October on my web page

One of the photos from the October photo album on the Gardening page of my web page.  In March of this year, Godaddy let me know that I had malware on my page.  Over the next few months they cleaned up the malware and we now have an SSL certificate on the page.   Since March I have reloaded all of the albums I had previously finished, using the GoDaddy FTP to upload.  I have decided to remake albums in Gardening; from January to May.  And have, completed January, and new albums for June, July, August, September and October.  I have added quite a few new pages, to Travel; and will be making a few more albums in Gardening.  But I am happy with ALL of the stuff I have managed to get done on my page since March.

We have had a terrible drought all summer and now, since September we have been getting an overload of rain.  There were forest fires all over the interior of BC last summer.  My garden suffered from the water restrictions, the tree terrorists chopping down my plants.  God only knows what is wrong with those people.  I had Davey Tree people come in to trim up all the hedges.  They did this in mid-summer when we were in the middle of this drought.  The hedges seem to be doing ok now, though.  I have yet to get the old plum tree taken out and the lovely pin Oak taken down also.  The pin oak is too close to the garage.  I have renovated flower bed along the old sidewalk at the back; taking out the old perennials that have been taken over by the michaelmas daisies, and replacing them with milkweed and fennel, new tulips, and the new soil that was in the pots containing these replacement plants.  Hopefully these plants will take hold and I can get some monarchs to enjoy the milkweed, and maybe even become a place for them to lay eggs.  Perhaps the swallow tail butterflies will like the fennel.  I have also renovated the flower bed in front of the bamboo that was also taken over by michaelmas daisies.  I have a couple of milkweed plants in there, to and a few other new perennial plants.  The thyme circle seems to be rejuvenating and filling in the spots that have gone bare. 

I am now in the process the keeping up to the fallen leaves, and doing bits of cleanup all over the garden.  The germander needs cutting back and the irises need cleaning up.  I want to get the old compost bin emptied to the back bed behind the old garage, and use it to load up the rest of the leaves, this year.  The moss garden is looking good with all the rain and it, too needs cleaning up.  All in all, the garden is looking good. 

We have new neighbors on the west side where a family of Syrians are renting the house.  They have a trashy looking shed in the back for their chickens.  Nice looking big red chickens.  The chickens seem to have found the grass to be greener on my side of the fence once or twice.  They go home to roost at night.  I don't think there is anything back there that the chickens will damage. 

We have had a rather trying summer this year with the purchase of our new camper van.  The delivery date kept us anxiously waiting most of the summer to get it.  There is a lot of new computer stuff that we need to learn about driving it, and running things in the camper.  It has real mattresses and lots of storage space, a pantry, a generator, solar panels on the top that actually feed into the  house battery, so we could run a few things on this power.  It has a shower, for short showers.  Pat likes driving it.  But we seem to be having trouble with the battery in the Mercedes diesel; it keeps losing voltage.  Pat took it to the dealers but they could find nothing wrong with the battery.  Pat has disconnected it and we will see if it keeps running down.  Or this might just be the solution to keeping it over wintered or when we are not using it for long drives and camping trips. 

So, it is no wonder I have not had time to post to my blog.  But Megashot has been shut down, so I have more time in that regard.  Facebook just does not hold much interest for me.

Damage to my garden in July and August

 the clematis, rose, daylilies, anemone, fireweed, on July 22 before the damage.  See also the photo in my last post of this spot in my garden.  This is just opposite the Parmar's stinking garbage bins.  Anyone who comes to my front door has a direct view to these garbage cans.

 a photo from July 22 showing the bamboo stakes that I had set along the Parmars sidewalk, with little sweet peas attached to them in an effort to screen out the stink and the bins.

 Photo from August 6 showing the broken plants, including a little cedar that I had in this spot.  There were cedars in this spot.  One of them is in this pile of cut off plants that this tree terrorist has ripped off my property and thrown down on my garden path and on my boxwood hedges.  Since this photo the mess has been thrown over the little  boxwood hedge onto the flower bed.

A view of the cut down plants, that were obviously on my property.  You see only one cedar left standing.  

 Damage to my rhodo from the other end of this walk way.

 August 6 - a shot of the moon after the smoke and haze from the forest fires.  Taken at 1:21 am.

Photo of the cedar hedge on the West side of our property, between the driveways.  On July 22 I had Davey Tree come in and trim and shape the cedar hedges around my garden.  Since then we have been in a drought with very hot temperatures.  So I have been watering my hedges and garden.  This hedge is doing fairly well. 

July 2017

It has been a long time since I have made the time to post to my blog.  There has been lots of renovations going on in my garden this year.  The top photo is some of the improvement to the time circle earlier.  The thyme was in bloom and is starting to fill in the bald spots.  It is a photo taken with my phone.  That is a pretty good little camera.   The bottom photo is from August 1st of the simplicity rose with the jackamani clematis in the back ground.   I rather liked how it turned out.

