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 2024

SYNOPSIS of the year

1. I managed to get a lot of the garden rooms weeded and the edgings done. The cutting garden has new paths and a platform for the chair, with the white pot beside it. The plants have been cleaned up and mulched with the leaf mulch from under the cedars. The strawberry patch has also been cleaned up and mulched. Edging done around all the grass in the back, with the stepping stones paths weeded, as well as all the garden rooms in the back garden. I cleaned up and adjusted the edges of the pond, and the surrounds. Cleaned up and started the dry stream. Cleaned up under the deck, also. I have moved the rhubarb to the woodland garden room area. I have weeded the Woodland area from the holly tree back to the mock orange shrub. I weeded and cleaned up the edgeings in all of the front garden rooms. I have add a few new plants to the rock garden in the front garden. Raked the leaves in the Autumn and added the leaves onto the plum tree well and under the cedars in the front garden rooms, and in the old compost bin, as well as along the woodland path, and under the woodland trees. The driveway strip needs further work to clean up the pile of clippings and mow back the St. John's worte. All and all, I had the garden looking pretty good.

2. 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 on the Pees side of the garden have grown back up again. 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. I may have some rocks to replace the cement pavers in this little rockery, after the revision of the pond by Larix Landscaping in 2025.

3. 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.
To continue the completion of the Garden rooms project and other albums noted on the Progress page in 2024:
Water2020 uploaded January 25, 2024. The Fish Pond uploaded January 25, 2024. Animals in the garden Uploaded February 4, 2024. The Birds in the garden Uploaded March 3, 2024. Bugs. Uploaded March 21, 2024. Deck top, under, edges and patio area list page. Uploaded March 29, 2024. Deck and surrounds photo album. Uploaded April 18, 2024. Pond surrounds list page Uploaded April 24, 2024. Photo Album for Pond Surrounds. Uploaded April 30, 2024. list page for plants IN pond. Uploaded May 22, 2024. Photo album for plants IN pond. Uploaded May 22, 2024. Japanese/Moss garden list page. Uploaded July 15, 2024. Moss garden photo album. Uploaded July 20, 2024. Cut Garden and Strawberry patch. Uploaded August 5, 2024. Photo album for the Cut Garden. Uploaded September 20, 2024. Photo album of fruit and vegies. Uploaded December 20, 2024.
On the LTV page: Benze page. and Overnight at Chemainus in the LTV. Uploaded June 18, 2024. LTV rally at Osoyoos 2024. Uploaded July 10, 2024.

4. In early November 2024 the water in the pond seemed to be diminishing. I had asked Joel of Larix Landscaping for an estimate to have the pond rebuilt. Later in December the pond level went even lower and I lost the fish that I had saved out of the pond. I revised my contract with Larix Landscaping and they are to be here January 13, 2025 to begin the rebuild of the pond, pond surrounds, and the waterfall. There will be another Water page and photo album for the Larix Landscaping pond in 2025. Jump to bottom of the page and it is listed under 'albums'.

The garden in 2024

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Jump to bottom of page

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January 2024

January 1, 2024
Sooke reservoir unavailable. 7 degrees at 3:30. Went on the VCCC car run to Centennial Park. Washrooms closed. Pat grabbed a couple of doughtnuts and we headed home. Have our own coffee. Added If.mp3, amRock.mp3, Sleepwalk.mp3 and Skylark.mp3 to the Sounds folder. I have 49 of them used, so far... If will be 50 when I use If on JE2023. So..Rock, Sleepwalk, Skylark, Sun, BlueBayou, Blues, River, HeartGoesOn (Kenny G) telstar, and a text file? to make up 60 files.
Note: When loading the JE2023.html Must remember to put the Synopsis photos into public html + 'images' , and put the If.mp3 MP3 into 'sounds'. (Taken from the 2021 JE page)
if you don't want your comments themselves to render with the page, you can create a comment in the following format: The '[ac]' is AmeriCommerce special syntax that will stop the comment from rendering on that page at all.

YES! this works. Must use the JE2023 to do all the JE pages onward. I am tempted to try and put this into a green font... oh well. Put this new coding in after the < /head >


January 2, 2024
Sooke reservoir unavailable. Doing the light laundry. 7 degrees at 12:00. Grocery shopped, made cole slaw and dressing, watered house plants. It rained a bit this afternoon. Did up the garbage & compost Bins, and Blue Box schedules for 2024.

January 3, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 82.3%. 7 degrees at 11:30. Downloaded Dec. Garden photos, adjusted date. To London Drugs and for a nice drive. Did up Banking stuff. Have a bit of stuff done on the JE2023 page.

January 4, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 82.3%. 8 degrees at 11:30. Call back from the Doctor Trerice's office: They are sorry for taking so long to get back to us, and sorry Dr. Treice cannot take us on as patients. Am up to April 1 in creating the JE2023, with some of the snynopsis done. Took out the compost to the bin and took the bin to the curb. Cold wind blowing, but its at 10:00 and sunny.

January 5, 2024
Sooke reservoir unavailable. 7 degrees at 11:00. Slept in quite late. Stomach feeling a bit better. Not eating much again today. To the grocery store. Got nothing done, except make the supper.

January 6, 2024
Sunny, 6 degrees at 10:30. Sooke Reservoir at 82.3% (again). I have found that the animals photo album is for ganimals and only for animals in the garden. Otherwise animals will be seen on the travel pages, such as galapagoes. Same thing for birds, which is also gbirds. There is a photo album under photography called Animals...This is listed as animals, birds, insects. See the Gardening drop down water 2020 for the photo albums that will be listed on the new water2020 page,(photo album) and having 3 parts being Equipment, Deck, moss, with each section being a photo album also. The plant list page is listPS (pond and surrounds), https://www.mmmee.com/listJM (Japanese and Moss), and https://www.mmmee.com/listDPP (deck and shade). See the plant lists page for more on this.

January 7, 2024
Sunny, 6 degrees at 10:30. Froze last night. There are weather alerts for colder weather and storms coming..to hit Monday-Tuesday. Finished coding and loading the JE2023 page and it all works. 'If' is the mp3. Must use this 2023 page as the template as it has the notes coding on it. Made updates to Change page and the playlist page. Forgot the revised date on Change oh well. Emptied .5 inches of rain out of the rain gauge. Swept off the water table. Made up the sausage and rice casserol, did dishes, swept the floor. This took an hour and a half. There are two colorful humming birds around the feeder today. Watched the 2 old grumpy men and then was up to all hours trying to recover my hotmail email. to hell.

January 8, 2024
Rain all day, more computer stuff to get a new outlook account, added it to Facebook. New passwords. Doing laundry, down for a hour and half nap. Meat pies for supper and ceasar salad. Emptied 1 inch of rain out the gauge at 6:00. Can't see the temperature as the sun goes down about 4:35. Got the final xml document opened with the magic file viewer. Now I have all the stuff. Have to get on that Microsoft meet thing.

January 9, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 84.1%. 7 degrees at 12:00, wind has died down and so has the rain. Emptied 2 inches of rain out of the gauge at 12:30. Windows update.

January 10, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 84.7%. 5 degrees at 11:00.

January 11, 2024
5 degrees at 1:00. Did ironing. Grocery shopped. Trying to get my hotmail account... cannot find it.. to hell with it. Cannot change the flickr contact mail.. to hell with that too. I might just delete Flickr, too. It is -3 at 3:00 and snowing. Brought the hummingbird feeder in at 4:50, after dark. There was a hummingbird there at about 4:35.

January 12, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 88.0%. -12 degrees at 9:30. - 8 degrees at 10:10. Put the humming bird feeder out. There was a humming bird there at 10:30. After a while the hummer was not eating but just sitting at the feeder. I went out to try and catch it and its feet were frozen to the feeder. I loosened it and it flew away. Put the feeder out at 10:50 after seeing a bird checking for the feeder. I put a cardboard box under the feeder to keep it off the frozen table. A hummer was back at 11:00 and fed for a while and flew away. Brought the feeder in to warm up. Put it out again at 11:15. The whole province, the whole country in fact is in a deep freeze, with snow storms. Made cookies. They are not hanging together very well. Finished 5 rows of the gAnimals (Amimals in the garden) photo album. 1 row to go. Its a short album. There is another animals album in photography. There are lots of animals from our travel pages.... should I ever get them all finished. Have the humming bird feeder in the house at about 4:00, its frozen. Its a bit windy at 6:00. After supper cleaned up the bottom of the stove. I will be getting up after mid night and putting the self cleaning oven on.

January 13, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 88.5%. -4 degrees at 4:00. Was up 11:15 to 2:20 cleaning the oven for 3 hours. Reading the Elon Musk book while sitting up to make sure I didn't burn the house down. Emptied the bottom drawer and all the stuff off the top of the stove. After breakfast at about 11:00 I wiped out the oven, washed the stuff and put it back in the drawer. Cleaned the microwave. Cleaned the trays on the light garden. Watered and cleaned the plants and put them all back on the shelves. Finished sometime after 3:00 when I ran out of energy. Put the humming bird feeder out at about 11:00 and they were immediately there to eat. There are two of them. The dominant one was there but I did not have time to watch for the other one. Washed the potholders and the green covering for the bed, and the towels from the suite. There will have been a lot of hydro used. Lots of hot water in cleaning the trays. Humming bird at the feeder... it might be frozen. It is sunset. I should have brought it in earlier to unthaw. Brought the feeder in at 5:13.. good heavens! It is unthawed. I really don't understand this.

January 14, 2024
Minus 2 degrees at 10:00. Put the humming bird feeder out at 9:00. Saw the 2 humming birds out there at 10:00. Yesterday the birds (maybe juncos) ate the bread crust crumbs I had put out under the water table. There was a robin or two eating holly berries. There are still berries on the holly tree now. Made cappiccino. Dan phoned at about 12:00. Called back and had a bit of chat. Diabetes truck phoned. Pickup on 24th. I sorted the magazines out of the end table in the ironing room. Sorted pictures out of one of the binders and threw some photos as well as the whole binder into the garbage. Have about 4 more binders to sort. This took till 3:00. Finished tweaking the photos for the gAnimals photo album.

January 15, 2024
3 degrees at 2:30. Sooke reservoir at 89.0%. Put the humming bird feeder out about 11:00. Finally got the Teams set up with the at shaw email account for microsoft. And figured out how to get a icon on desk top and it works, except I have no idea how to set Teams up and hope it just works. I have added an old black and white photo to that microsoft account. Doing laundry.. only 3 loads and the towels will be dried over night. Made the ganimals photo album and am starting the code. Updated the old water page. Found the Sooke reservoir levels: https://www.crd.bc.ca/docs/default-source/water-pdf/sooke-reservoir/storage-summary.pdf?sfvrsn=bd2991c9_801

January 16, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 89.0%. 3 degrees at 3:00. Made up 3 blue pkgs of chicken noodle vegetable soup; each on half full. It is very thick and can add more water. Finished the water2020 page, loaded it and it works. Finished the laundry (dried the towels over night and ran the dishwasher at night). I used a lot of kwh of hydro cleaning the stove (over night) and doing ironing the other day. Finished coding the index pages and step one of the photo pages of the gAnimals album.

January 17, 2024
Snowed over night and into the morning. It is 3 degrees at 11:00 and stopped snowing. Looks like about 4 inches on the water table and is starting to melt. Made onion/squash bisque: froze 3 pkgs. Changed ink in copier. We need ink from London drugs

January 18, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 89.1%. 0 degrees at 10:00 and and snowing lightly. The snow has piled up again. I found that the deep freeze had stopped freezing and was defrosting. I moved the meats and soups down to the fridge downstairs. Took out a plum pie that had defrosted and made up the pie. Made cranberries (2 jars). There is still some defrosted stuff in the freezer... duck stock, more plums, plum sauce, apple sauce, some cheese. We are to get higher temperatures tomorrow and should go to London Drugs to get a new deep freeze and have them take the old one away. Made up one of the meet loafs for supper. Spent most of the afternoon looking at photos in the secret modern crevice garden. Spriggs has made himself a tufa garden with 3 waterfalls and a pond. Pictures of it in the crevice garden group. The humming birds were around a bit today. The feeder is almost empty.. I must have spilled some of it. Did more sorting for the new water garden page and find that I need to make 3 albums for it, and another one for the pond surrounds. It has a lists page. But I will have to add this to the plant lists page and the menue. Oh well. What do I have but time to do this stuff?

January 19, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 89.3%. 3 degrees at 11:00 and raining. Cleaned the snow off the water table. Filled the humming bird feeder and put it out. Moved all the stuff out of the deep freeze and into the freezers and the two fridges. The freezers are stuffed full but still working. So, the soups are frozen again and any of the meats that thawed slightly. A few of the chicken stock got frozen but most of the stocks are in the downstairs fridge. We have a bit of leeway to shop for the new freezer. There is still snow and slush lying around the roads and the driveway, etc. Grocery shopped. Have some nice veggies. Got some more stuff done on the Water 2020 page stuff. Finished the gardening page, and starting to add the pond surrounds url to the menus. Nice supper with left over white fish and goop, left over veggies, cole slaw. Read a bunch of stuff about web3 last night. oh man..I will never be able to get that..would be good if I did not have to go to Windows 11. Put $2K on the credit card. That should do them for next month.

January 20, 2024
5 degrees at 10:00. The snow is still on the streets, etc. Sooke reservoir at 89.4%. Spent the day at correcting the menus on the 13 main pages, finished the Water2020 page. Finished the gardening page additions. Did Create2, FishPond html and conFish and ConCreate2. Have to do pond with the con page, and Deck with con page. Then load all of them.

January 21, 2024
7 degrees at 1:00. It has been raining lightly, off and on. Emptied the water out of the broken freezer. Uploaded the rest of the under construction pages for the Water2020 page. Uploaded them all, and the 15 main pages with the change to the gardening menu, and changes on the gardening page. It all works. Emptied 2 inches of water out of the rain gauge.

January 22, 2024
7 degrees at 1:00. It has been raining lightly, off and on, again. Did laundry. Took out the compost pot to the bin and the coffee grounds and old plums/rhubarb to the the strawberry patch. Put a few leaves, dead perennials in the green bin. Got a bit more coding done on the gardening stuff. We were out to the bistro at Broadmead for a very nice dinner.

January 23, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 90.0%. Light rain again and quite warm out. Finished putting away the laundry. Put a few more things into the Diabeties truck stuff. After lunch we shopped at Rona, Western Appliances, Best Buy for a deep freeze. We have settled on the Rona one and will go see the guy to buy it, tomorrow. Took the Diabeties truck stuff down to the entry way. Pat decided we had to repack it into more bags so that it was lighter. So, now we have it to put out on the front entry way, before 8:00 am. We have an old shower curtain to put over top of it all, cause it will be raining again. Did a bit more of the coding on the gardening stuff. Am slowly getting the water2020 page finished and the FishPond page with the 3 more photo albums made into under construction pages. Finished reading the Elon Musk book last night.

January 24, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 90.6%. 9 degrees at 11:00. Emptied 1 inch of rain out of the gauge. Raining this morning. Moved some stuff to the guest room, in preparation to getting our new freezer delivered tomorrow.

January 25, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 91.5%. 10 degrees at 11:00. sun/cloud. More corrections on the water2020, FishPond, gardening and progress pages and uploaded.

January 26, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 93.1%. 10 degrees at 11:00. Starting to rain at 10:00. Emptied 1 inch of rain out the gauge. 12 degrees at 3:00. The Rona guys brought the new deep freeze in and plugged it in. They took away the old one. A $79.00 fee for delivery and taking away the old one. I vaccumed my room, the kitchen, the dinning room, both bathrooms and part of our bedroom when the little vaccume ran out of charge. Moved the lights back in place, the chair and its box table. Moved the frozen stuff from both fridge freezers back to the deep freeze, after letting it cool for about an hour. The older stocks are in the old basket at the bottom of the freezer. I have 20 soups on hand, 7 apple sauce, 1 plum sauce, pie and sliced plums for making plum sauce, some meats. I have an unfrozen apple sauce and a blue box of unfrozen plum sauce in the fridge. There is lots of room in the freezer. I made up the new list of stuff in it. I have to iron its green cover and its all done. Made a list of stuff for Gizmos. I have to phone them to find out when is a good time to bring my stuff in to them.

January 27, 2024

January 28, 2024
Is 12 degrees at 10:30. Ironed a couple of shirts and the cover of the deep freeze. Watched curling from 2 to 5. Our team lost to another Victoria team to go to the Briar for B.C. The Briar will be in Regina. Got a few more blog posts searched. Too much about the defunct megashot on it. I really do wish he could have got financial and technical help with it, though.

January 29, 2024
Saw the tiny shubunkin fish in the pond this morning! Is 12 degrees at 11:00. overcast. Laundry done. Added the little shubunkin to the Water2020 page and the Fish Pond page. Added a link to those 2 pages onto the original water page. must upload them again. Am up to 2011 blog posts checking for fish and predator photos and info. Pat brought home a couple of mouse traps and set one up for the mouse I saw in the kitchen last night. We have a peak power test from Hydro for tonite from 5 - 8. We are going out to dinner at Denny's. I will turn off all the lights and my computer, and see if that helps. I think I need to save 20%, again. Twit secretary sent around a poster for our next speaker... its the same guy from Romania, and it is on Feb. 11th. I don't need to go again ... its on Teams instead of zoom.

January 30, 2024
Sooke reservoir level is at 98.3%. Spent about an hour cleaning up one of my drawers. It is 12 degrees at 12:00 and overcast. Got the schnitzel all smacked flat. Took the stuff down to Gizmos. They don't give us any money. They can't resell ear plugs. They take the old ink things. So, I guess that is some down sizing if nothing else. The snow drops and crocuses are coming up in the middle strip of the bouelvard garden, but nothing is up in the crocus field. The mail man has been parking on that grass. The French lavender is all knocked down. I will need to cut it all back and get a new one. The little fish is at the top of the pond. Added the Heron youtube video to the FishPond page and the Water2020 page. Need to upload them.

January 31, 2024
Sooke reservoir level is at 99.2%. 12 degrees at 11:00. After the snow, we are now having some record high temperatures.

February, 2024

February 1, 2024
Sooke reservoir level is at 99.6%. 13 degrees at 1:00. Watered the house plants. Downloaded January icey pictures. Divided the ground beef into 5 pkgs of 6.7 oz, cut the cheddar cheese into smaller blocks and froze it, divided the bacon into 2 pkgs of 4 slices each. Have the big ham in the oven. I will start the oven tonite about 4:00 on about 350 degrees and cook it until 5 or 6. Have searched out more info on the fish.

February 2, 2024
Sooke reservoir level is at 99.9%. 10 degrees at 11:00. Packaged the ham that had cooked at 340 from 3:30 to 6:30. 3 pkgs in freezer and a small one in the fridge meat drawer and a jar of ham juice to use in cooking rice, in soups, etc. Sent membership dues to Louise Potin virags. news@gmail $20.00. Finally got the fish photos captions finished and the squirrels.

February 3, 2024
Sooke reservoir level is at 100%. 7 degrees at 10:00. Spent hours looking at rock garden stuff on Crevice Gardens. and videos on youtube making water falls and water gardens. None of them had ponds and fish to worry about though.

February 4, 2024
6 degrees at 10:00. Checked the gAnimals album and uploaded it. It works. Updated the Progress page. Started the gBirds photo album.

February 5, 2024
10 degrees at 11:00. Have 2 loads of laundry done by 11:00 .. 2 to go. Drinking coffee. Made green bean soup with ham juice. Have a recipe for it. This is not like my Mom's green bean soup. The ham juice makes it way too salty. Also added the ham fat into the bacon fat jar. There seems to be only 1 humming bird around. I wonder if they are nesting. The weather has been so mild for the last 10 to 14 days. There are no crocuses coming up in the crocus field, but they are coming up in the next level up of the Boulevard garden. Very strange. The mailman has been parking on the outter edge of the grass, but does not really seem to be on the crocuses. Have my membership for NARGS and my ticket for the Zoom link on Sunday morning, was in USD so was expensive for Canadians.

February 6, 2024
8 degrees at 1:00. Sun and cloud. Sooke reservoir is still at 100%, so the water should be able to return to fill the streams and rivers that run over the dam. The crocuses are finally coming up in the crocus field. Was out to take 18 pictures. Pat gave me his special string and I had to make up a new string to attach the lens cover. Finished the ironing. Found the blog post about the coopers hawks and a couple of blog posts about the herons.

February 7, 2024
8 degrees at 2:00. Have all my gardening memberships up to date: HCP, VIRAGS, North American Gardening (new one with ticket to Zoom ($56.14), AGC-BC. Made cookies this morning. Spent time on the NARGS site and on Wrightman Alpines. Added Wrightman's and NARGS to links. Revised the menus (13). Grocery shopped.

February 8, 2024
8 degrees at 11:30. Made up the chicken stock (jars). Wrote my going off my meds up in my book. Am feeling a lot happier and zippy in the mornings. My skin has become less itchy and less flakey. I am no where near as anxious about everything any more ... and it is only been 4 days. The twit cannot get a link to the VIRAGS news letter to work for SOME of us he says. sent him a reply to add my email to his what the hell ever it was, and asked him to send a direct link to the pdf. Guess he is not capable of doing that. Quote: We're sorry, but (my shaw mail) can't be found in the virags.sharepoint.com directory. Please try again later, while we try to automatically fix this for you. hope this works. I can usually open pdfs Would just a direct link to the pdf be easier to use?

February 9, 2024
8 degrees at 1:30. Spent too much time on trying to get Lindsey's Microsoft teams stuff. To hell with it. I sent a FaceBook message to Maria asking her if she would be allowed to put a link to her pdf news letter on her Facebook page. Have finished sorting photos for the Birds in the garden album. Have 6 pages, but hope I can reduce that to 5 pages. Finished tweaking and numbering page 1 of the birds in the garden album.

February 10, 2024
Forgot the NARGS meet on Zoom. Thought I had to update my zoom and fiddled about with that for hours. Finally got on to the meet by opening the copy of zoom I now have. Then added the link to my browser and put in my email in the sign in place... forget whatelse and it worked. I got to see half of one speaker and all of the last one. There will be recorded videos, I think. It seems the NARGS had a few hiccups in getting started on their Zoom presentation. Downloaded their plant lists to the NARGS folder. Spent about another hour looking at VanIsle's creation of the water garden.. It is fantastic! .. on facebook. email to Donna about the old lawn mower and VIRAGS upload. Trying to get a copy of newsletter, too. Maria not answering her messenger.

February 11, 2024
8 degrees at 12:00. Took the compost out and cleaned up a bit of the ferns. Last night I got the new news letter by Burke on the pdf from Donna. Too bad about Maria and Jeremy quitting. Figured out how to get the meeting stuff on Teams. Go to calendar and join meeting. Might have to record the meet somehow on the calendar. Not sure, don't care. Sent Donna the pdf of the Romainian plants from you tube.

February 12, 2024
Did laundry, shopped for groceries. Made up 2 jars of Greek salad. Took out the compost pot and picked up a few dead ferns, etc. Got over 4000 steps. Not sure what else I did but was busy all day. Hagis, turnip, potatoes with onion, and Greek salad for supper.

February 13, 2024
About 8 degrees high today. Finished the laundry. Watered and fed the house plants. Made the Provencal Braised Chicken with fennel, saffron, orange. It is more like a stew than the proper braised chicken. Its pretty good though. But I think I can eat chicken thighs with a proper Braised chicken recipe, next time. Have 1 blue pkg frozen. Finally, my mmmee at outlook is sending the facebook stuff into my email, at last.

February 14, 2024
5 degrees at 1:00. Had a msng text chat with Tammy on Facebook. Showed her my webpage yesterday. Got my emails cleaned up a bit. Have 3 more gardening friends on Facebook. Windows updated. Actually got one row of photos tweaked in Birds album. Found the NARGS videos sign in to get them. Will now be able to watch them at my leisure. Uploaded a couple of water garden photos to the gardening album. Upload them to the album, both at the same time, then they are both on my page in the same upload. Finally, got that figured out. Got email from Don about sending my email to him to Erik. Erik sent direct link to the pdf for the newsweek and said that I should never have got that link, as I did not have a VIRAGS email. And it had nothing to do with the microsoft teams stuff. Ha.. Donna knew how to send a direct link to the video by the Romainian Guy, but I had sent her one at about the same time from the other gardening groups youtube.

February 15, 2024
Did up emails. Made the stuffed pepper for supper. Grocery shopped. 6 degrees at 4:00. Very cool out there. Tweaked another row of bird photos for the album.

February 16, 2024
6 degrees and sunny at 10:00. Ice on the water table. Have finished page 2 of the Birds photo album. Sorted the photos and will have 5 pages = 15 per pages: 5 across and 3 down. 75 photos. Made the stew for supper. The ladies curling starts tonite at 5:00. Finished tweaking 3 pages of the birds album. Watched the curling.

February 17, 2024
10 degrees today. Overcast. Finished tweaking 4 pages of the birds album. Watching curling (2 games) today.

February 18, 2024
8 degrees at 11:00. Did banking stuff. Finished tweaking the 5 pages of photos for the gBirds album. Watching curling -- 2 games today. Ordered Romeo's pizza for supper.

February 19, 2024
Up to 6 degrees today. Light rain and coolish. Did light laundry. Made up the gBirds album and started the coding. Watched curling. Shopped in the big store in Langford.

February 20, 2024
A bit of rain. 8 degrees at 1:30. Finished coding the index pages of the gBirds album. Did ironing, finished the laundry. Picked up some leaves and dead perennials for the green bin. The white hellebores under the deck are in bloom. There are more crocuses coming up around the garden, but they are very sparse in the crocus field. Maybe that mailman is parking all over the crocus field. Can't tell who all might be parking there, can't see them through the cedar hedge. The Palestinians got a Uhaul truck stuck in the lawn and have made a terrible mess getting it out. They have so many vehicles around there. They seem to be repairing vehicles and selling them. Turned off the pond pump in view of the Hydro peak saver from 4:00 to 7:00.

