Garden Buddies

This time around we have these two lovely garden buddies for feature presentation. Of course my latest sunflower plants have yet to get to maturity so in case you guessed, these are from two years ago. Thought the pics of my sunflower and its buddy the pea plant looked pretty cool. The lighting that day was really dramatic so I took several pics at different angles. Plus it kind of makes you feel like a little busy bee from that close up view. Over all I was inspired by the folk tale of "the three sisters". So, every year I plant my version in my share of the garden pots. In the pots I first plant a sunflower seed, then I put in a small amount of carrot and dill weed. Evenly distributing them in the pot so that the carrots will grow big and not piddly. Last but not least I plant a couple of pea seeds when the sunflower is at least 5 inches tall or maybe taller, but sometimes only one comes out. By the end of the year, in Sept or Oct I'll have these lovely colourful and sweet crunchy carrots to enjoy and share not featured here. YUM!😋

 

 

 

Not a crop circle but a crap circle?

Lots of weird things happening. Like where did these wheels come from but just as disturbing or curious, where did my newspaper clippings go in my previous post? Was my blog edited with out my knowledge? No free speech? Wait a minute I thought this was a free country and not communism? What ever happened to emailing me first? How rude! 😡I had every right to show off the activity of my neighbourhood. Yup just another slap in my face via human society. What else it new. I mean its just a newspaper clipping from an already paid for newspaper. Its not like I was making money from this. I would never claim to have written that article. Just sharing people! Yeshhhhh! This is really starting to get old. What ever happened to manners? 😒 Rant over! 

Anyways there were these large wheels that suddenly appeared in the park across the street, some time two years ago cause that's when I took these pics. It was early in the spring when the leaves were just starting to come out. Hopefully I can show them here and you can see them with out the commies somehow taking them away. I mean what is this place run by the Chinese now? Yeshhh!  And yet people are free to harass us via email spam for phishing or any other country full of phishers. Would be nice if those people responsible for all those phishing attempts would be arrested and put a stop to. But Oh yeah punish the person who doesn't cause trouble or want it. Yeah! nice society! Yup we live in a opposite land. Punish the innocent but let the guilty run free. Second rant over! 😒

So yeah we had these particular wheels here, not sure what they were used for but they did make for some interesting objects in the park. Such as photo ops and this one guy would use them as make shift exercise equipment. But then who knows maybe aliens decided to mix it up a bit instead of the usual crop circles.  Humans after all are too boring "thinks inside the box all the time" to come up with anything exciting as crop circles and or something intricate. But we do have an opportunity to still learn how to be advanced or evolve, just might take awhile. Hopefully before we make ourselves extinct. 😉 Meh! 😝

 

Its a Sign!

Yup you guessed it. Its an actual sign. OK not terribly exciting but pretty neat to me. Last season in August, at the end of the month I think, but the actual news article got published in Sept. The park across the street finally got a new sign. It was since that time we moved in to this neighborhood, sometime in 1998 that the old one was knocked over from age. It was never really that durable to begin with. Just your typical wood used in a common wooden fence around someone's lawn. None the less the new sign is not much better from the original other then they added a reflective coating so you can reflect it at night with your car's headlights. I guess the city was trying to save some money. But did they have to place it in the exact spot the old sign was in? I mean every year there's a pretty huge and deep puddle in that spot because of unscrupulous bone heads who either park their cars there for a soccer game or take a joy ride though the park when we're all sleeping.  I wouldn't be surprised when one day I look out the window and see it knocked to the ground. Anyways there was a bit of a revealing ceremony soon after. Apparently it was in honor of some woman's father. Even had a footage crew, a reporter or two here along with the mayor and other family members. You can read it your self in the article posted here. As for whats happening with the world right now, lets not talk about it. Just enjoy some peace. 
Thanks. 😌

Dad's Chair Monstrosity

Presenting my dad's unholy union between a former 1988's van chair and a discarded broken probably peed on former office chair, now in this wonderful red neck concoction.  OK its kind of neat, it sort of looks like the captains chair from StarTrekNG but if you ask me looks a bit dangerous.  Oh yeah he put it together last year. And he keeps it in my studio only because he feels the need to share his stuff in there since the old Commodore 64 is in there for his old chess enjoyment. 😑

