Good afternoon, Idylls! I have been away so long I won't even pretend to catch up on everything!

I did look at all of Marie's posts about Haiti. I was struck by how eager those children were to learn!

Woody you sound like you're loving the dog work. Why am I not surprised?? BTW would it be possible to get your receipe for dog cookies? We now have several canine buddies whoi I am sure would like a treat!

Norma, you and Joey look wonderful, as does your barn or house or whatever that nice building is!

Hi Kathy! Working in the garden already, lucky duck! You have inspired me to start spiffing up my much neglected house plants.

Yeona I feel for you. I am the youngest of my family and all of them have serious health issues. My last two cousins passed away in the last three months, so we are all thinking of ways to improve our health a little.

Hi Eden!

I have been doing a huge clean up and decluttering this fall and I am pleased with the results. I have also undertaken to help DD renovate her old house which surely needs some TLC. We painted her living room orange with lots of white trim, the attached dining room pale yellow with one red wall and also sots of white trim. Looks fantastic! She did a bedroom in dark grey and I will finish the trim there before we tackle the kitchen! What fun! I will never paint again without Frog tape!

Santa introduced me to the Dyson family so I have been vacuuming l;ike crazy. Works really IMO.

Has anybody heard from Chelone?

Cheers,

Julie

Yes, Chelone is busy with slipcovers and draperies. Are you surprised? ;)

So nice of you to catch us up Eden! Hard to believe, 7 years old!!! (The world seems crazed by American Girl. Maybe I should invest in the company?)

Norma - Joey's a nice looking boy - lots of power in that rump and chest...!

Eden - great to 'see' you! You sound like a fun grandma :-)

Julie - yes, the dogs are fun, especially now that we've been there often enough that they're starting to recognize us and relax more so their individual personalities show more clearly. Here's the dog cookie recipe for you:

Low Fat Dog Cookies

Pre-heat oven to 350 F

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1/4 cup stone ground cornmeal
1/4 cup large flake rolled oats
1 1/2 tsp. powdered chicken or beef soup base (or omit entirely and use chicken or beef broth instead of the water below, which is what I do!)

2 Tblsp. vegetable oil
2 egg whites (I use 4 Tblsp. of the egg white you buy in cartons...)
1/4 cup cooking molasses
1/4 cup skim milk
1/3 - 1/2 cup cold water (or undiluted chicken or beef broth)

In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. In a large measuring cup, whisk together liquid ingredients. Make a well in the dry ingredients and gradually stir in liquid ingredients until well combined. Divide dough into two balls to make it easier to work with. Knead each ball 2 minutes. (Ideally, do all this in a stand mixer with a dough hook!) Roll out into �" thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters or cut into rectangles (I find the easiest tool to use to cut the cookies is a pastry scraper thingy that has a wide, flat blade�) Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with greased foil (cookies do not spread so can be placed close together�.) Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes. Then shut off oven and leave cookies in the cooling oven overnight to make them dry and crunchy. For softer cookies, remove from oven when the 30 minutes are up. Store cookies at room temperature in a container with a tight fitting lid.

Glad to see Eden check in here, though we seem to visit daily on FB.

Julie, we painted DS's room last week..kind of a sagey green-he picked it out. I like the color, it's soothing and easy to match stuff.I am still on the fence with the red dining room. If winter never shows up here I expect I will defer any painting there til later in the year. This upcoming weekend needs to be all-out as there is rain the forecast at last for next week.

All for now...

Kathy in Napa

Good morning all! We had a blast of winter, finally, over the last few days. Freezing rain all day Thursday, heavy snow all day Friday, way below normal temps Saturday and Sunday. It seems to be moderating a bit now.

After suffering from garden withdrawl for a few days, I settled down and started rejuvenating my plants. Chiquita got trimmed and moved to a new window. Geraniums got cut back, African Violets and two Orchids got repotted.
When I checked on my Amaryliss, I found that many had rotted, put away too wet I guess. But had put out bulblets, so those got potted up and placed in the garden window too. Felt good to get that done! Today - hmmmm - seed catalogues??

Thanks for the recipe Woody. I will probably make these tonight for the pups and buddies. I find I do a lot of stuff in the house on weekends and evening due to the time-of-use program that Ontario Hydro has running. By scrupulously observing the lowest electricty rate time, we have cut our bill literally in half. Works for me!

