put around the willow by the stump bed. It has come out in its little fuzzy pussy willows now.

April 3, 2019
We had a bit of rain last night and a bit during the day. It was cooler out today and a bit breezy. I have finished 20 photos and loaded them to the Grid on Flickr.

April 6, 2019
Cool, breezy, gusting winds, in fact. Power went off for about 2 seconds, just enough time to kill the clock settings. We have had bits of rain, sun, and clouds over the last few days. Took my books and the 8 plants to the VIRAGS plant sale yesterday. Have finished uploading my grid photos to the Flickr group. My March album is ready to create. I will be going to the VIRAGS show and sale shortly, so everything waits until this is over. Canot get out to garden in this weather, anyway. Good show, some good pictures, I hope. Spent 12:30 to 3:30 in the kitchen, mostly doing dishes. Was lots of little desert bars and cookies, with lots left over that will probably show up at the meeting. There were people having tea till 3:30 ish. Then they started the take down and it took them very little time to get the plants out and take down the tables etc and get them all out. I expect they made quite a bit of cash. Holly was in charge of the kitchen, worked with Bryce and Pat on my shift and met the 3 before me... nice ladies, but I forget their names. I am slowly beginning to recognize a few faces. I took 8 plants for sale.. did not notice what they were selling for...and brought 8 home with me. Delesporem probably about $3.00, Daphine domini $3.00, Saxifragia Paniculata "Dr. Clay' $5.00, Saxifragia 'Lilac Time" $7.00 Rex Murfitt cuttings, Cardamine $4.00, Omphalodes linifolia $5.00, Omphalades Blue $5.00, Trillium chloropetalum $4.00, total of $36.00. Listed under purchases.

April 7, 2019
Temps at 13 degrees at 11:00 am, overcast, no wind. Added magenta and big black ink to the printer, and printed out the newsletter. I see that there were special primulas from some Easterm Collection on sale at the show. I guess I missed them. The only ones I saw were mine and some primulas veris - cowslips. I believe my plants sold. I forgot to look at what they had been priced out at. Watered the house and deck plants. Out taking pictures... too sunny and contrasty. I am happy to see all of my trilliums are up;. The cutting garden seems to be doing well too. The rain we were promised does not seem to be happening. Lot of debris blew around in the wind. Lots of dandilions and bluebells to dig out at the front. I am going to want to move some of the fawn lillies off the woodland path and over to the moss garden. The chocolat lilly has four or five blossoms. And glory be, that shrub with the pinky red blossoms has blooms on the lower branches this year. I got it years ago at the VIRAGS sale. I was thinking of digging it out this year as it had not been blooming. I think it is a flowering quince, the new kind with no thorns, Chaenomeles. Got the smallest pink pot out of the garage, filled it with clay and put some growing little moss on the top. Watered it and watered under the deck. While under the deck I found a cedar branch next to the deck pulled down and making the privacy hedge more 'see through' I dragged the cedar bow back up and covered the openings and over towards the house just above the deck railing is also covered. I can't imagine how that bow got pulled down the way it was. No way the wind storm would do that. I am going to have to set leg hold traps out there, to see what kind of animal is causing this damage. Finished listing the Cannor purchases.

April 8, 2019
Was out from 12:30 to 3:30. Mowed the grass and put 2 bags of clippings into the old compost bin. Dug 2 holes in the cutting garden and filled them with compost from the old bin. I intend to transplant the 2 milkweed plants in there. So, there should be 3 milkweed plants growing there then. Moved about 6 fawn lily leaves and bulbs to the moss garden, added leaves to mulch them. Skimmed off the pond. It began to rain, just as I finished up this stuff. got a bit damp. It is only 10 degrees out today and cloudy. Quit raining after I got into the house.

April 9, 2019
Grocery shopping in the am., to tea at Marlene and Art's place, Lana is in town for a bridge tournament. To the VIRAGS meet after supper at the nautical nelly or whoever for fish and chips. Finally home at 9:15. They made gross amount of $6000 at the show and sale. Did a bit more on the teddy bear list in the odd moments I got between going here or there.

April 11, 2019
cool, light rain, clouds. So far we have about 3/4 inch of rain in April. Am getting the March album finished. Fifteen pages - 225 photos. Was out to take photos.. lots of weeds.

April 12, 2019
Was out from 1:00 to 3:30. It got to 13 degrees today. Cleaned up the back of the pond area, up to the lantern, including putting down a couple of new cement blocks along the back, pulling out blue bells. Its looking pretty good. Pulled out some more blue bells in the woodland. still more to do to keep on top of them. The licorice fragrant herb seeds all about. I only need one of that plant. I may put one out in the front triangle, maybe the one in the front of the bed where it is crowding out the new transplants of the Japanese anemone. The milkweed purchases are not up yet, the corydalis does not look good either, and one of the thread leaf coreopsis has one litle sprout. the other pink coreopsis looks good to go into the cutting garden. Got Shaw to retrieve access to my shaw mail by phoning them. Their on line chat did not seem to work. Finally got ahold of a person, Geta with an accent. There is a reference no. for the phone call in Documents under Shaw Shitheads. Took me hours to get this done. Shaw techies just ain't what they used to be. Changed my microsoft (hotmail) password while trying to access the mygardnjb mail... no luck in figuring that out though. Got a couple more March html pages finished.

April 13, 2019
Rained over night. We are up to about an inch of rain in April, so far. Brian the handyman is here to clean the gutters, wants to do the moss too. About $100 - $150 for the gutters.. garage and house. Phoned Pat he says to just do the gutters, nevermind the moss. Raining lightly so I cannot garden. 14 degrees. Did some comments on Flickr. Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify to grand jury in WikiLeaks case. Judge Claude Hilton orders Manning to jail after brief Hearing. Julian Assange. The WikiLeaks founder has been in Ecuadors embassy in London since 2012. It is almost seven years since the WikiLeaks founder skipped bail and sought refuge in Ecuadors London embassy. from the guardian.com.. there is a lot more in the article...new president of Eucador Lenin Moreno is objecting to pictures of himself and family appeared on line, followed by the publication of papers that appear to implicate Mr. Moreno in corruption, perjury and money laundering, link sent to mmmee. He was arrested after Ecuador revoked his political asylum and invited Metropolitan police officers inside their Knightsbridge premises where he has stayed since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations which Assange has always denied. Later Thursday he was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court and faces up to 12 months in a British prison. At a central London police station, Assange was further arrested at the request of the US seeking his extradition over allegations he conspired with former US military analyst Chelsea Manning to download classified databases in what the US justice department called 'one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States'. of course there is more and more on this. Exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan ... Snowden said that an extradition over the leaks constituted a risk to press freedom. He faces up to 12 months in jail over the charge of skipping bail in the UK. He is facing extradition to the US and up to 5 years in prison after he was forcibly dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy in London on the 11th of april. Britain would not agree to extradition if an individual would face the death penalty. Sent link on this also.

April 14, 2019
11 degrees and cloudy with 50% chance of rain, at 10:00. Emptied an inch of rain out of the gauge. Was out from 1 to 4. Washed off the patio and deck after the gutter cleaning guy had been yesterday. Finished the weeding around the pond. Next shall do the dry stream and the moss garden, then put down new pea gravel. Was cool and damp out. Finished the index page coding. Finished page 1 & 26 of photo html. so this does not take very long... 14 more pages to go Was awake most of the night after hearing these great thumping noises from the jail area. When searching the internet to find out what is going on, it seems they are way under staffed with twice as many inmates as the space allows for. I believe it should be federally funded. They won't get anything done until somebody gets killed.

April 15, 2019
Sun shining in the am. Finished page 3 of the March Album large photos html. . . 12 pages to go. Made borscht with 3 pkgs in the freezer, made the green jello pineapple, cottage cheese salad, grocery shopped, cooked up the ham and have 4 pieces for dinners, cut up the cheddar and mozerella cheese and froze them. Made salmon loaf for supper. It got to about 14 degrees today but did not get out.

April 16, 2019
Was overcast today, but warmer... up to 15 degrees. Got the laundry done. Was out from 2:30 to 4:30 weeding and cleaning up the moss garden. Finished the pond side of the moss garden up to where the dry stream goes under the deck. Emptied one of the orange trees out of the pot and onto the fig tree bed. The pots are totally full of roots. I think I will leave the other 2 trees and see if they recover from the frost. The one I cut off had good green wood on the trunk and the taller branches. So this brown pot will have the yellow stuff in it. golden rod, allysum and the yellow, variegated arabis. I need a white pot for the pink veronica, the pink coreopsis and the special verbascum. the other ones of this verbacum combination go out in the cutting garden or in the smoke bush bed. The smoke bush bed needs compost and the onion things thinned out. I need to add more compost to the cutting garden. I have 3 gentians in the little rockery at the back, the little lewisias, the big daphne, the mossy saxifragia and the other silvery one. There is a little spruce. A dianthus --special, and a companula -- very special.

April 17, 2019
Was a nice day out today. Got out at 1:30 after looking up numerous plants and how to grow them. I am slowly getting all the plants sorted out. I find that I still have 3 asiatic primulas.. don't know if I forgot to send one to the VIRAGS or whether I had 4 to start with. O well, no matter. Today, I put a trollis - globe flower, in a big white pot, with the poor looking corydalis. I might change this plant into a smaller pot, and use this big pot for the next bunch of saxifragia. I put the second trollius into a gallon pot and set it in the pond on top of a basket that is on the ledge near the Lebanon Cedar side of the pond. Will see how each Trollius survives. Dug out a stone on the observation platform by the pond, dug out the clay, added some compost from the old bin, put in the Hecurra and filled in around the edges with compost. It wants shade, so it should be good in this spot. I need clay for the next pot of saxifragia I do. There is more clay under the deck, of course. I brought the brown pot up to the deck... the one I liberated from an orange tree. I am going to put the yellow stuff in it... arabis, allysum and the little golden rod. Took the 4 columbines down to the cutting garden... have not put them in yet, as I need to add more compost for them. I ran out of time to do that. I cleaned up the moss garden.. along the dry stream and all under the deck, out to the stepping stones and under the rhodo and azyleas. I plan to put the 3 asiatic primulas in the moss garden. They will need compost in their holes, which will be in clay. I will need to keep them watered. Watered under the deck a bit. Yesterday I saw a great blue heron fly up from the back garden, so maybe this is why the fish have been hiding. I had heard a little splash in the pond a few days ago, and then did not hear it again ... so maybe the heron got the frog, too. The moss garden looks good cleaned up.

April 18, 2019
Was out taking pictures in the morning. The tulips are fantastic. Happy to see that one of the little milkweeds in the pot is showing a shoot. And there is one coming up in the holly tree bed. The 3 trilliums planted in the magnolia bed all have buds or are in bloom. So, I will be planting the new one out there with the rest of them. There are so many weeds in the front! Yesterday while it was raining I got up to page 12 finished, and finished page 13 just this morning, on the March album... 2 pages to go Fed and watered the house plants There is a little over a half an inch of rain in the gauge.

April 20, 2019
Was a nice sunny day. Emptied the rain gauge of slightly more than half an inch. Temps up to 18 degrees. In the morning I finished the last page of the March album. Have to check it yet and then load it. Bought a Hudson bay bear of 2002 from rgf1982 Rob Findlay for $28.87 after a bid for PayPal. In the afternoon I was out from 3 to 5. Finished cleaning up around the pond and the moss garden. Put 3 shovels full of compost on the primula bed and planted the 3 asiatic primulas in the same area, behind the shorter primulas near the chocolat lilies The chocolat lilies are spreading like crazy. Put a shovel full of compost on the stump bed next to the edging stones. I am going to plant the fancy arabis, and the little golden rods here, and maybe the golden alyssum. Need to add some pea gravel to this spot for good drainage. Cleaned up the end of the little rockery and planted the little daphne just the other side of the big tufa rock from the daphne that is now in bloom, and growing good. The little rockery is looking pretty good. I might hit this rock with my rock hammer to split it in 2, so that I have part of it for the brown pot (on the deck) of the 2 saxifragias and the cutting from the saxifragia of RM that I have in the cement pot. Both of the millweed plants are showing little shoots. Yeaaaaa. When Pat plugged in the Mercedes into the plug in at the side of the house, the pump stopped working. It has been unplugged over nite and again today. I think it might be a breaker, but I still have to check out the connections, and the pump. There is no power to the plug in by the back step. Hopefully it is a breaker, as I should hate to have to buy a new pump. With the pump being off, the fish have come to the top. I saw at least 5 of them, so they may all have survived. There is a little frog sqeaking and jumping into the pond, making a small splash. So, it is probably a little bull frog. The warm, still water seems to bring them. Well... here we go again.

