Jada's friends

Jada always has to have a friend around. She can play with them, use them as a pillow or even lick them all over their heads and faces to use up that frustrated maternal energy. ( she had the operation even before she left the shelter at 3 months.)

Jada is a big dog. She prefers her friends to be big as well.

She also has colour prefrences. White, brown or black ( or combinations therof ). No unnatural greens, red, purples etc. (really!)

Here is her current friend...

Isn't he cute? She also has strong opinions on what kind of friends she has. Floppy dogs, bears and bunnies are fine. Frogs, snakes and anyone who doesn't flop need not apply.

Jada can be a bit hard on her friends.....

Sometimes we have to visit our local thrift store to see if any new friends have taken to hanging out there.

Umm... Mr. Bear... What are all those white pieces of foam....?

Don't worry floppy bunny..... I'll protect you!!!

Be afraid... be very afraid!!! Hehe!

Flower update.

I thought I'd show you how my plants have been doing.

This is what was left of my tulips towards the end. There is nothing left of them now. The bulbs ended up in the garbage and the pots have been saved for another day. It was great while it lasted though!

Still nothing to see on the poor cuttings that had their roots ripped off while I tried to plant them.

There is something to see however on the cuttings I did get planted. Whoo hoo!

Then there is the cute little house plant. It is orange! As all my friends know I do not like orange! I still don't know how I came to bring this home... It stopped flowering when I had it in the living room but once I put it under my fluorescent lights it started all over again. They are pretty aren't they? Even if they are orange.

Now lets see how the amaryllis has been doing....

Wow! That's quite a sight!

What's this?... This is the bulb my dad gave to me a few years back. It has bloomed for me every year but I didn't think it would do it again.

Guess I was wrong.

Don't you love surprises?

Gardening is full of them.

Planting has begun.

Yes, it's true, planting has begun! Yesterday I planted a whole lot of primula and two varieties of pansy. Today I hope to plant the rest of my perennials.

It's still cold and I have another day off of school, so... I'm going to put the house back in order, bring Holly to work, pick up a seat warmer that I can plug into the lighter and, if I'm efficient enough to get all this done quickly, I'll be relaxing with a book tonight!

Stay tuned for pictures of seed planting.

A frosty day.

It's terribly cold outside today. Can you believe it was -30C (-22F) when I woke up this morning! Even worse was the windchilll. -42C (-43.6F)!!! They had already decided to cancel school last night so I was all set for a nice warm day inside. I had no plans to step foot outside my door today. That was until Henry poked his head in the door on his way to work, to tell me my truck tire was flat! Poor Morgan had to be dragged out of bed to get the compressor to pump it up. Small problem... the truck won't start.

Time to plug it in. Where is the plug? We haven't had to plug it in since we bought it. Poor soul...

He kept coming in to thaw his fingers. Eventually the plug is found, protective cap pried off and now we wait for a few hours for the block heater to work it's magic before I must bring it to the garage.

Somehow though... I will plant my seeds today !!!

In the meantime...

I leave you with pictures I took on a frostier, but warmer, walk with Jada last week.

Quiet Sundays

Henry's birthday.

Henry my lovely husband just celebrated another birthday.

It is traditional in his family that brothers and sisters phone each other for their birthdays.

He kept telling everyone I hadn't made him a birthday cake! But I did! So here it is...

"Have these candles been used before?" Of course they have darling, I used them for Morgan's birthday. I like to be thrifty you know...

Now who's calling? Oh it's Auntie Dorothy. "Make sure you tell everyone out there that I did make Henry a birthday cake!"

The birthday boy blows out the candles. (Pretty good for an old guy!)

Happy birthday honey. May God give you many more...

Shameful Confession

Okay... brace yourselves!

I have a shameful confession to make.

I... have... not... yet... planted... my... seeds.

Whew!! That was hard to say, but now that I've said it I feel much better!

I meant to plant them, I made plans to plant them, but life kept getting in the way.

