Most of the sunflowers in our yard are the result of the seeds from the bird feeders! Thanks to the antics of the birds, the yard is a much happier place.
And .. well .. llamas make me smile also!
Smiles are contagious! Energizing … mood changing .. uplifting.. fun!!
And remember .. it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown. (although, an upside-down frown is really a smile!)
🙂
My pals, R & D & I went seaweed collecting last week … we carefully chose the seaweed that was battered and torn up … nothing fresh and growing. Anyway, part of our ritual is to stop for lunch at the Little Vienna Cafe in Sooke! Delicious food .. happy atmosphere. We sat outside and there is the most marvellous water feature there …
And if you happen to have an old wooden boat handy on your property and are at a loss as to what to do with it .. here is an idea! Plant a garden! Hmmm … wouldn’t it be lovely to see garlic growing away in this? (I love garlic!)
Such magnificent blue skies. I love blue skies and take a zillion (seriously!) photos .. so many, in fact, that D suggests that I create a “Cloud” blog .. well, that is certainly food for thought.
A crow flying overhead … just one crow! Where are his buddies?
Definitely eye candy overhead on a sunny day …
And here is eye candy of another sort .. out in the garden …
There is always one in every crowd .. you know .. the one that stands out and seems to say “it’s me .. see me” .. in a nice way, though!
Lovely Clematis flower … soon it will be time to sleep and rest during the fall and winter months. Ready to spring forward and bloom anew in the warmer seasons. Thank you for adding to the magnificent beauty in my backyard oasis.
How lucky am I .. strawberries are still growing away and it is the end of September.
With the promise of more berries to come. Way to go, strawberries!
More of Nature’s garden art .. how delicate and sweet ..
Doesn’t this make you smile? I don’t cut the sunflowers down .. just let them grow away and provide food for the birds when it is time.
I love these Cherokee Trail of Tears beans .. they are a very vigorous plant and the vines are super tough ..and talk about fast growing! I had put out a few tall stakes, however, their rapid growth caught my by surprise. I was concerned that perhaps their intertwining might mean not so many beans, but as you can see, that is not the case!
Their diminutive flowers are so gentle and calming .. funny thing for me to say about a flower, but that is the sense I have when I’m outside, admiring them.
So I’ve learned yet another thing about planting beans! Planting these Tiger Eyes bush beans next to the Cherokee Trail of Tears was not such a great idea as they quickly became shadowed out. However, a few pods have grown so I will save them for seed for next year. When I’ll plant them in their own area!
See how the Cherokee beans grow right up through the trees!
Yesterday was a most beautiful sunny Sunday. And I was able to spend the complete day outdoors! I spent so much time wandering around .. soaking up the beauty of the flowers, beans, vines, plants. It was just such a wonderful day.
And I finally spread around the seaweed that my friends and I gathered last week .. it was getting to the stinky stage and I put lots in the compost containers and dug in the rest into the garden soil .. with lots around the pear stock tree!
I dug up a brick path that I’d installed last fall .. to create a pathway in the veggie bed. Time for change. My gardens are all about change and moving things about.
Anyway .. time is speeding up and I have my exercise group to join .. so more later!
🙂
I love Nasturtiums and it is a good thing for they have been growing like crazy all summer. Something else that loves them also are aphids. I hose off what I can and depend on the Ladybugs to feast on the rest.
Some late season raspberries .. they were a surprise! I love garden surprises and I am going to mark this plant with a ribbon so I can differentiate it from the hundreds of others that surround our yard.
Lots of insects in the yard .. this was a strange one and I was able to take a few photos before it flew away. Wonder what it is??
Spider basking in the sun .. enjoying a break in the daily routine of living in the garden.
We went to Vancouver a few times recently … I felt like a little country mouse in the big city
I was so happy to be back home .. in our yard .. admiring the beauty of the Crown Peas (Heirloom). To dissuade the hungry sparrows, I tied some cd’s to sparkle in the sunshine This seems to have worked .. since they have stopped dining on the shoots.
Dainty sprigs of Sweet Annie growing softly … graceful plants. This year I’d started them, ever so carefully, in single cell plant pots. Next year I will just throw little amounts of the tiny seeds throughout the sunny parts of the year. They will grow taller I think.
Mmmmmmmmmm … blue skies, wispy clouds .. still seems like summer .. I like it!
Little baby squash growing randomly in the yard … I learned another lesson the hard way this year. It is very important to rinse the soil off the squash, once picked. And rinse in a very light bath of water and some bleach or peroxide to avoid mould growing. I’d picked a sweet little orange squash a week ago. Enjoyed how lovely it looked. Of course, I hadn’t rinsed it. And DH went to move it from the tea towel it was resting on and noticed that it had seriously started deteriorating. Sigh. But not this one, though.
