Busy and beautiful August days....

 August 16, 2026

Enough with the cucumbers! I'm calling 'Uncle' on the pickling, although I am saving a couple of big, ripe cucs to make Hubby's favourite relish. I marked them earlier with some flagging tape so I wouldn't pick them by accident.

The first harvesting of green peppers, other than the random ones we've been eating.

They got blanched, sliced and dehydrated, their tops and tails cubed and frozen. There are lots more, as well as the red guys that are maybe starting to colour...

You have to look really, really closely! There are lots and lots of peppers, a really good pepper year. They love to be planted together. I have 16 plants in a 4' X 4' grid.

The paste tomatoes are colouring...

and they seem to be out-pacing the ripening of the beefsteaks.

Pumpkins are out-growing their slings on the fence, popping right out of them. I think they are sturdy enough to hold on without the slings.

Other squash are growing, 

some winter squash and acorns, 
 

and always later to the party, the butternuts. 

I'd been saving a good swathe of more or less weed-free lawn, cut and raked it up on Friday, then layered it into one of my compost bins with the dry, mulched leaves I've been saving in the barn from last fall. 

Making the layers here, and the result, this morning! 

Compost making is magic!

I've been blanching and squirrelling the celery away in the freezer. Bags and bags for winter soup making...what a luxury! I will be totally self-sufficient in celery this winter. 

There have been several afternoons of late, when there have been big rolling white clouds in the sky, giving us light, intermittent showers. One could get totally lost gazing at these beauties. 

The next picture was taken in the evening, and the white edges on the clouds in the picture, were glittering gold, as the sun was in the western sky behind them. It didn't come through in the photo, but interesting none the less.

Bald-faced hornets decided to build a nest on the solar array, sorry guys, not a good place,

and one of the pictures on the trail cameras was kinda' cute. Mama and young 'un having a snack.

Finally, my glads are starting to open.

Pretty nasturtiums, one with a Bumble bee's bum.....

 

Almost had to build an ark.....

August 3, 2026 

A weekend of pretty near continuous rain, at times practically a monsoon....170mm in the gauge. The grey overcast skies slowly cleared this morning, and now the sun is out in a blue, blue sky, with big fluffy white clouds.  

The 'monsoon' was too much for one of our old apple trees, and a big, apple laden branch broke, so sad. I had been thinning apples as far up as I could reach with a step ladder, but it is an impossible job. Here is the trailer load of fruit that fell with the branch.

In other news.... the igniter in my stove called it quits, and to replace it would cost more than half the price of a new stove, so new stove it is! This one has electric ignition, (vs battery ignition in the old stove), plus it has a glass door!! and a light!! Small luxuries, like fresh, sun-dried sheets on the bed, some of life's best things.

Someone has been getting naked in my garden...

A garter snake has left his old garment in the garlic patch, found when I cleared out the rocks holding the mulch down, and dug the bulbs. 

 

 Peter Piper could easily pick more than a peck of peppers in my pepper patch. Green bell, 

 and sweet red.

 The celery is a beautiful green forest.

Pumpkins are growing on the fencing with some Scarlet Runner beans, and I've been slinging the fruit up in pieces of old T-shirts for support, although they seem sturdy enough without. They are small sugar pumpkins, so they won't get too big. 

Cucumbers are really starting to take off, and despite rigorous pruning, I am beginning to be inundated. Note to self: plant fewer vines next summer! 

In the tomato department, the cherries are ripening slowly, 

and there are lots of beefsteak and paste guys growing.

This year I have tried to refrain from taking off the suckers, just pruning out some of the lower leaves for air flow, to see what, if any difference it makes for fruit production. The jury is out. 

 

 

A spring hodge-podge....

 June 2, 2025

The weather roller coaster continues. Another inch plus of cold rain fell over the weekend, and all the insects were laying low. The sky cleared out late in the day yesterday, and we were so very close to frost last night, but went to bed secure that I'd done everything I could to prevent the consequences. Today will be a different story, as the temperature is supposed to go up... the heat that is out west is heading our way. 

 In gardening business, my haskaps bloomed early when there were no pollinators out and about, and the results are visible now...very little fruit has formed. Sadly, that seems to now be a recurring yearly saga. 

Despite the influx of potato beetles last summer, I planted a small bed of potatoes, because home grown taste immeasurably better than store bought. It won't be enough for winter storage, but the bed will be manageable if the bugs descend. 

