Lovely purple spring of last year.

 Thought a post a "catch up" post relating to last year's spring. Sorry. But I post when I can. 

A few pics of our lovely crocuses from last year. This year they weren't as nice. But every year you have something that can catch the eyes. This year it seems our little cherry tree seems to be the star of the show. I ended up picking and cleaning ten cups worth of sour cherry beauties. But I won't be making jam from them this year. Cherry jam is not that popular in our household. Still delicious though. 

As for more images and recent ones, maybe eventually I'll get to the summer images. Eventually! 😛

 

 

Its almost spring?

 Alright! Its almost spring! .................................................In a few months. Sorry. 😁But seriously, its never too early for spring. Positive thinking people!  So in the mean time here's some lovely pics I took of our blue wisteria in a fresh spring bloom, last season. It was just loaded with carpenter bumble bees with desperate males following carefully behind the females.  So needy and always fighting for the rare and in high demand girl. A total opposite of what people in China have to deal with. 

Btw if you have any loose lumber hanging around your property, it is just as much like candy to them as are the flowers. The females build little hives into the wood, carving almost perfect door ways into them and then lay their eggs. They don't even use tools. Just their little pin sized brains, teeth and diligence. Amazing! 

Just as amazing, the little community they make in those pieces of loose lumber. Some info. 

 

 

 

 

Boston cream pie

Yet another cake. Made a few months ago. Still have a piece of it in the freezer. OK whats wrong with me not finishing the cake? Well can't eat it alone after all. Cake is meant to be shared after all. Nothing wrong with the taste so that's not really the problem. But you can use your imagination for the latter. 
It turned out really well and the custard in the middle is top notch. 
A successful tasty experiment. Yum! 

 

Not sugar plum coated.

This was actually taken in the early spring earlier in the year but its still perfect for this time of year I guess. That is if you really like the cold. I don't. I would rather be seeing palm trees then this out of my bedroom window. But speaking of bedroom windows this was simply snapped via ancient old digital camera. I think its one of my best so far using this simple tool. You have to be at the right place and the right time for this type of shot. It would definitely make a nice window dressing for your computer, that is if you like that sort of thing. 

Welcome to the mushroom forest.

Found this interesting little forest of mushrooms last season growing all around a former beloved old peach tree we had to cut down a few years ago. As always, a little behind on things such as this "show and tell" thing. 
Oh well, enjoy. 😊

Sorry the quality couldn't be any better but I can only do so much with this old digital camera.
 

The Safflower of my eye

Last season of course I decided to plant some safflower seeds in one of many pots we have here. Mostly they contain oleanders but a few have some various citrus trees and even a few fig trees. Nice and not so nice when indoors in the garage. Try looking for hiding pet doves that don't wanna go in just yet. That's where we keep them when the weather is just too cold. 
So yeah I thought I was going to end up with some beautiful orange flowers but instead of orange I got a whole lot of yellow. OK I don't mind too much but they look a lot like dandelions so why bother. But in the end I did get some more seeds to feed my doves. I guess they come in more colours then just orange. Oh well. 

Big Poofy Garlic Flowers

Here we have some more of those last years summer pics for your eye's enjoyment. 
Not normally considered pleasant smelling whether the flowers or the flavouring bulbs, but some nice big poofy garlic flowers over looking the junk in our little back yard. But then beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all. Normally these flowers are even more showier if you plant them in a non domestic way. Meaning if you just bury them in some obscure wild patch of your yard, they will grow some lovely purple-ish colour on the poofy blossoms. Down side they will be a little more puny. Must be the wild stuff in the soil. I would imagine that eating the bulbs later on would naturally be healthier for you then being domesticated. Maybe I'm wrong. None the less these are pretty cool looking. 

 

Fiery red leaves

Thought I mix it up a bit by sharing last season's fall leaves on the trees in our back yard. Then maybe I'll get back to showing spring and summer stuff or maybe something really weird and unusual. You just never know. 😉
Anyways here are some lovely new pics of the burning bush that's located in front of my bed room window. There's also a bush in the back with I think something like a Chinese maple of is that still a Japanese maple? We do have yet another tree closest to the pond that's an official Japanese maple but this one I'm unsure. Maybe next time I'll photo that official one in the fall as well. Its leaves are quite "stringy" looking if you ask me and its one of my pet doves favorite materials to use in there nests besides curly and twisty sticks together with some forked ones in them. Over all I really thought the leaves were so beautiful I decided to collect a few for future projects. Most preserved quite well as dried supply's. 😊

 

A house all decked out

A lovely pic of a decorated front lawn in all kinds of Christmas related characters. This guy sure has some excellent airbrushing skills. Not to mention a great eye to produce these wooden cut outs. Could have looked much nicer in Christmas snow but even without, its a really great set up.
Oh and bonus for once I took this shot most recent as in not from 2 years ago. 😜
Their house is very pretty too. 😊

 The conductor guy from The polar express. 🔺

  Scrooge 🔺

 Baby Jesus and family with the Polar express train in the background.  🔺

Winnie the Pooh and friends.  🔺

A little bit of green

OK so St Patrick's day is long over but, like everything including spring everything seems to be a bit late this year. But better late then never. 
I found this pretty cool little four leaf shamrock while removing some of the little invasive plants in our pots. It was about 2 year or is it three years ago now. I saved it by pressing it between some books and then later laminating it. I fixed the colour in Photoshop cause it was brownish after scanning it in and examining it.  I'm only keep it for coolness and nothing to do with luck. I have a related article which I'm going to post in the other blog soon. Just not today. 😋😎

 

With a cherry on top.

