Wet on Wet

Actually, this would have been nigh on impossible to paint with watercolours. I'm hoping that I'll actually get mine out someday soon and get back into painting. I kind of miss it.

Ice Mullein

Alright, another case of incorrect colours working out better than the real life version.... :D

Mystery Plant

Here is the unfurling bud of one of the mystery plants. Probably I planted this last year, but I haven't a clue what it is - although I'm starting to suspect that it is some kind of daisy flea bane.

The next round of lilies

This is one of 3 asian lillies I planted last year. This year they've grown back with reinforcements and the one type is finally flowering (there are about 5 open at this point). The other two plants are not far behind and I'm still waiting for the cream and suger lillies to open up although they may have another week to go.

2nd Echinacaea

Here is the second echinacaea flower of this summer - however, many more will follow shortly.

Right on the Button

I can't remember the name of this aster - I think its actually blanket flower.

Roses are wet, the violets are wet too - if you come outside, you'll be wet too

Well, unless you have a big umbrella

And down came the rain and wash the spider out

Well, I definately don't need to water today we got enough rain to make serious puddles... all clear for at least 2 or 3 days.

Feed them, and they will bloom

Its amazing what a single bit of feeding will do overnight to the apparent health of ones garden. My pansies and geraniums are looking less sprawling and several plants burst into flower today. There is a mystery plant near blooming and the first of the lilies from last year are just starting to open. On the concern list - is that something seems to be devouring the centers of the daisies and I haven't had any more of the yellow evening primrose yet.

Evening Primrose

A star in the garden

Mullein With Butterfly Antenae

Still my one of my favourite new plants this year.

Here is the ssame photo as the one two down with the right colours

Devine

I guess I'll be missing out on my favourite grapes this year (again) as they ripen in September - but still one of the coolest and long surviving members of the garden.

Rawng Colours

Umm.. these pansies actually are the usual purple and cream but Picassa doesn't quite know what to do with the raw file.

Suntwins

Growing happily despite my neglect

Down to 640 pixels

Another Columbine

Learning a new instrument

I haven't got it figured out yet, but I'm liking what I see so far!

Now you see it, now you don't

My first and possibly only strawberry is pictured above - however, it disappeared shortly after this picture was taken. I'm not sure who is to blame.. but, I suspect that it was either the rabbit or a squirrel. I guess I'll never know - and next time I see a strawberry I'm going to snap it up.. ready or not.

Geranium and Salvia

I just liked how this one turned out.

Another 2 hurdles made

Well, I've always hated the details of moving, but I'm actually fairly nearly done. At least the sealift order is in - and I have completed a large portion of 10 months of grocery shopping. I think I'm going to be eating a lot of diced tomatos and brown rice and canned soup. I guess we'll see how it pans out. I actually pared quite a bit down from my original order - so its mostly reasonable and if I go up for a second year, I may not need to order as much.

The moving folks came to meet today and assess my stuff. He guessed I was about 300 lbs over - so after scrambling all afternoon to pare off the fringes I came in about 300 lbs under the limit. I figure this is a good safety buffer given that I weighed stuff on a digital scale and subtracted my own weight. The movers actually come a few weeks from now, but in the meantime I should sort out what is going in my carry on and pick up any odds and ends that I'll need. So, aside from the final packing of my gear that is being shipped up, the only other north related things I need to do is fax in one more info sheet and then pack my bags to go. That of course leaves 1 little hurdle to a fun summer entitled "finishing my thesis". I'm still hoping to escape for a weekend to get in my dose of Algonquin Park or Ottawa. But we'll see.

In garden news... This is the first time I've actually gotten Campanula to flower... I've a few more plants planted, but they seem to be struggling. Tomorrow - if it doesn't rain tonight I will zip out and give my plants a long overdue feeding and spray some soap on holely looking leaves. I did catch a rabbit in the midst of the perrenial bed and the birds continue to dig everywhere, but otherwise things are taking care of themselves in my absense.

Night

J

Lost and Found Beauty

I stumbled on this looking for a picture of one of my field sites and just had to share (although it may have been posted here in the past). This is taken out west and I'd like to say it is a hike up top of one of the ski hills in the Banff area.... sigh... maybe next summer I'll make it out west.

Double Rainbow Delight

Here it is.. a real picture of the double rainbow last night..... very cool!

The Lazy Daisies Have Finally Arrived

After teasing me for weeks - 3 daisies finally opened yesterday. I've also noticed at least 2 more echinacaea which are starting to flower.

