The Great White Whale got to enjoy some later afternoon sunshine this week. A young friend of ours graduated Grade 8, and he requested to be delivered to the ceremony in style. And of course, do a little photo shoot with ol’ Bonne beforehand.

We arranged to meet up at a park in Petrolia (a town about 25 minutes west of us). It’s a lovely little park that I’ve been dying to explore. So Dave and I headed out a little early, and while he did a little last minute detailing (mostly cleaning bugs off her grill), I wandered around the park with my camera.

Bear Creek (a northern branch of the Sydenham – the river that runs through our town) runs through the park… and part of it widens into a large, lake-like area. I wandered along the edge, trying to get shots of the little blue dragonflies that were flitting about. No luck there. The flock of geese were a much easier target.

And I got a nice shot of a red-winged black bird.

These guys visit our yard, but they are quite hard to get pictures of. This guy was more compliant.

Naturally I took some pictures of the vegetation too.

Native (but aggressive) Hedge Bindweed, and Non-Native (ironically named) Canada Thistle. It’s a shame about that thistle… it’s actually considered invasive. If it wasn’t I’d be going back for some seed because it was so pretty.

I did surprise a beautiful garter snake, but it was very shy and very fast, so no pictures.

But it took Dave’s eagle eyes to spot the best discovery….

A Great Blue Heron!

He was on the other side of the lake and stood so still, I don’t know how Dave spotted him. Even when he pointed him out, I needed the help of the long lens to see him. Happily, I was able to get closer for a lovely close-up with the long lens.

I tried to move even closer… but he took offense and decided the other shore had better fishing anyway.

What a wonderful sight!

Sadly, I ran out of time to explore, as our young friend had arrived, and we were on a schedule! But you can bet I’ll be bugging Dave to return and spend more time there!

If I’m in my garden, and I’m not working on it, I generally have my camera in hand. I’ve been at this a long time, but the miniature world that calls my garden home.

There are, of course, the butterflies – above is a Peck’s Skipper and a Norther Crescent.

But there are also moths…

This little Bilobed Looper Moth is a new visitor to the garden. It’s “looper” name comes from the shape is caterpillar makes.

And this caterpillar should need no introduction…

Yup. We are officially on Monarch watch! And it’s not just the caterpillars enjoying a milkweed lunch…

These pretty red guys are Milkweed beetles. Like the caterpillars they live exclusively off the milkweed. It’s a good thing we’ve got lots of plants in this garden!

This next little visitor is a Long-legged fly. You probably wouldn’t notice them – they are VERY tiny – except for the fact that they are VERY shiny – like little robot flies!!

This shiny guy is bigger and a lot more noticable…

A Blue Mud Dauber wasp – like a large flying sapphire!

The Marguerites are one of those flowers that attract a variety of pollinators.

It’s a very busy spot in the garden (and look closely – that last photo isn’t a bumble bee…. but a fly… a Bee Fly!)

Here’s a fuzzy friend that really is a bee

A Leaf-cutter bee! According to google, this one is a male. The females do all the leaf-cutting. He just flies around, eats pollen, looks pretty and tries to attract a mate!

And if all those wee bugs aren’t your jam…

Here’s something cute and fuzzy to cleanse the palate!

It will come as no surprise, that… as I spent almost ALLLL weekend in the garden, that there was very little time for stitching…

But I managed a little bit on the bottom of the dress. You can get more of a sense where Mr Fox will be. And I did a little start on the cream underdress. It wasn’t much, but it really gives more of a sense of the shape. Funny how a few small stitches do that.

That said.. I *think* that I’m done all the big jobs for the garden, so I’m just on regular maintenance now (dead-heading, weeding, etc). That should mean a little more time in the evenings to put some more love into this.

I hope you’re not sick of the gardens…. because that’s all I have to show you!

The weather has been warm – but other than a few days at the start of the month, we haven’t had the gross, soul-sucking heat and humidity we usually have this time of year. It’s not going to last, so I’ve been spending every moment I can outside.

Because it’s not like there’s not work to do in the garden. In addition to staying on top of the weeds, I had all those seedlings to finally plant out. I won’t bore you with pictures…. I’ll wait until the get big and flower. But among the seedlings planted were cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, foxgloves, daucus, scabiosa and nasturium. And sunflowers…. lots and lots of sunflowers.