April 21, 2019
Mostly overcast with bits of rain. Coolish at about 11 degrees. Made duck stock and duck soup with 2 to freeze and 5 cups of duck stock frozen. Was out at 1:00 and dug the pump's cord out from under the observation platform. Washed the pump off. It still has its name on it. Is an Ultra Aquascape 1000. I found the bill for it in 2007. Looked it up on Aquascape. There is an Ultra 800 for the same price as in 2007. I think it is rated at 793 gals per hour. Took the extension cord plug in post to the patio and washed it off too. The pump will not turn on, so it is dead. Still have to check the extension plugin. Washed sand out of it again. Maybe all three plugins will work now. Wildwood/Cannor has the same pump listed for the same price as Aquascape. So shall go get it if they have it in stock or order it, and get the heliotrope and the basil. Went into the pond to get the big red rock out, found more and more rocks in there. Round ones and flat ones. A big one to put on the ledge under the water fall. The water sprinkler -- good brass one that shoots in a straight stream or in an wide arc -- was in the pond. Oh my the baby Pee must think he is so clever. Total shithead of a neighbour.. the whole family of them are. There has not been any more cigarette butts in the pond for a while now. I should get some bear spray.. perhaps I will have occasion to use it. I have extra cement blocks left over from the stump bed renovation. Maybe I can make the observation platform a bit bigger perhaps to set a plastic chair on it.

April 22, 2019
Figured out the teddy bear list some more this am. Sunshine, but a very cool breeze. To Cannor and got my new pump. It is Waterscape Ultra 800. This one pumps flow rate of 800 gph. The guy at Wildwood said with my waterfall height of 2 feet and about 12 - 12 - 13 feet of connecting hose I should have at least 500 gph. I had a splitter on my old one to slow the rate down and to switch the pump from pumping up the waterfall to pumping out the pond. the pumping out the pond hose stays attached to the splitter and stays in the pond. Tomorrow Pat is going to take me to the Plumbers store to get adapters that will let me set up my splitter the way it was and to get the old filter an adaptor to attach it too. the Pump cost $152.98 with my 10% off from my Cannor membership. Got heliotrope (2), 6 pkg of spinach, and a 4 inch pot of basil. Too early to put the basil and the heliotrope out. The spinach is going out to the trough with improved soil.

April 24, 2019
Went to Bartle and ... for the adaptors to make my splitter work on the new pump the way it worked on the old one. Took the recycle stuff in. Pat got nearly as much cash back as he put on visa for the adaptors. $8.00. Went for Wor Won Ton soup at Jacks. Was out from 1:30 to 4:30. Took the big red rock to the little rockery where the tufa rock was sitting. Tried to break the tufa rock in two with the pointy end of the rock hammer, but just made quite a nice hole for a saxifragia. I need to take this up to the deck to put into the brown pot with the saxifragias - only 3. Hope the rock fits in the pot. Might have to put it vertically rather than horizontal. Took a little pail full of clay to the brown pot. So it is ready for some potting soil with sand, and compost added. This has to sit for a while to settle. Cleaned up a bit at the edge of the little rockery where the new daphne is. The lewisia is in bloom, and the mossy saxifragia is surviving. Put the attachements on to the pump and the splitter with one hose to the waterfall and one to the little piece of hose to drain the pond. The hose to the waterfall is on and the other one is off. The waterfall is running perfectly at its 800 gal per hour. Yeaaaa! Put the hose into the old pipe to protect it. The pump is in a red plastic mish bag as this should add a bit to the filter. Attached a piece of twine to the bag to pull the pump up... actually the twine is attached to the good connection to the splitter.. these adaptors are brass and do not like the plastic pump fixtures. Put WD40 into the holes of the connecting post/plugin wire, and duct taped the two bottom ones, which no longer work properly. Plugged it all in and the waterfall works wonderfully well. Started to replace the cement blocks, and get it all level again. Have to start over and make them level, without little differences in the levels, to trip over. Getting clay from under the deck to level them. Filled the pond, on my way into the house. Got in at 4:30. Am a bit chilled, again.

April 25, 2019
Made potato salad, turnip mashed with bit of sugar, some apple bit of butter, baked the beets; all in the morning. Was out at 1:30 and in at 4:30. Transplanted one of the verbascums, a red fox veronica, the 4 Nora Barlow columbines, the pink baby's breath, a cardamine and an omphalus, into the cutting garden. Put the 6 spinach in the garden. Dug holes for all of them and added compost from the back bin. I have quite a few of the cutting garden plants coming up from previous years, as well as the anemone bulbs. Put the new delesporeum in the rock garden, just this side of the daphne that is in bloom and looking great. Dug in another cement block in the cutting garden and three cement bricks to add to the path. Took a pail half full of the clay from this digging and put it into the brown pot on the deck. Added pea gravel to the saxifragia on the deck, to the brown pot, and more to the little rockery. the little lewisia is in bloom.

April 27, 2019
Yesterday: Was out from 1 to 3:30. Got the grass mowed. Finished planting all but 2 of the recent purchases. With the soapwort to the cutting garden, the very special pink flowering baby's breath in about the middle of this area, the cardimine and one of the omphales; the yellow allysum to the edge of the little rockery, the variegated arabis to the edge of the pond, with the 2 golden rods on each side of it, the aubretia is in this stump garden also, I will be adding the omphales to this bed also, as soon as I am finished the stepping stones around the pond edge, and the observation platform. I have a big white pot on the deck with a red fox veronica, a pink thread leaf ...., and a verbascum in it. Added a layer of clay and then some pea gravel with potting soil on top of that to the brown pot. I have the big tufa rock soaking in a tray of water on the deck waiting for the pot to get filled. I put the big black pot with the trillium in it into the garage as it was getting very windy. Placed 3 of the stepping stones, leveling them and making more room in this bed around the stump, and adding compost from the old bin. There is ashes in that compost so it should be good for lime loving plants, I think.
Today: Is 13 degrees with sun, but feels very chilly. I was out to take the trillium out of the garage and did a tiny bit on the placing of stones along the edge of the stump bed next to the stepping stones. I have several round stones rescued out of the pond and from in my diggings which I will be using along the dry stream and to line the round stepping stones through the moss. There are 2 more soulmate milkweeds up in the black pots (on the deck at the moment). These are seeds from Medicinal Seeds place in Oregon, and I see one coming up in the holly tree bed. I have the 2 from cannor to put out into the cutting garden, where I have holes with compost in them, waiting for them. The cutting garden is beginning to actually look like it might become a nice flower garden, backing the little rockery, which is getting nicely filled up, too. The tulips next to the david look superb! The trilliums in that bed (3) are all in bloom, the arabis is growing nicely with the blue grape hyacinths in it. I am thinking of taking out the ratty old heather. Don't know what I will replace it with. The mountain avens, and fern leafed peony are in bloom and one elephant ear thing, are in bloom in the little rockery with the west coast planter. The squirrel with the very neat tail was in that garden this morning. He seemed to have found something to munch on, but soon left. The lilac is in bloom at the back and the plum tree and spirea in bloom at the front. The boulevard garden looks quite a mess with weeds and the tall grass where the crocus leaves are hardening off. The peonies are coming into their new leaves, as is the peony tree, also. Out to take pictures with jacket on. Earlier saw the squirrel with the fluffy, nice tail. And saw a quail in the front garden, just on the Pees grass by the boxwood hedge.

April 29, 2019
Yesterday: downloaded 569 April photos and sorted them, deleting most of the CR2. Pat took me out to shoot for the grid at the Roundhouse in the afternoon. Watered around the back for about an hour in the evening, since we did not get the promised rain.
Today: Out in the afternoon from about 1 to 4. Finished the stepping stones around the pond, adding more clay from under the deck to the observation deck, and under the cement blocks to level them. I am happy with the way it turned out. Put the sprinkler on the cutting garden and then on the pond area for a few minutes. Watered the patio pots. Transplanted the little trillium in the front with the other 2 from Saltspring nursery... Fraser Thimble Farm. Took 4 pails of compost from the bin to the new stepping stones area around the pond filling in the edges where I removed rocks or remade the edges. Transplanted the lamphodes linfolia...(spelling) into the stump bed in the new compost/clay mix. Then watered as said above. It got up to 17 degrees in the sun today, so it was quite warm in the gardening sweater. Filled the pond too. When I watered the sprinkler reached up to the deck and all the plants got some water too. The back corner of the cutting garden where the tall bearded irises are did not get water. Must water them by hand. My offer on the Pelly teddy bear was accepted, so I got it for the $11.00 plus the $18.75 shipping total $29.75... still a bit much. It is to arrive May 8th. My other one does not have a delivery date yet. Paying for them with PayPal.
April 30, 2019
Did laundry in the morning. Got the dishes down for Cheryl and have boxes ready for packing. My teddy bear the 2002 one arrived today, expedited canada post. Shipping cost $18.75. The bear looks good for a used bear. It is a smaller one, Got up to 20 degrees today. Was out from 1:30 to 4:30. Weeded the stepping stones from the bamboo to the old sidewalk at the back. Lots of clover creeping into the path from the grass area. My edging tool needs to be sharpened and so does the rabbiting spade. The tulips are nearly finished blooming. The fig is just barely getting leaves, the same as the front tree. Magnolia is almost finished blooming and getting leaves now.

May, 2019

May 1, 2019
Did the banking stuff in the am. Out to lunch in the LTV with salad from Country Grocer to Sidney. Shopped for Crocs at Capital Iron. Got home about 3. Did the ironing. Did not feel like gardening so started the Grid photos. 6 done and loaded to the grid. Supper of rueben sandwiches and then tv.

May 5, 2019
Have 14 more photos loaded to the Grid. We took the Mercedes camping on Friday morning and over nighted at the Campground near Cowichan Lake and Honeymoon Bay. Did a scrape on the passenger side of the van while leaving from the grocery store where Pat went to get eggs. Oh craps. Spam and beans for supper with tomatoes for the salad. Discovered that the toilet has sprung a leak and there is water on the floor. Have to shut off the pump after flushing so that the water does not fill up the bowl and run out. Went for brunch lunch at Jake's Cafe where there was a meeting of the BMW bikers... good big turnout. The van has empty tanks and full water. Pat will be seeing about getting the toilet fixed and the scrape repair. Hope it is on warantee for that body work. I did the laundry when we got home.
Today was a lovely day. About 18 degrees, sunshine. Not too hot. I went out at 1:00 till 4:30. Filled the brown pot with a layer of clay on the half pot of clay, compost and whatnot. Put pea gravel on top of the last layer of clay. Added more potting soil untill full, added another layer of pea gravel and then a layer of compost and sand mix, then pea gravel and the big tufa rock. Added the lilac time to a big hole in the tufa rock, with tufa dust, potting soil and a bit of soil from around the roots, put a clay cap on it, a smaller tufa rock just below the saxifragia Lilac Time, put more potting soil and sand with some pea gravel on top. I am hoping this one grows out into the potting soil and gets a good root into the tufa rock. Put the Dr. Clay paniculata saxifragia on the opposite side of the rock into potting soil with pea gravel mulch. Dug another small hole on one corner of the tufa rock. Put the tiny rooted cutting of the Rex Murfit saxifragia in the cement pot into this small hole, with the bigger rooted cutting just below it into the potting soil mix with pea gravel mulch. There is room for another very special one below the Lilac Time. The rock is pretty big. If I ever learn how to make deep holes in it I shall have room for more saxifragias. Planted the 2 milkweed, soul mate and a white one, from the Cannor sale.. into the cutting garden. Planted 3 or 4 patches of the little pink, ferny looking things... might be some kind of tiny geranium, into the mossy stepping stones, with lots of pea gravel. Considering these were growing in the gravel of the parking spot for out van, I do hope they can catch on and grow in their pea gravel over clay spots. I saw a lawn just covered in these little pink flowers.. was lovely. The fragrance of the lilac is all over the back garden. Its heavenly! Water all around the back after the plantings. Have 6 pots ready for cuttings and the 2 pink pots ready for a pansy or two, maybe, while the smallest pot has moss growing on it, hopefully. The front little rockery looks great. I need to take pictures tomorrow. The hebe and iberis are in bloom, and the globalaria (blue), The mountain avens seems to be finished. The tree peony is just coming into bloom. I have what I think is the primula marginata still in its clay pot. Under the deck the ferns are coming up nicely and the moss is growing. I dug a trench for the flexible tubing holding the electrical cord and covered it lightly. I need more flexible tubing.. maybe 15 feet, for the rest of the cord to the plug in post that then leads to the plug in at the house. The water fall is running good. The humming bird was to visit for its bath. There is a milkweed coming up in the holly tree bed. It is a soul mate. The globe flower on the deck has a bud. the one in the pond is growing taller. Am almost finished the weeding at the back.

May 6, 2019
Started the Benz repairs part of the Benz page, in the morning. Pat took it to a place in Sidney that Fennells had directed him to. The technical guy was away, to call again tomorrow. The toilet repair was no major issue for them. More info on this when its done. Took some garden photos but it was mid day and a terrible time to be trying to get a decent photo. Downloaded the Cowichan Lake trip and these gardening pics. In the afternoon I was out from 2 to 4. Very hot, as I was working along the cement driveway. Thermometer says 22 degrees. Dug and pulled out dandilions, grass, bind weed, some blue bells, and blackberries. The driveway strip is not accessible on the Syrians side where there are blackberries and dandilions. The kids park their bikes along there. O well, they can deal with it. Started weeding at the old sidewalk end of the next stepping stones. The dame's rocket has gone to seed like crazy. Am pulling them out, leaving the foxgloves and the columbines, as there will always be more dame's rocket seed. The bed along the old garage has the grass and a few dandilions, with bluebells coming up at the far end of it. I was too hot and tired to do a proper job of digging the bluebells out. The lewisias are in bloom, the mossy saxifragia looks finished. Maybe I should put a shade over it. The big daphne is finished blooming too. The pinks are in buds. The tulips at the front seem to have a few more days yet. We are on water rationing already. The front little rockery has all its plants, except the montain avens, in bloom, looks really good. So does the little rockery at the back. The pond area looks stuffed with plants. The foxgloves are so big. The moss garden looks good cleaned up and watered. I filled the pond this morning too. There are lots of birds. The water attracts them. The wren was trying to drink from the pond filling overflow, but did not get its picture. I wonder if I could make a bird house for the wrens. But do I need more projects??? Came in at 4:00 to wash my hair and get ready to go out for ribs.