Roses in the Rain

Silhouettes against a Rainbow

Still guilty of tinkering with the saturation and shadows.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Well, I'm guilty of tuning this photo to get this awesome effect - but way cool. My dad actually gave me a call to let me know that there was a super cool rainbow outside... so me and my umbrella and me camera went to work. It was really sunny and raining quite hard at the same time.

Glowingly Pregnant

I should probably let my brother post this one - but here is his super awesome wife showing off her belly for documentation purpose

Little Sweaters

Here is one of the sweater sets that E's mom knit.

Its showering babies!

Here is a dragon from my SIL's baby shower. The last couple of years have resulted in many of my friends having new additions to their families - including both of my brothers. Robbie (you'll need to scroll down a bit perhaps) was born in April and "Morgan" (who will be names something other than Morgan) is due to arrive in the next 3 weeks. To celebrate, my SIL's mom hosted a lovely baby shower attended by friends and family and this inquistive and cat frightening Ikean Dragon checking out some sweet hand-knitted sweaters. I reclaimed my role, now that Gabe is far away, as event photographer and photodocumented everything in detail. So, there may be some more posts to come.

Pink Showy Evening Primose

Here is the cousin of the plant below. I just love the details on this flower. Nicely done nature :D

Yellow Showy Evening Primrose

This must have been one of the ones I planted last summer - and is actually the reason I darted outside to get some pictures as its the first day I've noticed it. Its quite a big flower probably 5 or 6 cm across, even though it looks small in the picture

Unintended Results

I've been waiting impatiently as the daisies tease me - threatening to open for weeks now. This one is really nearly there. However, I snapped the shot quickly and didn't even realize that I'd caught the bug also impatient for the flower to open..

Arrival of the echinacaea

Okay.. I'm sure there will be lots of pictures of these this summer. To the best of my knowledge I have at least 4 different types planted. This one, I believe, is a magnus variety (nice big purple flowers). I also have a white one and a bright red one and several plants which bear the smaller purple flowers. I've been waiting and waiting - so welcome echinacaea to the garden!

The First Echinacaea Flower

Symphony of Colour

Here is the tangled wonderful mess of my perenials.

Rambling Roses

I don't know anything about roses except that the rose hips can be high in vitamin C and that they can also be fussy. I think these aren't far off being wild roses, however they didn't flower at all last year and seem to be intent on making up for it this year. The ones around the side are actually more impressive, but the lighting didn't favour a decent picture.

Bifercated Yellow Lupine

This is the last Lupine to flower - having yellow flowers and kind of a genetic anomaly of a double flower head. I didn't have one that is yellow yet, so its fun that the last one was a unique colour.

Tie-Die Pansy

How cool are these!

Columbine Contrast

Here is another picture from the same plant that I've planted.

Attiwapiskat: Schoolless in the Sub-Arctic

Picture above is from Fighting for a School for Attawapiskat


There are three links that are maintained by members of the community:
Attawapiskat Needs a New School
Attawapiskat's Forgotten Children
Fighting for a School for Attawapiskat

All of these sites have similar contents - thoughtful and well written including a set of photos (easier to view in the first than the second) and a short movie at the second site and the third has photos that can be used by the public, the address for sending letters and a list of schools and organizations that have taken up this cause - its a pretty impressive list.

My take:

Having taught on the James Bay coast this hits pretty close to home. The short version - an Indian Affairs maintained fuel oil main ruptured in 1979 (yes this happened 29 years ago) dumping about 30,000 galleons of fuel into the sandy-silty-clay soil. Oil is hard to clean up. The teacher residences were also effected, but Health Canada ordered those closed and replaced . Contaminant vapours found during studies include xylene, benzene, toluene, and ethyl benzene. Students continued using the school until 2000 when concerned parents pulled their children and the local council voted to close the school. They shared the high school for a while until "temporary" portable classrooms were built. Although, promises to build a new school have been many times by various Indian Affairs ministers - there is still no funding for a new school 8 years later. (summarized from the article in the link)

On top of this resulting in pretty poor learning conditions for students - the failure to deal with the issue has also put the connected high school at risk. Even if the government felt that it was okay for students to go to a school made out of portables which have not stood up well to the rigors of the James Bay climate - failing to deal with the situation has resulted in the old school falling in disrepair (with the library room collapsing in 2005) - resulting to significant damage to the high school when the sprinkler system burst and flooded the high school. Why they haven't taken steps to at least protect the money invested in existing educational infrastructure is beyond me?