February 21, 2024
7 degrees at 10:00. Bit of rain. Finished step 1 and step 2 of the Photo html pages of the gBirds album. And started the photo captions. Book marked the site with the live bird feeders all over the world. Made the tuna casserole for supper. Watching curling.

February 22, 2024
Very nice day. 12 degrees at 4:00. Finished coding the photo captions for the gbirds album up to No. 21 which is half way through the second page. Watching curling. Making ribs, mashed potatoes, for supper.

February 23, 2024
10 degrees at 10:00. Finished half way through Page 3 of the photo captions of the gBirds album. We managed to get the peak saver on hydro a couple of days ago. Goal was to reduce hydro useage by 20% and we managed to reduce by 36% from 4:00 to 7:00. Made cookies. Took the blue bin out. Watching curling.

February 24, 2024
8 degrees at 2:00. Out to take a few pictures. The crocus field is slowly showing up. There are daffodils in buds and hellebores in bloom under the deck. Snow drops and crocuses in bloom around the garden. Turned the pump back on. The pond seems to be down a bit, and the pump has not been running for a few days. Strange. It has been raining a bit. Must have a leak somewhere. It does not seem to be in the waterfall. The back light has been coming on a few times over night. More strangeness. I see no critter tracks in the mud near the pond. Finished page 4 of the photo captions on the gBirds album. Links to almost everything.

February 25, 2024
Finished the gBirds album and uploaded it, it works. Updated the Progress page and uploaded it. Watching curling. Rained a bit today. Emptied 3/4 inch of rain out of the gauge. Made coffee, made lunch, made supper of sausages, garlic mashed potatoes, boiled brussel sprouts, saurkraut, apple sauce. Started the bugs album. Homan of Ontario won the Scotties briar. Very good game. We finished supper at 9:00. Had scanned the computer while we watched the game and had supper. All's good. Hollman from Ontario won the scotties briar.

February 26, 2024
6 degrees at 11:00. It froze lightly last night. Watered the house plants. 7 loads of laundry to do. Peak Power saver 4:00 to 7:00. We went out to Lakes for dinner. Had meatballs and spahettie; was good brought half of it home. There was a bit of snow, that melted, on the way over to the restuarant. Finished the laundry after we got home after 7:00.

February 27, 2024
4 degrees at 10:00. It froze lightly last night. Dried the towels at 2:00 am. Did banking. Working on the bugs album. Have sorted some of the other album stuff into the 00albums. Have decided that the Animals from Galapagos will only be in Galapagos or have their own album. All other Animals in photography will be from other travels etc. I am going to do Hyrants by year. 2007 has lots of them.

February 28, 2024
8 degrees at 10:00. Raining. Moved the 1 - 5 Hydrants into their folder. Have 40 of them with duplicates. Did the ironing. Emptied an inch of rain out of the gauge. Finished searching Pictures #14 for bugs. Also moving animals and birds(under photography) into the oo folders.
Leap year

February 29, 2024
6 degrees at 10:30. Took out the compost pot. Emptied 3/4 inch out of the rain gauge. The waterfall is running really nice. We were successful in our peak saver and get $3.00. We had a 23% decrease instead of 20%. Moved 2006 hydrants into their 2006 folder. There are less than 2 pages, so I might be able to do a 1 - 6 folder or Add Irene's to 2006.

March, 2024

March 1, 2024
7 degrees at 11:00, overcast. Did up the end of the month stuff. Downloaded Feb. photos. Have not seen a humming bird for quite a few days now. Finished searching Photos 2015.

March 2, 2024
Sorted Hydrant 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 to their folders. Moved Cyr -- 7 of them, Irricana is probably 2005 and some from their trip across the USA. 7 degrees at 3:30.

March 3, 2024
Have reduced Hydrants 7 to 4 pages, numbered and sorted with one extra to delete. 6 degrees at 11:00. Shrimp avocado in salad for lunch.

March 4, 2024
Sorted hydrants 1-5 to 25 photos. Finished sorting and numbering photos for Hydrants: 1 - 5, 6, 15 and Irenes photos...5 pages and 2 rows = 85 photos. Hydrants: 8, 9, 10 = 4 pages = 60 photos. Hydrants: 11, 12, 13, 14 = 1 photo short of 4 pages. 8 degrees at 11:00 and sunny. Laundry 4 loads -- doing blankets. March 4, 2024
March 5, 2024
Curling, sorting bugs photos.

March 6, 2024
More curling. Finished sorting the bugs.. have to tweak them and renumber them. Have 4 - 5 pages...

March 7, 2024
Froze last night. 8 degrees at 3:00. Started tweaking the bugs photos. Have 1 page numbered and 4 more pages to go. More curling.

March 8, 2024
8 degrees at 11:00. Have the VIRAGS newsletter and go to the right side and click the fit to width of page to make it readable on my old computer. AND they have gone back to ZOOM for the virtual meetings. They want stuff for the silent auction. I am thinking of cleaning up the little decorative pots (3) to take to them. Finished tweaking page 1 and 1 row of the Bugs album. Have the rest sorted and numbered. More curling to watch.

March 9, 2024
10 degrees at 10:00. Emptied .5 inch out of the rain gauge. Watered the house plants. Finished tweaking page 1 and 2 rows of the Bugs album. More curling. Had baked fish, asparagus, garlic mashed potatoes, ceasar salad for supper.

March 10, 2024
12 degrees at 2:15. Finished tweaking page 2 and 2 rows of the Bugs album. Final curling of the men's briar in Regina. Gushue won again against McEwan of Saskatoon, Sask.

March 11, 2024
8 degrees at 11:30. Overcast, rained a bit yesterday. Did laundry. We made our Peak Hydro thing, saved at 39% and get another $3. Finished tweaking page 3 and 1 row of the Bugs album.

March 12, 2024
9 degrees at 2:00. Finished laundry. Finished tweaking page 4 of the Bugs album. Took most of the day off. Watched the zoom of heron's wood garden. Interesting. I don't have to watch the other gardening club's Zoom tomorrow night.

March 13, 2024
8 degrees at 10:30. Ice on the water table this morning, so it froze last night again. Finished the photos and made the Bugs album. Started the coding.

March 14, 2024
13 degrees at 3:30. It froze lightly last night. Pat could not get into his email and said he would call Trevor later. My Thunderbird was messed up too. Worked with it a bit and got it almost back to where it was. It's Mozzilla messing with it. Will ask Trevor to have a look at mine too. Should have him look at our printer scanning also. Pat got his email fixed, so there will be no call to Trevor. Grocery shopped, London Drugs shopped and dropped off recyclables. Have finished the index pages of the Bugs album and the coding for step 1 of the photo html pages.

March 15, 2024
14 degrees at 1:00. Finished step 2 of the photo html pages. Finished No.12 of the captions for the photos of the Bugs album. Freakin messenger and yet more changes to use it.

March 16, 2024
19 degrees at 5:00. Finished Page 2 of the photo captions. Its been a beautiful day out and I should have been out in the garden. O well. I want to be finished this album by March 25 and have it uploaded.

March 17, 2024
Another beautiful day out. Was 13 degrees. I have finished the captions for the photos of the Bugs album up to No.39, which is halfway through Page 3. Went on the VCCC car tour to a place way out by the airport. Saw a lot of the people. I was exhausted by the time we got home. Neither one of us seemed to have got much sleep last night for one reason or another. Am reading Area 51 book and cannot seem to leave it alone in the middle of the night might be part of my problem. So, got no gardening done again, except a few pictures. The crocuses leaves are up but the blossoms seem to have been mowed off. I will let the leaves harden off and perhaps have a nice crocus field next spring.

March 18, 2024
Laundry day. 18 degrees at 4:00. Peak Saver on the 15th we saved 65% .. KFC and the temperature outside has been way up for the last 3 days, helped in the saving. Should be out gardening but want to finish the Bugs album by the 25th. Did banking, shopping. Cleaned up the compost pot and the bin. Still have the rest of the area under the sink to clean up. Finished page 3 of the bugs photo captions and am up to #50 on Page 4.

March 19, 2024
13 degrees at 12:00. Watered the house plants. Cleaned up on the deck. Brought the water iris up and put it in the tub. The vivali primula sits beside the deck tub. It needs more soil. The magnolia blossoms are opening. The co-pilot thing is part of the microsoft stuff. Open its Edge browser. Finished page 4 of the photo captions of the bugs album, and am up #66 on Page 5.

March 20, 2024
8 degrees at 9:30. Overcast. To lunch at JBI with Carol and Murray. 1.5 hour nap. Up to #70 of the photo captions... only 5 more to go then can check them all, and upload to the web. We have a hydro peak saver again tomorrow from 4 to 7. CBC National was amazing.. nothing about all these foreign atrocities happening around the world. Was ALL about Canadian stuff. That should reduce stress levels all across the country I think.

March 23, 2024
10 degrees at 1:30. Raining lightly, but steadily. Have the list page for the Deck and Surrounds started -- only have to get the plants listed on it, and get the top image made up. Have 19 pages of photos etc picked out to to use for the photo album. Should be able to reduced those photos to 5 or 6 pages. We didn't make the hydro peak savers reduction from thursday (21) so do not have high hopes for the one done on the 22nd. Made cookies. There has been wind and there are oak leaves in the pond and on my newly cleaned off deck. Emptied 1 inch of rain out of the gauge at 7:00. It is still raining very lightly. Seems like Mozzilla is messing about with my Thunderbird settings. Spent an hour trying and finally got all the folders to show.. don't know how, but it is working now the way it was before. Bloody hell.

March 24, 2024
13 degrees at 1:00. sunny. Brought the humming bird feeder in and cleaned it up and left the bleach on the bottom part. I don't see any humming birds around yet. Getting the list page for the Deck album made up. Got side tracked into making the Perennials list readable.

March 25, 2024
13 degrees at 3:00. Overcast. Laundry. Outside in the light, cold rain trying to get the waterfall fixed. I think I will need to clean the pump's filter off so it runs better.

March 27, 2024
10 degrees at 10:00. Breezy, bits of rain. 14 degrees at 4:00. Pat to the dentist yesterday, he is doing really well today. updated the about page. banking stuff. shopping from 1:30 to 4:00 - am totally tired.

March 28, 2024
13 degrees at 3:00. Packaged and froze the strawberries...terrible bunch, only about half are good, got them at Country Grocer. Divided the ground pork, lean ground beef and ground turkey into 4 meat loaf mixes and put them in the deep freeze. There are primulas in bloom along with the hyacinths, daffodils crocuses, magnolia tree. The oak tree is finally losing its leaves. Pond needs skimming. The silver willow is getting pussy willows. The water hawthorn is blooming in the pond. Was out taking pictures -- very chilly despite some sun and 13 degrees. Getting more of the list page for the deck surrounds, etc. The camillia by the deck steps is spectacular.. red blooms and variegated green and yellow leaves. All the bulbs in bloom, and the primroses. The whole garden needs to be cleaned up though.

March 29, 2024
11 degrees at 11:00. Did ironing, watered house plants. banking, hydro stuff. Lost my old skype.. to hell with it was never using it anyway. Finished the deck and surrounds garden Room page and it is ready to upload. Have to do the photo album next.

March 30, 2024
Was ice on the water table this morning. 12 degrees at 11:30. Finished and Uploaded the Deck Garden Room plant list page. Downloaded March photos. Did more of the perennials list sorting.

March 31, 2024
Was ice on the water table this morning, again. 12 degrees at 11:30. Finished sorting the photos for the Deck and surrounds photo album. Have 9 pages to do up. Finished sizing and numbering page 1 of the Deck photo album. I have expanded my Garden Rooms to 16 or seventeen, with 3 of them finished so far, including the accompanying photo albums.

April, 2024

Apri1 1, 2024
16 degrees at 2:00. Did light laundry. Emptied compost pot and did a tiny bit of clean up on the patio; putting oak leaves under the new rhodo and watering it a bit. The waterfall seems to be running a bit faster. Did some banking. Finished fixing the 'a's of the perennials list.

Apri1 2, 2024
13 degrees at 1:30. breezy, cool. Finished sorting the 'b' of the Perennials list. Finished numbering page 3 of the Deck and surrounds album. Shopping.

Apri1 4, 2024
12 degrees at 4:30. Cool. Watched tv curling, still standing. Finished tweaking and numbering Page 4 of the Deck and surrounds album.

Apri1 5, 2024
10 degrees at 4:30. Curling. Finished tweaking and numbering Page 5 of the Deck and surrounds album.

Apri1 6, 2024
13 degrees at 4:30. Curling - Canada won over Scotland and are in the finals to playoff against Sweden for gold and silver. Finished tweaking and numbering Page 6 of the Deck and surrounds album. Marsh marigolds, water hawthorn, scillas, primulas, hycinths, daffodcils, some tulips, iberis, camillia, berengia, plum tree, all in bloom. Finished tweaking and numbering Page 7 of the Deck and surrounds album.

Apri1 7, 2024
13 degrees at 4:30. Up at 6:00 to watch the final curling - Canada vs Sweden - they won. It was a really good game. Cleaned out under the sink. Finished Page 8 of the Deck and surrounds album.

Apri1 8, 2024
Slept in. Laundry. Reduced the Deck and Surrounds photo album by one page. Need to renumber them and then have one page to tweak and number the photos upon. Pat goes for his emergency dental appointment at 4:00 today. I need to get some soft foods that he will eat without chewing them. Goop and basa fish for supper, some sort of softer soup for lunch, I guess. Chicken noodle soup or that onion soup he likes, not that there is any food value in either of them. So finished page 7 and one page to go.It has finally started to rain at about 2:00. 2:50 the heron was on the deck railing. I scared it away while trying to sneak up to it to get its picture.

Apri1 9, 2024
Made the photo album for the deck and surrounds, with 8 pages of 15 = 120 photos. Finished step 1 of the index pages. I added the plants list page link to the LIST Pages. Added a link to the listDDP to the Index page menu of the photo album. Added a link to SatinFlower site to the links on the listDDP. I will use this listDDP for the template from now on. 15 degrees at 12:30. Emptied over half inch of rain out of the gauge. Watched zoom meet of the women from Toronto garden club speaking about their trip in Turkey in May of whatever year. Lots of bulbs, and interesting plants and scenery. The presentation and photography needs a bit more polish.

Apri1 10, 2024
15 degrees at 2:00. Did a bit of banking, facebook. Was out taking photos. The whole garden needs weeding, hedge trimming, grass mowed. Lots of dandilions around, but I do not see pollinators on them. The new tulips in the cutting garden look good. Nice variety of 2 of each color. There are about 12 or 14 of them. I need to repot the irises in the tub garden. The hyacinth has disappeared from the white deck pot. I only see 3 of the trilliums up. The red flowered one, and 3 blossoms on the old one by the round rock, and another new one just barely showing leaves. The lilies are doing really good in the little gold wall rockery. :). The saxifrages are not doing well at all.

Apri1 11, 2024
Sooke water level at 99.9%. 12 degrees at 12:30. Philippenense Grace ? x Nancy ladyslipper orchid has 3 blooms and 1 more bud to open. Hai Maria orchid in bloom, magenta African Violet in bloom. Watered house plants. It is going to be a big problem trying to dig out the Jack in the Pulpit plants Arisaema triphyllum (NOT) It is an asian Arum called Pinella Turnata. Finished the page descriptions to page 7. One more to go.

Apri1 12, 2024
12 degrees at 1:00. Finished the Index pages coding. Finished page 7 of the photo step 1 coding. Took the compost bin out to the back. Spent about half an hour cutting back the jasmine shrub on the back corner of the garage. I shouldn't need a trellis for it if I keep it cut back. It is about 4.5 feet tall now. Dug dandilions out of the pot on the deck and trimmed up the mini rose. My fork is gone and the long handled dandilion digging tool is gone. There were hoards of little ants on the counter top next to the sink on the left side. Swept them into the sink, and poured hot water down while cleaning up the compost pot. Then poured bleach down both sinks. Gawd where do these things come from. There seems to be a lot of frost damage out on the shrubs and plants and lots of dandilions all over the garden.

Apri1 13, 2024
Sooke reservoir level at 99.9%. 8 degrees at 10:00. Finished step 2 of the photo html pages and have captions done up to 20 on page 2.

Apri1 14, 2024
Nice sunny day. 16 degrees at 12:00. Finished up to No.44 of page 3 of the photo captions for the Deck and surrounds photo album. Had to go on the VCCC run today. No room in the tea room for all of us, we left without tea.

Apri1 15, 2024
13 degrees at 11:00. Light laundry. Covid booster shots today. Finished up to No.65 of page 5 of the photo captions for the Deck and surrounds photo album. Made correction to the kaffir lily link on the listDPP page.

Apri1 16, 2024
Sunny. Sooke reservoir at 99.9%. 11 degrees at 12:00. Finished (93) page 7 of the photo captions for the Deck and surrounds photo album. Went to tea and to see the Vista with Murray and Carol.

Apri1 17, 2024
Froze last night. Was -2 at 4:00 am. 1:00 it is 14 degrees. Sooke reservoir at 99.7%. Did banking, hydro, email, etc. Was out to get new tulips for the table and did a bit of weeding, pruning. Accidentally pulled out half of the wall flower, but I do have a new one growing, it is tiny. Cut back some of the rose off the doorway. Pulled out the arum thug shoots under the rhodo. Cut back the fig and the grape a little bit. Finished captions for page 8. Looking at the renovation for under the deck -- thinking I could have 5 rhodos or camillias to grow up to the top of the deck, just behind the trashed cedars. The cedars could be 'pleached at the bottom as the rhodos grew. But the old and young twits sit out right by the cedar hedge and smoke or are coughing, hacking and spitting -- disgusting people. So, this might not be worth the effort to renovate. I no longer see the wife living there and the sons seldom visit, that I see.

Apri1 18, 2024
Was -1 at 5:00 am and now at 4:00 pm is 18 degrees. Sooke reservoir at 99.6%. Made the ham and pineapple salad this morning. Sorted some books for the TC book sale. I am about done giving away books. Did more sorting for the next Pond surrounds pages.

Apri1 19, 2024
18 degrees at 3:00. Sooke reservoir at 99.5%. Have started the Pond surrounds list page. Shopped - 2 hours. Got 2 ice blue kingsize pillow cases.

Apri1 20, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 99.5%. 18 degrees at 12:00, cloudy. Made cookies, made avocado jello salad, boiled eggs for next salads. Was up to midnight last night. Have photos sorted and number, have about half of the list page coded, only need to do the plant names and finish the bottom part.

Apri1 21, 2024
a bit of water on the water table so we got a bit of rain overnight. To VIRAGS show and sale..no buys. 12 degrees at 9:00 and overcast. Romeo's pizza for supper.

Apri1 22, 2024
13 degrees at 1:00. 5 loads of laundry. Finished the listPS. Made Gazpacho soup. Took the compost out to the back bin. Ryan Tessier from elevatewashing.ca knocked on the door about getting the windows, gutters, moss cleaned up. Josh is to see Pat at 9:00 on 25th. Pat just wants gutters and exterior windows done. no moss.

Apri1 23, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 99.2%. 18 degrees at 2:00. Uploaded the listPS, revised plant lists, progress. Did a bit of clipping on the fig tree and the grape, and around the back buddleia and the wild tree. finished the laundry. Ironed the shirts. Apple tree blooming, lilacs blooming. Finished page 1 of the pond surrounds plants photo album.

Apri1 24, 2024
Didn't have my computer turned on until 5:30. Sooke reservoir at 99.0% (yesterday's measure) We had rain over night and rained lightly this morning. Made crepes St. Joques this morning and finished, did dishes about 2:00. Naped from about 3:00 to 5:00. 13 degrees at 5:30. While reading last night, I found that I could use Roundup for weeds and grass to kill the st. John's wort (hopefully) When it stops raining I will get some and spray the area before the green post to see if it works. Neither one of us cares if the Virginia creeper bites the dust. Also learned that I can have a Windows 10 pro (Microsoft 10 pro?) so I don't have to go to Windows 11 and all that AI stuff.

Apri1 25, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 98.8%. 11 degrees at 2:30. Rained over night, and lightly all morning. took the compost bin to the curb, tulips in the house. We have an estimate from elevate. About half an inch in the water gauge. (have not dumped it)

Apri1 26, 2024
Rained last night. 14 degrees at 10:30. Emptied a little over .5 inch of rain out of the gauge. There is a big piece of tinfoil hanging fairly high up on a branch of the oak tree. It was bins day this morning but there has been no wind to carry such a thing up there. Made the pond surrounds photo album. Apri1 27, 2024
14 degrees at 2:00. Cleaned and watered the light garden this morning. Had to replace one of the lights.. used one from the bottom shelf. Took until 11:00 - 2.5 hours. Thinking of asking Tara if she wants it. Made the beef stew. Rained last night and a bit this morning and is lightly raining at 2:00. There was no rain in the rain gauge this morning. Finished step 2 of the Photo html pages. Finished 7 of the captions.

Apri1 28, 2024
13 degrees at 3:00, breezy and cool out there, with spits of rain. Cut off some shoots of the honeysuckle vine and stuck them in the pot. Watered the pot. To the co-op gas got lottery tickets. Finished to No. 14 of the captions for the Pond Surrounds album. Looked up the recipes in the Times colonist and have a new cannelli beans and quinoa salad recipe, and one for the cucumber salad as well as the baked salmon recipe.

Apri1 29, 2024
Made up the cannelli beans and quinoa salad, and the cucumber salad. We will have them both with the salmon for supper. Yesterday I updated several of the gardening pages links with the link to the B.C. invasive Plants site. Have to upload them yet. It is 10 degrees at 3:00. We had a bit of rain, we need more. I am amazed... the photos in the photo album are now making the size of the caption lines equal without my making them do it with the
thing. Finished the photo captions and checked them.

Apri1 30, 2024
8 degrees at 10:00 and raining. 10mm = .39 inches of rain at 12:00. Sorted out the pond / Pond problem the old pond with 7 index pages belongs to the old water page and should be Pond. The pond2 has 2 index pages I have noted it as pond2 in the web page folder but it really runs as pond on the index files (lower case pond) BOTHER should have changed that from the start. They both work now. Uploaded all the lists pages, gardening page, progress and links pages with the addition of the BC invasive plants link on them now. Did banking, email. Dan and Carol phoned last night with news about Isabelle and Henri. They talked to Cindy and Henri. oK, got that sorted on FB. Downloaded the April photos. Sorted some documents stuff.

May, 2024

May 1, 2024
15 degrees at noon. Sooke reservoir at 98.6%. Made up 4 cups of Asian plum sauce from frozen 4 cups of plums in suar/brandy. Froze 3 jars and one in the fridge. Trimmed the big hedge on the outside and ran out of battery charge. Picked up the trimmings and put them in the green bin. Was out from about 1:30 to 3:30.

May 2, 2024
18 degrees at 3:00. Sooke reservoir at 98.5%. Was out from 1:30 to 3:30. Finished the trimming of the boxwood hedges. Did a bit of the front cedars and some of the back cedar hedge. I ran out of energy and so did the trimmer. Did a bit of cleaning up on the gold wall rockery and added the bit of cactus mix I had sitting around there. Took out the blue box. Put the water iris into a taller pot and into the tub. Cleaned the grass and weeds out of the big white pot with the perennials in it. Cleaned the moss out of the small white pot where I will be adding some parsley. Added 2 mini cucucumbers and a table spoon of yogurt to the already made up salad. Copied out the recipe for chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and feta cheese. I will make them up tomorrow morning for tomorrow's supper with the cucucumber salad, maybe make up more potatoe salad, and left over brussel sprouts. Tonight is perogies, and garlic sausage, baked onion, and canned cold tomatoes for salad. Did a bit of sorting for the photo album of the pond plants, and links for all the water garden pages, including fish and predators photo albums.

May 3, 2024
Was up till midnight last night looking for photos of plants in the pond. I will only have one 3 rows of the album, or maybe 2 pages of 2 rows each. 18 degrees at 3:00. Sooke reservoir at 98.4%. Was out from 2:00 to 4:30. Mowed the front grass. Dug out some of the dandilions, started to cut back the French Lavender, but it is done and I will replace it with a new one. Dumped most of the grass and some of the clippings and weeds and one black bamboo cane into the green bin. Saving room in it for the back grass, and then I can start putting in the lavender clippings I have sitting beside the bin. Made the chicken stuffed with spinach and feta cheese, wrapped in bacon, and mashed potato salad for supper with left over brussel sprouts. Was cloudy, I did not wear the off white sweater, too warm in it. Threw all the stuff in the washer when I got in.

May 4, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 98.3%. Finally found a duck weed photo in 2009. 17 degrees at 1:00. Ribs, baked potato and brussel sprouts for supper. Watched the Kentucky derby.. what a race.. photo finish for the first 3 horses seperated by a nose for first, second and third.

May 5, 2024
14 degrees at noon. Watered house plants. Made up the avocado jello salad - very tasty. Shopped at drug store. Bits of rain in the afternoon. London Drugs has been closed for a few days. They have suspected some hackers trying to breach their records and so are rebuilding the whole system. Sorted some photos for the Plants in the Pond album. Cannot find the name of that little green plant that grows around the front rockeries and is easily moved or dug out. I thought it was hernia plant or rupture worte but do not see its photo under that name.

May 6, 2024
Fifteen at 1:30. Big laundry day. Pat to the dentist for some fillings. Up to No. 12 in the pond plants album resizing.

May 8, 2024
Spent until 11:15 trying to make my thunderbird email sort emails by date received. It just won't do it. So freaking frustrating. 18 degrees at 2:00. Sunny. Sooke Reservoir at 97.9%. Took out the compost pot. Pat took a long bamboo stick and got the garbage out of the bay laurel and off the Oak tree branch. Looks like it came out of our garbage can on the deck. Also he found a ... nest in the apple tree and cut it off. Took the basil plant out and planted it in its green pot. I brought the viola 6 pack up to the deck and transplanted them to the brown pot. There is 2 dill tiny plants in the pot. The coreopsis is growning nicely in the big white pot. Added a bit of top dressing to it, filling in along the edges. Watered everything on the deck. Need to get the heliotrope, some parsley, garlic chives, maybe lettuce, another annual for color, maybe some marigolds for the cutting garden. Maybe some dutch iris bulbs for the cutting garden and shorter ones of the stump garden area by the pond. Was out from 2 to 4. Cut the back grass. Cleaned up a bit on the back rock garden. Finished pruning the fig tree by cutting down the height of the tallest branches. Dug out the thistles in the woodland path. Cut up the French lavender branches I had back by the bin. There was room for them in the bin. Have lilacs in the house. Smell nice out in the garden.

