Snow! You ARE kidding!

Two days ago, we had snow over night making it a bit cold and nasty. The liquid amber tree still has most of its leaves.  Some snow froze to the leaves and then the wind got blowing.  There are a couple of branches broken.  Not too bad considering the snow load.   There were robins and lots of other birds in the back garden this morning.  I had told Grace that the birds were not eating the berries off the strawberry tree.  Well, just to make a liar out of me, today the robins were scarfing down all the berries.  I guess they needed that frost to make them into the ice berry of the season. I brought in the humming bird feeder and added some hot stuff to unthaw it.  The two hummers are zipping around out there in the 0 to 5 degree temperatures, same as usual.
I have made up more pesto.  Tomorrow should be a a few pans of cabbage rolls with some to freeze.  My freezer compartment is full.  I will have to rearrange things to make anything more fit.  Tonite we had some of the purple plums I had frozen from 2009.     They were delicious.  And some of the ready made seafood chowder... its ok     has too many different tastes in it.  I added canned fish and seafood.   Next time just fish or clams and not too many of either.

More Hatley Castle in November

More photos from the Japanese / Woodland garden at Hatley castle in November, showing good autumn colors.
I managed to get quite a lot of things done today.  I was busy all day.  I moved the potting soil and a bag of compost up to the deck.  These steps are really treacherous right now, in the wet weather.  I used this soil and a bit of bone meal in the 7 pots where I transplanted the orange trees. I grew these trees from pits and have been meaning to move them out of the big flower pot for years, it seems.  Now I have them in pots that I can keep in the house and hopefully they will grow and produce oranges.  I repotted two of the orchids and cleaned up one of the shelves.  I hope these orange trees thrive. Between the pots and the trays, I have $10.00 invested in each one of them, not to count the cost of soil and time to do this.
I moved several clumps of Sicilian Mint from the stepping stones at the back to the stone path at the front.  Hopefully the mint will spread.  A year ago I cleaned up this path at the front and so the little clover and other weeds should find it even more difficult to grow between the stone, when the mint is established. 
I cleaned the kitchen window so as to get better photos of birds hopefully.  When I was out in the garden in the morning there were more birds... fox sparrows, alaska robins,  the juncos and humming birds, robins, saagulls and crows, of course.  I have heard flickers and caught a glimpse of a downey woodpecker at the suet feeder. 
Megashot is growing like crazy.  I must get some commenting done tonite. 

More Hatley Castle in November

More photos of the Japanese garden at Hatley Castle from the beginning of November.

Grace and Jim have left for home today.  She left me 30 Queen of the Night tulips that I planted out along the garage.  The dark colors should look good against the white of the garage.  I was to Cannor and bought 30 more tulips that I will be putting along the driveway.... pastel colors.  I also have 7 good sized plastic  pots and saucers.  I have 7 little orange trees that I have grown from pits, in a flower pot.  I will be transplanting them into these new pots and keeping them in the house.  The last time I did this, I left the orange trees out on the deck and they froze, of course.  These pots don't look great, but I really do plan to see these trees produce oranges.
We were out to the Fireside cafe with the Scots on Monday night and tonite to the Dunlop House with Jim and Sheila.  Was all nice. 
We have had a few days of high winds and quite cool weather, with rain.. typical November weather.