Cheesed off

OK like most Canadians I'm quite disappointed at Old El Paso for deciding to discontinue the powdered nacho cheese mix.  I really didn't eat it as intended though but I absolutely loved it as a topping for my popcorn.  What to do?, what to do? Well you make your own and its not really that difficult. If you have a Balk barn in your area or some kind of bulk store you may be in luck. 
Look for the powdered cheese normally used for pasta to make macaroni and cheese. but there's another way of using that stuff. Make your own powdered nacho cheese mix. First get your self some powered cheese mix that is if the bulk store has the stuff. About a cup or if you prefer two. Then purchase a few packets of taco seasonings. Whatever your favorite is. It could be Old El Paso or what ever you prefer it really doesn't matter. I purchased the Metro brand. Then get an ordinary jar. Glass or plastic or even some other container, what ever so long as it holds your stuff and keeps it dry. Then mix a packet of the taco seasonings with your one cup of powdered cheese and wala! you have your very own nacho cheese mix. Tastes may very so you may wanna use more of the taco seasoning mix or less its up to you. Problem solved and enjoy! 

Home Fries vrs the winter day

Boy for the last days of Dec let alone 2018 it was pretty warm today. You could mistake it for early spring especially seeing some guy walking down the street in shorts. But you know that these kinds of days are usually too good to be true. Tomorrow we are back in reality of this miserable type of weather below 0 celsius. Surprise. 

But there are always home fries. Nice and comforting thing to look at let alone to savor in your mouth. Yum!  Better then looking out the window at the bleak landscape that winter causes. 

BTW I actually made these my self. No store bought crap here. Just some yummy homemade goodness straight out of the oven. These never last long. 😋

Its feeding time for Meetso

" I came out of my jungle. Now feed me. "

It was a hot summer day when I took this last year, and was still pretty warm when Meetso's internal dinner bell rang. That was usually at the end of the day when I met him in his usual all day hiding spot where he can get away from the heat and keep an eye out for any unsuspecting tasty critters that went by. It is the small area of bushes near the fenced in garden. Its a mini garden but you get lots out of it. The bars make the bushes look like a small habitat for a tiger in a zoo or at least that's the impression I get from the image I took above.

At this point the sun was getting low so the backgrounds of the images look more dark then I would like them. But the colours on my kitty still look alright. Meetso sits on the edge of a wood plank for awhile on the garden, half asleep and thinks about his next move. 

Can't get enough of his lovely fur covered back and his wonderful white spot. 
Oh and if your wondering about his tail, well for some reason he gave it a hair cut. He literally plucked some of the hair on his tail to make it look like that. Not really sure why but it might just be easier to clean in the summer since he does shed copious amounts during that time. 
He also plucked his tail again this year too. 
It gives his tail the lion tail look. 

" Huh? I thought we were getting food?  "

At this point I think Meetso was getting a little tired of all the picture taking but he's just so darn cute. 

 " So um food?  "

Just another shot of his cute face. 

" Sigh.......The things I do for food.  "

Yeah eventually my cute fluffy big boy got his numnums. But not before I took just one more pic. 😉😀

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. ⇱

Kitty Jacket

Oh so OK when you have lots to do you sort of neglect other things but then what else is new. 
So anyways I have this thing I put together but, I really didn't design the kitty image so that's why its in here. After all I didn't airbrush and or design this thing. But what I did do is put several things together instead of just throwing it out. It was just too cute to throw out anyways. I have this old jacket I wear around the backyard when its cold, I saved this old image from a purse that got old and ripped. Plus saved a few other odds and ends from some old jeans I had to throw away as well since they were ripped beyond wearing them.  Then I put several things together and what do you have? A nice jacket and no garbage to fill a landfill. A worth while compromise and cause. Plus you get a real nice jacket. :)