May 9, 2024
24 degrees at 4:00. Sooke reservoir at 97.7%. Was to Buckerfields up by the Co-op store, the lb store, Country Grocer, Cannor -- all plants and gardening stuff listed on Purchases page.

May 10, 2024
Got up to 26 degrees today. Sooke reservoir at 97.6%. Was out on the deck filling pots with fish soil, a layer of old compost on each. Transplanted the lettuce into the big white pot in the shade. It had 3 whole peanuts in it, when I worked over the soil. Wretched squirrels. Have the violas with the little garlic chives. Have another garlic chive to put out in the pot in the cutting garden. There are some kind of chives in that pot in full bloom now. Planted the heliotrope and the verbena bodenaires in the big pink pot and the parsley in the small pink pot. Have 5 pots each with a cutting of the French lavender in it. I could not find a French lavender so have brought home an English lavender. Not sure where I will put it, am still hoping to get a cutting of the French lavender to grow. Have 6 pack of cosmos and some kind of marigolds to put out in the cutting garden. There a few plants blooming there. Watered around the back and a bit on the compost bin and the rhubarb. Then I unplugged the pump, took the round rocks out of the waterfall and hosed down the waterfall rocks. It has green algae on it and in the pond. Took out the pump and took all the muck off the filter. Turned the pump back on and the waterfall looks great. Surprise Surprise.. while fishing some of the algae out of the pond, a big white fish came swimming by to see what was going on. After I got in to the house and was looking over the deck rail -- I seem to have a sarossa, a goldfish, another small white, and I don't know how many others survive. Didn't see the shubunkins. I tried to get the irises in the deck tub to stand up... have found 2 smaller hooks that seem to help out a bit. I haven't repotted them. It is all rather green. Moved a foxglove out of the lettuce pot to the spot beside the pond where the loosestrife was growing -- and again coming up. I will just have to keep after it, I guess. 23 degrees at 7:00.

May 11, 2024
23 degrees at 11:00. Sooke reservoir at 97.4%. Was up at 6:00 this morning. Typed out the Strawberry and Rhubarb pie recipe. Made up the pie. Can't get the Alpine Garden club of BC's link to the Hendersonii Trillium so looked it up -- Have copies and links in the Gardening folder. Also found Mock Orange and have copies on pruning it. Mine has out grown its space and I will be pruning it back - 1/3 at a time. The Alpine Garden sent a new link to the Hendersonii Trilliaum talk. Its a West Coast trilliam that lives in rock crevices in moss under waterfalls or where it is continuously damp. It has been traded around the world for years. Hans Rhomer may know about it. This guy that did the talk seems to sell them. O Well... there is a nice spot under the water fall where I think one would do great, but do I need it? Turned the sprinkler on the cutting garden at 8:00. Turned the sprinkler off at 9:15.

May 12, 2024
21 degrees at 12:00. Fed the fish this morning. Saw 1 big white one, 2 big gold ones, and 1 each of white and gold small ones. Got chives, oregano, rosemary, a dandilion leaf for the salad. Also used some basil that I have in the lettuces box. Was out in the garden from 1:30 to 4:00. Temps up to 25 degrees. Cleaned up the rocks from in the waterfall and put them back into the back of the waterfall. Weeded from the waterfall around to the end of the sedum trays. Looks much better. Trimmed the Lebanon cedar and some of the bay laurel. Skimmed the pond and filled it. Heard a humming bird so I put out the feeder. The new feeder holds 2 cups. The rufous sided towhees are feeding baby birds in the front garden under the bergenias. There was a wren and a female house finch in the waterfall.

May 13, 2024
22 degrees at 12:00. Overcast. Did light laundry. Shopping. Fed the fish but did not see any today. Was out in the garden from 3:30 to 5:30. Got about 1/4 of the cutting garden cleaned up. Transplanted 6 marigolds and 6 white cosmos. I seem to have 2 milkweeds growing... at least they should be milkweeds as they are in the milkweed spot. Watered it all for about 15 minutes. Some of the old perennials survive and there are columbines, maltese cross, veronica, lupine, not sure what the little pink one is but it is spreading nicely. Strawberries in bloom. Have over 4 km on my fitbit step counter thing. The rufous sided towhees still seem to be feeding the baby birds. Raked up and dug out 4 or 5 flats of weeds and leaves and twigs for the green bin. Dug out a big rock from the moss garden and filled the hole with clay/compost dirt from under the deck. This stuff is looking like really good soil to add to the beds. Cleaned up part of the entry to the pond area, too. Lots of clover growing everwhere. Not too bad to dig out when its damp. I use my rock hammer as a hoe to dig out weeds and dig holes for the transplants.

May 14, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 96.9%. 18 degrees at 11:00, sunny. Was out taking photos -- 139 of them.. not a good day for photos in the middle of the day. While I was at the front the rufous sided towhees were screaming at me. Did not get a picture of their nest. I guess the babies are still in the nest. Made cookies. Only have one row of the pond photo album to tweak. Up dated the fish pond page with the fish appearing -- very amazing -- haven't seen the heron.

May 15, 2024
16 degrees at 11:00. Sooke reservoir at 96.8%. Watered the house plants. Watered the back with the sprinkler from 8:30 to 10:00. Watered the woodland from 10:00 to 11:00, cleaning up the patio area and hosing down the hedge. Watered under the deck a bit and along the old sidewalk and around the back. That hedge is being destroyed at the bottom along the Palestinians/Syrians house where they have all sorts of auto parts and junk stacked against the hedge. Pat got new front tires and wheel alignment for the Last Lodge. While looking out the front window for the rufous sided towhees a little hummingbird came to the window and stared in at me. I haven't seen it around the back yet. Saw a towhee catch a worm at the back and take it to the front, but it did not go into the nest, just in under the front cedars. So I think the baby ones might be out of the nest and getting ready to fly away and look after themselves. updated wifi. Saved 1 pkg tuna surprise for Osoyoos. Downloaded the May garden photos and used one in the Pond Plants photo album. Have all the photos tweaked. 30 photos for 2 pages of 15 each.

May 16, 2024
14 degrees at 10:30. Its overcast and breezy. We are to go to Chemanius to the dinner theater and boon dock over night. There are NO cooking pots and pans in the Last Lodge. :). I have over 900 steps on my fitbit counter before we start. Pat got the new front tires yesterday and prepped all the water, etc. in the van yesterday.

May 17, 2024
Home from Chemainus overnite and theater - Jeeves at Sea. Chemainus murial photos. Free parking for Motorhomes along the street a few short blocks towards the water from the theater. Was really good, but cold and windy. Pat turned the heat on in the a.m. and the water heater, of course. Then we went for a big breakfast at the Bonnie Martin restuarant--very good. Got home and unpacked this at about 1:00 with 3 heart points on the counter and 2353 steps. It is 15 degrees at 1:30 today, with the Sooke reservoir at 96.5%. Breezy. Fed the fish. Got my Cheque from the Feds to the exact amount Pat calculated it slightly over 300.00.

May 18, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 96.8%. 14 degrees at 10:30. Grocery shopped. It rained a bit while we were out. Made up the plants in the pond photo album. Have finished coding the index pages. Finished coding .html photo pages. Only need to add the photo captions.

May 19, 2024
Finished captions of the plants in the pond album up to No. 28. Randall phoned from Is's place in ... 15 minutes from Airdrie. She is now in her own room and seems to be settling in. Its 19 degrees at 3:30. Have a spaghetti sauce to take to Oosoyous, schnitzel, and tuna surprise. No doubt there will be spam and beans. So, 4 suppers so far. We get a lunch at the club house whatever day. Then we expect to do our own tour to gallager winery, the hardware store, and have a lunch somewhere that day. We might get weiners and buns for lunches. AND I will be making up the kenoa and beans salad, the pasta, ham and pineapple salad and can take a few little cucumbers along for the cucumber salad and have the dressing made ahead of time. Coffee stuff and breakfast stuff (frozen strawberries, life cereal, Pats bacon, etc.), the cookies, crackers, bread, eggs, milk, potatoes, Ben and Gerry's icecream. Water, Barqs, wine and beer and whiskey. We had a bit of lettuce from the pot on the deck for lunch today ... very good.

May 20, Monday, 2024
18 degrees at 1:30. Made up the Hawian (ham, pineapple, vegetables, pasta) salad - 2 big jars full. Saw a humming bird at the feeder this morning. Laundry. Finished the photo album for the plants in the pond. transplanted the Saxifraga x andrewskii and the Delosperma Jewel of the Desert into the top level of the gold wall rockery at the front. To dinner at the Lakes restuarant. Saw a heron flying over as we drove home. Filled the pond. Fed the fish but haven't seen any in a couple of days.

May 21, 2024
Highest temps today was 13 degrees. It rained from 3:00 a.m. last night to 5::00 p.m. today. A nice steady rain. We have an inch of rain in the rain gauge. Made up the Quina, cannelli beans salad. Having hot chicken from the grocery store for supper with carrots and parsnips (with extras to freeze for our LTV trip next week. Have started to code the list page for the Pond Plants.

May 22, 2024
Rained a bit more over night. Emptied 1 inch of water out of the gauge. Sooke reservoir at 95.5%. 16 degrees at 1:00. Made the stew, took compost out to the back bin. We are having lettuce leaves from the deck pot for lunch. Finished the pond plants list page. Uploaded the photo album and the plants list pages for the Plants in the pond.

May 23, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 95.4%. 17 degrees at 10:30. Windows is pushing win 11. Support for win 10 to sept 2025. There are possibilities to buy win.10 (some new version) thereafter at some exorbitant expense. Started to do the Moss garden listPage. Lunch and out to shop. Got 6 pack of snapdragons, all yellow. Said they would be good cut flowers. They only had huge pots of cosmos. Got some seeds for sun flowers, california poppies (pollinators are suppose to like them, and have these old seeds sitting around the table. Dragged the bin out to the curb. Cut off bamboo and sprayed them with roundup. Sprayed some of the st. john's wort with roundup...will see if that works. Fixed the waterfall where that damn squirrel knocked down the spill rock and a bunch of other rocks. I haven't seen any fish while repairing it. Then in to make the supper immediately. pork and sweet and sour sauce with rice and fiddlehead greens, ceasar salad. Am very tired. Full moon last night was very nice. No pictures though. Pictures of the pixie and the ladyslipper plant on the light garden.

May 24, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 95.4%. 14 degrees at 2:30. Was raining lightly this morning. Took the canned goods and pots and pans out to the van. I seem to have way more room under there. Have made up my lists of things to take. Saw a couple of quail running along the street past our driveway. The humming bird is coming to the feeder regularly. Scrubbed off the deck chairs a bit this morning. too chilly to go out to plant the snapdragons. The bamboo seems to be turning yellow. I may have killed it spraying (with roundup) all the shoots that I cut off yesterday. Oh well I have another growing under the cedars by the deck so I should be able to get another one and put it in a container so it does not get all over the garden again, or not. It is nice to view it blowing in the wind.

May 25, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 95.1%. 14 degrees at 2:30. windy. Was out in the garden from 2:45 to 4:45 - 2 hours. Was still a cool breeze but was dressed warmly, so it was ok. Transplanted the English Lavender into the little brown pot on the patio. The little miniature rose was dieing. There was a peanut buried under it. Wretched squirrel. I will scatter cinnamon on the railing again. Seems to keep it away. I got about half of the cutting garden cleaned up, and the same for the strawberry patch. The strawberries have blooms and a few little green berries. I dug out weeds, picked up sticks and dug over the soil with the trowel -- I had to dig around the perennials and the bulbs and the strawberry plants. Soil is looking good, but there are tree roots across the garden. It is moist down to about 2 inches. Found several peanuts and threw them on the Pees garden. The hedge needs trimming back, as does the little boxwood hedge in front of the yews. Transplanted the snapdragons around among the perennials and annuals and bulbs. I think they are yellow and suppose to get about 18 inches tall and quite wide. I hope they act like tender perennials. The cosmos are short and white... a couple in bloom. The little pink thing ... might be the babys breath like thing is about a foot high and wide and covered in the pink blossoms. Hope it works in bouquets. The tulips are producing little bulblets. I think there are 2 milkweed coming up. A few Monarchs have been seen on Vancouver Island. I have put tomatoe cages around them. The verbascum is in bloom, but just one spike. Oh well, at least it survives. Only one of the Maltese Cross plants survives. There is a short blue veronica surviving, too. The lupine is going to be huge. The rhodos are in bloom. In the front the French lavender is full of blooms and there are pollinators. One of the little cuttings on the deck has a tiny bloom, so I am hoping it also is getting roots. The bamboo might be dieing from the Roundup treament, even though it rained the night after application. The roundup didn't seem to touch the plants in the driveway strip. (St.John's wort, rose). Perhaps I will mow it and then spray it and see if that works on a test spot. Otherwise, I will be digging it out, forever after.

May 26, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 95.1%. 14 degrees at 12:30. Lightly raining. To the Co-op for propane and diesel. Just got back from seeing Spriggs garden. Wow! it is stuffed with plants and he knows every one of them I'm sure. His new pond has great tufa surrounds that he is getting planted already and they just made it last winter. As we got home there was a heron flying over, so I dashed back upstairs to try and catch it at the pond, but it kept on going. Lo and behold, there were 2 big gold fish and 1 big white one to be seen. They looked to be getting ready to have some eggs laid so there may be little ones if they can survive the heron visits. Then I checked the rufous sided towhee nest..it is empty. They encorpated plastic film stuff in building it. How modern! They are still around, so I guess there will be another hatch of them this year. The humming bird is attending the feeder.. but just one so far.

May 27, 2024
was up at 5:50 this morning. Watered the house plants. It has been cloudy and cool most of the day, but not rain. Packed the food and the rest of my stuff into the van. I have 3400 steps at 6:10 = 1.11 km. We grocery shopped. I went for a nap at 3:30 and Pat woke me up at 5:45. So supper will be late. I have unplugged the pump. We leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning to make our ferry reservation. Pat expects to make it to Oosoyous to our campground tomorrow. And we are to be back to Tom and Diane's place for an over night on June 1 and to see Harvey and Valerie for lunch ... the next day?

June, 2024

June 2, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 94.1 as of Friday (May 31). We are having rain today. We got home from Osoyoos LTV rally yesterday and unloaded the Van last night. Very tired. Today I have been catching up email, etc. Pat redeemed points on the cr. union card. $600. and some dollars to reduce the amount owing on the card. One load of laundry from the Van stuff done. Added my weekly limit to playnow to $20. so maybe I could buy lottery tickets if this works on my paypal in a couple of days. Or I might have to increase the weekly amount, or just leave it alone, again.

June 3, 2024
Laundry. Emptied about 2/3 of an inch of rain out of the gauge. Pat and James are getting the Model T ready for the Father's day run. Apparently there was schmutz in the carberator, working from 9:00 to 1:15 and then off to lunch. (Pat and James) I am trying to catch up the web page with the Model T stuff and have a lot to do with the LTV last lodge. Downloaded the May photos some not too bad ones from the Chemainus Theater day and overnight. Rhodos in bloom, the blue bush in the front garden in bloom (California lilac), the clematis on the deck in bloom. The cutting garden needs to be finished, but is slowly coming along. The lewisia and others in the front rock garden in bloom but this needs more work. All the garden needs weeding every where. I slept in till 9:00 this morning, but will still need more rest today, after the camping stuff. That stuff just takes the starch outta me.

June 4, 2024
12 degrees at 11:00. Sooke Reservoir at 93.9. Emptied 1.5 inches of water out of the rain gauge. Windy and overcast. Grocery shopping. Very windy at 4:45, 16 degrees and sun. I have got the Moss/Japanese Garden Room list page started, at last. Pat brought in the 2 cases of wine and the Palm tree from the van.

June 5, 2024
Got up to 18 degrees today and sunny. Sooke reservoir at 94.0%. So all the rain we had did some catching up. Got quite a bit of stuff done on the list page for the Moss/Japanese Garden Room done. Finished the introduction part and have a few of the plants listed. Need to make the top image and the rest of the plants. Had my breakfast for lunch at about 2:00 after making up the meat loaf for supper. Then out to the garden. Pulled out a lot of weeds around the boulevard garden as I clipped the bamboo shoots out and sprayed them with roundup. This roundup doesn't seem to slow them down at all. Skimmed off the pond after shithead threw some weeds into the pond yesterday (threw them against the wind, at that). What an idiot. Checked the cutting garden for fallen tree parts. Not many twigs there. Had to reposition the chair, of course, after the wind. Weeded a bit along the front fieldstone path, and pulled out more weeds and clover. Raked off the thyme circle and pulled out weeds and cut off/sprayed bamboo. Added a bit of sand/topsoil to the bare spots on the thyme circle. It is looking pretty good, and thick after the rains. Hope I can get the thyme growing in the bald spots.. it needs more top dressing. It is starting to bloom. The French lavender is covered with blooms and bees. I brought in 2 huge light pink peony blooms that were flopping over and out of the cage thing. The little geranium thing is in bloom too. The rhodos at the back are in bloom and looking terrific. They have some kind of bees on them, too. I am pulling out bachelor buttons where ever I find them.. invasive and take over the garden beds. The cosmos in the cutting garden has grown taller. I have brought in lettuce from the deck pot and a garlic chive and a parsley snippet for each bowl along with barbeque smoked salmon bits, for supper.

June 6, 2024
Mowed the front grass path and then worked on getting the Boulevard grass cut back the pulled out of the perennials strip. Put grass clippings around the plum tree for the summer mulch. Lots of bees on the French lavender. I was out from 2 to 5 and was too tired to type this day's stuff in. In the morning I called Shaw/Rogers to get signed up for the new 2 year Tv stuff. We have 4 more months of $140 and then go to the new one at something like $190. There is a guy from Rogers coming on the 11th 3 - 5 to add some sort of 'TV box". No idea what that is about. It is free and will need to have it to run our TV in a couple of years. The guy will show us how to use it. Had over 2 km in steps. Romeo's pizza for supper.

June 7, 2024
Started coding in the Benz page stuff and have the Model T father's day stuff to do and then that page will be done. There will be photo albums for the Chemanius day trip and for the Osoyoos LTV rally. Pat made an appointment for a Berwick place on the 13th, so we are writing down our questions. We shopped from 1:30 to 3:00. Took out the compost bin and watered a bit by hand up on the deck, the rhodos and under the deck, along the old sidewalk and the patio pots and a bit into the pond. It is a Peak power saver tonite.. reduce useage by 20% at peak hours (4 to 7) so I made Pat's baked potato before 4:00. His roast beef gets done in the microwave, with left over vegetables as does my left over piece of chicken. We are having a salad of lettuce leaves with avocado and shrimp for dessert. It is 26 degrees at 4:15. Sooke Reservoir at 93.8%. I have 3,182 steps and 1 heart point (1.44 km) at 4:43.

June 8, 2024
25 degrees at 11:00. Sooke Reservoir at 93.6%. Sorted a few photos for the mmmee.com/24Chem photo album. Was out from 11:00 to 1:30. Have the grass along the front of the bouelevard cut back. Move a couple of clumps of grass with root into the bald spot where the Peeheads have been parking their bins and all the grass is gone. Watered them in and covered the edges with a bit of mowed grass. Have the green bin half full of the debris. Still need to weed the flower beds out there. Dead headed the Gertrude Jykel rose. Added more top dressing to the thyme circle. Was out before 8:00 and fed the gold fish. Saw the big white one and 2 big gold ones feeding. So, they are still in there! The waterfall is still running very well, and growing some plants. The pond plants are really getting big. It is cloudy and the temperature is at 18 degrees at 9:15. Would be great if we got some rain tonight.

June 9, 2024
18 degrees at 10:00. 24 degrees at 2:00. 12 degrees at 8:30. In the morning I sorted out photos for the Chemais (travel) and the 24Chemainus for our overnight after the theater, including one from the 'Seal Bay' LTV Rally. Got photos for the chemainus travel saved in the TO BE DONE folder in the Not web page, folder. Tweaked and saved 7 photos for the 24chemainus. There will be 24 photos in the 24Chemainus album and lots in a canam (model ts run) as noted in the TO BE DONE folder. Pizza for lunch. Got out to garden at 2:15 and back in at 4:15. Have made up the dinner stuff, just have to cook the potatoes and the califlower, salad made and meatloaf to be microwaved. While out gardening I got about 4 feet of the boulevard garden weeded and the hedge and honeysuck pilea hedge trimmmed. Mixed 3/4 pail of sand and sea soil and started the top dressing on the little gold wall rockery...got about 1/3 of it finished, and the West Coast planter done. Came in to watch BC play the Argonauts football game in Toronto. Good game too bad BC lost, in the last quarter. Supper was good..we had the salad at half time and the rest for a later dinner, after the game. Fed the fish at about 7:30...none of them came to the top, but I was not out very long. I have a bouquet in the house with shasta daisies, French lavender and a Dutch Iris in harmonious colors.

June 10, 2024
18 degrees at 4:30. Finished the laundry and the bit or ironing. Vaccumed the bath rooms, kitchen, dining room and a bit around the living room, and my room. Was out in the garden from 2:30 to 4:30. Added top dressing to the yellow wall rockery in the front. Crunched up dried leaves to make a mulch over the area in front of the cedars and cleaned out the kinickiwick. Then added the sand/fish soil mix around on top of the rockery. Moved a couple of the rocks higher adding chicken grit to fill the higher space with the top dressing on top. Dead headed the iberis and weeded a bit along the rock path in front of the rockery. Added a flat of debris to the green bin. The bin is about 2/3 full.

June 11, 2024
17 degrees at 11:00. Tiny bit of rain last night. More like a heavey dew. Sooke Reservoir at 93.7%. Windy in the afternoon. The TV lady was here to upgrade our TV box. Now we have all the channels changed and have to figure out how to run the new gizmo... within a couple of years we are going to need to have this thing our tv as the old one will be outdated and no longer used. Oh well, we will get it figured. Tweaked and numbered the photos for the 2024 Chemainus photo album. This album is listed on the Benz page. Started the Osoyoos meet for the Benz Page.

June 12, 2024
17 degrees at 10:30. Have made the album for the 2024 Chemainus trip, and started the coding for the 2 pages and 24 photos. Was out in the garden from 1:30 to 3:35. Got in and cleaned up, put away groceries by 4:00. Is 20 degrees. It was a bit warm with my sweater on. Got the little gold rock wall rockery weeded and top dressing of sand and fish soil on all of it. Started weeding the other side of the rockery and got it about 1/2 finished with adding top dressing to the corsican mint, the fern leafed peony, weeded the sea thrifts and the Mrs. Bradshaw geum and added top dressing to the thrifts and seasoil to the geum, peony and corsican hellebore. Dug over the soil around all of these plants before adding the top dressing. Moved 2 foxgloves to the shade in front of the cedars. Took a flat of debris and weeds to the bin. It is about 3/4 full. All the soil is really dry. The geum is spreading quite a bit, it looks really good with the silver sedum with yellow flowers beneath it and the burgundy smoke bush above it. Weeded the thyme circle and added more top dressing to it. Emptied the sea soil bag. I have another full one in the garage and a washed sand bag, along with top soil and mushroom manure. clipped back globalarias and started the Grace Ward lithodara, dead headed any sea thrifts that were finished blooming. The yellow lewisia is in full bloom and looks really good. The pink one looks rather wretched, but I hope it can hang on and grow. The new Saxifraga x andrewsii bought at Cannor earlier this year and planted in the shade of the gold rock wall bed looks good, so far. The lillies are comeing up in the rockery. :) The thyme circle is starting to bloom and filling in. The round up does not seem to kill the bamboo or the St. John's wort. Saw the big white and 2 big gold fish after feeding them at 5:30. And saw a black and gold big one. Not sure if it was the shubunkin, might be a 2 year old that is just changing to gold.

June 13, 2024
20 degrees at 11:00. Paid Taxes, and the credit card. Made cookies, did the dishes, packed them in the boxes. All took about 2.5 hours. Finished page 2 description. Were to Berwick house for the open house and was tired after getting home about 3:30 from trying to navigate around people to listen to the guide. Have a brochure that shows the costs of the suites. Seems like the higher you go on the levels you pay thousands of more dollars per level. $75. for parking and $30 for a scooter. A one bedroom and den on a higher level.. maybe 3 would come in around $10,000 in my estimation. The one bedroom and den they showed us was quite spacious. The brochures gives the square footage ? of the units. They are on Shaw/Rogers for the internet.

June 14, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 92.6%. 17 degrees at 11:30. Deleted a lot of old documents while trying to reduce the desktop icons. Took my blue boxes out to the curb. Put my plants, ect. back out on the deck. We had a warning from CRD to keep our boxes in until 7:30 a.m. due to expected high winds over night. I never noticed high winds. We had a bit of rain. The white roses were blown over the edge of the deck railing, so I cut the offending branches back and now have a big bouquet of white roses on the living room table. Finished coding the Index pages of 24Chem (overnight at Chemainus) album.

June 15, 2024
16 degrees at 11:00. Sooke Reservoir at 92.2%. Watered and weeded the deck plants. Put cinnamon around the deck railing as I saw the squirrel there, this morning. Did banking stuff. Have all but 3 of the captions finished for the 24Chem album and need to check them over. Watered the deck and patio pots. Did a bit of snipping and clipping things while waiting for Pat to get back from fueling up the Model T. We did not get any rain, as I was hopeing we would.

June 16, 2024
A cool morning, overcast. It warms up to 18 degrees with sunshine by 2:30. Pat left early for the Barney Oldfield Memorial run with the 1912 Model T Roadster. He and Andrew K. win the rally, there were only 4 cars there. He gets home about 11:30 and we have lunch. I finish the photo captions for the Chemainus 2024 trip with the LTV. The album is ready to upload after checking all the codeing, etc. This morning I made the Chicken Cordon Bleu casserole.