May 7, 2019
After lunch I watered the deck plants and snipped the peony tree, and a bit of the roses and watered a bit around the front, from 1 to 2. Then until 3:30 I finished cleaning up the back stepping stones and surrounds. Dug bluebells out of the old garage bed and clipped the jasmine a bit. I see I have room for the 2 soulmate milkweeds that I grew from seed, and for the trillium, that is suppose to be the stinking trillium. I don't smell it stinking. Later in the afternoon, I saw a small hawk with a reddish front in the oak tree. It chased a songbird, probably a sparrow. Don't know if it caught its prey.

May 8, 2019
Uploaded some photos for the grid this morning. Was out in the afternoon from about 2 to 4. Mowed the back grass and the top of the front. While trying to mow the tall grass in the boulevard garden over the crocus field the mower gave up and so did I. I cut a bit more tall grass off with the big scissors thing, but soon tired out in the heat. It was pleasant enough, as long as no exertion was required. I am about 1/4 finished getting that grass mowed. Took the mower to the back and leaned it upside down over the steps. Then I dug out all the caked on grass and dirt off the bottom. there was quite a lot of it. Washed it down with the garden hose, washed all the debris under the Benz. Watered all around the back a bit. The lilac smells heavenly. Aside from all the weeding, May is thee best time in my garden I think.

May 10, 2019
Another hot, record breaking day at 26 degrees. Watered the deck plants, filled the pond and the deck tub. Did some work on the 'water' page and should reload it to the web.

May 12, 2019
Was cooler out today. Was out from 2 to 4:30. Trimmed the tall hedge and the little honeysuckle hedge and the California lilac. Clippings to the green bin. Started weeding the boulevard garden by pulling out clover and weeds from the plum tree bed. Still lots to do. Piled the clippings in front of the tree so the Pees can't put their garbage cans right under the tree. Getting compliments on the boulevard garden even if it is not weeded. Still have to mow up the clippings off the top grass path, but have to do the small boxwood hedge first. The tall bearded irises are in bloom. I just seem to have one kind left, on the boulevard garden, on the driveway strip and in the back corner of the cutting garden. Have to thin out the ones growing along the old sidewalk behind the garage so they bloom, and feed them. The tulips are finishing up so things look a bit scruffy in the tulip beds. The french lavender is in bloom and the thyme beneath it too. The tree peony is blooming... it needs some food too. The woodland along the old garage looks good with bleeding heart, and the other ones in bloom. The geraniums are looking lush and getting buds along the driveway strip. This morning I got a start on the April album, and did up some photos of the pooh bear for Tuesday on Flickr.

May 14, 2019
Yesterday was cooler. From 10:00 to 3:30 I washed the light garden and cleaned the plants. Threw out a dying Phal. I now have all the plants on the light garden except the orchid that is too tall, the Christmas Cactuses and the other ones in the living room. This a.m. I fed and watered all the house plants, and a bit of fertilizer to the deck plants. The golden globe flower on the deck is in bloom. Its spectacular. The verbascum has buds, but is not as tall as I thought it would be. Only about 8 inches tall so far. The saxifrages have buds - 2 of them from last years planting. They look like they are going to be white. The saxifragia on the little rockery also has blooms in white. The tulips are mostly finished now. The woodland along the old garage is looking good.. the bleeding heart, the perennial forget me not, the anemorella or anemone (forget what its name is) is looking lush and pretty. The dames rocket is blooming discretely all around the garden where it has self seeded. A very good plant. The wisteria is climbing and blooming in the Western Red Cedars. It rained a tiny bit earlier this morning. I hosed off the front deck, and watered the roses, the peony tree, and the trilliums a bit. Made up cranberries. After lunch I spent 2 hours finishing trimming the boxwood hedge. Picked up most of the trimmings and put them in the green bin. Was a bit cool with a bit of rain when I was out. It is raining a bit more since about 5:00. We can use all the rain we can get. The weather news says we have very dry ground everywhere in B.C. again this year.

May 15, 2019
Did laundry today. Took more photos from 2019 into the April Working folder. Have lots of pictures in there now. It is coolish out at 17 degrees and overcast. Will turn the water on the back garden at 7:00. The fuzzy leafed milkweed has little leaves in the front Magnolia bed. I have some Soulmate growing in gallon black pots on the deck, the old one - tuberosa - is finally showing little leaves in the cutting garden, and there is one Soulmate with tiny leaves in the holly tree bed. The two - white one and a soulmate that I got at Cannor and transplanted to the cutting garden are growing. Watered in the back cutting garden for 3/4 of an hour. The rain we have been getting is not even 1/4 of an inch.

May 16, 2019
Started to sort some of the April photos. There will be a lot of renos in the April album. Last year's and this year. Milkweed, Trilliums, Saxifrages. Went out in the afternoon - 1:30 to 3:30. Clipped all the rest of the tall grass in the boulevard (crocus field) garden. Used the electric trimmer to trim the spirea bush and bits of the honeysuckle hedge. Picked all the grass and weeds up and put them into the green bin, and it is now full, again. Pulled out more bindweed from in the woodland cedar hedge. Pulled out more of the blue bells in the boulevard garden before they went to seed. Now the strip behind the crocus field needs weeding. The French lavender is in bloom but is badly broken down, probably from the heavy snow. It will need to be replaced. But it looks good with the thyme in bloom beneath it. There was a mourning dove on the deck today, and a pair of house finches also. Lots of nice bird song from the back trees this afternoon.

May 17, 2019
Breezy, coolish day, even at 21 degrees. Bits of sun. I have spent the day getting a start at organizing the photos for the April album. Have made a folder for all the plants listed by where they grow: ie: moss garden, woodland, boulevard garden, cutting garden, etc. Made a page for the Trilliums (their garden is designated the Magnolia bed). Have not been outside and I am a better person for it. Getting too old to do so much gardening as have been doing lately -- redoing the edging of the pond, trimming the hedges and the tall grass of the crocus field. Moving the tufa rocks to the deck and doing the pots of saxifragias. I am happy to see that all of the saxifragias are doing well, including the mossy sax. and the silver one in the little rockery. There are 2 supposedly Rex Murfitt ones in the smaller tufa rock pot with white blooms. They look suspiciously like the silver one out in the little rockery. No longer have the right names on them. The trilliums from Fraser Thimble Farm are all growing, and the new one from VIRAGS is too. There is one 'erectum' in its pot yet. It did not bloom, as did the others from Fraser Thimble Farms. I find I want to get a western bleeding heart plant... will have to check under the deck to see if I have one growing there .... for the woodland. AND I will have to get those sweet cicely plants from spreading their seed. They are growing all over the woodland this year. I think one plant of them is enough. I have to remove some sumacs also, as they are dying anyway, and interfering with the douglas fir. The lilac is still blooming. Lovely fragrance. There was a tall branch of the Gretrude Jykll rose growing way up the tree. Now I see that it has blown down. It seemed to be twined up there pretty good. Oh well, will cut it back, I guess. The wine colored jackamani is blooming on the cedars at the front! at last. The wisteria looks quite nice up in the western red cedars at the back. Yesterday I deleted the old web page out of storage and dropped the latest one in, also dropped in pictures 19, which I will have to replace. And deleted a bunch of the backup files from the backup as they do not seem to be able to do this themselves. They pile up and then there is no room for the latest ones.

May 18, 2019
Ordered 2018 HB bear, Hudson, from ebay at $35.83 via PP. Bought book on Nexus. Lionheart $13.64. Put a watch on ebay for the surveyor bear, Phillip Turner.. to expire May 30 I think.. musth check it, and make an offer. Am no longer wearing my rings as my knuckles seem to be swelling with all this gardening. Did another update on my phone. It seemed to think I was not on wifi. I turned off data roaming so that I get data only on wifi which does not cost me anything. I found out that if I have bluetooth turned on any other device on bluetooth in the vacinity will be able to interact with my bluetooth. So who needs that? Watered all around the back with the sprinkler and by hand. behind the garage and along the garage sides. Along the driveway, a bit under the deck, and all the rest. The corners of the waterfall and the herbs got no water. It was up to 20 and kind of coolish. Must get the sweet cicely taken out, get the mowing done back and front, and get the front watered if it does not rain. It IS suppose to rain. Must finish the clipping of the back cedars. It never ends!

May 19, 2019
Did some sorting of photos on the April album this morning. Was out from 2 to 4. Mowed the grass, dumped the clippings in the back compost bin. Cleaned up a bit under the deck: took out some of the old diseased camillia by the step. Clipped back some of the dead skimmia under the deck. I plan to take it out, add autumn leaves to that corner under the deck and find some deep shade plants to put into a woodland type setting. Clipped the harry lauders walking stick back a bit, and the Lebanon cedar by the pond too. The green bin is really full. Making roast beef for supper. Was 22 degrees today, good gardening day.

May 21, 2019
We had slightly over .5 inches of rain yesterday, in a cooler day. Got quite a bit of the sorting of pictures for April finished. Today I scrubbed and cleaned the en suite bathroom window. Took about an hour and half. Looks a lot better. Pat has taken the Benz to BMT for its repair. Left at 11:00, lunch across the street from them, cab $50 and home about 1:00. Should be done the end of the week. May 22, 2019
Cut the roses back off the entry way and have a few in the house. Pat got up on the ladder and took the Virginia Creeper down a bit on the pole. Its a lovely day, but I am not feeling very ambitious. I have finished sorting the photos and have yet to number them... I will see there may be more of them deleted. I am down to 24 pages now. Have done some more on listing the plants in the garden rooms. Have the Trilliums noted. Have the Woodland plants named and their positions described, more or less.

May 23, 2019
22 degrees sunny all day. Groceries in the morning and a bit of work on April album. Was out from 2 to 4. Transplanted 2 Soulmate from Oregaon to the bed behind the old garage. Dug holes and put some compost from the old bin into them. Put the plants in and cover it all with the dug out soil and more compost. The plants had root to the bottom of the gallon pots. Shall try to keep them watered until they get settled in. Pulled sweet cicily out of the back corner of the woodland as it had gone to seed every where. I need to take out two of these big plants. Also need to take down three sumacs that are growing back there. Clipped back the tulips in the fig tree bed, and pulled out most of the michaelmas daisies. Clipped the back cedars and a bit of the firethorn but have not collected up the clippings yet. Took the Japanese lantern off the plants that were growing under it. Tried to put the plant that was growing through the bottom hole, back into the soil, put more compost on them and some clay from under the deck on top of that. Still need to position the lantern and level it. Found a can of heintz beans with holes punched in the top but the top still on, thrown under the sweet cicisly. Some pig!

May 24, 2019
Was quite cool and overcast in the am. 14 degrees. Am sorting the plants out for the Garden Room plantings. My 2018 bear came today. Its new with tags. There is a card from the person who packed it. Was out from 1 to 3. Finished picking up the clippings from the back cedars, and did a bit more weeding and clipping around the cutting garden. Cut off lilac blooms as high as I could reach. Now they need picking up. Moved the lantern closer to the deck support post. Weeded the moss around this area. Took out compost and the blue box. Was hoping it would rain but it got a few degrees warmer while I was out. There are little green strawberries on the plants, and the Saskatoons have little green berries also. I must water both of them.

May 25, 2019
12 degrees. We are having a splendid rainfall. Have got some listing of the ferns (Moss Garden) sorted out this am. 3/4 of an inch of rain by 7:30

May 27, 2019
Yesterday we went out to the big store in Langford. When we got home there was a swallowtail butterfly on the wallflower by the front step. It is hotter today. Up to 27 degrees. Downloaded the May garden photos. Have been killing hoards of flies that have somehow got into the house. I think I have them gone now. Dragged the grey pot with the old plant out to the patio area and am going to get rid of it. I suspect that it harboured the flies in its pot. Not sure why I think that, but it is a scraggly thing and its gone now. Have one good photo of the swallowtail. I might put it up on Flickr. Was out from 2 to 3:45. Dug a hole for the Trillium erectum purple in the Magnolia Bed with the others. Transplanted it. It has several little bulblet things. I think it will survive, but have to keep it watered . Especially since we are going to be getting some more hot weather for a while. Did a bit of weeding at the front but it is just too hot. Watered in the new trillium and all the rest of them, the roses and the rest of the front, watered lightly. Filled the pond and watered under the deck, the rhodos the rest of the stuff that is close, watered lightly. There has been a sparrow using the bird bath. Made shrimp stuffed mushroom caps for supper with our left over snapper fish and potato salad. Shall make beets with their tops for the veggie. Have the blinds closed in the living room. Am not leaving the patio door open as that might be where the flies are coming from. Have the deck door open and the window in the dining room. There is a nice breeze. Don't see any flies yet. Who knows??