Today's Julie Job will be ceiling fans.

Maybe even a rest with a good book....

Cheers,

Julie

Enjoyed a trip to our local market on Saturday where there is a new person who sells fresh mushrooms. YEAH! We've been enjoying them.
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Also found some local cheeses there too.

I finished packing 4 boxes for Haiti this morning that I sent to Boston for pick-up by DS. That's a relief! Now I need to work on collecting the Pen Pal letters from our school across the road.

Tonight is Book Club and we'll speak about "The Stone Angel" by Margaret Lawrence, a classic that I read long long ago. I didn't have time to re-read it, but watched the movie. The movie was a good story, just not as fabulous as the book. Hagar is the main character, and she's amazing.

Boy, is Julie right about the cold! It was -4 here and windy. BRRRRR! Rain tonight and tomorrow though. Crazy.

Must get back to work. Lots on my plate today.

'bug

Boy, some really fierce weather here the last few days. Last night around ten the wind and hail hit the back of our house so hard that we thought an animal was trying to get in....and ours were already in...Today, bright, sunny, cold and really icy.

Meant to make Woody's dog cookies last night but TCS convinced me that we would enjoy peanut butter cookies more. No school bus for two days so he was home all day. We have finally removed him from all medication - over the last year and a half we have tried five different ones. They really help for a couple of months and then the benefits disappear and the side effects kick in - no good. So having him home gave us the opportunity to see how he functions during the day, when he needs quiet time or activity and when he can work best. He is not happy that I make him do school related things on snow days. All this to say that I agreed with him and made the pb cookies.

When I worked full time I used to dream about retiring and sitting down in the evening with a glass of wine and just relaxing. Now however, with Ontario Hydro's time-of-use pricing, I do most things requiring a lot electricity in the evenings - things like baking, laundry, running the dishwasher, because that's when the price is lowest. It has paid off in that we have literally cut our bill in half, but sometimes I feel just like I'm working again, doing all this stuff on the weekend or at night. Gee whiz.

Cabin fever is setting in. I am getting antsy.

I will spend some quality time today reading seed catalogues and bulb cataloges and planning my orders. HMMMM. And this is only mid-January?

Cheers,

Julie

You are not alone Julie! I have the same schedule as you due to time-of-use pricing. Our clothes are only dirty on weekends or at night. Drying them at 6am is a pain.

We follow the time-of-use schedule pretty closely too. The dishwasher has a delay setting so there's no problem organizing that appliance. We have two washers and dryers - one in the basement and a stacking one in the master bathroom. So we can do two loads at once which speeds up the process a fair bit.

Still no snow here. It was pretty darn cold on Sunday (windchill -21C), then it warmed up for Monday and Tuesday - the high here was +12C yesterday. It's colder again today but not not significantly so (-4C). We might get an inch or so of snow in the next day or so, then it goes back to above-freezing terperatures! Crazy winter....

When we were walking the dogs last night, we noticed a beautiful visitor in the neighbourhood - see link below to "Randy's photo on
Flickr

Here is a link that might be useful: just visiting...?

Terrific shot Randy!!!

Nice shot indeed!

DD had a huge redtailed hawk in her urban backyard last week when I was there. Not quite as gorgeous as this eagle, but we were pretty excited anyway!

9 p.m.

Muffins in the oven, laundry in the dryer, might watch a movie tonioght. Very cold with lots of snow coming down horizontally and drifting across the laneway. I think we'll have to do some work outside tomorrow. Of course the ice chopper is in the shed which now has two feet of snow in front of the door. Such is life.

Cheers,

Julie

Cold and rainy here in Norcal today, we needed the rain so I�m not complaining and have tried to be productive while stuck in the house. I actually did some work on the garage this weekend-what a mess . Still a few roses to prune and it looks like it will be dry staring mid-week so I may be able to finish that up next weekend.

Also been doing some research for IU9 ..fun times !

Beautiful shot of the eagle Woody ! I have never had muck luck taking photos of birds,kudos to Randy !

All for now, waves to all�

Kathy in Napa

I have a ton of paperwork to do today for taxes, but wanted to try to upload a few pictures for Woody. Hope you all have a great day!
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Don't know why some are small and others are large.

Drema

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Drema - those are great! Have you always painted or is this a new hobby?