June 17, 2024
Laundry. More sorting out of the Shaw stuff. Shopping. 17 degrees at 2:30. Looking at the changes to the credit card stuff. Why does everything have to keep changeing? It is making me crazy.

June 18, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 91.8%. 17 degrees at 10:00. Emptied dishwasher. Folded towels. Cleaned up rose bouquet. Checked over the 24 Chem - 2024 overnight at Chemainus for the Theatre photo album and uploaded it, updated the model ts page for the Father's day run on June 16, 2024. Was out from 2 to 4 weeding in the front garden. Have more of the rock garden cleaned up. Planted the new lewisia. The yellow one had lots of blossoms, and is now finished. the pink one seems to be just barely hanging on. Watered the front garden from 7 to 9 with the sprinkler.

June 19, 2024
21 degrees at 10:30. Got the Osoyoos 2024 typed up to the 31st. 2 days to note. Went out to the garden with the hedge trimmer at 1:30. Finished the back cedar hedge and the little boxwood. Picked up the clippings and sticks. Threw leaf mulch from under the trees onto the strawberry patch. Got most of the twigs and clippings put into the bin. Trimmed the front cedar a bit. There are still clover in the strawberry patch. and in the lawn. Have the water sprinkler set to turn on at 7:00. Trimmed back some of the st. John's wort. Might spray it tomorrow. Was 24 degrees when I got in at 4:30... so 3 hours mostly in the shade. Hope to get the back grass cut, although the bees like the clover. I messed up a bumble bee nest under the cedars by the entry to the garden. Oh well there is still lots of mulch for it to nest in. Saw the humming bird at the honey suckle vine. The mountain laurel is in full bloom.

June 20, 2024
Watered the house plants. Sooke Reservoir at 91.4%. Was out from 10:30 to 12:30. Watered by hand, all the corners at the back, including behind the garage and under the deck. Was 24 degrees at 12:30. Took out the compost and dragged it to curb. Picked up more clippings and clover, etc. and put them in the bin on top of the compost. Hosed off the patio and dragged the hose in and rolled it up. Threw the hose at the front onto the deck so I can mow at the front later today. Saw a mourning cloak butterfly (quote: Mourning Cloaks are found throughout BC at all elevations. They are most often found in forest openings, especially along wet riparian areas in which willow grows.Unquote) at the back by the lilacs, which are finished blooming. The humming bird was catching tiny bugs that fly above the water garden. Green banking done. Saw the big white fish and 2 big gold ones last night after I fed them.

June 22, 2024
Was indisposed all day yesterday. Slept a lot. Was better later this morning. Sooke Reservoir at 90.9%. Made the stew for supper in the slow cooker. Got to about 22 this afternoon. Was out from 2:15 to 4:15. Mowed the grass front and back. Started a bit of weeding along the cement stepping stones in the back. When I am out in the front garden that rufous sided towhee is screaming at me, so will work in the back for now. Finished the Osooyous 2024 LTV rally and got the under construction page made, and uploaded all the stuff. It won't be a very big album. So, might make it next. The stew was really good. Pat's supper of mashed potatoe salad, green beans and breaded shrimp was real good last night he said. I had some for my lunch today, was indeed good. While out gardening I lost my trowel. Cannot imagine where it might be. Shall get a new one from Canadian tire. Tomorrow Pat has swap meet stuff to do, so maybe later in the day.

June 23, 2024
Was out in the garden from 10:30 to 1:00. 2.5 hours. Was 16 degrees when I went out and 22 degrees when I came in. Did a bit of weeding. Dead headed the rhodos along the side of the deck. Trimmed back the plants in the Japanese garden area - the false bamboo, the lily of the valley shrub, the Harry Lauders walking stick. Was 16 degrees when I went out and 22 degrees by the time I got back in. To Canadian Tire and got a new trowel, 2 pairs of cotton gloves, 2 black tomatoe cages and some rhodo food. My big green watering can holds the required 6 litres for the mix to feed the rhodos. I still need to dead head the blue rhodo and the one behind the garage. Added a bit of water to the pond. Fed the fish and saw the big white one, 2 gold ones and a light gold small one.

June 24, 2024
Did the big laundry day. Typed up recipes for the cucumber salad with yogurt and the Quinoa salad with cannelli beans. Made the cucumber salad. Typed up the Yogurt Tarter Sauce and made it up. It was cooler in the morning but is 21 degrees at 3:00.

June 25, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 90.2%. Was 22 degrees. Was out to the garden from 11:00 to 4:00. Finished weeding the cutting garden and the strawberry patch. Put mulch from the stuff under the cedars and at the bottom under the yews, on to the cleaned up beds. Had removed twigs, clover, weeds, and dug it over with the rock hammer. Put the mulch over the cleaned beds. It looks pretty good. I might need more strawberry plants and more perennials in the cutting garden. Watered this all in for about half an hour. Raked the clippings from the boxwood hedge off the edge of the water garden, and the clippings from pruning the false bamboo, the Harry Lauders walking stick, and the lily of the valley shrub.

June 26, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 90.1%. 18 degrees and overcast at 1:00. Did banking, looked up the betadrem (from 2021) and dumped it. Seemed like I had 2 full bottles of it. It has some horrible side effects. So, I will continue with the head and shoulders. Also it seems I have some other over the counter stuff from the drugstore to use. Now we can't seem to get the heat pump to run on HEAT. It goes on Auto but sends out cold air and the fan runs. Back to heat and it quits even at 21 degrees. It hasn't rained yet. I should go down for a nap ... nothing is going right today. Finally, the heat pump is blowing out hot air after a few minutes from when Pat turned it back to HEAT. I see my pink rose is turning brown on its leaves. What the hell have those twits done to it? I resized and number 3 rows of photos for the ossoyoos album. It was cold and did not rain today... hope it rains tonight.

June 27, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 89.9%. 20 degrees at 1:00. We only had a tiny bit of rain early this morning. Is overcast and does not feel like 20 degrees at all. Ran the heat pump yesterday and today. The bird no longer seems to be nesting out in the boulevard garden. May have been raided by a feral cat. There are about a dozen or so bamboo shoots to be taken down, some weeding along the Pees side to be done. We were to the london drugs today. Got tickets in the Mall. Finished generating the 24 Osoyoos LTV Rally album and started the coding.

June 28, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 89.6%. 18 degrees at 10:00. Was out in the garden from 10:30 to 2:30. Had my long sleeved sweater on because I was under the cedars, to get the bamboo cut off. There were several tall green ones, and I took out some black canes, with a couple of them being tall ones. The bird was no longer nesting, so I could get this stuff done. Have the green bin almost full and a pile of branches from the bamboo to be cut up yet. Got in from outside, put the groceries away, had a very late lunch, washed my hair. It is 22 degrees at 4:00 and overcast. Added a bit of water to the pond.

June 29, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 89.5%. 20 degrees at 10:00. Was out in the garden from 10:30 to 1:30. Cleaning up in the boulevard garden. Have the wild tree cut back. Have pruned back the bridal veil spirea. cut back the French laveder. It has had a severe pruning back, but I think it will rejuvenate, as it already has some fresh branches growing up from where I cut them back earlier. Pulled the little hedge plants (cannot find the name of it) out from under the section of the middle cedar hedge and clipped back the cedars a bit. I have a whole row of branches and weeds that will have to wait till next Friday for pick up. Still have some weeds to get out of the plum tree area. Was 22 degrees when I got in. Finished the index pages codeing for the 2024 Osoyoos album, started the Photo html coding.

June 30, 2024 - Sunday
Sooke Reservoir at 89.5%, as at Friday. 19 degrees at 9:30, cloudy. Spent a couple of hours sorting out the Gardening folder. Fed and watered the deck plants. Fed the fish and saw a couple of them on top. Gold one chasing the white one around. Finished the first step of coding the 2024 Osoyoos album. Was out in the garden from 1:00 to 3:00. Clipped up bamboo twigs and tried to fit them into the green bin. Too full. Dead headed the blue rhodo and cut back the camillia off the wall. Cut the bamboo shoots that are in the cedar hedge by the deck, down to about 6 - 8 feet. Left the clippings of 3 of them under the deck and added the three to the rest of the bamboo by the heat pump. Clipped back a bit of the little box wood at the deck edge. Clipped off a piece of the yew hedge that was sticking out. Ran the water into the pond until it was over flowing under the deck past the viewing platform. Set the sprinkler up. There does not seem to be much water pressure and the sprinkler is not covering the cutting garden or over to the old sidewalk. Turned it off. Watered the rhodos and the rhubarb, fig tree, grape, and patio pots, a bit by hand.

July, 2024

July 1, 2024
22 degrees at 11:00. Did laundry. vaccumed the entry way, laundry room, the suite kitchen and entry. 25 degrees at 3:00. Watered at the back from 10:00 to 12:00. Had a 2 hour nap after lunch. Put the ribs, carrots and parsnips, baking potatoes into the oven at 3:00 to start baking at 4:30. Finished step 2 of the html photo pages of the 24oso album. 19 degrees at 8:30. Have patio door open, dining room window open, and the bed room window open. The oven has been on from 5:00 to 6:00 to do the roast potato, parsnips and carrots and the ribs. It is nice an cool in here despite the oven have been on. We shouldn't need to turn on the air conditioning. Closing patio door and dining room window at 8:50, as going downstairs. Will be up after 11:00 to turn on the dishwasher and the dryer.

July 2, 2024
19 degrees at 9:00. banking. Was out to the garden at 9:45 and back in at 2:00. (4 hours) Dead headed the roses, cleaned up on the corner by the heat pump, a bit. Cleaned off the thyme circle. Water by hand. Will need more water, maybe the 7 to 10 time. The thyme circle is filling in and in bloom. No bees on it, though. There is a morning cloak butterfly flitting around . . looking for some mud to puddle in, no doubt. The rufous sided towhee was poking around in the leaf debris. I have piles of stuff for the green bin all around the yard and the green is full.

July 3, 2024
18 degrees at 10:00. Was out in the garden from 10 to 2. Finished cleaning up the boulevard garden. Took out the little honeysuckle pilea hedge. It may grow back again. I suppose I will keep cutting it down. Threw dried leaves over a lot of the space for mulch (both sides). Cut back the cedar hedge a bit, here and there. There were bees on the lupines. The thyme circle is in bloom and looking pretty good. No bees on it. There are white, pink and gold yarrow in front of the peonies and some verbena bodinaires in the plum tree bed. Too much grass growing in front of the peonies bed. I found the rufous sided towhees nest that was raided (by the feral cat, I think) It is under the big peony. Was 22 degrees when I got back in at 2:00. Have more debris added to the pile in front of the plum tree bed. Went to the co-op gas station for lottery tickets, gas and a drive.

July 4, 2024
Was out in the garden from 9 to 1. Half finished weeding the Magnolia tree garden room. My piles of debris are growing. Saanich changed the pick up dates. So our next one is Monday the 8th and we get an extra one on Monday the 15th because of the late notice. Was 25 degrees when I got back in at 1:15. Finished page 1 of the photo captions for the Osoyoos album.

July 5, 2024
Was out in the garden from 8:45 to 11:45. Finished weeding the magnolia tree bed. I might have lost 2 of the trilliums. Was 25 degrees when I got in. The trilliums are probably dormant. Was out from 1:20 to 2:30. Dug out the grass edging to the stone path and across the front of the path. It was 27 degrees when I went out. Very hot. Sooke Reservoir at 88.1%. Updated the listBLVD page need to upload it.

July 6, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 87.8%. 26 degrees at 11:30. Watered house plants. Cleaned up some email. Watered deck plants. Finished the captions and all the coding for the Osoyoos album. Have to check it all over and then upload it. Watered at the back with the sprinkler and by hand for an hour, added some water to the pond. Watered around the front from 7 to 8:35 mostly by hand. 22 degrees at 8:45.

July 7, 2024
Sooke Reservoir at 87.8% as at 4 PM on Friday. 28 degrees at 2:00. Uploaded the 2024 osoyoos album and the LTV page about the rally is already loaded.

July 8, 2024
Did the big laundry. 30 degrees at 4:30. Finished the list page for the moss/japanese garden room.

July 9, 2024
26 degrees at 8:30. Sooke Reservoir at 87.0% Was out in the back garden from 8:30 to 11:30. Swept up and binned the bamboo etc from on the deck. Weeded up to the 3 round stepping stone. Cleaned off the pump and filled the pond a bit. Moved some stone around on the waterfall and clipped some of the little boxwood hedge off. Clipped the evergreens back a bit. Dead headed the water irises. Weeded a bit along by the entry to the watergarden. Watered all around the back, especially the grape, fig tree and the apple tree, as well as the rhubarb. Was 28 degrees when I got into the house.

July 10, 2024
27 degrees at 11:00. Made up the mashed potatoes for potatoe salad tonight. Made the Chicken dressing to bake for about 30 minutes at about 3:00. Sooke Reservoir at 86.8%. Finished tweaking 8 photos for the Moss/Japanese garden.

July 11, 2024
Pat's people here at 9:20. 21 degrees at 9:30. The model T is gone, the money is in the bank by 10:30. Sooke Reservoir at 86.5%. The whole garden needs water. To R & R diner for lunch. Finished tweaking 26 photos for the Moss/Japanese garden.

July 12, 2024
21 degrees at 9:30. 26 degrees at 2:45. Reservoir at 86.1%. Was out in the garden from 9:15 to 1:45. (4.5 hours) Cleaned the bamboo leaves off the Magnolia tree garden room. Put dried leaves all over the area for the mulch. Cleaned the bamboo leaves off the thyme circle. Cut back some of the plants along the driveway strip and put them in the bin which is at the curb. Added the bamboo debris and a bit of the left over debris from along the front boulevard. There is still a bit of room in the bin, for the next Monday pickup. Watered all around the front by hand, especially the newly mulched area and the thyme circle. Clipped off all the bamboo shoots that I could find, and the Japanese amemones from by the bench.

July 13, 2024
Reservoir at 85.8%. 23 degrees at 10:00. Was out gardening from 10:00 to 1:15. (3.25 hr). Cleaned the stone path and all the plants along it, including clipping back the yellow oregano. Put down dried leaf mulch where there were open spaces. clipped back the French lavender by the David. Watered all around the front and clipped off any bamboo I found. Was 24 degrees when I got in, but it really felt hot in the sun. watched the riders/lions football game.

July 14, 2024
Finished tweaking the photos for the Japanese/moss photo album. 24 degrees at 11:00. A lovely sunny day. Out for the icecream day. On the way out there some warning light came on the dash. It was still on when we returned to the Tillicum Mall for our London drugs stuff and lottery tickets. Was on when we started the car to go home. Pat took a break to the mall washroom, and when he came back the car started and only the low pressure in the tires light was on. Weird stuff. So he will be getting it checked out a some place to see what is going on. Got home and made a nice salad with potato salad, corn on the cob, and head cheese for supper. Phoned Dan and Carol after supper. Then went out to the garden for about half hour and filled the green bin with several flats of bamboo leaves. Have that pile down to about half. So, will put the rest of that pile in the bin, tomorrow when its empty and add any more debris I get off of the rest of cleaning up the front garden, and have the rest of the bin to put stuff in from cleaning up in the back garden. I have about 1/4 of the front to finish and about 1/3 of the back to clean up. I don't see any plums on the tree this year... Pat says they froze in the cold snap after they had bloomed. Crazy weather. Finshed the page descriptions of the moss/japanese photo album. Must make up the album tomorrow. Have the air conditioner on cold since after supper, should make it quite cool to sleep. 21 degrees at 9:00.Reservoir at 85.8%. July 15, 2024
short laundry. uploaded listJM page and photo. Revised plant list by adding a few photo album links, and uploaded it. Use revized list on all future gardening pages that include it. 25 degrees at 3:00. Made up the album for the moss garden and finished the coding for the index pages. Finished 1st step of the Photo html pages.

July 16, 2024
25 degrees at 11:00. Reservoir at 85.0%. Was out from 11:00 to 1:00. Got the pile of debris from behind the bamboo put into the bin. The bin is apx. 3/4 full. Pat taped my phone back together. It works. He used gorilla tape. I have a bit of tape showing on the screen, but it does not affect the icons working. Was out in the garden from 2:30 to 4:00. Is 29 degrees when I get in. Picked up bamboo leaves off the magnolia bed and off the thyme circle. Weeded along the stepping stones to the thyme circle doing the plants beside the stepping stones, and on over the path to the field stones between the two sides of the rock garden. -- 3 1/2 hours today. Added a bit of water to the pond. So I just have the sundial circle and around the field stone path up to the rock gardens. Maybe one more day and I should be finished the front. Finished 2nd step of the Photo html pages.

July 17, 2024
24 degrees at 9:00. Have a hydro Peak Saver thing tonight - 5 to 8. We will do Plan B for supper. Pat picks up the car with its radiator repair done this morning. Reservoir at 84.7%. Was out from 9:30 to 12:00 (3.5 hrs). Clouding over and still 24 degrees. Clipped back the smoke bush and the California lilac. Still have a row of debris at the front from the spirea to the end of our property line. The green bin is about 4/5 full. Cut back some of the lower branches of the sweet gum tree. Was out from 1:00 to 3:30. (2.5 hrs. total of 6 hours today.) Was 29 degrees when I got out of the tub at 4:18. Still a bit cloudy. I finished cleaning up the Smoke bush bed, including clipping back the cedars a bit so the plants under them can get some sun and water. Also dug out the old stump from that dead plant next to the Geum, Mrs. Bradshaw. Crumpled up a few leaves to mulch around the plants. Dug out a rock or two and realigned them. Put about 5 more flats of clippings and weeds into the bin. Dragged it to the back. Its nearly full. I am going to move all the silver sedum into one space under the smoke bush and replenish the soil where the stump was and find another good plant -- maybe another geum or a good hebe like the one in the rock garden... maybe can get a cutting of it. Once I have the soil replenished it should grow good. The 2 plants in the sundial circle are filling up the whole circle. I still have to dig out the violets under the big tree and by the little boxwood hedge. wretched things. Too many columbines looking awfully messy in that smoke tree garden room.

July 18, 2024
Watered the house and deck plants. Added water to the water tub. Made up the cole slaw, and a mashed potato salad. Made up the meat loaf, and carrots and parsnips, and potatoes to mash. (Must have about 4 potatoes worth of mashed left for the Mousaka tomorrow.) Made up list for the ingredients for the Mousaka, and all other stuff we need. Cleaned up a 2 drawers in the fridge. The plumber guy was here to install the parts to fix the leaking sink. Pat looked after that. There are a few little green plums on the tree, after all. Reservoir at 84.4%, 26 degrees at 4:00. Did up the first photo caption for the moss album.

July 19, 2024
20 degrees at 9:30. Microsoft has had a huge outage all over the world due to some error in the anti-virus type software they use. It is Cloudstrike made in Austin, Texas. Maybe they should rename it StrikeOut. Guess they ought to get Musk to fix that, since he is moving his companies to Texas. This glitch is affecting business accounts. I can keep my Windows 10 till October 2025, after that pay per year to get their updates support until 2028. Thereafter can probably just keep running it, and watch out for phishing, etc. Should be able to get my own anti-virus thing that works. The one I have now won't do a computer scan. Lots of people are refusing to go to Windows 11, and there is the option of using Linex and enable the adobe things that are possible, and use Gimp, also find out how to run that notebook that I use for everything. Did up to No. 9 of the photo album. Used up the whole afternoon to make the mousaka. Is very good. Have 1 1/2 of it left. Watched football. Sask. Riders won. Did up No.9 of photo captions for the moss album.

July 20 2024
26 degrees at noon. Cleaned up on the deck a bit. Decided to leave the water irises in the tub. Gradually filling up the tub to let the water lily come to the top. Then will get more fish from the creatures great and small place. Made up the meat loaf packages (3). Washed the last of the cherries and put them out. Took out the compost. Pulled a lot of morning glory off the woodland and the hedge. Now the green bin is full. Watered the woodland and the geraniums a bit. Watered the grape and fig tree and the bed along the garage, the rhodos and the moss garden... all by hand and not a thorough watering. I can water with the sprinkler 7 - 10 pm any day. Sooke Reservoir at 83.9%. Finished and uploaded the moss/Japanese garden photo album. Started the list page for the Cutting Garden page.

July 21 2024
22 degrees at 3:30. Re-coded the Plant lists page to include the photo albums. Changed the 6 list pages that I have finished to include the plant list changes. Boulevard, Driveway Strip, Deck and Patio Plants, Pond Surrounds, Plants in the Pond, Japanese and Moss garden. Working on the Cutting Garden. Uploaded them. This took until 3:30 with a break for lunch. Watched the foot ball game. till shortly after 7:00. Moussaka for supper. Went out at 8:30 to fill the pond. Fed the fish. Saw a white sarossa with a pach of gold, 1 big white, 2 big gold. Checked the cutting garden for pictures and found the nefarious neighbours have stolen my tomato cages that I had set along the property line as fencing. Guess I will need a solid cement fence along there. Idiots! Have turned off the heat pump as it is cool enough. Got my email folder sorted out to date received and descending (I think).

July 22 2024
22 degrees at 12:30. The power was out this morning, so I went out to the garden about 9:30. Finished cleaning up in the Cutting Garden/strawberry patch. Put down more leaf mulch and earth worm dirt all over the area. Pulled out any little weeds and picked up twigs. a flat of twigs to the green bin which is really full. Watered all over the back. The power had come back on. Came in about 11:00. Did the big laundry. 22 degrees at 5:30 and a bit breezy. Have the sprinkler set up to just go out and turn it on at 7:00. Have started to do up the Cut garden/strawberries list page. 18 degrees at 8:15 and breezy. Watering with the sprinkler around the back. It is really cold out there so I have turned off the cooling heat pump. I will have to water around the edges by hand, maybe tomorrow. There are lots of grapes and they will need water.

July 23 2024
21 degrees at 10:00. Filled the humming bird feeder. I actually saw two of them yesterday. Watered the deck plants. Clipped back the cedar hedge a bit. I need to water it and the corners of the back garden. And take down the bamboo to the ground.. all of them, I think. Swept off the deck. Sooke Reservoir at 83.9%. There is a forest fire of 4 hectares in the Sooke potholes park, on the east side of the Sooke river. Circumference of the Oak is 48 inches divided by 3.14 = 15.2866 inches. Seems it has some inches to put on yet before it can be a protected tree.

July 24 2024
21 degrees at 9:00. Overcast. C'mon rain! Sooke Reservoir at 82.7%. I have been up since 6:00 getting food, etc. ready to move out to the Mercedes Manor for our trip up to Courtenay and to Brown's Bay, which is up by Campbell River and off on the water. Pat wants to have his glasses repaired by the guy that does his laser welding type of repairs. Have made some more progress on the Cutting Garden list page.

July 29 2024
Sooke Reservoir was at 82.4% on Thursday the 24th. 15 degrees at 8:00 pm. We got home and unpacked by 12:00 this morning. Restarted the pump. Made lunch of left overs. Did some of the banking. Had a 2 hour, much needed nap this afternoon. Woke up to make supper of Dr. Uetkers pizza, with apple sauce for dessert. Raining at about 7 to 8 so far tonight. They seem to be getting the Sooke Potholes fire under control. The recent rain has been a big help to them, I am sure. Saw 2 humming birds tonight. They are feeding at the feeder, but I only see one at a time at the feeder.

July 30, Tuesday, 2024
23 degrees at 3:00. Sooke Reservoir on Friday 26 was at 81.8. Monday after the rain should be 83.0%. We had .5 inches of rain over Sunday night and the gauge shows over .25 inches of rain over last night and this morning. So we will see what the newspaper says about it tomorrow. Have started the list page for the cutting garden/strawberry patch. and started to collect photos, so I can do up the top image for the list page. Did the laundry from our trip. Did not do our towels and bedding. Filled the pond. The grape vine is falling down. removed a few of the heavey vines that do not have water on them. Will do them all tomorrow. Must clip back the holly tree as it is getting into the apple tree branches. The cutting garden under the tall cedars does not get rain because it is too high for me to reach to cut it all back, so it acts like a roof over that side of the Cutting garden room. There are bamboo leaves all over the magnolia garden and the thyme circle. Pam phoned about them comeing over on Aug 5 (Monday) She will phone when they get in (staying at a hotel) then we will have moussaka and ceasar salad, maybe dolmades, dinner buns, frozen yogurt with Asian plm sauce. Tonight we are having the hot chicken, potato salad, carrots and parsnips. Groceries put away. Laundry finished and put out in the Mercedes Manor all at 5:30.

July 31, Wednesday, 2024
foggy and drizzle in the morning. 22 degrees and sunshine at 10:30. Added a couple more plants to the cutting garden plant room list. Did the ironing. Made the coleslaw. Did some banking. Have supper ready, Pat is making his big roast beef.

August, 2024

August 1, Thursday, 2024
Finished the Cutting Garden list page, have to do the top images and then it should be ready to upload. Watered the house plants. Have the chicken cordon bleu casserole made. It is 27 degrees at 1:00. Going back to 2017 to try to find out when I started the cutting garden. There are milkweeds in 2017, and the hedge trimmed back. oh well. Have to add the scaboisia blue. The soapworte was planted in the cutting garden too, but it is not really a cut flower. was out from 4 to 5 and cut back the grape and tied it up. watered around the back garden by hand for a while.

August 2, Friday, 2024
27 degrees at 4:30. Sooke reservoir not available, due to the forest fire, no doubt. Made up cranberries, and the spaghetti sauce for the supper. Have the pan unplugged and my plants lights turned off, because we are on a hydro peak saver from 4 to 7 but we are going to cook the spaghetti and warm up the sauce at supper time. Watered the deck plants. emailed back and forth with Niko from computers on wheels. To see him on August 8th to get the antivirus installed and get my computer cleaned up: get skype deleted, get playnow deleted, get teams and all the microsoft stuff including co-pilot and any other AI stuff off my computer. Check the set up of mmmee2@outlook, especially with regard to manage cookies. quote of $212 if he can finish in an hour. Saves wear and tear on me if he can do it.

