Chit Chat

Zero Celsius on this frosty late February morning.  No wind so we had a pleasant walk. Lots of different ducks on the lake with the ever-present Canada Geese.

Came home and did some tidying up. Watered my house plants and took a picture of the Thanksgiving Cactus which is blooming again. The yellow one has many more flowers than the white one for some reason.
My Hyacinth opened and couldn't support the heavy bloom so I stuck a chopstick into the pot and tied it up.

 

 

 What's keeping you busy today?  I feel like baking but am determined to use up what's in the freezer before making anything else.  Guess I'll pour myself a cup of coffee and decide what comes next.

Thanks for coming by, 

 

Weather

 

 It has been a beautiful sunny day. Youngest son came to do some much-needed power washing. I walked around and looked at my flower beds but not much is happening so far.  The crocuses that are blooming are much smaller than they've been other years and the hellebores are looking very sparse. We didn't have a severe winter so I'm not sure why. 
On the subject of weather I was reading about how earth just experienced its hottest 12 months in recorded history.  January has already broken  temperature records, starting  2024 on-course to break global records set in 2023. Makes one wonder what kind of summer we're going to have.  Drought has been a problem these last years.

Tomorrow the Snow Moon will be shining in all her beauty. After today our forecast is for a solid week of rain/showers so chances of seeing the moon are not good. I did see it through a skylight last night and it was already 99% full.

Lovely orchid from one of my sons.

Thanks for visiting,  GM

Looking for Spring

 

 Gradually our weather seems to be warming up. I peer anxiously at my perennials to see if they show signs of having made it through the winter.  Sadly it looks like my Foxgloves have died. Maybe I'll find some that survived. I'll keep looking. Meanwhile I look for inspiration on Pinterest.  I hope you enjoy the pictures too.

 Thanks for coming by,  GM

Better Late Than Never

 

 Sorry I'm late with my Valentine 💗

 

Amaryllis

 Two of my Amaryllis are blooming.  The frilly one is A. Nymph and the other is A. Terrra Cotta.
 The other seven are showing no sign of blooming, in fact 3 of those look like they are going dormant. This is not the right time for dormancy.  Another 2 months or so and they'll all go out on the porch to spend the summer there in a south-facing window.

 

 

Another week begins and we're coming up to Valentines Day. Do you do anything to mark it?
Here the emphasis is mostly on Middle Son's birthday and it's a special one as he turns 50.  Now I'll have 4 children in their 50's. How can that be? It's hard for me to believe.

Thanks for visiting,   GM

Willing Helpers

 

 

There were  nine swans on Mill Lake this morning. We didn't plan anything else for after our walk because some of our children were coming to unload a load of mushroom compost which I'm planning on spreading about on perennials just showing new growth.  Some did get spread under the roses and the raised box got topped up. The remainder was stockpiled. Getting ready for Spring!  Without all the help I get I couldn't keep up with gardening but I'm fortunate that I have willing helpers.

 Lunch was served and now I am planning a nap.  Showing where I wanted piles of compost dumped tired me out. LOL

Thanks for visiting, GM

Seven Swans a Swimming

 

Just 3 degrees above freezing this morning. Sunrise was at 7:29 but we didn't see it because it was so cloudy.  Day length today 8 hrs 47 minutes.

There were 7 swans on the Mill Lake three of which were youngsters still in their gray stage.  I'm looking forward to the weekend when we'll try to see the 50 or so swans that have been seen at
Will band.

I'm trying to make my grocery list this morning. The on-line sale flyers are available on Wednesday (but the sales only begin Thursday). In any case I didn't see much to give me ideas what we will eat next week. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has that problem. As I've mentioned before the problem of meal-making is compounded by the fact that I am 98% vegetarian and my husband is not. Plus, I am a super fussy eater.

My flowers this week are Primroses. I put them out on the porch for night hoping to keep them looking pretty for as long as possible.

Not much else to write about today.  I will include one last picture.  Miss Kitty is not cooperating with my plan of feeding the birds.

Thanks for visiting

Joanna Reed

 As I. reread my old issues of Victoria magazines I discover articles that  didn't catch my eye on other rereads. That happened yesterday when I was paging through  the January 1990 issue and came upon an article about Joanna Reed. There's a picture of her and I noticed that she was quite elderly which made me realize that she would have passed away years ago. Nevertheless, the article was about her life and how she  tended her beautiful four season garden. She had a vision of creating four crewel curtain-panels for her livingroom  each one depicting the splendours of a different season. She worked free hand, inventing as she went,shaping flowers , holding up her woolen yarns to match their colours.

She must have succeeded in finishing all four panels because the article states that two thousand devoted gardeners make the pilgrimage to Malvern, Pennsylvania in the course of a year's time to see her garden and also her four-season masterpiece. I couldn't find much on the internet about her. There seem to be many other women with the same name. I tried to get a few pictures of her work from the magazine.
The detail here is from her first panel, winter.

I hope I haven't bored you too much. Having nothing much to blog about today I thought I'd introduce you to the work of this woman who continued to tend her garden and do her handwork into her nineties.

Thanks for visiting,  GM

Saturday Chit Chat

 

 It's just past noon so I suppose I shouldn't have used the above photo but it was just too cute. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if I had already used that exact picture in the past.

I am rather disappointed in these pears that I bought this past week. They are a lovely colour but very hard and tasteless so far. I hope they'll at least ripen enough so I can make the cake I've been wanting to try...Chocolate and Pear. Sounds like something we would love 💗

So today's baking was not going to be that Choc./Pear Cake so I used some lemon juice that I had frozen and made some lemon custards and Ina Garten's Lemon Loaf. I've made it before and it always turns out. The only thing is because I used frozen juice ( I didn't have a lemon)  I didn't have the grated rind that she included.
I should have added a bit of Lemon extract. Oh well, no doubt it will be gone before the weekend is over and no one will complain that it isn't lemony enough.

 I try to visit  everyone on my list of blogs and especially those who comment but there are some friends that comment faithfully but don't have a blog so I can't visit them in return. Diane in northern wis is one and recently there have been two others that I want to welcome and thank for coming by. Holly and Buttercup....I hope you'll come by often. I appreciate your visits.

That's it for today. Thanks for visiting,   GM

 

 

Miss Kitty

 

 Happy first day of February 💗.  It's the month of love and also the month when we still feed the wild birds. Or we try to. I don't seem to get many coming to my feeders. I wonder why not?

 

 

 Don't be fooled by that innocent look on her face.

I hope you're having a good day!

Thanks for visiting.   GM