Lessons learned

In my world (yes, it`s a special place in my head) spring smells like the soil after a rain. It`s a smell that takes me back to my childhood to the farm where I grew up and the huge garden my mother planted every year.

In the spring, my brother, sister and I would tempt fate and try walking through the garden when it was a mud pit.  And every year, one of us would probably lose a rubber boot.  There would a sucking noise, the boot would become mired in the mud, and we`d be stuck.  Sometimes Dad came to the rescue, lifting us out of the mud - hopefully with boots intact but more often less one or more.  When he wasn't around we`d pull one foot or both out of the boots and trek through the mud in our sock feet risking the ire of our mother.  Of course we'd been told to stay out of the garden but the lure of the mud was too enticing!

Today, I love to dig in the dirt though I've finally learned to stay out of it when it's really wet. So when spring finally arrives I start thinking about I'll plant in my containers and front flower beds. Every year I take photos thinking I'll use them to help me decide.  But when I go to the nurseries and garden centers all those thoughts go out the window.  This year was no different.

Last Saturday I decided to go "take a look" to see what was available. Ha!

After filling the back seat of the car this is what I came home with.

I filled the front containers with mums, vinca vine and ageratum.  I hope the purple ageratum will make a show against the yellow mums.

This pot simply has wave petunias, pink and purple, that should cascade down the side of the pot by mid-summer.

I planted nicotiana and snap-dragons in the front bed Sunday morning and decided it looked a little sparse.  What to do?  Head back to the garden center again of course!  

There is now a perennial forget-me-not, and a container on the left.  This bed doesn't get much sunlight so shade loving plants are a must.

I've filled it with double impatiens and an ivy. Last year my friend C had to remove all of her impatiens due to a fungus.  I was fortunate and didn't see any evidence of it, even though I had several containers and had planted them in the garden.  I'm not taking chances so this are the only impatiens I have this year.

Nicotiana is one of my favorites, very colorful and has a lovely smell in the evening!

In the backyard I've purchased a 12 inch container of petunias and verbena for an instant punch of color.

This year I bought a strawberry pot to grow herbs in.  I've got parsley, thyme, oregano, sage for me and catnip for the cats.

The containers on the back deck hold the wave petunias.  Not pictured are the purple mums and alyssum in three containers on the lower deck, and two containers of snap-dragons and verbena on the rails and a pot of coleus...that I'm unsure why I bought.





There are also two more containers out front, one with the pink dahlia, ivy and ageratum, and another with a geranium, callibrocha and verbena.

If you are counting, that means I'm up to 17 containers this year.  Last year the count was closer to thirty. and the year before was thirty-three.  I've learned that I only need to fill the back seat of my car one and a half times to fill a manageable amount of containers.

At least that is what I'm saying now....

The week that was

Wow, it's already more than a week since I returned home from my trip.  Time truly does fly!

I worked out of our Saskatoon this week, partly so I could catch up with the employee who supervised the group for me in my absence, and partly to allow me to work on a report that is due for our head office by mid-June.  I knew there would be fewer interruptions and I was right.

My employee did a great job of taking care of things for me. All of the systems that had to be delegated worked and she was able to deal with anything that came up.  Even better, she had prepared a to-do list for me with deadlines so I could prioritize the work.

Although I'd plan to complete the first draft of the report, I was faced with a number of other reports and tasks that had to be completed by the end of the week.  I did get a good start on it though so I should be able to finish it this week.

Thursday was a particularly nice day weather wise, so I grabbed my camera and went for a walk along the river.  I lived in Saskatoon 35 years ago (omg I'm old), but had never walked along this side of the river before.

Saskatoon is a city of bridges.  The path I took was between two of the many that cross the Saskatchewan River within the city.

This is University Bridge and is one I've walked across many times, as I lived on the other side of river many years ago.

This is the Broadway Bridge  When I lived in Saskatoon the buildings to the left had not been built.