The first obstacle was how gloomy it's been most of the week. I want to take pictures of the process so I can share it with you. When it's gloomy the pictures don't come out as nice. There was one beautiful day, but that was also the day I had to run around with Morgan trying to find him a new car now that his old car has been declared a write off by the insurance company ( a story in itself, which I will share at a later date.)

Add in, house cleaning, bus driving, groceries, etc. etc....

Still no seeding done!

I did get this far however...

It was not too cold when I decide to go out to get my planting supplies

Here's my work area. I love my work area! I had picked this spot for a work area the day we moved in, but due to the raspberry bushes, gigantic weeds, split bags of horse feed(?) and work on the rest of the garden it had to wait. But now... a spot all my own!

Now... here it is... my very own shed... Henry made it for me by reusing the kids playhouse and adding on to it, figuring it out as he went along. It only took one entire growing season.

Oh wait... what's this? Bikes? Nope...it's not totally my own shed... grrrr... Henry's garage is way bigger than my shed! It makes much more sense to store them in there. Really. He doesn't have that much stuff in there. Really. Sigh... okay, I admit it. The garage is very full right now.

Wow! Look at all the cool stuff in here! Doesn't it make you want to go out and dig right now?

So... Let's see what we have in here...

Hmmm... Someone was very organized last fall... But then, that's just the way I am... Really.

This is as far as I've gotten. These pots have made it in the house, where they wait impatiently to be filled. Maybe tomorrow...

Got to go now, I have kids from grades one to nine anxiously waiting to go skating on the big frozen lake (man made) at Hawrelak park. It's only -9C so it should be fun.

And I promise... you will see my seeding efforts soon...

What's happening today?

I brought Jada to the vet for her annual shots this morning and then I tried out a do-it-yourself dog wash at our local pet store/daycare.

It was awesome!

When I wash her at home it takes forever just to wet her down to the skin, because my hand-held shower head is a water saver and so has very little pressure. Then there's the bending over, the shampooing, the rinsing, the conditioning and the rinsing. Don't forget several large shakes to rid herself of all that water. Which is then deposited all over me as well as the entire bathroom. The next step in this ritual is a crazed race through the entire yard, where she will rub herself on every bush and plant to dry herself. Sometimes she'll come in dirtier than she was before the bath! I don't let her outside after a bath until she's dry now.(I do learn from my mistakes... although I'm a little slow sometimes. :) )

By the time I'm finished an hour has passed, I need a shower and the bathroom needs to be scrubbed down. That takes at least another hour.

She was in and out of the tub at Tailz in 15 minutes!

That was the best $15 I've ever spent! The only thing wet on me was the bottom of my long sleeves. ( Next time I'll wear a t-shirt.)

And I will do it again... Even if someone feels compelled to comment on the cost!

Summer fun

I was going through my files on the computer this morning and came across these pictures and decided to share them.

This is my dear second daughter who will probably kill me if she finds out I posted these pictures! She hates having her picture taken. I just love this one though. Hmm.... wonder what Jada's thinking?? Hoping for droppage perhaps?

I think Jada's still hoping!

Yes Henry, the fire pit was a good idea. It is a great way to spend the evening and having friends over makes it even better. However I still think it should have been smaller! You haven't brought home a 20 lb+ salmon in a long time. (he likes to bake them whole, over coals)

Here's my oldest son. What is he wearing on his feet? Oh... those are hubby's ancient mukluks.

Very stylish!

This is also a view of my garden early last spring before my mom and youngest son dug and weeded it. You should see it now. Well, maybe not right this minute... it's covered in snow. Don't worry though I will be showing you the garden all through the year.

It's time to start seeding!

I made a visit to Rona a few weeks ago and what do you think I came home with?





Hmmm.... Could it be....

YES! New seeds! The sight of new seeds gets my heart racing, and my mind starts to race right along with it...

Now what did I find so early in the year? Check out this double morning glory... It's too early to start this yet.

OOOH.... This is a new on to me, but is sure looks interesting. I had planned to put it in pots but when I investigated it further, I found that it does better in the ground. We'll talk more about this one later. It's also too early to start this one .