A Friday that was more like a Monday

A Friday that was more like a Monday is what it felt like. I knew I wasn't going to like that day and was pretty much spoiled for me. Well I don't like dental appointments or any other medical related appointments for that matter but it had to get over with. So I got my annoyance over with and like usual I treat my self with a special snack of some sort. I was going to have an ice cream from the new ice cream place on the corner near by, but my stomach was still upset from a few nights before when I tried out this new spicy chicken. I love spicy chicken or anything spicy for that matter but this was a bit too much for me I guess. But it could have been more severe had I not eaten yogurt afterwords. So instead of the ice cream treat to drown out the dental taste left in my mouth, I got a small box of 20 TimBits verity style. They're basically doughnut holes from a place called TimHortons. I'm sure you've heard about the famous Canadian icon. So I brought them home to share and I though that was the end of it. But guess not. Later that night and as usual, my kitty gets in the mood to go out for a stroll. But before that he likes his play time with me and a meal. As we played in my room on the floor near my bed, I started to smell something strange but somehow familiar. Something burning, like burning wire. I started to get a bit frantic and nervous when I first could not find the source of the noxious smell.  Looked at my outlets, nope. Looked at a power bar, nope. Eventually I looked up thinking it might be somehow the ceiling light. The reason why I thought that was earlier my dad was changing the light fixture in the kitchen that was not working properly. Somehow I thought it was connected. Maybe the wire was damaged by a electrical serge? I started to get scared thinking that maybe there was a smoldering wire in the ceiling that was eventually going to lead to fire. After all I did start to see smoke swirling around my light fixture. The smell was getting stronger and overwhelming to my nose. So I started to open windows despite the furnace being on. But that didn't matter at that point. I also wen to see if the smell was in any other room especially the kitchen. Sure enough it was there. Now really panicking, my dad and I went outside and inside pretty much all over that house inspecting and contemplating. But we really couldn't really find any smoldering wires est. 
Just as well the smells were at that point starting to dissipate after opening the windows but we still weren't sure what happened.  It was only about an half an hour later when my mom went to empty the dishwasher when we realized what had happened. Apparently the dishwasher caught on fire and filled my room and the kitchen with nasty toxic burnt plastic smoke. I spent several days getting rid of that nasty smell. But you can still smell it in the kitchen. But then it could have been worse. Luckily the dishwasher only short circuited when I guess a bit of water got in to the electrical components  and burnt the front panel. Yikes and Yuck! But this might have been avoided if my parents heeded the recall warning for that machine a few years earlier. I hope they learn their lesson. Just too bad they're prone to hard headiness and stubbornness. Oh well. 

This Thursday will be my kitty's Monday since its vet day. He has to get his shots. He will be treated handsomely afterwords with his favorite treats. ;)

Purple Trinity Flower

Well-p its officially fall. Thank God that its still summer warm. For now. But don't fret, its only a few more months till spring. The lucky ones who don't have to wait till then can just migrate south or you can hibernate like a bear. But don't, were not bears. Our bodies will make us pay for that as some of us know too well. Best thing to do is when it gets too cold outside is do a bit of exercise indoors when of course you're finished shoving the snow.

Enough of that depressing news well maybe a bit of anxiety inducing news instead. For some of us anyways. Besides the busy summer of yard work and other personal stuff, it was a stressful summer for my poor kitty Meetso yet again. Apparently he was getting to much calcium in his diet. Um no I wasn't drowning him in cow's milk, but I did give a bit to him as a treat now again. But apparently I was giving him inferior cat food. Its a major brand but I won't mention it unless you ask me in privacy.

I'm guessing it had way too much bone meal and other crap but I figure it still had some redeeming qualities for the price I had to pay. Guess not. Who knew that a can of animal guts with some vitamins thrown in for good measure, at times costs more then a can of tuna. I always thought those things were over priced. But then I also gave him tuna on occasion too as a treat. Maybe a combination of that set him off as well. So now for his main food, he gets the vet office brand. A 50/50 combination of dry food and a very boring flavoured with chicken, wet cat food. Chicken btw is his least favourite food. He still manages. He's a good kitty.

Since the crazy July he recently had a small blip. He got sick from a rabbit he decided to catch for dinner and eat whole. He left nothing but a few dark coloured guts. Yes he even ate the head.

The rabbit on the other hand had its revenge going down. In Meetso's haste to eat his prize, the bones in the meat I guess scraped his throat or maybe a small piece logged in there. But I think not. None the less, he lost his meow and his appetite. Took him a few weeks to recover. Some of the recovery took place in my bed room a few times in the form of big dark coloured hair balls with bits of grass in the smelly mix. Thank God it looks like he's now back to his normal cuddly self. That is until next time. Oh boy.

Now for my find that 's the title for this posting is named after.

Ok so its another wild flower I found. I don't really remember planting it in the corner of the garden but there it is. I probably found it originally in the park and took the seeds home. Just forgot about it until some time in June when it started to bloom. My dad actually thought it was a stray corn plant that grew there from bird seed that was dropped there. Luckily he didn't just pull it out like he usually does. (killed a plant that I was trying to grow for the last 2 years cause he thought it was a weed) Yes its edible, but I think in limited fashion. Not sure what parts, so you are going to have to look it up. How ever it does go by many names but I prefer the one in the title. It makes the most sense to me. A purple flower with three petals. I hope that I can collect the seeds and spread it around to the appropriate areas. 

