September flew past in a blurr

 The miniature water lily produced a flower at the end of September.  It did not last very long.  It has been blooming all season.  The fish keeps it company.  The water irises were good this year also.  The leaves of this miniature lily have grown quite large for a miniature.  Maybe I can divide it and put another in in the pond.

The black eyed susans hold their blooms over a long period.  I could not believe them last year and thought that I would never see the plant again.  But the clump is growing and still producing the long bloom period.  Its an easy plant to have.  This is at the front garden by the street and near the plum tree.  I am slowly getting that area looking good.  The plum did not produce many plums this year.  Next year should be a good harvest.

 This is one of the tomatoes from the back deck.  The background was so messy and confusing, so I learned how to desaturate it in photoshop.  I need a lot of practice yet, as you can see.  There are a few small green tomatoes and another large one yet to ripen.  The taste of a home grown tomatoe is always superb compared to any store bought one.  I think I will move what was the butterfly/hummingbird planter out to the cutting garden and plant lettuces and more tomatoes, up on the deck, next year.

This is a creation I did for our Halloween month in the community Playtime on Megashot. I have managed to get a few things done on Megashot.  I hope they finish Version 2 soon.

So very many things happened in September.  We were on two very good car meets, both in the Duncan area.  I have many photos to process for my old web page.  I have the lists of the events add to the page, but, of course that is the easy part.  The albums take me ages to do, but am happy to have them done up, when I do get them done.  Part of the halloween photo is my solstice moon and another part is Dracula's castle in Romania, from our 2005 river cruise. 

In the garden I managed to get the front inner garden stone path up to the thyme circle; and its surrounding beds cleaned up.  I have the thyme circle edged half way around it.  It dried out quite a lot in the heat wave we had while we were away in the summer.  I hope it all comes back again, as it looks terrific when cleaned up and in bloom.  The michaelmas daisies, nerines, heathers, verbena, sedum and a few other flowers have been putting on a good show for this time of the year.  So, what I need in flowers is something for the hottest part of summer... end of July and August.  Perhaps annuals will have to fill in for that time. But I would like to keep it all perennials.  Perhaps just foliage plants.  Maybe more pinks and heathers, in keeping with my lower maintenance plan for the garden. 

Pat had the Concrete Solutions guys come and pump cement under the parts of the driveway that had settled lower than other parts.  Its a very interesting process.  They have the driveway level now.  Next we are going to have the Crack man come and fill the cracks with a solution to seal the little holes they drilled to pump in the cement, and seal the cracks.  Someone will power wash the driveway too.  So, it is going to look all new and level when they are finished.  But, in the meantime, I need to rescue the moss off the cement, and put it under the deck, where I hope it grows thickly and luxuriantly.  I also have to find the time to cut the Virginia creeper back off the driveway, until they clean it.  It will grow again!

I am in the process of doing a serious house cleaning.  Windows, wax woodwork and furniture, and dust everything, vacuum thoroughly, of course.  I will have to do the closets and inside cupboards some other time, as this is taking me a long time to do a proper job of it.  It would be nice to have a house keeper, some day. 

September gardening and more

 I spent quite a bit of time in photoshop on this photo.  On our Rocky Mountain tour we took the Harbor to Harbor little airplane from Victoria to Vancouver and on the return also.  This is the return trip.  You can see the messy spots from shooting through the window.  We were only allowed 25 lbs luggage on the flight, but the beautiful scenery from the air was worth it.

 This is the sedum, Autumn Joy.  Its an excellent plant for this time of year.  It holds the blooms for weeks and the dried heads into the winter.

 Another shot of the Rocky Mountaineer along the kicking horse river. 

This is how far the park makeover has progressed.  There are lots of people using this trail.  I can just see down the trail, over the front cedar hedge, if I view from my dining room.  When the leaves fall off the liquid amber tree I will be able to see the trail and traffic out of the living room window, too.  The grass seed they put down a couple of weeks ago is sprouting.  We have had some sun and some rain... just beautiful fall weather.  Over the last two days we had an inch of rain.  We need more, but of course, the rainy season has started and we will get more.
The garden is doing ok, with the sedum, michaelmas daisies, and others that I will show when I get the photos done up.  We have had several car events in the last few weeks, so I am reviewing those photos also. 
Last week it took me two days to clean up the light garden, with cleaning and repotting plants, cleaning the trays, replacing burnt out lights, and then watering and feeding the plants.  I have an orchid that has not bloomed before with 2 buds, and there are 3 phalenopsis in buds, and the hai marie discolor is in bloom. There are several African Violets in bloom.    It all looks really good.

I spent the morning playing with the customization of my PlayTime community front page, on Megashot.  It is now ready for Halloween.  Hope I can find some scary photos to invite. 

My freezer is full of soups and casseroles and pre-prepared vegetable dishes.  This makes it so easy to get lunch ready or a quick supper when I have been otherwise busy. 

The deer pasture makeover

 This is from last week when Don Mann Excavating were starting on the makeover of the deer pasture into a park as per the Sannich Parks plans.  They had the Plan man from the Parks department out there with his plans spread out to let the Mann man know what bushes to remove, etc. 

After they scraped off the blackberry bushes and other shrubs that did not belong in the park, they dug a curvey trench about a foot deep and 6 feet wide and filled it with drain rock.

The new path was then packed with the great roller machine and gravel added to the top layer.

This machine shook the whole house when it was running to pack the path.  Mann excavating finished last week and this week the Park people have been in with 3 trucks and a couple of digging machines.  They did more clean up of the shurubs and trees that are going to be kept.  I did not get pictures!  They have a circular form built on one end of the path.  I think they mean to fill this circle with red bricks as they have done at the entry to the park on the other end of Grange... just a block up from our place.  I see that they have also removed some concrete on Gerda and have cleaned up the edges of what used to be a street.  This part of the path now joins to the deer pasture and goes on into the park.
I was not seeing any deer the last few months in the pasture.  In talking with some neighbours they told me that there had been a cougar in the park.  And yes, that reminded me of the experience of last autumn when Angie and I were going to go through the park to the Crooked Goose for lunch, and encountered a young girl who was babysitting a couple young children.  She told us that a cougar had crossed the path while she was walking!  We also have eagles in the park and every year recently I have seen the new ones out taking flight training.  I guess the wildlife is doing its natural cycle. 

This past week I have been making soups, spaghetti sauces, prepared vegetable dishes, cabbage rolls, and chicken stock, etc.  Perhaps it is just the time for harvest and this is something that is an inherited  behavioral trait.  I have a few more soups to make up.  So, when I am finished I will have a good selection of soups for the winter.  I started doing this last year because we wanted to cut back on our salt intake.  The soups from the grocery stores were just too full of salt and who knows what else.  I find I enjoy this and it makes it a lot easier to get lunch on the table or to have an entre or vegetable ready for our supper.   I was going to add recipes, but anyone can find whatever they need on the internet.