Garden Journal Excerpts

My garden is in constant revision, as you may notice my web page is, also.
This will be a way to show some of the updates and revisions I make to the garden throughout the years from my garden journal entries. I have several books of written garden journals. In June of 2012 I began to keep sporadic notes of my time in the garden on my computer.

Monthly Excerpts from the Garden Journal of 2023

SYNOPSIS of the year

1. The Sooke Reservoir reached 100% full on March 23, 2023. We are in a drought with forest fires all over the province. We are ok on the Island.

2. Have spent the winter making gardening albums for the web page. Have finished the monthly garden pages.
The plant lists page is revised and will be used to keep track of purchases and what survives, etc.
I have made up 14 Garden rooms where I will list the plants in each 'room'. This is going to be a huge project. I have finished The Driveway Strip Garden Room and The Driveway Strip Garden Room photo album page.. Have finished The Boulevard Garden Room and The Boulevard Garden Room photo album The Boquets photo album and The Painted Vases photo album are finished. Photo albums do not have plant lists.

3. Spent a lot of time watering and weeding in all of the gardens.
The new rock garden at the front still needs more work as does the Magnolia tree garden. I will try to continue cutting back the black bamboo to a smaller clump. The St. John's worte is growing like crazy in the Driveway strip. Getting this under control may be a major job, if I get it done at all. The plants under the heat pump have grown back up again. The pond area is slowly coming along. It, too needs more work. Blue Heron ate all the fish in November 14 - 19 after I had cleaned out too much of the water hyacinths and plants that the fish were hiding under. Removing the tomatoe cages was a mistake. I will get new ones to replace them. And new fish, of course. The little solar fountain pump needs to be replaced. The drystream needs to be revised with the pea gravel that does not grow moss. We had a huge crop of plums, despite having to direct people off the tree. (including throwing old Pee off the tree, the lying, demented old creep.) I planted a few tulips into the cutting garden, that were being dug up by the squirrels or some nefarious 2 legged creatures. I hope some of them have survived to bloom in the Spring. The new little gold wall rockery is slowly coming along. It needs more top dressing and clay soil to build up the height of the edge rocks. In the woodland area, the firethorn is growing again from the stump. I shall try to keep it under control at fence height, to grow berries for the robins again. The pin oak has sent up shoots to garage height again. I will need to keep it under control also. It has beautiful Fall color. I have added leaves under the back corner trees, to build up the leaf mold for future garden composting.

4. We had quails visit our garden, and the varied thrush nesting in the bergenias. Lots of butterflies, and some bees, including local ones, like bumble bees.

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January 2023

January 1, 2023
5 degrees at 10:00. Made up 3 jars of chicken stock. Have the ham in the oven for our dinner this evening. We are to go on the VCCC run at 1:00. Its at centennial park. Have started the JE22 page

January 2, 2023
6 degrees at 3:00. Finished Step 1 of the coding on the photo html pages. Did the laundry. Got a bit more done on the JE2022 page. Sorted out the Wayward Wind music for the 2023 JE page. (Am using Don't believe in IF for 2023) Am using Kentucky Rain (Elvis) for the 2022 JE.

January 3, 2023
Was overcast today and about 6 degrees, no rain. Did the ironing including the doilies. Finished Page 11 of Step 2 of the coding of the html photo pages. Made the stew for supper. Napped for 2 hours this afternoon!

January 4, 2023
6 degrees at noon. Sooke reservoir at 83.9%. Made about 8 cups of Gazapacho soup this morning. Got some more stuff done on the JE22 page.

January 5, 2023
10 degrees at noon. Sooke reservoir at 84.3%. Finished the 2022 JE Synopsis jpeg file.

January 6, 2023
10 degrees at 10:30. Sooke reservoir at 84.4%. Grocery shopped and put them away. Did a run to the recyleables. When loading the JE2022 html Must remember to put the Synopsis photos into public html + 'images' , and put the KentuckyRain MP3 into 'sounds'. (Taken from the 2021 JE page)

January 7, 2023
Uploaded all the stuff for the 2022 JE page. Took 4 days. Everything works. The synopsis jpegs look terrific! They are just the right size for the page. Light rain. 8 degrees at 2:00. Watched about an hour of Penninsula streams videos. Finished Page 13 of step 2 of the coding for Photo html pages.

January 8, 2023
Emptied .5 inch of rain out of the rain gauge this morning. 8 degrees at 10:00. Finished step 2 of the coding for Photo html pages. Finished captions for Page 2.

January 9, 2023
Did laundry (towels and bedding). Took a walk about the garden this morning. I do not see any crocus up just yet. The water garden needs skimming off. Emptied the old compost pot and washed it out. Dragged the bin to the back. The bus is gone from the Palistinians place. They now have an old motor home in their driveway, but at least it is not blocking the view to get out of our driveways. Their trash still lines the cedar hedge. It is 9 degrees at 3:30 and raining lightly. Eileen msg'ed me this am. They will be out to Victoria from the 11th to the 13th, and might find time to see us. There is a sick cousin to see and family members to see as well, as the one in Sooke. Guess we will see when they get here. I have a zoom tomorrow at 7:30 and Pat goes to the Goose for the Bruce lunch meeting. I finished Page part of page 4 of captions for the April albumn.

January 10, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 85.1%. 9 degrees at 11:30. vaccumed out the dryer and finished the laundry. Finished captions for Page 4 of the April album. I got carried away in looking up the medicinal uses of the Oregon grape, including treatment for psoriasis. I shall have a look for some of it at London Drugs. The rose hips that grow along the driveway strip also have multi-medicinal uses. We had a fantastic sunset about 6:00.

January 11, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 84.7% - we have had rain, but it seems to be down a bit. Sun today. 10 degrees at 1:00. Have a AGC-BC zoom tonight: Camerson Kidd on sedums. To meet Don and Eileen for lunch tomorrow at the JBI. Finished Page 6 of the captions for the April album. 16 pages to go.

January 12, 2023
Overcast and some rain. 10 degrees at 4:00. Sooke reservoir at 85.1%. Finished page 7 of the captions for the April album. We had lunch at JBI with Don and Eileen. Did some work on sorting June photos, adding 40 plus the 120 for 160 to be parred down. If parred down to 150 I could have 10 pages of 15 each.

January 13, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 85.3%. Finished page 8 of the captions of the April album. Was 11 degrees at noon.

January 14, 2023
11 degrees at 3:00. Finished page 9 of the captions of the April album.

January 15, 2023
10 degrees at 12:00. Finished page 11 of the captions of the April album.

January 16, 2023
almost finished the laundry, almost finished page 12 of April album. Collected all computer stuff to see what if anything Gizmos will take for recycling, and if they pay me for any of it.

January 17, 2023
Did banking and checking Shaw bill. Searched for the Win 10 code on a box..no luck. Finished laundry, finished page 12 of April captions. Took out green bin stuff.

January 18, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 89.6%. 9 degrees at 1:00. Sorted and bagged Pat's stuff for the diabetes truck. Have saved a zip up sweater for my gardening and threw out the old green sweat shirt. Made cucumber salad. Finished Page 15 of the April captions. 8 more pages to go.

January 19, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 89.9%. It froze last night. It is 7 degrees at 1:00. Watered house plants.

January 20, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 90.2%. It is 6 degrees at 10:00. Ironed the shirt, emptied the vaccume cleaner. Finished page 17 of the captions of the April album

January 21, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 90.4%. It is 6 degrees at 2:00. Finished page 20 of the captions of the April album. 2 pages to go. Light rain, and overcast.

January 22, 2023
It is 8 degrees at 2:00. Was out taking pictures from about 12:30 to 2:00. Had a look at the cedars along the deck from the bottom. reattached the down spout. It needs a better fix. The cedars have lots of dried out stems, that need to be taken out. They are totally trashed. Shook some dried stuff down so there is more tree debris on the Pees sidewalk. I need a solution to this privacy screen. I would like to have a cistern installed. The cistern could be as high as the house I would hope. and there could be a wall with a door in it (the width of the door plus a few feet and the height of the cistern) attached to the cistern to block off the view between the house and the cistern. The door would allow access to the rest of that side of the house. Or perhaps I could just have a solid fence built along the property line and take out the cedars. And build a cistern along the wall. The rain from the roof could drain into the cistern. The cistern would need a pump and a door on the top to get in to clean it if necessary. Spent far too much time looking at this cistern and fences stuff. Finished page 20 of the captions of the April album.

January 24, 2023
Yesterday did laundry and shopped. Got page 21 of the April album finished. Did a bit of knocking down of the dead branches in the hedge by the deck, done. Swept off the deck. Was out for an hour and a half. KFC for supper.
Today the Sooke reservoir is at 90.7%. 8 degrees at 10:30. Finished the captions of the April album; being page 22.

January 25, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.5%. 10 degrees at noon. Loaded the April folder to my web page and it works. Spent some time sorting out my web page/computer files.

January 26, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.5%. 8% at 10:00. Getting more June album photos sorted. Might have 13 or 14 pages.

January 28, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.5%. 6 degrees at 10:30. Yesterday I numbered the sorted June photos. I should end up with 12 pages of 15 photos = 180 photos. Finished sorting and numbering the June photos.

January 29, 2023
Is cooler today. Our power was off at 8:30 last night. Then about 12:00 midnight I noticed a big flashing light on that Hydro power pole across the street from us. Pat phoned the 800 number on the power bill and let them know about this flashing light and our power having been off. They told him they were working on it and would be finished at 3:00. About 2:15 I was up and there was a guy working at the post. There was a big hydro truck there. Shortly after that our power came back on. We had been fairly warm enough under our feather comfortor. And had the rest of the night to catch up on lost sleep time. This morning I finished tweaking the photos for the 1st page of the June album. And started the 2nd page.

January 30, 2023
Froze last night. Pat said it was -5 degrees when he got up this morning. There has been bright sunshine and it is 4 degrees at 12:30. Finished tweaking page 2. Used puppet warp... oh wow that is fantastic for straightening photos. Check out ju42

January 31, 2023
Froze again over night. Is 4 degrees at 11:00. My mixer just gave up the ghost, in the middle of making chocolat chip cookies. Had to send Pat out for a new one. Finished tweaking photos of page 3 of the June album

February 2023

February 1, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.5%. 5 degrees at 11:30. took the compost pot out and spent about an hour putting dead perennials from the boulevard garden room into the bin; and cleaning the debris off the little rockeries front and back. The front little yellow wall rockery will need more pumice rocks or broken terra cotta into the area to the top (left) plus more turkey grit topping. Also more grit, sand and potting soil mix to the top level at the back of this area. I accidentally broke off a piece of the big daphne at the back, and moved it to the front little yellow wall rockery to the edgeing at the left. Finished tweaking page 4 of the June album photos.

February 2, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.4%. 5 degrees at 11:30. Finished tweaking page 5 of the photos of the June album.

February 3, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.4%. 10 degrees at 2:30. Finished tweaking page 6 of the photos of the June album. Registered Pat and I for the family doctor on the health registry.

February 4, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.3% despite any rain we have had yesterday. 10 degrees at 11:00. Moved some stones around the rockeries, adding a bit more clay, soil and sand. I have the last area made to look a bit like a crevice garden. Have to knock the corners off the cement pavers to make them look like stones, more or less. Need to add more clay around the edges to get the edging stones set up to level with the stone pavers. Was doing this from 11:30 to 1:30. It is beginning to look pretty good. Then cleaned up the light garden from 2:00 to 4:45. Have finished 1 row of the page 7 of tweaking the photos of the June album. One of the saxifragias in the little gold wall rockery looks like it is getting buds. Need more sand and grit (turkey grit from borden mercantile) to fill in the top dressing in all of the rockeries. Need to clean up the dry stream and put down pea gravel.

February 5, 2023
Playnow gave me $100. promotion.. played and have over $80. Cannot deposit it. Shitheads. Have to use it to play casino stuff, I think. Waste of time. Just to try and get you hooked again. It is 10 degrees at 11:00. Finally finished page 7 of tweaking the photos for the June album. my left arm is really sore from dragging around rocks and dirt without the proper tools yesterday.

February 6, 2023
9 degrees at 4:00. Finished tweaking the photos of page 8 of the June album.

February 7, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.4%. 12 degrees at 2:00. Emptied 2 inches out of the rain gauge. Found the list of rhodos in my old note book. All kinds of plants purchased and where they were planted and what became of most of them. Finished Page 9 of tweaking the photos for the June album.

February 8, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.6%. 9 degrees at 3:00. Overcast. There is one humming bird around at the feeder. Perhaps they are nesting. Snowdrops are blooming. Made the supper and a greek salad. Cleaned up the toaster, swept the floor. unloaded the dishwasher. Finished this at 3:00. Did some sorting of the plant room plants.

February 9, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 93.6%. 6 degrees at 10:30. Finished tweaking the photos for page 10 of the June album.

February 10, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 94.5%. 8 degrees at 1:00. Pat fixed the Krupps capaccinno maker by adding an O ring to it. Last night I wasted far too much time playing with the free money on Playnow. It cannot be conveyed into actual money that I could deposit. Changed my payment method and now cannot figure out how to change it back again. So, I locked myself out until the 24th and will keep on doing that lock out. I have to phone them if I want to cancel my account. finished tweaking photos for page 11 of the June album. Talked to Dan and Carol tonite.

February 11, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 95.1%. Spent the morning twittering around on the Berwick house stuff and trying to find out how far to build a rain water cistern from the property line. It just got more and more invoved. I did find out one good thing: if I want to build a retaining wall next to the neighbors property or a privacy fence taller than 6 feet I would need a surveyer's certificate. Downside: these surveyor certificates are expensive. There is a site for some gardeners who can arrange for different kinds of gardening. I figure my garden would be of the pruning fruit trees and hedges, roses, etc., gathering leaves in the autumn, some general weeding and bed maintenance; kind. There are other seniors in their homes services available.. meals, weekly or daily checks about meds. etc;, bedding laundry, and just about anything you want to pay for. So, I guess it would be easier to give up the space and bother of everything in the home and just go to Berwick. We are going to need a new cappiccino maker, and a new tv. And so the costs of living here just keep mounting up. M & A are paying $5k for a 1 bedroom. One bedroom approximately 600 sq. ft. One bedroom + den approximately 880 sq. ft. Two bedroom approximately 910 sq. ft. Suites starting at $4,000. Fees are based on the size and location of your suite. Registered for Penn Streams March 18, pay $100 at door.

February 12, 2023
Finished creating the June album. Now have all the page descriptions, photo captions, and coding. Have done page descriptions to page 5 and the menues on all the index pages.

February 13, 2023
I had a very sore arm last night and got very little sleep. Got the laundry done, nevertheless; and made the casserole for supper. Finished the page descriptions for the June album. The Shaw guy was here to hook up the new parts for the television. It works now, so it looks like we are still going to have this old TV. February 14, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 96.1%. 5 degrees at 11:00.

February 15, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 96.2%. It froze last night. 7 degrees was the highest it got today. Finished the Index pages and up to page 2 of the 1st step of the Photo html pages of the June album.

February 16, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 96.4%. Froze again last night. 8 degrees at about 1:00. Finished step 1 of the Photo html pages up page 9,and have done 12 of the June album. Had a terrible time getting the view back to 'ascending' of the June album. So, 3 pages left to do before I start the photo captions. I found some good photos in the old June..damn, wish i had not missed them. My photography seems to be slipping down hill, too. Ah well, there has been a lot of changes to the garden since I first made that June album. Shoulder is still a bit sore.

February 17, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 96.5%. Had lunch at Elk Lake Inn (old hojo's under renovation), after stop at Canadian Tire to get their solar fountain ($42) It is a bit smaller than the old one. Shopping at the Co-op store. Napped off and on in the chair for most of the afternoon. My arm is healing, but still a bit sore. did mid-month banking stuff. Finished step 1 of Photo html for the June album

February 18, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 96.5%. 8 degrees at 11:00. Getting making the cappaccino sorted out. Was out taking pictures for a while. Found that Jeremy Stein had passed away in 2020. His Instagram is still up. Finished step 2 of the Photo html pages. Page 7 to 12 (inclusive) need to be checked

February 19, 2023
Checked the pages 7 to 12 and found 4 or 5 that needed to be fixed. This took about half an hour, so it was worth the trouble. Finished photo captions for page 1. Made 1/2 cucumber salad. February 20, 2023
Did light laundry. Made up the cranberry sauce. Made peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolat chip cookies. Made crumbs for the frying of the white fish. Pat scaled it, I cleaned it up more and cut it up. Pat put the little solar pump together for me. We got it at Canadian Tire for $42.55. It is slightly smaller than the first one. Will put it out in the sun, once we get some sun. Finished page 2 of the photo captions.

February 21, 2023
Took out the compost and did a bit of clean up under the deck and around the garden. Was out for half an hour. Some crocuses are up, but the crocus garden has only a few yellow ones showing. The leaves need to be raked off of things all around the garden, especially the moss garden. Finished page 4 of the photo captions.

February 22, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 96.8%. Froze last nite. Its at 4 degrees at 1:00. Made bean salad this morning. It is -3 degrees at 5:00 and little snow drops coming down. Finished page 6 of the photo captions.

February 23, 2023
-2 degrees at 11:00. Got the ironing done. Sooke reservoir at 96.9%. Did shopping at Red Barn, Co-op for lottery tickets, Michell's Farms and Thrifty's. Lots of vegetables. Finished page 8 of the photo captions.

February 24, 2023
-1 degree at 11:00. Froze last night and was windy. Things were scraping around out on the patio, but the motion light did not come on. The humming bird feeder that I had in the house was full of ants. Cleaned it and made up a new batch and put it out. Have the other one in the house to unthaw. Took the blue box out. Finished page 9 of the photo captions.

February 25, 2023
Freezing again last night. The Sooke Reservoir is at 96.9%. It is 3 degrees at 1:00. Finished page 11 of the June photo captions. Made a few plans for renovating the dry stream. See the photos from 2021 there will be lots of weeding, but it is not too bad, otherwise. So, under the deck will become more attractive, I hope. As well as finishing the removal of the Yellow loosestrife and getting plants started in the 'mountain'. The most excellent idea is to grow some rhodos under the deck by the cedar hedge where the peeheads have thrashed the hedge. As the rhodos grow up I can remove dead branches and trunks of the cedars to produce a flowering lower hedge. The tops of the old cedars would be left to provide as much privacy as they can. I will have to be careful of watering the new rhodos. So maybe a soaker hose along there would do it. The tap in the kitchen stopped pouring out hot water. Pat figured out that there is something wrong with the tap and he will get a plumber to fix it. The other hot water taps all work.

February 26, 2023
5 degrees at 1:00. Most of the one inch of snow we had over night is melted. Made the greek salad and took the compost out to the back bin. This took about 2 hours. Watching the Scotties curling this past week. Finished the photo captions. Checked all of them. Am ready to upload the album.

February 27, 2023
3 degrees at 10:00 and big snowflakes falling. They are melting as they come down. Laundry. Washed the matt that got humming bird feeder liquid on it. Its drying in the downstairs bathroom. Trying to clean up desktop to no avail as I just keep getting more stuff to remember on it. Uploaded June album and it works. Added it to Progress page. My website loads really fast now!

February 28, 2023
Snow in the morning. Melted later. Grocery shopped. Finished the laundry. Did more sorting of the May photos. The plumber guy Greg was in to fix the tap in the kitchen. Took out all the info in the file I could find and then put it all away again when the guy was finished. There were bits of black plastic stuck in some part of the tap apparatus. Pat knows about it. The flow of water is diminished. Need to get the guy back to look at this.

March 2023

March 1, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 96.9%. 6 degrees at 11:30. The plumber guy was back to look at it. The tap is wearing out. He got a look at it again and got a bit more flow to it. This tap is guaranteed for as long as we are in the house. So, Pat is to call the manufacturer and see what they can do about sending us a new one or whatever. Made 3 cups of chicken stock. Put the things back under the sink. I hurt my arm again yesterday, so not doing too well today. Despite the high temps there is still snow lying around the deck and beside the street.

