Some photos from our day trip to Port Refrew

Some photos from our Port Refrew trip, including Skutz Falls, which should really be called Skutz rapids. 
I was out in the garden for 4 hours today.  I got quite a lot of things done.  I finished filling the pots I want to have on the deck.  I have transplanted the 3 willows I got at the Alpine plant sale.   I have the Boydi put into a small pot that sits in the copper pot with no hole in it.  I will be able to keep water at the feet of this little willow.  I lost the one I had last summer when we had a heat wave while we were away.  Another one that has lovely little pussy willows, and I am told I can pin the little branches around and they won't mind. So, I have this one trained to fall over a nice green rock that I have.  The other one, that doesn't have a name, is in a deep black pot.  I believe this one can get out of hand if not watched.  So, it is in this pot on the deck for now.  I shall endeavor to keep it watered at all times.   I did some pottering about the vegetable garden area.  I moved the 3 black pots to a position where I removed cement blocks for the water meter maid's convenience in reading the meter.  They are now along in front of the tall bearded iris.  I have two of these iris with buds, so far.  The lilac is going to be blooming soon.  The clematis is climbing up its screen.  I weeded this iris bed strip and the herbs spot, and dug out most of the weeds, while leaving the flowers that have self seeded.  The strawberries are in bloom, and the rhubarb is slowly growing.  I moved the pots out from under the deck and put them beside the garbage can I use for the weed bin on the garden.  I have 2 bags of compost left now and the bags of pea gravel, 4, I think.  I clipped the cedars back a bit off the path, and trimmed the sage back a bit off the path, too.  I spent some time clipping back Virginia creeper that goes up the telephone pole at the front.  I now have a bunch of these stems heaped up and waiting until I can put them in the big green bin.  Should rain tonight, so I won't bother watering in the new transplants or the newly filled pots.  I should get some annuals for the two big pots.  I have room for 2 little alpines with the willow that has the green rock in front of it.  I need a few more fish, again.  I haven't seen the frog for a few days.  My Saskatoon berry trees are full of blooms.  I have not seen too many bees, so it is doubtful that I will be getting any fruit this year. 
When I looked at my last post to my blog, I saw a kitty coleman tag added to my blog.  I wonder how that happened?  Has someone hacked into my blog?  Very weird.  Some people seem to have a lot of time on their hands to cause annoyances.  How stupid is that?

May in the garden

The star magnolia and the other one are in full bloom.  The area of the woodland beside the garage is at its best right now.  The path needs to be weeded.  But this area of the woodland is looking pretty good.  There is the bleeding heart, the cyclamen, honesty that self seeds every year in purple and white, the perennial forget me not which has terrific foliage, and the anemorella, which is covered with delicate blue blossoms.
Yesterday I spent about 4 hours out in the garden.  I moved the grass.  I did a bit of weeding in the moss garden, but it will need more attention.  A lot of the pea gravel seems to have disappeared from the dry stream, but not under the deck.  Very strange.  It will get refurbished when I get to this area to clean it up.  I did a bit of rearranging of the stones of the waterfall.  This waterfall is becoming more mossy.  The big work of the day was to mow down the edges of the st. john's wort along the strip between Shaunna's place and ours.  Then I swept up all the debris.  I have a heaping load of dirt and leaf mold that I am saving by the old compost bin, to be put on the woodland when I am finished cleaning it up.  This effort has given Shaunna and I more space on our driveways.  I have yet to cut back the Virginia Creeper and more of the St. John's wort.  It will all be mowed quite low and I am sure it will look very good this summer, after its pruning.  I finished digging out weeds along this strip and took a wheel barrow load of them to the green bin.  I need a sunny day so I can paint the wild morning glory .. a very rampant invasive weed .. with roundup.  This is an ongoing battle, as the people on the other side of this strip have never controlled the plants on their side. Shaunna and Gerald are going to be doing some work on their back yard.  I hope it included a retaining wall where their fence is falling over.  I assured her I would be quite happy to pay my half of the costs when they decided what they were going to do.  All of this vigorous sweeping seems to have given me a very sore wrist.  I put cold packs on it for a while after I got into the house.  It is still sore today, so I have taken the day off.
The world wide weather seems to be one crisis after another.  Japan had a huge earthquake awhile ago, that took out one of its nuclear power plants.  I believe they have it under control now, but am afraid to look.  There has been horrible flooding in Australia, and now some on the Canadian prairies.   Violet windstorms in Southeastern US, and terrible snow storms in eastern Canada.  I shall have to re-read that book called Climate Wars, again.  Its all pretty scary, when you consider the power of these earth movements.  We have been most fortunate where we live... just a late Spring.
Our Federal election is over and we have a Conservative majority in the house, with Stephen Harper as Prime Minister.  The first Green party member of parliament was  in the Saltspring riding.  Elizabeth May has made history!  A week late for May Day, but there she is!  More good news for us, is that our Vancouver Canucks are doing very well in the playoffs for the Stanly Cup.  There has been some very exciting games that go into overtime... good hockey!!
The Prince of Wales is wed.  It seems to be a very big thing.  People in Victoria went to the Empress for a 2:00 am breakfast to celebrate the once in a life time occasion.  More in the news... Osama bin Laden was killed by the US Seals when they raided a compound in the mountains of Pakistan.  From a book I read about the origins of these terrorist groups... this mountainous area has long been a stronghold for them.  Some of these groups have their roots in the time of the British control over India.  Sometimes it seems we reap what we sow.
On a happier note, my blog is again registering high eighties hits, and climbing. 

African Violets

This is a RAW conversion of a quick shot I took of some of the African Violets in my light garden.  This was to test the upload from my camera to the computer by directly connecting camera to computer.  This is necessary because the little drive on my tower cannot handle cards with a large amount of data.  So, that works, and was not the problem, with the computer it seems.
I spent some time getting acquainted with the settings for my screen and find I need to be at the highest recommended resolution setting.  I am baffled by the thing making me choose a landscape or a portrait setting.  I wonder why I cannot just view every photo as it has been taken, without this distortion.  I am using my old screen and not the new wide screen.  I updated Windows and all seems to be ok so far.  EXCEPT, now my speakers do not play.  They are plugged in, so far as I can determine.  Its not a media player problem, as the program runs but there is no audio.  I tried to plug my earphones into the front of the tower and the plug in is rejected.  If I force the plug to stay in I can hear the music.  So Trevor will have to come back and listen to the music!!  I am finally learning how to get the resolution, size of print and icons to a good size.  Windows 7 is fine... I don't see where the big learning curve is to use this OS.  There are so many things I want to spend time with on it now.
We had quite a lot of rain last night.  Looks like an inch in the rain gauge.  I had the outdoor lights on and the indoor ones off after dark and was looking out the front window at the garden.  It was really lovely, with the sparkling raindrops and shadows.  I did not attempt a photo, the window had rain drops on it. 
The sky seems to be clear at the moment, so the garden is calling me.