Trying a post from ipad

Let me see if I can get a photo added 

mid February in the garden

 The cyclamen has been in bloom for weeks.  This is a very good plant that blooms in the Fall and Spring.

This is the double snowdrop that is near the entry way.  I have a photo from 2008 of this plant that shows the inside of the flower, macro setting, that I uploaded to Flickr years ago and someone just recently marked it a faveourite.  I am too lazy to get the link, but it is a fine view of the inside of the flower.  The two photos above are from Feb. 1st.

 The waterfall in the back pond area now has the mermaid at the top.  She seems to add a bit of height to the waterfall.  This photo was from the 1st of Feb.

 Just before the 8th of February we had a few days of colder weather.  There was ice on the pond, except where the water was running.  The birdbath and the tub water features were frozen over.  The ice melted within about 4 - 5 days.  The fish in the tubs survived.

 My best little phalenopsis (miniature) is in bloom again.  The green walls are not the best for background.

 Photo of my newest phalenopsis (regular size).  It really is this brilliant blue color.  I looks best against the yellow walls of my room.  It was calling my name at Home Depot when I was out there looking for a new spritzer bottle for my light garden plants.

 Photo from the 14th, although these crocuses have been up for a week or more.  Very delicate maeuve color and strong plants.  I need to move some of them into the crocus field.

These yellow crocus are the first ones up in the crocus field. They have only just opened up after our week of very balmy weather.  Photo of the 14th.
For the past few days we have been having 8 degree temps and warmer, but rain, at last.  Some people have had their power out in the high winds.  Higher altitudes have had snow.  We have only had the much needed moisture.
Yesterday I moved 2 milkweed seedlings, 3 lily of the nile and 2 butternut squash plants into milk carton containers.  They are all on my light garden and above the trays, so that they do not get water logged like some of them did.  I must keep an eye on them so that they do not dry out as others of them did in the plastic cups where they germinated.  I have a milk carton cut horizontally planted with parsley and dill seed and hope they soon germinate.  I also stuck a few red pepper seeds in the plastic cups and hope they soon germinate, too.
The early part of February I spent playing with my newly cleaned and reloaded on a SSD drive, with the other hard drives for backup and data and storage.  We were unable to authenticate my old Adobe PS CS as it seems Adobe is not running the servers for the old stuff any longer.  I wanted this old program for the web gallery generator that was in basic html and I could edit it in Notepad.  The solution for my problem that Adobe offered was plug ins for the newer PS CS5 ; but they still suggested that I use the ones web gallery generators that are now on PS CS5..  of course, they are all Flash and things I have no idea of how to 'edit'.  Too bad for us dinosaurs.  But wait... I found a lovely little html web gallery generator for free.  It looks pretty good and I think I can edit it .  I have 12 more photos for 'July' gardening album to tweak, then I shall be editing and uploading to my old web page.  Finding my way around the new instal of my very old WS-FTP was quite an adventure.  Kudos for my techie for getting it to install again on the new SSD.  Firefox is no longer my default browser as it does not get along with something from my Nvidia display card.  I will eventually figure it out, I hope.  Trevor, my techie, cleaned up the virus, and reloaded it all.  Got rid of a lot of useless programs and stuff I had ... things I never used and things I should NEVER have used... like the RegServo registry cleaner.  .. a total waste of money.  I may have inadvertently got this stupid virus when looking at a website... softtonic, maybe... that harbors malware and such, I am told by Dave D.  .. when I was looking for a calendar generator back in December.  Well, its been interesting.   I wish I knew more about the mechanics of loading all the software to my computer, and how to add hardware... but that day will never come.  I rely on the techies.
I have been spending some of my time trying to get my new Nexus phone set up so that it is not costing me an arm and a leg.  My old  cell became obsolete, so I thought I would get a new version that may be good for a few years.  I bought the phone from Google Store and wnet to Telus for the SIM card.  They abruptly sent me to the on line store to set up my contract and all.   The over the land line phone people were very helpful.  I got set up with a prepaid account.  It costs me .50 for 1 min of phone and .30 for messaging and data, I think... whatever that is.  Since I never do any of that stuff, my $100 prepaid should last me forever.  I can top it up, should I ever begin to run short of funds.  Now, my old account had me paying $30. a month and I know not what it all included, but I never used  that amount up or over extended it.  So, my prepaid should be just what I need.  I set it up as a hot spot, but will turn that off.  I have data useage blocked on my account, so this will be just a phone for occasional use.  They are charging me .75 a month for the 911 use, if ever.  I have my ipad for travel, for reading and for music, if need be.  Wifi comes with most campgrounds, or hotels, but I never use it that much anyway.  No time for it when traveling.  I wish I could figure out how to use one of these gizmos as a GPS, ... like the GPS works.  I understand that if I plan my rounte and put all the info into some app I can use it that way, but it does not allow for questions along the way that might be unexpected... like getting lost, in some city while stopping for gas or groceries, or having gone to see some park.  Well, there is always the GPS, then.  I am sure there must be an easier way,  I just do not know it.  I cannot seem to progress beyond simple html.  All the cloud stuff has me running for my hoe and spade  and out to the garden.

