Friday is Canada Day, so I thought I’d used this week’s Walkabout post to share what the town has done to mark the day. We just have a little downtown, but it’s still decorated.
All the light poles have a flag and a pretty basket of red petunias.
The Petunias went up well before the flags did, so it’s hard to say if the red was chosen specifically for Canada Day, but it looks nice either way. And they aren’t just on the poles.
Any planter box/garden space owned by the town is awash in red petunias.
Including the birdhouse planters on the bridge. They look so nice now with the flowers! Now I will be keeping tabs to see if they change it up every year.
Elsewhere, of course, private gardens are blooming all over town, but so are the wild flowers… or weeds, depending on your perspective.
One of my absolute favourites, is Field Bindweed. I know… gardeners everywhere are cringing in horror right now. And I understand. I’m constantly pulling it from my own gardens… but out in a field, away from my yard… oh it’s just heavenly. The flowers are small (about the size of a quarter), but when there are a lot of them…. they smell so good. It’s one of those scents that takes me right back to my childhood. My grandparents’ house to be exact.
That said, it is invasive, and troublesome. Which is a shame. Because I love walking through a field that looks like this…
That field had other treasures too.
Birdfoot Trefoil. I used to call this wild snapdragon, but now I know it’s proper name (there is a wild snap dragon, but it’s a little different).
And I used to call these Bachelor Buttons, but I know now they are Chicory. Both of the above flowers were a common sight in the fields I played in growing up.
As were these.
These grew all over the sides of the road, and Mom would stop the car and we would pick them to fill a vase at home. We called them Phlox, and they are similar, except Phlox have five petals and these have four. These are actually called Dames Rocket. They come in all shades of purple and pink and are part of the mustard family.
And these of course, a very common site along Ontario roadsides (and in gardens) are orange Day Lilies…
Lots of people also call them Tiger Lilies, though I call them Ditch Lilies. Because you ALWAYS see them growing in ditches. These ones were no exception.
it was hard to get a good pic, because they were growing well down the side of a steep ravine. I have had these at every house I’ve ever lived at. I dig bring a clump from the townhouse for this garden, but just one clump, because they will multiply no problem (and I can always rob a roadside ditch if I want more!)
And last we turn to the trees. Most of the trees in the downtown are nice purple Norway Maples. But a couple are Bass Woods. The tree at the front of the townhouse was a Bass Wood. While it was a very dirty tree that dropped hard, round seed pods that hurt your bare feet… it was so pretty when it was in bloom.
And it smelled soooooo good.
The two in town were absolutely alive with honey bee activity. There’s a large honey producer on the outskirts of town, so the honey bee population here is very high. And as you can see, it’s a good town in which to be a bee!
No Tiny Needle Tuesday today, as I was at Mom’s all weekend and I didn’t take the cross stitching with me. I don’t even have the second quilt to show you yet, because I’m still finishing the binding.
So… I have to make do, and give you…
Winnie!
As you know, she’s never happy when I show up for the weekend. It means she has a full weekend of staying on high alert, following me around, and making sure I’m not getting up to anything nefarious.
Because I was quilting, that meant she was down in the basement with me… closely observing every part of the process.
She is especially suspicious of the the sandwiching process, and has to make sure I’m not trying to hide anything in the fabric or batting…
During the actual quilting, she kept an eye on me from her perch in the window.
As you can see, she thought my presence was entirely suspect. She was not unhappy to see me pack up my stuff on Sunday and leave her to finally relax in a sunbeam.
With Dory patched up, I was finally able to make it to Mom’s an quilt away all weekend. I only had two tops to quilt, but they were both fairly big.
The first is the scrappy star quilt.
I did it as a leader/ender quilt and used up a l lot of my five inch square scraps in the process, which was exactly the point. The result is the kaleidoscope of colours and patterns you see above.
There are so many fabrics, it’s hard to show them all, but here’s a bit of a glimpse…
It finished up at about 72″ square, so it’s a good size – excellent as a nice, colourful bed topper.
I’ve been meaning to share picture of the inside of the sun porch* now that all the house plants are moved out there for their summer vacation. It took this panorma after I finally got them moved (it was a surprisingly big job!)
Okay… technically it’s not all the house plants either. There’s still a few inside. I have some in my upstairs bathroom, sewing studio and office, as well as a few in the kitchen. They all get great light where they are so there’s no real need to move them. And there are a handful – something like 17, maybe – that are still in the living room because there is just no more room for them on the porch.