Sweet darling little Bush-tit .. I think this is a female, can just barely see the yellow outline in the eye.
The yellow is more evident in this photo. This is a bird that would not live in a cage. Freedom in the wild (as wild as can be in urban areas). They are the most joyous little birds, singing as they whirl into the yard .. never fail to make me smile. Thank you …
Teasel .. the seed that keeps on growing now matter how much the plants are pulled. Pretty plants although the bracts along the stem are a trifle sharp! ;l believe they were used to comb wool in long ago days.
Loving the light shining through the eucalyptus tree …I think this was mid-afternoon.
A close up of those lovely Crown Peas .. I love their delicate beauty.
Cheerful sunflowers all throughout the yard .. brightening up all the corners .. lovely!
Hearing the raucous cries of the crows flying overhead .. stopped to look up. They are so brave in a group and here they are chasing a hawk. This continues for a while and then they slowly disappear from sight.
A short while later, the hawk has eluded the crows and now soars quietly overhead.
These are the reason why the hawk often flies nearby … Passenger Pigeons are kept nearby. The hawks are swift. The pigeons .. not so much.
More wispy clouds ….
Now it is time to go back outside .. into the sunshine while it lasts .. a marvellous day to look up at the sky … harvest beans, tomatoes, the odd strawberry. Dig around .. and think of ways to change the layout of the garden.
Oh, and another year of learning things in the vegetable garden .. but more about that tomorrow. I just had to come inside and post a few pics.
Time now to fill my mug with a fresh brew of Yorkshire Tea.
🙂
Well .. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and will repeat “where does the time fly to anyway”?
Back in March I thought I’d take a few days away from blogging and then things started happening, days passed, I missed my blogging terribly.
This is really my precious time .. when I can let my fingers fly across the keyboard and let my mind wander and dream and think and reminisce over the day and weeks gone by. Decadent time .. akin to indulging in a sinfully rich chocolate cake.
I really do miss this .. and so I will continue.
And share that today is my eve of my 65th birthday! Every birthday is wonderful and I think of each celebration as a new year in my life. I am so lucky I know. And I am so happy .. so I thought I would share some photos of things that bring me joy in my garden! This is a tiny little tomato .. how sweet ….
More tomatoes ripening on the vine … I usually don’t have great success with tomatoes but with the heat of the summer plus some organic molasses mixed into the EM that I watered the veggies with .. I seem to have been having a decent crop of tomatoes.
One of the many things I’ve been involved in doing this summer is creating glass garden totems . .here is one, beside the “sump pump” fountain (to drown out construction noise) .. I’ll blog more about my totems with lots of pics .. at a later date.
Scarlet Red Runner Beans. Now, being a gardener and loving things that grow and attract bees and hummingbirds .. why on earth did I only clue into these lovely beans this year? I vow to always plant these beans for these most exquisite beings .. the happiness from seeing them visiting the flowers knows no bounds! I’ll post pics later on, for I do have them.
The power of EM (effective microorganisms) knows no bounds. Here is a potted up Bay tree .. I’d dug it up from one area of the yard and then just left it in a pot for a few months. And so it seemed to have not survived .. until I watered it liberally with EM and look at this vigorous new growth. Oh, I am so happy. I’ll have to cut away the part that isn’t thriving but that is for another day.
Baby Scarlet Red Runner Beans .. along with the joy and excitement of veggies growing in my garden is the fact that I now have a marvellous new camera! I bought it in the early summer .. the Swallowtail butterflies were visiting the Buddleia and I so wanted to get some good photos (I’ll share them later). I splurged on a Panasonic LUMIX DMC-ZS40 30X Super Zoom camera … love learning about it as I go along.
Squash growing in the garden … from the compost! Outgrowing the beans I planted in this section. The random beauty of the squash, the squash flower and the clematis caught my eye ..
ahhhh … sometimes I’ve been forgetting to look up .. at the sky art ….what I would have missed!
I’ve been growing tri-coloured beans in pots, they have been growing quite well. As my pal D notes … the purple beans turn green when cooked. Eye candy to a gardener, eh?
Clever birds know where the food source is .. as I discovered when I noticed the empty sunflower seed heads!
Oh the delight of the Bush-tits as they joyfully swarm around the yard … cheerfully chatting away as they nibble at the suet …
This smartly capped Chickadee was nestled onto a bamboo length and I discovered too late that he was chatting away to another Chickadee which was only about a foot away from me when I clicked this photo! Oh, they must have chuckled over that, when I realized this too late and missed the close up photo.
Oh, the magic of a garden .. to witness up close the amazing power of a plant to grow from a single seed …into the rampant elegance of, say, this squash plant.