In the meantime, there are children who completed their entire elementary education in temporary buildings. What people from down south may not appreciate is that in remote communities school buildings are important multi-purpose buildings in the community - we hosted all kinds of fundraisers in the St. Andrew's gym. There were dances, bingo's, graduations, evening sports, weddings and even the community court days were held there. Every classroom had an outside bulletin board to share their special projects or artwork with the school community. If the students needed to go to the bathroom, gym class, the library, the office or anywhere else - they didn't need to take up educational time to put on coats, hats, mittens and boots. This isn't Toronto - its ruddy cold up there in the winter - often less than -20 C before the windchill - and even my grade 8's needed a few minutes to get ready to go outside. All in all, in a region where students struggle to find reasons to go to school, focus and succeed - I'm sure it really doesn't help to have your school made up of deteriorating portables. Schools should be inviting places where its easy to build community and that are comfortable, warm and safe.

Like Attawapiskat, Kashechewan is now also without a grade school. St. Andrew's (pictured above) was found to have toxic mould following a flood about 3 years ago. Since then, the students have been sharing the high school (St. Andrew's had over 400 pupils when I taught there and I think the high school had about 250). As a result, the school runs two days in one - the elementary students get the early part of the day and the high school students start in the afternoon and go to school much later than the average high school student. This has not had a positive effect on the number of graduates in the community. Next year they are hoping to at least have a set of portables, but who knows how long they will have to wait before a new elementary school is built (the vacant St. Andrew's was destroyed in a fire in the last few years). This means that there is one gym for a community of 1500-1900 people. One building to share for all the community events that might take place - and one can only speculate on how that would affect the community as a whole.

Oh - there are no easy answers to the problems facing communities in the north and many of them can only be found in the communities themselves, but for goodness sakes, one of the best things we can offer, as outsiders, is good school facilities and top rate educators, so that students will have every opportunity to reach their full potential and have the skills to succeed both inside and outside of the community. People complain about the number of folks in these communities that are living on welfare - a good school should be seen as a small investment with big payoffs especially in Attawapiskat where there is actually a good chance for people to get good jobs at the diamond mine should they have an important piece of paper - namely a high school diploma.

Anywho.. there is my rant. The folks in Attawapiskat have both an online petition and a letter writing campaign (directed at the federal Indian Affairs minister - Chuck Stahl (or "Stall" in this case) asking for funding to build a new school for their students.

Cheers,

Jennith

Perfect flowers

Haven't posted a columbine photo in a few days. At this point, this guy is winding down and its the yellow columbine that is putting on a show. However, only 1 out of the 6 I grew from last year have flowered (the pink and yellow one) and it turns out that I planted mixed coloured seed, so I'm waiting to find out what colour the other 5 are, assuming they flower this year.

Another shot of bilberry ice (spiderwort)

I was flipping through the rest of my pictures and even though this is very similar to the others - they are just wicked flowers. The purple one is just dripping in flowers every morning.

Peony Potential

So, quick morning update:

1. The digging in the garden is likely mostly due to robins hunting for worms. It has become a little better, but it is still annoying.
2. The slightest pinkish tint is showing in the very slowly unfurling echinecaea - so I think it is the magnus rather than the alba.
3. I need to get 2 peony rings for the plant pictured above and its cousin - because they are flopping over.
4. We've had lots of rain - which is good because I haven't needed to water in over a week - however, I'm starting to worry that I'm going to lose some plants to rot and there is little I can do to dry things out, save hoping it doesn't rain today - although at last check there was a 60% of showers this afternoon and this evening.
5. The daisies are getting very close - but they are still in the mostly closed state - look for pictures in the next week though.
6. The yellow asian lilies are still flowering - so they deserve marks for the longest lasting flowers of that bunch. I have 2 cream and sugar lilies that grew from bulbs planted this spring that have flowers formed but not yet opened and 3 asian lilies I planted last year in the central perenial bed that have grown back and then some - several of them have flower buds formed, nothing open, but they are ahead of the cream and sugar ones.
7. One of the thyme have started to flower and the pink rock rose is thinking about it.
8. The lawn still has a few bare patches, but its a million times better than last year, the garden actually looks nice except that there is still some tidy up to do and some trees to trim up.
9. The dianthus that survived from last year is flowering and enjoying the cool damp weather
10. I thinkthat my foxglove did actually reseed and there are some plants in last years pots and a few nearby. No sign of flowers yet, but I'm crossing my fingers. I also planted a dwarf foxglove in the back of the woodland garden and it does have flower buds.
11. One more of last year's geraniums (pelergoniums) has started to flower - its seems the light pink with dark pink marking ones have recovered from overwintering fastest (although one of them had the advantage of the best window in the house). 2 or 3 more plants have flower buds, so I'm waiting to see which colours survived so I can replace my favourites. I'm not sure that any will survive this winter without me to rescue them, but maybe a kindly soul will take one or two in. They are pretty low maintenance - give them a bit of light and water them when they start looking sad.
12. I reallyl need to get a photo of the roses - they've outdone themselves this year after there was not a single rose last year. They look very nice against the brick. I've improvised some support (since the trellises are probably about 15 years old and not in good shape) - Definately a nice touch of beauty.
13. I won't probably be getting much work done on the garden in the near future beyond watering and deadheading, but hopefully I'll have some new pictures soon as everything fills in.