March 2, 2023
Rained last night. Sooke reservoir is the same. 7 degrees at 3:30. The van is finished and ready. Pat is to pick it up tomorrow. James and Gary might go with him. I finished sorting and numbering 2 pages of the May photos. Emptied 2 inches of rain out of the gauge.

March 4, 2023
Have 8 pages of photos sorted. Looks like this is going to be a very long album for May. Its the final one and includes descriptions of the garden rooms. At least the photos for each room will mostly be on the same page or 2 for the longer ones. March 7, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 97.5%. 8 degrees at 11:00. Filled the humming bird feeder. Packed a few fragile things into the Diabetes bag. Ironed Pat's shirt. Finished numbering the Driveway photos for the May album.

March 8, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 97.6%. 10 degrees at 11:00. We took the Last Lodge to BMT to have the side door adjusted, and went for lunch at the Dakota Cafe for seafood wonton soup. The place was full of people. A couple of days ago Pat and Gary P went out to get the Last Lodge for the ICBC 50/50 payment of $1250. It looks good. I have finished sorting the photos and numbering them for all the front garden rooms. Have the woodland sorted and ready to number them. The April album had 22 pages. So far I have 11 pages plus 1 row, and 2 more pages for the woodland. So, 13 pages, apx. Made rum balls.

March 9, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 97.7%. The zoom meet was interesting last night... Switzerland Alps. 10 degrees at 2:00. Took out blue bin. Took compost to the back bin. Updated the Plant lists page. Finished sorting and numbering the Woodlands photo. Have 12 pages and 2 rows.

March 11, 2023
I got very little done yesterday, as my elbow and arm on the right side are very sore, with bruising. Today is a little better. Sooke reservoir is at 97.9%. It is 10 degrees at noon. I have the moss/water/shade garden photos for May album sorted out, adding 3 more pages. So, when I get them numbered, I should have 17 pages and 2 extra rows. April has 22 pages. So, May might just be 25 or 26.

March 12, 2023
Frittered away most of the day. My elbow is a lot better and so is my shoulder on the left side. Sooke reservoir was not reported on a Sunday but it is probably at 98.2%. Was up to 8 degrees today, and light rain. So, I did not go out to photograph the crocus circle which is now in full bloom. I have 19 pages of the May album sorted and numbered. I spent way too much time looking for rocks photos. There lots of them, so this will have to be a separate album. There were lots of renovations last year. So the new garden stuff, ie; names of plants in whatever garden room, etc. will be changed quite a bit. Trevor will be in touch about my Win 11 after the 15th. I have a VIRAGS zoom on the 14th. Yesterday Peninsula Streams was working in Coply Park east. I must find time to walk over and see the newly planted indigenous plants and see if they removed more ivey, etc.

March 14, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 98.3%. We have had a bit of rain over the past few days. Yesterday got laundry done. 8 degrees and overcast at 11:00.

March 15, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 98.6%. 11 degrees and sunny at 2:20. Watered and fed house plants. Vaccumed my room and the kitchen, dusted the computer stuff. Ahmed will be here on Monday, the 20th at 1:30 to pick up the computer. Have prepared the pork to make schitzel for supper tonight. Pat is getting all his Last Lodge stuff done. De-winterizing it, and putting stuff back into it. I finished numbering the May album photos. Will have 24 pages. April has 22.

March 16, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 99.0%. Confirmed our attendance at the Penn Streams 20th Celebration on 18th to pay at the door. 8 degrees at 1:00.

March 17, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 99.0%. 12 degrees at noon. My snorkelling book arrived today. Spent too much time looking it over. Finished 4 lines of the resizing the May album photos. Elbow, shoulder and back still a bit sore. Pat got the last lodge ready, dewinterized and plugged in. We go to do the wine on the 24th. Will think about taking stuff to Gizmos after I get my computer back, probably on the 21. And then if my arms are better start some gardening stuff. Won't get too stressed about it, though.

March 18, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 99.5%. 12 degrees at 11:00. We go to the Pen Streams 20th celebration this evening. Bloody hell -- mixed up the numbered photos.

March 20, 2023
Ahmed from computers on wheels was here and had a look at my computer and fixed the old apps. I have 2 more years to use windows 10. The motherboard, etc on this computer are not compatable with newer Windows 11 stuff. He suggested that I use this computer for a while longer. So, I can get the upgrade done some time down the road, I guess. Was 153.13 for him to look at that, take the computer to the office; and bring it back and reconnect it. Trevor phoned with the news about needing to update the whole computer, as this machine was not able to run Windows 11. Got the light laundry done. Yesterday, I fixed my gross error on the saving of the work I had done on the May numbering photos. We had mussels and bagette for supper.

March 21, 2023
Sooke Reservoir at 99.8%. Made appointment with Dr. Gibbons for the renewal of meds sometime between 10 and 3 on the 24th. This is also the day to bottle the wine at 3:00. Well.. Dr. appointment takes precedence. Shopped, got another duck at Save on Foods at the mall. Made the meatloaf and potato cake and brussel sprouts for supper. It was up to 15 degrees today. Brought in about 24 daffodils and have them on the table. Sized a few more pictures. Have 2 pages finished now.

March 22, 2023
Sooke Reservoir at 99.9%. Got up to 14 degrees today. Made coleslaw in the morning. Have 2 pages and 1 row of photos sized. Was out from 3:30 to 4:30 and did clean up on the patio area. Started some pruning of the grape. The front is realively clean. Used up 1/2 of the bag of cactus mix in the last area of the little gold wall rockery. Filled the hole that the rabbit dug under the iberis. Need to add sand on top of the last area of the little gold wall rockery. I have sand, turkey grit, and some soil, some peat moss, some pea gravel. So, I should be good for the finishing of the reconstruction of all the garden rooms. The arum is coming up under the rhodo and needs to be dug out. The old camillia is blooming and browning as usual. I shall prune its branches back a bit. The little irises are up along the edge of the Magnolia bed garden room and need pictures. Dark purple and gold. Must look up the names from purchases page. Iris Dwarf JS Dyt (10)

March 23, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 100%. Finished sizing 3 pages of the May album. Made cookies this morning. Bottled the Wine at Flying Fish.

March 25, 2023
Sunny day at 11:30, 9 degrees. Of course the Sooke reservoir is at 100%. Have had to spend some time sorting some photos that I had doubles of in the May album. Slowly learning how to run the new cappiccino making machine. .. wretched, heavy thing. Was out to take a few photos. Pulled out lots of the alliums in the Smoke Tree garden room. Made apx 8 cups of gazpacho soup. Took 2 3/4 hours. Cucumber salad with the 1/2 of the English cucumber left over from the gazpacho recipe. Finished making the spaghetti sauce and dishes at 4:30. So have been on my feet for about 4.5 hours. .5 banana for lunch and a cookie at 4.30. Took out compost pot, recycleables and the garbage. After supper we have a dinner of spaghetti sauce saved over in the freezer.

March 26, 2023
10 degrees at 2:30. Finished resizing 4 pages of the May album. Was out from 2:30 to 4:30. Bagged some sand to take out to the front. Then got weeding the arums out from under the rhodo. Weeded out all I could see, put down some more peat moss and will add some sea soil on top of that. Also need to add sea soil to the empty spaces around the primulas. Cleaned the weeds and dead leaves out of 4 of the stepping stones. There is not too many weeds showing. There is a line of foxgloves coming up along in front of the rhodos up to the entry to under the deck, by the stairs. The crocuses and daffodils are almost finished. The ones in the house are drying out. I am really happy with how well it went out there today. The moss garden area is going to look pretty good when its all weeded. The harry lauder's walking stick has catkins, the wendy primulas are all coming into bloom. In the woodland the fawn lillies are starting to bloom. I have bought The Mother Tree book and am racing through it. I will reread it, again.

March 27, 2023
Laundry, finished page 5 of the sizing of the May album photos. Was a cool breeze today. Did not really get time to go out to the garden.

March 28, 2023
Was up to 14 degrees today, but with a cool breeze. Was out from 3:30 to 5:00. Cleaned up more of the moss garden, removing dried leaves. Added about 2 pails full of sea soil around under the first rhodo where I had dug out the arums. Moved a few rocks around on the front gold wall rockery. Finished cutting back the grape vine. Started to do the fig tree. There are a couple of branches that need to be cut with the pruning saw, left to be done. The moss garden has become quite weedy after I got past the entry to under the deck. So, this might take more time to get the rest of the moss garden cleaned up. I find I have 1 row of photos too many (5 photos) so have to remove 5 and rename them all again.

March 29, 2023
12 degrees at 10:00. Have fixed the number of photos, and am up to ma160 in renaming them. Was out gardening from 1:30 to 4:30. Picked up the cuttings from the fig tree and the grape vine. Cleaned out violets and dandilions from the moss garden to the pine miniature. Took the leaves I raked off to the woodland trail. Have the green bin about 1/3 full. Had to make supper when I got in and this got to be too much work. But got the dishes done by 8:00, without having to go for a nap today. I am racing through The Mother Tree book, and will be re-reading it. Fascinating stuff. This woman worked on this stuff from when she was about 20 to 30 some. She has a doctorate in what? forestry? This information has been out there since before 2000, I think. Pat goes for another needle to his eye tomorrow morning.

March 30, 2023
14 degrees. Was out from 1:30 to 4:30. Pat came out and cut off the 2 big fig tree branches. Then he cut a whole lot off the apple tree. Sure hope we get some apples this year. I cut up a few branches and almost filled a brown bag with kindling size stuff. Otherwise I sorted more photos this morning. Raked up some branches and big pieces under the deck and took them to the bin. Weeded the fig tree bed up to and including the stepping stones up to the epimediums. The hyacinths have buds, the wind flowers are blooming and the daffodils are finishing up. It was a bit breezy, so it was difficult to keep the dried leaves in the weed tray. Filled the pond. The spillway looks pretty good.

March 31, 2023
Was 11 degrees. Got the T slips that Pat needed. Finished sorting the photos of the May album to equal 24 pages; numbered in order. Photoshopped 1 row of page 6. Did banking, downloaded photos. It was suppose to rain today. We got only a few drops. The reservoir has been at 100% for about a week now.

April 2023

April 1, 2023
coolish at 8 degrees at 10:30. Made cappiccino. Crunched the dried baggette into crumbs. Using the edit/transform/WARP to straighten the photos. Seems to work better than skew. Loaded the revised Plantlists page. Have 14 Garden Rooms. This is going to be a huge project. It will need constant changes. Just thinkin'. Made 3 cups beef/vegetable stock, and 3 cups of chicken stock. Beef/barley/vegetable soup. Finished resizing photos of Page 6 of the May album. This stuff took all day. Must see the April album when doing up photo captions.

April 3, 2023
Yesterday finished resizing photos of Page 7 of the May album. Went for a drive to gas up the car and got caught in a hailstorm. Crazy weather. Dan called while we were driving home. Pat stopped the car and we talked to him for a half hour or so. One of the things we talked about was an old photo of the whole family. After supper at home, I, with the rest of the clan, spent far too much time trying to figure out the date of the old photo that Tammy has found. Very interesting old stuff. Thanks Tammy for posting.
Today, Pat has gone to Nanaimo for a meeting of the Antiques chapter of the VCCC. I have laundry to do, but did not get an early start. Got to 12 degrees today, but I piddled the day away. O well. more facebook family stuff. Tammy has a whole bunch of stuff.

April 4, 2023
Was quite cool today. Finished resizing photos of Page 8 of the May album. more facebook stuff.

April 5, 2023
Started to make up the page descriptions. 11 degrees at 1:30. Gardening at 1:30 to 4:00, 2.5 hours. Moved the trellis back to the purple jackamain clematis. It has a little sprout, which I shall try to tie up to the center post. Moved the old aluminum ladder from the van to the property line from the cedar to the lilac tree in the cutting garden. Cut up the twigs off the apple tree cuttings. Have 2 bags of kindling and have yet to cut the branches into firewood size. Raked the grass around the apple tree and put a bag of debris into the green bin. Took the compost out to the green bin. The bin is about 3/4 full. Skimmed off the pond. The yellow loosestrife is spreading. I shall dig it out while the ground is still damp. I think I might take the clumps of roots to the old sidewalk in the woodland and wash the clay off of them. I will fill the hole with cedar duff from under the deck and let it rest to be sure I have all the loosestrife out of there. Moved the mini rose in its pot back beside the entry to the garage, along with the big white pot full of sempveriums (hens and chickens) on the other side of the garage door. Pat got our in. tx finished today!

April 6, 2023
Was 12 degrees at 1:15. Was out gardening until 2:45. so, 1.5 hours. Was a very cold breeze, so came in. Dug out the yellow loosestrife and moved some blocks around. Then got some soil from under the deck to fill in the holes. There is room to put some more primulas in this space. I might need about 3 more blocks.

April 7, 2023
Sunny and 16 degrees at 1:00. Grocery shopped, did ironing, lunch and made up the meatloaf, califlower, baked potato to put into the oven later. Finished page 9 of resizing the photos for May album. Was out in the garden from 1:40 to 3:40. Yesterday was very windy. It blew all the leaves off the oak tree. So, they piled up all around the garden. I had to go over the moss garden and the Fig tree garden to get them picked up again. I finished the stepping stones path up to the epimediums. I need to do around the pine tree and the inside of that area. Added a bit more sea soil to some of the plants. The chocolate lillies are almost open. The magnolia tree has fat buds nearly ready to open. Pat cut up the apple tree branches for firewood.

April 8, 2023
Overcast and 12 degrees at 1:00. Was out in the garden from 2:30 to 4:00. Was very chilly with a cold breeze. I picked up more leaves, weeds and debris from the epimediums to the entry into the strawberry patch. Weeded the end of the rockery up to the big Daphne. Moved a speckled red stone to the front gold wall rockery. Cleaned up the hole that the squirrels dug in the golden oregano, and dug a few dandilions, out of the old part of the front rockery. While cleaning up the entry to the strawberry patch, I see where I can get a cement paver to put next to the waterfall mountain. I could use another paver, back there. Or, maybe space out the ones I have into stepping stones, instead of a sidewalk kind of path, at the back side of the pond. Added some sea soil to the cedar trough that has strawberries in it. I need to add chicken grit to the rockery after I finish cleaning it up. Maybe mix a bit of sea soil with the grit. I have a blue hepatica self seeded into the end of that rockery. The Lewisias at the front are looking a bit scraggly. The lily is popping up behind the phlox. I need sand and chicken grit at the end of the little gold rock wall, and some plants to put in there. Finished resizing photos for page 10 of the May album.

April 9, 2023
Happy Easter. Rained a bit. Is 9 degrees at 1:00. Watching the men's final curling game. Finished resizing the photos for page 11 of the May album.

April 10, 2023
Did the laundry, made up 10 jars of the duck stock. 12 degrees and overcast today. Moved some soil into the tall white pot with the honeysuckle in it. It still needs more soil.

April 11, 2023
To co-op for gas and lottery tickets, for a short drive around. Made Goop for tomorrow's supper with the left over duck; as I will be out gardening and have 2 pkgs (apx 14.4 oz) frozen. Today's supper is a new kind of baked fish (rock fish) with French fries, asparagus, cole slaw. I have a VIRAGS zoom at 7:30. Was 12 degrees at 1:00 and the sun was out for the afternoon, but still a bit cool with the breeze. Took the green bin to the curb.

April 12, 2023
12 degrees and sunny today. Was out in the garden from 1:00 to 4:30. Cleaned up the plants on the deck and added about a pailful of sea soil to the pots. The honeysuckle took most of it. Moved some small rocks off the deck railing to the West Coast planter. Did some weeding in the front rockery. Moved a cement paver to the back of the pond. Buried a piece of the urbunite for the stepping stone. Settled the paver from the strawberry patch along the back. Still have about 1.5 feet with out paver covering it. Moved a tall dutch iris. Filled some of the mountain with left over soil, planted one of the primulas in a hole close to the waterfall. Put the other primula next to the urbanite and the mountain. Dug out bluebells. Added a pail of sea soil around the front rockery and a pailful to the mountain by the waterfall. Some of the plants are growing on the mountain on the deck side. I have planted rupture wort, sempveriums, violet (I may regret that), I must get some globalaria growing there. I have not planted anything on the mermaid side, yet. Skimmed the pond and filled it. The water hawthorne is in bloom in the pond. I saw a small fish and a bigger gold one. The hyacinths, wind flowers, daffodils, magnolia tree, primulas, epimediums are in bloom. The quince is full of flowers. The fern leafed peony has buds. Was a lovely day out in the garden. We go for our vaccines tomorrow.

April 13, 2023
Overcast and 11 degrees today. Did ironing and washed gardening cloths in the morning. Went for our Moderna Covid booster shots at 2:15 at Elements pharmacy. It is our 4th booster shot. We get these vaccine's every 6 months. Grocery shopped. Pat cleaned the filter in the ceiling heat pump. Pork chops, apple sauce, roasted brussel sprouts, baked potato, bean salad for supper. Found LB on facebook.

April 14, 2023
Made cookies this morning. Was up to 12 degrees and sunny. Was out weeding more of the moss/water garden. Cleaned debris off the yew tree side. Cleaned the moss; picking up leaves etc from the side walk to around the lily of the valley shrub up to the steps up on the deck side. Cleaned off the moss from the area around the pine tree and around the Japanese maple. Cleaned the leaves and weeds out of the new bed around the plum tree stump. Cleaned up the water irises and cut back the bog bean. Added the little solar fountain to the pond. It needs its battery charged up. The water hawthorne is blooming. Both of the little willows are getting pussy willows. We went to Jack's for Chinese supper take out. The hyacinths and windflowers look terrific, and the fragrance is wonderfull. The Magnolia is in full bloom. The primulas at the back, the epimediums and the chocolat lilies are in bloom. The primula marginata in the west coast planter is blooming. The aubretias are blooming. The hepaticas back and front are blooming. The fawn lillies are blooming.

April 15, 2023
Wasted time on Playnow. Was overcast and quite cool. Was out to take photos. Downloaded them and formatted the card.

April 16, 2023
Did some sorting of the Woodland plants. Bits of rain and 9 degrees. We are about 150 mm (6 inches) short of rain on the year to date note in the paper. Finished resizing photos for Page 12 of the May album. Went to the VCCC round house event. Cold and raining. Toured the train stuff and had bbq inside.. didn't bring our chairs... no washroom. Cold and damp from the rain.

April 17, 2023
Cold, light rain and cold wind. Is 10 degrees. Laundry. Filled humming bird feeder, bit of vaccuming.

Got nothing done yesterday, was windy and cold. Today there was a few bits of rain and was overcast until about 2:00. Made the rice and sausage casserole. Moved the little solar fountain into the sunshine. Filled the pond. Finished resizing page 13 of the May album.

April 22, 2023
to the Beach Cafe at 11:00 with LB and BB on the 20th. Good Food, was a horrible windy cold day.
On the 21st, made cranberries, shopping, napped in the afternoon for a couple of hours.
Today was to the VIRAGS show and sale. Were not too many plants left. I was there from about 10 to 12. Spent $22. including $5.00 at the door. I think I may have 3 choice plants, never-the-less. See the plantlists page for purchases. Spent another 2 - 3 hours researching the plants. Brentwood Bay Nursery was there. I wonder if they are no longer just for the nurseries to buy from. (wholesale) Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Had a quick walk about the garden. There is debris every where again. It was cold out there too, even though the temperature was 12 degrees. I think I saw 2 more trilliums up... so that would make 4 of them.

April 24, 2023
Yesterday made the chicken cordon bleu casserole. Was awake most of the night. Paddy is in a lot of pain from his fall on Thursday. Nice sunny day with tiny bit of rain and lots of big fluffy clouds. Pat goes to the ER at the Vic General. Takes about 4 hours but he gets all the ex-rays and every thing he needs right at the hospital, rather than chasing here and there for this and that from attendance at the clinic. No fractures, but blood in his lungs. Might take 2 to 4 weeks to mend. I did laundry and had a nap. Getting a few photos sized on the May album. I saw a bunny in the yard. It seems a bit bigger than the usual and its back quarters seem to have some black in them. It might be a cross between the wild bunnies and a black escaped tame one. It was nibbling on a few things. Plum tree is in bloom. Finished re-sizing page 14 of the May Album photos.