And like the garden, this little area sometimes blooms too.
For most of my life, I always found African violets so hard to keep. That’s until I had a space at work with a north-facing window, and I discovered that all they really want is a lot of indirect light. Here they go under the grow lights in the winter, and spend the summer on the porch and they just thrive. I have two right now – two different shades of pink, but I will get more.
Most of my orchids are done blooming, and I brought them all out onto the porch so they could enjoy the humidity of summer.
One still has flowers though…
And oddly enough, it’s the one that was on clearance because it was half dead. The ones I paid full-price for had gorgeous flowers, that barely lasted…. I can only hope they rebloom again eventually.
And before I go, I’d like to share another little project Dave finished recently. Several weeks ago, we were at the little used store in Strathroy. I’d seen a little table/storage unit that I thought was just so cute. But I didn’t really need it, so I left it there. When we went back a few weeks later, it was still there. They tend to turn things over pretty fast, so I decided it was a sign and I needed to buy it… it was only $35.
I thought it would be perfect for the porch. I could store my plant supplies in it, and put a couple plants on top. Now personally, I liked it’s “rustic” charm, but Dave was not having it. He insisted on redoing it. Giving in was easier than listening to him complain about it, so I got some pretty blue paint (so it would look nice with my gnome quilt).
Now it’s tucked in the corner, and as I suspected, it’s a great place to store my soil, spare pots and such. And there’s ample room on top for several happy plants.
I’ve considered hand painting a few daisies or something on it, to bring back that country feel… or I might just get out the sandpaper when Dave’s not looking, and rough up a few edges.
*you may notice that the inside of the sun porch is still red oxide… it will be painted, but not until the fall when I move all the plants back in. I’m not moving them twice!
Finally, I feel like I’m making some progress on Dad’s Christmas sweater.
In this picture, it’s about halfway through the raglan increases. I’m actually further along, having added a few rounds since I took this, and I hope to be splitting for the arms and body soon.
Not much more to say on it, because it’s pretty mindless knitting. But that’s about all I can handle after these long, busy work days I’ve been having lately.
Almost every day, my walk ends at the post office. We don’t have door-to-door delivery here. Instead we have PO boxes, and I have to go there often, because they are small, and can get full fast, even if it’s just junk mail. Not to mention, Dave tends to get a lot of parcels (which I have to pick up next door at the post outlet/township office).
Anyway.. in the mailroom, there’s a large notice board, where people and businesses can post their notices.
Now, I’ve said before that the town is quite small – about 2,500 people. City folk often think there’s nothing going on in towns like these – but as I learned as a junior community journalist in my 20s… small town are happening! You would not believe how much goes on.
Here’s a look at what you can do in this small town:
A lot of stuff goes on for the kids. There’s baseball diamonds at the end of our street, and we can hear the games all summer long… but there’s also ball hockey too. (And regular hockey in the winter – we even have our own team – the Alvinston Killer Bees, which is part of the Western Ontario Super Hockey League.)
The legion ALWAYS has stuff going on. At least once a month they do a Meat Raffle.
And with the prices in the supermarket lately, I may have to check it out one of these days.
There’s also going to be music in the little park by the post office.
On the second Sunday of the month, all summer. I missed this month’s, but I may take a mosey over there next time.
Apparently one of the most exciting things to happen is the return of the Alvinston Pro Rodeo.
COVID shut it down for two years. We didn’t go, because I wasn’t even planning on being around last weekend, but the rodeo grounds are only a block and a half away, and it sounded like it was a pretty wild time. I told Dave next year, I’d like to check it out. I’ve never seen a rodeo!
This is also a car show that’s happening on July 3. I’m trying to convince Dave that we should take the Bonneville over. But it will depend on the weather… if it’s too hot, there’s no way I’ll move him away from the a/c.
I feel like I made much better progress with my stitching this weekend than I have in quite a while.
As you can see, I got most of the top of the sewing desk finished, and the blue fabric started.
I still prefer cotton floss, but I do have to admit this wool/acrylic stuff has some perks. First is that it doesn’t seem to tangle and knot like the cotton stuff can.
And second, I love the handy dandy way they provided all the colours needed on one piece of cardboard. They are numbered to match the chart, and it’s nice having them tidy, and all in on place, instead of on multiple bobbins.
Wandering Cat Studio 