Cheers,

Jennith

Jonah Amitnaaq Secondary School

I thought it was time for a non-gardening post. I've been throwing them up because they are fast and don't keep me from my thesis for more than a few moments. I'm giving myself about 5 minutes to get this one done - so I take no responsibility for my spelling or writing skills - this is a rapid fire news dump, not an essay.

Pictured above is my new workplace in Baker Lake - Jonah Amitnaaq Secondary School. Obviously, I haven't been up there, but I was graciously given permission by Curtis of the Northern Sights Blog to borrow his until I could take some of my own. There is even a floor plan online. I think the hardest thing is that I have so much to do, but I'm dying just to get ready and go. Anyone who has suggestions for good teaching resources for northern teachers - I'm all ears.

Not that there hasn't been a lot of tasks to do all ready. I've been tracking down all the paperwork I need to get sent in order to apply for my Nunavut teaching license. I've been trying to compile some lists of things to move. Moving up north is a pretty big deal - and you really have one shot to get it right - since once you are there it is extremely costly to replace the things you forgot - if you can even get your hands on them. I somehow survived in Kashechewan with 7 hangers. The biggest thing I forgot when I moved there was a telephone (I did manage to remember my answering machine). Fortunately, another teacher lent me one until my mom could mail me one. I do have to procure quite a few items, to replace the stuff I sold when I moved back from New Brunswick - so that will be fun or crazy or something. I think the next big job is to set up a staging area for moving and then starting the pile and the list. I think I have 3 weeks. But to add to the complication, I need to leave out the survival essentials to take with me on the plane because my belongings could get delayed for a few weeks after my arrival.

My other big job for June was to complete my sealift order. I know a bit about them from other folk - but I didn't get a chance to put an order in when I was in Kashewean because I didn't start until a few weeks into the school year. Thus, food was expensive and kind of limited in variety. But I did mail myself a lot of the basics. Unfortunately, sending stuff to myself via Canada Post is quite a bit more expensive than my boxes would have costed to ship to Kashechewan - so I'm glad that I've had a chance to make a sealift order. I'm sure I've made mistakes - that I'll wish that I didn't order 12 900g bags of brown rice or a case of nutella I'll also probably kick myself for forgetting stuff too. Luckily, I was able to do my order with the person I'll be sharing my appartment with - so that in a lot of cases we could split cases of stuff which will improve the variety for everyone. I'm set to put the order in by Wednesday, which gives us a few days to think about what we've put in and change our minds a few times. I did a fair bit of research into the process and finally went with the northern store. I'm not sure they are the cheapest (but I think they are pretty good) and I don't think they have the best variety and there was no way to get around having to buy stuff in whole sale quantities - however, they had their catalouge on the internet and were able to give me an exact price for both the item and the shipping (which is good since we are going in on the order together and have to sort out that sort of thing) and the shipping price gets my food from their shelf to Baker Lake without me having to make any arrangements. I figure the northern coop has been doing this a long time - and as an inexperienced sealift orderer - I figured that it was the safest bet. So... I'll maybe post up how good my grocery shopping went next summer - and let you know what my errors were.

So - now all I have to do is finish up writing my thesis and then finish editting it and then defend it while doing moving prep and a bit of unit planning and then maybe I can sleep on the plane.