April 25, 2023
Got up to 17 degrees today, sunny. Made Greek salad in the morning. Took out the garbage bins. Was out in the garden from 2 to 5. Finished weeding the fig tree garden room. Did some placement of stones at the end of the old sidewalk. There is good soil back there. Put a bit of it under the holly tree. Added about 1/4 palefull of the sea soil to the plants along the old sidewalk. Pulling out bachelor buttons, dandilions, and blue bells. Filled the pond and skimmed it off. Took some dried leaves off the cutting garden. Have the green bin nearly full. Watered a bit under the deck by the new rhodo.

April 26, 2023
Rained a bit this morning. Watered the house plants. Took some stuff out to the van. The little solar fountain is running. The fish are active. Fed them. There are 2 of them in the deck tub. Saw a big white one, a big gold one, and a big silver/black shubunkin, a couple of small ones. Making baked fish for supper with baked potato, left over beets, cole slaw. Resized 6 photos of page 15 of the May album... slowly getting it done.

April 27, 2023
17 degrees today. Grocery shopped with Pat. Watered the deck plants. 2 gold fish in the deck tub. Fed the fish. There are 3 big white ones, one big gold one, a silver and black shubunkin, a black and orange shubunkin, and a couple of tiny white and gold ones. Total of 6 big ones. I should have more gold fish and probably more shubunkins and sarossas. All of the trilliums are up now. One of the new park trees is in bloom. It is across the street from my boulevard Garden.

April 28, 2023
Got up to 21 today. Made Gazpacho soup. LB shopping after lunch. Nap. Supper of liver and onions, baked potato, greek salad.

April 29, 2023
Was 22 degrees today. To the HCP plant sale. Brought home a phlox paniculata 'David' which is white. $12.00. Walked around the garden. It seems to need a lot of maintenance. Perhaps they will get some done now that the weather has improved. There were lots of people at the sale. Pat picked me up and was home by 1:30. Very thirsty. Big salad with avocado and tomatoes from the Glanford greenhouse... very good, and left over chicken cordon bleu casserole. We have the heat pump turned off for now, and the windows open. Will turn the dishwasher on in the night (after 11:00). Finished resizing page 15 of the May album.

April 30, 2023
14 degrees at 11:00. Added purchase at HCP to the Plant lists page. Made the 1/2 cucumber salad. Moved the van stuff from the bedroom into the van. Have to move the dishes yet. Russell nurseries has the little maiden hair fern and it takes ACID soil not the lime like Wright said. I hope I can revive it, but I don't have high hopes for that.

May 2023

May 1, 2023
17 degrees today. Some sun, cloudy. Finished taking stuff out to the Van. Did laundry, did banking stuff. Both lewisias are in bloom in the gold wall rockery. Have the new plants out on the deck. Fed the fish.3 white, 1 gold, 2 shubunkins and 2 gold in the deck tub. The trilliums are up (4, I think). Need to add more sandy soil to the new area of the gold wall rockery. Lots of weeds in the boulevard garden. The fern leafed peony only has 2 blooms.

May 2, 2023
up to 22 degrees at 2:00. maiden hair fern. This fern can be in well draining acidic soil with a bit of lime added. It is decidous, so that is why I was not seeing it where I thought it should be growing. It likes to be misted but not drowned. I should get another one to plant near the waterfall. The pink primula that I planted by the waterfall now has blooms. Added more sand (about a pail full) to the final portion of the gold wall rockery and placed a few rocks. Weeded in the front taking out dandilions and bachelor buttons. Dug in some of the Siberian irises that I accidentally pulled out. Still needs more weeding. Was out at 2:30 and it was 5:00 by the time I got in and cleaned up.

May 3, 2023
Ironed Pat's shirt and vacummed all around. Took the ugly matt from the big bathroom out to the van... it does not fit, so put it back in the bathroom. We will get a new one for the van that is about an inch or two in width, and maybe longer, and green if we can find one. And get one for the big bathroom too. I have started the 2nd row of Page 16 of the May album.

May 4, 2023
We had a bit of rain overnight. 21 degrees at 2:00. Shopped at country grocer for herbs: parsley, tarragon, garlic chives, basil. Put them on the deck table and watered all the deck plants, including some over the deck railing for the maiden hair fern and filled the water tub. Made spaghetti sauce after shopping: double batch, finished at 3:00. Had to go down for a nap and did not get any gardening done. got a couple of photos resized in the morning.

May 5, 2023
Cooler, bit of rain over night and all day. Resized a few more photos, have 4 to go until finished page 16. A bit of searching for making up the page descriptions. Bought the Gwynne Dyer ebook about climate change last night and read a lot and so had to go down for a nap today. Published in 2009, I think. He seems to say that we have missed the time to stop these changes, and so will suffer the consequences. Flooding, forest fires, tornados, hurricanes, wind storms. I can see that we are, and have been most noticeably for the last couple of years. The weather has gone crazy. Not to mention of Covid Pandemic. Prince Charles will have his cornation tomorrow. Camilla cow will be queen camilla. Good rainy day for napping. Have all the plants outside, but bringing the basil in at night. Pat tested the battery for the hedge trimmer and it is charged. Have it plugged in in the suite. Have found the operators manual and the red light being on is right. It is charged and waiting to be used when the red light is on. We spent a couple of hours searching for a carpet runner for the van... no luck. Both really tired.

May 6, 2023
We had about a half an inch of rain over yesterday. It is 14 degrees at noon. Finished resizing page 16 of the May album. Made a widget on my phone. Its a link to my playlist. Searched for carpet for the van... no luck. Going to go with the 5 x 2 foot one. It will be good.

May 7, 2023
16 degrees at 10:00. To Walmart and got a 5 x 2 foot mat for the van. Finished the resizing photos for Page 17 of the May album. Cool breeze today. Fed the fish. Both of the lewisias in the little gold wall rockery are in bloom. Both looking good. The lilies are up in that rockery. The magnolia is about finished. The wall flower needs to be trimmed back. There are lots of blooms on the apple tree. The grass mulch on the plum tree has all turned brown. We need more rain.

May 8, 2023
17 degrees at 2:00. Laundry 5 loads and washed out the whites. Walk about the garden. I think the Alaska robin (Varied Thrush) is nesting in the bergenia plant.

May 9, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 99.8%. 17 degrees at 11:00. made up 3 cups of chicken stock. Spent about an hour correcting the copy of the Old May and the May numbered folders. 18 degrees at 5:00. Was out in the garden from 1 to 5. Transplanted all the new plants. Have the basil, tarragon, parsley and some of the garlic chives on the deck. Added sea soil to the pots. Put more of the garlic chives in the pot on the cutting garden. The old Mrs. Pee bitch threw her grass and weeds onto my side under the oak tree. Creep! Put the strawberry into the trough by the little rockery at the back. Put the Geranium reinardii in the back rockery next to the Spruce. Put the Omphalodes cappadocica 'starry eyes' and the creeping rosemary into the little gold rock wall, Omphalodes on level 1 and the creeping rosemary above it on level 2, so it will hang down over the wall. Put the white phlox in the Magnolia tree bed next to where the milkweed should be. I see the wretched squirrels have been moving the tulips around. I will need to add more of them in that nice color mix in the fall. Put a deep purple wendy primula into the waterfall mountain, at the bottom next to the pink double. The pink one is blooming and looking great. Most of the other plants are taking hold. Who says you need sand and grit? Mine grow in some sand and grit but mostly clay. Watered the cutting garden area and the pond area to get the transplants watered in. Did not get the front watered yet. Took some of the dandilions and dead headed daffodils to the bin (moved the bin to the curb). Clipped back the wallflower and the globe cedar. Cut back the thorn bush by the plum tree in the boulevard garden. I need more plants for the cutting garden. and a new wallflower for by the entry way. The boulevard garden is getting overgrown with grass and bluebells.

May 10, 2023
22 degrees at 4:00. Sooke reservoir at 99.7%. Was out from 1:00 to 4:30. Trimmed the boxwood hedges and some of the little honeysuckle pilea, the Pees side of the California lilac, the bridal veil spirea. There was a test emergency call on my phone. I had to reinsert the battery of trimmer after that .. strange. Mowed the grass and put the clippings around the plum tree and some of the spirea into the bin. Watered the hedges and all around the front. The Alaska robin is nesting in the berengia. I must not disturb it, again.

May 11, 2023
23 degrees at 3:00. Sooke reservoir at 99.6%. Made stew for supper. Made up 2 half pkgs of turnip and apple -- one for the road in van. Have the fridge cleaned up and will get veggies for the greek salad, ceasar salad and new cole slaw, and for veggies for dinners.. beets and etc. We had the heat pump turned off last nite and it is nice in the house now without windows open or curtains drawn and the pump still turned off. Was ok for getting up in the morning and nice for sleeping last nite. Pat lubricated the trimmer blade.

May 12, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 99.5%. Made chicken salad with tarragon, parsley and a viola from the deck. :) 23 degrees at 4:00. Finished resizing photos for Page 18 of the May album. To Glanford greenhouse, got iceberg lettuce head and a 6 pkg of red lettuce to be planted in a pot on the deck when this hot spell is past.

May 13, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 99.3%. 27 degrees at 5:00. Made apple sauce... about 4 cups. Finished one row of resizing photos on page 19. We have had the heat pump off all day and it is still pretty nice at 5:00. The unit downstairs is still on and set on auto at 19. Watered all the plants on the deck and the maiden hair fern.

May 14, 2023
Was up at 5:30 and opened the deck door and the window in the dining room. It was 10 degrees outside and all the birds were singing. The air coming in was cool and fresh and cleared out the stale air in the house. I emptied the dishwasher and turned on the light garden. 29 degrees at 2:00. Finished sizing the photos for page 20 of the May album... 4 pages to go.

May 15, 2023
Was up early but the birds were not singing. 31 degrees at 3:00. Filled the pond and fed the fish. The little solar fountain is not working. The wisteria is blooming in the cedar trees. Did the laundry. Have finished listing the photos to be resized, of the May album. Filled the pond. Watered the corners of the back and behind the garage. Had the sprinkler on from about 7:30 to 8:30 on the cutting garden area.

May 16, 2023
Was up at 1:30 a.m. to run the dishwasher, was a bit windy for about an hour. Sooke reservoir is at 98.8%. Is a cooler day at 23 degrees at 2:00. Made shrimp salad for lunch and the potato salad for supper. Northern Alberta, parts of B.C. are on fire. They have the army out to help the fire fighters. Many people have to leave their homes and farms.

May 17, 2023
Sooke reservoir is at 98.8%. 24 degrees at 2:00. Watered house and deck plants. Re-aligned the settings for the little solar fountain and it works again. Shopped for groceries with Pat. Made the chicken ceasar wraps for supper. The wraps did not turn out great. Finished sizing the photos for page 21 of the May album.

May 18, 2023
Sooke reservoir is at 98.4%. 23 degrees at 10:30. Have windows open bedroom, library, dining room and deck door. Have a nice breeze blowing through the windows. Finished the ironing 3 shirts and a pair of jeans, at 2:00 and it clouding over, is 25 degrees. Was out taking photos this morning... terribly too bright. nothing memorable for photos. There are weeds growing everywhere. The little solar fountain needs to be aligned again. Wonder if crazy glue would fix it. Some wretched creature was digging in the rocks at the back of the spillway. I need two or three more rocks there, now.

May 19, 2023
Sooke reservoir is at 98.4%. 25 degrees at 5:00. Took my blue box out at about 9:30, then started weeding along the driveway strip garden. It is full of morning glory in the hedge, and the neighbours (Palistinians or Syrians) junk crowding out the hedge and killing it on their side. They have cleaned up the front part of their driveway (power washing and moving junk to the back) but they still seem to be carrying on a auto repair business. I feel like calling the department of fisheries attention to this pollition going down the drain. We are, after all, just across the street from the Colquitz river! These are refugees from wars in their own area, no doubt, caused by Climate change. So, I continued my weeding and have most of the morning glory and other weeds taken out. Like everything else it needs water. Started logging off the bamboo and have the green bin 3/4 full. The whole garden needs weeding, too. All this with no breakfast. Went shopping for printer ink in the afternoon at London Drugs. Got 6 heart points and 2500 steps. (I did not have my counter on in the morning.) Pat was getting mosquito bites last night and got up and shut all the windows and turned the heat pump on (cool, of course). In the morning I found 2 mosquitos in the bathroom. So he was right, again! They weren't biting me, though. So, I missed the bird song this morning at 5:00 am. O well.. it is nice and cool in here too.

May 20, 2023
Sooke reservoir is at 98.0%. 24 degrees at 12:00. was out from 12:00 to 2:00. Watered all around the front by hand. The lavender is in bloom and there are lots of lupines. Watered the plum tree really well. I think I saw one or two little green plums. The boxwood seemed to need trimming again after I watered it. Did a bit of weeding by the plum tree. The raspberry ripple hebe does not seem to have survived. The wild sweet pea is growing, after all! Saw a swallowtail butterfly. No bees. Thyme circle is starting to bloom. Came in, had late lunch and then a nap.

May 21, 2023
18 degrees at 5:00 and a bit breezy. Was out for about 3/4 of an hour cutting the bamboo leaves off the canes. I have a couple of nice long black ones. Wonder if I could find someone to make me bamboo gates and fences for my garden. Probably cost a fortune. Finished resizing photos for Page 22 of the May album...2 more to go. We have started planning for our camping trip starting next monday the 29th. I have the ribs and all the supper in the oven, so got Pat to turn the cool air on.

May 22, 2023
Up at 6:00 and emptied the dishwasher. Ran it in the middle of the night. Did the light laundry. Made the sausage casserole for supper. The squirrels were digging in the waterfall mountain, displaced lots of rocks. Have lost one of the blue slate pieces to the depths. Repaired the damage. Filled the pond. Will have to retreive any rocks later in the summer when its hot. All the fish are in there and in the tub on the deck. Made up the buttered beets -- will have some to take camping. Pat was home and watched the parade on T.V. Made his own coffee and breakfast. It rained a bit last night and this morning.

May 23, 2023
17 degrees at 11:00. No listing for the Sooke reservoir level. The pond is still full from yesterday and the waterfall mountain is intact. Finished resizing photos for Page 23 of the May album.

May 25, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 97.0. 24 degrees at 2:30. Vaccumed the 2 bath rooms and our bedroom, and dusted. Made salsa and 6 burritos. Will freeze 3. Have some black beans, corn, cooked rice left over. Used up all the ground beef. The pots in the deck tub were all turned upside down. The lily has its leaves broken, the water is all murky. I imagine the squirrel was in there. The wretch. Have cinnamon on the deck railing. It does seem to deter the ants but not the tent caterpillers. Pat was to see his eye doctor and had another injection in his eye. His sight is improving. Watered the deck plants, fed the fish. So, both of the fish in the deck tub are there AND there is a new little black one. Its quite long, too. Maybe I won't bother emptying the pot, just add more water as I water the deck plants. The tent caterpillars are all over the deck and house walls. ewwww! Finished the May resizing photos. Printed the contact sheet.

May 26, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 96.8%, 25 degrees today. Started to take things out to the van in the morning. Shopping after lunch and putting things away. Divided up the blueberries, and the bacon, etc. Added more things to the bag to go out to the Last Lodge. Watered the deck and patio plants, rhubarb and its pots. There are some nice snapdragons growing in one of the rhubarb troughs. The little rose in its pot is blooming like crazy. The o. poppies are in bloom (all reds on one side of the old sidewalk and the blues of dames rocket and columbines on the other side. There are little apples on the tree, so watered around the back for about an hour after supper (halibut and potato salad, gazapo soup for the salad, carrots and parsnips for the vegetable). Filled the humming bird feeder. It had a bunch of drowned ants in it.

May 27, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 96.5%. Made the May album. Took from 10:30 to 2:30 - 4 hours. Packing stuff in the van. Pat scrubbed stuff of the van and has it plugged all in and the fridge started. In the the coding for the May album I have finished page 5 of the description at the top of the index pages.

May 28, 2024
Finished the page descriptions of the May album to Page 17... 7 more to go. Finished packing the food and my stuff to the van, except for my daily stuff. Watered around the front by hand for about an hour and a half. 25 minutes on the plum tree. there are a few green plums. The bamboo is running in the boulevard garden. The thyme is blooming and so is the French lavender and the california lilac. No bees anywhere. Grass needs mowing, the boxwood needs another trimming, there are weeds everywhere. The roses are full of blooms. I will have to pull in the garden hose after supper. Have 4126 (1.51 km) steps after watering a bit more at the front and bringing in the hose.

June 2023

June 2, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 95.1%. 21 degrees at noon. Got home from the Seal Bay Rally yesterday. Restared the pump. The irises were dumped into the deck tub again. Took a couple of hours to unpack. Halibut, chips, buttered beets for supper. Today got the banking done this morning. Was out about 3, fed the fish. There was a swallow tail butterfly making tours around the limits of the edges of my back garden. Saw the little fish in the deck pot and one of the gold ones. I imagine they are both in there. Some of the fish in the pond came up to eat. The solar fountain is working fine, the waterfall is good. When it gets warmer I am going to wade into the pond to rescue any rocks I can find, especially the piece of blue slate. The sedum edging is looking good in bloom. The mountain plants are not too bad. Too sunny for good pictures. Since that wretched squirrel keeps dumping the irises in the deck tub over, I am going to take them out. I might put one into the old plum tree stump and add water regularly. The other one should go in the same area in a deep hole and hope the clay can keep it wet enough. They will both be covered in the thick moss. I will need something to cover the deck pot to shade it a bit and will add some of the water weed... whatever it is called.

June 3, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 94.8%. 21 degrees at 10:00. Was to the Plantaholic sale at the old Brentwood Bay nursery. VIRAGS, Orchid Society, old Horts club, and a few others I did not know, were there. No rock plants I wanted at the VIRAGS. Got a Centaurium scilloides in bloom from a litte stand for $5.00. Could not find Siberian Irises. Lots of people there buying stuff. Pat waited for me on the parking lot. Was finished about 11:30, walked in my garden for a bit when we got home just before 12.00. The plum tree is full of little green plums. The roses are blooming like crazy. The Siberian irises are in bloom (dark purple), red ice plant, and blue veronica in bloom and the sedum, geum, sea thrifts, columbines, etc. The garden is full of weeds. The Virginia creeper has a healthy sprout of about 18 inches and is nearly ready to be attached to the telephone pole. The agave has 2 stems that are going to bloom. The area in front of the post has gone to 'weeds' that bloom, and the st. john's worte is growing like crazy also. The honeysuckle vine on the deck is in bloom - orange. Uploaded the 23SealBay under construction page (and photo).

June 4, 2023
Getting some stuff done on the May album. Put in the top code of the description of Page 18. Measured the back rock garden, is 11 feet by 4. Wrote up some stuff in the Garden room page about it, and stuff on page 18 or 19 of the May album. Added a bit to the back rock garden room. Call from Dan. He heard from Winnipeg Kim. Ralph passed away last night... nothing more yet as to plans. Pat phoned Lloyd. Moved the big half barrel liner to the deck. I am going to let it sit for a while to aerate and then move the fish from the tub so that I can drain the tub and clean it out. I will add some of the under water plant and put the trashed little lily back in. I have seen the little black fish -- maybe more than one, and only one of the gold fish. I am sure they both are in there though. I expect to put the irises down in the old plum tree stump area.

June 5, 2023
There were 2 quail in the front garden this morning. The back is full of birds. Did laundry. Cleaned up the deck tub. Have only one fish left. Have taken the irises out and have them sitting in a tray with water in it. Cleaned up the deck. Transplanted the lettuce into the lettuce pot, in the shade. All the pots got some of the green water from the tub. Was a beautiful day. Watered the cutting garden and the apple tree while the laundry was running.. for about an hour. Watered the patio pots and a bit around that area. The swallowtail butterfly was on the rhodo and on dames rocket. Sure hope it lays eggs on the fennel. The lizards should not be able to get them there.