There was also critters in the park.  These geese are looking towards a crow that was coming too near to their little goslings.

It was amusing to watch the adults hiss, and chase the crow away, while the little ones bunched up close to the adult bird.

This guy, stopped and posed for me even though I was walking towards him. I had changed to my wide angle lens on the camera so wasn't able to get a real close up of him










Best of all, there were signs of spring!

Friday was, and today Saturday is, really quite warm for this time of year.  We had temps of 32C (90F) yesterday and 28C (86F) today.  Yesterday the neighbour's tree across the road was almost bare, today it's leafed out.  What a difference a day (and some heat) makes.

I did yard work, picked up groceries, and did some housework this morning.  Then this afternoon I decided I made a run to a couple of garden centers to pick up some plants. I had thought I'd wait until next weekend but I just couldn't wait any longer...hooray, it's finally spring!

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

London - Day 2

May 14, 2014 (Warning - this is a long post!)

The last day of vacation!  (I don't count the last travel day...there's generally nothing restful about that).
We took the train into London to Victoria Station.  We purchased a day pass for travel after peak morning hours which gave us access to the trains and underground.  It was a really good investment for a little more than 10 pounds per person.


The station according to K was a five minute walk to Buckingham Palace.  I really must teach her to tell time!  But it was early morning, I was well rested, and so excited to be there.

We were too late to get a good place to see the changing of the guards but we did see them marching in.

I thought it was so awesome when the horse bowed to the guards!

We took a walk through St. James Park on our way to Horse Guards Parade.  There were so many different birds and most were pretty tame.

I've sent these photos to my brother as he is the naturalist in the family.  He can identify them for me!

And then there was cute little guy! He was charming people for peanuts.

This was one of the guards at the Horse Guards Parade (the building above).  He was very stoic!

Next on the list of places was Westminster Abbey.  On the way we passed Downing Street and Big Ben too! (The London Eye is in the background)

Just as we arrived at the Abbey, the bells began to peal.  I have no idea why but it was phenomenal!

Can you imagine the man hours that went into creating the fresco above the door?

From Abbey we made our on Victoria (Street I think) to a pub where I finally got my fish and chip lunch!  Doesn't it look good? 

After a nice lunch and a great beer (sorry it was pub brew and I didn't catch the name) we made our way to St. James Underground Station and we took the tube to Kensington Palace.  I thought I'd stop in and see if Wills and Kate needed a caregiver for baby George for a couple of hours..but no one was home.

Queen Victoria

We decided to walk through Kensington Gardens to Hyde Corner. This time we knew it would be more than a five minute walk!

We spotted this spire off in the distance and went to see what it was.

 It was a statue for Albert, Queen Victoria's husband.  Seriously, he gets a bigger statue than the Queen?

This a portion of the Princess Diana's memorial fountain. It's actually a circular structure. Everyone is welcome to dip their feet in it!

By the time we reached the rose gardens I felt like this guy!
Thankfully so did J, so we decided not to continue to Hyde Corner but took the underground train to Picadilly Circus instead.

Finally, we took the underground train back to Victoria Station and walked the five minutes (NOT!) back to Buckingham Palace.

Do you suppose the Royals ever look at the window and wish the tourists would just go away?

With one last photo of the guard, my day in London was over. It was a great day, even if my feet were throbbing and all I wanted to do was sit down.  The weather was perfect, about 20C.  Finally!

 We took the train back to the Gatwick Airport where we grabbed dinner from Marks and Spencer and ate at the food court, and then it was back to the hotel to pack and get some sleep.

Our flight left London at 9:30 a.m. local time, it was a 9 hour flight to Calgary where we had a three hour layover (which turned into four) before flying home.  Why is it, the last flight is always the one that is delayed?

It was a marvelous, fantastic, incredible, amazing... insert superlative here...vacation.  It truly was a trip of a lifetime!  I hope you've enjoying sharing my memories with me.

Have a great weekend, everyone!