So, last but not least because I have a bunch of little things.. here are a mass of updates.

1. David Usher has a new single out "Kill the Lights" - his album "Wake up and Say Goodbye" is due out on Sept. 9th, 2008 :D
2. In gardening news: the Lupins are getting their second wind, the petals are starting to unfurl on the daisies, and one echinacaea flower has started to grow. I have a few different types - its seems to be the largest - so it could be the magnus or it could be the alba - as the petals appear white so far. The first daylily (a yellow one) has also flowered.
3. In knitting news, there are only 7 inches left to knit on my shawl - which means I've knit an inch in the last 1.5 months - and most of that at my Gramma's last night. Once I'm up north I'm going to start my Philospher's Wool Sweater and probably a pair of trillium socks that match my new shawl. Until then I hope to finish up the shawl - and start my second crayon jaquard sock. I knit the first one entirely during my breaks working at the greenhouse. I miss the greenhouse - I can't even see a window from my desk.
4. Gas is at $1.34/L - so its a good thing that I've driven my car less than 2 km in the last week. I'm hoping to make a morning bike ride part of my routine - somehow.
5. My hair is finally long enough to tie back!
6. I have a strap and camera case for my new Camera and some generous donations to my camera fund (thanks folks for the awesome birthday gifts everyone), I'm not allowed to get the camera, until after my thesis is written and everything else I need is done - but hopefully by the time I get on that plane I'll have my equipment in order to take some awesome pictures to post here. Of course, I'll probably have to cut down the size and resoluation for the sake of my internet connection, but I'm pretty excited. Amusingly, I'm exactly double the age I was when I got my first real camera. My family tricked me by giving me a stuffed squirrel for my birthday (which I do still have and like muchly) and then surprised me with the camera at my grandparents. I still have the camera, but a spring in the shutter assembly gave out while I was at camp - so it has been retired. I'm sure I'll let you know when I get my first pictures with it.

Anywho, I've exceeded my 5 minutes - and I have a lot to do if I want to sleep in the next 2 weeks.... so this is it for posts with more than pictures of my garden - probably for at least that long - all though some times I get the itch to write when I cut my sleep back.....

Jenn

Mullin in the Middle

Here is a whole plant in place view of the really cool Mullin I posted a few pictures of the other day. In the background you can see a bit of the catmint and the fading clematis-leaved columbine and even the icelandic poppy. (spot of pink thats really blurry)

Vertigo

This almost makes me feel a bit dizzy, like looking down from a height.

Purple and White Lupine - up close

Here is the shot of its neighbour with bold purple and white flowers.

Up close and personal with Lupine

I hadn't realized until today, just how cool the individual lupine flowers are. They've got neat patterns in darker purple veins and several grade shades of purple all mixed in. I'll be really fun when they branch out. I've also planted 2 packages of lupine seeds in the back of the strawberry bed. The little seedlings are cute, and definately lupine with their many fingered leaves. I'll keep you posted to see if they grown much.

Yarrow

Well, the yarrow is really starting to flower out (well, one of the two) and I'm appreciating the fact that both the flowers and the folliage are different from most of its neighbours.

Yellow Columbine

I got this one from the super on sale table and its taken to producing lovely yellow flowers... so here is the columbine picture of the day. The others columbine still have flowers, but they are waning. Although, some of the wild ones haven't flowered yet. I guess I'll have to wait and see if they do.

Gaura

Here is abetter shot of the white Guara - its been flowering for the last week and a bit, but I'm still waiting for the pink one to start. I'm a bit disappoint, I was hoping for something more like fireweed. Still, I'll just keep looking and then plant some later. You really can't been some native plants.

Salvia and Bricknell's Geranium

Given that I really don't know that much yet - I got lucky with some colour combinations and I'd definately reccomend this Geranium to other folk. Its being flowering consistantly for the last month and the colour is stunning with just about anything.

Iceland Poppy

The iceland poppy has been putting on a nice show of pink and yellow flowers for the last week or so.

Another kind of Lamium looking sharp

Of all the ground cover I've planted, I think these ones have proved the nices with their light and interesting foliage and their bright flowers. The ajuga is spreading, but there aren't many flowers and the periwinkle is okay - but not really growing much and the bunch berries really haven't grown at all. But these ones, have really (especially in the last few days) made a lot of headway.

Lamina Enlarges

These lovely groundcover plants are gaining in size and slowly coming together to form a nice little patch of flowers.