June 6, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 94.0%. 27 degrees at 5:00. Kim phoned at about 10:30. He is being cremated, they are having a private, family celebration. No doubt Sandy's close friends as well. All are doing ok. Makes sense to me. Was to Cannor for about an hour. The place is under new management. (Wildwood outdoor living) They have no fish, but there is a good selection of water plants. Got an upright water clover (marsilea mutica), a water hycinth, a primula vivali, a dodecatheon 'queen victoria', Verbena rigida, Erysilmum hybrid (wall flower), gold fish food, for total of $76.53 after tax and my membership 10% off. Then went to Creatures Great and Small and got 4 big goldfish - called comets on the bill, but there are some sarassas (gold and white). They did not have any shubunkins in stock, for $15.68. Got home and moved 2 goldfish to the pond and 2 to Elvis's tub. Put Elvis back in the tub, and found the little black one -- dead. Put the water hyacinth in the tub, and a piece of the water weed from the pond. There are little duckweed from the hyacinth water, in the tub. I think that will be ok, as the fish need shade. I will be cleaning up the pond tomorrow and will deal with the water clover and the old water irises. I will have to find room for the clover in the pond or get a half barrel to use the black liner and keep a fish or 2 in it, and repot the old irises to add to it. Plant them in tall pots. Went out to check on the fish at 7:00. Have only 2 left in the tub. God knows what happened to the other one. The two in there now are just lieing around on the bottom. Was going to message Cindy on Facebook and she phoned. We talked and talked. Isabelle is doing ok.

June 7, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 93.8%. 28 degrees at 3:00. The 3 fish were gone from the tub this morning and the hyacinth was torn. The motion light had come on last night, so I think it was a racoon. I waded into the pond at about 10:00 to 12:30 this morning. Cleaned up the bottom of some leaves and debris, cut back some of the bog bean, cut off that tall iris looking thing, clipped off other dead leaves, etc. Found several rocks in the bottom, including a really big one and the blue slate. Put the blue slate back in the waterfall. Caught a little fish -- it is one of new ones, and put it in a pail of pond water. It was swimming around in the pond and was climatized. The last of the new ones is all gold and is quite lively in the pond. So, when feeding the fish today there were 2 white, 2 gold, 2 shubunkins. There should be 3 WHITE ONES. Also should be a tiny gold/white, and maybe some black ones. I have the sarossa in the Elvis tub with a hyacinth, the little lily, and the new water clover thing. Pat is going to fashion me a new top for this water tub out of the screen and attach it to the top of the tub with hooks. Used duct tape.

June 8, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 93.6%. 26 degrees at 3:00. Made up the broccoli, bacon, barley salad for supper. The tub on the deck was not touched. Falls still running, and the solar fountain is working. Too hot to go out. There has been swallowtail butterflies, and an admiral flying around the garden. The swallow tails feed on the rhodo and dames rocket. Got all the new plants added to the plant lists. Must not let the clover out of the water tub.. it is invasive!

June 9, 2023
There have been little humming birds at the feeder. Shopped got some very tasty and very expensive strawberries at a farm. Finished the page description of page 20 of the May album. Pat got the taxes paid. Over 4000 steps on the fitbit. No heart points, though. Ribs for supper. Did a couple of posts on Facebook.

June 10, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 93.0% as at 4:00 pm yesterday, so the rain we have had since then and overnight is not in that measurement. It was down to 11 degrees overnight, and is at 12 degrees and raining steadily at 10:00. Finished the page descriptions of all of the index pages -- 24 pages of the May album. Finished the menues on all these index pages. At noon we are still having a lovey rain. The water table is full. Did the ironing. Stopped raining by 2:00. Emptied an inch of rain out of the gauge. It is 17 degrees. I have started to clean up the guest room. It is very dusty, dirty. Sewed up the cover of the feather tick on one end only to discover that the zipper does not work and was just quickly sewn shut. Have moved Pat's stuff into his closet. Am starting to wash the bedding.

June 11, 2023
22 degrees at 2:00. Feels very hot. Was out taking a few photos. Might have a couple of butterfly shots to use on facebook. Fed and watered the house plants. The garden is all over grown and messy. I am not going out there until the uv index is lower. Finished the coding for the index pages of the May album. Finished Page 1 of the photo html menue. Stuffed the feather tick in its cover and sewed up another rent. Have to sew up the zipper yet.

June 12, 2023
25 degrees at 5:00. Made the gazpacho soup - 2 tall jars full. Did light laundry. Dragged the screen out from behind the rosemary and washed it all off. Pat is going to make a cover for the deck tub with some of it. Added one of the stocks back into the watch list, cannot get the other lost one in there.

June 13, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 92.6% even after the inch of rain. Fixed an error in the Cars stuff. Have to upload it to the page. Was out from 10:00 to 11:30. Cleaned up the little rose and around the patio area. Quickly cleaned along the driveway strip, pulling out bind weed, cutting out blackberries, cutting back roses, oregon grape, bits of St.John wort. It is 22 degrees with a little breeze. UV index at 7. Sun and some cloud. The end of the driveway strip is quite weedy. The butterflies like the dames rocket. The irises are finished blooming. Have the green bin 3/4 full. In for lunch and a bit of a rest. The temperature dropped to 18 as the cloud cover came over. Out from 1:30 to 4:00. Cleaned the bamboo and weeds out of the boulevard garden -- about 3 feet of the rectangle next to the driveway. Needs a lot more work yet. Took out the bamboo and weeds out of the thyme circle. Added a bit of compost to bare spots. Water around the front a bit. All the while I could hear the quails chirping. I think they were in the boulevard garden.

June 14, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 92.3%. 20 degrees at 2:00 and cloudy. Shopped at Dan's Farm and at Country grocer. Finished the towels from laundry. cooked up a jar of barley. made creamed cabbage, perogies, ham sasuage, baked onion, canned tomatoes for supper. Was out in the garden from 2:30 to 4:00. cut the front grass and put the clippings on the tree well.The grass was really tall and growing into the flower beds. The ignorant twit from next door is using the weed eater along my boxwood hedge and all along the property line. Loaded the car stuff pages to correct the mistake re the new dodge lodge. on zoom from 7:45 to about 8:45 in the Dolomites of Italy (I think) used to be Austria, maybe. War trenches way up in the mountains. Was interesting.

June 15, 2023
20 degrees at noon. Sunny and high uv index 17. Watered plants on deck, and the rhubarb. Watered around the shade garden a bit, and the fig tree garden room. Finished page 3 of the photo html index add on. Made the meatloaf, beets, mashed potatoes, salad ready to turn on for the supper. Went out to the front garden at about 2:45. Watered the plum tree for about 40 minutes. It was wet to the end of the tree well. Dead headed the roses and cleaned up the dead canes. Deaded headed the iberis and the siberian irises. Watered around the garden mostly the roses. Came in about 4:15. The 2 big quails were out in the garden, and walked over to the rock garden. When they saw me they had to fly off over the cedar hedge. I must find out what to feed them. updated windows.

June 16, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.9%. 21 degrees at 1:00. Was out in the back garden from 2:00 to 4:00. Cut the grass. Clipped back the jasmine and the western red cedar. Cleaned the holly leaves out of most of the flower beds. Watered the apple tree for about an hour, and the same for the pond area. The corners need water. Finished page 5 of the photo html index add on. Have potatoe salad, sole fish, califlower and gazpacho for supper. Finished the Seal Bay Rally 2023 on the Benz page. Have to load it to my page.

June 17, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.6%. 16 degrees at 10:00. Finished page 7 of the photo html index add on. Started planning the INNER GARDEN room plants list and photo album (separate pages, with links) Filled humming bird feeder. Did shaw bill and banking. Was out in the garden from 2:00 to 4:00. Cleaned out a half wheel barrow load of bamboo, grass, weeds, and trimmings from the honeysuckle pilea hedge. Still more cleaning up to do on that area. I may have to dig out the French lavender and start a new one in the Fall. Also start more of the little hedge and get it straight. I may have to dig over the rest of that rectangle and redo it all to get the grass out of the bed. Not sure I am up to getting that done. The golden yarrow is growing really good in this situation but it is a little bit shorter than it should be. At about 5:00 I went out and cut off a leaning over branch of the magnolia. Pat tells me it was okay for him to get the model t into the garage. Hope this is better. Still have to cut up the branches. When I was out earlier I fixed the little solar fountain to work again. Also a bit of weeding in the front rock garden.

June 18, 2023
Took me all morning to try to get my weather app to work on my phone. Does not work because Google have been mucking about with things. The app they want me to use is covered with advertising. So, I got a new one called Canada. It looks pretty good. I'll go with it. It is 18 degrees according to our thermometer at 2:00 and a 30% chance of rain now. Little hummingbird at the feeder and an Admiral butterfly flittering around. There are 3 blossoms and 4 more buds on the primula vivali, which is on the deck. It needs to stand in water. Out taking photos at about 2:15. Got back in at 2:40 when it started to rain and temperature is down to 15 degrees as per the thermometer. Watered a bit on the deck before the rain started. Quite a few bees on the French lavender... I think they were honey bees. Other bees around some of the flowers. The prince and gertrude jekyl have buds. All the garden rooms need weeding. Spent a couple of hours correcting the coding on the secret travel logue page. Finished page 12 of the photo html index add on.

June 19, 2023
Did the big washing. Made crepes St. Joques for supper with silly soup and califlower, with strawberries and frozen yogurt for dessert. Shopped for strawberries, green onions, mushrooms at Dan's farm and other groceries at the co-op. It has been fairly cool all day. 15 degrees at 5:00. Finished page 14 of the photo html index add on.

June 20, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 91.0%. 17 degrees at 3:00. We had the heat pump on last nite and this morning as it had been quite cool. We did not get the promised rain yesterday and last nite. It is overcast now, at 3:00. Watered the deck plants. Finished page 16 of the photo html index add on. Have 9 more to go. Phoned the pharmacy to get a refill of my meds. took forever. So, pick them up Friday. I wonder if the pharmacy cannot find anyone suitable to hire.
Scanned the computer this morning. Found nothing.

June 21, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 90.7%. 20 degrees at 11:00. Pat had the heat on for a few hours this morning. Finished page 20 of the photo html index add on. To lunch at the Dakota Cafe with Murray and Carol. Crepes for supper.

June 22, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 90.5%. 21 degrees at 11:00. took out compost box to back bin. Made cucumber salad. Finished page 24 of the photo html index add on, which is step 1 of the photo html coding. Have 60 photos of a pair of quails on the railing of the front entry way. Was out in the garden from 2:00 to 4:00. Watered around the front, watered the plum tree for over half an hour. Cut up the magnolia branch. Weeded a bit -- the sumacs are coming up and so pulled them all out. Took the compost pot to the back bin, and the coffee grounds to where the old rhubarb was. 2 strawberries to eat. I think the birds are getting them.

June 23, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 90.2%. 24 degrees at 1:00. Moved the light stand out from the wall up to the small table. This is far as it is going to be moved. Made the rice and sausage casserole, finished it after we had lunch. We went for my meds and strawberries and a few groceries. Back by 3:00 and out in the garden by 3:30. I moved the old water irises from the deck tub, and the primula vivali down to the end of the old sidewalk, where I put them into the black tub. I filled the tub with water to just over the top of the primula pot. Moved the verbena rigida to the front. Have the water turned on to the cutting garden by about 4:00. Took the wheel barrow to the front and planted the verbena in the magnolia garden room, along the front between the phlox and the milkweed (the milkweed has 3 stems and is surrounded by short bamboo stakes. The area is still pretty full of clay. I added some potting soil around the roots of the verbena. Put a rim of clay on the down side to keep the water around the plant. Then watered it in while the back sprinkler was still running. Watered around the trilliums and siberian irises, while watering the new transplants, and a bit for the roses. Then I weeded along the driveway to clean the weeds out of the iberis and dead-headed them up to the magnolia tree. I had changed the sprinkler to the pond area at 4:45. Turned it off at 6:00. Oh oh Guess who's coming to dinner. James and Barbera will be here shortly. Hope they like the casserole and cucumber salad. Good visit and all went well. Pat gave James the 1913 license plates for his Cadillac.

June 24, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 90.0%. 13 degrees at 10:00. 22 degrees at 7:30. Played on Facebook for most of the day. Loaded some lewisia photos to the secret Rock and Alpine group. About 4:00 started taking things out to the van, going in the side door. Have the fresh vegetables and frozen stuff to add. The step started making a great groaning sound when retracting. Pat looked at it and it is not something he can fix, so he is going to try and get BMT to look at it on Monday. He left it out and turned off the step. We will see what happens when he retracts the leveling jacks and starts the engine. I will load the rest of my clothes tomorrow (Sunday, Swapmeet day). If BMT cannot see us, we will carry on and just use our front doors, and see if we can find someone to fix it along our way.

June 25, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 90.0%. Same as yestered as it is Sunday. 22 degrees at 12:00. Downloaded the quails photos. Loaded my clothes, camera stuff, and few odds and ends.

June 25, 2023
25 degrees at 3:00. Have loaded all the food and clothes, etc to the van for our trip. Added the little oven. Did a load of laundry for Pat. Did light vaccuming around the house. Pat was unable to get a hold of BMT. He is doing some work on the step now. Its the hotest time of the day. No luck with fixing it. We will use the front doors to get in and out. Have the coffee set in the house, to make in the morning to fill the thermos. Filled the humming bird feeder. Watered lightly at the front for about 1/2 hour. Did not get the plum tree watered. Dead headed the simplicity rose and the iceberg rose. Watered around the back for about 1/2 hour and filled the pots on the patio and at the back with water. Pat talked to Rosalie L. with plans to spend sometime at their place and then hopefully 2 or 3 nights in the Medicine Hat campsite and see LB and her mom, and go to Elkwater.

July 2023

July 19, 2023
On July 15 we caught the 12:00 ferry and got home from our trip to Sask. Moved things in from the Last Lodge. Made supper. My printer will not print. Tried to fix things but messed it up even more. Rogers were making changes to the servers. Pat's computer works fine.
July 16, 2023 (Sunday) Moved plants back to their corner.
Did Laundry, filled the pond, watered the deck plants. More stuff in from the Van. Made the supper.
July 17, 2023 (Monday) Made appointment with Ahmed to come over and fix my computer at 4:30. Washed my hair. Watered around the back. More van stuff, I think.
July 18, 2023 (Tuesday) Sorted the banking stuff to get the Visa Bonus points collected which Pat did. Credit Union is changing to a new Visa card. Went to the bank to get the cancelled cheques copies. We did letter for the CRA and mailed it. Got lots of vegetables from Mitchell Farms, and some from Country grocer. Later got a hot chicken and made the supper.

July 19, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 83.4%. 28 degrees at 2:00. Got the rest of the banking done, copies the shaw bill the hydro bill. Downloaded the Sask. trip photos to the pictures 2023 folder. Made 3 jars of cranberries. Still have ironing to do and the bedding etc to take out to the van. Did up photo of VisitDon and sent to Pat.

July 20, 2023
31 degrees at 4:00. There are very hot temperatures in Southern Europe and southwestern USA. actually all over the USA. Along with all these high temperatures there is drought and forest fires. Earlier in the year there were floods in B.C. On our trip we managed to avoid the forest fires, although, we were close to one in the Revelstoke area. When we took a boon docking place at a Harvest Host winery at Enderly; the air was hazy when we left. We shopped in Revelstoke for groceries. Once we got on the Coquihalla the air cleared and we got to Chilliwack at the expensive Cottonwood Meadows place, and managed to catch the noon ferry for home the next day. There have been lots of ferry cancellations for various reasons, so we were lucky to get on that ferry, too. So: today, I was out in the front garden for about an hour and watered the plum tree for about 1/2 an hour of that time. Pulling weeds and cutting bamboo, ect. for the rest of the time. In the afternoon, I made crab stuffed mushrooms and then was out in the garden at the front for another hour, watering all around the front - roses, irises, etc. Pat sharpened the knives today and got groceries.

July 21, 2023
23 degrees at 10:45. Sooke reservoir at 82.9%. Finished the ironing with a cool breeze blowing in the open window.

July 22, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 82.3%. 20 degrees and sunny at 9:30. While trying to fish out the broken little solar fountain, I found that the battery part was broken off, and there were rocks in the pond. So, I stopped filling the pond and have the pump unplugged. It does not seem to be loosing water when the waterfall is not running. So, I have a plan to take out the all the rocks and soil. Then put the old half barrel black tub in a suitable spot to make the water fall straight down from the long spout without an EPDM liner run. The spillway will sit in the black tub and have its connections tighted up. The black tub will be a place for the primula vivalis (spelling) and other bog like plants. and hopefully will keep that squirrel from digging under the rocks and moving the spillway. I have no idea how those fish get those rocks into the pond. I don't think there is a leak in the liner. Tomorrow I'll wade into the pond and get out the solar fountain parts and any of the rocks that are in there. I counted the fish when I fed them: 2 whites, 2 golds, 2 shubunkins. I saw a tiny white/gold one earlier. I have finished the pages for the Sask 2023 trip and have loaded them to the page. Have finished all pages with long menus but have not loaded them yet. 26 degrees at 5:30. There has been 2 humming birds back at the feeder recently.

July 23, 2023
24 degrees at 10:30. 27 Degrees at 4:00 and it is beginning to cloud over. Was out wading in the pond from 11:00 to 1:00. Did a lot of clipping of dead leaves and too much bog beans. Threw out lots of that fine leaved under water oxygenating plant. Cleaned the pump. As I refilled the pond I started clipping back the Lebanon cedar shrub. Have about 1/3 of it left to do and will also clip the cedar across the path from it, as well as level a couple of the cement pavers. I have to clean up all the clippings yet. Am going to put another board under the place where the water over flows the edges when filling the pond. The water runs down past the viewing platform. Will see how much more water I can get in the pond after that. I forgot to search for the left over parts of the little broken solar fountain. I did not find any rocks in the pond. I removed most of the rocks on the water fall. I am going to do a major repair on the spillway and waterfall. I want to add the half barrel liner to under the spillway and move it all closer to the pond so that there is no EPDM liner under that waterfall area. The spillway will just drop into the pond from itself. I will need to tighten up the hose connections to the spillway. I have filled the pond to just beneath the blocks that are in front of the boxwood. The willows are spreading like crazy and looking pretty good. I guess their roots are in the pond. Came in and threw my clothes into the washer, bathed and made the lunch at about 2:00. Dishes and watered the deck plants to 3:30. We are to get rain over night and 80% chance of rain at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. This might skew my evaporation rate. I have 3 white fish, 2 gold comets, 2 shubunkins, one tiny one (might be a sarossa), and a small black one. The old ones are getting really big. I am throwing out the water clover as it is an invasive plant. It is from Australia and is on WASHINGTON STATE Noxious Weed Control Board. I hope to be able to put the primula vialii in the tub under the spillway as it now sits in water and blooms. I do hope this will deter that squirrel from digging in the waterfall mountain. Dimensions: 14.5 in. x 10.5 in. x 6 in. (L x W x H) with 8 in. spillway opening Fits 3/4 and 1 in. ID tubing (tubing not included) https://thepondboss.net/products/waterfall-weir-8-in-1 See the video: https://thepondboss.net/products/waterfall-weir-8-in-1 Or see: https://www.mmmee.com/Water . I decided that I would make another photo album to record all the renovations since 2020. Shall note it on this https://www.mmmee.com/Water page and on the menus. Get photos of the sedum edgings and the spillway when I get it repositioned.

July 24, 2023
Got the laundry done up and bed made, all the clean clothes put away. There is no ironing to be done. We had very little rain over night. I thought it was raining pretty good at 4:00 a.m. At about 3:30 pm it started to rain again. Was cloudy all day. It is only 17 degrees at 4:00 pm. I made a big chef's salad for lunch with cheese sticks and cream cheese, and cherries. Made up the cucumber salad. We have over .5 of an inch of rain in the gauge at 7:00 pm.