Re Randy's eagle photo... One of the most interesting things about it is how the final result looks in comparison to the original. The eagle was about 40-50' up in the pine tree; it was late afternoon so the light was fading fast. In the original picture the eagle is a small white spot in the dark tree. Randy used the Lightroom software to zoom in and crop the picture so the eagle was the main subject. At that point both the eagle and the tree looked sort of blue-green. Then he adjusted the color options so that the tree needles and trunk had their natural color, which also brought the eagle's color into focus. Then he sharpened it all. Amazing software! Knowing all that, if you look at the picture again you can see that the detail is not as fine as it would be on a true close-up of the eagle. Digital photography sure gives you more options than film does!

Wow, Drema, you're good!

A note of caution:

This morning my DD was broiling something in her oven and the silicone bakeware in the drawer beneath the oven caught fire! She was not using the bakeware, it was in the storage drawer beneath the oven where she was keeping it. Luckily for her (and for us), she was a vounteer fireman (fireperson?)for years and didn't panic. She keeps a good fire extinguisher in her kitchen but was able to put out the fire with some water. I have just tossed my silicone bakeware. If you like yours and want to keep it, you might want to think about storing it away from the oven....

What a start to the week!

Cheers,

Julie

Yikes Julie! I was thinking of buying some of that bakeware... cancel that idea!

Thanks Woody, and Julie. I am taking a little animal maintenance and shower break before I have to leave for work. I have always admired art, and I am no where near Deanne's talent, but it is good for me mentally. Especially in the winter time. I took art in high school and that is about it. I have gotten a few books out of the library for tips, but I have never been too good on taking direction, LOL. Anyway, that's my story. I have been getting orders for new pictures, so that gives me hope. I do think I am getting better as I practice. Back to work here.

Hope you have a good day, and wow Julie, thanks for the head's up. I have always wondered about silicone bakeware....now I know. Glad it went no farther than it did, and that she noticed it right away.

D.

We just returned from our weekly afternoon volunteer time at Dog Guides. That's always fun. Next week one of the trainers wants us to work with her assessing the behavior of some the dogs she's training. We're not sure yet what exactly she has in mind. My guess is that she's interested in seeing how comfortable - and well behaved! - they are around my walker. It must be difficult to get a good feel for how the dogs will be with a client since the dogs are going to be better behaved with the trainer than with a stranger, I'm sure :-) This week a batch of the Special Service Dogs were 'graduating' - their clients were there being trained to work with the dogs before they take them home. I'm not sure if we're allowed to take pictures, but Randy took a couple today with his phone of some of the dogs we were grooming. Poodles of various sizes and Black Labs are the most common breeds. These are two of the cuties from today:

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Labs are friendly and poodles are smart ! Both seem like good choices for this type of 'employment'.

Woody , I recently loaded a trial version of Lightroom on my laptop, I really like it. That is what Deanne uses as well.

back to awfice stuff !

Kathy in Napa

Hi everybody!

The news here is yet another freezing rain - winter storm warning for tonight and tomorrow. Our laneway and street are just like skating rinks. We live in a community of primarily older folks and absolutely nobody is venturing out right now. I bet all the neighbourhood dogs are going stir crazy! Dog walking is a big deal here; I know the names of nearly every dog - but not all the owners. So it's "Casey's person" or "Cody's owner" or "Bridie's family". My dogs are nuts anyway so not much change here.

Oh, one thing, maybe Woody can confirm: my two Bostons are now adult dogs, four years old, and can't stand the cold, road salt etc. so they don't get as much exercise in the winter as in the summer. They have recently decided to eat only one meal a day instead of the two I offer. They seem fine and are not losing weight, so I am surmising that they aren't growing now and don't need the energy that the two meals were providing. They do run around in our fenced yard several times a day in winter, and DH blows a route for them through the snow.

We have removed TCS from all medication as he was literally not eating at all and was having blood sugar issues. I can't justify starving the kid. We have tried almost everything for the hyperactivity and attention deficit and now are focussing on helping him cope. A change in home routines seem to be helping, and sure seems like a much happier kid. And he is eating, such as it is. He is supposed to be seeing his specialist who drives from Kingston to Perth once a month, but the last appointment was cancelled due to the bad weather and I bet tomorrows one will be too. Fine with me as I don't expect any great break - throughs in treatment anyway...or not ones we can live with right now. Good thing he's a smart kid.

