Garden Pictures

I took a few pictures of my garden yesterday and things are coming along nicely. I was a little disappointed when I took the pictures though. The third pic below shows a pumpkin flower which was huge in the morning but shriveled up by the time I took the shot. I'll try to catch a picture of another one and post it.

I have had to steer a couple of the pumpkin vines to keep them off the sidewalk. Other than that, they are not doing too badly. I can't wait to see the pumpkins actually start growing.

One of the lily's finally bloomed and it is such a deep, dark colour, very beautiful.

Bubbles

Last night we had birthday cake for Kyle. Laura had made up goodie bags for her brothers and herself. In the bags were squirt guns, parachute men and a bottle of bubbles each. They all opened up their bags and started blowing bubbles. Deuce thought it was great fun chasing them. He would bite them in the air (just as he does with flies and wasps when he'd outside) and lick the carpet when they would land and disappear. He didn't seem to mind the taste.
Susan took some pictures of the event which I have posted below. What fun!

Bathroom Door Fiasco

The other night while I was out walking Deuce, I got a message from Susan telling me that our upstairs bathroom door was accidentally locked with no occupant inside. Normally one would be able to unlock a bathroom door with a nail or a bobby pin, but the fools who lived in our unit before us had changed all the door knobs. The doorknob in question has a key lock and we don’t have the key. This was a problem.

We checked the window from the roof outside but it was locked so, not wanting to damage the door, I went onto the internet to find some information on picking locks. I found what I needed and spent some time making some homemade tools (you can find virtually anything on the web if you know where to look -- scary). I spent close to an hour trying to pick the lock but the tools I made were not strong enough to do the job. Time to explore other options.

I removed the moulding from the door frame with a pry bar and then tried sliding a kitchen knife between to release the latch. This didn’t work because there is a small cylinder at the back of the door latch which locks it when the door is closed. Frustration was setting in and I was not worrying so much about damage anymore.

I slid the pry bar between the door and the frame to see if I could open it that way without breaking anything, or not. It worked! I managed to apply enough pressure for the latch to clear the door jamb with minimal damage. My next job is to buy a new doorknob for the bathroom and install it before this happens again.

Walking With Deuce

Every day I take Deuce out for at least two good walks, one in the morning and one at night. If I happen to not have to work, we may go for three or four, but the minimum is two. The first place we go for each of these walks is Memorial Park because that is the only place he does his business. If I am running behind in the morning and we don’t have time to go to the park, he will wait until the evening to take care of business -- I try to never let that happen though. In the evening we usually go for our walk between nine and ten, so at this time of year it’s just starting to get dark out. I switch up the routes regularly; sometimes we go to the ocean or through different neighborhoods.

The last few nights we’ve been going through Highrock Park as part of our outing. When we get there the sun has set but the sky is still light. When I look at the trees from the field in the park, they are dark against the sky. To my surprise I saw a few bats. I wasn’t sure what they were at first but one flew very close over my head and I could see the shape of its wings. It was very cool. I don’t ever remember seeing bats in the wild before. I do remember visiting Crystal Gardens in Victoria, before it was shut down. They had a bat room where one could go and see all kinds of different species of bats. That was very interesting but it’s so much better to see them in their natural habitat.

Another funny thing that I want to share about one of our walks the other night is what I call the plastic bunny incident. Deuce is crazy about deer, cats, bunnies and squirrels. If he happens to see one while we are walking, he whines and pulls on the leash, wanting to give chase. I correct him and usually walk in a different direction to try and break him of his obsession. This time however, I had to let him investigate. It was dark and we were almost home at the end of our walk. On the other side of the road there was a small dark figure which looked very much like a black bunny just sitting there. I saw right away what it was and when we got to the “bunny”, Deuce was quite embarrassed to find that it was a plastic plant pot. I laughed and we continued on our way. The next couple of nights the pot was still there and each time we walked by, Deuce still had to investigate.

There are so many things such as this, that I get to experience because I am out walking with Deuce. We are so blessed to have him in our lives. I am reminded that he was the one who chose us and not the other way around. When we entered the pound yard, he walked right up to us, ready to play. From that moment he was ours, or rather we were his! David Aird's Blog: New Family Member

Pocket Mod

There are two things with which I am never without and they are my pen and a small notepad. If I ever need to write something, I am always prepared. I used to buy the small coil notepads, but by the time I was half way through them they were destroyed, which seemed a waste to me.

A while ago I discovered a website to make a notebook out of a single piece of paper. It’s called a Pocket Mod. Here is the site: Pocket Mod Link. You can customize what you want on each page which is very cool. It is eight pages and fits right in a back pocket without any bulk. By the time it’s filled, it’s still in pretty good shape and then it’s time for a new one. There are planner pages and calenders, games and reference pages; a very handy tool.