May 29, 2019
Was coolish today, only got up to 18 degrees and overcast in the morning. I watered all around the back for 2 hours. The tub is full and has the 2 new goldfish that I got from Cannor yesterday; along with 3 plants. I put them in the pink pots on the deck and have the smallest pot covered in moss and in the shade. The rhodos are looking great after the fertilizer last year. I must feed them again. All the new milkweeds are growing. They need water. The silver one in the front magnolia bed is finally showing. After all the exercise this morning I was bagged and after lunch I slept from 2 to 5. Felt much better until I stressed myself out by locking the food mixer machine. Watered the house and deck plants too, of course. All the saxifragias survive including the paniculata and the mossy one on the little rockery at the back. The big tailed squirrel was around the garden today. Got a picture of the frog yesterday. Its growing. Its about 2 - 3 inches long when sitting still. Got 1 row of April photos tweaked. Its going well.

May 30, 2019
Got up to 23 degrees today with a light breeze and sun. Did laundry, and cleaned the dining room window. Watered at the front a bit. The roses are full of blossoms and fragrant. Vaccumed downstairs and dusted Pat's room, did the kitchen, dining room, livingroom and big bathroom. The foxgloves and rhodos look superb, the moss garden is green and the ferns are keeping it green under the deck.

June, 2019

June 1, 2019
Yesterday was horrible, despite it being a very nice day. Pat got news about the repair on the LTV and that about finished it for the day. Lunch was good, at least mine was. West Coast benny with Latke and fruit. Yummm. And then I put a pin number into my nexus phone and could not access it. Mucked about with it, in great distress, and finally got to work, removed the damn thing. Do not know how to operate my Google Drive. And then today, I find I cannot operate my icloud drive either. There are backups on the icloud. I cannot see them though. So, I am not going to mess with it. In mucking about with my google yesterday, I changed its password. fine. Then today, I got a whole bunch of other stuff done. Did the ironing, did a mend on my blue jeans shirt. Watered a bit on the deck. Dusted all around my room. Washed the kitchen window. Made a short ribs supper and ended up with a sink full of dishes despite washing up as I went. Made cole slaw and there is left over gravey frozen. I have bought another of Penman's books... Kings Ransom. Good research, and good read at night. It got up to 25 degrees today, and sunny. Did a blog post from the photos I tweaked in the last few days. I am a beat bunny. I see I can add a word press to my Go daddy account. Have to figure that out some day, as my google blogger is old and kind of deteriating. I have no control over it. Whereas, I would over a Word press on my own domain and hosting.

June 2, 2019
It is a lovely day out. Perfect for gardening. But this morning I finished cleaning up my room, cleaning out under the sink, vacuuming. The teddy bears look nice all dusted and set up and so does my desk. Did the banking. Looked at some garden drip irrigation equipment - 82 feet of pipes and valves, and a couple of 4 way splitters would come to about $100.00. IE: .. 2 of those might just do the back, front and driveway strip. I will need more info. The equipment I looked at on ebay was programable. I need to get Pamela to help me with this. I think she did her Dad's for him. I have a little bouquet on the table with saxifragia, one fern leaf, parsley, chive flowers and some very fragrant pinks. It looks lovely. The sax flower was so heavy it was pulling its plant out of the pot. While looking for a folder to put my ebay and PayPal stuff into, I got cleaning up the folders in my computer desk which led to a lot of discarding all this old info I had on my first compter, and then the stuff I had saved behind my keyboard on the shelf. I now have a stack of used pages for my scribblings and playnow and the lists of photos for the May album, etc. I wish I had days and days to review all the old stuff, but I know I will never know which scrap of paper to find any of it on, at any time. It IS possible to use the internet to look up anything I may need, now. There was a note about how to boot up my opus bot from way back when that I saved just because. At any rate I feel pretty good about getting my desk cleaned up a bit. I now have my travel journals on my desk shelf for reference when I start to get the travel stuff up dated. I have April album to finish and May to do, too on the gardening page; plus the miscellaneous pages. I wish I had a better way to make the albums. But I would still have to select the photos and tweak them, and write up each photo and the pages stuff. Just takes time. Maybe tomorrow I will have time to do some gardening.

June 3, 2019
I was out from 10 to 2. Got quite a lot of stuff done. Broke up the old white chair from under the deck and threw it in the garbage bin. Emptied the old grey pot from in the house onto the bed behind the old garage. washed out the pot and it sits in the garage for now. Discovered that the orange trees that are left -- 2 of them, are beginning to sprout branches again. I cut them both back to about 6 feet tall and cut off all the branches. Watered them. We will see what becomes of them. I have the old parsley brown pot that could be emptied and repotted with any precious rock plants or what ever. Filled the pond and watered under the deck a bit. Mowed the back grass and the front, put the few clippings into the old compost bin. Put the clippings from the Creeper that Pat did into the green bin, as well as the clippings I did of the sweet ciciley in the woodland. I still need to dig this plant out. Watered the patio pots. Cleaned up the Pees side -- clipping back the tall Cunningham white rhodo. It is terribly overgrown, but seems to have bloomed wonderfully well. Cut back the foliage of the camillia, day lilies and whatever needed it back off the Pees sidewalk. Discovered that somehone had cut off one of the canes of the simplicity rose and threw it on the anemones. WTF is wrong with these people? Tried to straighten up the trellis thing for the purple Jackamani clematis, with a little success. we shall see how it goes. Dead headed all the roses. The simplicity seems to be blooming and is very tall, despite its maltreatment by the Pees. Picked up all the clippings from the Pees side, of course and took them to my green bin. It is getting quite full. I have saved some cuttings of the pink azalea and the purple clematis. I have them stuck in the pots on the patio. I expect to fill some gallon pots with potting soil and put the cuttings each into its own pot. Maybe I will have some plants to put out in the garden in a year or two. I would especially like to get a purple Jackamani Clematis growing next to the wine colored one in the front garden. The Gertrude Jekyll has a long branch reaching up into the tree, and is now blooming up there. Looks kinda cool. I cut off all the bamboo shoots I could see growing in the boulevard garden. I want to transfer cuttings from the very fragrant pink around to other parts of the garden. And move some of the deep blue Iris and the all bright gold iris into the cutting garden and behind the old garage. It got up to 21 degrees today. I am a beat bunny from all this activity. After lunch we did shopping for groceries, an LB store stop, and renewed our perscriptions. So, we got a lot done today.

June 4, 2019
Got up to 21° with a breeze. Ate 14 strawberries from the garden. Very big strawberry taste. Watered the deck plants.

June 6, 2019
we had two spits of rain yesterday. In the evening I watered around the front and the back, from 7 to 9. Today, it has been a bit cooler, only about 17°. Got a couple of rows done on the April album. Have 4 more strawberries, today. Have seen a little downy woodpecker on the front tree, and two humming birds. They feed on the honeysuckle, foxgloves. lupines and seem to ignore the feeder. It is probably time I washed it out.

June 8, 2019
We have had 2 spits of rain over the past 2 days. It has been cool and good gardening days. I was to the Lab for my tests. Just do not feel like gardening. Washed the humming bird feeder and set it out again.

June 9, 2019
Watered the house, deck and patio plants. Watered under the deck and a bit of the moss garden and the old sidewalk beds. It is 20° today with light overcast clouds. It feels cooler. Saw a larger swallowtail in the back garden today, sampling some of the flowers. The rhodos are mostly finished blooming. Seems early for them to be done. Did bedding, towels laundry.

June 10, 2019
Was about 20° today with cloud cover in the morning. Watered all around the back by hand, getting most of the corners done, the woodland including beside the old garage, the driveway strip, under the deck. Started at the front and got the boulevard garden watered, and the magnolia tree bed. This bed needs a lot of work. The bamboo is sprouting up and needs some attention. The rhodos will need dead heading, and the irises. The humming bird was at the torch lily in the driveway strip. The agave thing has only one shoot coming up for flowers. There are blackberries and stuff needing cleaning up. I could not see any Saskatoons on the bush when watering there. The French lavender is full of blooms and bees. Ran out of energy after lunch and had to go down for a nap. Fed the fish after supper, and finally one came to the surface. So, they are in there, just not hungry enough to come to the surface to eat.

June 11, 2019
was up to 28°. Was out from 12:30 to 2:30. Watered around the front, cut off bamboo shoots. Saw a swallowtail and an Admiral butterfly. Had a dozen strawberries for lunch. Very flavourful.

June 12, 2019
Very sunny, no clouds, no breeze. 30°. Wasted the day on Play now. Was to Dr. Wass in the morning and to Marks Workwear and got a nice little white blouse. Got my ehealth sorted out. KFC for supper... too hot to cook.

June 13, 2019
Cooler today at 26°. Was to the lab for my JAK test. Very busy place. did not get out till 10:15. To Mr. Grocer and got a Lewisia Cotyledon 'Rainbow' with 2 plants in the pot. One yellow the other pink; for $6.00. Doing laundry this afternoon.

June 16, 2013
Was about 25 degrees yesterday. Watered all around the back with the sprinkler, then under the deck, by the sides of the garage, and along the driveway by hand. Later, after supper I watered with the sprinkler at the front. I need to do the boulevard garden and the pees side by hand after my visit to the RJ tomorrow... probably do this garden stuff on Tuesday or Wed. Today I tried to learn some stuff about you tube and managed to find my old youtube account and add the music I had saved to a place called My Music. Kept notes of these links. It would cost 10 - 15 CAD a month to get the music without ads. This red youtube allows me to get the playlist on wifi only when away from my wifi, I think. Have to toggle the list to only wifi.

June 20, 2019
RB stuff, RJ stuff over the past few days. Was 20° today with a bit of breeze. Van for a drive. Watered and fed house and deck plants. Transplanted the new Lewisias (2 of them in the pot.. yellow and pink) to the gray pot and the unknown plant that I think is a primula auricola of some kind. Filled the pond, filled the birdbath.

June 22, 2019
Was 20 degrees today with a bit of a breeze. Watered all around the front and the back with the sprinkler and by hand. Did the woodland, the driveway, under the deck and the boulevard garden. There are two frogs of the same size in the pond today. Pictures of them. While watering I think I saw a little garden snake. I do hope they are back. There was an admiral butterfly. Picture of it too. Fed the fish and saw some of them come up. They are all growing. Yesterday I got a little solar powered fountain from Cannor water garden place for $21.01 using PP and we picked it up, otherwise delivery would have been $12.50. It is kinda cool, but needs full sun for it to keep the water sprouting up.

June 23, 2019
Did laundry including bedding, vacuumed bathrooms, part of bedroom, kitchen, dining room. Watered the deck plants, and fish. It is up to 22° at noon.

June 27, 2019
Mowed the grass yesterday and cleaned up the pots on the patio. It was quite warm and muggy out and cloudy later in the afternoon. We had about an inch and more than a half of rain over night. Its cool out and cloudy today. 17°. Was out from 1:30 to 4:00. Dead headed and pruned the roses back a bit. Dead headed some of the front perennials. Seperated the yellow and the pink lewisis in their deck pot. The roses need food. Planted some dill seed in the cutting garden. A couple of days ago I ordered some showy milkweed seed from a place in California on etsy. No shipping fees. Was $9.50 on PP for 20 seeds. Shall plant them out in November. This is the milkweed for the Western butterflies. Silver leaves, fragrant, pink like the one Dave sent to me. Saw the admiral and the swallowtail butterflies today. The fat tailed squirrel was in the back garden. Guess it was digging up the nuts it had stashed.

July 2019

July 1, 2019
27° with clouds and a bit of a breeze. The lady slipper has buds, should open soon. Everything needs water.

July 2, 2019
17° this morning, with a light shower leaving about .4 of an inch of water for the garden. Not enough to fill the tub water feature on the deck. Watered the house plants and the deck stuff. Did up a blog post. Filled the humming bird feeder.
July 5, 2019
Cloudy, 18°. We have a 40% chance of rain today... c'mon rain!. Was out from 1:45 to 3:15... hour and a half. Cleaned up the roses, blackberries, thistles, torch lily, etc along the end of the driveway strip. The yucca has one big spike full of blooms. The humming birds have been to the feeder since I cleaned it. There have been an admiral butterfly and a swallowtail around. I think the fat tailed squirrel has had babies. Hopefully, they will have the nice fat tails and be a bit smaller as she is. The lady slipper has 4 buds on it. Hope it opens before we leave for Sask.

July 6, 2019
So, no rain yesterday, after all. Today it is 18° with clouds and a bit of a breeze. To the Lily show at the same place where the VIRAGS .. arbutus .. Good show, but not terribly big. Someone had told me it was the 'best' show. I guess it depends on your interests. I do like the VIRAGS show. There were some interesting plants for sale... there is not the cattle call like at the VIRAGS show and sale. Everything was on the table at the back. First come first served. Its like that anyway at the VIRAGS show.. with the first ones at the show being the first ones to get in, in groups of 20 or whatever. Got 2 plants and some good information. Western bleeding heart can come off my wish list, and so can the Brunnera, Jack Frost. They are both rather new plants so I will baby them for as long as I am still here. Not sure when our benz will be repaired. Got page 3 of the April album finished. Repotted the 2 new plants into gallon pots and watered everything on the deck.