Woody, I love poodles, and in fact thought about getting a standard one before the Bostons. Size was a factor.

I think I will get my seed and plant order together tomorrow - it will be that kind of day!

Cheers,

Julie

Julie - you could talk to your vet about it, but that seems reasonable to me. Misty goes through periods when she eats well and other times that she doesn't. As long as she's not losing - or gaining - too much weight, I don't worry too much. When she's not eating much, it sometimes helps to feed her three times a day - she seems to like smaller meals then. When there isn't another dog here, we leave her food bowl down so she can finish her breakfast - or whatever - at a later time. But she never does! She only wants to eat when we do and will ignore her kibble the rest of the day.

I was never actually too fond of poodles but I'm finding I like the Dog Guides poodles more than the other breeds. They have tons of character! Dog Guides do most of their own breeding and there is a wide range of sizes in the poodles there.

The radar images looked pretty threathening today as the storm came across the lake. But the lake is nowhere near as cold as it usually is by now (there isn't any ice at all on the rocks/breakwaters) so all the forecast snow turned to rain as it crossed the lake. It's +2C here so nothing has frozen and the temperature is actually supposed to rise to +3 overnight! This is the strangest winter!! The 5-day forecast has daytime temperatures hovering around 0 and lows in the -3/-4 range, with the coldest being -7 for Monday. The normal lows would be around -11/-12. This year is certainly getting off to a strange start.

TCS sounds like quite a complicated kid :-) But you sure seem to be handling him well. I hope some positive outcomes come along to reward all your efforts.

Julie TCS is lucky to have you! My nephew, who still is not doing well, with his ADHD and Seasonal Affective Disorder, sure could have used someone in his corner when he was young. He still hasn't settled into any kind of life and drifts from place to place, unable or unwilling (I think both) to earn enough money to pay rent, etc. When he drifts our way he works for us in our construction business, so at least we know he has a roof over head when here. With his problems, though, he can only work for 3 to 6 month stretches, then he drifts off again. He has never been able to stay on any treatment program for any length of time. They seem to hurt more than help him. It is difficult to witness, but we will always be here for him.

Hi all. As usual I'm working early, so I'm off to bed. Never enough hours in the day for everything that needs, or wants, doing.

Yeona

Happy Monday all!

Beautiful sunny day here, but cold. Lots of snow now, over the ice.

Very quiet weekend for us. TCS had a party to go to on Saturday so DH and I went out for lunch, a fairly rare treat for us. Did some shopping, all of the laundry, cleaning etc. So am relatively free today. Good time to finish those seed catalogues!! I also might start to think about that repainting the bedside table project that has been simmering at the back of my mind for 6 months or so. Just think about, mind you, I am not really ready to actually do it. Also dog's nails, and mine too, need attention. And the houseplants.

O.K. this is getting out of hand. I think I'll just go back to bed.

Cheers,

Julie

Lots of snow here, lots going on.

Our new computer doesn't seem to work well with our printer and this is very frustrating to all.

I finished my Book Club read this weekend, did the regular stuff (laundry, shopping, etc.) I also stitched up a sweater for Leo and got it off in the mail with books for Ivy and Skyler.

There's loads of drama - locally and also from Alberta and Haiti and it wears me down. But on the positive side, I keep up with my treadmill routine and have lost some weight since my return from Haiti.

Phoebe is doing just fine and the cats enjoy bringing us mice at 3am...
And so it goes. ;)

Remember this time of year?
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Ciao,
'bug

gb - Randy met an interesting dog in the park the other day. He described it as a giant-sized Phoebe! It turned out to be a Russian Terrier... (see link below)

The current issue of National Geographic magazine has a magnificent photo of a Tibetan Mastiff. That is the breed of dog that Lhasa Apsos (e.g. Misty) were bred to work in partnership with to guard the Tibetan monastaries. I can see Misty being happy with a big buddy like this guy!
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/wallpaper#/15-tibetan-mastiff-midas-670.jpg

Tomorrow is our Dog Guides day - no dogs there of the size of the ones above! :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Russian Terrier

Too big for me Woody...but the article shows that they are similar in many ways. Many Bouviers are 'work dogs' who pull carts. They were rescue dogs during the war and brought wounded soldiers back across the lines for help. That's when Bouviers were almost eliminated. But they did survive. Some went to South Africa. That's where Charlotte's Dad came from. The South African ones could not be AKC registered though, so people didn't often want them. (Perfect for me though!)