I found that I wasn’t using it very productively though and it was more a plaything than a writing tool. I decided to just use a blank piece of paper and fold it into a blank pocket mod that I could customize myself. Now I have a tool I can use.

Once the mod has been in my pocket for a day or two, the front and back cover can’t be written on clearly with a pen, so I write a quote or something inspirational on it. I then also put a strip of scotch tape along the spine, this holds the whole thing together a little longer. On the inside pages I write my work schedule and the rest is for my notes and thoughts.

One other thing I do is I write everything in Dwarf Runes. This way, if I ever loose my Pocket Mod, my thoughts and ideas are safe. It’s also interesting to see people’s reaction if they happen to see my Mod, or see me writing in it.

Garden Update

I spent a couple of hours today in my garden which was horribly overgrown with pumpkin vines. I moved some plants around and pulled a lot of weeds. I also pulled a lot of plants. I saved three of the pumpkins for people who wanted them and took out about ten more, leaving seven in the garden. If they get too out of control I'll pull a couple more. I just have to figure out some way to steer the vines as they grow so that they don't cover my other plants and flowers.

It was a lot of fun playing in my garden. I didn't get to plant one last year and I missed it, it's such a relaxing task.

I took a few pictures with my phone tonight and then fixed them up with my photo editor. I should have just used the camera but these pictures are good enough I guess.

Candy Dish

A few weeks ago I was thinking about my great Grandma Gladwin’s house. There were so many things about her house that made me want to be there: the beautiful gardens filled with flowers; the giant stairway leading up to the balcony and the front door; the comfortable living room; the room in the centre of the house which had a pull string to turn on the light; the box of really old toys in the sunroom in the back corner of the house; the kitchen with ancient appliances and the table beside the large window; the pantry filled with homemade preserves; the great big bathtub with no shower; but most of all, her.

It is very interesting how we can look back on memories of when we were young and it is as if we were right there. We can close our eyes and smell the familiar smells and imagine the place, just as it was.

She always had a candy dish in her living room, among the various nick-nacks. Whenever we went over to visit, I knew I could have a candy or two if I asked. I thought to myself that I should put a candy dish in my office, so I got a fancy dish, went down to the grocery store and bought a bag of wrapped bulk candy. Now, each time I take a candy, I am taken back to that wonderful time when I was young.

Moths

Today, if I’d been thinking, I would have taken a picture of the monstrosity that Laura and I witnessed. We were in our dining room and Laura said “ew” and pointed out the window to the balcony. There, flapping around on the deck was a giant moth with a wing span of no less than four inches across. I know that moths can get much bigger than this but I’m just glad that there was a pane of glass between it and us.

When I was younger, I worked in a warehouse and during the Summer months I remember moths were everywhere. They were all huge it seemed. The worst part about them is that they are so erratic in flight. They would fly into us all the time when we were working and my worst fear is that one would fly right into my mouth. I know that it’s not a very logical fear, but what fear ever is.

A few years later, I was sitting outside on a hot Summer evening visiting with friends. I was wearing a loose fitting button up shirt. I felt a tingling or a bit of a burning sensation on the back of my shoulder, so I reached my hand over to feel what it was. I felt a large lump of something beneath my shirt and knew right away that it was a moth. You’ll never see anyone rip off a shirt as fast as I did right then. It left a small bump on my shoulder which led me to believe that it bit me. This didn’t help at all with my fear of them.

I really don’t mind spiders or other insects, but moths to me are just wrong. They are big, hairy and make me nervous. In reality though I know that they are quite sensitive creatures. If their wings get disturbed and the powder brushed off, they can no longer fly. One of their best defenses is two big markings on their wings which look like eyes -- that is pretty cool, but it doesn’t make me like them. I’m just glad that they are not here all year long and that we don’t have the really big ones in our area.

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of months ago, after the last frost (almost), I planted some seeds in my garden. The week previous I had dug out the roots of the ridiculous papas bush which covered a quarter of the area. I also planted an hydrangea a small shrub and three lily bulbs. I watered my garden every day and finally I started to see some life. Last weekend I asked a neighbor to help me identify weeds from by plants. She also helped me by telling me what plant was which, although there are a few plants which have big leaves that she couldn’t name. I also found out that there are a large scattering of poppy plants that I didn’t seed myself.

As I was weeding, I noticed the shell of a pumpkin seed attached to one of the plants with the large leaves and my mystery was solved.

Last Hallowe’en, as usual, we had a couple of Jack-O-Lanterns, but one of the pumpkins -- for some reason I cannot recall -- still had its guts intact. Being the procrastinator I am, the pumpkins were good and rotten by the time I scooped them up for compost. My guess is that some of the seeds were left behind which brings me to my garden situation today. This is not a bad thing, and in fact I am quite excited. My garden will be full of greens and flowers and when Autumn arrives, hopefully a pumpkin patch.