July 7, 2019
About 18°. And we are having light showers. Hope this keeps up for a few days. Finished page 4 of the April album. 20 more to go. Made chicken soup.
July 8, 2019
22° today. Brought in flowers for a jungle of a bouquet. The lysichima (yellow loosestrife) looses its flowers. The false bamboo does not look good as the green component. The pink malvas do not exactly go with the red crocosima (Lucifer). The blue as blue can be lovely dark blue veronica is going to be excelent for boquets. The maltese cross (lychnis works well. Dead headed irises and a few other plants at the back. I am letting the foxgloves, malvas and anything else go to seed. The clematis at the back is finished blooming. The new litte fountain thing is pretty cute in the pond. After lunch I walked to the River to see how the restoration was coming along. There is quite a bit of growth but still people are trampling in spots. There are no blackberries! Lots of big leaf maples, snow berry and other indigenous plants, even a fern, and I think I saw a clump of skunk cabbage leaves. It was not a good day for photos... too much contrasty, blown out spots in the photos. I thought I saw one fish jump. There are lots of little bugs skating on the surface, and the water seems to be low, but not too too low. Just one plastic bag garbage, on the other side of the split rail fence, so I did not climb over. People can just NOT stop being pigs. There was an admiral butterfly in the park by the tennis courts and lots of big blue dragon flies. Here at home the frogs seem to have disappeared. Strange. There are 2 or more hummers around and birds using their spa on the deck and drinking out of the water feature. there has been an admiral butterfly and a swallow tail almost every day, although I have not seen one today in my garden. The lily of the nile (apaganthus) is full of buds, and the malvas are blooming all over the garden. My dill seed has not germinated. The little veronica in the cutting garden is superb. Some of the other plants are coming along. It all needs water of course. We should get some tomorrow or the next day. The delpinium by the deck looks good this year... a dusty blue color. The astilbes are doing great. I had to repair the water fall when I was out. Some wretched critter, I guess messing up the rocks. The roses look a bit stringy this year. The crocosemia is blooming all over the garden. The figs are quite big but still green.The deck plants are doing ok. I have let the parsley go to seed.

July 14, 2019
A fine day. Would have been a very good gardening day, but I cannot seem to get motivated to go out and garden. This is Sunday. On Wednesday we went to Port Angeles on the Coho, in the morning, as walk ons. Pat has had Dometic ship our motorhome toilet pump shipped to Dan. We get to their place and take them out for lunch. Later that evening they have a meeting with their RV group and we tag along. We have supper there and Irene picks up the tab. Interesting meet. They discuss the events they are going to arrange or attend. Soon after we get back to their place, the pump is delivered. Good visit with them. In the morning Irene makes breakfast and they take us back to the ferry. We are home mid day. Pat gets in touch with the BMT guys that are doing the repair. He is to call them again on Monday to see when they can do this job.
In the light garden the lady slipper orchid has 4 blossoms. The African Violets are blooming. One of the Phalenopsis is getting ready to bloom and another orchid has a bud. There are figs and grapes and a few small apples on the trees and the vine. We had a half inch of rain when we were away to get the pump. The garden is desperately in need of weeding, but I don't think it is going to get any weeding done. The new plants on the deck are looking ok, since they get watered and fed along with the house plants. The new pump is working fine in the pond and the new little solar fountain runs when ever it gets sun. The lady slipper is Philippenense Grace AM x Nancy. Yellow slippors with hanging down sepals in burgundy. It has 4 blooms on it. Google is sync-ing and backing up all my photos. It has been at it since Thursday.. over nite and Friday and Saturday (48 hrs) and will probably run another couple of days. I have a lot of photos. It cannot do anything over 10 mb, so the CR2 ones are not done. It has a small size minimum also. I don't think it does .png or video stuff. It stores in Google drive in the cloud, I guess. It says unlimited storage. I wonder if they really mean it. It might be a nasty surprise if I find they want me to pay for it. Just yesterday Google showed me a 'fit' gizmo to count my steps. It does other stuff, but I haven't figured it all out. It would do blood pressure and heart rate if I had a 'watch' or some sort of a belt thing to connect it to. I can tell it how much weight lifting I do and it gives me heart points. I have to figure out how to enter the actual amount of time I do my little light arm lifts. If I keep it in my pocket it actually measures my Foot steps. I am reading a Dan Brown hard copy book, Lost Symbol, and on my phone at night I read my latest purchased book about the Crusades (non-fiction). Have been enjoying Whoever Kay Penman's books about the Pantegenets and Eleanor of Acquitaine. I have finished tweaking page 5 of the April album for my web page.

August 2019

August 11, 2019
We got back from Sask. on the 7th. a couple of hours to unpack the van and bring stuff into the house. Did the laundry over the next 3 days. I filled the pond and forgot to turn the water off. The fish all died from chlorine poisoning. There 6 big ones.. comets, shubunkins and sarasas. And about a dozen little ones that were just turning from black to their colors, so they were over 2 years old. oh damn! Rocks moved on the waterfall but it was still running. It has been very dry and things need to be cut back and the grass mowed and then watered. We had two spits of rain the other night and the temperatures are cooler. 18 - 20 degrees. There are ripe figs on the tree. So far we have had 2 good ones and 2 more to eat. Pat found some with mold that had to be scrapped. The lady slipper orchid is still in bloom and the Bcl. Lisa Taylor has 3 blooms. A phal. has one bud and the Milt. Breathless Beauty has buds forming. The big magenta African violet has a huge cluster of blooms. All of my African violets need replacing, though as they are worn out. In view of downsizing, I don't think there will be any new ones. At least I won't want to be moving new ones. I moved the plants back to their corner and watered them today. Sorted some email. Played a lot on PlayNow. Had a double tub bath the morning after we got back. Clean at last.

August 13, 2019
Yesterday it got up to 27 degrees. I clipped and watered the deck plants. Found 4 more figs that are ready to eat. There are more to ripen soon. The early crop of figs is becoming more abundant. Fixed the rocks on the waterfall again. Emptied the deep freeze and defrosted it. I will not turn it on again until I have more things to put into it, as everything I have to freeze now fits into the fridge freezers. I dumped about 8 jars of yellow plum sauce and 1 chutney, from 2015. I have 2 or 3 purple plum preserves, and lots of duck/chicken/vegetable/borscht stock. 2 ducks, 2 pkg of big pork chops, 1 or 2 chicken parts, 1 corned beef, 1 short ribs, 1 pkg of pork to be made into schnitzle, 1 pkg of made up schnitzle, basa fish, shrimp, 2 ground beef, 1 sausage (Italian, I think.) box of blueberries, frozen sweetlet peas and other vegetables (not sure what ones). I made a jar of cole slaw. I cleaned the humming bird feeder and refilled it. Cleaned up my inbox of the shaw mail, and some of the gmail and hot mail. Downloaded the photos of July and the Sask trip. Pictures of the blooming orchids.
There was a humming bird at the feeder this morning and a mourning dove on the deck railing and in the bird bath. I did the ironing this morning. Am trying to get the fit to work. I need a watch to be able to use the heart rate and blood pressure things on it. I can count the steps if I keep it in my pocket/purse all day. I can add activity times to it, and am slowly learning how to correct the time on these activities. I still need to wade into the pond and do more clipping of the pond plants, before I get new fish. Was into the pond and clipped back a lot of bog beans, cleaned up the irises, clipped back the Lebanon cedar. Took about an hour to do this. All the under water grass stuff is gone. Added a bit more water. Shall try just one or two little comets ... maybe tomorrow.

August 18, 2019
Have been doing computer stuff lately. Have started the Playlist page for all the music on my site. Since my browsers block auto audio I shall have to click each song to play them. The html to make the player is coded but not going to use it, so have stopped putting the songs into it. Just using the playlist to click each song. I shall need to get Windows 10, maybe. And maybe the ipad pro, and the better wifi router. I would like a better, smaller wireless keyboard. This microsoft one drives me nutz. Was out gardening for 2 hours today. Have the debris picked up from around the pond and have clipped back the figs some more. We have had about a dozen nice big ripe figs in the last while. The first crop is still producing some. There are grapes on the grape vine. Everything is dry and over grown. Cannor will not have any fish until April 2020. Bah! Have 3 orchids in bloom and the ladyslipper is finished. I guess I will need to go to the pet shop at Broadmead.

August 19, 2019
Have settled on the Playlist page and have the first 4 songs listed. Am not going to try to use the coded one to make the playlist. Computer just finished properly uploading my recipes and my web page folders to google drive. I have used 9 GB of the free 15 GB before I need to start paying for it. Got some kitchen stuff done this morning and a load of towels laundered. We went to the flying club for lunch... very good won ton soup. Then to Mitchell farms where Pat picked out the vegetables and I went to the plants place. I managed to get some water weed there. Then to Broadmead to LB Store to drop off empties and pick up a couple of wine and 6 pack of cider. I went to Pets West for fish. They will be getting a new shipment in Friday and Chantelle will phone me when they are in. She sold me some de-chlorinating stuff for the pond. She says that the way Saanich does its chlorination now leaves the chlorine in the water for a longer period of time, so I should use this stuff. So pond has apx 1000 gallons.. probably a bit less with the erosion of the sides, and I used 20 capsfull to dechlorinate. I put the new water weed thing that I bought at Mitchell's into the pond, in 2 pieces, and a piece of it in the tub on the deck. Chantelle's fish are going to cost 4.00 each.. yikes. Her comets are not the best, but the shubunkins and sarasas are good stock. So, I hope to get 2 comets, 4 shubunkins, and 4 sarasas. Will cost $50.00 plus tax. oh well. The water weed was $4.00 and the dechlorinater stuff about $40.00.

August 20, 2019
Am up to number 11 Changes2 page of the playlist music page. Got the Series F mutual fund thing changed to Series "A". Pat phoned Jason Gillett after Julie of RBC self directed branch phoned about this. Jason will have it switched tomorrow. So, I must phone that number back and quote their file number to let them know it is switched. I hope Jason has done Pat's also. He has several other of these matters to talk to Michael about on Thursday. bother. Got the house and deck plants fed and watered. Got the grass mowed, the bamboo cut back, the magnolia tree cut back off the drive way, some of the front boulevard plants deadheaded. Everything is so very dry. We are to get rain tomorrow, and hopefully tonite too. I had to go for a nap right after supper. Slept till 8:00 and am going to go back for more sleep soon.

August 22, 2019
Sunny, 23 degrees. Saw Michael and got our direct invsting accounts finished, and my name changed to the legal. Got a few more tunes added to Playlist.

August 23, 2019
Raining lightly this am. Doing laundry.

August 24, 2019
Sunny, nice day. Changing Firefox to my default browser. Re logging in to my wretched accessD. Bloody hell. Totally ruined my day. But was to the Creatures great and small pet store and got 6 fish. 2 browny gold ones, 1 light gold (white), 2 sarasa looking ones (orange spots on white, 1 gold with white bottom. 2 of these fish were regular price of $1.50 the other 4 were a 'special order' because I asked for this or that one, at $3.50 each Another Bloody hell. There was a sign way up on the wall behind me stating something about this. Total of $19.00 is still reasonable compared to the $4.99 each fish at the Broadmead shop. I might get shubunkins there. There is a gold one with black and white on its tail. The light gold looked white under the store lights. When I put them in the pond one of the white with gold ones was leaping right out of the water. I thought it was enjoying the leap. They seemed to be settling down after a few hours. These fish might be 1 1/2 inches long. Sure hope they grow some before winter. The water hawthorn seems to be recovering with a couple of new green leaves. We have had about 1/4 inch of rain in the last few days, with nothing but sunshine in the days ahead. Must set up the springler tomorrow. Pizza for supper as I was totally bummed after the accessD fiasco.

August 25, 2019
Sunny nice day about 21 degrees. Watered for an hour at the cutting garden position of the sprinkler and then a 40 minutes at the water garden position. Then watered by hand all around the back and under the deck for another hour. The Pees were up on their tall ladder cutting branches off my trees that were 'hanging over their property'. I got a picture of baby pee flipping me the finger while I was trying to talk some reason into them about what trees are good for and what bothers them about my tree branches being over their property. Only that they are over their property. Makes no sense to me. They went ahead and have a bunch of branches from the English oak and the lilac piled on their back summer fallow. Hi ho! Not going to get bent about it. Fed the fish this morning and saw one or two of them, not necessarily eating, just swimming. The water hawthorn seems to have a couple of new little leaves, so it should live, I hope. Bought the Sultans of Swing by Dire straights from google play and now have it on my windows media play list and in my web page to add to the 2019 journal notes, maybe. $1.29. So maybe tomorrow I will water the front.

August 26, 2019
Lovely day. sunny, 20 degrees. The Pees threw all the oak tree branches they cut and ripped off my tree, onto the cutting garden. I dragged them out to the grass under the apple tree for cutting up and putting out into the compost bin or the garage for burning. Started watering the front at 10:30. Its not too bad. Needs weeding and watering. The pruning of the trees should wait till Spring. Got some hornwort - under water plant, oxygeninator at cannor for $10.00: way way expensive.

August 27, 2019
10:00 and the Benz is packed and ready to go. It is going to be a hot day as it is now 21 degrees and sunny. Not a cloud in sight. Last night there was a raccoon on the deck. I was out getting a drink of water about 3:00 am when I heard a rumble on the deck. Went to look and found a small racoon scampering around. The birdbath was tipped off its stand onto the deck. I see no other damage. The waterfall looks fine. This little trip should go on the LTV Benz page with an album for photos; and on the Pre1989 travel logue. I now have Firefox as my browser and like it.