Off to a busy start in the new year

 The top two photos are downsized from the ones I used as the back and front covers for the 2014 calendar I made.  The photos are macro shots of the ice on the pation table, highly saturized.  The calendar turned out not too bad for my first attempt.  I learned a lot about my printer and how to size photos to print them.  Lots to learn yet.  The actual calendar pages are from a set of free templates that work with Microsoft Office program. (Lots to learn about that program too)  The photos for each month are primarily from our travels over the years, and from my garden.  I sent Momma Fran the best of the prints for her calendar and kept the duds ... which are not too bad... for my own. 

 Our friends from Port Angeles visited us for a few days at the beginning of January.  One of the things we did was spend a couple of hours at the Shaw Ocean Discovery center.  Love the jelly fish.  They are so photogenic. 

 Yesterday we took a drive, and ended up at the Esquimalt Gorge Park.  There are a flock of ducks in the area near the bridge.  I think people feed them.  It is an interesting little park.  There is a series of parks along the Gorge.  We saw that they are adding more to the Japanese Garden in one of the parks.  I must get back out there... perhaps in the autumn, as the colors should be good, with all the Japanese maples, etc.  I only had my little Sony camera with me, but it worked pretty good for this shot.

On December 12th we had a whole flock of robins in the back garden.  In a matter of a few hours they had cleaned all of the berries off the holly tree.  I wonder how they all knew it was time to feast on the berries. 
We have been having some very nice weather for the last few days.  We do need more rain, though, they tell us, or we will be on stringent water rationing this summer. 
I cleaned up my light garden a bit.  The orchids have been doing fine since I last cleaned them up.  I took the baby 'pixie' out of the parent pot and planted it up.  Hopefully, it too will be blooming in a couple more years.  A lovely miniature cattalya in pink with a slight fragrance. 
I have screwed up my mouse by adding an optional update from Windows for the mouse... ooopps ... wrong kind of mouse.  Now it freezes.  I have a few other optionals added too.  I also seem to have some sort of virus or something.  So, my machine is going in to my techies shop for its annual clean up.  Should clean up my bank account pretty good too.
I have a few more photos for the July album of my old web page tweaked... 18 more to go.  Hope to have them done by before Tuesday when I take the computer into the shop. 
I received my Nexus 5 phone from the google store on the 14th.  Telus told me that my old one was going to be obsolete by March 31st so we spent a bit of time learning a bit about the cell phones available and about the plans to sign up to.  Very nice people to deal with over the phone at Telus.  Now I have to learn how to run this new gadget.  So, I read on my ipad, play with photos on desktop, and have the phone only for the occasional use.  I am really not into this texting stuff.  I just want a phone.  The last one I had lasted for years, but I think I was paying way too much for how much I used it.  We will have to see how this new plan works out for us.