Interesting afternoon at Dog Guides today.... I was right - the trainer wanted to use me as a proxy for a client to assess how well her dogs in training would walk with me and the walker. So I spent two hours weaving through an obstacle course with a variety of dogs. The big no-nos are pulling, forging ahead, and trying to cross in front of the walker. Some dogs were perfect and some less so but, as I expected from our contact with the dogs so far, even the 'worst' dog was a piece-of-cake to walk with! Very impressive beasties! (They were all poodles of various sizes.) My legs are a bit tired though - it added considerably to my daily walking time :-)

Freezing rain. Snow day for schools. Issues with TCS. Dentist appointment at 11:00, no eating or drinking till later this afternoon. Power has now been off for an hour. Happy Wednesday.

Cheers,

Julie

Sounds pretty yucky Julie! Sorry!
Here it was warm (+2- +4C) and cloudy.
I did lots of photocopying and then went to town for laminating things and picking up a library book. Then I did my treadmill routine.
I hear you on TCS. Our DGS is having anger issues due to parent alienation. He's so immature that giving him facts is not yet appropriate. It kills me. The stuff he believes at face value...well, it's criminal.
On a happier note, he went swimming with the family on Saturday and managed to swim a length of the pool. He was AMAZED by his own energy and success. This is exactly what I was hoping the surgery would achieve.

I'm eager to begin yet another knitting project.
More photos are posted below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Haiti Blog

OH Crap! I just lost a longish post. I will try to recreate it later.

Have a good day! Norma

I enjoyed this rescue clip- and particularly the released whale's dance afterwards!

Here is a link that might be useful: rescue!

This was an awesome clip! TCS loved it too! Thanks Marie!

Cheers.
Julie

GB that video is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Sorry I don't get here much anymore. I find that the site is so slow to load that I get frustrated waiting for it. It's not my computer because I don't have the problem elsewhere.

The rain has started here today and is to last for a couple of days. We have had another nice stretch of warmer days. I was sitting on the front porch the other day Feb 1st, and spied a splotch of yellow across the yard. After a brief walat I discover lots of crocus in bloom. I also found Johnny Jump Up's (violas) and a big bud on a hellebore. There are still green leaves on my knockout roses and butterfly bushes even though we have had some really cold spells this winter they never lasted very long. I am apprenhensive about what this oddball winter will bring us later on. On the other hand it has given me opportunity to do more with Joey than I would normally have been able to do.

Woody I like hearing about your experiences at the dog center. I used to raise toy poodles. Our female had birthing problems so we only had a few litters. I wound up giving the female to a lady in a wheelchair. We had the male a long time. We raised Cocker Spaniels too. I was not crazy about having dogs that required so much grooming though. I preferred grooming the horses. So now I try to stick to shortcoated dogs that mostly just need a bath.

Julie your winter has been pretty bad hasn't it? I admire your ability to cope with TCS's problems. He is lucky to have you in his corner.

Bug It's good to hear Skylar's strength has improved. I miss seeing pictures of the little ones accomplishments. They are so cute.

Kathy, I imagine your garden is starting to come to life by now.

Mine is still messy from last fall. I'm leaving the leaves on mine to keep the weeds down and hopefully things won't try to peak through to soon. But I am tired of looking at all the dead things that need cut back and I'm hoping the voles aren't under there eating my hosta roots.

If you need a pick me up browse through last years summer pics. I did and all the green and pretty flower colors lifted my spirits for sure. Hard to believe it's all under there just waiting to come alive again.

I probably missed some of what I said before but Que sera sera.

Till later. Norma

Today was gloomy, but above freezing. My friend decided we should go seek beauty, so we went on a spontaneous jaunt to a nursery. We came back with seeds as well as cacti about to bloom. I'll have to add a photo once I pot them up. :)

The little guy I know with cancer just got this report from the Boston doctors, to support the response from his own doctors in Minnesota:
"Note: Diagnostic features of residual teratocarcinosarcoma are not identified."
So feel free break out some champagne tonight! (Of course on March 5th they start the scans all over again.)