August 31, 2019
Very warm day. 23 degrees. Was to Pets West at Broadmead, got 4 little shubunkins, calico shubunkins because of the colors; and some smaller pellets of fish food. Not sure how much the fish cost as I did not get an itemized bill. Total $25.48. 4 fish at $5.00 each plus the food and tax, I suppose. Very expensive fish, for the size of them. I do not see any of my fish. So, they are not floating on top so I guess that is good. Don't see my under water hornwort, either. The poor little water hawthorn has sent up one bloom. Sure hope it grows and survives. I have my month end stuff done and just one more trip to Michael's office and we should be done the Direct stuff. The pond needs more water and the plants, inside and out need more water too.

September 2019

September 1, 2019
Watered house deck and patio plants. Watered a bit under the deck and around its edges and in the general area of the fig tree and the edges of the Japanese garden. Brought in a fig, since its Greek night over at the Greekfest. Filled the pond a bit and added some chlorine fix it stuff. Cleaned and filled the hummingbird feeder. The globe flower on the deck has buds and one open flower. There is a bud of the lily in the tub on the deck. The water hawthorn has another little leaf coming out. I saw the hornwort under the water. It is expanding in both places. One of the orchids has a bud. The pansy flower and the yellow phal. are holding their blooms. I started the deep freezer up today and have it half full from the stuff out of the downstairs fridge. I see I have 4 pkgs of purple plums and 2 of apple sauce. There are a few apples on the tree.

September 4, 2016
finished page 6 of the April album, 18 more pages to go. Its a warm day. Yesterday some one was cutting down trees in old weird's place. Yesterday we brought the trailer home to take the T up to Nanaimo on Friday. I packed stuff today. Still do not have our DI acct fixed, and it is very worrisome to me.

September 16, 2019
Got home from the can am yestereday, unpacked, etc. The can am was awash. At home we seemed to have had 2 inches or more of rain. The rain gauge was full. Today is cooler with some clouds and some sun. Made 6 blue pkgs of borscht to freeze and lunch today. The tall cattleya Intermedia (Oriata x Aquini) has one bloom. It is a species orchid. The bloom is magenta tipped white petals.

September 17, 2019
Made Irish yellow broth today. Have 2.5 pkgs to freeze. Made corn chowder. Have 3 and a half packages. There is 1/4 inch of rain in the rain gauge at about noon. It has been a bit windy, and bits of rain falling. Brought in 3 plums from off the ground,

September 18, 2019
Emptied over half an inch of rain out of the gauge. brought in another fallen plum. Made 5 Italian sausage and savoy cabbage soup today. It is coolish, 17 degrees, some sun.

September 19, 2019
Made 11 pkgs of Minestrone soup. a coolish day. 17 degrees.

September 20, 2019
Did laundry, including 4 loads of bedding. Did shopping including some good fresh vegetables at Michell's Farm. another 17 degree day with more sun. Pat noticed the fish on top of the pond. There were 8 of them that I counted. I looked up how many new ones we had bought and there are 12 new ones according to my posts. Fed the fish. They seemed to go for the food, but the pieces are too big for them to get into their mouths. Perhaps when the food gets soaked they will be more easily able to eat it.

September 21, 2019
Downloaded my photos and have started to do the Autumn Tour for the Antiques Events page. Pictures and link to Facebook page by Paul and Liz Taylor, also photos from Don Stevens phone to be included, in the album. This Autumn Tour is what has become of the original Malahat Challenge. More modern cars are allowed, and the tour is not made for 1915 and prior cars, any longer. It is difficult to drive in the tour with most of the cars more modern. Any thing that is a 'collector' car designation runs in it now. The Can Am runs model ts only, as does the Barney Oldfield run on Fathers Day. The Can Am of a week ago in Chilliwack as mostly rained out. We drove our Highlander and did not take the T out of its trailer, although a lot of the people did. I cannot recall anyone who was cranking their car to start it though, except perhaps the Proctors. Everyone else seems to use electric starters now.

September 22, 2019
the morning was spits of rain, but nothing really measureable. I made 6 pkgs of quinoa and squash soup, did the ironing, got the Autumn Island tour stuff coded and added to the Antiques and the Pre 1989 logue page. I walked over to the sign on the trail where I had left a copy of the Penninsula pdf about the work on the main stream of the Colquitz river, yesterday afternoon. The plastic bag was still duct taped to the sign, but the copy of the information was taken out of the plastic bag. Well hell. The thief could put it back! Shopped and looked for new kitchen machine as my Braun has cracks in the plastic post that holds the blade. Nothing comparable at Capital Iron. Must do an online search. We have sunshine now at 5:00 o'clock. I have been busy constantly today. Saw 4 shubunkins and one gold comet on top of the pond, and fed them. The pump had quit working. I checked the plug in to the extra bit of cord and that seemed to be not quite plugged in. A block of the wood seemed to have fallen over and knocked it out of its plug in. While on my walk I noticed a wild sweet pea in bloom. Sure hope it spreads!. I want some of it on my boulevard garden along with Queen Anne's lace plant. Pictures in the sunshine of the broken oak tree branches piled under the apple tree. did not turn out very well. WATERED the house plants.

September 23, 2019
finished the write up for the Can-Am on the Model Ts page with a little help from Pat. Its raining this am.
September 24, 2019
20 degrees, some sun. Out from 1:30 to 3:30. Pat and I got the oak tree branches cut up and most of them fit into the bin. We have 2 brown bags of twigs and Pat has yet to cut up the bigger branches. I cleaned off the spent blossoms off one of the rhodos, dug the electrical cord deeper as it was exposed for some odd reason. Brazil and Malaysia's forests are on fire. They both seem to be trying to get more land for plantations. They both have huge populations that continue to grow. Live meter of population growth 4:30 fished a half dead bull frog out of the pond. It was not there when I was fixing the electrical cord at about 3:15. Weird. It was just barely moving and was easy to catch with the skimmer. About .7 inch of rain in the gauge.

September 26, 2019
Emptied .7 of an inch of rain out of the rain gauge. Cooler day with some clouds. Yesterday I made 4 cups of chicken stock. The Democrats have started impeachment proceedings against Trump, due to a Whistle Blowers report on Trump presuring the Ukrainian Prime Minister or President whatever he is to have his security do a snoop about Biden's son's activities in the Ukraine. I see where the Pees have been cutting off some plants and dumping them on my front garden. Looks like they might be day lily leaves. September 28, 2019
Emptied 1/4 inch of rain out of the gauge. Yesterday I made carmelized onion and squash bisque - 3.5 pkgs frozen.

September 29, 2019
finished page 7 of the April album. A wren hit the patio door glass, pictures. It flew away after a while. Yesterday there was a cute little nuthatch on the water fall.

September 30, 2019
Sunny day, 16 degrees. Spent the morning doing bank stuff. Have to get direct investing to send a form to Wealth management to get one of our accounts transfered, and have to get the form for the transfer to the TD in email and then take to Mikey to send to DI shitheads.

October 2019

Thursday, October 2, 2019
Coolish day. Pat put out the bags for the diabetes truck before he went down town. Its a coolish day 13 degrees. A wren was drinking and washing in the tub on the deck. It was standing on the lily leaves. At about 10:40 the diabetes truck came to do the pick up and there was nothing for him to pick up. Very strange. Someone must have stole our donations! This neighbourhood is getting more weird all the time. We still do not have our DI account working, either. The garage door went crashing down when it closed after I had it up to look in the garage for the diabetes stuff. Pat found that the spring was broken on the garage door lifting device. Pat said that the diabetes stuff was gone when he left for downtown. So, Harboard Door guys cannot get here until Friday 3:00ish. We will manage I guess. Pat put the bike in the back. I reported the incident to Saanich Police to Operator No: echo 3168. As we sat down for lunch about 12:15 a Saanich policeman arrived, and Pat went down to speak to him, and explained as how his wife had thought that the disappearing diabetes donation and the garage door breaking at the same time might indicate an attempted break-in. Pat took the cop to the garage to show him the broken garage door. As they were in there the Syrian from next door suddenly arrived on the door step with the missing donations bags. Glory be! He said he thought they were FREE but his daughter said they were for the diabetes truck. I let him off the hook rather than let him take them. He should learn not to steal stuff right off people's front steps. He would have seen the diabetes truck earlier, but only thought to return them when the cop car showed up. So, the cop could carry on with this merry tale back to the office, I suppose. Oh yeah, our police force are effective.

October 5, 2019
a cool day of 13 degrees at 10:30. We have had quite a bit of rain over the last few days. On the 3rd Trevor and Luke were here to instal the new wifi router and booster. It works fine and so it should for $759.00. They spoke of setting me up with 2 Windows platforms that I would switch between. All my online stuff would be on Windows 10, and my word processing stuff (web page and photos and music would run off my old windows 7. Luke said he could make my windows 10 look like windows 7. Yesterday I finally managed to get my Adobe acrobat reader downloaded, without it changing all my file endings to that reader thing. Took some searching on Google to get it done, and it actually work like a charm when I followed the #2 instructions. This is good, and I can now make .pdfs with it too!. Its free. Yesterday the guys from Harbour Door came and fixed the garage door. Good guys Pat says. Now we can get our car out. Pat has been taking the Mercedes LTV down to coffee. Well, my garden can now be looked at once it stops raining. We have the Oak tree branches cut up and most of them put out in the bin. There have been wrens around the waterfall and the front tree. The jays are back in our garden and in the little woods across the street. 14 degrees and some sun at 5:00. Grocery shopped at Mitchell farms and Mr. Grocer at Royal Oak Mall. $100. In looking out the dining room window tonite about 11:00 I saw a big orangish light that looked like a city light but appeared to be over Roy Road and a bit higher than a city light would have been. I tried to get photos of it, but they are not great. I went to my computer to try and determine what it was to no avail. I returned to the window a few minutes later and the light was gone. It was not moving when I saw it. I saw it looking through the tree tops towards Roy Road a few degrees to the left of the jail, in my line of vision. It was too far to the left to be the jail lights. Never saw this light before. It was too high to be something on Cherry Road (on the hill of Gerda Road). Wonder what it was.

October 7, 2019
13 degrees. Raining. Emptied one inch of water out of the gauge at 1:00. Watered the house plants. Getting the laundry done Finished page 9 of the April album.

October 8, 2019
Justin Butcher from Godaddy 480 463 8854, prefers email: justin8190@godaddy.com. The end is that this move to the new server and a reduction of the things I am buying on my hosting plus a new ssl certificate renewed for 2 years in April, 2020, will renew all the stuff on my hosting for the next 8 years. Then I will have a debit of about $95. on my green visa. He will send email about todays stuff. I should not do anything on the web site - godaddy for 10 days, untill its all in place and working. He will call on October 16 at 10:00 again.
Its cool, about 8 degrees and raining lightly.

October 9, 2019
the high of 10 degrees today with bright sun. Cleaned my dresser top and the window ledge, made cole slaw, took out the compost pot, picked the oak leaves up and put them in the bin, picked the few apples that I could reach. There should be enough to make a pie for Thanksgiving day on Sunday. Moved some taller plants around on the light garden. The top shelf is the highest.

October 10, 2019
There was ice on the water table this morning. Sunny and 11 degrees high. Got some more of Page 10 of the April album done.

October 18, 2019
Went to HCP and got my membership renewal. Got a list of the HCP grads who are gardeners for hire. It has been raining off and on for the past week. Saw Dr. W on 15th. Have every 4 weeks lab tests. Finished page 10 of the gardening/april albums. We have been struggling with our DI accounts since Aug. We might just have them working now..Sure hope so. Very stressing. AND Godaddy is migrateing all websites to new servers. Talking to Justin and the Hosting department to finally get it done this morning. My music does not seem to play and I will need to put the new SSL Certificate on to the pages. I might just take the music off at that time. I have a playlist done up that I can use while working on anything if I feel the need. It is distracting anyway when working on the page or even when reading the page.

October 20, 2019
Yesterday the robins were at the berries on the holly and firethorn. I don't think the berries were ready yet as they left after only a few of the berries were taken off the trees. Got page 10 of the April album finished and a start on page 11.. My music won't play for me on my page but Pat can get it, so must be something on my browsers. I have emailed Trevor asking for a remote to try and fix this. Put my Chrome to default settings... did not help. Removed the Playlist from the About page and the Home page, but the music does not play... the day the music died. Also told Trevor that I would be wanting a new computer set up with Win 10 in mid November. Been raining and about 8 - 12 degrees out. Nice color in the trees all around us. Photos. Emptied the full rain gauge. Yesterday Pat saw a bunch of cars along Carey Road by Panama Flats. Well, in the newspaper this a.m. on the front page it has a picture of a yellow browed warbler, that is a lovely green color. It seems this little bird has caused quite a stir with the Birders and they are coming from far and wide to see it. It normally lives in Russia/Siberia and migrates to SE Asia. They think it was blown off course on its migration. I haven't seen it in our little woods across the road, but have not really been looking for it. It is cold and wet out there.