Lily Beetle on Lunch

My little red lily-munching friend was relocated after his photo shoot, actually, he fell to the ground and will probably get back to eating my plant by later today, but I didn't feel too much like hunting for him after he made such a good model.

Fortunately, the lily beetles have done very little damage this year, so I'm keeping an eye on them, but I'm not super worried.

A Kind of Luppy View

Here is the other one that didn't work out yesterday

This is the one that didn't post yesterday

Showy Evening Primrose

Here is a pale and delicate flower gracing my deck while awaiting planting.

Today's Columbine Picture

Just Mullin Things Over

I fell in love with this plant because of its unusual flowers and long blooming season..... Its a Mullin (Jackie Hybrid if I'm remembering the right one) - so its wild cousin is that great big furry plant with yellow flowers that grows on gravelly bits of hot baked ground.

Lupine II

The one beside it is putting on a show in purple and white

Lush and Lovely Lupine

Here is one of the three I planted near the fence flowering in two shades of purple.

The Monkey Flower still shines

So yeah for the mimulus - its still splashing yellow into the main perrenial bed!

The lupine stalks at daybreak

Yeah - for the rare patches of sunlight in my shady and mosquito ridden backyard.

Pink Lupine

Here is the pink one - So far I have one pink, 2 white, and 4 purple. The colour of the last one remains a mystery, but I'm expecting it to be white also.

For the love of Lupine

These were on sale last week at Terra (where I work part time) and the New Brunswicker in me (I did live there 5 years, which is plenty long enough to get attached and grow a few roots) was thrilled every time one of these when through the check out line. For those of you not familiar with the Lupine in New Brunswick - then they are missing out and should visit NB in the early summer just to see them blooming wild along the highway in the southern parts of the province.

Columbine from above

Columbine Design

The autofocus on my camera was a bit unpredictable this morning... but it worked for this shot.

More Columbine

Grown from Seed - Wild Columbine

Acutally, I'm not 100 percent sure its the wild, wild colubine, but it looks much like it. This plant grew from seeds I planted last July - which survived a good deal of neglect, but came back in their little pots this spring much to my surprise and appreciation. I think I have a total of 12 columbing plants in my garden - which is more than the echineaea which number one 8. But I suspect they'll catch up by the end of the summer.

Snappy Dragons

These are just the funnest flowers ever... I apologize in advance for putting up as many snap dragon pictures as I will over the summer because they are just so cool.

Ostioperinum

No garrenties that I spelt that right... these guys were bought in early May and survived nearly a month in 4 inch pots before I planted them in a planter at the side of the house.

Whirling Butterfly Guara

Here is the closest thing I could find to fireweed - I'm still hoping to plant some later this summer - I'll just have to keep looking for it.

Yarrow

Here it is nearly ready to flower. I planted 2 of these last year and they were one of the first to put leaves up in the summer and its insane how big it is this year. They start flowering pastel colours and then fade to white.

Thrift

I don't know the story behind why this plant is called thrift. Perhaps it is the tiny plant with such an outsized bunch of flowers on a spindly stalk.

Seeing my Shadow

Walking the dog today I encountered a view of my shadow - where it appeared especially dark relative to nearby shadows. Two things popped into my head - one that my shadow looked perfectly happy by itself and 2 that I think this is going to be a good year - the later was confirmed by my horescope...

Pressure causes stress but can produce amazing results. Saturn's influence has led you to a brilliant result, though you may not yet be aware of it. Encouraging financial opportunities are in the offing. You are far more fortunate than you can yet see. This will turn out to be a magical and wonderful year.

How creepy is that! Well, I'm praying that I can pull of the amazing results without cutting out too many hours of sleep and Shoot! I really should have bought that lottery ticket. I had sincerely considered it, but I was feeling too tired to try and track down someone to take my order at the ticket desk... still, the draw isn't until Wednesday... so perhaps tomorrow.

Today has been a day of quiet pleasentness - an awesome last day at my all time to date favourite job, a few quick calls to folk I haven't talked to enough in the last few years, nevermind weeks, a nice visit with friends, a pleasent walk with the dog and now a wait for my parents to return so we can have cake....