I posted this pic on facebook/instagram the other day…

And a friend asked how I keep them from digging in my garden and eating my plants. And I laughed and laughed! Because I don’t. As you know, they plant peanuts all through my gardens. And the digging was so bad this spring I had to cut off service at Squirrelington’s for a few weeks to give the small seeds a chance to sprout undisturbed.

And as for eating the plants… I find the squirrels really only eat one plant. And that’s sunflowers. They seem to LOVE sunflower seedlings. Once they get to a certain size, the squirrels leave them alone – but there’s a few weeks where the appear to be a tender delicacy for our little furry friends. My antidote to this is just to plant LOTS of sunflowers. They will probably eat 80%… but if I plant 100, that still leaves me 20. In truth, I didn’t plant 100…. I think I planted about 36. And there’s a pile scattered about the gardens from ones that re-seeded from last year. The ones that re-seeded are already pretty far along, so even if the squirrels eat all my seedlings (unlikely) we should still get a good show.

In addition to planting my seedlings, I also put down some more carrot seed. I got some more rainbow mix, as well as Imperator, which is the very first carrot I ever grew. And… I decided to give something else a try….

Carrot starters. I’ve never actually seen these before… probably because it’s not generally recommended to start carrots this way. They always say the best way is to direct sow. However, my favourite nursery had some, so I thought… what do I have to lose? I bought three little containers and they had enough carrots to fill 1/3 of one of the beds.

While there, I also got some pickling onions (to make some pickled onions for Dad), a jack-o-lantern pumpkin, some birdhouse gourds, a cantelope, and a honeydew melon. They were all $1 each, so why not?

And another cool find there…

A Ginkgo tree! And I got it for just $7. I’m keeping it in a pot, as we don’t plant to stay in this house forever (hoping to sell after renos are done in a few years). They are such pretty trees, and turn a lovely shade of yellow in the fall. I may have to up-size the pot every other year, but it should do fairly well that way for several years.

After all that work in the garden, it was time to make dinner. I had pork roast on, made some mashed potatoes and…

I sauteed up the last of the garden spinach with a little butter and garlic. We can’t eat every meal straight from the garden, but it’s nice to have a little something to add here and there!

… well not all of it.

The hotter weather has made the spinach bolt. So I picked the lot. It can still be used for cooking. So I gave a big try to a friend. I have a large bag in the fridge for Dave and I. And we all know, once cooked down, that large bag is probably just enough for the two of us for one meal.

Even the stems and flowers didn’t go to waste – a neighbour raises guinea pigs, so the went home with her as a treat for the piggies.

The pulled spinach also gives way for more light to get to my cucumber sprouts

They should really start taking off now.

And while the spinach bolted, the lettuce is still growing strong

I finally cracked the code on growing lettuce I think! I’m going to have to start giving some of this away too!

Sadly, my radishes have started to bolt as well

So they will get pulled. I don’t think the piggies will want them though.

Still, I’m not sad – they were just something to grow in that space until it was time for the zuchini

Which has sprouted nicely and is quickly putting on leaves!

Over in the carrot beds, things are not looking quite as good.

Both beds have very sparse germination. I got some more seeds to plant. I NEED carrots!!!!

We are more than half-way through June, and (most) of the garden is absolutely thriving.

More roses are blooming

Clockwise from top left: Bolero, Mellow Yellow, White Lightnin’, Koko Loko, Navy Lady, Good as Gold.

And Lily season is starting

Both the true lilies and the day lilies. So far just yellow ones, but all the lilies are looking great this year. And of course, I added several new ones!

Yellow is a popular colour in this garden…. especially among the Tickseed (Coreopsis)

I have some red and pink ones, but the yellow ones are definitely the most robust

And can we talk about my poppies? I think we can definitely call my experiment of sowing them in February was a definite success!

So far, the California ones are coming up in just two colours – pale yellow and bright yellow.

The Corn Poppies have a little more range

They are also bigger. I will definitely be collecting seeds to spread in the winter again!

From corn to cone… flowers!

You all know I have many, many types of coneflowers. They bloom right to the frost so they are a great garden stable.