The brassica bed is loving this weather, as are spinach, alliums and lettuce. 

In the woods, the Yellow Clintonia ( blue bead lily) is blooming now. 

It always seems to be such a brief time until those yellow blooms turn into fat blue berries...
 

 Star flowers are everywhere in full bloom, here nestled against the trunk of a white pine.

 The sunlight shining through these newly minted fern fronds attracted me,

 as do the pond reflections on a calm spring evening.

 Bunch berries are just starting to bloom, their greenish-white hue will change over to pure white as time goes on. 

Baneberries are blooming. I think this one is white, as I've seen the 'doll's eyes' in this location later in the year. 

 Along another trail, I found this false morel..what a gnarly looking specimen. (Sorry its crooked)

In the critter department...I found this young snapper basking on a rock by the pond one day, and he wasn't about to desert his warm space, no matter how close I got. He just pulled his head in and waited for me to leave.

 Two moose on trail cameras on opposite sides of the property...Same moose, or different moose??? 

Just recently, the activity in the Blue bird box has up-ticked, as the eggs have hatched. Papa Blue is now in on the action, as both parents are going in and out of the box constantly. 

 Lilacs are almost fully out, and seemingly out of nowhere, the Eastern yellow swallowtail butterflies have appeared, nectaring on all the blooms, but so far, no Monarchs.

I discovered this oddity along a trail recently, a wild strawberry plant with variegated leaves.

Last summer, I rooted runners from my strawberry plants and planted them in a strawberry tower which overwintered in the root cellar along with the fig tree I got as a bare root plant last spring. The strawberry plants are doing well, and I hope to be able to protect them from the chipmunks in their new digs. The fig tree now has 7 figs growing.

The root cellar that Hubby built in the summer of /23, has proven to be very useful for more than storing food. The last few potatoes in there are just now starting to put out tiny sprouts. Everything has kept extremely well. 

 

 

 

 

The aftermath, shedding new light and averting disaster....

February 26, 2025

 Lots of blowing, ploughing and shovelling ensued after the second dump of snow on the weekend of the 16th. Then came the slogging to get our trails walkable. I might have overdone that a bit, as the old knees complained bitterly for a few days. Hubby did most of the trail breaking after that! 

Some pictures of the beautiful white stuff.

The garden picnic table after the first dump of snow...

Then after the second dump over the weekend, wind included...

The bare outline of our previously packed snowshoe trail.

Despite the lightness of the snow, it was still fairly heavy going, as one's snowshoes sank a lot. Along one of our trails, Hubby breaking trail in the lead, a sudden flurry and beating of wings, as a grouse exploded from right beneath his advancing snowshoe.

Anyone who has experienced this will know what an adrenaline rush ensues. The grouse was comfortably ensconced in its comfy little  snow cave when we came along. Must be startling for it as well! (I had to darken the picture to see the hole, and if you look closely, you might see it's wing prints on the snow.) That very same day, we actually laid eyes on a Snowshoe Hare in the same area. It took off, running easily on top of the snow, stopping beside the trunk of a big pine briefly, where we got a good look. It's white is just slightly off-white, and when it moves, easier to spot.

There are a couple of deer still up here on the hill, although the snow is a bit deep for them now. This is the furrow their belly ploughs through the snow as they move about. 

Family Day weekend, the weekend of the second snowstorm, our son made it up and gave me pictures he'd taken a few weekends previously. We have a female Pileated woodpecker visiting our bird feeders. She loves the hanging suet cake, and clings to it, pecking out chunks, then drops down to the snow beneath and eats them. This is her beneath the suet feeder, another bird visible flying on the right side. Those are all bird foot prints in the snow.

Family Day, and family pizza...No delivery available up here!

 One of the pot lights in the kitchen started misbehaving, so Hubby has installed new LED lights that are making a huge difference to the lighting out there. Yeah! Happy dance. I'm sure the previous lights were as energy efficient as any that were available at the time of their installation, but Wow..these new ones are wonderful.

As far as the disaster...my computer started making strange cracking noises when attempting to shut the lid. Leaving it sitting with the lid up was not an option. Mr. Fix Anything had a look and found the case was cracked and spreading apart, even though the screws were still there. A judicious application of crazy glue and some clamps. Much better, but I fear that we'll soon be shopping for a new beast.