July 25, 2023
17 degrees at 10:30. Was up from about midnight to 2:00 last night looking for the information on the spillway installation and the pond edging made of the sedum filled trays. I found some information on the Journal entries of 2021 and my blog post of blog post of April of 2021. Have spent about an hour organizing the information to make blog posts and briefly add the information and the blog posts to the ...

July 26, 2023
The information from the JE2021 indicates that we installed the spillway about the 26 of March 21. It has 2 waterfalls and was working just fine for the past 2 years. There were adjustments to setting the level straight. And many renovations to the pond edges. I think I will make blog posts about these items and add a link to them on the Water page. I have had the pump turned off for the last few days. Filled the pond and monitored the approximate loss of water level in the pond. In the interim we have had somewhat over 1.5 inches in the water gauge. When I looked at that gauge this morning it showed well below the over 1.5 inches of water. So evaporation has been the reason for the fall of the level of water in the pond. I thought the waterfall was causing this, and started to tear down the waterfall to rebuild it by moving the spillway to the edge of the pond and have just one water fall straight into the pond. After the observation of the amount of evaporation I am not going to change anything on the waterfall for now. Just get it leveled again. And turn the pump back on. Also going to try and raise the lowest spot of the edging liner where it overflows and runs into what used to be the dry stream. I watered the house plants today. Made up some turnip, saskatoon berries, apple and a bit of brown sugar. It really is tasty. I think I will use it as a salad for lunchtime meals. The Sooke reservoir is at 81.7 after 80 mm of rain. We have not been getting the paper delivered so the last reading I had was on July 22 at Sooke reservoir at 82.3%. There have been very hot days and then the 80 mm of rain. 80 mm is 3.14961 inches. (according to the rainfull in the Sooke Reservoir. 1.7 inches equal 43.18 millimeters. (according to the rain gage on my deck). So, about half as much as the Sooke reservoir. In cleaning up the plants on the deck, I have thrown out the newly purchased Marsilea mutica because it is a very aggressive invasive plant. (purchased at Cannor or Wildwood whatever they are now). I see that the yellow loose strife is popping up again, too. Shall have to remove it. The little centaurium scilloides dried up while we were away on the trip to Sask. so I shall mark it as dead on the purchases page. It is 23 degrees at 2:30. Was out in the garden from 2:30 to 4:00. The garden is really weedy and out of control. The deck looks better after its clean up. Clipped back the Lebanon cedar and some of the globe cedar across the path from it. Took the prickly clippings to the green bin. Put a board under the liner next to the sedum trays. Filled the pond. It fills a bit higher and the overflow spot is now just beneath the sedum tray. Replaced the rocks in the waterfall and ran the pump. It looks good. untill the next time the fish get playing with the rocks. The squirrel had been digging on the mermaid side and the flat rock just below where the water falls into the pond has slid off its shelf. Trevor needs to set up the Nod anti virus for the year.

July 27, 2023
Trevor set to update the antivirus at 12:00 on August 25, by remote. Sooke reservoir at 81.4%. 24 degrees at 1:30. Yesterday's fix to the waterfall spillway worked fine. There is very little reduction in the water level now, at 1:30. Made changes to the plantlists page recording the death of a little plant and threw out the invasive water clover from Cannor. Was out in the garden from 2:30 to 5:00. Weeded around the patio and up the old sidewalk up to the Lily of the Nile blue plants, and the edge of the fig tree up to the stepping stones. Pulled out lots Aquilegia (Columbines) and dried Oriental poppies. Cut back that horrid peony species. I must take it out... it is just too gross. I now have a little rose showing and a tiny balloon flower. Picked up clippings by the white pot at the back. Have some clipping to do back there, asp. Have the green bin almost full. Took out the blue bin. Moved one big and 2 little bulbs of the oxalis bulbs (Oxalis adenophylla) that grow along the edge of the old sidewalk, moved them to the front gold wall rockery. One next to the big red sempverium and the two small ones into the first level below the red heucera. Silver leaves and pink flowers, silver shamrock. There are some of these plants with leaves and the rest have no leaves. The ones I moved had no leaves, but I think this is about the time to plant them... perhaps a bit later. The bulbs looked healthy with a few roots. Must water them. I added a bit of water to the pond. The waterfall was looking good. Watered around the back a very little bit.

July 28, 2023
25 degrees at 2:00. Cancelled my Flickr pro account and deleted a bunch of photos, leaving 682. Sorting photos for the blog post about the renos for the spillway and pond surrounds from March 21 to the present. Then there will be a reno of the back garden for the same time period, and a following post about the front garden renos.

July 29, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 81.0%. Normal for year to date: 444.8 mm. Today for year to date: 266.1. We are 178.7mm less than normal. We are definitely in a drought and no rain in sight for a week. It is 21 degrees at 10:30 and cloudy. Spent the day sorting photos for blog posts. All the fish are in the pond. The water has not gone down much. So, I think it is just evaporation. Waterfall looks good. no rocks moved about that I noticed. Found a good recipe for when the avacado is ripe .. Avocado and shrimp. Divided up the frozen blueberries into baggies of about 3 cups each for 5.5 pkgs.

July 30, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 81.0% (they don't up date it on Sunday). I was quite ill with what I suspect was food poisoning last night, from 10:30 to about 1:30. We had a wonderful dinner of corn on the cob, breaded scallops and snap peas. Blueberries and frozen vanilla yogurt. I suspect I got a bad scallop, but thank heavens Pat did not have the problem. I have finished sorting the photos for my blog posts about the water garden renos. I think I will finish the May album before doing the blog posts. Did up some of the Photo captions for the May album. Bad news about Lloyd and his health.

July 31, 2023
Made lime jello and avocado salad, did the light laundry, filled the humming bird feeder, dead headed a few plants at the front and watered around the front lightly. The iceberg rose is full of buds. One of the lilies has 2 blooms and is very fragrant (in the front gold wall rockery. (picture) Made a beef stew for supper. Adjusted the time on the camera. All this done before 2:30. 21 degrees at 5:00. Finished coding Page 1 of photo captions.

August 2023

August 1, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 80.0%. 23 degrees at 11:00. Was out to the garden from 1:00 to 3:00. It was 25 degrees and felt really hot. watered the deck plants, the patio plants and the ones at the end of the old sidewalk, including the rhubarb by hand. Cut back the firethorn and put 3 wood blocks behind it to stop it from growing into old weird Sheila's place. Cut off wisteria twining things from the yew area. Cut back the fig tree and some of the grape. Pruned and shaped the globe cedar across the path from the Lebanon cedar in the water garden surroundings. Picked up some of the old clippings from the viewing platform. Put more clippings from the front garden into the bin and dragged it to the curb. Watered a tiny bit around the back garden. Made up the 3 meat loaf packages and froze them. Spaghetti for supper.

August 2, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 79.8%. 23 degrees at 11:00. Downloaded July photos. Finished the captions for the photos for Page 2 of the May album. I should have 5 trilliums including both ovatum. Shopped for vegetables at Mitchell farms and lottery tickets at Co-op Gas station. Finished step 2 of Pages 1 and 2 ma40 and ma41.

August 3, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 79.6%. 26 degrees at 1:00. Took out the compost. Watered around the back a bit and added a bit of water to the pond. Pat has had the hose dripping on the plum tree all night and faster this morning. Its quite wet close to the tree down to the edge of its water trap. I moved the hose a bit over and left it on low drip for awhile. Watered around the front a very little bit. It is way too hot to be out there. Threw the over ripe bananas out for the butterflies. Finished step2 and captions of Page 3 of the Photos of the May album and up to

August 4, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 79.3%. 26 degrees at 1:00. Spent the morning sorting my emails. Got my shaw mail mixed up. Bother! Finally got things sorted out at 2:00. Have deleted about 200 old gmail emails. August 3, 2023.

August 5, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 79%. 26 degrees at 1:00. Deleted more old emails in Shaw mail and in hotmail. Finished Page 5 of the photos of the May album. 19 more pages to go until ready to upload to website. Need to complete at least one page per day to have them finished by August 30th. Made the jello pineapple cottage cheese salad. Watered the deck plants and the house plants. Made zuccinni tots (extra large batch) half filling the 7 litte oven use glass muffin containers. The muffin containers rose to almost full when finished the baking time with the cheddar cheese melted on top. Prepared the yellow beans and the sockey salman steaks to cook. Finished the Page 6 of the May album.

August 6, 2023
We don't get the Sooke reservoir readings on Sunday or Monday. Overcast and 24 degrees at 11:30. Finished Page 7 and 8 of the photos in the May album. Filled the pond, fed the fish. Saw the tiny white one. Weeded around the dry stream a bit. It is 25 degrees at 2:30.

August 7, 2023
26 degrees at 1:00. Big Laundry day. Vaccumed around the top floor. Filled the humming bird feeder. Filled the lemonaide jar. Bought the UFO book last night on Google. about $38.00. Deleted more stuff from gmail and hotmail. Finished Page 9 of the photos in the May album. Saw the black fish. It is almost as big as the gold ones.

August 8, 2023
No reading for the Sooke reservoir. 23 degrees at 11:30. Found a recipe to make the left over salmon into a pasta salmon salad. Pat tells me that he spoke to the Saanich guys out in front of our place. They are going to dredge out the Colquitz, and repair the sewage line that has sprung a leak. This line is under the river, so they have to dig down to it, repair it, add a protective pipe or something to it, and put all the gravel, etc back. Then take out the dam and let the water flow again. The water they take out may drain into what we used to call the deer pasture, which is park now and just across the road from us. Last Fall they planted 12 new trees in this area. Hope Penninsula Streams can seize this moment to get them to remove invasive plants. I think Pat said there was a Mann digging machine of some kind out there. Hope they notice the Syrians, next door and their auto repair business and old parts in their yard washing into the river. The department of fisheries is working with these guys. Surely they will check the quality of the water, when finished the job. Changed the grey and yellow ink in the printer. Finished Pages 10 and 11 of the photos in the May album. Made the Salmon, pasta salad for supper.

August 9, 2023
20 degrees at 10:30. Sooke reservoir at 78.0% as at 4:00 pm yesterday. 25 degrees at 3:30. Windows update. Filled the pond. The waterfall is getting clogged up with silt. There are too many wasps around there to fix it. Finished the Page 12 of the photo pages of the May album.

August 10, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 77.8%. Cleaned up the window in the library a bit. Did the ironing. Finished the Pages 13 14 and 15 of the photo pages of the May album. 25 degrees at 2:30. Watered around the back from 1:45 to 2:30 then left the hose running lightly on the apple tree. Turned the hose off at about 3:30. It clouded over for a couple of hours and sure could have had some rain by the looks of it.

August 11, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 77.6%. Paid Utilities. The waterfall was not working. So I opened the spillway and it did not seem to be getting water. I cleaned out the waterfall and it still did not have much water going over the spillway. Well, of course, uplugged the pump and found it was all plugged up. The filter was missing. I do not know where the plastic outside box for the foam filter has gone. It should float in the pond, but I cannot find it. So, I fashioned a mesh plastic bag and put the foam in it with a piece of garden hose shoved into the foam and into the pump inlet at the other end. Tied the plastic mesh bag to the pump. It works now as the water outlet of the pump got cleaned out. So, we'll see if the fish can untie all the strings to the mesh bag. God almighty they are brilliant fish. Finished the Page 16 of the photo pages of the May album.

August 12, 2023. 26 degrees at 12:30. The motion light came on last night. I could see no damage to the pond area this morning. The fish were down at the bottom when I fed them and took a minute or two to come up to eat, but they all seemed to be there. Made the ceasar salad for supper, made the potato salad for supper. Made up cup and half of beef gravey from last night's roast. Finished this by 2:00. Watered the little rockery at the back to be sure the daphne domini and others survive. Finished the Pages 17 and 18 of the photo pages of the May album. 6 pages to go.

August 13, 2023
We are on water restrictions, schedule 1. The Sooke reservoir is at 76.5% on August 15, 2023. I can water with the sprinkler Wednesdays and Saturdays from 4:00 to 10:00 am and 7:00 to 10:00 pm. And any time by hand for established trees, and plants. The heat wave starts today (Sunday) and is suppose to run to about Thursday. It is at 27 degrees at noon. Borden Mercantile does delivery: $25.00. Finished the Pages 19 and 20 of the photo pages of the May album. 29 degrees at 2:00. Was out to garden and found the filter part of the pump floating in the pond by the tall irisis on the plum tree stump side. Fished it out and cleaned it off while watering the apple, the little rock garden, the strawberry patch/cutting garden and a very little bit along the fig tree garden room. tried to fix the flow of the waterfall, filled the pond a bit. I have left my makeshift filter on the pump for now. It seems to be working ok. Watered the deck plants.

August 14, 2023
28 degrees at 12:00. I have unplugged the pump because the filter I fashioned has filled with debris and plugged up the pump. I have done the laundry. Finished the Pages 21 and 22 of the photo pages of the May album. Was out in the garden from 2:00 to 3:45 by the time I got in and cleaned up. I attached the filter (with out the foam inside) and the hose came off the pump. Got a hose clamp and attached it tightly. The spillway still was not working very well. Took the rocks off tightened all the hose connections, tipped the spillway a bit up at the back, back filled the back and the deck sides with some pea gravel and replaced rocks. The spillway is working better. The water falling off the ends of the blue slate is not great. I need a longer spill rock with a level edge. Probably narrowing the litte run of water from the spillway to the spill rock would work. I could back fill the EPDM on the sides a bit with pea gravel to narrow it at the spill rock end. Filled the pond a bit. Cleaned up a bit of the debris around the viewing platform. It is 33 degrees out there! Pat has gone to get revels! Oh Yeah!

August 15, 2023
The Sooke reservoir is at 76.5%. 25 degrees at 10:00. Finished Page 23 of the photos in the May album. Made up the humming bird feed. Took the van bedding and towels out and made up the bed. Emptied the trash that had been sitting there since we got back from Saskatchewan a month ago.

August 16, 2023
Didn't get our paper again so do not know what the reservoir is at. Met Harvey and Valerie at the ship (cruise to Alaska) and went to lunch at the James Bay Inn. Good visit. Everyone is ageing, of course. Dropped them off by the Legislature. They are going to walk downtown and probably catch the shuttle bus back to the ship. Napped in the afternoon. Made late supper of spam and beans. 25 degrees at 8:00. Turned the sprinkler at the back on, at about 8:00 to 8:30 then moved to over the water garden. Watered from 8:40 to 9:30. Its my day to water from 7:00 to 10:00 at night and 4 to 10 in the morning. Looked at the stuff to make a blog post and decided just to use the 2023 photos to catch up all the renos. Fed the fish. did the banking.

August 17, 2023
22 degrees at 9:30. The Sooke reservoir is at 76.0%. Watered the house plants. We will be having a few degrees cooler weather now, after the heat wave.

August 20, 2023
Yesterday the Sooke reservoir was at 75.4%. It was too smokey outside so I did not go out to water. (Saturdays are my watering day. I am making good progress on creating the Driveway strip garden room page. Will use this page as the template for the rest of the garden room pages. I list the plants in each garden room, with growing instructions, etc. and where each plant appears in the garden room. Today is Sunday so we do not get a Sooke reservoir reading. There will be the King's Plate horse race at 1:00 and Regina and BC football game at 5. We will have Romeo's pizza for supper. Would be a good gardening day, but it is still smokey. Filled the pond for about 5 minutes. It needs 5 more to be full. Watched the Kings Plate horse race.

August 21,(Monday) 2023
25 degrees at 3:30. Did the big laundry. Clipped back the white rose and watered around the front a bit. Have a bouquet of white roses in the living room. Filled the pond. The fire fighters are keeping the forest fire away from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. "Yellowknife 'still under a threat' despite rains in area, mayor says. All the people except the firefighters and the support people have been evacuated to Calgary, to Manitoba to where ever there might be room for them. Officials say the fire burning near Yellowknife is now "highly unlikely" to reach the outskirts of the city until at least Wednesday, while the city's mayor is repeating calls for the few who remain to evacuate and for those who have left not to return. Over the weekend, the fire was expected to move four to five kilometres toward Yellowknife. It's currently about 15 kilometres away from city limits. There is a huge fire in the Kelowna and West Kelowna area. The city of Kelowna was in a “good position” on Monday morning, with cool weather having helped firefighters attack — rather than defend against — the out-of-control McDougall Creek wildfire. Structures have been lost in Kelowna and Lake Country, but the majority are in West Kelowna. Meanwhile, wildland firefighting and structure protection are still in full swing, particularly in the Columbia Shuswap region, where the new Bush Creek East wildfire burns at more than 41,000 hectares in size, Tower said. That fire was so named after the Lower East Adams Lake fire complex merged with an adjacent fire. Staff from more than 30 municipalities across the province have to come to the aid of West Kelowna and Kelowna, in addition to the Canadian Coast Guard, the Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP. Homes destroyed in West Kelowna; large fires loom near Lytton and Invermere; stretches of Hwy 1 closed. Two fast-moving British Columbia wildfires have burned down blocks of homes, stores and buildings in multiple communities in the Shuswap region, the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) confirmed Saturday. Residents of more than 3,500 properties in the area had to evacuate on Friday and Saturday as "extreme fire behaviour" is expected to prompt more evacuation orders in the coming days, according to BCWS and local emergency officials. BCWS spokesperson Forrest Tower said northerly winds blew the Lower East Adams Lake wildfire into Scotch Creek and as far east as Celista on the north shore of Shuswap Lake, a popular tourist destination about 150 kilometres north of Kelowna. Also overnight, the Bush Creek East fire, burning west of Adams Lake, burned into the Skwlax te Secwepemculecw community of Squilax and across Highway 1 between Chase and Sorrento, and began to climb Squilax Mountain on the lake's south shore. B.C. restricts travel in southern Interior as wildfires force 30,000 out of homes. A 400-person BCWS base camp evacuated overnight as well, forcing some staff to regroup in Kamloops. "I don't know of another time where a 400-person camp was demobilized in three hours ... [about] 50 to 100 people ... had to take down tents and get everyone's personal gear and get all our laptops and all that kind of stuff down." 1 day ago: The BC Wildfire Service continues to respond to the Bush Creek East wildfire (K21633), which now also encompasses the Adams Lake wildfire (previously K21620). This incident remains a dynamic situation and we are working with our partners to manage multiple complexities associated with this wildfire. The following is an operational update as of August 20 at 13:30. Personnel continue to respond on the ground and wherever conditions allow, crews are being supported by aerial resources. West and East of Adams Lake: • BCWS is monitoring the properties on both sides of Adams Lake and actively working with BC Transportation and Infrastructure to get the Holding Bridge repaired and Holding Road cleared. ETA on this is 4-5 days for repairs. Ferry management is engaged with any repairs, maintenance, or fueling required for the ferry. There is an effective community response that is engaged with BC Wildfire on both sides of the lake. • The Interfor strike team continues to mop up in the Adams Forest Service Road (FSR) area. There is a daily DTA/DTF of Adams FSR and 5400 Road. North of Shuswap Lake: • Currently, crews and equipment are assessing for viable line construction opportunities in the Celista and Magna Bay area to direct fire spread to the north and away from communities. • Structure protection is working in the Lee Creek Drive area where the fire is backing slowly downslope. Once the fire is burning in accessible terrain crews will engage above the structures and start working the perimeter of the fire. • Along Bischoff Road northwest of Magna Bay, structural firefighters are working to triage and engage structure protection resources. The current fire perimeter is accurate on the eastern flank near Magna Bay and burning Rank 1 or less. No imminent threat and community response is engaged. Little Shuswap Lake: • A BCWS unit crew and a Brazilian crew are working from Little Shuswap Lake north to Loakin-Bear Creek road. The line is tied in securely above homes as of this morning. They're continuing to push north now. Crews are also working along Loakin-Bear between 2-4km. A 20-pack of Brazilian firefighters is working along the road and building a machine line on the north side of Loakin Valley. • Tankers worked to put retardant lines in the Little Shuswap area to support crews and equipment lines going in. South of highway 1: • Heavy helicopter bucketing on the south side of Hwy 1 on the western flank to try and direct fire growth upslope to the south and away from the Village of Chase - Municipality. • An initial attack task force still working above Sorrento with a 20-pack of Brazilian firefighters putting in direct hand line above homes and continuing to steer fire upslope and away from the community. Find all the updates for this fire here: https://wildfiresituation.nrs.gov.bc.ca/incidents... and on and on it goes. We have an air quality alert and it is a bit smokey. Pat tells me the barracks at Vernon have been opened to evacuees.