Now, let's see... Ah... sapphire lobelia. Looking at pictures of my garden from a few years back , reminded me that this plant can really glow in the garden. Too early. Sigh..

Didn't I get anything I can start now? Yeah! Here's one... It's a perennial , and the earlier I start it the bigger it will be when it is ready to plant. I have found that more plants survive this way. (You didn't think that all of them make it through to next year did you? One day I'll tell you what happened with all those primrose seeds I started. :))

Any thing else? Of course! Pansies! Pansies are one annual that can be put out early as they can take temperatures of -5C . This plant is one of my favorites. I used to love to colour as a child and I still vividly remember colouring a pansy picture. I added the face and centres in contrasting colour. I was so proud of that picture... A small hint of the passion for gardening that was to come?

Well that's it for now. We will be talking more about seeding this week. I might have picked up a few (wink, wink) more seed packages when I visited Holes last week with my friend Nicole. Not too many more of course ....

A glitch!

I had planned to post a bit of an indoor plant grab bag this morning, but when I went to edit my pictures to make them blog friendly, I discovered that somehow I'm missing the program needed!

I installed everything I had, so I'm not sure if we got an update on line, or if there is another disk missing in action. I'll have to wait to talk to the kids, and if that doesn't work I'll have to give my friend Ev a call and see what other program I could use .(sorry Ev!)

I didn't manage to get my seeds started on Saturday as it took me most of the day to re-install my programs. By the time I was done I figured I might just as well clean up the house again! I had done it on Thursday to allow myself all of Saturday to plant but... three kids, a husband and a dog.... Need I say more?

So... Just to give you a bit of bloom until I get things worked out...

Spring is not far away .... I hope.

And that's what gardening is all about... hope and optimism!

Quiet Sundays

We're back!

Well we've got the computer back, and now I have to reinstall all my programs and files before I can really get back to posting the way I want to.

I'm going to be starting some seeds today, and once the computer is back to normal I will be posting all about it, pictures included.

So... after a small break to make coffee cake and chocolate drop cookies (yum,yum), I am going to start sterilizing my planting pots, sorting through my seeds and planting them up.

Fun, fun, fun!

Technical difficulties.

It has been my intention to post everyday.
Unfortunately my computer is not cooperating! I'm going to bring it in to be repaired tomorrow and will hopefully have it back by the end of the week.
See you soon!

Asthma stinks!

No pictures today I'm afraid!
I'm still not feeling well as my asthma has gotten a little worse .
I'm assuming this comes from walking Jada in our recent cold temperatures. I've been trying a new training technique that's supposed to teach her to focus more on me during our walks as opposed to everything but me!
The only problem with this technique is that is requires lots of running and quick turns. I really should know better than to try that kind of thing in - 16C weather!
Denial is easy when things have been going fairly well ... Sigh ...
Well, I'm going to have to be more diligent about staying away from triggers ... that means Henry (smoke) .... walking Jada ( cold air) ... dairy...
Yeah right! Wish me luck!!
I'm off to start a load of laundry and then I'm going to finish my book by Francine Rivers, 'The Scarlet Thread'.

Quiet Sundays

It's official...

Every Christmas my family buys me my favorite chocolates.

I loooove turtles!

You'd think a woman would want a certificate to a spa... perfume, jewelry, new clothes etc...

I would rather get compost, manure, mulch... anything garden related.Most of these things are unavailable at this time of year, so, I tell Henry not to buy me anything so I can spend the money on seeds and supplies in January.

He always says " But I have to get you something! You have to have a present under the tree!"

So I reply, " As long as I get a box of Turtles I'll be happy!"

The thing is, I never buy Turtles for my self during the rest of the year. I just have them at Christmas time. That way they stay a real treat.

So here it is.... my last box of Turtles...


I've eaten a few already....

Let's see how many are left....

One! Sob!

Oh well... This last one will sure taste good with my tea!

You are wondering, if this is my last box, how many did I get for Christmas?

Umm... Did I say it was my last box?

Out loud?

A few.

How many is a few?

Well... five... A girl's got to keep the pounds on somehow!

But it's official... Christmas is over for another year.