And then we received this long fun note from DD about Ivy's first day at Waldorf "school".(once a week with Mommy)

It was great! The day started out with 15 minutes of playing outside. We then went inside, hung up our boots and stuff, and went to the bathroom. We were each expected to bring a piece of organic fruit.

Once inside, we put our fruit in a basket, and got in a circle on the rug. We sand a "Hello" song, and a couple other songs, and then the teacher acted out a story with some little props and dolls. The story was a fairy tale about mother earth, and Jack frost, and Old Man Winter. Ivy was enchanted. She'd never seen anything like it before. Then they sang a "wake up" song and opened all the curtains that house the toys (dolls, cars, tractors, animals, a kitchen, rocking horse, dress up, castle and knights, etc... It was time for the kids to find something to do. Ivy didn't have a clue because there were so many options and it was a new place. She went and got a wooden turtle that bobbed its head, and asked me to come over to the table and play with it with her. She was much more clingy than usual, but most was that she wanted to show off all the things she was playing with. She "made tortellini" a couple times and served me dinner. The teacher was great and let me know what was expected of me and what Ivy was expected to do throughout the class. Mostly, I was supposed to be "busy doing something useful", and Ivy was supposed to use her imagination and play. The teacher then showed the parents (all moms) what the "craft of the day" was. We started doing it, and the kids joined when they felt like it, and went and did something else when they got tired of it, and came back again at will. Ivy was constantly coming over wanting me to take part in her playing (which I though was great). The teacher seemed very mildly concerned that I was guiding her, but I felt that I was just a participant in her play. Furthermore, it was her first day, so she didn't know what was expected of her either!

We did that for probably about half an hour or more. After that, we put away all the toys and washed our hands. The "helper" (there was a teacher and helper), had cut up the fruit and put it on a platter, and they had made some tiny vegan muffins. We set the table, and all the kids sat down on a chair with their own place mat, bowl and cup. We sang a "grace type" song and lit a candle. Then everyone was served some fruit and a muffin or two, and some warm tea (herbal), and they all ate their snacks (Ivy was starving even though she had a big breakfast). It was very quiet with everyone munching. Then they sang a "thank you" song, and everyone cleared their cups and bowls to the sink, and washed their hands again.

After snack, we all gathered on the rug again, and sang several songs about building snowmen, watching snowflakes fall, tobogganing, marching and stomping through the snow, etc... acting through every one of them. Then we gathered together and sang a "Goodbye" song and it was time to leave.

We put our coats, hats, and mittens back on, and went outside, and Ivy wanted to play a little more on the slide and tire swing. She got too close to the swing and got whacked in the face & got a bloody mouth and nose. We cleaned her up, but she was more concerned about getting to go ON the swing than her bloody nose or mouth! We went back to the swing, (there were already two other kids on it), and I pushed them for about 5 minutes, she went down the slide again, and then I took her over to Day Home. As we left Ivy said (and waved) "Bye-Bye" to everyone who would listen about 10 million times. She told them, "Bye- Bye! See you soon! Be back soon!" completely un-prompted. She must have had a great time.

My overall impression was that it was AMAZING! I really like the teacher. She is German (her name is Gudrun), and she's very gentle, calm, and friendly. She was helpful, but not pushy when explaining things to me. Her "helper" is her daughter who is in her late teens/early 20s. Gudrun says that next week we will start to make a knitted dog with the kids. She had a wonderful knitted bunny that they had made in a previous class and I want the pattern.

As for my guilt over "no music class", I like this better than music class! Lots of singing and way more playing and acting out the songs.

Happy Friday to all.. a bad Idyller here too, and even a bad FB-er ! This weather we're having has thrown me into a tailspin..night after night of frosty temps..(I have lost several succulents that usually prevail over our winters) followed by daytime temps in the low to mid 60's.And the rain comes for a day and then goes away. Tomorrow I'm going to head down to UC Berkeley Botanic Garden to take photos of the Aloes--they are winter blooming in that zone (Berkeley is frost-free) so I will have some pics to share tomorrow.

Norma, I think our cold nights have kept the garden here in suspension..there is not much going on, though I see the daffodils barely poking up in my front yard.

Waves !

Kathy in Napa

Ivy's day sounded great. She will love it there I'm sure.