Figment

Its pretty amazing how such a scrawny little tree in a pot can produce such a giant fruit. In this case a fig. I would trim the poor little neglected tree if I could but its my dads plant and well you know? He still see me as a small child. Sigh.... And yet when I was a little kid growing up playing outside on a lonely hot summers day by my self and looking for something to do, he let me play with things like blow torches and an ax on occasion. Go fig. Makes your head shake sometimes.

As for the fig tree, I wonder if, although scrawny, small and in a pot, my doves might have contributed in some way during the winter in the garage? They were in and out of the pots and you know doves they always like to leave a little gift where ever they go. Who knows......

Tastes garlicky

A few weeks ago I took these nice and tasty pics of of this particular weed.

Weeds? How can weeds be tasty? Well certain kinds can be eaten as wild greens or used as flavorings. In this case both. Its called a Garlic mustard and yes its in the mustard family. Its a nice wild green which I would rather call them that has this nice distinctive garlicky smell and taste in its leaves and flowers when crushed. You can eat the leaves and flowers raw in a salad, use as a cooked green side dish and or flavour your food in-place of garlic. This European wild green is also invasive so if you find them, don't just beat them, eat them. 

I really like the look of these photos. They really turned out well.

The little thieves.

I caught these little thieves as usual stealing from the birds and sometimes from me.

Every time I take care of my birds needs I always leave a little something for the wild birds too. But these little squirrels seem to think I'm also doing it for them. I've even tried to place the birds share of seeds in to a bunch of little piles all over the back yard cobble stone. Thinking that it'll give the birds a chance to eat at one spot while the greedy furry fella or felon as I like to refer to him, pigs out on another spot. But that didn't last long since he invited his friends to the seedy feast. Time for a new strategy. Its no wonder scientists use his rodent brother, the rat in their experiments.

As from stealing from me, they're out of luck this time. Its time to put our poor peach tree out of its misery. Even the little not so old tree bit the bucket. Guess winter was a bit much even for those two. 

Just in time magnolia blossoms

And we went backwards with spring, in terms of weather but I guess every once in awhile a year has these disappointing below normal temps. Oh yes you have noticed there are some on time perfectly appropriate pics for the season. For once I'm not showing leftovers. ;)

I shot some nice white magnolia blossoms before the wind totally knocked them over for another season, for reference of course. I already have a bunch of lovely shots of tree fulls of them I made a few years ago. Despite the fact I shot those on a cloudy day, the pics still really look impressive.

Sometimes taking pics on a sunny days is overrated any how. 

Sorry for showing my hands but it was a windy day after all.

The thing under the bed.

There's a Meetso under the bed.

I took this pic in the last few weeks of winter. But lucky for you no more looking at snow this year.

It was getting to the point where we had storm after storm and poor Meetso couldn't go out at night and have some fun. But then I wasn't going out much either other then to help clean out the snow. It was just too cold for walks any how so Meetso and I were starting to get a bit of cabin fever.

Meetso was acting in a crazy kitty playful mood one night. So he went about playing with his pompoms toy mice and dragging him self under the bed. It was a picture perfect moment to get these really cute shots.

Well as you know when you take pictures of kitties, like humans that get red eyes in shots I get the shiny green kitty eyes in Meetso. Got rid of those and flipped the pics over so you can see his cuteness.

Enjoy!

Flipped over and fixed. 

 

 

 

Meetso in the snow

I promises this is the last set of snow related pics, well at least for this year. Can't promise for next year though. ;) Here we can see how high that crazy snow was piling up.  There was so much snow that after awhile it was really hard to clear a path to get around. It got to the point where there was even ice but someone in the family was too stubborn allow for salt to be spread in the area. So glad its all gone now replaced by green grass and spring flowers. Now if only it would warm up with the proper temps for this time of year. 

For some reason Meetso's tail seems to hide alot in these pics. Guess Meetso's tail is camera shy. ;)

A stunning pee break

A not so modest Meetso decided it was a great spot and time to take a pee break right in the snow.

It was again taken during the worse winters in a long time.

Guess he just started to tolerate the snow to not care any more whether he found a nice clean spot to take a leak.

Still a handsome boy even when peeing. What a guy. 

I'm too sexy for a toilet.