October 24, 2019
Laundry today, Trevor fixed my Thunderbird, I phoned Godaddy again and finally found how to get on my file uploading place. It adds several more clicks on to the procedure. This is due no doubt to being on a server with multiple accounts. Trevor has given me an estimate for the addition of Windows 7 ... $854.00. He will need my computer in for a few days. So shall email him back to shoot for November 5th and ask for a newer smaller, cordless keyboard

October 26, 2019
Have added a new keyboard to the mix. Still deciding the cost and kind. Watered the houseplants yesterday. Took the van for a drive, stopped at London Drugs, and looked at some logitech keyboards, non of them illuminated and all that stuff. And of course the logitech would need its mouse to go with it. Probably cost an arm and a leg. This will probably be my last upgrade... at least I hope so, so why don't I go for the gusto? Sunny day today. Yesterday I fixed the waterfall, its running good today. Some critter messing about it. Raked some leaves in the fig tree area and put them in the bin, yesterday. So, perhaps I can get more of that done, as we are to have sunshine, and my knee is better.

October 27, 2019
12 degrees and sunny. Went out about 2:00. Found 2 big rye bottles in the boulevard garden and 4 miscellaneous womens/girls boots on the stone path at the front. A piece of paper garabage across the street. There are a few branches down by the plum tree. Must have been from the winds we had a few days ago. I took the seeds from the sweet gum tree and the left over milkweed seeds from Dave out to the park and spread them along the grass sides, between Gerta and Roy Road area. I do hope some of them grow. I picked the seed heads off the rhodos by the step. Threw 2 cigarette butts out of the pond. I have such lovely neighbours. Since Halloween is coming and the kids will be at the door, I thought I should cut back that edge of the white rose. Well I ended up cutting it all back quite a lot. I do hope it does not decide to grow after this pruning. Oh well. Got in about 4:30 with a boquet of white roses. Put the groceries away and made the meatloaf, salads and there will be left over vegetables. Should be good.

October 30, 2019
Updated my eset protection. Called Telus and finally got to talk to a person. And got my prepaid talk and text 100 clarified as being set to continue just as is as long as I top up the balance. It should work the same next year. They are aware of the confusing messages sent out, and she said they are well aware of it and will be changing it. Went to the Zambie for lunch with Jeffery and Chelsea and speaker Brad. Looked like Jeffery was trying to fill the table (16 people, I think) There were a few empty chairs. good enough lunch. This is a wonderful building. Must consider taking house guests there, although the food is nothing special. Cold day with sunshine.

October 31, 2019
Today there was ice on the water table in the morning but by noon it was up to 10 and nice. Seemed warm when I was out. Made coleslaw and did up the neck bones in the pressure cooker for tonite's sweet and sour bones and rice. Did up the bank stuff. Pat got his DI payment but mine does not show yet... maybe tomorrow. Paid the VISA. Later in the afternoon I noticed a chair on the front garden. An old grotty white one. We think it is a Syrian cast off. Later found out that it was not the Syrians but probably the stupid Pees. The chair from the back garden (cutting garden) disappeared and somehow walked itself to the front garden.

November 2019

November 2, 2019
Sunny, coolish day. To 11 degrees. Watered and fed the house plants. Finished tweaking Page 11 of the April album. We seem to have the DI stuff sorted for the moment. As usual Pat figures 'they' have to correct the transaction. How can they fix it if they don't know its broken.

November 16, 2019
Quite a bit of rain over the last few days, but we were in a dry spell just before this last bit of rain. Pat helped with the leaf collection by running his leaf blower machine set to vacume up the leaves. They get munched up a bit. Put the first bunch in the green bin. I put some on the strawberry patch and a bagful or two in the back bin. The back bin is full. Put some whole leaves under the deck and around the little fern. I must water it though. I have seen a couple of the fish at the top recently. They seem to have grown a bit. I have four orchids in bloom and one more with a bud... this one has never bloomed for me before... its an old one.
My computer has been in the shop getting upgraded to Windows 10 for the last 2 weeks. Before that I was having multiple problems with the banking stuff, etc. To end it with my phone freezing the night before I was to get my computer back. Well, needless to say I was stressed to the max. Got the computer back on the 14th but was too tired to do anything on it. Yesterday and today I have been tentatively getting things moved to Win 10. nice new keyboard and mouse. I am not fond of this type size. I see I can zoom it in. Fine. Still have some stuff to move... I got the skype done, but cannot figure out how to get a dropbox icon but have a link like I have for the emails. o well, this too will get fixed as I get more used to things, I am sure. Have 2 SSD drives for the 10 and the 7. and a couple of big manual data drives for the backups and the storage.

November 18, 2019
Was out to rake leaves at 9:30 and in by 11:45. Put about 5 wheel barrow loads of leaves out at the curb under the plum tree. When Pat got home he helped by picking up a bagful in his leaf blower thing. I put this bag of munched up leaves on the cutting garden. Saanich is to pick up the leaves starting today. Skimmed off the pond. The mermaid is missing and there was a cigarette but near where the mermaid sat. I don't seem to have any stones left on the garden. Stupid Pees! they are so very ignorant. I shall have to get surveilance camera front and back. Must call the Commissionaires. After lunch, I cleaned and filled the humming bird feeder. The back deck needs to be cleaned off and the back patio area. There are more leaves to come off the tree yet. My photos were well received at the last VIRAGS photo nite on the meeting nite. I am liking this keyboard but am not too fond of the font. It is pale gray color. Bold makes it darker on this one

November 20, 2019
Yesterday I walked to the bridge in Coply Park. There has been some work done on the restoration of indigenous plants along the river, and rocks along the banks to stop the erosion. Also a riffle just down stream from the bridge. ferns, white berries bushes, a few cedars and other trees I do not know. Ivy, raspberries and other invasive plants gone. The river still seems to be fairly low. We will need more rain to fill it up. The hummingbird has found its clean feeder and was having a good long drink this afternoon. Doing Windows 10 music stuff all morning.

November 21, 2019
There was ice on the water table this morning. I fixed the pond skimmer using a steel handle that Pat gave me, attaching it to the colander with hose clamps and duct tape. This should last a long time as I don't think it will rot like the wood. I must not use it to pry stuff. The humming bird is at the feeder. The pixie orchid now has 4 open blossoms. The leaves have not been picked up yet.

November 22, 2019
Coolish sunny day. Raked leaves for 90 minutes. Another rye bottle on the boulevard garden. big bottle .. those Pees must have a heavy drinking problem.

November 24, 2019
Froze lightly last night. Sun and coolish. 10 degrees. Pat tells me we have had only half as much rain as usual for November. I noticed 2 humming birds at the feeder this morning... not at the same time, but one just after the other. More leaves need raking, again. I was working on the music stuff on my web page till about 2:00. I have decided to take the music script off all the pages since the script does not work anymore. Except, oddly, it works on the Blog page. And then I am going to add the Playlist page again connecting the songs by a link. This plays the music individually. Someday I may learn to make a real playlist, but not now, as I have tons of stuff to do. Getting to the upload FTP on my Godaddy account is a total pain! Grey Cup day game is at 3:00 Winnipeg and Hamilton playing at Calgary. I have a new recipe for Crab stuffed Mushrooms for appies. Winnipeg won.

November 25, 2019
Cool, sunny - 8 degrees. Froze lightly last night. Found a ladybug on the dining room window and transported it to the light garden. Did up the squash as it had become molded and rotten at the small end. And it was ridiculously expensive, too. Have found a recipe for a vegetable loaf in the paper that I am going to copy out and make up soon as I get all the incredients. going to a movie at Tillicum and then to JJ morgans for chicken cordon blue at 3:00.

November 28, 2019
Big Winds and cooler temperatures. The leaf pile is still intact, though. Pat brought home an instant pot, which is just a glorified pressure cooker. Too much to learn about it for me, today. The hummingbirds have been around at the feeder. There was ice on the water table today.

November 29, 2019
Was -1 degrees this morning, and at noon is 5 degrees. The pond is covered in oak leaves that, I think are frozen on the surface. Making pork fried rice ahead of time and vegetable whip with the fish for supper.

November 30, 2019
Was -4 this morning and now at noon it is 5 degrees. Unthawed the humming birds feeder. Made cole slaw. Moved News letters into "gardening" and deleted old 2018 ones. Downloaded November photos on Windows 7 and got the folder moved into my pictures #19. So am getting a few things organized. Reading the last newsletter about Autumn crocuses... I find that these colichium are toxic if eaten. And the Crocus Sativus is a crocus but blooms in the Autumn.. not to be confused with colichiums. The leaves are frozen on the tub on the deck and on the pond. Hope we are out of this deep freeze soon. The leaf pile is still on the crocus field. I have to get it moved after Sunday (VCCC lunch). Did up banking stuff and the loss/gain for Playnow.

December 2019

December 1, 2019
Did not freeze last night, but it still feels cold at 4 degrees. I put the spent coffee grounds from our capiccino out over the deck railing onto the rhodos below. Coffee grounds are acidic and these rhodos will like them. I have decided to cut up plastic milk cartons for a collar around the milkweed seeds I am going to plant directly in the garden. I have 20 seeds and so 2 seeds per collar means I need only 10 of them. I carton makes 3 collars. I suppose I could use any plastic juice jar, etc. This afternoon we have a lunch at the golf club with the VCCC. Pat gets his 40th pin. I shall note it on the Antiques page of our website. There are 2 humming birds. Their feeder needs to be filled again. They are gobbling it up. The saxifragias are growing like crazy. I need to divide them. I need to get more tufa rock or learn how to cut up the 2 bigger rocks I have. I need a place to make this saxifragia garden. I think perhaps I will dig out the invasive campanulas by the gold rocks in the front little rockery and transfer cuttings or pieces of the saxifragia into this area. I will need more tufa rocks. The montebretia and the other big plants will need to be removed to make the area into a bigger rock garden. I could always put the montebretias in the woodland or the bouelevard garden and the jacobs ladder or whatever it is in the shade garden... must get a soaker hose for under there. . . . the best laid plans ... may be revised. It is so good to have our DI working at last and to be able to find my way around my web page stuff.

December 6, 2019
Have had cooler days over the past week. Have been cooking vegetables, etc. This a.m. right after breakfast about 9:00 I went out to rake leaves. Took out the compost pot. skimmed off the pond. raked the leaves off the grass and off the inner garden, including thyme circle. Put the leaves right into the green bin. Talked to a guy who noticed the rye bottle in my garden and asked if he could have it. Talked about the leaf piles. Told him he could have the bottle and if he saw any more there he was welcome to them. Was back in about 11:00 into the tub. Went for lunch at PI and did a bit of shopping. Home to do a bit of work on the Playlist of my webpage. Have 17 songs of 39 coded in. 22 more to go. It was cloudy and much warmer this morning, although the thermometer only showed about 7 degrees. When we got home from the lunch, etc. the leaf pile was gone. Wonder if that guy from Rose Ridge called the leaf truck guys. I seem to be getting my stamina back, as I could have stayed out longer and cleaned up more on the moss garden, if I had had the time. Tomorrow... Pat will be away at a meeting for the morning and lunch time. I should be able to get some good clean up stuff done if it is not raining. We have had a very dry November and first part of December so far.

December 8, 2019
About 10 degrees. Yesterday it was rainy. Pat and Arthur away to a meeting. I finished the Playlist page. It has 39 tunes on it. Today it is warm out and very damp, cloudy. I have made buttered beets and harvard beets. With a very good ruben sandwich for lunch and there will be sweet and sour pork bones with rice for supper. I have started revising all 39 of the pages to update the music to links, to put on the new SSL and change the date of revision. I have 5 of the pages finished. Was out for a minute to fix the rocks on the waterfall.

December 12, 2019
Yesterday was about 10 degrees. The robins were picking the berries off the thorn bush and the holly tree. There are still a few berries left on the holly.(Pictures) Did laundry yesterday. The pansy orchid (Breathless Beauty)(miltonia) has 2 blossoms and is nicely fragrant. It has been in bloom for a couple of weeks. The yellow phalenopsis is coming out with another bud. The little red one (SL Psyche) has one bloosom, very pretty. The showy Pixie has had six blossoms and there are 2 left on it now. The little one with white blossoms on sprays (onc. Twinkle) has been in bloom for a week or two and has one spray left. The humming birds were zipping around yesterday. They seem to be chasing each other. I think they are playing. I spent a lot time yesterday trying to find an Algreen tranquility plastic waterfall for sale. I may have to get home depot or someone to order it in for me, as the Algreen company is only retail. Made a mistake and ordered another 2018 Bay Bear yesterday. Drat. I was out to shop a couple of days ago and got a dress, a bath robe, a long sweater for with the dress or otherwise. Yesterday I was to royal oak lab for Dr. W. blood test and did some shopping at the grocery store and pantyhose that actually fit me, at last. To the Casino for supper...just ok, and the gambling is not nice... ugly and noisy... much prefer the comfort of my home. Not winning anything on lottery tickets either. I am almost finished the HBC Charity Bears' list. I have 15 of them.. perhaps I will list all the other bears, someday.