Kathy, I thought I had seen less of you on FB. Sorry about your succulents.

I just got back from walking along the creek where I have been cleaining out the briars and brush. It rained all night And it is so nice to be able to see the water flow .

Rumor has it that rain is on the way tomorrow.I continued a bit of garden clean up today-and pulled weeds too. There are way less of them this year because of the rain(less) situation.

I had a fun outing to UC Berkeley Botanic garden yesterday, and here are a few pics.The Aloes bloom in winter here; Berkeley is frost free, and though only a bit under an hour drive for me it is a zone transit. I can't grow these fabu Aloes. {{gwi:190792}}From Berkely Botanic Garden Feb 2012
{{gwi:190794}}From Berkely Botanic Garden Feb 2012
{{gwi:190795}}From Berkely Botanic Garden Feb 2012
{{gwi:190796}}From Berkely Botanic Garden Feb 2012

Kathy in Napa

While we have nothing here now to compare to Kathy's beautiful photos, we were very pleased to see this yesterday:
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An unusually mild winter for sure this year!!

Hello, and Happy Wednesday!

We have had a decidedly odd winter. Little snow, lots of rain, freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing....All of our roads, laneways and walks are covered with ice, making walking extremely hazardous. I really notice it here in this subdivision as most of the residents are retirees. Many of them go south for the winter so half the houses are empty. It is quite eerie to look out and not see a soul, and on really sunny days, like today, everything is blindingly shiny.

I enjoyed reading over the old thread that appeared today. I think that was "before my time", although I see many familiar names there, some that I don't see here now as many now prefer FB.

Waiting for my seeds to arrive in the mail. I usually manage to hold myself in check until March break, as otherwise my plants are too big by the time our frost is gone, usually by mid-May. I am wondering if this year we might have a longer season, as the winter has been so weird.

Pretty quiet here, athough we have been very occupied as TCS is having assessments done and DS has had an accident at work. DS is not terribly injured but is very uncomfortable right now, and of course, is unable to work. No work = no $, so he is stressed. We will assist if necessary.

I am still very occupied with painting the frou-frou trim in DD's house. It will take many many days to finish it, but it will look great when done. Due to her work schedule and her location over an hour away, I will be spending about three days each month until spring getting this done. She absolutely cannot paint the picky stuff - too impatient, too , well, sloppy kind of...Anyway, a project that I am enjoying.

Just touching base, off to address my to-do list for today.

I am so jealous of thos early flowers I see here!!

Cheers,

Julie

Julie - I hope your DS's injuries were minor and he recovers quickly! No $ is a problem :-) If it was an accident at work, does WSIB cover it re income? They can be a PITA to deal with - Barb had a fall last summer on a wet floor at the nursing home she works at and injured her back. She's had endless tests - MRIs and nerve studies etc. - which show she has definite physical damage and she has been going for physio therapy almost daily ever since. She's tried the graduated-retrurn-to-work on lighter duties but always encounters problems when the nursing home tries to get her to do physical stuff that she can no longer do without endangering both herself and the residents! So she's in a kind of limbo at the moment while they try to sort out some sort of retraining for her. It's all been not a fun process...

We had a very interesting afternoon at Dog Guides today. It is graduation day for this cohort of people getting their dogs. Randy noticed one lady who had facial paralysis similar to mine and that she had one of the HED (Hearing Ear Dogs) that we were familiar with. So he asked her if she had an acuostic neuroma. She said, no, she had NF2 - which is what I have. We've never actually met anyone else who had it! It's too bad she's going home tomorrow or we could have got to know her. We've exchanged e-mail addresses, so it'll be interesting to 'talk' to her that way. NF2 is an inherited condition and apparently it is very common in her family - she has two kids, both of whom have it, and it's been traced back through 4 or more generations in her family. The NIH in the US have apparently studied on her family.

Hmmmm.....hoping our Tassimo isn't on the recall list. How did we do without it? I like this and he likes that - we make our individual cups of whatever.....

Good thing I don't have a big bag of potting soil or starter mix. My seed order from Vesey's came today. I really must hold myself back and not plant until mid-March. How can carrot seeds be back ordered?? I was so smart this year: I drew a diagram of my gardens and gardens-to-be and wrote down what seeds/plants are going where. I usually have good intentions when I order and then forget where I meant to put something.