August 22,(Tuesday) 2023
Sooke reservoir at 74.6%. 13 degrees at 10:00. Cleaned up the white rose and watered around the front a bit. Finished the Driveway strip plants list page. Made the breaded white fish for supper.

August 23, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 74.4%. We were suppose to get rain over night and this morning. There was some water on the water table early this morning but nothing else seemed to be wet. Watered the house plants. Watered the deck plants. I am getting the photo album finished for the Driveway strip garden room. Up to No.15 of the last step, being the photo captions. 22 degrees at 2:00.

August 24, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 74.1%. 18 degrees at 10:00. There was a bit of water on the water table this morning. I think we must be getting some heavy dew overnight. Finished the driveway room files and photo album, changed all the menus and the progress page. Sooke reservoir at 74.1%.

August 25, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 73.9%. Up Pictures #8 in sorting photos to some of the albums.

August 26, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 73.6%. Moved the 00sorting album out of the Web page and into the Old web page. Filled the hummingbird feeder. Turned the back sprinkler on at 6:00. It got up to 30 degrees this afternoon. Went to the Greekfest for Greek food tonite.August 26, 2023

August 27, 2023
Have the Bouquet photos sorted and started to Photoshop and size them. Its 27 degrees at 1:00.

August 28, 2023
Lunch at Flying club cafe.. dakota cafe. Sorted Pictures #8. Found a frame I made to use, maybe. Did laundry. Crazy weather. 20 degrees at 3:00. We have had thunder, no lightning, mere spits of rain since 1:30. It is 5:00 now.

August 29, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 72.9%. There was thunder and lightning and wee bits of rain last night. Cloudy today but no rain. Pat came home from shopping and there were some kids up on a ladder picking off the plums. He had to get a grown up in charge of them, from the Syrian/palistin people. Told him that was our tree: we planted it and took care of it. They weren't there a bit later when I took out my bin. They picked and kept a lot of plums, and the plums are not quite ripe yet. There was about a dozen of them on the ground that I brought in. Frkin' foreigners. Got a bit more done on the Bouquets page... finished 4 lines, some with frames.

August 30, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 72.2%. 21 degrees at 1:00. Did bank stuff, scam email stuff. Finished searching Pictures 13. Pat picked 3.6 lbs of plums (3 dozen)

August 31, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 72.5%. We had about .25 of an inch of rain last night. 18 degrees at 10:00. Finished searching Pictures 21. Have 5 pages done/to be done. So, if I add any more there will have to be 15 photos. Threw the old Pee and his chair out of the tree. Dragged him out. He was clining to a branch. Creep was trying to spit on me.. just like an animal. Dave was there later to repeat the lies. About they heard about us. And the old Pee was collecting the plums for the kids who are constanly picking the plums..stupid lie. And that they don't want any of the plums for themselves. He mentioned that I could do a survey, they have not built too close to our house. Also mentioned that they 'knew' the guy that we bought the house from. I started to say that he was the guy who told me.. and stopped. Dave seemed to be a bit taken aback at that; further increasing my determination that there needs to be a survey done.

September 2023

September 1, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 72.3%. I think we had a bit of rain last night. Finished searching Pictures for Bouquets. Have a couple extras. 20 degrees at 10:00. Was out in the garden from 1:30 to 2:30. Fixed the water fall and its mountain on both sides. It is beginning to look better. Dug in the flat rock. Added some pea gravel all over. Filled in under one of the pavers where the water runs out when it over flows, with more pea gravel and pounded a pointy stone in under the outter edge. I think its more stable. I had filled the pond while working on the water fall, and it was over flowing when I fixed the paver. It was 25 degrees when I came in. Started things for the supper.

September 2, 2023
No sooke reservoir reading today. 24 degrees at 12:30. Have finished tweaking 2 pages of the Boquets album. Watered around the front a bit. pulled out a few dead solomon's seal plants. Found that the old fart from next door had pulled off some plum tree branches and threw them on my grass path by the simplicity rose. I threw them back on his driveway where he likes to sit on his chair in front of their garage. Watered around the back (on the apple tree and fig tree) with the sprinkler for about an hour. I like how the waterfall looks now. I need to clean off the pump to get a faster flow of water, I think. On a LB store and Lee Valley and Super store, and a look at the old Nob Hill where they had 4 or 5 digging machines that were idle due to the holiday, no doubt. There were huge culvert things all around and a couple of different holes excavated.

September 3, 2023
Spent far too much time on doing up the black tulips -- cloning, etc. and did not use it after all. Am now finished tweaking 3 pages of the Boquets album. Made the gazpacho soup. 2 jars 4/5 full. Took me 1.5 hours. Made apple sauce - .5 of a plastic pkg. and froze it. It started raining at 3:00. 7:30 no more rain at the moment. only had a few millimeters. Got Greek food and watched the excellent football game between the Winnipeg blue bommers and Sask. Roughriders. Wow what a game! It went into overtime, and Sask. blocked Winnipeg from scoring after they had scored, to win the game.

September 4, 2023
Cleaned up the light garden and fertilized it. Did the laundry. Made the chicken cordon bleu casserole for supper. 20 degrees at 4:00.

September 5, 2023
Made Asian Plum Sauce using about 12 - 14 of the plums. Have 18 left in the house for eating. Made up the Chinese 5 five spice mix for using in the Plum Sauce. Have 1 cup frozen sauce and 1 cup in the fridge. It is delicious. I used the 1/4 of a cup extra on our vegetables for lunch. This took me all morning to do. Typed up the recipes for the sauce and the spice mix. Made potato salad for supper with the cold chicken, and will have cold soup as the salad. Finished tweaking 4 pages of photos for the Boquets album. updated London drugs password.

September 6, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 71.2%. 17 degrees at 10:00. Finished tweaking and numbering the photos for 5 pages of the Bouquets album. Watered at the back a bit this afternoon, filled the pond. We spent 2 hours in Mikey's office today. After covid people in that bank are now dressing casual. Not turning up in their pyjamas yet, though.

September 7, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 71.0%. 20 degrees at 11:00. Made up humming bird feed. Watered deck plants. Updated the Amplifi. Swept up a few kitchen crumbs. Made the Boquets album with 5 pages of 15 photos each ..75 photos, on silver background. I like that background. Maybe I will make all the new gardening albums silver. Started the coding.

September 8, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 70.8%. 21 degrees at 4:00. Made the tuna casserole. Pat picked plums for 10 minutes and came in with 4 dozen of them. They are delicious and clean, unlike the ones from on the ground. I will make a pie tomorrow. I got mucking about looking at Spriggs instagram from the old horts website, where they noted he had done a talk for them on Crevice gardening of course. So, tried to get myself back on instagram, as if I need this! Managed to get myself forever disabled unless I piss and moan about it sometime in the next 180 days. Yeah well they want my real name and real birthday, so to hell... I don't need it. I have got a bit of the codeing done on the index pages of the bouquets page. Spelled wrong on aLL the menu links, etc. and spelled right on the 'alb' page in the album. No matter. Pat is having a terrific day.. got his rebate or whatever it is called, on the heat pump.

September 9, 2023
Got caught in another damn scan to do with my shaw email.. actually clicked the spot and stumbled around and got my Shaw email password changed... and it changed MyShaw password... when I finally realized it was a scam... I again changed my password... Google tells me it is for MyShaw and for my mmmee@shaw.ca email. So, I think I am okay now. Wasted the whole damn morning on this. When will I ever learn?????????????? Took 2 hours to make the 9 inch plum pie. 10 minutes to do dishes. Shaw mail seems to be working at 2:00. Baked at 365 degrees for 45 minutes. Pat picked 39.3 oz = 2.394 lbs of plums today. 2 short of 3 dozen plums.

September 10, 2023
Had trouble getting onto my shaw on the cognito page on Chrome. It is the new password that I got on with. So.. stop worrying. Did laundry. Some critter has been on the waterfall and the pump has stopped working. Have to fix it. Reset did not make it go, must be plugged up. Damn. Bought another book last night. Finished the captions for Page 1 of the photo album of Boquets. Was out from 2:30 to 4:20, got the pump fixed. Seems the hose to the waterfall was discontected. Pat gave me a new hose clamp and helped me get it reconnected. Finally got the switches working to make the waterfall run. I dipped out a lot of the under water oxygenator plant and some of the stringy algae. Filled the pond. Fixed the rocks by the mermaid. I have unplugged it for now. Will put the pump and its filter back in the red bag tomorrow. It is 23 degrees at 5:00, and no rain after all the expectations of 40% chance of rain all afternoon today. I found another piece of stray pump plastic... the other day a red washer mysteriously appeared ... same place: by the rocks where I take the pump out to fix it. I saw all the fish but the black/orange shubunkin when I fed the fish at about 4:30. There might be another little one that might have some silver on its white.

September 12, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 69.8%. 17 degrees at 7:00. Was out in the garden from 9:00 to 1:00. Was a grey overcast day. We were suppose to have rain, didn't happen. Tied the filter on the pump. skimmed off some of the stuff on the pond. Cleaned up a bit around the pond. Filled the pond. Cut back the fig tree branches and weeded around the fig tree up to the epimedium (not a thorough weeding). Have the green bin filled and taken to the curb. Clipped back the end of the driveway strip and some of the Virginia creeper. After the creeper changes its colors I hope to lift it off the St. John's wort and mow beneath it. Should start getting the st. john's wort out of the Driveway strip from the yucca onwards, but really doubt if I will get around to doing that. Pat brought us Teen burgers for our very late lunch. I am very tired after the morning 4 hours of work. But do not go for a nap as I need to fix this wretched email thing. Phoned the help line and got if working, but it is not great. Will eventually talk to Trevor about getting my old shaw emails imported to this new thing. Hope I can still use my Shaw mail address. Updated the windows.

September 13, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 69.7%. 17 degrees at 11.00. Made Asian Cole slaw and its dressing. Moved some stuff from the inbox of the old mmmee at shaw to the new one, making up new folders for this wretched webmail thing from Rogers. I would like to transfer my old folders somewhere ... maybe to my gmail? or the hotmail? I seem to have lost a day somewhere in these posts.. oh well. Moved most of Pats stuff to the new webmail and some to Pat. about 80 to my mail. took a couple of hours. Fed the fish and saw all the fish - 3 white, 2 gold, 2 shubunkin, but not the small one. Watered the house plants. Finished page 2 of the photo captions of the Boquets album.

September 14, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 69.5%. 22 degrees at 5:30. Made apx 2 cups of plum sauce this morning. Froze in the plastic pkg. Grocery shopped. Made up the list for on top of the deep freeze. Made spaghetti for supper. Moved the Health stuff to the new mmmee and the books/music.

September 15, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 69.3%. 22 degrees at 11:30. Picked 2.3 lbs of plums off the ground. Made a pie filling with 5 cups of pitted sliced plums plus the filling stuff, and froze it. Filled the humming bird feeder. Pat picked 4.375 lbs (75 oz) of plums. We have 2 dozen fresh eating and pitted sliced in sugar and brandy in 1 cup baggies frozen. Finished the captions for the photos of Page 5 of the Bouquets album. Needs to be all checked over before I upload it. Tomorrow, perhaps.

September 16, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 69.0%. 22 degrees at 12:00. Deleted the ConBoquets file and the old html Boquets file and then Uploaded Bouquets and it works. Fixed the Progress page and uploaded it and all the other main menue pages with the new Driveway Strip stuff added. Transferred Friends and Hydro and Shaw. now cannot get logged on and so cannot do more for the moment at 2:56. Revel time!

September 18, 2023
Yesterday spent time transferring emails from the gmail account as the old shaw would not let me on. This morning I could get on and transferred Pam's stuff, and LTV stuff. Laundry. Burnt the beef bones on in the pressure cooker. Had to clean all that up, put the bones in the garbage and the bits of beef into the slow cooker for the stew. Did up the vegetables for the stew and the little pot is full. Finished this at 2:00, so the stew will have 4 hours or so in the cooker. There is some barley in the bottom with the bits of beef, water, wine and the vegetables on top. While I was making up the vegetables we got a call from Shay Lee from Hamilton wanting to talk about how we like our Rogers service, etc. I could not understand her and told her so, several times. Told her I was having trouble with my email and that did not seem to matter a damn to her. Told her I would have my techie look at and call Rogers if we could not fix it. I would call THEM so that I knew it was Rogers I was talking to. She just kept right on... nothing affected her, so I hung up. Filled the pond. Pat sharpened my 2 knives and the scissors. He brought in the 9 buggy green apples (I asked him to) and I made them into apple sauce.

September 19, 2023
Sooke reservoir is at 68.4%. 18 degrees at 11:00. Ahmed got my email working again. Said he would send me a billing for .5 hour, but have not seen it. Trevor sent me an email about my web sites though, and I got that.

September 20, 2023
We had a very little bit of rain last night. I was up for hours with this gassy acid stomach. Made a crock pot chicken dish for supper with shredded carrot, potato and onion. Pat took me to cannor before his 1:00 lunch meeting with Bruce at the Goose. Cannor had no trellises that I wanted, nor much else. Got a mix of 20 tulips for the cutting garden, and 6 short Dutch irises for the pond surround by the old plum tree stump, and a 6 pack of violas for a total of $34.24. Everything is way too expensive. This is the last time I will buy a membership and it runs out the end of this month. We did not get a paper today, so I don't know what the Sooke reservoir is at.

September 21, 2023
18 degrees at 11:00. Cut my aspirins for my meds. Filled a bag with old gardening magazines for the diabeties truck. Moved a couple of pairs of jeans, etc. into the diabeties truck bags. Threw out a few more papers. Still have a few things to clean out of the little end table in the library. Did the bit of ironing. Threw my old white pants into the garbage and the mass book into the recycle and the bible to the diabeties truck. Did a blog post about plum tree reno.

September 22, 2023
Sooke reservoir level at 67.8%. 18 degrees at 11:00. Updated wifi. Took out blue box. Pat picked about 7 dozen plums ... about 5 lbs. and there are still lots up there he says, but they are very high up. Will make up more plum sauce and just sliced and package by the cupfull. So far I have made 2 batches of plum sauce = 2 cups/per batch so 4 cups of sauce (we have eaten 1 cup). I have one pie filling ready to put into the pie shell. I have 10 cups of just sliced plums with a bit of sugar and capfull of brandy and frozen. These sliced ones can be pie or sauce. We have been eating them fresh. We must have had at least 30 lbs of plums, so far. Made up the lemonade.

September 23, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 67.6%. Was out to the garden. Cleaned up the debris from cutting back the weeds on the driveway strip. Also scraped dried moss off the cement and threw it on the driveway strip. Cut back a few long stems of the roses. There are still lots in the shrubs, and too many oregon grapes. The st. john's worte is growing all the way up to the hedge. The green bin is full. The rose has hips and the mountain ash has berries. I haven't seen any birds in that tree. It was 11 degrees when I went out at 7:30 and it is 15 degrees now at 11:00. It is now just starting to lightly rain. Brought in 6 more holey apples to make into sauce. Made 1.5 cups of apple sauce. Made 2 cups of plum sauce.

September 24, 2023
Was up at 6:00. Made the big plum pie. Made the rib gravey. Back to bed at 8:00 for a bit. Up to make the cappuccinno, breakfast, etc. Almost burned the pie.. yikes. Pat rescued it. Sorted more photos for the boulevard album. I think I have enough. Decided to make a blog post for Property damage over the years, someday. So I have a folder under the Blog stuff to add photos and any text re calling police, etc. Have done a blog post for the creation of the plum tree well.

September 25, 2023
monday, light wash day. Took out the compost pot, very full. The green bin is full from the driveway debris. We had some high winds last night, but I did not hear them. Had a sound sleep after watching the Horse jumping out of Calgary. Filled the hummingbird feeder. Lunch of egg salad sandwiches. We had bits of rain in the morning and a tiny bit in the afternoon. Shopping at the Tillicum Mall -- London Drugs and Save On Foods as well as lottery tickets. Pat picked up and brought in 3.5 dozen and 4 dozen of the split, fallen plums after the winds. I cleaned and made up one pie filling and 4 cups of split plums in a bit of brandy and sugar. These cups full of plums can be used to make pie or plum sauce. They are frozen. I still have 3.5 dozen to process. We seem to eat about .5 dozen a day, so there might not be much left to process in a couple of days. A big pie lasts us for 4 days of dessert. So, I may get another batch of plum sauce made up... I think it takes 4 cups of plums. No computer stuff done today. Just the back up ran, I hope.

September 26, 2023
18 degrees at 3:00. Took out the compost pot. Dragged the bin to the curb. Finished the laundry. Made Arbys for lunch. Made Goop for supper with one blue pkg frozen. Added a bit of water to the pond. There is one blossom of the water hawthorn. Yeay! Some critter was trashing the water hythinth plants. Threw some of the bits out of the pond. Pond still needs to be skimmed. Pat took the car down to get the tires fixed. He will be getting new tires and what all done to the tune of about 3K. We should get it back on Friday. Today is Tuesday.

September 27, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 66.9%. 15 degrees at 11:00. Watered the house plants. Did up a number of the water garden pages and menus to be put onto all of the main pages. Still have more of the Garden Rooms lists, photo albums to do. Started sizing the Boulevard garden album. It will have 5 pages on silver. Pat got the car back this afternoon.

September 28, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 66.8%. 15 degrees at 4:30. Did some more stuff on the gardening page. Grocery shopped after lunch. Did over 3300 steps. Totally wore me out. Pat got some CRA stuff sorted out this morning.

September 29, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 66.6%. 15 degrees at 12:00 Sunny but coolish day. Art phoned me the name of the book about Radisson and I was able to get it on line for $10. Bush runner? Was the full moon last night and very bright. Finished the CRA stuff.

September 30, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 66.5%. 18 degrees at 2:00. Still feels like a Fall day despite the sunshine. Did the banking stuff and cappuccinno. Emptied 1/4 inch of rain out of the gauge that has accumulated over the past couple of weeks. We have only been getting bits of rain. Getting more gardening page stuff done up. Have 1 of 15 left to do.(woodland)

October 2023

October 1, 2023
13 degrees at 10:30. Finished the gardening page stuff and loaded it to the web page. Finally got the boulevard photos sorted and numbered. Downloaded September photos. Something had been on the deck and ripped the wire cover off the tub and trashed the water lily. I think Elvis may be gone, too. Was out to the garden for a bit. Filled the pond. Skimmed off the pond. The water hycinths have been trashed too. Picked some dried branches off the Pees side by the pink rose. The rock garden is going to need some more top dressing and perhaps clay and lava rock to put under the gold edging rocks. The West Coast planter needs levelling, and more soil/grit topping. The pond edgings are looking ok. The drystream needs cleaning up as does all of the garden. Weeds everywhere. I can't imagine where my garden fork has gone to... the nefarious Pees took it no doubt. Brought in a few more fallen apples.

October 3, 2023
15 degrees at 10:30. Spent most of yesterday doing laundry and doing the lamb shank in the instant pot. Emptied over 1/2 inch of rain out of the rain gauge. Finished sizing page 2 of the boulevard album.

October 4, 2023
15 degrees at 10:30. The screen was ripped off the tub on the deck and more destruction of the water lily. The pond looks ok and all the fish came up to eat when I fed them. I thought I heard some scraping sounds last night, but they seemed to be coming from the attic or the roof. The motion light had not come on. I should have got up and looked out the deck I suppose, but was trying to sleep. I guess Elvis is gone for sure now. I will leave the screen off. At least until I get another Elvis and figure out a way to secure the screen onto the top of the tub. Bother! Finished sizing page 3 of the boulevard album. Was out in the garden and planted 30 mixed tulips in the cutting garden and 10 short irises (J.S. Dyte) in the pond surrounds by the old stump. I raked leaves, twigs off the garden beds before digging holes with the rock hammer, adding some fish soil and then bone meal. Watered them in, a bit. Was 17 degrees when I came in at 3:00. Bone meal actually attracts squirrels, dammitt. Plant onions, daffodils, hycinths, scilla, other bulbs that squirrels do not particularly like with the tulips and crocuses.