I have a few milkweed  speciosa plants in pots that might make it through the winter.  I got the seed from a place in Oregon.  I have the butterfly weed - tuberosa, blooming in the cutting garden.  There is another one from the seed from Dave  that is in bloom and appears to be  the same color bloom as the tuberosa.  It is in a pot, too.  And there are 2 swamp milkweed in pots that I got from Cannor last Fall in pots.  They are not in bloom yet.  So, the milkweed project is slowly coming along.   There are times when I could use my Mom's green thumb.    I have some fennel in a pot.  One bronze and another is a seeding from the green fennel.  I have a huge swallow tail as a regular visitor and an admiral.  Although I cannot seem to catch them sitting still.

The david fell over and now has a wooden shim to set it upright and level.  This shim needs pot shards or little flat stones to replace the wood some day.  I have dug the roots out from around the david and surrounded the platform stone with some plastic edging material.  Then filled this circle of edging with sand and more clean clay.  I am in the process of removing the michaelmas daisies from everywhere in the garden.  They are far too invasive.  I removed them from the fig tree bed and mowed them off the  garden bed under the holly tree.  The holly tree has had some lower branches removed.

About 3 weeks ago Davey Tree people came over and trimmed back the cedars on the Pees side and cut back the camillia.  They topped and sheared the sides of the hedge along the west side.  There are now Syrians  renting the house on the other side of this hedge.  They now have chickens.  :)  I think I will give them my egg cartons.  Dan, of Davey Tree and his helper did an excellent job of all of this.  He also took off a couple more lower branches of the sweet gum tree, and pruned back a couple more that were headed towards the house.  Since that time I have been watering and watering.  We are having some very high temperatures right now, so I do have to keep at it.  The hedges  and all the garden seem to be doing ok with all this watering.

In March I was notified by Go Daddy that I had to get the malware off my website or they were going to shut down and site.  Google was already complaining about this malware.  I had received an earlier notification from Godaddy about this but my name was not on their information and so I thought it was a scam and deleted it.  After a talk with Adam from Hosting, he set me up with sitelock to keep my site clean.  I am paid up with it for 3 years.  As soon as I can afford it I will be getting an SSL again.  Maybe in January.  I have been reloading my site photo albums and all pages with the Godaddy FTP.  Its a pain and I really must find the time to learn to use a new FTP.  I can contact Adam for both of these items and he will help me with them.  I am almost up to where I had been with my photo albums.  I have decided to redo some of the Gardening ones, and have only 3 left to reload of the Travel previously completed albums.  I have also made some more pages to add garden journal notes , annually and travel journal notes for all the trips noted in my journals.  Considering how much I have managed to get done since March, I think I will be able to get more done by year end.  I am not participating in any on line photo upload sites, and paying the bare minimum to my other on line sites.   AND to my blog.   I hope to get back to doing a few more regular posts by the end of the year, also.

The last of the Autumn leaves on December 9th

December 8th snow - part 2

We have been having coolish weather with light frost over night.  After the weekend we might be getting warmer temperatures.  I should be able to get out and finish the Autumn clean up, if it does not rain too much. 

Snow fall of December 9th

We had 4 cm of snow over night.  I had to get photos before it disappeared in the rain by the end of the day.  Snow is such a novelty. here.  We are very lucky not to be suffering the storms, ice, snow and wind that is happening in the rest of the country.  Although, we have had our share of wind, rain and light frost over night, with power out in places.  

Indoors on December 6th

 The alabaster figurine.  Would you hang this in your bathroom?

 Some of my vases.

 A painted vase.  Hope to get the album for painted vases, on my web page completed some day.

 My newest house plant, from the VCCC Christmas luncheon.

 My oldest plant.  It really is time I repotted it, but it seems to like being root bound.

A flare, captured while shooting through the front window when the sun broke through the clouds for a few moments.
It has been cool out in the garden, so I have not completed my Autumn clean up.  

December 6th Sunset and lichens

 On the evening of December 6th we had a spectacular sunset, as seen from the front window.

 This is a seed on the front tree.

 More lichens with a bit of snow

Lichen with the last of the Autumn leaves on the morning of December 6th with the very blue sky.

December 6th morning light

 People walking on the trail that is covered in a light snow, seen through the tapestry of the last of the Autumn leaves, in the lovely morning light of December 6th.

 The golden morning light on the tree trunks and autumn leaves with the light snow covering the park, and the trail a darker color where the snow has melted.

 A bit of snow on the tree with one of the colorful leaves.

 Snow and a lichen on the tree with a good dark background to contrast with the golden light and white snow.

A close up of a leaf with the lovely blue sky blurred in the background.