August 3, Saturday, 2024
27 degrees at 1:00. Watered by hand all around the front. Washed the bamboo leaves off the thyme circle. Baby P was out with his weed eater for half an hour just before I went in to make lunch. Piled the debris back under the Plum tree and off its tree well where the twits had piled it so they could put out their green bins on the boulevard where they are killing the grass with whatever chemical they put on their bins. I think they wash them out with this crap that kills the grass. The white tall phlox is in bloom. The plum tree lost all its plums... June drop in August? Made a chef salad for lunch. Foot ball game at 4:00, chicken cordon bleu for supper. Finished the listCGVH page. ready to upload, I think. Just check it over first.

August 4, Sunday, 2024
24 degrees at 12:00. Sooke reservoir is unavailable. Made 2 pkgs of Goop and froze them. Made salads for lunch using the lettuce from on the deck. I am going to need new lettuce plants. Made up the turnip for supper and the mashed potatoes. Took the compost bin out and watered around the grape, the fig, and the apple tree. The fig tree looks terrible. Has limbs drying out and some figs look ready to eat. The grape seems to be recovering. Vaccumed and dusted quickly around my room, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the hallway -- all of the upstairs except the spare bedrooms. I am a beat bunny. Foot ball game at 4:00. Sorted some of the pictures for the Cut garden album.

August 5, Monday, 2024
Windows update - failed. Spent the morning trying to get rid of all the microsoft shit. Deleted the drop box on computer. Have used up all my space and need to buy the next step of Drop Box, so I will get rid of it on my phone, as I was not really using it. Pam and Mike for supper arrived about 5:30... garden tour... dog on the deck.. to about 9:00. Mousaka and dolmades with ceasar salad. They take the dog for a walk.. a very nice well behaved dog. Sunflowers boquet. I have to locate the original of moms birth cirtificate and send by snail mail to Anita or they can come over and collect it if they care to, if and when I find it. Pam to deliver my hand written copy of mom's birth certificate to Anita. I have a copy of this hand written thing. To see them tomorrow at the FBI for lunch. They are at a hotel. Good visit.. Pam seemed very tired and Mike too, and very tanned. Lots of family info. Pam no longer has her garden design company. The heat pump kept it nice and cool.

August 6, 2024
Sooke reservoir not available. 23 degrees at 4:00. Lunch and visit with Pam and Mike at the Bistro. Good food all from Mike. Made up the mashed avocado and jello salad. Filled the pond. Pat picked his figs.

August 7, 2024
24 at 3:00. Sooke reservoir is at 79.0. sunny. Typed up some instructions for Niko. Deactivated the X formerly Twitter account. That'll teach Musky to fund the FELON Trump. :) Musky is also moving to Texas, so that he gets all the tax breaks necessary to a Trillionaire. uploaded the Cutting garden list page. it works. Laundry. Went through the family stuff looking for mom's stuff. Messaged Pam about it.

August 8, 2024
24 degrees at 10:30. Deleted my Dropbox account. Signed off my Twitter (X) account. Sooke reservoir is at 78.7%. Niko fixed all my computer stuff. Showed me a scam thing pretending to be microsoft.. if I see anything like it I should pull the big white cord out of the back of the computer box and call Computers on wheels. This takes me off of the internet. Dropbox is deleted, Playnow is deactivated, Microsoft cleaned up and updated and the outlook mail is working. Can't get rid of skype without deleting the microsoft totally. Anti virus updated. Cleaned up the microsoft account, new icon for the outlook email. Pat's email checked and cleaned up a bit. I should empty my trash folders, too. And all the old stuff in the folders themselves. Niko is interested in my light garden... Quoth the Raven $50.

August 9, Friday, 2024
Blue Box day, boxes out. Morning chores (made the bed, emptied dishwasher, cleaned counter top). Moved some stuff out of the email folders to Trash and deleted it. 22 degrees at 10:00. Finished the plants list on the shelves (orchids) as at August 09, 2024. Was out from 11:30 to 12:30. Cut back the holly tree off of the apple tree. Cut black berries from in the woodland. Was out to the Driveway strip and cut out roses, blackberries, cut back plants off the Palistians side. Started to get the Virginia creeper cut back again. It has grown like crazy up the post and on the area ahead of the post and on the other side of the post as well. Sooke reservoir at 78.4%. 27 degrees at 5:00. Got another little lettuce 6-pkg. from Country Grocery $4. Dug the old lettice out of the pot and have made a big chef salad. Have enough old lettice washed and in the fridge for another salad. Fed the fish but did not see any of them The pond needs skimming and everything needs water. Watered around the back from 7:15 to 8:30 in 3 placements of the sprinkler. Had pretty good coverage for the Cutting garden and the rhubarb, and the fig tree and grapes and apple tree, and the pond area. Is getting dark at 8:45 and temperature is at 19 degrees.

August 10, Saturday, 2024
Was to the HCP for the Arts and music event. They also have a plant sale. The place was a zoo. Lots of vendors and lots of people. I had a short look around. They have taken out the big, big blue leaved tree - Eucalyptus. Has left a huge stump... must be 4 - 5 feet diameter. Built cement sitting area over looking the edge of the garden and lots of other new areas. I could not readily find the rock gardens mentioned in the VIRAGS notification. So, I went to look for any plants I might want. Bought a Phlox paniculata called 'laura'. Its a nice plant with pink blossoms. Anything in a gallon pot was $12.00 - went to pay for it and find they have tax added. Mine came to about $13.37. They had a fine looking (by the tag) dark red Yarrow. $12.00 is a bit much to pay for one of them, I think. They had several milkweeds with the patheticist blooms on them, so did not bother getting one of them. I still have to sort out how many are now growing in the cut garden and in the pots by the rhubarb. It was just too hot for me. Phoned Pat and had some new thing on my photo so I botched the call. He heard me though, I could not hear him.. have to click the voice icon now. I did hear him say he was coming to get me, so I set off to about where he had dropped me off and met him out on the very busy, narrow road. Was only there for about an hour, and was exhausted. Zipper on my bag broke apart.. fixed that when I got home, but this bag is really old, probably time I retired it. 26 degrees at 2:30, Sooke reservoir at 78.4%. Hmmmm, same as yesterday. This is suppose to be the reading at 4:00 on Friday. Numbered the Cutting garden album, then deleted 15 of the photos, to reduce the album to 5 pages. Renumbered.

August 11, Sunday, 2024
Made up our lunch salads. Was out in the garden from 10:00 to 1:00. Have taken most of the blackberries and some of the roses out of the driveway garden room. Have taken down the virginia creeper off the pole. Have started to cut back the St. John's worte. Got the prickly things cut up and put into the green bin. The bin is full. They come to empty it tomorrow, so I will have it full again immediately. I also have a pile of debris in front of the plum tree. There is probably more than a bin full there, too. Cut back a few bamboo canes, and cleaned up the lupines by cutting off the blossoms that are dried, cut off any bamboo shoots and sprayed them with round up, cut the finished blossoms off the CROCOSMIA (Montbreita) Fire King, and thinned them out over the rock garden. All this debris got added to the pile under the plum tree. Filled the pond. Came in and cleaned up and had my salad. Was 22 degrees at 2:30. Clouding over a bit. Transplanted the new lettuce. Watered the deck plants. Filled the humming bird feeder. Watered the Cut garden area and the grapes, figs, apple tree. Did a bit of clipping of the lilac.

August 12, Monday, 2024
18 degrees, overcast. Trying to leave groups in Facebook and unfollow people. This is less than convenient. Ironed the shirt. Paid the credit card. Had a nap after making norwesterns (Ham and Swiss) for lunch. Put away groceries and then went out to the garden at apx. 2:30. Back in and cleaned up by 4:30. Cleaned up under the deck, removing and chopping up the old bamboo debris. Brought down 2 more tall ones to just over deck height, taking out dead branches of the cedars. Chopped all this stuff up. Still have a bit more to do under the deck. Dug out about 1/3 of a pail full of clay to repot the irises in the deck tub, into gallon size pots. There will be cardboard on the bottom, then the clay and new sandy soil added around the roots. Hopefully they will sit on their hangers nice and straight. Need to change out a lot of the green water that is in that tub now, too. Will see what the water lily is doing.. it might need repotting, or just leave it in the bottom soil or what ever it is doing now. Add new water and let it sit for a few days and then get a couple of gold fish for in there. It was cold at 18 degrees so I had my long sleeves on over top of the long Smith's agencies Tee shirt, and that got to be a bit too warm.

August 13, Tuesday, 2024
Did up a few more plants in the perennials list. 18 degrees at 10:00. 21 degrees at 1:30. Was out in the garden from 11:30 to 1:30. Cleaned up more under the deck. Pruned the Lebanon cedar and some of the bay laurel. Took several flats of clippings to the bin. Cleaned up the patio area a bit. Cut out some of the dried twisted nut shrub. Skimmed off the pond until my skimmer broke. Made the meatloaf and potatoes ready to cook. Wired and duct taped the skimmer back together. Took about an hour.

August 14, Wednesday, 2024
Spent a couple of hours deleting old, old emails. Still have lots in gardening to do. 25 degrees at 2:00. Was out in the garden from 11:00 to 2:00. Finished skimming off the pond and picking up some of the debris. Took the bamboo off the patio area. sorted some of it and put FREE short bamboo stakes out on the boulevard. Filled the pond. Was out for about an hour to clean out the tub and see about repotting the water irises in the tub. Emptied all the water out of the tub. The water lily is growing out of its pot at the bottom of the tub. Refilled the tub with water. The tub looks ok. I hope to get a couple of new gold fish for the tub and maybe a couple of shubunkins for the pond, in a few days.

August 15, Thursday, 2024
22 degrees at 11:00. Deleted more old emails. Trying to unlike and unfollow groups on FaceBook. Took out compost, including the big sunflowers, and cleaned the vases. Watered by hand a bit around the grapes, fig tree and the apple tree. 25 degrees at 2:00. Sooke reservoir at 76.8%. Watered the deck plants, including filling the tub garden. Did up a few more of the Perennials list. Took about an hour to get set up on Yahoo Finance.

August 16, Friday, 2024
Was out in the garden from 9 to 1:00 and then from 2:00 to 3:30. It was 25 degrees at 4:00 and 22 degrees at 5:30. Was cloudy most of the day. I almost got the pond surrounds area finished and finished weeding the area next to the dry stream. I have taken the moss off of the dry stream up to the deck edge and lined it with stones. Have cut the Japanese aralia back off the Japanese lantern. I will leave the lantern where it is -- where the dry stream curves to go along the deck edge. Am pulling out all the little blue grass stuff and other weeds. No doubt it will all be back again. Cleaned off the bottom part of the little rock garden. The bin is full and I have started a pile next to the bin of some of the bigger stuff, but its another week before pick up day, so I will probably have a fairly big pile and be finished weeding up to the woodland, hopefully. I am going to put the pea gravel right down on the cleaned off dirt of the dry stream, and maybe use round up to keep the moss in the dry stream to a miniumum. It was not too hard to remove that moss and I threw it on the beds surrounding the stream. I am happy to have the drystream cleaned up and know that the rest of it will not be that hard to do. I have room for more primulas, next to the dry stream. Sooke reservoir is at 76.5%...not bad for the middle of August. The fire at Sooke potholes is under control, but still burning. I haven't noticed any smokey air. Pam suggested that the yew hedge should be cut back, and I think I might get that done when it starts raining in the fall.

August 17, Saturday, 2024
Paid Saanich Utilities. Watered house plants. and a few other household chores before lunch. Went to London Drugs and to the Stinky Fish place (Creatures not great and stinky) and got 2 two inch gold fish for the cleaned up tub for 6.25. Outrageous price. Since I was not getting any service, I decided to help my self. Great displays of disaproval and I am not allowed to get my own. So, when the guy finally got around to me, I got a great lecture about how any contact with any soaps or others stuff would just directly kill 'em all. But he dumped the fish I had in the bag of water right back into the tank. Good thing he did not see it touch the filthy floor. They had 1 ugly shubunkin, didn't want it. I won't be back. Especially since I found there is a place right at the Tillicum Center where we often go to London Drugs, and the lottery ticket place. Had a look on line at their price of gold fish.. .79.. yeah cents! It seems shubunkins are now called calico gold fish. Sarasas can still be found under the Sarasa name. Fed the fish in the pond and watched for a long time. Did get glimpses of a big white one, a big gold one, and a small gold one still with some black on it. So there are probably more wary fish in that pond than I know.

August 18, Sunday, 2024
18 degrees at 11:00. No Sooke reservoir available. Updated the Fish Pond page and the Plant list page. Laundry - 6 loads to do, including bleached the white stuff and stain removal of the gardening jeans. Vaccumed out the lint trap. Cleaned a whole bunch of paper out of the green bank folder and have a bunch of it in the printer. So if I do any printing, other than for in our own files I will need to add some clean paper. Have started to do some stuff up for the Cut garden photo album.

August 19, Monday, 2024
Last night when I fed the fish at about 7:00 I watched them until they came up to eat. There were 2 big gold ones, 2 big white ones, a medium sized sarasas, (lots of white and just a bit of gold), maybe another medium sized gold one, a small gold one, a small sarasas, and maybe others. I haven't seen Elvis and its buddy come up to eat yet. 18 degrees at 5:00.Lightly raining most of the day. We shopped in several places. New bag from London Drugs. I really like it. But I find that I have a black on from before. Its a bit bigger than my old one, but it can back pack. I changed my stuff to the newer black bag and threw the old one away. It was worn out and quite dirty. The new black back packin' one has lots of room. But it does not have a good top handle to carry it. Its a bit akward to try carry it over just one shoulder. Using the rusty colored card holder for the cash and cards. I have one zippered pocket for all the junk and spare plastic bags. Another tiny zippered pocket with my rings. The other big zippered pocket has the credit card stuff and all that. Two front small pockets for keys and kleenex. Lots of spare room. I still wear my fanny pack for my phone, cause it keeps track of my 'fit' stuff, and goes with me everywhere.

August 20, Tuesday, 2024
Sooke reservoir at 76.4%. 18 degrees at 1:00. Ironed the shirt. Cleaned up the fridge, and did a bit of dusting, made my bed in the Last Lodge. The light garden has only one light working on the top level, and 2 on the second level. The orchids only need 2 lights. But I am going to get 4 new ones today. The fish in the tub are starting to come up to eat. There is just under .5 inch of water in the gauge. It has been raining lightly off and on, today. Strictly Medicinal does not ship plants to Canada. Oh well, just saved me over $40. Msg Tara about the light garden. She was too busy, and has not msged me back yet. To Canadian Tire for the flourescent tubes, ended up getting 2 cool white tubes. Apparently you can pair a cool one with a hot one and it works just as well as the special grow lights. To Cannor and got 3 more tomato cages. have 3 pkgs of tomato rice soup frozen.

August 21, Wednesday, 2024
20 degrees at 1:00, No Sooke reservoir available. Made up 4 pkgs of Irish Yellow Broth soup. Emptied almost .5 of an inch of water out of the rain gauge. Am up to the "Ps" in the perennials list. Hot chicken for supper. Am getting ready for the ministrone soup and making chicken soup. Watched the Demorcrat Convention for the 3rd night. Tim Walz main speaker. Excellent.

August 22, Thursday, 2024
Was up at 6:30 to make the ministrone soup and am finished at 11:00. Have made up 5 chicken stock of 1 cup each. It is 18 at 11:00 and lightly raining. The lights on the light garden have stopped working. Tara is interested in getting the light garden, so I guess they can get the new lights. I won't put in the two that I bought the other day, as they will have to be taken out for transport anyway. They are both cool white. Made up 11 pkgs of minestrone soup. Now I need to dump out the old 2022 broths as I think they are past their best before date, and get a new list made for the deep freeze top.

August 23, Friday, 2024
18 degrees at 1:30. No Sooke reservoir available. It has been lightly raining in the past few days, so I imagine the reservoir has gone up somewhat. Put one of the cool light tubes in the light garden so I could see in the deep freeze. Got the stuff in the deep freeze sorted out and made a new list of stuff. It looks so much more organized. Added 2 more chicken noodle veggie soups to the soups. Took the compost out and dragged the green bin to the curb for monday. Its full Worked on the Perennials list.. finished. I can't believe I ever had all these plants on the list. 15 degrees and raining at 7:30, starting to get dark already. Humming bird at the feeder in the rain. There was a little brown bunny in the front garden this morning.

August 24, Saturday, 2024
15 degrees at 11:00. Nearly 1 inch of rain in the gauge. It rained real good last night. Finished tweaking page 1 of the Cut Garden photo album. Added a comment to the guestbook, about car stuff. 20 degrees and a bit of sun at 3:30. Emptied 1 inch of rain out of the gauge. Elvis was at the top of water and so I fed the fish.

August 25, Sunday, 2024
Laundry. 20 degrees at 11:30. No Sooke reservoir available. Finished Page 2 of the Cut Garden photo album. Shopping, made up a bit of cole slaw. Fed the fish and watched them come up to eat. Elvis and his buddy were up to eat and there were 2 big whites, 2 medium size sarasas, 2 big gold comets, a couple of tiny ones.

August 26, Monday, 2024
18 degrees at 2:30. Have the supper prepared, just have to cook it. Filled the humming bird feeder. Prepared the pork loin for the schnitzel tomorrow. It is just now starting to rain very lightly. Humming bird is at the newly filled feeder. Finished tweaking page 3 of the Cut Garden photo album.

August 27, Tuesday, 2024
Emptied .5 in. of water out of the gauge. 16 degrees at 10:00. Finished Page 4 of the Cut Garden photo album. Rained a bit more in the afternoon. 2:30 to 4:30 to make up the schnitzel. I should have several meals of it to freeze.

August 28, Wednesday, 2024
Reservoir Aug 25: Sooke 74.0%. Goldstream 85.0%. Total 75.1%. 17 degrees at 11:00. To Michelle farms for lunch.. not on our list of places to go for lunch. Got 18 apples, couple of garlic. Made up 4 big blue pkgs of apple sauce. This took from 2:30 to 5:00 with pkgs labled and dishes done. Have 1/4 jar in the fridge. 20 degrees at 5:00. Sunny.

August 29, Thursday, 2024
21 degrees at 12:00. Out in the front garden from 10:00 to 12:00, clipping back the roses and deadheading them, cut the montebretias off the path, clipped the globe cedar around the peony tree into a 'pot' shape to make it appear that the peony is growing in a pot, clipped the boxwood next to it back a bit to clean up that corner next to the deck. Put the clippings on the pile under the plum tree. The Pees are throwing the stuff off the place where they have killed the grass by putting their bins on it. The bins seem to have some sort of chemical on them that is killing the grass. Old Pee was sitting on his chair next to their bins. I dusted him off the area when I watered the pink rose and the boxwood hedges along there. Reservoir Aug 25: Sooke 74.0%. Goldstream 85.0%. Total 75.1%. (same as yesterday). It seems they are just recording it weekly. added Pats picks to my google shortcuts, but cannot get an icon for it. Was out from 2:00 to 5:00. Half hour to clean up. Cleaned up the fallen leaves and debris after the rain, around the pond. Pulled the stuff off the pump filter and turned it back on, filled the pond. Cleaned up the rest of the dry stream and its edges up to the end of it. Pulling out lots of dying ferns, etc. Clipped the little eunonymous shrub. Am planning to put lime down so the moss does not form along the dry stream, but only at the sides, and then put down the pea gravel. Put lime on the little maiden hair fern. It will need more compost on it. The ferns and the little shrub were all over grown. I must keep them under control.

August 30, Friday, 2024
21 degrees at 10:00. Was out from 10:00 to 12:30.. 2.5 hours. Have most of under the deck cleaned up with a whole big heap of leaves and dead fern stuff. I am taking out some of the ferns that are great lumps to trip over and hope to get the moss growing under there. One of the stumps totally decayed and makes some nice red stuff that I have put around the plastic stepping stones that go down to the sitting area. I will need a chair under there now, too. Maybe foxgloves will grow too. Found more stones for the dry stream. Was out from 2:30 to 430. Finished cleaning up the drystream and under the deck. Replaced a couple of the stones. Raked over the stream and have yet to add the lime and the new pebble gravel.

August 31, Saturday, 2024
18 degrees at 9:15. Out in the garden from 9:30 to 1:00 (3.5 hours). Finished the dry stream with putting down the lime and adding new pea gravel all along the 'stream' and hopeing the side rocks and logs get covered in moss. Weeded in the moss garden area from the dry stream over in front of the deck edge to the primulas and the entry to under the deck. Finished along the fieldstone path up the mugo pine and across to the entry to the water garden area. clipped back the white azalea and the rhodos on both sides of the stepping stones to under the deck. So, I guess I have half of the moss garden weeded. The clover along the stepping stone path is impossible. I am considering using round up on it. The drystream looks pretty good. 27 degrees at 2:00. 21 degrees at 8:00.

September, 2024

September 1, Sunday, 2024
22 degrees at 10:00. The squirrel has been on the deck digging holes in the pots, dumped the irises into the tub. Was out in the garden from 10:00 to 1:30. Cleaned up the stepping stones from the old sidewalk up to the moss garden. (to the entry to under the deck and the dry stream.) Digging out weeds between the stepping stones and putting down moss between them. Have the green bin about 1/4 full. Water for about half hour around the back, mostly on the grapes, fig and apple tree. Hopefully this bit of water will give the new moss a start. I moved a few stones to the waterfall and a couple of foxgloves to the back of the water garden. Filled the pond. I think I will try to keep the stepping stones surrounded by moss on both sides. The primulas need divideing. 27 degrees at 1:30. Dug the clover out of the deck pots. Sorted some of the stuff in the Gardening folder.

September 2, Monday, 2024
Finished tweaking the photos for the Cut Garden photo album. Laundry. Banking. Made up the coleslaw. Fed the fish. The usual ones seem to be in the pond. Saw a tiny sarasa. I have not seen the comet with the black on top in the tub yet, but the other one has been up to feed. Put the screen around the pond. I need another screen to cover the still open area. There was another hole in the lettuce pot and a peanut on top of the soil.

September 3, Tuesday, 2024
First thing this morning I found that the irises in the tub were tipped over, again. The screening, nor the 2 prickly things on the deck railing were moved. How distressing! So, after breakfast and the morning chores I was out at about 9:30. I decided to move the irises out of the tub completely and just have the water lily. I think the new gold fish are gone. Not sure if I want any new ones right now. I have the screen covering the tub, now. There are no other holes dug in the deck pots. Took the irises down to the patio area, along with the weeds from yesterdays cleaning up the pots. I have dug out clover and weeds up to the stepping stone by the epimediums. Am also weeding along the fig tree area to an arm's length away. I think I will want to keep both sides of this stepping stones path in moss. Brought a fallen apple and some of the grapes in when I came in to make lunch at 12:00. So, 9:30 to 12:00 - 2.5 hours. It was cool and overcast, so I was comfortable wearing long sleeves. Now at 1:00 there is more sun and it is 21 degrees. Was out from 1:00 to 3:30 -2.5 hours. Total for the day 5 hours. Weeded the stepping stones up to the epimediums and then across to past the mugo pine and under that edge of the epimediums and the contorted hazel nut tree. It is all very dry. I use my rock hammer to dig out the clover and weeds putting the weeds in the bin and sifting through the soil to put back on the weeded area with any moss I have on top. Pat was out and took off the dried out limbs of the fig tree. We have all these big branches sitting in front of the garage to be cut up into wood stove size. I quickly watered around the grape, the fig, the apple, under the deck and over all the newly cleaned up moss garden. I watered a bit where I will be digging out clover tomorrow and hope it helps get the roots out. I am weeding both sides of the stepping stone path and have at least half of the fig tree garden room finished. The columbines look really ratty so I am pulling most of them out. No doubt they have all gone to seed, anyway. The maltese cross thing is sprouting new littl shoots. I will water it well and move its tomato cage over top of them and cut back the old shoots. I have a new little epimedium popping up. I think I will pot it up for Pam when we see them again this Fall. Created the Cut Garden photo album. Have started the Page descriptions, after adding the menu on all the pages.

September 4, Wednesday, 2024
Scrubbed the ensuite bathroom window as high up as I could reach. The horizontal blind is very dirty as is the window. I got most of the black mold out of it, and the ants. Watered the house and deck plants. I think I may have seen a female gold finch this morning. Lots of birds in the back garden early in the morning. Filled the humming bird feeder and the lemonade. Reservoir level Sept. 1: Sooke 72.5%. Goldstream 84.2%. Total 73.6%. Was out in the garden from 12:30 to 2:00.(1.5 hrs.) Finished weeding up to the end of the epimediums, on both sides of the stepping stones. Watered all around the grape, fig and apple, and including where I expect to be weeding next. Watered lightly on the parts of the moss garden that I have finished weeding. Put extra moss down by the mugo Pine and moved some little stones around. Taking moss out of that plant that looks like it should be a rock plant. It never blooms. More soil around the maltese cross plant. Must get photos in a day or two. 25 degrees at 3:30. Pat cut up the smaller parts of the fig tree and stored them away for firewood. He will need to use a bigger saw for the big parts that are left to do. Later in the evening I got 3 of my tomatoe cages back and locked them in the garage.

September 5, Thursday, 2024
Was out about 8:30 to move the deck stuff out of the way where the guy is comeing over to take the moss off the roof and clean the gutters. Then he sprays with some chemical that is suppose to keep the moss from growing for 5 years. $945. Did my hair and my nails in the morning. Cleaned up some moss that had fallen on step under the skylight. After lunch I moved the plants, etc. back to where they were, brought the hose up and hosed down the deck, windows and watered plants under and around the deck, the autumn crocus, the fig, grapes and apples. Accidently washed the thermometer off the window. It must be around 25 degrees. Is hot in the sun. Pat will put it back up. The screen was ripped off the deck tub and the lily suffered more damage.