The scarlett red runner beans were growing merrily up the tripod of stakes and the sunchokes were just as tall .. they tower above me and I’m guessing they are about 15 + feet in height! What wonderful privacy plants they are, don’t you think???
Scarlet flowers and tiny beans .. oh, Red Runner Beans you are so amazing! Alongside this Peppermint stick grass (I love this plant too!!)
Buddleia still flowering away .. butterflies and the Anna’s love them.
A circle of sunflowers .. thanks to the birds who scattered the seeds …
Up close …
Some of the peas that the sparrows had been feasting on .. I dug them up and planted them in containers .. see how strongly they grow? Peas are not fragile little plants, bless ’em!
Surprise red strawberries .. these caught my eye when I was looking at the little squash.
Well .. there you have it!
I’ve re-entered the world of blogging and have so very much to share and talk about.
For now though .. I just wanted to share some of the very many things that bring me joy.
And to share that I’m celebrating another Happy Birthday!
🙂
Monday, March 31, 2014
Amazing to me how quickly the days are passing .. especially since January just didn’t seem to want to move ahead very quickly. I think that it just seems that time is moving too fast .. when I think about the lovely longer days with more things to do especially outside.
Take Friday, for instance. The day was a long one and it started out in a rainy fashion. Our boot camp group met at the designated location for the Friday session. Brrrrr .. it was grey skies, a light rain and off we went. I am glad I went but really I was sorely tempted to stay home. And if I had stayed home .. then I would have missed seeing this Great Blue Heron looking for breakfast!
And as we went along the pathway, I turned and snapped another photo, so very glad I had decided to get out and get going.
Another one of those lovely bridges/footpaths .. leading us into another area of the forest.
I have recently been salvaging native plants (I belong to an official salvaging group) and had collected a good supply of Sanicula, which boasts the most beautiful yellow flowers. Glad to see this plant growing naturally, to be left alone.
Also lots of luxurious moss … with many tiny wildflowers waiting their turn to grow.
A great grouping of Low Oregon Grape .. this is what I will plant at our next home .. mass plantings!
Dainty little ferns growing at the base of a moss-covered tree trunk.
After traipsing uphill through muddy sections and slightly steep (for a Friday morning!) walk .. we arrived at a viewpoint. Lots of lichen on the trees .. a very tranquil spot.
And on our return trip .. we noticed how high the water was at Elk Lake. Usually there were Mallards at this area .. but they must have relocated till the waters recede a little.
Oh, and here is another most wonderful reward for going outside! What a very stately and handsome guy!
D said hello to him and he patiently stayed in place for that.
After a minute though, he had to race to catch up to his doggy-dad. Enough time spent here … thank you very much.
Pretty shades of green … the pale green of the Indian Plum intermixed with the deeper shade of the Horsetail … again, Nature’s Beauty is best.
Can you see the laughing face in the tree? and also the drooping mustache? Quite a handsome tree.
The contrast of the light/dark/shiny/dull image of the lake/trees/background struck a most appealing sight.
That was the early part of my day … I then went to do some volunteering at Fort Rodd Hill .. and will share some of those photos tomorrow.
Although Friday wasn’t really a sunny day … I am pretending that the afternoon was like this .. what’s the harm, eh? 
Friday, March 28, 2014
Awhile ago, my DH & I went to the Imax to see the movie “the Flight of the Butterflies” …it showed the 3 generations of Monarchs (yes, it took 3 generations) to go from Southern Ontario to Mexico. A wonderful movie to see if you ever get the chance. It will spur you on to grow butterfly flowers. The film centers around Dr. Fred Urquhart (played by Gordon Pinsent) who devoted his life trying to figure out “where do the Monarchs go when they leave Ontario” and the happy ending.
Here is the trailer on the Ontario Science Centre web site:
http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/imax/film/38/
And here is the web site of the film company that made the film:
http://www.flightofthebutterflies.com/home/
I’ve donated $ to the David Suzuki Foundation to plant Milkweed in Ontario (the Monarchs only lay their eggs on Milkweed) .. it is being destroyed by pesticides and removal from fields (although animals are smart enough not to eat it).
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/what-you-can-do-to-bring-back-monarch-butterflies/
And I’ve just received a letter from a Monarch butterfly (aka Mariposa Memengwa from the David Suzuki Foundation) with thanks and “butterfly kisses”. It is written in the manner of a Grandmother (momma Monarch) asking us to save her grandchildren (the 3rd generation that actually flies to Mexico, this generation is larger so it can make the journey.)
Hope you explore the world of Monarchs and other butterflies and plant many flowers for them to visit ..
… with “Butterfly Kisses” .. .happy Friday!
