Rainbows

This rainbow was hanging around for at least an hour.  It was double at one point, but too faint to show up on my photo.  We were having light rain and sun, of course, on a beautiful balmy day.  The red tree really is that red.  It is my Japanese cedar that is greeny bronze in summer and red in the winter.  Its a fine tree.  There is a patch of dry needles in one area near the bottom.  I am considering cutting the bottom branches off.  The tree is in the woodland garden with dames rocket, bluebells, honesty and few other volunteer plants around it.  My best trilliam is near it at the front and there are fawn lilies, columbines and some big leafed plant that gets out of hand, as does the lemon balm.  There are sumack trees that are growing into a small grove.  Its quite wild and chaotic and I rather like it.  I now have a tub sitting on the stump where Davey Tree took down the big Eucalyptus with the Saskatoon trees behind it.  Old weird Sheila occasionally attacks and hacks my trees if they dare get over on her side of the fence line.  She has removed her board fence that was penning her in like an old cow,  and put up some silly plastic stuff.  She needs her boundaries defined, I guess. 

My blue heron was to visit a couple of days ago. I was shooting at it through the window and do not have a great shot.  When I went out on the deck to try get it, it walked very quickly away behind the garage.  There are too many trees for it to fly up out of the back garden.  It was going to have a look for lunch in the pond.  I guess I interrupted its dinner.

Lately I have been doing some good cooking.  Last night I used up the 6 left over crepes by stuffing them with gingered shrimp and a Oka cheese, with a wine in white sauce to put over top of them.  We had this with sole, wild rice, and califlower in a mild mustard dressing.  Salad of course. Cheese and nuts to finish off the dinner Chardonay wine.

This too, is winter time. 

Around town

a couple of days ago, we took a lunch out to Beaver Lake in the Dodge Lodge and then walked part way around the lake and back, in search of the elusive Western Painted Turtles.  Benjamin Madison found one at Swan Lake earlier this year and posted it to his blog.  Now, I must find one!  This is an Island in Beaver Lake.

 As we sat out on the deck at Seahorses Cafe by the Brentwood Bay ferry dock, I could see this heron in the shallows, fishing.  The bird seemed to have a wound on its upper wing and so it did not fly away.  It may have become used to people pointing cameras at it. 
I have been getting a few things done around the house today.  I made a pot of soup with one of my jars of chicken stock and vegetables, and now have 2 jars ready for serving. 
We have a Food and Drink community on Megashot.net,  with an assignment running in that community.  I never thought to shoot my soup for it though.
I understand we have water restrictions in town!  Good grief that is so silly, with all the water we have had and now we can't water unless its in the dead of night.  These 'rules' are made by bureaucrats from the CRD who are not even elected officials.  I know NOT where they get the authorization to make these laws and enforce them.  Apparently, a lawyer was caught out watering his new lawn, by hand -- no less, outside of the time limits for watering.  He is taking this question to court for judgement!  This should bring the matter into the public view, and get some of these questions that I am sure we all have, answered.  I hope the press get on this and make a very big deal about it!  From coffee clatch scuttlebutt, I understand that we have been using so little water that the city had to raise the water rates for us to use the utility.  Now I sure would like to know if this is really true, too.  I hope this comes out in the trial of the lawyer doing his dire criminal act of watering his new lawn.  My garden is drying up because I don't dare go out and water and I cannot see to connect sprinklers, etc. in the dead of night! 
My garden needs watering and weeding and dead heading.  We have had lovely weather and I should be out there. 

Fauna in the Garden

This is another of my half price phalenopsis orchids that I find at the grocery store.  The colors here are just about true to the flower and the wall behind it.  This orchid is putting out a new bud or two.  The white with pink center one is still holding its blooms, too.  Meanwhile my expensive Andean Fire ladyslipper is on its last bloom.  It had 3 and none of them last very long.  It is a pretty little thing, though.

Saturday was an exciting day for activity in the garden.  This Heron... I think I will start calling it Henri the Heron, landed on the back garage roof while I was making capaccino.  It walked to the edge of the roof where it was hidden from site by a bush.  It then flew down by the pond and was standing  on the edging watching for fish.  I could not get a good photo of it, as it seems very alert to movement and to sounds.  The deck railing of course was in the way!  As I tried to make my way out on the deck, it noticed and flew away.
It has not been successful in fishing in my pond.  The fish are wary and have water plants and plastic pipe lengths to hide in.  I have seen all 6 of the gold ones, and there are many black ones as well.

Also on Saturday morning this bush bunny was in my front garden.  I watched it inspecting my plants.  It did not seem to find any to its liking.  There is a spot where I have some grass in the flower bed, and here the bunny seemed to find something to its taste.  The colors on its back behind the neck are quite bright.  It must be the primary mating season. I only saw one bunny though.  Its fur is wet from the rain and water on the plants. 
Later on Saturday I did some pottering around in the garden.  I got the parsley transplanted to the blue pot and have it on the deck.  I planted viola seeds in the little 'strawberry" opening in the pot.  I put nasturium seeds into the top of the big clay strawberry pot.  The two fuschia cuttings are in the shade in the deck planter.  I must keep this watered, as it is under the roof over hang.  I transplanted the margeurite into the pink pot by the garage door.  Watered everything in.  I tried to fill the cavities between the rocks on the waterfall with new soil from the garden.  I adjusted the rocks to get a good flow of water down the fall.  While doing this I noticed that water is running out the side of the waterfall.  Well, it is going into an area that I want to be boggy, as I have some water plants growing there.  So, if I keep the pond topped up, the bog plants should do well. 
I have done nothing further in the garden, except feed the fish.  I have been spending a bit of time on the new photo upload site.  Its all good. 

Blue Heron visitor

This big bird was checking out the fish in my garden pond this afternoon. I could not move the vertical blinds as it would have been spooked. I did a short video of it walking along the deck railing. I cannot seem to get the video to load to You Tube so that I can post it here.

As soon as I started to move closer the bird saw me and was gone. No doubt it will be back. Maybe I should have left it alone and watched if it did try to go fishing. I don't think it can reach the bottom of the pond unless it was floating and dived. Hope I catch it next time!

Today I spent hours trying to figure out yet another movie maker, so I can edit my videos. Was a big waste of time for all I learned about it. So, today has been less than productive.

Yesterday, I was learning how to make buttons for my web site and my blog or anything else I might want to have a button for. You can see my first attempt in the side panel with the professionals buttons. ;-) So, this new notion and obsession, of course, needs a page on my old web page. I spent quite a few hours making the Creations page and putting a button on it, uploading it all to my domain. Now I have decided to expand the Creations page to include hotlinks to any .pps slide shows that I do. I know I can upload them to my domain, as I have one uploaded now. All of this takes forever for me to figure out and build. It is by no means professional, but it is mine, for as long as I want to keep the domain.

There is some progress made on our new web site, but its hard to tell, when the features are not yet in place to use. Soon, hopefully!

Blue Heron

As I came out to the kitchen this morning I was surprised by a blue heron sitting right on the deck railing by the window. I guess the bird was as surprised as I was. I flew off to the roof top of the house behind me. I was sooooo excited, grabbed my camera and aimed it through the patio door/window. I just got this one shot before it flew away. Then looking at my camera settings I see I had it set on tungsten lighting from my last shot. ohhh drat. I tried to correct the very blue heron in photoshop, but I am really hopeless at using that photo editor. The tree in the photo really does have blue leaves, too. Its an eucalyptus, gum tree.