September 6, Friday, 2024
20 degrees at 9:30 when I went out to garden. 27 degrees when I got in at 12:30. (3 hours). Finished weeding the moss garden and along the stepping stones between the moss garden and the fig tree garden room. Watered lightly all around the weeded area and picked up the dried leaves from the rhodos that are turning orange and falling off. Found a piece of bread with some meat crap and cheese on it in the moss garden. More presents from the nefarious neighbours, no doubt. The screen was not ripped off the deck tub last night. I should discuss my progress with getting the wildlife solar camera out on the deck again. Seems to be a deterrent from the screen being ripped of the deck tub. I have the broom stick stuck between the deck railings over the tub and a chair beside the tub. No doubt the animal could still rip the screen off, except for the possibility of being in the movies.

September 7, Saturday, 2024
Was out to the garden at 9:30. 20 degrees. Was back in at 12:30. (3 hours) Cleaned up fallen leaves, moved any moss out of the dry stream. Weeded the top stepping stones of the path. Have finished both sides of the stones and have 4 left to do until I am at the old sidewalk. So, have about 1/4 of this area of the fig tree garden left to to. Watered lightly around the moss garden area and the grapes, fig tree and apple tree. Is 25 degrees at 1:30. There is a football game to watch. The screen was not ripped off the deck tub last night. Finished the page descriptions on the Cutting garden photo album. Finished the index page html stuff. Another football game at 4:00.

September 8, Sunday, 2024
Started the codeing of the photo pages. Finished step 1 of page 4. Had to go out to Fisher Farm for the VCCC corn roast. Visiting with the ladies at one table. I took my cutlery and just had a hot dog and cheesies and potato chips. Got home about 4 and spent hour filling the green bin that was about 4/5 full. Logged off a few more bamboo. In the morning I will fill the green bin from the rest of the stuff that is on the boulevard. People are picking blackberries across the road from us.

September 9, Monday, 2024
17 degrees at 10:00. Swept the entry way and the kitchen. Tried to get some photos of the garden but it is really too sunny/contrasty. The ones under the deck are not too bad. Finished step 2 of the photo pages. Made meatloaf, shrimp and avocado salad. Was out in the garden from about 2:30 to 4:00. Put the debris from on the boulevard garden into the green bin and the dried leaves, etc onto the garden bed for mulch. Have the bin about 4/5 full and still have some of the branches, twigs and mulch in the debris pile. Cigarette butts in the pile and it was damp under the mulch stuff. Left some of the mulch on the grass. Now I need rain. Swept the bamboo leaves off the thyme circle. I am going to drag the bin to the back because I have 2 weeks of house stuff and more weeding at the back to put into the bin.

September 10, Tuesday, 2024
Did banking, finished laundry. 9:30 - 16 degrees overcast. 20 degrees at 4:00. Reservoir level Sept. 8.:Sooke 71%; Goldstream 83%; total 72.1%. Shopping from 1:30 to 3:30.

September 11, Wednesday, 2024
Rained a bit over night. 17 degrees at 3:00. Made up a double batch of spaghetti sauce and have 2 frozen dinners. Finished photo captions to No. 11.

September 12, Thursday, 2024
20 degrees at 1:30. Took out the blue boxes and had to bring them back in cause I was a week early. Was out to the garden for a couple of hours. Picked the grapes and cut all the branches back. Watered around the back at bit. Washed off the front entry way and washed down the windows a bit, then watered around the front a bit. After lunch at about 1:30 we went to Berwick for the Nearly Neil Diamond karaoke guy. Very energetic, was a good show. The theatre was full with some extra chairs. Got home and washed 2 lbs of grapes, dried them and have them in pans lined with parchment paper in the downstairs freezer and one pan in the fridge. I will finish the rest of them tomorrow. It is probably about 2 more lbs. Once frozen, I will put them in sandwhich baggies to keep frozen, maybe about .5 of a lb. each. updated windows.

September 13, Friday, 2024
18 degrees at 11:30. Have finished cleaning the grapes. Have 4 baggies of apx 7 oz frozen. Should have 8 pkgs total frozen, each between 7 oz and 10 oz. Am finished No. 21 of the photo captions of the cutting garden album.

September 14, Saturday, 2024
Emptied .5 of an inch out of the rain gauge. Still raining lightly. 16 degrees at 10:00. Did 2 loads of gardening cloths laundry. Made coffee and ground up more hazelnut cream beans for capiccino. I add some to the coffee I make now as the capiccino maker is too heavy to move around and does not make great capiccino anyway. Finished photo captions No. 52 of the cutting garden photo album. 25 captions to go. 21 degrees at 3:00. Sunshine. Made up a Greek salad for with the Arby's tonight. Added 2 pkgs of 10.5 oz of frozen grapes, for a total of 6 pkgs. Added more to the left over Greek salad. 15 degrees at 7:30.

September 15, Sunday, 2024
18 degrees at noon. Fed fish. made egg salad sandwiches for lunch. Took a few photos. Made the lemonade. Finished the laundry, still need to do the towels and the bedding. Finished the photo captions. Need to check everything over before uploading it.

September 16, Monday, 2024
18 degrees at 11:00. Fixed the vertical blinds on the deck window/door. Bedding and Towels laundry. Fed the fish. Was out to the garden to try and get some photos of the cut garden plants. Very contrasty. The big blue lupine is gone. Picked over the apples that Pat had left on the chair. He said the apples are still too green to pick. Most of them are just back in the compost bin. Looked for the overhanging rose branch to cut back but could not find it, just reached up and cut a few ends I could reach. Picked the black berries off the ones along the driveway strip. Have about a half cup each for supper. A trough on the strawberry patch was broken down again. With a view to moving it, I have a few bricks to replace it and can finish off with a few stones. Trying to figure out when the Davey Tree people trampled the cut garden plants and find that they billed us for work done before Oct 17, 2022. The 2020 synopsis photo shows a lot of stuff was done in 2022. Don't know when all the tags and stakes were moved. The valerain rubra seems to be gone. I will try and cut back the yew hedge and make a paver path along by it, and move the trough, also this month. Also get the 'mulch' that the birds have been scratching over the paver path put onto the cut garden. Finished checking over the Cut Garden album and is ready to upload and do the progress page.

September 17, Tuesday, 2024
14 degrees at 10:30. Overcast. Reservoir: Sooke - 69.5%; Goldstream - 82.5%; Total: 70.7%. Finished freezing the grapes. Have 8 pkgs and can use them as separate grapes from the pkgs. Finished the laundry. (folded Towels). Made up 3 jars of cranberries. Did banking, etc. Out to get lottery tickets. uploaded the Cut Garden photo album and the Progress page. It all works. Ribs for supper.

September 18, Wednesday, 2024
20 degrees at 2:30. Made up 4 dozen cookies. Did more sorting for the Fruit and Vegetables album. shrimp salad for supper with french fries and basa fish.

September 19, Thursday, 2024
14 degrees and foggy at 9:30. Lc Secret Love - Hsinying has 4 big buds. Laeliocattleya Secret Love is an orchid hybrid originated by Dogashima in 1992. It is a cross of Ctt. Candy Tuft x C. Mini Purple. Was out from 9:30 to 12:00 (2.5 hours) Finished cleaning up the area around the Fig Tree. Picked up fallen leaves etc. from all the moss garden area. Have the green bin full and ready to take to the curb on Sunday night for Monday. Was out from 2:30 to 3:30 and watered all around the pond surrounds, under the deck, and all the moss garden area as well as the fig tree garden room. washed the holly leaves onto the grass around the apple tree. So, 3.5 hours in the garden today. Have 9 fallen holely apples in the house to make into apple sauce. I cannot find when we had the yellow plum tree taken down but we were getting purple plums at the same time the yellow plum tree was still producing. No matter.

September 20, Friday, 2024
17 degrees at 11:30. Cleaned and filled the humming bird feeder. Fed and watered house and deck plants. Filled the vitamin box. Filled the flour and sugar jars. Was to the HCP for about an hour and paid up my membership for the year: Membership: $45.00. Got $5.00 off on some discount of the day. The membership fees have doubled in cost. Viewed the plants on the sale tables and got Asclepia Curassavica (milkweed and Achilles millefolium 'Red Velvet' which is not red but looks more like the rainbow tri coloured plant. $21.15. TOTAL: $66.15. Got the name of the plant I have in the garden in 2 places. The one with round blue leaves. Its a lovely thing called Parahebe perfoliata (Derwentia perfoliata) See Oregon nursery and plants for the Pacific Northwest. I could look up the plants here even if I could not order them to be shipped.

September 21, Saturday, 2024
17 degrees at 11:00. Made the mini cucumber salad. All the regular kitchen chores. Moved the orchids around to get the blooming Lc Secret Love - Hsinying to a better position to see it. The buds are opening. There will be pictures when its fully open. Also need photos of the new plants. 18 degrees when I got in from the garden at 4:30. Went out at 1:00, pleached about half of the bamboo clump and have a pile of bamboo trimmings next to the bamboo and more bamboo stakes along by the cedar hedge. dead headed and pruned back the roses, taking the dead canes of the pink rose out. Also cut back the Jackamani purple clematis back a bit and cut back the Japanese anemones to just about ground level. (still have some to do). I have the green bin full and more clippings added to the pile by the plum tree. I started watering all around the front at 3:00 and finished at 4:30. So, 3.5 hours today. Nothing too strenuos. When I got in I found I have great big bruise on my right elbow. It looks a lot worse than it feels. Cannot remember where I got it. Pat sharpened my knives. There is a football game to watch. Might be half time by the time I get down there.

September 22, Sunday, 2024
The motion light came on last night. There doesn't seem to be damage, at least not on the deck. 16 degrees at 1:00. Made 2 pkgs of chicken, veggie, noodle soup and 1 big pkg of the holey apples. Chicken soup was not great because of the duck stock or the vegetable stock. Forgot the cinamon in the apple sauce and added it later, and a bit more sugar. Tastes ok now. But it took a long time to cut the holey apples up, and used up a lot of water. It rained slightly. Don't think I will go out to garden. Was on my feet all morning and my back aches a bit. Washed my hair this morning. Had a much needed nap in the afternoon. Did not get the promised rain.

September 23, Monday, 2024
Did the light laundry. Made tuna surprise for supper. Was out in the garden from 3:30 to 5:00. Raked the leaves off the grass around the apple tree. That grass is full of clover and moss. Not sure what I am going to do about it. Picked up the piles of clippings and twigs out of the cutting garden and off the patio area. Have the green bin about half full. It rained lightly sometime during the morning. Some critter tried to rip the screen off the tub, got it about half off. Knocked the can that holds the fish food off its perch, but it did not open. Saw 2 big gold fish and the 3 white ones when I fed them. I had the water turned on to fill the pond and it overflowed. It ran beside the platform and into the dry stream and across the dry stream for a little way. So, that area got a good soaking. Was 20 degrees when I went out (had long sleeves on and forgot my hat and eye protection glasses.)

September 24, Tuesday, 2024
20 degrees at 10:30. Reservoir levels at Sept. 22: Sooke 68%, Goldstream 81.2% Total: 69.3%. It is going to rain tonight. Was out in the garden from 10:30 to 1:30. (3 hours). Have half of the fig tree garden bed, from the round stepping stone towards the holly tree finished the edging both side and cleaning up the middle of this bed. Levelled some of the big bumps out by digging out the malva plants roots and moving the moss to the old side walk side of the edging. Skimmed some of the under water plant out of the pond. The water looks a lot cleaner now. Saw the 3 big white fish, the 2 big gold fish, and 2 tiny whitish ones. There was a damsel fly around the pond.

September 25, Wednesday, 2024
16 degrees at 10:00. Rained a lot last night and is still raining at 10:00. 17 degrees at 12:30. There is .5 in. in the water gauge and it is still raining. Got Jim B. to be an Admin on Megshot Facebook group. Tammy Nash declined the invite. Cannot get ahold of Cyrus. Fed the fish. Refilled the fish food jar. Sorted photos for the Fruit and Vegetable album. Have 4 pages of 5 across and 3 down. 13 degrees at 7:00. Well over .5 of an inch in the rain gauge. My email has done some weird stuff with my inbox, etc. I have been deleteing a lot of the old stuff I find that they have put into the folders. This really sucks.

September 26, Thursday, 2024
14 degrees at 3:30 and raining. Did ironing. Did lots of deleting emails. That whole folder stuff is in a big mess. But I think I might be making some headway. Fed the fish this morning and filled the fish food container. I will keep it in the house now, as that critter still seems to be trampling around the deck and on the screen over the tub. Now the next problem is not getting the notifications on messenger from the cardwise. So, wasted the afternoon trying to get that fixed, with no luck. I will probably have to contact them to get it sorted out, or forget it. I would prefer to have the noticications, though. It has been raining again. So, that's a plus for the garden.

September 27, Friday, 2024
18 degrees at 11:30. Emptied about 3/4 of an inch (20 mm = 0.866142 in) out of the rain gauge. Sunny. Fed the fish. Deleting more old emails all morning. Got the alerts working with messenger and email on the credit card again. Pat was getting denial of transactions this afternoon. Spent all of the afternoon trying to find out what the problem might be. Cannot get security tokens in email or messenger. We need another credit card and to go over to the credit union to get a lot of cash and the jacket. And find out what is going on with that credit card.

September 28, Saturday, 2024
16 degrees at 11:00. Fed the fish. Deleted a few more old emails. Did some banking. The notifications alerts are now working on the credit card. Watched the football game. Sorted photos for Fruit and Vegetables by date and have started to number them. I will only do one line at at time, as when I did this last time I had to renumber them numerous times as I had duplicates or whatever.

September 29, Sunday, 2024
Was out in the garden from 11:00 to 3:30 (4.5 hours). Finished weeding, edging, cleaning holly leaves out of the Fig Tree garden room, including both sides of the old sidewalk. Cleaned up the entry way to the apple tree grass surround. Moving the tray and some pots out of the area by the big white pot. Did edging of the grass. Next I will clean up the rhubarb area and clip back the jasmine. Have some michaelmas daisies in for a bouquet.

September 30, Monday, 2024
Laundry, took out the compost, watered a bit around the fig tree garden room and the moss/Japanese garden area, under the deck, fed the fish. Have the green bin about 4/5ths full. A coolish day. Pat cut up the last of the fig tree cuttings he had done.

October, 2024

October 1, Tuesday, 2024
Finished the laundry. Shopping for a couple of hours. Fed the fish. did some banking. Have 7 photos finished for the Fruits and Vegetables photo album. I seem to have lost the original photos used in the blog from 2005 to 2010. But have somehow got a few in the album that were used in the blog.

October 2, Wednesday, 2024
Was out in the garden from 9:00 to 12:00. Edged and cleaned the little rockery. Threw the old cedar trough behind the old garage. It is pretty rotted. Moved 2 strawberries into the patch. Moved a couple more from the top area into the middle of the patch. Cleaned the patch and spread the spare soil around on top of the patch. Put as many bricks as I could find along the edge of the rockery that continues the yellow brick road up to the last 2 feet and put stones along the rest of that edge of the rockery. It looks a lot better without the broken down cedar trough. Cleaned the top edge of the strawberry patch and covered it with lots of leaf mulch and threw the dirt I could find on top of the mulch. Came in and made lunch, had a .5 hour rest and was back out from 1:30 to 3:30. Finished cleaning the mulch and soil off the paver path, transplanted the Yarrow (Rainbow Tri-color and the new milkweed, into the cutting garden, and weeding as I did this area. I seemed to have spare soil from the holes to put on top of the new plantings and the old mulch. Finished cleaning off the pavers up to the irises and throwing the dirt on top of the new mulch. Put tomato cages around the new milkweed and the Yarrow. Put a tray of twigs into the bin. I replanted a tulip next to the Yarrow, where I had dug it up. The tulips have split and this one had another little bulb also. Replanted it, of course. I find I have a michalmas daisy growing in the cutting garden. I will let it spread around a bit. It is easy to pull out if I keep the soil loose with the mulching. Watered all around the back garden that is cleaned up. The leaves from the apple tree and other mulch are blowing around into the beds. Filled the pond. I hope the new bits of grass soon take hold and grow. I won't mow back there. It all looks pretty good all edged and cleaned up. There will have to be photos. So today was 5 hours out there.

October 3, Thursday, 2024
Was out in the garden from 10:00 to 1:00. Started cleaning up the woodland area. Have the green bin full and another little pile of weeds as well as a big pile of tree pruning. Cut the blossoms off the butterfly bush, trimmed the firethorn back a bit, trimmed the cedar around the yucca plant, cut out and shortened many stems of the pin oak, pruned out dry stuff on the rhodo and pruned it back off the path. Pulling out germander and some weeds from the white pot back to the big fern area. After I got the weeds and germander out, I scraped leaves and soil into the rhubarb side of the old sidewalk. Threw all the rotting wood pieces onto where the loveage was growing. I guess they will break down over time. I feel like I got quite a lot done again today. I will need to dig over all this area of the woodland and re plant the irises and find something to put in the pots that surround the rhubarb. So today was 3 hours. Tried to make the brisket in the pressure cookers and burned both of the pots totally black. This made a great stink in the house. What a disaster! Tried to soak the pots and scrape off the burnt on pots with limited results. Terrible end to a good gardening day.

October 4, Friday, 2024
Started the day with cleaning the sinks and all around the kitchen to get rid of the burnt pots stink, again with limited success. Pat has windows open, fans running. The stink is slowly going away, but is still noticeable a bit at 3:30. Shut the windows and turned off fans. This brisket should have been done in the slow cooker for hours. I emptied a little over .5 of an inch of rain out of the gauge today. It rained half of the night and on into this morning. Washed and dried my gardening clothes yesterday. Finished tweaking No. 9 of the fruit and vegetables photo album. I cannot find the blog for 2006 or 2007.

October 5, Saturday, 2024
Updated the listCGVH page, the gardening page, the plantlist page, and the progress page. Made coffee, made lemonade. Finished No. 11 of the Fruit and Vegetables photo album and sorted the photos up to No.17 and numbered them. Fed the fish. 91 photos, charging the battery at 4:00. Football game at 4:00 to 6:00 and Romeo pizza. Sask won. I believe they play BC on the 12th.

October 6, Sunday, 2024
Fed the fish. Watered house plants and the deck tall white pot plant. (HONEYSUCKLE VINE (Lonicera sempervirens). 10:30 is 15 degrees. Was in at 2:00 and it is 18 degrees. (3.5 hours) Planted the Pink Phlox in the cutting garden. Have 7 tomato cages on the plants. Emptied a bag of soil into the other one. Looked for the plant that was suppose to be very invasive in the bags. I don't see any of it growing in either bag. I have opened up the bag and will see if anything grows in it. Moved some yucca sprouts from under the cedars to in front of the big yucca. Moved the big black pot further down towards the compost bin and have the germander dug out of this space from under the yew tree over towards the compost bin for about 6 feet and have irises put into the space. I have the old wood blocks piled up and will move them into the area under the Japanese cedar as I move along the area digging out the germander and weeds and replaceing the irises in the area in a more thinned out spacing. This is not entirely satisfactory, but will think about what to put into this 'woodland' area that is more suitable to a woodland. The yew tree likes to be clipped back, but I can only reach so high. Have the green bin dragged out to the curb. The old compost bin is only about half full, so I should be able to add the dried out fern leaves into it for future compost. Have 2 piles of debris sitting in the woodland path. The squirrel was eating the yew berries.

October 7, Monday, 2024
Was out from 2:30 to 4:30. Was 18 degrees but I still needed my long sleeves. There were mosquitos from the water in the black tub. Took the small pink pot down and emptied it. I put the parsly into the trough by the rhubarb, after cleaning it out. Added some sea soil to the trough. Put the verbena bondonaires into the cutting garden as well as a couple of foxgloves. Put the rest of the foxgloves behind the back pavers path. Cleaned out one of the beige pots. Not sure what I will put into these pots.. annuals maybe. Added the Hyssop sign to the cut garden next to the lilac and emptied the last washed sand bag around that area. Watered all around the back. Added a bit of water to the pond and placed the last of the rocks into the path leading to the waterfall rock. The cedar hedge is looking really thin except where I had been purning it back. I guess the guys that recently did Sheila's trees cut it all back on her side. It is still long on my side so it stops the rain from getting on the cut garden area. When it recovers, perhaps next spring, I will stand on a chair and try to get the hedge pruned back a bit more, as high as I can reach from on the chair. Added the pile of small debris from the woodland path, plus another flat full to the green bin. There is still lots of room in the bin. Pat got in to see the dentist today on a cancellation, got his tooth patched up but it still needs a couple more processes. His next appointment is sometime beginning of Dec. and he is on the cancellation list again. Threw away the calendar from above the freezer and replaced it with my framed photo of Nicola Lake which is a vast improvement over the calendar.

October 8, Tuesday, 2024
14 degrees at 11:00. Reservoir levels, October 6: Sooke 65.7%, Goldstream 80%, Total: 67.0%. Spent an hour or so cleaning up my Documents folder and emails and recycle bin. It rained last night and is still raining now, but there is very little water in the rain gauge, so it looks like I will be watering at the back again, probably on Thursday. Made the plum pie and a tiny apple pie with left over pastry. Grocery shopping. Spaghetti with clam sauce for supper.

October 9, Wednesday, 2024
15 degrees at 11:30. Have checked the groceries and the fridge, dumped out the spoiled cream cheese and made up a grocery list for the duck feast day (on Sunday 13th) and the football game day (Saturday 12th). Fed the fish and adjusted the screen over the water feature on the deck. Whatever creature is still pulling the screen off the top of it. I have the broom stick across the top, but the screen is still being pulled off. Today I put one of the plastic prickly things on top of the screening and tried to move the tub closer to the railings on the deck, to hold the screen down. But this is not really working. Maybe if I had a screen covering that fit right down the tub and was fastened under the tub with duct tape. This would make it difficult to add fish to the pond though, unless I fashioned a trap door of some kind on the top. Also thought of covering the tub with the blue box or the black tub, over night. I might need to get another black tub and make holes in it so the tub can get air exchange for the fish. There is over 1/4 inch of rain in the gauge. I am going to leave the water in there as it is going to be raining some more this week. Did windows update. Finished tweaking photos for Fruits and Vegetables to No. 17, and numbering to No. 32 Was out in the garden from 2:30 to 4:30. emptied the compost. Moved the black pot up to the deck. picked up 2 more flats of debris from the water/moss garden area. Watered around the back especially on the cut garden where the rain does not fall due to the cedar hedge 'roof'. Made the steak, corn, baked potato for supper with the last of the cucumber salad and the small holey apple pie.

October 10, Thursday, 2024
Updated the miscellaneous page and put it on the upload list. Made the stew for tonight's supper. The deck tub was not messed with last night. I have not tried the black bin to cover it yet. 12 degrees at 11:30. Was out from 11:30 to 3:00 (3.5 hours). Cleaned to the compost bin area. Cleaned up the beige pots. Added a lemon balm to one of them. I am digging out all weeds and digging over the soil. Then replace irises. I have the decaying wood piled up along under the cedars up to where the saskatoon berry trees are growing. Have dug out the big leafed plant on the iris side of the old sidewalk and left the one next to the big fern on the other side of the sidewalk. There are more of these plants growing further back under the Saskatoons. I don't really like this plant, so I will probably take all of it out someday. I seem to have lots of soil to plant the irises in and so am throwing a lot of it to the other side of the old sidewalk on top of decayed leaves and other mulching stuff. I have yet to clean up the daylillies. I will see if the irises grow and produce blooms next year, and think about replacing most of them. They are not really woodland plants but it would be nice to get some of a different color than the ones in the cut garden. I have started to cut back the brown fronds of the big fern by the compost bin and have been throwing this and the green leaves of the big unknown plant into the old compost bin.

October 12, Saturday, 2024
Yesterday was cooking, shopping, tried to take the alerts off the credit card and other computer stuff. The removal of the alerts seems to have worked, at last. Today, fed the fish. Made some delicious coffee. 12 degrees at 10:00. The motion light came on last night but the covering of the deck tub has not been messed with. So, I hope I can put some fish in it next spring. Saving the black pot under the table on the deck. Finished tweaking the photos of the Fruits and Vegetables photo album for page 2. Numbered photos for pages 3 and 4 of the photo album, with one photo of the cleaned up rhubarb on No. fg58. The photos I took today all have the wrong date taken on them. Should be october 12, 2024. Football from 4 to 7, with appies and hash. Fixed the date on the Camera.

October 13, Sunday, 2024
wasted the whole morning on computer stuff.. to no avail. Tried to fix alerts again and gave Pat a new PIN which really upset him. Making screen shots for the email to Trevor about antivirus update, and log scan. Printer update. My phone is no longer getting updates, so I will need a new one as mine is broken any way. Need another android for my books. The duck dinner turned out really good. Lots of leftovers.

October 14, Monday, 2024
The alerts on the credit card seem to be stopped. 17 degrees at 2:00 and overcast. It rained a tiny bit sometime earlier today. Fed the fish. Did some banking. Laundry. Made 3 pkgs of duck soup and had another one for lunch.

October 15, Tuesday, 2024
Went to CrUn and got a teller guy to help change Pat's PIN. He cannot help me with the cancelled alerts stuff, but I think I have them cancelled, only worried about the Amount to allow.. hopefully it is cancelled. Went for lunch to the Matticks restuarant at the Golf club. Very good seafood chowder. Went to Circle K for lottery tickets and the co-op lb store for 2 red wine. I spent until 3:14 trying to look up more info about Pixel 8's. Pat suggested I use Trevor for this.. I thought I would do it at London Drugs, but yeah .. Trevor would be best, I think. Ear buds would be extra cost, they are rechargeable in their box. The box needs charging seperately so the ear buds charge from it. sigh.

October 16, Wednesday, 2024
Reservoir levels as Oct. 13: Sooke 64.7% Goldstream 79.3% Total: 66.1. Emptied about 1/4 inch of water out of the rain gauge. The silly squirrel was up in the yew tree eating yew berries. Finished page 3 of the fruits and vegetables of tweaking the photos. No.45. Went for our covid and flu vaccinations to the Pharmacy by Quality Foods Mall. One vaccine in each arm. Pat got Chinese food from Quality Foods for our supper. Finished reading Son of a 1000 kings book by Costain. Very good book. Have stopped watching news and reading the Ukraine vs Russia stuff.

