I love Summer!

I'm tired!

The salmon is on the bbq, along with asparagus and some new potatoes smashed up a little with some paprika sprinkled on them done in a little olive oil.

I've finished the new grass seeding down by the apple tree - I've watered and raked it in. Another week or two and it should start coming through :)

The gas guy is still here!! The soil delivery guy brought the last truck load at 3:30pm!!!! So they have been here all day!!

I took Abigail to drama class and then Sam and I went to get some groceries. I don't get groceries on my own very often - it's something Lloyd and I normally do together. I went to get Sugar (for my bees and my Humming birds - and wouldn't you believe that the one thing I came home without was...........SUGAR!!!!!!! So tomorrow when Sam goes to preschool I will have to run to Costco and get sugar! Which kind of works out fine because Costco sells huge bags and today I was in Safeway which isn't so ideal.

Anyway I did manage to pick myself up two gorgeous new magazines (Oh, wait! three if you count my new wonderful issue of Avenue magazine which I LOVE)

After that I raced back to pick Abigail up and meet my friend Jennifer as we had arranged to head to the park for a while. So we all headed over to the playground to enjoy the gorgeous weather (19c today I think!) and the children played on the swings and climbing frame etc while Jennifer and I chatted and caught up on things - she was telling me how lambing season had gone and what the plans were for the homeschool group this Friday (Medieval Day). Abigail had a blast playing with Jennifers crew.

We said our goodbyes and I headed off to the post office - I love that our Sobeys now has a post office - makes life much easier - although perhaps not with Sam when he is full of energy! I had so many letters to be sent by air mail that it took so long and Sam was not in the mood to wait!

We finally headed home and I checked mail to find my order had arrived from Scrappers Haven (their closing Down sale - wow Donna always gets her orders sent off so fast!! I love everything I ordered - can't wait to use it all! I plan to order more before they close!

Got home and started cleaning out my truck and then Lloyd got home!

Then I did the flower bed down by the apple tree - filled it with the new soil and put down grass seed, raked it in and watered it, added the tubs and and filled them ready for the new flowers :)

Now for dinner :) After dinner I am vacuuming out my truck :)

Scarlet Honeysuckle

My lovely Clematis didn't make it through the winter, buy my Scarlet Honeysuckle did really well and has grown lots of new shoots, so I think I am going to get several new ones this year and grow them up the new porch this Summer. The Hummingbirds love them! As you can see the new leaves are almost out!

By the way - you should have your Hummingbird feeders out now if you want to tempt the Hummingbirds to your gardens to stay for the Summer as they are passing by. This is the time they arrive!

Look out for the little birds around now :)

To make the syrup to go inside your deer simply use 1 part sugar to 4 parts water and heat (do not boil) until the sugar dissolves. Allow to cool. Fill the feeders. DO NOT ADD RED DYE!!!!!!! Use a red feeder instead - the bottle can be clear thats fine - add red ribbons if you like :) There doesn't even have to be much red on the feeder itself :) Just a red flower is enough :) My feeders are cream and green with red and pink flowers but my Hummers love them :)

Our Sunday

We spent all day yesterday outside. It was so nice. I didn't want it to end. I wanted it to be Saturday so we could do the same again today. We ended the day with an Easter Egg hunt!!!! I remembered that I had hidden some extra chocolate eggs for a repeat hunt! So we surprised the children and hid the eggs and they all went out and hunted for the eggs :)

It was a lovely way to end the day!

The rest of the day was spent with Lloyd working in the vegetable garden getting ready for the soil which is being delivered today. The first truck load is already here - another 5 or 6 truck loads are being delivered this morning.

I weeded several flower beds. I put another coat of varnish on my beehive and Lloyd carried it down by the pond on his tractor and we set it up.

The children went pond dipping for frigs (Sharon I checked for frogspawn but there isn't any yet - I will give you a shout as soon as I see some) - we did catch several frogs though and enjoyed saying hello to those before setting them back in the pond - they all look nice and big and healthy this year :) the girls used nets but Laurie preferred to catch them in his hands :)

I have decided I don't want a flower bed around the apple tree - the old owners had one but to be honest its a hassle I don't want and it juts never looked right to me - so I am filling it in with the new soil and grassing it - and Lloyd took down the old barrels (three wooden half barrel planters) and I am putting those beneath the apple tree instead - so I will plant those up instead and there will be grass beneath the tree instead and then the planters - much easier for me to look after and the planters for the bees - and the apple tree blossom for them of course :) None of the other trees have silly little flower beds around them and it look far too twee for my liking! All the way down by the roadside like that!

We went down by the roadside and picked up all the garbage AGAIN last night too - coyotes or something get into the garbage and it gets everywhere - but its all gone again now :)

And I have tidied up all the front beds in front of the front porch ready to split and move ALL the day lilies - I have HUNDREDS of day lilies - and they ALL have to be moved. I'm not quite sure where to move them to yet. But we are getting ride of the two big flower beds either side of the front porch steps. I want just grass either side of the new steps. We are having a new front porch this Summer and new steps coming down in the centre and I only want grass either side so we are getting rid of the flower beds either side so the day lilies (and my gorgeous peony) have to be moved soon. I know the day lilies are easy to move so I just have to decide where I want to put them. Oh and all my Daisies!!! There are so many daisies in there too!