In the garden, the catmint has burst into bloom along with the white whirling butterfly gaura, the poppy, the thrift, the yellow columbine, and the freshly planted lupine (so far there are 4 purple, 2 white, 1 pink and one mystery coloured one, that I suspect is white.) I've also added a few coleous, a fern leaf bleeding heart, a yellow viola, and a showy evening primrose to the list. Soon to flower - the yarrow, one of the asian lilies, one of the echinacea and a few other things slipping my mind. So I have a few things to pop into baskets and a fair bit of mulching, but they are going to occur slowly over time.

Cheers,

Jennith

He Be Dragon's

Watch your fingers around these guys.... rroarrrrrrrrrr!

Wild Columbine with the Orange Lillies

It wasn't quite this dark when I took the picture, but I made a vast effort to finish my planting tonight... so in went 2 hostas, 2 peonys, 8 Lupine and 2 pansies. Leaving 1 hosta, 1 iris, 2 brown eyed susan's, and some assorted annuals left to go. I'll have to take new pictures of the Lupine tomorrown, now that they are planted, because the ones I took tonight were blurry.

Stare deep into my irises

Nope.. still haven't gotten that glass of water yet.

Bearded Irises with out eyeballs

I apologize since I'm incredibly dehydrated and probably should do something about it before I blog any more sillyness.

A spray of Columbine

I'm sure everyone is sick of pictures of columbine, but I just love photographing it.

Watching for the signpost.

Gemini (May 21 — June 21)
A straightforward path will soon emerge to get you from here to the destination that matters the most. It may not be your ideal of routes, but it's the best one. And before long, there will be a very enticing branch in the road.

Here is my horescope according to the Toronto Star. I'm not superstitious, but these have been creepily uncanny for the last few months.

Right now my road is going straight up hill for the next 5 weeks as I pile on more tasks than are humanly possible. But I'm going to manage it all somehow. One of my favourite quotes is "When you reach the end of all you know, hope demands that you believe one of two things: that there will be ground to stand upon or you will grow wing's to fly" I believe I read it in one of Madeline L'Engle's books.

I'm not sure how I'm going to make it, but I'm determined to do it as gracefully as possible and be ready to turn the corner. Some days it would be nice if my life came with a map, but most days fate provides enough tools to get there and its kind of fun being surprised.

Anyways, I have some rugged hiking to do today. The photo (which might have been taken by Gabe, and most certainly was taken with his Camera) is highly appropriate on many levels. Surficially - we ended up in Tobermory by accident because my navigator refused to read a map or allow me to read a map. Subsequently we got lost (as much as one can on a road trip with no really fixed destination) and ended up snowed in in Tobermory. But lots of little things worked themselves out. We found a great place to stay and had a lovely dinner, we got to the park while the maintenance guy was in and he let us check out the display even though it was closed, and we got some really lovely pictures even if I didn't get to ski. On a deeper level, I found some signposts for the rest of my life.

So, Road - rocky and uphill as you are - get ready to be climbed because I am simply going to succeed by force of shear will if I have no other tools at my disposal. However - I won't complain if happen to grow wings or at least if you let me catch my breath at the top.

Aigh.

JP

Columbine collage

Well - here is the last post for today. These are the other columbine that I bought after it finished flowering last year. It turned out to be of the regular variety and a pale blue colour. I had some trouble with powdery mildew and the leaves of both my columbine, but they don't seem at all bothered about it this year.

Creeping Geranium

Here is a close cousin to the flower below. This one is a bit more ground hugging and bear white flowers, but has plenty of charms as well.

Johnson's Blue Geranium's

Now you might be thinking that these don't look at all like geranium's - but they are, and they ain't. Their genus is indeed Geranium - unlike the zonal geraniums that you are likely familiar with (don't worry there is still some room for them in the garden later), however, I do not believe that these are related to zonal or ivy leafed geraniums, which are from South African - where they grown all year long into shrubs. These are most closely related to bricknell's cranesbill (and are often called crane's bill geraniums.) Why are they great? They do just fine in the shade, flower for a long period, grow back bigger and better every year and are just plain pretty.

Nuff said.

This is the same one from yesterday, now happily planted

So, happily planted in its bed, the columbine is still looking great.

Yellow Lily

Here is the third colour to bloom (and there are 2 of them) - that leaves one mystery and one orange one that hasn't quite opened up yet.

Lily of the Valley or at least of my front yard

After nearly giving up hop on this critter - its gone into lily-of-the-valley mode and is now doing just fine, even if it is threatening the bleeding heart. I'll just have to keep an eye on them and maybe transplant if it gets too crowded. This was my patrol emblem when I was patrol leader for Girl Guides.