October 17, Thursday, 2024
13 degrees at 1:14. Deleted a lot of emails out of gmail and some out of shaw.mail. This should free up a few MBs. Brought a few apples in. We had chinese for lunch. Did some banking stuff this morning. We go to Berwick for some sort of entertainment stuff at 2:00. Have to walk up the hill from the Church. Have all my stuff in my velcro pockets of my rain coat instead of the fanny pack. My arms are a bit sore from the vaccines.

October 18, Friday, 2024
12 degrees at 1:30. Fed the fish. watered the house plants. some email stuff, etc. We had bits of rain, but no wind, despite all the storm warnings and 100% chance of rain. We really do need the rain.

October 19, Saturday, 2024
Emptied 2 inches out of the rain gauge at 9:00. It was over flowing. 15 degrees at 12:30. Were over to the school to vote. It was not raining much and took very little time... no line ups. Have spent a couple of hours deleteing files from pictures, from Not Webpage. Hope I have freed up a GB at least. Quick trip for lottery tickets and to Penco. Talked to Dan and Carol for a while. Had lunch and tweaked photos for the fruit and vegetables to No. 52. Football game at 4:00. Been raining all afternoon. Emptied another 2 inches of rain out of the gauge at 7:30, and it is to rain all night again and clear up tomorrow afternoon. The BC Lions had a resounding victory over the Alloettes who are the top team of the Eastern division. Winnipeg is in No. 1, position, Sask. in No.2 and Lions in No. 3 in the Western division. Election results will start to come in at 8:00. It is all computerized so it may be wrapped up before 8:00.

October 20, Sunday, 2024
Was out from 9:30 to 10:30 after breakfast. Emptied .5 of an inch of rain out of the rain gauge. 12 degrees at 9:30. It has stopped raining and is overcast. Took out the compost. Cleaned up the pile of debris and leaves around the front. Raked leaves and mulch from under the pile onto the garden bed. Lots of leaves still up on the tree. Cleaned leaves off the entry way. Picked some leaves off the front garden rockery. Raked and shaked dried stuff off the cedars along the driveway. The 2 little cedars by the Pees garbage bins seem to have suffered from the demossing as did the leaves of the sweet gum tree along that side of the roof. Cut the mock orange back a bit on the path side. Reached up and cut a few long branches off the hedging cedars along the cut garden. Even this bit of branch shortening seems to have let more light in. I have this stuff piled up on the woodland path. The cut garden seems to have got a good watering. Brought in 2 beer cans from the Boulevard garden and 4 holey apples from under the apple tree. Some of the fallen apples get chewed on by some creature or bird. Put my garden clothes in the wash. The election was a very close race and there are still a few poles to be counted and there will surely be re-counts or whatever they are called as some of the poles were very very close. So, the NDP are claiming they and the 2 Greens seats will form the Government. There were power outages all over due to the big storm we had and more rain today in places. It seems to have stopped here for the moment. I think this big rain was called an atmospheric river. Made cookies. Steak, (bacon), backed potato, califlower, greek salad for supper. Fed the fish. Is cloudy and bits of sun at 5:50.
As of 8 a.m. PT on Sunday, the NDP were leading or elected in 46 seats, the Conservatives in 45 seats and the B.C. Greens were elected in two seats. In the B.C. Legislature, 47 seats are required to form a majority government. However, based on preliminary results, CBC News has not projected the winners of 11 ridings — with the NDP leading in six of those, and the Conservatives in five. Some of those ridings are likely to be subject to an automatic recount — in any ridings where the margin of victory is 100 votes or less. The winners of those recounts will be determined during the final counting period between Oct. 26 and 28, according to Elections B.C. The NDP's Adrian Dix, incumbent health minister and the winner of the Vancouver-Renfrew riding, said that Saturday's election mirrored the 2017 election — which eventually saw the NDP form a minority government through a confidence and supply agreement with the Greens. The results of that election were not known for a few days afterwards, but Dix cautioned that counting would still take place on Sunday morning.

October 21, Monday, 2024
Spent the morning and half the afternoon on credit card stuff.. Pat gets a new one. Fished some wet paper out of the pond. Pat brought the bins in this morning. very tired, was up most of the night worrying about this and that.

October 22, Tuesday, 2024
8 degrees and foggy at 9:30. Fed the fish but did not see any on top, feeding. Watched Dean about new ltv unity corner bed. Paid wikipedia a donation of $100 CAD. I use them all the time. They say only about 2% of the users ever give anything. Donations are the only way they have for support. To the recycle place at 1:30. 15 degrees. The ladder fence is knocked over on the cutting garden. Just set it back up. Brought in 4 more holey apples. Took the recyle stuff to the deposit place. Frittered the afternoon away trying to find out how to make cappuccino with this wretched machine I have. Video looks simple. They always show a metal cup to use to froth the milk... mine is a glass cup.

October 23, Wednesday, 2024
Tara to visit. Good to see her. They will want the light garden. . . so when ever they are ready to take it, its theirs. Pat out to lunch. Finished tweaking the photos for the fruit and vegetables album. Sunny coolish day.

October 24, Thursday, 2024
Made the fruit and vegetables album. Started the coding of the index pages. Duck stew for supper.

October 25, Friday, 2024
Spent the morning trying to learn how to do stuff on my phone. I will try to get Trevor to fix all the stuff I have added if he wants to get my new phone for me and set it up. I need him to check the antivirus and see if the update is done. Pat needs his email fixed but will not take it to Trevor. O Well. I can't get my email to send messages by ascending. It insists to send by the alphabetical sender, as well. Madness. This AI stuff is driving me crazy. Got up to the end of Blog for 2011 search for fruit and vegetable posts. There is still a vegetable garden in 2011.

October 26, Saturday, 2024
Filled the hummingbird feeder. Finished Page 1 description.

October 27, Sunday, 2024
Rained last night and still raining lightly at 10:00. 12 degrees at 10:00. There is a little green beetle in the thermometer at the bottom (freezing area of the mercury). It stopped raining after lunch about 12:30. I was out in the garden: picked about a dozen apples, skimmed off the pond, raked and picked up all the leaves off the patio and the driveway. Dragged the bin to the front and loaded some leaves from along the driveway by the magnolia tree. It started to rain and that finished me. I was out until about 2:30. In going through blog posts for the veggie garden in May of 2013 I found the name of the plant that grows under the edge of the western red cedar. This is a Persicaria Bistorta 'Superba' that grows in the back garden border under the western red cedar. It is said to be invasive but mine has taken many years to get to this size. I suppose competing with the tree roots keeps it in check. I really like how it looks. The flowers last a long time too. When there gets to be more of them I will be able to use them in bouquets for our dinner table. Persicaria Bistorta 'Superba' Emptied 1 inch of water out of the water gauge at 8:00 pm. We had a deje vu dinner. Was good... salad, fish & califlower, fried potatoes and left over meats. Three courses. Too full for dessert.

October 29, Tuesday, 2024
Yesterday I did laundry and drove about shopping. Tried to set up the rewards thing to show points collected on Save on Foods and Quality Foods. Not sure I have it right yet. There was rain.
Today did some banking, the coolspan stuff on the fruit and vegetables album. I have page 1 description finished and have blog posts collected for page 2.. just the coding left to do to finish page 2, but got carried away reading some of Rose's blog posts... my goodness she gets hoards of stuff done! There is .5 inch of rain in the gauge. 12 degrees at 12:30. Fixed the link on the bottom of the Travel page re new dodge lodge. Needs more stuff added: Next I need to put a note at the top of the albums saying about see the cars links below for our more recent travels, especially the Mercedes manor and model t's up to when we sold it in 2024, as well as the antiques page. Since covid, etc. Was out in the garden from 2 to 4. Raked up leaves and bamboo twigs. Cleaned off the rockery, the thyme circle, the paths. Have the bin about 3/4 full. There was a flock or family of quail across the street, and trying to come into the garden. Some loud noises scared them away. The black cat was around too. Guess the wretched thing survived last cold winter.

October 30, Wednesday, 2024
Last night I finished coding Page 2 description and the Index colspan changes. 10 degrees at 9:30. Fed the fish. Cleaned up some email and other files. eset antivirus updated, but it still says it needs to be updated. ESET was instramental in having the Hacker of Redline and Meta having their servers taken down and all the other stuff the international goverment security people have recently been doing. It seems the guy who set up these programs for hacking and (perhaps others) were selling the program for $100 a month to the Hackers. Last I read in PC magazine the guy.. Maxim somebody-or-other was in Russia and they had caught another guy.

October 31, Thursday, 2024
Pat activated his new credit card and the damn alerts are still on it. I need to go over to the credit union and get some one to help me remove them, sometime. In the meantime I will just keep deleting them from both emails. I emailed Trevor about the anti virus update thing, so finally got that done. (including a screen print changed to jpeg and downsized. We did not have any power outage or high wind damage yesterday from the big weather warning, but other people in victoria did. Made egg salad sandwiches for lunch. Will make hambergers, bean salad, mushrooms, french fries for supper. Have the duck and vegetables tomorrow. updated the travel page. Took out compost, the green bin is almost full. took out blue bin. Halloween kids tonite.. start just about 6:00.

November, 2024

Friday, November 1, 2024
Can't get on the internet. But can get on with my phone. Sent gmails to Trevor. Nika is to come over on Monday at 1:30. He asked if I had a Ethernet! These cables do wear out it seems. Can't connect to internet. Copier does not work. I know nothing about hardware. Pat had to go shopping by himself as I had to stay by the phone. Sure enough, as soon as Pat stepped out the door, the phone rang. Watered house plants. ran yet another scan. Hummingbirds at the feeder, squirrel on the deck. Cool and bits of rain. We had 28 Halloween kids last night.

Saturday, November 2, 2024
12 degrees at 12:30. Was out from about 10:30 to 12:00, raked up leaves from patio area and a some from driveway, filled the green bin and moved it to the curb. Pat has put his smoked pork hock in his big slow cooker on low and covered with water about 8 this morning. I dumped my little crock pot with the left over water and duck smultz out on the st. johns worte next to the yucca. So, the debris along the driveway should get cut up and put in the bin for the next bin day, also should put the leaves from under the apple tree into the green bin. Brought in 8 more apples.

Sunday, November 3, 2024
cool day. Shopping. made 2 blue pkgs of goop and some for supper. Made up 1.5 jars of apple sauce and kept them in the fridge. Emptied .5 in. of rain out of the gauge.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Yesterday Niko was in to fix the computer. He opened the tower to see what was going on in there, he said. I don't know what he fixed but he got it running. Said it is really running fast now, but don't tell shaw about it. I have lots of memory in the machine. And all sorts of other stuff, I did not understand. I was soo tired from lack of sleep that I did not do anything on it. Today it booted up again. Caught up on the banking stuff. Moved emails around to folders, etc. After lunch we went to Save on and I got the card stuff somewhat figured out. I will be using the big blue card. The other account I had set up is linked to the old one. I won't be using the app on my phone. There is a place where I can upload my offers or whatever they are called. I somehow get more points for buying any of them. So, I must load my offers. All of the other stores have the same offers. The ways to redeem points needs more study. I must load my offers every week on Wednesday, I think. London drugs is much more civilized. We had some big winds yesterday morning, but no power outage. But there were quite a few power outages, especially sooke area. More leaves, etc. to be picked up.

Thursday, November 7, 2024
Did not boot up my computer at all yesterday. Got some badly needed rest. On Tuesday the reservoir levels for Nov. 3 were: Sooke 67.8%, Goldstream 90.7, Total: 70.0%. We have had quite a lot of rain since then. Yesterday I went to SaveOn and got my Card for points set up (linked the spare account, I think she did.) I will be using the big card for this and quality foods. I loaded my rewards offers today and they are good for 6 days, So if I load them on Wednesdays I should have them available for all 7 days. I will delete (uninstal??) the app on my phone, as I do not want to use it. I will always have the card with me to use. I currently have 2433 points. Yesterday I picked up a few sticks and leaves for the green bin.. lots to do, of course, trying to keep them off the rock gardens. Have the banking stuff caught up and the emails caught up. The cat guard from on the deck railing was in the pond, picked it out and picked up a couple more apples. There are still a few left but I will leave them up there for now. There is some strange looking piece of equipment with wheels on it under the deck next to the dry stream. I will have to get rid of it in the garbage another day. Weird! The pond needs skimming. Am not seeing the fish when I feed them. Perhaps it is too cold for them. It is Sunny and 13 degrees at 12:00.

Saturday, November 9, 2024
The strange thing is probably something that fell off the deck structure at the top of the stairs. Yesterday I used up all the lettuce from in the deck pot making the avocado - shrimp salad. Today made up the appies for half time of the foot ball game, and made the chicken cardon bleu casserole for supper after the football game. Cleaned up a bit of email stuff. Sending the credit union notification to Junk... I shall block that email next time as it is the only alert notification that I get. And I have it blocked in gmail. Am up blog posts of 2017 for the fruit and vegetables album. There is soooo much stuff in the old posts, especially 14, 15 16. Must do this blog searches for Woodland, and light garden stuff (actually all of the ones I have left to do) if I ever get them done. Threw a few leaves off the deck. Emptied 1 inch of rain out of the gauge this morning. It is 12 degrees at 2:00. Loaded the October photos. Had to adjust the date.

Monday, November 11, 2024
Not sure what I did yesterday. Made chicken cardon bleu casserole. Laundry today. swept off the front entry. Emptied .5 an inch of rain in the gauge. Finished searching the blog for photos for the fruit and vegetable garden. 12 degrees a 2:30. No longer seeing any notifications, at last. Guess they are going to junk. not in junk. Looks like this just might be corrected. Glory allelueah. Was out for about an hour raking leaves off the patio and under the fig tree and the apple tree. Have the green bin about 1/3 full. So there is room for more leaves in it and there is room for leaves in the old compost bin. It started to rain a bit so I came in. Brought in 6 apples. It is 11 degrees at 4:20 and almost dark out.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Made the supper ahead of time, pork chops got dried out. Was out raking leaves from 2 to 4, filled the bin up. We are suppose to get high winds again. Started doing the description of Page 3 of the Veggies and Fruit album. Was 12 degrees and sunny when I went out to the garden. Lots of leaves still on the trees.

Wednesday, November 13, 2024
We had big winds overnight but no power outage. A few more leaves are down. Pond needs skimming. Emptied .5 in. of rain out of gauge. Overcast and 12 degrees at 11:00. Did banking, email. Sooke reservoir: 69.0% Goldstream: 93.8%, Total: 71.4% to November 10. Mlt.'Breathless Beauty' (Pansy orchid) one blossom. Phrag. 'Andean Fire' (Lady Slipper) one small blossom. Pictures. Finished page descriptions for page 3 of the veggies and Fruits album. Have to check blog posts for 2019. updated windows.

Friday, November 15, 2024
Had a great sleep last night. Replied to Trevor saying that his findings were similiar to mine regarding 8a and that we should go ahead with it and that we were free for next week and the week after. Things were going great. Paid Pen Streams membership and a donation of $50. Then I somehow frigged up my email and things spiralled down to the bottom again. Frantic emails..finally got back a bit of a resemblance to the way it should be. feeling rather dumb after the emails. So, did not get the cookies made. Niko phoned later today and we arranged for him to fix the email on Monday the 18 at 10:00. Finished the coding for Page 3 of the Fruits and Veggies album. My head hurts. Page 4 should be much easier.

Saturday, November 16, 2024
8 degrees at 11:00. Raining lightly. Made the cookies. Emptied 1 inch of water out of the gauge. 6 degrees at 4:00. Baked salmon, potato pancakes, bean salad, green parsley stuff for with the salmon, little green peas for supper.

Sunday, November 17, 2024
8 degrees at 1:30. Overcast. Banking done, email done, lunch and dishes done, took out compost. There was a black squirrel in the back garden eating an apple. Humming bird at the feeder. Finished coding Page 4 of the page descriptions, so next is to do the coding for the photo captions.

Monday, November 18, 2024
Light laundry, made up some links and sent to Niko, for tomorrow's 12:30 remote ordering of my cell phone. Wretched email showed that stupid page.. had to find the right place to open the email. I think it might be local folders. grrrrr. I thought I had it fixed. Call from Art, Marlene has trouble with the dreaded D. So sad. Some banking as usual. Started coding the photo pages on the vegies Fruits album.

Tuesday, November 19, 2024
6 degrees at 2:30. We are to have big winds later today and over night - like a cyclone. Nike on remote ordered my Pixel 8a using my links from Best Buy with delivery to their office: $896.47 off my credit card. He will arrange time to see me here when he is ready to switch me over to the new phone. They should get delivery of the phone tomorrow. Reservoir levels Nov. 17: Sooke 73.8%; Goldstream 99.6%. Total: 76.3%. Finished step one of the photo pages on the vegies Fruits album.

Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Was a "bomb cyclone" yesterday afternoon and overnight. 150,000 people on the Island lost power. High winds and big waves along the coast. Heavy rain in some places. We only had a few blinks on our power and did not notice any really big winds. Made 1/2 jar of apple sauce. was out from 11:30 to 12:30. 11 degrees. Skimmed off the pond, cleaned off the filter a bit. The water hycinth is blooming. Gathered up 4 bags of leaves from between the house and the motorhome, put one in the old compost bin, and the rest on the woodland path and by the back fence, under the tall trees. Slipped on the moss and skinned my knee. Phoned Niko back and arranged to see him to get my new Pixel 8a phone set up tomorrow at 10:30. The pixie orchid has a couple of blossoms open. There are a few gusts of wind happening at 1:00 to 3:00. Finished step 2 of Page one of the fruit Vegies album. Pat got a call from Jacqui from Berwick to get some info on our address, interests.. etc. There is a one or two year waiting list. He did not put us on the list.

Thursday, November 21, 2024
Niko set up the Pixel 8a. Gave me a new media player. Lots of new stuff to learn. Made a new blue color for the home page. Made Pat's picks work by uninstalling old one and signed in on new app with user name and password and now it works great. Other stuff I cannot remember.

Friday, November 22, 2024
More Pixel 8 stuff, sorted emails, checked blocked list and unblock a couple of them. The 900 ones are spam. The picture of the big green tractor went to spam in the outlook. I marked it to never send anything from my gmail account to spam and it went back to inbox. Making hash and left over veggies for supper, with greek salad. We had a few high winds this afternoon. very little rain in the rain gage. Took pictures of the light garden flowers. The one I took with the phone went to its google pictures folder on the computer just like he set it up to do. Hung up on a caller from one of those 900 numbers after answering it without being logged on to the phone. Slowly learning stuff. Listening to the playlist and it is working. I hope I can find this playlist again. I cannot seem to find an URL to use. Finished step 2 of photo coding for the fruit and veggies album. new maps on the phone really sucks.

Saturday, November 23, 2024
Tried out a phone call to Pat and it worked. I need more volume. hung up on one of the 900 numbers. Don't know how to block them yet. Searching on how to play movies. It has all gone to streaming. So, am thinking about getting my own big tv up in the living room. I need a netflix account and learn how to use all this new stuff. But there are fees for streaming.. don't know if that includes movies, sports and everything on one neflix account or does each thing I want to stream have a fee. More to learn, maybe in the new year. Got Pat to turn on the water out back and filled the pond. Took me a while to get the taps set right. Cleaned leaves off the rock gardens. Started a few leaves and sticks in the green bin. The tree has lost quite a lot of its leaves now, after the winds. The fish were swimming in the pond as it was filling. The big gold ones (2) and white ones(2) are getting quite big now. There is another white and another gold, plus the new ones .. a gold one that has lost all of its black, a smaller gold one. A small sarassa and a medium sarassa. These are mostly white with very little gold on their heads. I didn't count them all. Fed the fish. There are probably more small black ones. I would still like to get a couple of shubunkins and a couple of gold fish for the deck tub. After I get the fish in there, I will fashion bamboo sticks through the wire cover and maybe put in another float thing to keep the wire above the water, so the water lily can bloom. Will need a bigger piece of wire, I think. This smaller one I can make into a seive for working the compost. Will work it out next year. Need to fasten the bamboo sticks higher up on the deck railings, perhaps. The board on the back of the step up to the deck has rotted off its attachement to the steps and fallen off. We will need a new board added to attach this big one, that seems to hold the top of the steps to the deck.

Sunday, November 24, 2024
Found that the pond was half empty. So, got Pat to turn on the water to fill it. Did that and it was still emptying. Decided that the waterfall thing was loosing the water out the side connection. Upplugged the waterfall and filled the pond again. Watched the fish at the top. Finally got it full again and it is staying filled with the waterfall unplugged. So, that waterfall connection needs to be fixed, but its too cold out there to do that now. And there are leaves to pick up, etc. etc. My phone was at 20% so charged it up to 100%. Took about 2 hours this morning. I had to find my yahoo fiance again. I uninstalled it, reinstalled it and signed in with my user name and password. It works again. Can't seem to move it to the home page, though. To shut down my phone I have to talk to gemmi or what ever and say power off. Sometimes my finger print won't work, and I have to use my old pin sign in. Phoned Pat and could get him, turned up the volumn, and hope I can hear him better next time. Lunch, and then started to try to get the videos from NARGS listed as URLS, but decided I will never have time to watch them, as I am not going to renew my membership with them. Then we shopped in several places - London drugs, Save on foods (got more points on each), the Co-op LB store, tickets at Tillicum mall. Before we went shopping Dan phoned and we had a good talk. They have much snow. Andy and Tara's power was out for about 20 hours, from the high winds and bomb cyclone. We did not lose power, but did have winds. Bernice phoned Dan and she is moving into a care home with help from her step kids and his brother. She will have a 1 bedroom and needs all new furniture cause her old stuff does not fit. Hope it all goes well for her. Spoke of PSA tests. Carol is waiting for a time to have her second knee done. Time to make supper after getting home from shopping -- am a beat bunny.

Monday, November 25, 2024
7 degrees at 11:00. The pond seems to be down a bit. Banking wretched card won't tell me when its new payment day is. Laundry. Windows 10 updated. Joined Hyro peak saver and some kind of monthly thing. London drugs points:LDExtras Fave 4712. Have activated my birthday voucher for $5.00. Need 288 more points before I can cash them in for another $5 voucher. Save on foods have 965 pts. Mystery Gift is back! Load your offers and get ready for a surprise reveal on the bottom of your receipt after you checkout. Everyone gets a gift from 100 up to 1 million More Rewards points!

Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Reservoir Nov. 24: Sooke: 76.5% Goldstream: 99.9%. Total: 78.7%. Emptied .5 of an inch out of the rain gauge. The water level in the pond is going down, even though the waterfall is turned off. So, I have to decide if I want to get some help to restore the lining and water fall, or if I just want to fill it in. I will need to get some quotes, I guess. Had to fix Zoom, hope it works now. Had to fix my yahoo finance: Re built my portfolio and call it Pats picks and finally it is working. Transferred the app to my phone after I fixed my gmail address. Had to add my gmail address to the shawmail address book and delete the old one. Damn microsoft. Made up the tuna surprise for supper. Wretched day. But at least I am learning how to do stuff, sort of. We did not get any rain, but I did not get any leaves raked or web page stuff done either. Thats my rant for the day. Redeemed rewards in public mobility $15. off my next bill... forget how many points it took ... 15 I believe.. each point is worth a dollar. AND Hi margaret, You’ve cashed in 5 Points for ADDON-500 Canada Wide Long Distance Minutes. AND Hi mar...,You’ve cashed in 15 Points for BillCrd-$15.This credit will be applied towards your next renewal date.Your new points balance is 2.5. Next payment should be about Nov. 27.

Wednesday, November 27, 2024
After filling out a form on Larix Landscaping to get a free estimate to have my water garden fixed (My epdm lined pond has sprung a small leak in the lining. I will need a new lining and edging. I also have a waterfall with a spillway much like the photo on your introduction page. I will need this spillway to the waterfall properly installed. I look forward to your visit in order to provide me with a quote for your work.) they got back to me by email this morning to set up a date for them to come to do the estimate and we set Wednesday, December 4 at 10:00. I am keeping this information in a folder for them. Did some work on unsubscribing from Best buy and another place I was getting emails from, got that to work at last. Did Banking. Filled the pond again. pictures of the fish. Tried on clothes to wear to the VCCC lunch on Sunday. Black pants and top with pink scarf and a big sweater as the coat to leave on the back of the chair. Not taking my phone. I need to clean up the nails and boards from the broken part of the step that fell on the dry stream as soon as possible, and then start picking up the leaves. Have a big patch on my knee where I scratched off the scab from the sore from my skid on the moss about a week ago. I will have to make sure I wrap it up good when I am out there knelling down to pick up nails and leaves, etc. oh well... just another wretched day. Pat and I are both going to run away from home. Started the photo captions.

Thursday, November 28, 2024
Froze last night. Is 5 degrees at 11:00. Lots of birds around the garden in the morning. I really should get up earlier. My Public Mobile redemption of points worked. Only paid $11.20 instead of $28, also got more data that stays forever, I think. Managed to unscribe from Best Buy, and that other silly one that I would see on gmail. The notifications have mostly disappeared, also. So, my phone stuff is working pretty good now. Still have to figure out how to block these 900 scammy numbers. I guess my wretched day of yesterday was worth the bother. 7 degrees at 1:00. Swept up the kitchen. Have started more captions for the photos of the Fruit and Veggies album.

November 26:(I think) Will leave it in here
Water levels: Sooke: 76.5% Goldstream: 99.9%. Total: 78.7%. Emptied .5 of an inch out of the rain gauge. The water level in the pond is going down, even though the waterfall is turned off. So, I have to decide if I want to get some help to restore the lining and water fall, or if I just want to fill it in. I will need to get some quotes, I guess. Had to fix Zoom, hope it works now. Had to fix my yahoo finance: Re built my portfolio and call it Pats picks and finally it is working. Transferred the app to my phone after I fixed my gmail address. Had to add my gmail address to the shawmail address book and delete the old one. Damn microsoft. Made up the tuna surprise for supper. Wretched day. But at least I am learning how to do stuff, sort of. We did not get any rain, but I did not get any leaves raked or web page stuff done either. Thats my rant for the day. Redeemed rewards in public mobility $15. off my next bill... forget how many points it took ... 15 I believe.. each point is worth a dollar. AND Hi margaret, You’ve cashed in 5 Points for ADDON-500 Canada Wide Long Distance Minutes. AND Hi margaret,You’ve cashed in 15 Points for BillCrd-$15.This credit will be applied towards your next renewal date.Your new points balance is 2.5. Next payment should be about Nov. 27.