In the garden I have two types of primrose

The pink is an evening primrose, and until it bloomed this year, I’d completely forgottten I had it (I bought it on clearance last year), and sundrops, which are a day blooming primrose. The Sundrops are a much more robust flower, but I hope the pink primrose is able to get established and spread around a little more – it’s very pretty. (Plus primroses are great for moths who mostly fly at night when most flowers are closed up)

And last… can you believe the pansies in my front porch boxes??

I really only stuck them in there to bridge the cooler days of spring – but they’ve absolutely thrived! I thought they’d get cooked as soon as we got hot sticky weather, but so far… they are handling it just fine. If they are like this for the rest of the summer, pansies may be my go to from now on!

What’s thriving in your garden

Dave was over at the neighbour’s the other day, helping out with a broken lawn tractor, and he came home with some presents for me.

In addition to this group, there was this larger totem style cat..

A friend of the neighbor’s passed away a little while ago. These cats were in their garden, and the neighbour hoped they could find a new home in mine.

They all need new paint jobs if they are going to weather the outdoors. Dave has already given them a good sanding and filled some crack. Now it’s up to me to paint them.

I think this one needs to be painted like Rupert…

…don’t you?

I was hoping to have at least one finished sock to show you, but I haven’t knit a stitch this week. In fact, it’s not much farther along than when you saw it last week.

So instead, you get to see what little bit I managed to accomplish in the garden over the weekend. Saturday morning, Dave and I were up early to drop off some waste oil at a Hazardous Waste Drop in Sarnia. When we got home, it was just starting to get hot, so before it did, I wanted to re-mulch the pathways around the veg beds. Mulch breaks down over time, and the paths were in a sorry state

While I would love to do them over in stone like the catio paths. That’s not in the budget right now (nor do I want to sling rocks again any time soon) as the paths are about double the square footage of the catio. So mulch it is, for now.

15 bags were spread out, nice and thick (and inspected by Furby afterward). I need a few more bags for the back in Willow Grove, and on the side where I have all the pots.

I have landscape fabric underneath all the paths, but it’s not strong enough to stop the Milkweed from popping up through it.

Naturally I mulched around them, because I love how they bring the monarch to the yard. There are several others coming up behind the peas.

By the time I finished, the sun was high and the temps were hot. I went inside, washed up, and laid down for a “short” nap. And… I woke up at dinner time. My day gone! Dave and I went out to grab dinner and run a few errands.

Sunday, they were calling for rain, but when I woke up it hadn’t moved in yet. So I decided to get out into the garden right away and get as much done as I could before the weather hit. The front yard was in desperate need of weeding, so that’s where I started. I got about half of it done before the skies opened up. I also gave ‘Cousin It’ a hair cut

It’s a weeping pussywillow, and those branches will grow right across the pathways if I let them. Cousin It will probably need another haircut before summer is out.

Next on the to-do list is weeding the Catio.

Lemmy is ready to assist!

By mid-spring, it seemed like we were finally starting to make some progress between Furby and the rest of the boys. There were still scuffles… but they were much fewer, and shorter for the most part.

He was content to come in around 10 or 11 each night, and stay in until morning.

But then the weather warmed up.

Now he’ll come in a night… but he doesn’t want to stay in. He howls, he cries, and he starts fights with the boys. So… I’ve had to give in and let him stay out all night. I’ve checked the cameras in the morning, and he mostly does circles around the house all night. Patrolling his territory, I suppose.

And, unless it’s raining, he really only comes in to eat or occasionally check on us and get some attention.

He’s just determined to be an outside cat.

Even when it’s sweltering hot…

I’m pretty sure the neighbours are going to think I’m neglecting him.

He’s just happiest outside. But he loves it when we are outside too.

If I’m in the garden, he’s never far away.

Indoor cat he’ll never be, but I do love having him as a friend in the yard!

Stitching did happen this weekend – though not a lot. I ripped back the light purple I wasn’t happy with and did it in a slightly darker shade. I was much happier with it, so I continued on and did as much of the ribbon as I could without moving the hoop.

I’ve got some work to do at the front of her dress and then the hoop will be moved. Maybe after this weekend.