Much has been written about the power of music to help plants grow. Studies have been done to prove the energy levels. I know that constant heavy noise has a negative effect. Why do you think the birds will fly away to a quieter place?
I feed the birds and they flock around (excuse the pun!).
And I play music. Not live, cause my fiddle playing would make the construction noise sound beautiful.
I charge up my little iPods with all sorts of world music, including music for plants.
Here is a good site for more information on music & plants: www.musicforyourplants.com
I’ve been busy with my plants, enjoying the “winter sowing summer seeds” in my little milk jug terrariums .. even the lavender has been sprouting! I planted them on February 14/14 .. I’d tried growing them in previous years, but no joy .. look at this!
Enjoy ..
I’m away to the garden and will add photos later.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
This week is meant to be a rainy one but … the sun is determined to shine and I’ve seen lots of blue skies.
I’ve also seen teacups for the garden at the Burnside Home Hardware:
Yesterday morning I made a list of things to do and shop for and was all around the town. At one point, the overcast skies parted and there was lovely sky:
When I got home, I realized I had taken a sky photo with part of the logo of the one of the few Safeway stores that were being morphed into SaveOn stores ..so the familiar Safeway logo will not exist at the Tillicum Mall any more .. I decided to keep it in the sky photo. Memories. 
Back at home I decided to take a little tour of the yard and to see what is going on. Here is a flowering Salmonberry ..
Seen from another view (note my “magnificent” water feature -a sump pump in a washtub .. very effective at drowning out traffic noise!)
The dwarf weeping willow (I have 2) is in full pollinating mode and there were several bees, one big fat one which didn’t like me being so close, I was wearing a black and white shirt and forgot that black is a threatening colour to bees .. and a smaller, thinner bee .. both just bouncing off the flowers. I took lots of photos, but none show the bees. I had fun taking them though!
Again with the blue skies overhead!
The Broccolini is growing away:
And the shallots are looking healthy also!
I see a flower on the Red Currant .. the Anna’s will love these.
Finally .. memories of yesterdays blue skies …
And now it is time to dash out the door.
I was just practising with Windows Live Writer to see if I could create a quick posting. A bit of a learning curve and it seems to be quite efficient! (Thanks Timethief!!)
Ah, Sunday is but a memory and it is a good one. It was an overcast morning so DH & I went for a bit of a walk along the Galloping Goose Trail … we made our way towards the Burnside area.
We are so lucky to have this series of interlocking trails. The names change according to the area but I am lazy and just call them all the Galloping Goose! Here is a link to the official trail guide: www.gallopinggoosetrail.com/pdf/lochside_trail_guide.pdf
There had been a few oil tank leaks during the last year and remediation was still taking place. Crews and volunteers have been working very hard to keep the oil from entering the Creek:
Hard working volunteers are restoring native plant habitat along the way:
Now, this is a most amazing piece of work .. see how the woven sections of branches have been installed on the far bank …to stop the erosion of soil and to provide habitat for growing plants (and of course, insects for birds to eat!)
I just adore pathways, curving bridges … mysterious and inviting. Not to mention, a safe way to cross a waterway! This is spacious enough for walkers, bikes – for everyone to traverse with lots of space.
The oil spill is nearly cleaned up and these are for delineating the area (I believe)
The presence of the Mallards is a good sign that the water has been saved from the oil.
The tree is majestically growing and see how the presence of the rock has not stopped the roots from taking over. Trees are such gifts. We must do our best to protect them.
I love these stepping stones. There were quite a few along the trail. I wondered if they were the result of a school group .. they were quite pretty and brightened up the trail quite a lot.
Tempting to cross over on these stepping stones .. but the moss would make it a slippery adventure.
More clever trees hugging the soil, growing despite the challenges. A good example of tenacity. Nature continuously teaches us if we can only see the lessons hidden in plain view!
Another interesting section along the Creek ..
Lovely ferns and moss decorate the rockery .. Nature’s gardening. Effortless and beautiful.
Another portal tucked away … to a distant, mystical world?
And what a treat it was to meet this lovely dog! Her second name was Marie, so of course, I was doubly enchanted! She gets to go to work with her doggy-daddy all the time! What a lucky dog .. And this was at the end of our walk so it was a nice treat to meet her.
Shortly after we came home .. the sun came out .. so I ran outside and played in the garden. Another gift!
Good post. I spoke with someone who works at a local health food store. She commented that when she went to a local farm, to purchase “free range” eggs .. she was told that the eggs were sold out and so the worker went to the area where the hens were kept. Dirty area with the hens in a small enclosure, crowded. Terrible. I want to search local egg sources to see what the conditions are like. Thus far, I know that Rabbit River eggs are good (expensive) but they treat their hens respectfully.
My Lovely Garden … Mon Joli Jardin 