October 5, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 65.8%. Finished sizing page 4 of the boulevard album. Was out in the garden from 2:00 to 4:30. Was 20 degrees when I came in. Finished picking up the sticks from the cutting garden and spread some leaf mulch around over the tulips and some on the strawberry patch. Dead headed the rhodos. Moved a primula from under the epimedium to the other side of the little hosta. Dug out a few rocks from the new spot of the primula and added some top soil. Weeded about 1/3 of the moss garden.

October 6, 2023
22 degrees at 1:00. Sooke reservoir at 65.7%. Made a pkg of apple sauce out of 14 holey apples. Was out in the garden from 1:50 to 4:10. Found 8 or 9 of the tulips were dug up not chewed on. It did not look like a squirrel dug them out. I put them back in the holes and threw some twigs and leaf stuff over them. Watered around the back a bit. The irises were not touched. Skimmed off the pond. The leaves are starting to fall. Weeded in the moss garden some more. Did a bit more weeding under the rhodos and around one stepping stone to under the deck. Have weeded along the round stepping stones up to the little hosta, and across to the dry stream and under the edge of the deck. So, have to weed from the little hosta across to the field stone path, and over to the entry to the strawberry patch and along all the stone paths. This might take 5 more hours of weeding. Football game at 7:00 tonite. We are having Romeo's pizza for supper. I don't think I am going to make the dry stream covered with pea gravel again. It grows some the best moss. I must research how to make a dry stream in my moss garden.

October 7, 2023
22 degrees at 2:00. Sooke reservoir at 65.5%. Pat made our appointment for the covid and flu shots on the 11th. The football game between Winnipeg and BC went into overtime and Winnipeg won, after BC being in the lead for the whole game. :(. Henderson insurance will amalgate with 3 more companies in Saskatoon in November. I cannot find anything about the dewdney office re: people currently, and their positions in the company. Finished sizing photos for the boulevard album. Filled the humming bird feeder. Did not get out to garden as I spent the day searching for the grad pictures of family from the museum in the old town. Found them in the 2018 pictures. There were 3 tulip bulbs dug out again.

October 8, 2023
Finished the Garden Rooms on the Gardening page menus. There are 13 pages with menus. Have the supper ready to go into the oven at 4:00 (for the duck less time for the roasted brussel sprouts and the dressing.) Its 18 degrees at 3:00 and feels just a bit chilly. The duck was not great. Froze duck and yams in the deep freeze.

October 11, 2023
On the 9th I made duck stew for supper. Pat went up to Cobble Hill for lunch with some guys. Yesterday not sure what I did.. probably some bank stuff. There was no Sooke reservoir reading available on 11th. Today I managed to get the new credit card set up for the credit union and then was able to get the Master Card statement of account on line. They have transferred everything from the old visa account. Looks good! Set up the accounts that pay with the new card. We have had a bit of rain in the last few days. We go for our flu and covid shots today at 4:30 or so, and then get KFC. It is 15 degrees at 1:30. Sooke reservoir was at 65.5%. Made up the Boulevard album and started the coding.

October 12, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 64.8%. Finished coding for Index pages of Boulevard garden and started the photo html pages. Finished step 1 of page 2. We lost Lloyd earlier this morning. Pam phoned.

October 13, 2023
Sooke reservoir is unavailable. Finished step 2 of the Photo html pages of the Boulevard album. Phoned Dan and Carol.

October 14, 2023
Have finished all of step 2 of the coding for the Photo html pages and Finished the captions to bo23 (middle of page 2). Collected some information on Yarrow, Star of Bethlehem, etc. Spent the afternoon trying to set up this CrUN security thing. Nearly got caught in a spam thing...Google caught the sms message and it is all marked as spam with a $2.00 google charge pending. Have to go talk to them in person about this shit. Facebook chat in the private group. copying chats to file. Arctic Char for supper turned out pretty good.

October 15, 2023
16 degrees at 3:30. Cooked the big ham last night from 11:30 to 3:00 when I turned the oven off and left the ham in. Oven was set at 350. Divided up the ham into 5 pkgs.. 4 frozen and 1 for supper with scalloped potatoes. Spent more time on this Card Wise thing. The autherized posts might take 5 days to get posted to the statement. I am enrolled in estatements. The CrUn is still working on the transfer. I have to go see them to get my setting sorted out sometime. I have added USA to my Canada locations or whatever they are called. And filled out the one about who-all can be paid: groceries, etc. and on and on it goes. Was awake half the night worrying this stuff. It is raining lightly. People posting in the secret group chat about Lloyd.

October 16, 2023
To see Ajay at the CrUn at 4:00 and got the CardWise sorted out. What a relief! To Co-op to get gas and lottery tickets. Were caught in a great cloud burst of rain on our way back along the Pat Bay highway. Doing laundry. Left over spaghetti for supper. Made up a bit of fresh coleslaw.

October 17, 2023
Sooke reservoir level at 64.2%. Emptied a litte over half an inch of rain out of the gauge. Finished the laundry. 13 degrees at 10:30. up to date on Shaw account and TD. Reloaded some printer (used pages). Raining lightly in the afternoon. Finished the photo captions for page 3 of the Boulevard garden. This garden is going to need a serious renovation. Although, the yarrow is growing and there are smaller lupines. The French lavender will be cut back or totally replaced. Got rid of the distracting search box on the task bar or whatever its called by clicking on options and removing the highlights thing. Junky crap Microsoft.

October 18, 2023
Got info about Lloyd yesterday in smith chat and saved it. Tried to send it to Pat via shaw email and he did not get it. I did not get ones he forwarded to me either. Today he sent them to me via gmail account and I did get them in my shaw.mail and in my gmail. Sounds backwards to me. bloody hell. Cannot do anymore of this email shit today. It seems we can use our gmails to send emails to our shaw accounts. Weird. The smith discussion page seems to have gone to hell too. All my tomatoes on hand have gone moldy, so saved what I could and froze it to be added to stews, soups, etc. Only have about .5 blue pkg. Pat needs to go to his eye doctor appointment at 2:00. Pat had 3 figs in the house and had one for lunch that was delicious like jam he said. There are more on the tree that will be ready. Made up 3/4 blue pkg of fallen apple sause today. Took out the compost and added a bit of water to the pond. It needs to be skimmed. The waterhawthorn has a couple of blooms. oh good, it survives. Emptied just over half inch of water out of the gauge. Sooke reservoir is at 64.2%, after the good rain yesterday.

October 19, 2023
Sooke reservoir is at 64.2%. 14 degrees at 10:30. Have to pick up meds on Saturday. We are reserved for the ferry 11:00 on Friday 27 and Saturday 28th at 5:00. Reserved at Best Western for night of 27th. Finished Page 5 of the Boulevard photo album. Finished all the photo album and its ready to load. Have to do the boulevard garden room next.

October 20, 2023
Sooke reservoir is at 64.3%. 16 degrees at 1:30. Nice sunny day. Took out my blue boxes. Brushed leaves off the boxwood and off the rock garden. Checked the coding and captions on the boulevard photo album. Loaded it to the web page and it works.

October 21, 2023
sooke reservoir level not available. Got quite a bit done on the Boulevard garden room page. Picked up meds and got bath soap, lottery tickets. Made the stew before lunch. Watched parts of 2 football games. Was a rather warmish day but only up to about 15 degrees.

October 22, 2023
sooke reservoir level not available. It is 13 degrees at 10:30. Shopping. Started sorting packing stuff. Made up the top photo for the listBLVRD page. It works, looks good.

October 23, 2023
14 degrees at 12:00. Cloudy, overcast day. Did light laundry. Did ironing (2 shirts). Made up the lemonade. Brought in some more apples and have all of them up stairs to make apple sauce. Picked some of the leaves off the back rock garden. I see where the old cow Pee has dumped the leaves that fell on her side onto the irises on my side. What an idiot. Guess they have never heard of making compost and the benefits it has to the soil. Have added a few more plant names to the Boulevard garden room list.

October 25, 2023
It rained all day yesterday and over night. Sooke reservoir level at 63.9%. Emptied 2 inches out of the rain gauge. 6 degrees at 10:00. At some point in the last couple of days I made up the apple sauce and froze 2 jars full of it. Finished the Boulevard garden room page and loaded it and it works. Yesterday I reworked the Boulevard garden room page and the driveway strip garden page and reloaded them today. We seem to have the travel to Burnaby sorted out for the 27th and 28th. With reservations for the ferry there and back, and reserved at the hotel for one over night. We anticipate a travel to Sask. in the near future. Pat put out the bins yesterday and gathered them in today. He is to pick up his meds today. At last, our at Shaw emails seem to be working the way they worked before. I haven't checked my send stuff yet, though.

October 26, 2023
It froze last night. It is 5 degrees at 10:00, and things are beginning to melt. Sooke reservoir level at 64.3%. Pat has had 12 figs to eat and 3 or 4 more ripening in the brown bag. There are more holey apples ready to be made into apple sauce. Started sorting photos for the animals, etc. Had a big sleep this afternoon. Plan B for supper.

October 29, 2023
It has been freezing and low temps during the day. Went over to Burnaby on the 11:00 ferry to the Best Western Motel on Kingsway. Then to the Sussex house where all were asembled for food. All of the Zim family were there plus some of the nephews and nieces. All of the immediate family, of course. To prayers at the church at 7:00. We have an early start in the morning as Pat wants to get to breakfast at the hotel. We see Kelly and family at breakfast. To the funeral at 11:00 at the church. Well attended, with the family and many friends, including the 'other family' being the wine group, who all were there too, except Larry and Mae who were predeceased. Weather still cold. Some sort of light had turned on, on the dash of the car, and Pat has not figured out how to get it turned off yet. It is something to do with the slippery roads, I think. Got the 5:00 ferry where we were reserved, had dinner on the ferry and arrived home to recuperated. Today: It froze over night again and is about 5 degrees at 11:00. Had a great sleep last night. Fran is not doing well, at all so there won't be a facetime today. I filled the humming bird feeder. The Sooke Reservoir is at 64.4% as at yesterday. Pat has had about 14 figs this year. Did 3 loads of the washing and have 3 shirts and a pair of pants to iron. Made a birthday card for Irene from an 2008 photo of her. Searched to the end of 2008 for animal photos.

October 30, 2023
11 degrees at 12:00. Did a load of towels. Scrubbed out the bathrooms. Searched Photos#9 for Animals. emailed Irene's birthday photo. Big chef salad for supper. Got the $150 charge by that wretched Hotel sorted out. It is to be deleted.

October 31, 2023
Froze over night. The Sooke Reservoir is at 64.2%. 8 degrees at 11:30. Pat has got the van winterized. Was out from about 1 to 4. Mowed the front and back grass. Put 3 bags of clippings into the back compost bin. And a bag full along the woodland trail. The old compost bin is full. Skimmed off the pond and pulled out some bog beans, threw away all the water hycinths I could find, cleaned off the willow leaves. They make nice black compost. Guess all this has been washing into the pond. Scraped off the leaves and twigs that the old cow Pee dumped on the irises...there probably will be more. Put some of the fallen fig leaves into the green bin. Cleaned off the back rockery a bit. It was 11 degrees when I came in. Put my clothes in the washer. Fed the fish. I could see them in the pond! But they did not seem to notice the food. Copied the end of the month bank statement and all. The $150 charge is gone. Finished searching Photos #11 for animals.

November 2023

November 2, 2023
It rained and rained last night. Emptied 2 inches out of the gauge this morning. I am sure there was more, as the gauge was more than full. The pond looks full. 13 degrees at 11:00 this morning. Watered the house plants. Fran passed away last night, Michael was with her. All arrangements pending. We must be mindful of the time change in BC but not in Sask. Downloaded October photos. There is the brightest blue Blue Jay in the garden eating acorns. Sooke reservoir is at 64.0%.

November 3, 2023
After all that rain The Sooke Reservoir is at 64.1%. Took the blue box out and cleaned up the leaves off most of the rock garden at the front. 12 degrees at 11:30. Pat will take the car back to have the parts installed the next time the light comes on. Priests unavailable for 13th through 17th.. moved to the 9 and 10th. Was out in the garden, raked leaves off the thyme circle, and the rock gardens, and ground covers. And some of the fig tree leaves. Put one bagfull behind the woodland trees. Raked some under the bench. Put the bagfull of fig leaves in the compost bin. Came in and made the spaghetti sauce. Finished searching Pictures #12 for animals.

November 4, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 64.8%. 15 degrees at 3:00. The breeze is starting up. Emptied 1 inch of rain out of the gauge. Fed the fish that were on the surface. We got all our arrangements made for getting out to Wadena and bringing Bonnie; and back home on the 11th. Now we both can get some rest after a nearly sleepless night last night.

November 5, 2023
13 degrees at 11:00. Took the coffee grounds out to the compost bin. Fed the fish. The pond needs skimming off. Brought in 3 more apples.

November 7, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 66.9%. There is very little rain in the gauge. 10 degrees at 4:30. Pat picked a few apples and we have started the blue bin in the cold room of the suite. Had to vacuum up the entry way when I made a mess getting my warmest jacket ready for travel to the cold country. Not looking forward to any of this. Have arrangements made for our trip out to Regina/Wadena/Cupar. To fly out tomorrow morning to layover in Vancouver and on to Regina. Pick up our rental car and get to our reserved Hotel. Pat is worried about many things, including driving in the snow in a car that he is not familiar with driving. Pick up Bonnie at the Airport, next day, and proceed to Wadena for prayers, stay at a B & B. Next day funeral, and to Cupar for burial and back to Regina and the reserved hotel. Return the car then fly out on the 11th for home.

November 14, 2023
Sooke reservoir is unavailable. 8 degrees at 11:30. Pat picked the fallen apples in the last couple of days. We got home on the 11th after a long day at the airport. Got into Victoria about 7:00 or 8:00. John passed away on the 12th. I have got the washing done yesterday. Apparently we missed a big wind/rain storm on the 11th. People in lower mainland, sunshine coast and the Islands were out of power. It seems we did not lose power, so all the frozen stuff was okay. Went out to the garbage bin at 4:45 (sun down) and a great blue heron flew up from the pond area. I don't see any rocks knocked down, but its quite dark out. Hope the fish are all still there. Twit pee has started up his lawn mower.. well its supper time, right? Must have head lights on the mower.

November 15, 2023
Sooke reservoir level at 70.3%. 7 degrees at 10:30. The heron was at the pond earlier this morning and back just now at 10:30. I see only one rock from the deck edge of the pond has fallen in. It must not be able to catch the fish, as it keeps coming back. Wretched damn thing. Got the cc thing figured out and applied and it works. Just another wretched damn thing.

November 16, 2023
Sooke reservoir level at 70.3%. 8 degrees at 2:00. Pat went to his eye Dr. for the treatment. He is doing fine. Took a cab downtown before 8:00, then caught the bus home and arrived home about 11:00. He did up the flight reservations by calling WestJet on his 'services' card and did up a hotel reservation for 2 rooms for 2 nights. (includes Bonnie). We have to get to the airport by 7:00 am on the 24, though. O well I think both days the flights are straight through, no stops.

November 18, 2023
Yesterday: Made the crab crepes (birthday). Sooke reservoir level was at 70.7%. Today: It has been freezing over night for the last few days. Finally the cc has posted the $5k payment, now I can get on with my life. We have our air fare and hotel booked to/in Edmonton for the next funeral. Hopefully, this will be the last one now, for a while. I think all the fish are gone from the pond and the deck tub. I will wait until Spring to refurbush the pond and deck tub. That wretched heron kept coming back untill it ate all the fish, I guess. Watered the house plants. Filled the humming bird feeder.

November 19, 2023
11 degrees at 3:00. There has been a bit of wind and rain. Lots of leaves down, but I won't be raking them until we are back home on the 24th. Swept the kitchen floor and some of the leaves off the deck, and water off the water table. I think all of the fish are gone, dammit. Made lunch and made up the bed. To the grocery store to get our halibet on the rain cheque. We have 3 meals at about $6.61 per meal. Got the lottery tickets. Grey Cup day! with Romeo's pizza for supper.

November 20, 2023
8 degrees at 9:30. Laundry day. Emptied 1/4 inch of rain out of the gauge. No.15 pictures - Sask. has a whole bunch of DNG and stuff I don't understand. Deleted lots of files. Going on to No.16 for animals.

November 21, 2023
Cannot seem to get the wretched cc payment made. I will just make payments by pay the bills and add plenty money ahead of the statements amount on the payment day, allowing for the 4 - 5 days of 'pending' crap. Had to fix the photo copier cause could not get copies of the payment sent. It has just disappeared. 11 degrees at 2:30. Overcast. Sooke reservoir level was at 70.9%. Took out the compost pot. Ran the drier last night and brought the towels up now. So, will deal with the cc the same way I did with the visa.. Pay in excess of the statement on the 15th of the month. TWITS!!!

November 24, 2023
Got home this morning at about 8:00. (Friday) Very good flight. Finding our way to the West Jet Check In was horrible, but we managed. I got 4 heart points and now have 3109 (1224) steps. So, of course, I had my phone turned off for a lot of the walking time, too. Was cold, bright and sunny. Frost on the deck. Made 'brunch' - omelettes - and have supper planned for halibut and fries and some vegetable. We must shop tomorrow and get a few veggies and milk and what ever we might need. The Ipad seems to be ready to go over to the Rabbit people to set it up with Pat's iphone stuff. It was at 86%, and it is working now to be charged up. Pat will email to M, B and C about us having it, as B gave it to me and said she didn't know how to make it work. O well. See what they say in the email. Certainly she should have it if she could get past being afraid of it. Maybe Colleen could teach her. 'nuff said. I got very little sleep last night so going down for a nap. The Sooke reservoir is at 71.0.

November 26, 2023
We had the chicken cordon bleu casserole for supper yesterday. Pat was out and got some groceries. Sooke reservoir was at 70.9%. Cold overnight and not very high during the day. Did some membership payments for gardening clubs. Joined that Hydro lessen the amount of it to use contest thing. Today it got up to 6 degrees. Pat went out for the wine run. I did not go as my stomach was acting up, after eating those blue berries for breakfast. I think I will dump them. There aren't very many left. Did the $10.00 membership for Penninsula streams, on mcc. They have a zoom to go to on Dec. 6th which is a Wednesday. Don't know when the VCCC christmas lunch is or even where it is.

November 27, 2023
8 degrees at 4:00. Shopped for groceries. Made up 3 meat loafs, ready for the oven and froze them. Have 2 potatoe soups made and frozen.

November 28, 2023
Sooke reservoir was at 70.8%. 6 degrees at 11:00. Made 7 small blue pkgs of Beef Barley soup (quite thick) Froze 6.

November 29, 2023
Sooke reservoir was at 70.8%. (again). Sorted out obits to be coded and posted to web page: Bill, Ernie and Jo still to do. Watered house plants. Was out from 11:30 to 2:30. Skimmed off the pond, cleaned off the back and front rockeries, and the thyhme cirle and paths. Have put one bag of leaves on the boulevard rectangle by the plum tree, one on the woodland behind the trees, and threw quite a lot over the boxwood hedge by the white rose. Having a hot tea tody . . . it is very good.

November 30, 2023
No Sooke reservoir available. 7 degrees at 2:00. Was out to the garden from 10:00 to 11:00. Raked up the rest of the leaves on the grass path and bagged them. 6 bags full put in the woodland, around the plum tree well. Made up 3 jars of cranberries.

December 2023

December 1, 2023
10 degrees at 2:30. Sooke reservoir at 70.6%. Made 9 small blue pkgs. of Borscht - Froze 8. Ironed the shirt. Ran the dishwasher and emptied it. Did some banking stuff.