December 17, 2019
Since my last post we have had dinner with Art and Marlene at The Oak. ok meal, there was entertainment: Jennifer Greaves, very talented singer. The next evening we went to the McPherson to see the Yellow Point Christmas Extravaganza. It was superb. That afternoon we could not get parked downtown to go listen to the Tuba players at the Market Square. We have had coolish weather with some bits of rain. I have made the shortbread for Christmas, and have a few main meals done up and frozen for the more busy days; ie: cabbage rolls, schnitzel, spaghetti sauce. The robins have cleaned up the berries on the thorn bush and the holly tree. In our drive about the other day we saw an example of the Algreen waterfall... it is not anything I want. Glad I got a look at that, before I sent for one. Too expensive, anyway. But I do need to get more rocks, as the shithead from next door seems to need to be destroying things in my garden, such as throwing things into the garden pond, like the mermaid and rocks. And throwing their empty whisky bottles in the boulevard garden.

December 18, 2019
About 10 degrees today with bits of rain. Made beef soup in the morning.. very good, left over beef from short ribs. Looked up a crab bisque recipe.. need crab or crusteanian shells for the stock. I am finished the music, etc on Links page which is #22 of 39. the 2 humming birds are zipping around and eating their feed. I need to wait at the house to get a delivery of a fit requisition. Weird. The clinic phoned about it after calling about I needed to see Dr. T after my lab of a couple of days ago. Now I wait for the fit to be delivered so I can drop it at the lab when I go to see Dr. T on Monday morning. Things just keep getting too complicated. Life Labs have been hacked and all the accounts in Ontario and BC, exposed. Hackers demanded a ransom and got it. This happened back in oct or nov and we are just now hearing about it. Today I had to change my password. But we are to keep an eye on any emails and all of our accounts for unusual things, since they have our dob, name, address, email, medical records, etc.

December 21, 2019
6 degrees at 11:00 am. no wind and overcast. Saw 3 humming birds! We were to the Faqahar theater at the University last night to see the Canadian Brass. Too bad the Victoria Symphony had to be there too. I did not think the symphony added anything to the show. Dinner at JJ Morgans before the show. I have 9 pages of 40 left to revise with the new SSL and the music links. Added 3 new tunes to make up for where I had doubles. Must add them to the PLAYLIST.

December 23, 2019
Much the same kind of weather as yesterday. We had Three 5.6 or so earthquakes off the northwest of the Island this morning. No damage, no Tsunami, alls good. I think I am finally finished the music and the new SSL on my page! Doing laundry, was to see Dr. T. this morning.

December 27, 2019
Last nite we went to Centennial square. Put my camera on the night, hand held setting. The pictures of the lights came out marvelously. On the other hand a couple of days ago in trying to install and app on my godaddy web hosting, I installed wrong and then in trying to uninstall I took my web page off the servers or some damn thing. Oyyy! Been overcast and about 6 degrees, with bits of rain, for the last few days. Have tweaked a few April photos but my heart just is not in it.

December 28, 2019
Yesterday I found that my web page is thoroughly screwed up and I am going to have to pay a 'developer' from godaddy to fix it. So, I am looking to find a new hosting place in Canada. The one I looked at will get my stuff transfered. Canadian Web Hosting. Seems I can be on my own server with them, again. This being on a server with multiple others has slowed down my stuff a lot I think. Not that that matters. If someone screws up on the server, when I am the only one on it... will only have myself to blame, too. Must talk to Trevor. Maybe see what Godaddy charges to fix my site on their servers... but I really am thinking they are way too big to be bothered with small fry like me that need more help. In chat with the last godaddy helper he/she had no idea how to fix my problem, wasn't qualified to do any of that content stuff, only dealt with server stuff. Gave me a number for the help people on godaddy that is NOT the number on their web page that I saw. Noticed multiple problems quoted on the help site in trying to add Coppermine. Blah! I have the Pot.Lisa Taylor Gallis 'Nora' with 2 blossoms. (Blc.California Girl x Sc Beaufort).

December 29, 2019
To Naghty Nellies for our crab and fine wine feast. Pat put the announcement in the Times Colonist, and emailed it around to a few people.

December 30, 2019
Lovely sunrise at 8:00 this am. Made the stock for the crab bisque this am. Groceries and went to get crab meat to the Finest at Sea... way way too expensive. Have 8 cups for bisque, and 4 more cups with the vegetables pureed and added for another seafood soup stock. Will have our bisque tomorrow and probably have at least 2 serving left over to freeze.

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Garden purchases in 2019

VIRAGES show and Sale:

$5.00 to get in door and $36.00 for plants... So about $41.00

Saxifragia paniculata 'Dr. Clay' R.M. ... 'Doctor Clay' is a mat-forming, evergreen perennial forming rosettes of broadly linear, lime-encrusted, grey-green leaves and slender, arching stems bearing panicles of cup-shaped, white flowers in late spring and early summer. Planted in white pot with tufa rock $5.00

Saxifragia Lilac Time X Youngiani R.M cutting Big blossums on the short plant
(Saxifraga Porphyrion/Saxifraga 'Lilac Time') Planted in white pot with tufa rock $7.00

Daphne domini is 10 inches tall by 11 inches wide. growing on calcareous rocks, rocky slopes / evergreen / flowers do not open - cleistogamy / self-pollinating / always masses of orange fruits / hardy . Wonderful dwarf shrub about 15cm tall; linear leaves and pink tubular flowers followed by bright orange fruits.fruits. Sun/part shade. Colour: pink, April to June. Height: 10 – 30 cm, Shape: shrubby. Soil: scree trough. Origin: Europe.
Planted across the big rock from the other Daphne, in the little rockery at the back. $3.00

Delospermeum Sutherlandii Seedling (might be great or not) dwarf perennial plant, native to South Africa. forms a dense lawn with abundant, long-lasting flowering. Will reach sizes 60 cm Usually magenta with white eye -May 27/19: It is blooming and is magenta, lighter than the other one which is also in bloom in the back little rockery.
$3.00

Omphalodes linifolia
Venus's Navelwort. Beautiful hardy annual, self sows. Likes sun and good drainage. White forget me not flowers in spring, blue-grey leaves. Planted in the cutting garden, I think $5.00

these 2 omphalodes have totally different leaves must plant them in pot and keep eye on them.
omphalodes ? blue it says and it is indeed blue. In the cutting garden I think. $5.00

Cardamine - looks purple. Might be in the plum tree stump garden.
Cardamine pentaphyllos (syn. Dentaria pentaphyllos), five-leaflet bitter-cress or showy toothwort, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae, native to Western and Central Europe in Slovenia and Croatia. It is an herbaceous perennial, growing to 30–50 cm (12–20 in), with palmate leaves and racemes of purple, pink or white flowers in late Spring and early Summer. Mine is half that size. There are also hardy annuals of this plant too. The Latin specific epithet pentaphyllos means "with five-lobed leaves. $4.00

Trillium chloropetalum - Giant Trillium, Giant Wake Robin, Wood Lily, Trinity Flower. Rich of a rose fragrance, Plant Height : 1 to 3 feet; Zones : 6, 7, 8, 9; Plant Width : 6 to 12 inches; Bloom Time : Early Spring ... T. chloropetalum var. giganteum is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial with stout stems each bearing three broadly ovate leaves and an erect, stalkless deep maroon flower 5-10cm in length. Moist but well-drained, Soil: Chalk, Loam, Sand, pH Acid, Neutral – Planted in the trillium bed/Magnolia bed and has survived as at May 27/19 $4.00

Plants purchased the end of March 2019 from Cannor.
They had all the plants you can pile on a tray for $20.00 It was pretty well cleaned out by the time I got there. Nevertheless, I got a few good plants. I planned to take them to the VIRAGS sale. but ended up only taking 3 of them, and had doubles of the ones I donated.
2 Alpine wall cress, gravely well drained soil, evergreen, ground cover, full sun
Arabis Ferdinaandi-coburgie "Old Gold" low carpet, 2 - 4 in., green and gold streaked leaves, small white flowers.
1 for the show and 1 planted in the plum stump bed
Basket of Gold Alyssum. They need full sun.
1 Basket of Gold Alyssum - full sun, sharp drainage, 8 - 10 tall x 12 -14 spread. Planted in the little rockery at the back.
2 Little Lemon Solidgo golden rod Dansolitem - sun, part shade, 12-16 high, x 12 - 14 in spread. Planted in the plum stump bed. 1 show and 1 mine.
2 Saponaria - Soapwort, ground cover, full sun. 8 - 10 in tall spread 24 in. drought tolerant once established. pink. Not sure where planted.
1 show and 1 mine.
1 Arenaria montana 'Avalanche - 2 - 4 in. x 10 - 12 in. spread. Average soil, well drained, full sun. Large white flowers in early summer. evergreen (not) mine will go into the little rockery at the back, if it grows. died
1 Corydalis, fragrant, blue - blooms intermittently Spring to Fall, Stems grow 15' long Edging, containers. Partial shade, cool moist, well drained. (blue) Going in a container with Trollius (globe flower) (golden) Planted in a small white pot on the deck with a globe flower. (died)
3 Asiatic Primrose Primula Sieboldii Spring bloom, part shade. 12 in tall, purplish with yellow center, fertile, well drained, cool temperatures. Planted the 3 of them in the primula bed (moss garden room)
2 Trollius Chinensis - Globeflower, 2 1/2" bowl-shaped golden yellow to orange flowers, blooms in Spring, 3 feet tall. Borders beside wet areas. moist soil, in area with morning sun and afternoon shade intolerant of heat. 1 for container on deck with Corydalis, and 1 in pot in the pond.. raise the pot a bit. There is a basket on the front shelf of the pond that holds a pot for the Trollius. Used a gallon pot.
1 Asclepias incarnata - white flowers, fragrant, clumping perennial upright stems, long seed pods release black seeds with silky tails. Blooms summer and fall. Moist well drained soil, low to moderate water once established. Butterflies like it Planted in the cutting garden adding lots of leaf compost, from the old compost bin. Dig a deep hole and fill it with compost. keep it well watered this summer.
1 Asclepias incarnata 'soulmate' pink, full sun, 40 inches x 12'' spread. Do not allow soil to dry out. Cutting garden, Same as above. 1 Verbascum temptress purple, 38 - 45 cm 15 - 18 inches. full sun. Brown Pot with Pink Veronica and Pink thread leaf coreopsis.
1 Verbascum phoeniceum 'violetta' Violetta Mullein beautiful cut flower, spikes of deep purple violet flowers self seeding perennial, blooms all summer if dead headed, 3 feet tall. well drained soil, full sun cutting garden.
1 Heuchera Carnival Rose Grantia - part shade to shade. Allow soil to dry between waterings, red/brown leaves. 10 - 12 inches. blossoms are probably white. Planted on the observation platform by the pond.
1 Cascade blue Aubretia. Full sun - 3 - 4" tall x 10 - 12 spread. Soil to dry between waterings. Front rockery by other one.
1 Gypsophila 'Pink Fairy' paniculata, double large pink flowers, good cut flower, fresh or dried, 1 - 18 in x 24 - 36 Average well drained, full sun cutting garden
2 Veronica spicata - sun, party shade, 12" high and 12"wide, keep well watered 'red fox', pink spikes 1 in cutting garden, 1 in pot with Verbascum and pink coreopsis
2 Pink Coreopsis 'American Dream' - June - Sept. thread leaf coreopsis, 12 - 18 in. tall and wide. Soil moist, full sun. 1 cutting garden, 1 in pot with Verbascum and pink Veronica.
2 Aquilegia 'Nora Barlow' columbine full sun to partial shade Cutting garden
2 Aquilegia Black Barlow cutting garden
1 Columbine in bigger pot... no name on it... is in cutting garden.
30 plants actually, for the $20.00
Got a Mossy Saxifragia from new stock and it is planted in the little rockery at the back, in full bloom with red flowers.

Mr. Grocer June 12th Lewisia Cotyledon 'Rainbow' $6.00 There are 2 plants in the pot, both in bloom, 1 pink/orange, the other is golden/yellow Am going to put them in a pot on the deck
Creatures Great and Small August 24, 2019 - 6 small fish
Creatures great and small pet store and got 6 fish. 2 browny gold ones, 1 light gold (white), 2 sarasa looking ones (orange spots on white, 1 gold with white bottom. 6 fish for $25.48
2 of these fish were regular price of $1.50 the other 4 were a 'special order' because I asked for this or that one, at $3.50 each Bloody hell. There was a sign way up on the wall behind me stating something about this. Total of $19.00 is still reasonable compared to the $4.99 each fish at the Broadmead shop. I might get shubunkins there. There is a gold one with black and white on its tail. The light gold looked white under the store lights. When I put them in the pond, one of the white with gold ones was leaping right out of the water. I thought it was enjoying the leap. They seemed to be settling down after a few hours. These fish might be 1 1/2 inches long. Sure hope they grow some before winter.
The water hawthorn seems to be recovering with a couple of new green leaves.

Michell Farms:
Hornwort $3.50-

Cannor
More Hornwort very expensive - $12.00

August 31, 2019
Pets West at Broadmead, got 4 little shubunkins, calico shubunkins because of the colors; and some smaller pellets of fish food. Not sure how much the fish cost as I did not get an itemized bill.
Total $25.48. 4 fish at $5.00 each plus the food and tax, I suppose. Very expensive fish, for the size of them. I do not see any of my fish. So, they are not floating on top so I guess that is good.

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Continue on to Journal Entries for 2020

Back to Journal Entries for 2018

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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