Took Tucker to his obedience class last night. He performed flawlessly to the sit-down-stand-stay commands but whined and yipped through the whole hour as he was just so happy to see other dogs. And his voice can really high pitched. I think he embarassed the other dogs. The instructor told me my dog was hilarious.

How interesting, Woody, to finally meet a co-sufferer. I wonder if she does as well as you do? You are amazing.

Something to add to your list of Things Not To Do: drop a glass bottle of nail polish on a white ceramic floor. I will say no more.

Absolutely beautiful sunny day here. I now must water in my greenhouse window almost every day as it gets almost direct sun. I have a lot of succulents in there, after seeing some beautiful displays when in Maine for IU 6. Also three cheery geraniums and four Amaryllises. DH and I were kind of thinking we could christen the wine deck this afternoon, but I think that's just a tad optimistic!

Cheers,

Julie

This is the closest we've come to wintery weather this year... We got ~ 4" of snow overnight and this morning. It's -12C with a windchill of -23C at the moment (10F/-9F windchill). Enough snow to keep me from joining in on walkies this morning but Randy braved the cold with the dogs:
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Really cold, but sunny and cheerful here.

We're cat-sitting, so are dealing with Phoebe and Kiara on one side of the house, and then our own 3 cats on the other side. Should last a few weeks like this. :)

I planted some digitalis seeds the other day Julie. They SAID to plant them in February, so I was very willing to oblige.

DH is busy repairing the "coupler" of our washing machine. He thinks he fixed the timer on the plant stand - we'll see tonight if it turns itself off.

DS has returned to Haiti via Boston, after a stay in Jamaica, meeting with other OLPC workers at schools.
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The kids always love playing with the camera option!
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I've been knitting and working on Haiti stuff, walking on the treadmill, got a haircut....all that stuff. Book Club again on Monday. (After the Falls)

Just talked to DSIL who is taking Ivy home from swimming. I miss those two!

Ciao,
'bug
PS: Thanks to Woody's reminder, we now use the delay button on our dishwasher. I wish I had them on our washer & dryer too!

I will join Kathy and try to keep up the States side of this group.
Wish I could grow the Aloes here Kathy. The ones I tried in containers always got bug damage and ruined their looks. Does CA not have a lot of insect damage?

Julie you are so organized. You will have seeds planted before you know it. Sorry to hear of DS's accident and money worries. To funny that you thought Tucker was embarassing the other dogs.

Woody I hope that meeting the other lady with the NF2 will give you some further insight about it. Although I imagine you have researched it throughly.
We have snow this morning too, but will probably only get an inch. I will be happy to see these temps in the teens go. I am anxious to get outdoors again, although I have twisted my back out and will have to take it slow for awhile.

GB the sun shine does make a huge difference in the way we feel doesn't it?

I plan to do more direct seeding of some flowers this year they usually catch up to the plants I buy anyway. The problem is I am not good about thinning them out like I should. I must make myself do better. Think I will go browse some sites and get pysched up maybe find something new.

Have a good day. Norma

Evenin all...damp here, but that's ok, I think we are at 30 percent of normal rainfall for the year. I took advantage of the dry days this past weekend and got all my grasses cut down, plus a few other perennials I had let stay around for winter interest. It is sliding into spring here-daffodil and tulip foliage is up, Clematis armandii is in bloom, and the roses are pushing out foliage.

Norma, can't grow most of the Aloes here, they aren't winter hardy in my zone.Half an hour drive south is a different matter. I find that some of the succulents I move indoors get mealybug over the winter, I do the q-tip clean up and might squirt a little safer soap on them.They seem to shake it off once they go outside for the summer.

Julie, dropping a bottle of nail polish on the floor is unlikely here, as I haven't owned any for years, lol.

Ok, off I go

Kathy in Napa

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Walating in the house today because it is snowing outside.
Thought I'd share my new cacti etc collection:
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It's pretty exciting to see the new leaves unfurl on the variegated Acanthus too:
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In the front hall, I noticed that there are THREE clivia buds that I haven't noticed before. They'll be fun to watch in the next few weeks.

And finally, the news is out that DD is expecting another little one in August. :)

Congratulations to Sarah!

Ditto! and Woo Hoo! I get to be #100!! Happy Valentine's day everybody!

Cheers,

Julie