Maybe I will just make the flower bed with the big rock bigger and put them all in there and just have one main flower bed. The porch is going to have the Scarlet Honeysuckle growing all over it anyway so it will have flowers in the Summer (a Hummingbird favourite by the way which has done really well over the winter and has leaves and new shoots already this year!!! :)

Anyway - I have to get ready to take Abigail to her homeschool drama class! I have a gas company guy here all day today too doing work in prep for the reno work that starts soon. And the soil company is going to be delivering soil all day.

I've been awake since 6am which is really early for me. But I woke up raring to go! I just want to get out and garden!! Can't wait to get back from town and get stuck in out there - So glad the soil is finally here and we can DO something at last :) Woohoo we have decent soil at last instead of the HORRIBLE clay soil we had before :)

Have a great week everyone!

Ok - Times up!!

So - Do you want to know what they are?????

Sharon - do you want to tell them - or shall I??????


lol!

Ok heres a clue......they aren't poop - and they used to 'belong' to Sharon :) Very much so :)

Taking a dip!

Two of the geese flew off, but these two love birds stayed to take a dip in the pond for a while....

Sunday morning visitors...

One landed on the roof this morning.......I guess we'll call him Rudolph.....

Susannahs miracle......

Susannah grew this little at school. It wasn't well looked after and it has come close to death numerous times. This morning though it's flowering with two perfect little yellow flowers! Even Susie can't believe it is still alive :)

I love Sunday mornings :)

The caterpillars - day 6

Today is our sixth day for having the butterfly larvae. The information says that it takes 5 - 14 days for the larvae to crawl to the top of the vials and attach themselves and hang ready to start forming a chrysalis, but when we got up this morning, we found that several caterpillars had already started to hang from their lids, so we decided today we should add the little squares of paper for them to stick to.

The paper makes it easier for you to move them to their next home ready for them to come out as butterflies :)

A helped me clean the vials out (all that webbing and poop - YUCK!!) add more food and add the paper squares before replacing the lids. We carefully took the caterpillars out and took their pictures with a penny to show how big they are now - wow they grow so fast! They weren't much bigger than a grain of rice on Monday! Less than a week later and look how long they are!!!

We use a soft artists paint brush to carefully brush them clean of webbing and poop!

So now we just wait for them to turn into chrysalis's and then we move them into our old aquarium ready for them to turn into the beautiful Painted Lady butterflies they were meant to be :)

On Friday I bought a copy of Eric Carles 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar for S. A has been enjoying reading it to S each day :)

ice cream thief

While I was painting my hive outside, and Lloyd was gardening, Sam crept inside and came out with a tub of ice cream from the freezer!!!! He was so proud of himself and cheerily walked around eating his ice cream straight from the tub!!!!

My hive!

Just added piccies of my hive to my bee blog - if you'd like to have a look!

For Tanya......and everyone :)

A little video of our horny little chaps for you to enjoy....Here they are impressing their mates and enjoying the evening sunshine!

For those of you elsewhere...this is the noise we fall asleep to on early Summer nights :) I love it :) It's the true sound of Summer for us! And to think these frogs survive our winters by freezing like popsicles!!! Amazing!!!

Anyway - turn up the volume and enjoy!!!

housey stuff

Spent this morning doing renovation errands - head over to our renovations blog to find out more......

Yesterday I was in town getting gifts for birthday party gifts for parties Chris and Susannah are attending today. Susie is swimming for a few hours this afternoon - her friends family have rented the entire pool for the evening - geeez and I have my parties here at home lol!

Chris is off to the movies for his party and sleeping over at a friends tonight!

Laurie is fed up as he canceled a sleepover at the twins house because he was supposed to go drag racing with some friends and now the drag racing is canceled and he wishes he had gone to the twins house instead :( so now he is bored and having to come with us to Home Depots and stuff instead :( So I think maybe we will head to DQ or something to cheer him up - and maybe to look at some dirt bikes for a while!

While I was in town yesterday I ran into two friends - one was an old neighbour who I hadn't seen since I had moved - we didn't know each other that well so we didn't stay in touch but it was nice to catch up. She had known Christie though which was quite funny - small world! LONG story!

I also ran into a friend I knew from PL and we stood chatting about things at PL and how disgusted we are about the whole thing there (another LONG story) - the whole thing leaves a very sour taste on my tongue :( And makes me feel happy that everyone feels very strongly about someone who means so much to me :) 'S' I hope you know how much everyone loves you :) I hope you know the rest of them are just jealous!!!! I'm sure thats what its all about. Anyway 'nuff said :(

Today is all about running about. Housey stuff, kids parties and errands and their social lives and finishing touches to my hive and getting that into place.....rush rush rush.

Tomorrow is about hanging my hummingbird feeders, finishing the garden in prep for the dirt to be delivered on Monday.

Oh and by the way I am LOVING this weather :)

LOVING it :)

crouching in the woods

Last night we were to be found crouching in the woods midst the cobwebs and porcupine poop watching the male Grouse court his female with a VERY impressive drumming rendition :)

We could hear his drumming from our house yet the grouse was two woods away!!! Poor Susie thought it was someone trying to start up their quad!!!

We're going to go back up tonight with the video camera to try and catch him on camera :)

And just for Tanya we wil try can catch those horny frogs in action too :)

Oh the things those horny boys do to get us ladies interested ;)

Christie!

I saw your hospital room friend yesterday - my old neighbour........ :) I passed on your phone number - told her you'd LOVE to hear from her :)

hahahahahahahha :)

OMG see - I hadn't seen her for almost three years and then you mention her and then I see her :)

I passed on your best wishes ;)