Playing with frames

Last night I was playing with the frames in my old Paintshop Pro photo editor. I shot this photo of the water fall in my pond through the blooming plum tree (the white and yellow colors surrounding the waterfall are actually blossums). I thought it needed a round border when first viewing it.

Yesterday I got a lot of gardening things done: transplanted the rest of the hedging cedars, moved a primula and transplanted the drumstick primula that I got at Cannor. Clipped up and bagged all the twiggy stuff, with some of the smaller bits for cover on the chip trail to my woodland garden. This area is coming along nicely, with the fawn lilies spreading like crazy. I don't see the trilliums yet. They must come up later. I still need a few hedging cedars along that fence in the back corner. Quite a few actually. But that fence is a problem as it is falling down. The previous owner of the place dug out the soil that was banked up along that fence and now my soil is slowly sliding down into the other property. The house is now up for sale, again, so I will wait to see what the new owners might want to do about that fence, since it is their fence. It would be nice if they would build a retaining wall, but maybe I should be the one to build the retaining wall... hmmmmmm.

Yesterday I did up some photos of some bike saddle bags that Pat wanted to sell to someone from one of his forums. We did up the photos and he emailed them off to the guy. This morning he phoned Pat and wants to buy the bags and bracket -- all of which are in superb condition. I think the man is getting a very good deal.

Today I made our 'Easter duck dinner' and had Tara up to help us out . As she is a vegan (?) there is quite a lot of duck left over. We had a good visit. I have daffodils in the house and I made up a small bowl for the table center. It looks pretty good. I should take its picture... tomorrow...

The world traveller

This is one of the photos for my bears album on my web page that I did a couple of days ago. I am going to use the new photo album creator that I have found to do my albums from now on, I think. It is so much faster. It has more backgrounds, font colors and photo sizes. It is a very cool free software. I will be sending Mark something for his tip box as soon as I start using it. Have a look at it: web album generator

Swiss Chard

Yesterday I cut the swiss chard and we had it for dinner. Yumm
It was not very big, but I needed the space to transplant the strawberry plants. I put the 10 Kent strawberry (June bearing) in two hilled up rows at the top of the garden. I clipped and pruned back the firethorn, planted two of the cedars along the fence of the vegetable garden. I need to devise something for the clematis to cling to.. maybe the tall cedars?

I potted and transplanted the rock plants that I got at the rock and alpine show. I have put the salix retusa (willow) into the area I call the lewisia bed. I want to make this willow climb over the rock it sits next to, and I will bonsai it, so it does not get too big for the bed. The heather (phyllodoce empetrufirmus) in what I hope simulates a cool peat, north slopes (well drained). The Lewisia columbiana and Lewisia nevadensis are in the gravel part of the bed. The columbiana particularly wants 70% pea gravel. Campanula cashmeriana likes limestone, but is next to the peat -- hopefully they will stay out of each others habitat. The Gentiana bavarica likes moist peat or bog bed and so it has joined the water iris in the deck tub.. in a peat moss based soil covered in pea gravel. The iris is an off shoot from the lovely big purple water iris, and is, of course in its own bed. I do not remember its name. The Crassula, Primula marginata, Gypsophila imbricata, are in pots and have joined the Soldenella (needs repotting as it is fighting a loosing battle with the moss it has acquired over the years, and last years willow (Salix x boydii) which has goreous blue/green leaves. I have found a rock of almost the same color to add to its pot. The Gysophilia has a piece of tufa rock, as it is suppose to be good on tufa.