Wednesday, November 27, 2024
After filling out a form on Larix Landscaping to get a free estimate to have my water garden fixed (My epdm lined pond has sprung a small leak in the lining. I will need a new lining and edging. I also have a waterfall with a spillway much like the photo on your introduction page. I will need this spillway to the waterfall properly installed. I look forward to your visit in order to provide me with a quote for your work.) they got back to me by email this morning to set up a date for them to come to do the estimate and we set Wednesday, December 4 at 10:00. I am keeping this information in a folder for them. Did some work on unsubscribing from Best buy and another place I was getting emails from, got that to work at last. Did Banking. Filled the pond again. pictures of the fish. Tried on clothes to wear to the VCCC lunch on Sunday. Black pants and top with pink scarf and a big sweater as the coat to leave on the back of the chair. Not taking my phone. I need to clean up the nails and boards from the broken part of the step that fell on the dry stream as soon as possible, and then start picking up the leaves. Have a big patch on my knee where I scratched off the scab from the sore from my skid on the moss about a week ago. I will have to make sure I wrap it up good when I am out there kneeling down to pick up nails and leaves, etc. oh well... just another wretched day. Pat and I are both going to run away from home. Started the photo captions.

Thursday, November 28, 2024
The plumbing sprang a great leak last night at about 12:00. We spent a couple of hours mopping up the water. Turned the water off and went back to bed. Pat found the name and phone number for the plumber that had fixed our last flood in 2021 apparently. Ballam Plumbing 250 598 4581. Greg came over about 11:00 and did the repair. The carpet is still wet down there. But Pat had put down a plastic sheet to catch the drips and debris from the repair and they threw that out the door. We are to keep an eye on it in the next few days, and turn the hot water off when we go out. I think we can turn the hot water off this afternoon and back on in the morning when we need it tomorrow. But Pat just won't do that. He just whines about my not wanting to see how to turn off the hot water myself. Greg had talked to Pat about this plastic plumbing and that it had been recalled and should have been replaced, and that our insurance would not cover the costs of repair. I asked google about the cost of having the plastic replaced and I got an indication that the cost could run somewhere between $6,000 and $12,000, including repair of any of the walls and ceiling that needed it, and depending on the size of the house, etc. We definitely can afford it. And should have them give us an estimate before we do any drywalling, etc. I have to go out and pick up leaves, and especially the nails under the deck from the broken, rotted deck step.

Friday, November 29, 2024
It froze last night. The water level in the pond seems to be holding steady after going down to just even with the ledge that holds the irises, etc. Fed the fish. Made the stew for supper and its cooking. We had left over Chinese food for lunch. Made a comment on Facebook in the Smith Clan about Cindy's post of the picture of the new farm. On the back: J. E. Smith farmstead 1951 to 1977 - that may have been when the arial photo was taken. 4 miles S.E. of Dysart Sk. Hwy 22. I talked about Dad buying the place for the taxes owing on it and having seen the official paper regarding the purchase. I don't recall what the price was for this purchase. I remember being on the floor of the new house before there were any floor boards on it. So, maybe that was in 1952 or 1953. I might have been 6 or 7 at the time. Was out raking up leaves from 1:30 to 4:15 - have the green bin full. I'll have a hot bath tomorrow. The repairs are not dripping. Pat vaccumed up water from the carpet. It is whole lot drier in there now. He has the humidifier turned on and the doors between the entry way and the suite are open. The stew is finished cooking. I have time for a nap for an hour. Watched the life of Brian movie

Saturday, November 30, 2024
The repair to the water line is still working. Had a nice long soak in the tub, my knee scrape with the big patch survived all the scraping of water and the leaf raking. So, it should mend nicely now. It is 10 degrees at 12:00. The water level in the pond is stable at just above the level of the shallow water planting ledge. Fed the fish. Am getting along fairly well with my phone, except my finger print is not working very well. No matter. Still getting spam calls and need to block that last one I got this morning, another of the 900 numbers that are definitely spam. Paid membership dues to Alpine rock Garden of BC membership dues $30. Paid VIRAGS membership dues $20.00 Virags cost additional $2.49 and goes to Louise. what a hassel! I don't think I will renew NARGS or any other one. I can get the Pennisula streams zoom meeting on their website instead of going to the Zoom meeting. (dec 11, 2024) Ironed Pats shirts. Vaccumed the ensuite and the bedroom. The cup of the vaccume was stuffed full and had to dig out debris with a knife until I could get it to open. Finished page 1 of the Photo captions of the fruit and veggies album.

December, 2024

Sunday, December 1, 2024
Finished 4 more photo captions for the veggies and fruit album. To the VCCC Christmas lunch from 1:30 to 4:00. Too stuffed to have any supper. And tired. We both spent the rest of the day napping, watching tv, reading. Last night I spent some time learning new stuff on my phone. The day has been a total disruption in my routine. I feel more rested at 8:30. Pat says he doesn't want anything to eat, and neither do I. So we are both going to bed with no supper. Me, probably to read. I got my rings back on today, but am going to put them back in their box as this week is going to be busy with gardening at unexpected times, and other disorganization or no planning things.

Monday, December 2, 2024,
Charged the phone up this morning - 100% at 8:00. Did some calender events, learned how to discard wrong ones. (three little dots at the top, after naming the event DISCARD). The fish pond water level is only a very slight bit lower than yesterday. Swept the leaves off the deck. Did bedding and towels laundry on the medium spin cycle and cold/warm. Searched for suite bathroom garabage bin. Could not find it. Took a bag of waste platics etc out to the black bin. Set up a new plastic bag for more waste material. Made the shrimp, avocado salad for supper. It is 8 degrees at 2:30, no rain, but overcast. Watered house plants. Up dated the list of orchids for Tara. what a pain. Haven't heard back from her regarding the plants and the light garden.

Tuesday, December 3, 2024,
Phone at 71% at 10:10. Light frost last night. Finished the photo captions for page 2 of the fruit and veggies album. Raked leaves on the patio and out in the front garden. Was out from 10:00 to 2:00. Didn't get the leaves bagged. There are still about a quarter of the leaves up on the tree. Dec. 1: reservoir Sooke:77.2%, Goldstream: 99.9%, Total: 79.4%.

Wednesday, December 4, 2024,
4 degrees at 10:00. Joel from Larix Landscaping says he will be delayed about 45 minutes. So, probably see him about 11:00. I hope to show him what I want but have to delay it until the Spring, due to the plumbing disaster and have to get that fixed. Thinking I will try to overwinter the fish. Move the pond over about 8 - 9 feet. Save the plants and fish and mossy rocks. Make the entry way under the deck near where the dry stream is now. Will be cutting the yews down to about hip high (Pam says) and prune the bay laurel lower and into a ball shape. Next stage will be the cistern and the deck and old sidewalk entry area way to the back garden. Saw Joel and he did not agree with any of my stuff above. But talked of rebuilding the edges. Said the level the water was at now was ok. He measured 2 feet 2 inches. Wanted to get this done in December. He will send me the estimate. Wasn't much interested in my next stages. So, when I receive the estimate, I will start moving my mossy rocks, mermaid. He says to leave the yews as is. Might do the pruning of the bay laurel. He likes my garden designs..the my words "garden rooms". Had a good look at the front garden with all my leaves piled up. Said I would send him a link to my ancient web page about the water garden. Shopping in the afternoon. Got carlton cards at London Drugs, and some drano. Used the drano tonite and hope it has worked. Got a few things at Thrifty's including the hot chicken for supper. Got some bowls to serve the Pats pudding at Christmas time from the dollar store, and made a plan of how to serve it. Have the bowls, and gravey boat packed in tissue paper and ready to take. The pudding and the sauce will go in another bag. Am tired of this noon time meal already. So disruptive to our usual routine.

Thursday, December 5, 2024,
Spent the morning getting the proposal from Larix guys via emails, sent Joel a link to my water page, and a link to a photo on their site that I might like the waterfall to look like, and another one about the electrical cord of the pump needs to be dug up before the construction. Also, wondered if they could give me any approximate costs that the electrical work (which is extra and aside from Larix costs) might amount to. Current total price on the proposal is $5670.22, and they reserve the right to add any additional costs as they go along. They give one year warranty for almost everything. I also mentioned that the payment system was a bit vague to me, and wondered if they could change that to 10% initial payment, 40% half way through the project (since it was not going to take many days) and the other 50% upon completion. I think the drano worked. Added a baking soda and vinegar shot to it and it bubbled a bit more. Has not been bubbling after that. Worked out payment for credit card and os cheques and 6000 for larix. I won't need to make any transfers from savings to cover anticipated December costs, unless Pat gets the plumbing fixed, which will go on credit card anyway, and ride untill January. Sent reply to the latest proposal requesting the addition of the fixing of the waterfall costs for my approval. Then made a jpeg signature and one online that is a drawn with mouse that is a png. I like the jpeg much better. Pat shut off the water cause he is afraid it might freeze, so must remember to get him to turn it on when needed. Am soo tired at 10:00

Friday, December 6, 2024,
I am typing this the day after the pond panic, as I have calmed down considerably. About noon, I had a look at the pond and was schocked to see the water level to be about 6 inches deep at the most. I sent a panic email to Joel at Larix about this. Pat turned the water on and I added a bit more to the pond. Went and raked leaves, got several bags dumped in the woodland under the trees. Dragged the pile of branches from back there out to the front to be cut up and added to the green bin. Then, about 3:30, with Pat's help I got the pump set to shoot the water out of the pond and into the big black tub. Filled the tub. Rescued 1 big gold one, 1 big white one a small sarrassa, a few small black ones (don't know if they will servive as I didn't realize right away that some of them were in the basket. It was quite warm out but overcast. I was out from about 1:30 to 4:30. I was more calmed down by this time, when I checked my email and found that Joel will be over Monday 9th, mid-morning. By this time I had decided that I would try and get the whole pond and waterfall rebuilt by Larix, and damn the cost.

Saturday, December 7, 2024,
Charged my phone and it finished at 10:00. Emptied 1 inch of rain out of the gauge. It rained quite a bit last night and did not freeze. The water level in the pond is still quite high. Fed the fish in the tub. Amazing they did eat a bit. It is raining again at 11:00 and 11 degrees. It has been a bit breezy so more leaves have come down and all the garden needs to be raked again, especially the little rockeries. Best guess for rebuild is 8k, will see after Monday. Was out to rake leaves from 2 to 4. It was 11 degrees and a bit breezy, so more leaves fell as I was out raking. Cleaned off the deck front and back. Got the whole garden raked, but none bagged. There are still a few leaves hanging on. Chopped up the branches from on the woodland garden and put them in the bin. Added a bit more water to the pond. The level is up to the top of the blue tub. Moved the big mossy rock from the dry stream to the strawberry patch area, with the other one. The mermaid is under the chair. I find I have a big bruise on my right shin. Boston Pizza ribs dinner for our supper. I think I will ask if we should dig out the two willows before they start the work. And the Lebanon cedar has to be moved, further back from the edge of the pond, so that it does not drip its leaves into the pond...maybe next to the stump. I might take an ax to that stump to level it off to ground level. The revised waterfall could move over a bit and the marigold could go on the shelf where the falls empty into the pond now. This might give the fish the deep end to hibernate, and I should be able to run the waterfall 24/7 in the winter to keep a spot of open water, as it has done all winter before. The pump cable does not quite reach the plug in, can we splice in a longer electrical cord, I wonder? Probably a question for the electrician. See if I can find the guy who did the hook up for the heat pump and get him to do this, if I have a choice. .. must ask all these questions.

Sunday, December 8, 2024,
.5 inch of rain the the gauge. Nice warm day. Made potatoe soup for lunch and have 1 pkg left for another day. My bruised shin is hurting a bit. So, I have decided to do the laundry instead of going out to pick up leaves. Fed the fish, added a bit of water to the pond. Have done 5 loads of bedding to clean all blankets, sheets, etc. did my gardening cloths. And have done 1 of the regular wash, with 4 more and towels left to go. Will have spaghetti for supper. Pat got Christmas crackers at Indigo in the Mall. He saw Art and Marlene there, twice, in his search for the Crackers. Co is in hospital and will not be able to go back home.

Monday, December 9, 2024,
constantly getting spam calls this morning. Looks like my rescued fish have disappeared. (checked it at 9:30) And I don't see any more of them in the pond either. The water level has gone down a bit from where it was when I filled it yesterday. Oh well, will start fresh in the Spring, maybe, with fish from the Pets place at Tillicum mall. 12:00 Joel was by to see what we were going to do. He talked about adding a bed of sand on the old liner, reline it and build up the edges, with 14 or so inches of cemented in flat rocks. Fix the water fall to fall directly into the pond (he said that would be expensive) They would save the cement blocks I use for paths. Redo my stone path and straighten the entry to the cutting garden, make the overflow drainage to the other corner into the apple tree area. Keep the two willows and the pond plants. Too expensive to make a cistern. Told him about the nasty neighbors, and the palestinians on the other side. He said he has done several things in the neighbour hood. Somebody's patio, a young guy. House couple of doors down from Sheila $1,250 sold recently. Made the shortbread, made the chicken cordon blue casserole for supper. Pat had Phil Wade (plumber) From Ballum Plumbing, in to have a look at getting the plastic plumbing corrected. He, too, is waiting for estimate.

Tuesday, December 10, 2024,
Found that the cattleya maxima orchid (species)has 3 gorgeous blossoms. Moved the orchids around so that it fits on the trays with the blossoms showing. It is the same color as the pink pixie. Sent Joel a reply to his pond reno proposal - see the emails. Made chicken noodle veggie soup for lunch with 2 pkgs frozen. Jay brought the 2 copies of the new proposal over to sign and went back to the office with them. Not sure when they will be able to get it done as the people want time off for Christmas and they cannot work when its raining and too cold. Fine with me. There are no fish left to worry about. I told him about the Plumber needing time to fix the plastic plumbing and don't know when he will be here. Told him about the ramp to run the wheel barrows up the steps. Didn't discuss the over flow spot and its not mentioned in the proposal. Shopping for groceries. Up dated computer. Have finished photo coding for no. 40 of the Fruit and Vegetables album on page 3.

Wednesday, December 11, 2024,
6 degrees at 9:30. The pond level is still the same, and I do not see any fish. I charged my phone up yesterday morning at 5:00 a.m. This morning it was at 77% at 6:00 a.m. So it looks like I can get about 2 days before charging up. The phone barely got warm when I charged it up yesterday. This morning I got a call and was able to screen it. Where Google tells the caller that Google is using some sort of screening, etc. and the spam call is immediately gone. Is that ever cool. I am still having trouble getting my finger print to work, but am slowly getting better at it. I am developing a plan to make a fence along my property by the Pees side, also along Old Weird's side and along the remaining Syrian's side where they need a retaining wall built. I will start writing this up for consideration next year.

Thursay, December 12, 2024,
Slept in. Pat shopped at Thrifty's and brought home chips and nuts for me, and smoked salmon for Sat. holiday meeting, etc. Napped after lunch. My phone wanted to finish updating, but could not because it was too low on the battery which was at about 39%. So, had to figure out how to make it resume the update, and charged it up. Finally finished its update and charged up by 5:00. We were back from KFC for our supper. Had to drive in the heavy traffic at 5:00. Took the blue bin down to the entryway to be put out tomorrow morning. It is raining lightly and about 6 degrees. I had checked out Saveon specials and will shop it tomorrow. We each have a piece of chicken and some gravey left for a special lunch sometime. Had taken out a minestrone soup for lunch, and have it unthawed in the fridge. Have make another pudding on the 22nd for the Christmas lunch (their dinner time) at Murray and Carol's place.

Friday, December 13, 2024,
Fixed the vertical blind on the patio door. Did banking and bringing phone folder up to date. Looked at the NARGS videos, I have to be signed in to see them. I will probably have to get a membership with them to see the videos, so I should watch them while my membership still works. Penn Streams will have their meeting up on the website or their youtube channel someday, its not there yet. Got a notice about the blue box on my phone - I think it was 9:30 - 10:30 am. Pat took out the blue box and changed 2 light bulbs in the kitchen. 8 degrees at 11:00. No rain in the gauge, but I am sure I heard it raining last night. Just more weird stuff! set up my calendar with the rroc thing tomorrow and the green bin on Monday. So that leaves Sunday to fill the green bin. Did the ironing. Finished coding the photo pages of the Fruit and Vegetables album. shopping and put away all the groceries. swept off the front entry. Checked out the RROC gathering...no parking. We should take a cab. Plumbing guy has 5 jobs on his desk to finish. So, he and Pat are not in a big rush to get ours done.

Saturday, December 14, 2024,
10 degrees at 10:00. The big winds that were suppose to occur have blown the driveway clean of leaves. Watered the house plants. The Christmas cactus has a few buds, the Pixie has 6 blossoms and another bud. The lady slipper still has one blossom, and the species cattlayea has three big blossoms. Nice fragrance around the plants. Finished the captions for the Fruit and Veggies photo album, just have to check it over and then it can be uploaded. Seems like I did a lot of renovations in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and it continues with the renovation of the pond on January 6, 2025.

Sunday, December 15, 2024,
8 degrees at 11:00. The pond is totally drained of water. Haven't been out to see if there is any dead fish in it. Will have time to do that stuff after Christmas. We had a big wind storm yesterday with coastal areas flooded and thousands of people with out power. We went to the RROC gathering last nite and took our wine and smoked salmon. Took a cab there and back. It seems everyone else drove and walked from where ever they could find parking. It was a nasty, windy, rainy night. Quite a few people there, only about 4 of us women. This morning I had a horrible muscle cramp and lots of crepitis. Thankfully it was in my left leg and not in my right leg with its probably cracked shin bone and big bruising around my ankle. The top of this area just beneath the knee is still swollen but is much less sore than it has been. Read about muscle cramps and crepitis. Dumped out the rest of the potato chips. They are very bad for me, with no food value, and too salty, plus they add weight gain to my diet. Was out raking leaves from 2:00 to 4:00. Put the patch on my knee from where I slipped on the moss weeks ago, and the big bandage around my right leg for the shin dint. It feels much better with the support of the bandage on it. Not using a cane though. Have most of them raked up, leaving a few for the earthworms. Put most of them down around the front garden for mulch. A bagfull into the green bin and a bagfull to the woodland path. Moved 3 of the little blue slate to the cut garden. Have to move the big one that is on top of the spillway, yet. The pond is empty but muddy. Has the pump and all the plastic hoses, etc. and the plants still in it. The little solar fountain is at the bottom. Am tired. The beet and baked potato are in the oven. There is the steak to do and sardines (fatty fish), which is really healthy, for me. Having a coffee with a dash of brandy, honey and milk.

Monday, December 16, 2024,
Soaked in the a hot tub after unwrapping my leg bandage, for quite a while. Did light laundry. Pat was going to see Tara today, so I made up a pkg of some pudding and sauce to send along. She will be on holidays.. and Freyja is out of school, so she thought they should come to see us sometime. Fine. I had rewrapped my leg and went down for a nap, without any cookies, and having had my breakfast for lunch. Went down for a nap about 3:00. Leg is itchy. Removed the wrap at 3:30. Did some Larix stuff (copied out the new proposal figures on the old one, that I had made a previous copy on the computer. So I have a note pad page with all the figures, that is easier to read. They did not send a computer copy of it, just the hard copy that I get to keep). There is the hydro thing from 4 - 7, so at 5:00 we go out to the old hojo's (Lakes) for dinner. Have to turn off all the lights. Had a very good big bowl of seafood chowder and a cup of tea.

Tuesday, December 17, 2024,
Spent a lot of time reading about the Bank of Canada, the Liberal troubles with getting Trudeau to resign, and Feeland's dramatic resignation of her as minister of finance and I suppose, deputy Prime Minister positions. Today the Liberal caucus (maybe) are meeting in Nanaimo with Mark Carney as advisor to Trudeau, to help determine whether or not Trudea will quit as Prime Minister and let the party elect a new leader. There are quite a few of the present ministers of this or that resigning their positions for this or that reason, and some not even going to run for election again. In the USA there are drones swarming in New Jersey, and all over other states. No one seems to be able to determine how these drones got up there, or why they are there. Elon Musk's chat bot, Grok does not even seem to know. Pat to the Dentist to get a tooth permanently capped. His temporary cap broke just last night when he chewed on a tums before bedtime. Did banking, email, etc. It is 8 degrees at 12:00 and raining. The rain gauge has 1 inch of rain in it. The pond is filling up a bit as the mud is not showing. I cannot tell if there are any dead or alive goldfish in it. Reservoir levels Dec. 15; Sooke: 78.8% Goldstream: 99.9%. Total 80.8%. Uploaded the fruits and vegetables photo album and it works.

Wednesday, December 18, 2024,
13 degrees at 3:00. Emptied 2 inches of rain out of the gauge. Made cookies. messaged Tara on that silly messenger system from FB, about 3:25. Pat had his eye appointment today. Sandy phoned yesterday, with much news. Had a long chat, too private for this gardening stuff. Will just have to try and remember it all.

Thursday, December 19, 2024,
Message back to Tara about our meeting. Not to meet until after christmas, weather depending. Larix's masonary guy, Brian, stopped by just before 12:00 to see about what his job is going to be. Apparently when they get the pond stuff done he will come in and do the masonary. Told him about the plumbing plastic pipes being replaced. The plumbing guys are to come over tomorrow afternoon to see about getting their job done and when they could do it, I suppose. I guess the plumbing should take priority over the landscaping. Brian said that Joel is pretty good about rescheduling things.. hope he is right. Brian thought he was to come on the 10th, so I suppose Larix guys are still on for the 6th. We could probably get the plumbing guys to come after the 10th, or when Brian is finished. Shopping. Can't get banking done - - its them, not me, they say.

Friday, December 20, 2024,
Emptied .5 inch of rain out of the gauge. 10 degrees at 12:30. Made up cranberries, made the shrimp avocado salad for our supper.

Saturday, December 21, 2024,
Was sick as a dog last night..must have been something I ate..Seafood? Am much better this morning. I made up the 24Garden page with its Con2024Garden and up loaded them to my page. 12 degrees at 12:45.

Monday, December 23, 2024,
Not too sure what I did yesterday . . some laundry, made the pudding sauce, made up and loaded the 24Garden under construction page. Today there are warnings of big winds. Did a couple more loads of laundry. Finished searching the 2011 Blog for photos for the Fig Tree phone album. The plumbers sent Pat a very reasonable (about $10K) to change the plastic out for a better grade of plastic. We had a flood at the beginning of Dec. and had them patch that up. Now we will be getting it all fixed so we do not have any floods, again. I think Pat is going to arrange to have them come to do their work sometime in the 3rd week of January. The Landscaping guys should certainly be finished by the 15th (depending on weather, of course). If they have to change the time, they will have to work around the Phil's time for the plumbing to be fixed... and so it goes. We were out to dinner at Lakes tonite. I brought home over half of my spaghetti and meatballs, and Pat had a bowl of the seafood chowder. Anything I eat still seems to turn to acid, so I have to be careful of how much I eat. Soda crackers seem to settle my stomach.

Tuesday, December 24, 2024,
Did the ironing. Spent the rest of the morning trying to get the remote thing on the tv to work. Pat got ahold of a technician in Toronto. She eventually did a reboot of the box (I think she called it). and it is now working properly. Rogers TV - trouble - 1 888 472 2222- Dec 24 2024. Emptied a bit over .5 of an inch of rain out of the gauge. Had word of Co's demise today.

Wednesday, December 25, 2024,
To Murray and Carols for Christmas. Rudy and Norma also there. Lovely place with view over the inner harbor. I took the pudding and sauce, Norma did vegetables and Murray and Carol did turkey, salads and everything else. We were there from about 12:00 to 4:00, when it started to get dark. Was windy and rainy. Did lottery tickets in the am

Thursday, December 26, 2024,
Sorted the lottery tickets and took them to cash in at tillicum ... $20.00 plus free tickets. Shopping and got slippers at the linen place at Broadmead. Got the new iron at Canadian Tire - $44.xx. Emptied about .5 inch of rain out of the gauge. Finally got a copy of the recipe for the pudding that fits on one page. Got print outs for the blue box and green bins for 2025. Supper of leftover meatballs, dolmades, ham sausage, etc.

Friday, December 27, 2024,
Warm out, winds have all died down. Trying to reply to Raelynn message on FaceBook. Finally got it sorted out and have a whole bunch of info that she texted to me, copied for future consideration. Pictures of Isabelle on private clan group. She is 92 and looking really good. It is our 55 anniversery and we are going out to Nautical Nellies at 5:00 tonite. Its been a warm over cast day. More emails re family stuff.

Saturday, December 28, 2024,
10 degrees, and sunny, incredible temperatures. Emptied .5 inch of rain out of the gauge. Doing some FB stuff. The light garden needs to be cleaned up... well someday. Wrote blue box and garbage/green bins days on the calenders. Read the HCP news letter. TV fritzed up again, he turned it off and on again and it started to work properly.

Sunday, December 29, 2024,
Was 8 degrees and lightly raining in the morning. Cleaned up the light garden. Made red cabbage and attempted to make yorkshire pudding with the beef tonight. Not great. Needed more milk or water. Used 3 eggs. Tasted ok, but did not rise up enough.

Monday, December 30, 2024,
Overcast, 8 degrees, light rain. Did the laundry. Shopping. Chicken for supper with gravey on mashed potatoes.

Tuesday, December 31, 2024,
7 degrees, overcast, at 10:00. revised and add Playlist including am a rock mp3 for Journal entries for 2024. Made 12 crepes st. Jacques for our Jan 1, 2025 dinner. Pat sorted our flights to Edmonton and back. He has it all in email.

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See the Plant List page for annual Garden purchases