Happy New year every one. Hopefully it won't be worse then last year but then who am I kidding. 
Anyways here are some nice summer pics from last season of June. Some yummy sour cherries that were all nice n ripe. Oh yeah they really are yummy even with their sour qualities. Oh and they make really great jam and pie. Who knew you can get so much from a really small cherry tree. Of course eventually I'll share with the birds when the tree gets a bit bigger. 😉
Use to drive the neighbours nuts when I climbed theirs. There were sour cherries trees on both sides of our property and those were pretty tall.  But they were always pretty prone to wood eating insects for some reason. Oh well. Maybe now they're more stronger because of breeding. But then who knows. 😊

 

Little big flood.

While the other parts of the world were having their own natural disasters including north America mainly with those big and nasty hurricanes and parts of Canada with those fires, we had our own little disaster here too a few weeks ago. So I just had to post this so yeah for once this is fairly new stuff. 
Lately for the past few years we've been having lots of things such as floods here. I forgot about the small one we had last year. I remember that day we went to a mall. Not the one that flooded but another one. I had purchased a black stylish hat that day. This year however we got one of those 100 year old floods. It flooded our basement for a second time since our family has lived in this house. The last time was only a few years ago. I think in 2010 was the last time. I suppose we're now going to have these more often now. Sign of the times I guess. 
So anyhow most of the summer we struggled to get some rain so it ended up fairly dry around here. When we did finally get some substantial rain, boy it really rained. And rained and rained until our naighbourhood began to resemble a system of rivers and ponds. After awhile it started to seep in though a wall in the fruit cellar. Later I noticed that when I checked on our sump pump, it was on non stop and I started to get that panicky feeling of "here we go again". Then it started to bubble up through the drain in the floor and that's when I started to run around like a chicken with its head cut off. I'm sure, though out the city this was happening people were probably feeling the same way. I think we were pretty lucky for not having a downstairs toilet which would have probably resulted in sewage in the basement as well. None the less I got as many of our things off the floor as fast as I could on to higher ground while my dad tried to go out to look for tubing for our extra pump. After doing all that I could downstairs, I went outside to the porch and took a few pics of the craziness.  (see pics below post)After taking a few pics a neighbour came over with urgency and asked for assistance. There were many cars getting trapped in the rising water that day and that guy's, van was no exception. So along with a few of the guys and me being the only woman we pushed the van up I guess his driveway to safety. So after a bit of socializing with the neighbours I walked back home. Found out my dad came back home without success. The stores were all sold out of hoses. There was only one way out of this. Compromising. My dad had to Macgyver the feed hose that we used in the fish pond for air and water circulation and use that for our extra pump. It was a bit of a mess considering that thing was all full of long strands of green alga and who knows what else but we had no choice. We hooked up the thing, fed it out one of the closest windows to the main sump pump and pumped away. The water finally started to let up around 7pm in our house and the neighbourhood as well. At its peek we had about 3 to 4 inches of rain water in the basement. It was a long day. Tomorrows day would be just as tedious. Removing wet rugs, placing them outside and the arduous task of re-mopping the floor. I had already done that weeks ago and was not happy about this. We were pretty lucky (or unlucky depending on your perspective)over all compared to some of our other neighbours. They had to redo some parts of their soaked basement and its pretty uncertain if insurance would have covered it fairly. (We have pretty lousy insurance coverage here in our humble and normally boring city.) The next day it was pretty evident how the flood impacted everyone in the city with the gargantuan mounds of trash piled high at the end of almost every driveway from flooded basements. To this day, its sill being collected by our diverted garbage and recycling trucks plus extra trucks from Toronto. They finally got to our street just yesterday although they still have the rest of the city to get to. Not easy when only about 10 houses can be cleared of debris at a time before they have to dump the load at some temporary depot. Ironically at our only and last GM plant which closed years ago and was torn down recently. So much for motor city, now rat city, garbage city and a city loaded with lots of sad and grumpy people. No wonder they all want to desperately smoke pot. 
Yup sign of the times.  😒

A view of our flooded park, parking lot and street from my porch. ⇱

 A view of our flooded park, parking lot and street corner from my porch and the corner of our front lawn.
Some guy decided to take a dip in one of the large and apparently deep ponds that formed in the corner of the park. I wonder if he realized that there was a sewer grate there.  ⇱

Our front sidewalk that leads from our porch. You can see the river that was our street. You can see a wake from a passing van. Many people didn't care that they were speeding and that would cause more water to go in peoples houses. ⇱

I liked how the water looked on our trees. Like sparkling diamonds. ⇱

A view from our dining room of the park and street. ⇱

A view from our dining room of the park and street. Another van goes whooshing by. ⇱

A view from my bedroom window. You can see a few cars stuck in the water at the far right. The same spot where me and some guys pushed a van up a drive way. The water was about up to my knees. A few feet worth. ⇱