December 2, 2023
Made 39 chocolat chip, oatmeal, peanut butter cookies. 11 degrees at 1:00. Emptied 1 inch of rain out of the rain gauge. Sooke reservoir at 70.6%. same as yesterday. so, it can't be the same as we got rain last night.

December 3, 2023
9 degrees at 1:00, sunshine. Emptied .5 inch of rain out of the rain gauge. Made up 4 jars of chicken stock, and little packages of cooked chicken and thinly sliced carrot to add to the chicken noodle soup. Am going through pages and pages of obituaries in the Leader Post looking for John, George and Adam's obit. Finished searching. We were to the Hort Center of the Pacific for the VCCC Xmas brunch at 2:00 to about 4:00.

December 4, 2023
7 degrees at 11:00. Emptied .5 inch of rain out of the rain gauge. It is still raining. Took the compost out, picked the apples over and threw out quite a few totally rotten ones. Laundry.

December 5, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 71.3%. 11 degrees at 11:00. Emptied 2 inches of rain out of the gauge. Finished the obits on the page, I think. Was up last night to run the towels in the drier. Sat in the healing chair and really was feeling a lot better by the time I went back to bed. The power went out for about a minute... just enough time to make the clocks stop, the photo copier stop and Pat had to adjust the TV also. We grocery shopped today and drove to the Co-op for gas and lottery tickets. Pat fell while taking the green bin to the curb.. has some new bruises. My nose is running again, but my thoat is better. Pat seems to be mostly over his nasty cold. I went through some of the old family stuff and have obits for Mom, Dad, John, George but still nothing for Adam Gottfried. Have added a hand written note of Dad's family to be page 3 of my hand written stuff.

December 6, 2023
sooke reservoir at 73.1%. 8 degrees at 11:00. Did up the John, George obits on the page. Watched the Penninsula Streams zoom at 7:00. Vacuumed the dining room, kitchen, big bathroom. Had trouble getting the vacuume back together.

December 7, 2023
sooke reservoir at 76.1%. 12 degrees at 11:30. Raining lightly. Need new batteries for the remote control for the radio/tape player/ etc. in the kitchen. Cannot get it to play the radio, without changing the clock ??? Need the remote to change the clock. ???

December 8, 2023
sooke reservoir at 76.9%. 5 degrees at 3:30. Froze over night. .5 of an inch of frozen water in the water gauge. Made up 4 big blue pkgs of apple sauce. Dumped the compost pot. Watered the house plants. Finished adding the family stuff to the page. Have all the obits. except Adam. Will add it if/when I find it.

December 9, 2023
sooke reservoir at 77.2%. 6 degrees at 2:00. It has been raining all morning. Made up 6 small blue packages of chick pea soup with ham. Added 1/4 tspn of honey. Suppose to add kale or swiss chard to it just before serving. Its delicious.. no swiss chard in the house. I finished at about 1:00. Up loaded the password protected page with the obits. YES!! found Adam's obit! Added to the page and it all works!

December 10, 2023
The rain gauge had its 2 inches and was over flowing. 8 degrees at 11:30. Helped Pat set up his moose meat in the slow cooker. Made clam chowder for lunch.

December 12, 2023
Yesterday: did laundry. Today: Sooke reservoir at 79.1%. 8 degrees at 11:00. Dan called. and the other Dan and Irene called. Carol is not doing very good with her knee replacement - swelling and physio and pain killers. Put the chicken bones on to make chicken stock. Downloaded Microsoft Teams but did not use it as we were on the phone all evening. Hopefully there will be a recording of the VIRAGS photo show.

December 13, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 79.6%. 8 degrees at 12:30. Put the moose stew on to cook at 12:00, added vegetable peels to the chicken broth. Updated Windows. Made up 4 cups of chicken broth.

December 14, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 80.0%. 8 degrees at 10:30. Did the ironing.

December 15, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 80.2%. 7 degrees at 10:30. Emptied 1/4 inch of rain out of the gauge. Was out in the garden from 10:00 to 12:30. Got the leaves raked off all the front grass, rock gardens, thyme circle, stone paths. Was 10 degrees in sunshine when I came in. The gold wall rockery needs topping up with maybe lava rock or pumice and sand. Maybe pea gravel. Some broken pot shards to fill in at the ends of the crevice rocks to hold the top dressing in. Seems shithead baby pea is running his weed eater out there just now at 2:00. Screaming damn noisy thing. I hope he goes deaf from it. I will re-apply leaves to the edges of the boxwood when I go out to bag the leaves. Was out from 2:30 to 4:00. Took 3 full bags of leaves to the back, with one in the old compost bin and it is full. Added one bag full to the front - mostly around the plum tree bed. Added another bag full to the green bin, because it had grass and other stuff in it. I spread the last of the pumice around the gold wall rockery and about a pailful of turkey grit on this little rockery also. I still have a bag of turkey grit and some pea gravel. My saxifrages are not doing great. They are not very impressive anyway. Total of 4 hours in the garden.

December 16, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 80.5%. 7 degrees at 10:30. Very foggy this morning. The winter soltice is on the 21st this year. Was out in the garden from 11:30 to 2:30. Raked the leaves off the primulas and that side of the moss garden and the stone path. Put a bagful of these leaves into the old compost bin and put the top on it. Raked the leaves off the grass under the apple tree. Cleaned off the back little rockery. Put these leaves into the green bin, after carefully shaking the stones and clumps of mud off the leaves. This makes the leaves a lot lighter. There is lots of little bits of soil left on the top of the grass from this operation. I think it might be earth worm castings. Moved some of the grit around on the little rockery adding some of this soil (from around the flat stones that border the rockery and other deposits within rockery) that I think contains more earthworm castings. I moved pieces of the Fire Spinner (Delosperma) ice plant to the front little gold wall rockery. There is still the cutting garden to clean up and the water garden side of the moss garden to do also, and the woodland.

December 17, 2023
7 degrees at 10:00. Did banking, paid utilities. Went out to the garden at 10:00 and came in at 2:00. Raked the leaves off the strawberry patch and the cutting garden, picked out the twigs and re-applied the leaves down as mulch. No leaves on the irises, but cleaned them up real good and added some of the Pees stones to them. They need the tubers showing. Repositioned the garden compost bin, emptied a pot full of potting soil on it. Not sure who's pot it was, but threw the empty back on the Pees side. Covered all this area along between the property line and the path, with a heavy layer of leaves mulch, from the oak tree to the entry to the water garden. Put a half bag of twigs in the garden compost bin, and a bagful in the green compost bin. Dragged the bin out to the front, as it is full and ready to go next Wednesday. There has been quite a lot of earth worm activity under the leaves and twigs and hopefully there will be more over the winter. The irises have little green sprouts on them. There was quite a lot of leaves left over, so I put them along on the cutting garden side under the yew trees. Maybe I will have some good leaf mulch for on the strawberry patch in the summer. I think it will need some nitrogen added. It was 10 degrees when I came in at 2:00. The woodland needs some attention, as do the hedges, but it is the wrong time of the year for the hedge trimming. I still need to clean up the water garden area, too. Ran dishwasher and washed and dried garden clothes after 11:00 last night.

December 18, 2023
10 degrees at 10:00. Swept off the deck. Phoned the Saanich Plaza clinic to try to get Dr. Trerice as family doctor. Laundry and did the towels after 11:00 at night.

December 19, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 81.0%. 10 degrees at 11:00. Fed and watered the house plants.

December 20, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 81.0%. 10 degrees at 2:00. Made green bean soup. Made chicken cordon bleu casserole. Made shortbread. Did dishwashing last night after 11:00.

December 21, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 81.1%. 11 degrees at 11:00.

December 22, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 81.1%. 9 degrees at 11:00. Fixed the radio on the Sanyo multi-function player. Found the Rum Balls recipe and typed and copied it out. Searched out Parker's age. He is in grade nine and born in 2008. So, not too likely to get involved in this ancestry stuff just yet. Have decided to leave the family doctor stuff to do after christmas.

December 23, 2023
Sooke reservoir at 81.2%. Froze over night. 7 degrees at 3:30. Deleted a bunch of hotmail trash. Played around on Flickr. I seem to be a 'Pro'. I don't recall paying it. Won the Peak Time saver... had 60% decrease, instead of the 20% goal. Do not need to pay anything on the credit card. Made capiccino this morning.

December 24, 2023
Sooke reservoir unavailable. 9 degrees at 10:30. Made up some cappiccino mix, and the cappiccino. Have the skype working with new photo from 2001. Made turnip and apple for supper (there will be extra to freeze. Made prairie seafood chowder for tomorrow's lunch, but we are going to have a cupfull for supper. There should be some of this to freeze also. Out for a drive in the Last Lodge to get diesel. Pat has fixed the 'water in the gas' problem he was having with it. Barb and James dropped in about supper time but had more things to do so could not stay long. Left a bottle of red wine and some rye for Pat donating him the 2013 plates for his newest old car a 1913, of course.

December 27, 2023
We had the duck for christmas on the 25th. Not sure what we had yesterday, but I did laundry. Was up for hours last night with a very soar throat (dry mouth). It is 13 degrees at 3:30 today. Sooke reservoir is unavailable. Made up 2 blue pkgs of beef bardly soup - frozen and one pkg for lunch. Have 4 more duck stock frozen and using 1 jar full to warm some of the duck in the slow cooker. Its our 54 anniversary. We are having dinner in with candied salmon for appies, and duck, yam, gingered parsnip, dressing leftovers for supper and more ferrors for desert. Finished sorting pictures for Animals.

December 28, 2023
Sooke reservoir unavailable. 12 degrees at 3:30. Did the ironing. Had a drive to Queenswood after getting gas and lottery tickets. Queenswood is losing its uniqueness -- too many driveways and hedging trees. I took a walk about the garden after we got home. Moved a few leaves off the front rock garden and the back. Still needs moore cleaning. The pond needs skimming and needs more water. There were winds last night and high tides. Full moon tonight. There are piles of leaves between the house and the Last Lodge. Did the ironing. Did a bit of sorting of the 'animals' photos for the album. Made chef salad, baked fish, green peas, rice for supper.

December 30, 2023
Sooke reservoir unavailable. 11 degrees at 10:40. Started Garden Journal for 2024. Was outside from 12:00 to 2:00 when it began to rain. Skimmed off the pond and cleaned up a bit around the edges and on the mountain. I see where I have another fairly big rock to use somewhere. Raked some leaves off the dry stream and some off the moss garden. Raked some of the leaves off the cutting garden paths and picked up some twigs and sticks. Cleaned up some leaves off the little rock garden. Raked up the leaves off the patio area and between the Last Lodge and the house. Have added 2 bags of leaves, etc. to the compost bin. Did up the under construction page for the 2023 Garden page.

December 31, 2023
Sooke reservoir unavailable. 8 degrees at 10:40. Filled the humming bird feeder. Swept the ice off the water table. Emptied 1/4 inch of water out of the water gauge. The water hawthorn is blooming in the pond. Copied the water hawthorn stuff to the gardening/water garden places. Fixed the Helpless tune on the playlist and it works again.

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See the Plant List page for annual Garden purchases

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Continue on to Journal Entries for 2024

Back to Journal Entries for 2022

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Welcome to the bottom of the page

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Albums:

January - we occasionally get snow
February - more rain, and some bulbs up
March - first spring bulbs blooming
April - rock plants blooming, grass needs mowing, fruit trees blooming
May - the garden is in full swing
June - lovely warm days of medium temperatures and roses in bloom
July - we need to water a lot in the summer as we do not often get rain.
August - the Fall perennials starting to bloom and fruit is ripening
September - harvest time in the vegetable garden and time to plant the winter garden
October - glorious fall colors and sunsets, fruit ripening and rains begin again
November - sometimes a lovely month with the Fall colors and warm rains
December - more rain, the garden is mostly greens and browns, very peaceful

Front Rock Garden - The front rock garden has two little rock gardens divided by stepping stones. It contains the West Coast planter.
Back Rock Garden - the Back Rock Garden borders the strawberry patch/Cutting Garden.
Alpines - I have a few small alpines in various little rock gardens around the garden
Animals in the garden The pond attracts wildlife to my garden. The deer do not seem to bother my plants as I have numerous herbs planted all around the garden.
Birds in the garden There is a small woods and a stream in the Park across the street from our garden. So, we have a good variety of birds in the garden.
Boquets - Creating flower arrangements for the house and for show is an added benefit for creatativity as well as visual satisfaction.
Boulevard garden I have planted a little garden in the propery next to the street that is owned by the city.
Bugs - butterflies, bugs
Cutting Garden - I am attempting to grow a cutting garden, but this space needs more sun
Driveway Strip garden room - a 5 foot wide strip between the neighbours driveway and ours with a cedar hedge.
Plants on the Deck - The plants on the deck are here. The plants under the deck are part of the moss/shade garden.
Plants around the Front Entry - The Entry Way include the boxwood hedges and the grass path.
The Fig Tree garden room includes the old sidewalk and the beds on both side of it; as well as the patio area plants. - The Fig Tree garden room is bordered by the stepping stone path that leads from the old sidewalk, around the fig tree bed where it meets the old sidewalk again; as well as includes the bed along the old sidewalk up to the holly tree and the entry from the old sidewalk/woodland.
Fruit and Vegetables - grapes, figs, apples, plums, and vegtables
The Inner Garden Room. - The Inner Garden Room in the front garden is bordered by boxwood and cedar hedges, the stone path and includes the Thyme Circle, the Sundial Circle, the roses, the Front Rock Garden, the Smoke Tree garden, pernnials, bamboo, etc. The description of this garden room ties the smaller garden rooms together to give the overview of the inner garden rooms in the front garden.
The Lite Garden - I have a three tier light garden where I grow orchids, African violets, etc.
Market - photos of produce or flowers bought at the market.
Magnolia Tree Garden - The Magnolia Tree Garden is across the grass path from the Entry door. It has the magnolia tree, the trilliums, the bamboo, some perennials, the cement david and a cement vase. It is the ugliest garden as it contains the water meter.
MISCELLANEOUS I have made this page into a list of some of the miscellaneous things in the garden. There is always room for expansion here. These items may not appear on all of the menus, but only on this page.
Moss Garden The moss garden room starts from the old sidewalk with the rhodos and primulas along the stepping stones, across from the Fig Tree garden. It curves around the plants, following the stepping stone path, past the entry to the Strawberry patch, and along the stone path to the dry stream area: with shade plants; rhodos, primulas, hepaticas, epimediums, ferns and others. I include the area under the deck as the moss/shade garden.
Mushrooms and lichensThere are several kinds of mosses and lichens that have introduced themselves to my garden.
Garden Paths and Garden Art I have converted most of the lawn to gardens and paths. The grass paths are bordered by hedges. The stone paths allow access to the rest of the garden rooms. There items of garden art as accents around the garden.
Gardening Clubs shows Rock and Alpine plants, orchids, are the primary gardening shows I attend. They have judged entries, with the winners, and an area to purchase plants, seeds, and a few other items.
Survivors This album will contain photos of flowers growing in some very difficult places. They are generally called weeds but I think they have a special beauty and appeal.
Vistas and Views in the garden
WATER AND JAPANESE GARDENING - I built my pond with its 8 - 9 foot diameter. It is surrounded by the moss garden with a Japanese garden design.
Water gardening page after 2019 - The original Water Gardening page has become too long for comfortable scrolling, so I will be starting a new one.
Water gardening list page for the Larix Landscaping pond - I had Larix Landscaping rebuild the pond and surrounds after the pond sprang a leak in November and December of 2024.
Water gardening Photo album for the Larix Landscaping pond - I had Larix Landscaping rebuild the waterfall, pond and surrounds after the pond sprang a leak in November and December of 2024.
WishList Someday there may be fences, gates and special plants in my garden.
Woodland garden - I am trying to establish a few indigenous plants in this area.

Outline of the garden changes - This is the first page of a series of three giving a tour of the my garden.
A description of the garden rooms - This is the second page of a series of three giving a tour of the my garden, and showing the creation of the garden rooms as well as some of the renovations over the years.
Annual Garden changes photo albums The third page of the series will be annual photo albums of the changes in the garden for the year, beginning in 2009.
Excerpts from Garden Journal In 2012 I began to keep a Garden Journal on my Computer. There will be monthly notes from each year after 2012. When I first started my garden I had note books for daily entries, diagrams of planting beds, lists of plants used in the garden and the purchase prices. My plant lists are constantly changing so I have not been keeping them current. The Journal Notes will mention renovations.
Lists of the Plants in each Garden Room I have started to make rather comprehensive lists of the plants in the garden rooms. When a plant becomes well established I will add it to the list. If a plant should die I will make a note of it to up date the list. It may be a while until I get this finished. Posted on January 15, 2021.
This page also contains the annual PURCHASES and the annual Garden rooms; although these annual garden rooms might not be completed for some time.

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Annual Garden Journal Notes

Annual Journal Notes 2013 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2013 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2014 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2014 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2015 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2015 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2016 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2016 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2017 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2017 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2018 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2018 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2019 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2019 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2020 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2020 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2021 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2021 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2022 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2022 from my garden journal . See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2023 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2023 from my garden journal. See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Annual Journal Notes 2024 - This is the page of the annual Journal Notes excerpts beginning in 2024 from my garden journal. See the bottom of this page to go to the Journal Notes for the next year.
Outline of the garden changes - This is the first page of a series of three giving a tour of the my garden.
A description of the garden rooms - This is the second page of a series of three giving a tour of the my garden, and showing the creation of the garden rooms as well as some of the renovations over the years.
Annual Garden changes photo albums The third page of the series will be annual photo albums of the changes in the garden for the year, beginning in 2009.

Annual Garden Photo Albums

• Garden 2028 - Put in 202 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2027 - Put in 2027 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2026 - Put in 2026 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2025 - Put in 2025 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2024 - Put in 2024 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2023 - Put in 2023 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2022 - Put in 2022 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2021 - Put in 2021 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2020 - Put in 2020 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2019 - Put in 2019 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2018 - Put in 2018 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2017 - Put in 2017 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2016 - Put in 2016 stuff here. magnolia bed reno.


• Garden 2015 - drought, pond edges renovations,


• Garden 2014 - Put in 2014 stuff here milkweed, pond reno....Finished.


• Garden 2013 - Put in 2013 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2012 - Put in 2012 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2011 - Put in 2011 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2010 - Put in 2010 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2009 - Put in 2009 stuff here....Finished.


• Garden 2008 - Put in 2008 stuff here....Finished.



• Garden 2007 - Put in 2007 stuff here.



• Garden 2006 - Put in 2006 stuff here.



• Garden 2005 - Put in 2005 stuff here.



• Garden 2004 - Put in 2004 stuff here.



• Garden 2003 - Put in 2003 stuff here.



• Garden 2002 - Put in 2002 stuff here.



• Garden 2001 - Put in 2001 stuff here.




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Links:

(VHS) Victoria Horticultural Society: http://vichortsociety.org/

(HCP) Horticultural Center of the Pacific: http://www.hcp.ca

(VIRAGS) - Vancouver Island Rock & Alpine: http://www.virags.ca/

Alpine Garden Club of British Columbia http://www.agc-bc.ca/home

Victoria Orchid Society: http://www.victoriaorchidsociety.ca

Native plants: - http://russellnursery.com/natives/

Harry Jans informative site about growing alpines. His travels, and smug mug photo albums. https://www.jansalpines.com/

David Badke collection of mosses, lichens, mushrooms https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidbadke/albums/72157673563005916
This is a fine reference source of information on the lichens, mosses, and mushrooms found in my location.

MOSSES CO2 and NITROGEN FIXING

Fawn Lilies(erythronium)

Swan Lake Sanctuary https://www.swanlake.bc.ca/">

Phlox http://www.butterflywebsite.com/articles/phlox-for-butterflies.cfm

CRD natural gardening https://www.crd.bc.ca/education/natural-gardening

Saanich Native Plants - https://satinflower.ca/

Growing Primroses https://www.barnhaven.com/primroses/

LARIX LANDSCAPING https://www.larixlandscape.com//

Plant photos by common name: - http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/browse_imgs/plant_com_1.html