My fluffy handsome overseer was firmly in place over the weekend.

That means I made some very good progress on the stitching.

We’ve got all our crows, a couple of mice and the fantastic boots of two witches.

Now I’m off to Mom’s this weekend, so there will be no stitching, and no Tiny Needle Tuesday next week. But I’ll be back at it for the first weekend in October!

Dave’s been a little on the grumpy side lately, and our regular thrifting trips didn’t seem to be lifting his spirits. I needed something a little more drastic.

So Saturday morning, first thing, I told him to get dress – we were going on an adventure! And we headed to one of our favourite places!

Colasanti’s Tropical Gardens. Nothing like a petting zoo with some goats to cheer a guy up!

Just look at that smile!

Of course, it’s not just the goats he loves – but the parrots too.

This is Blue and Scarlet – and I think they liked Dave as much as he liked them. He had them both right over to him in seconds. Long time readers may recall that Dave had a small parrot through his teens/twenties named Jack.

I took the fancy camera this time to get some really good pics but it’s tricky with the lighting and cages. I did get these awesome ones of Blue though. Just look at that beak!

Last year when we went, they had two Lemurs. I assume they still do. But one must have been off sleeping somewhere and the one that was out wasn’t feeling super social. This is the best pic I got. Oh well – Lemurs need time off too.

They had some beautiful fancy chickens.

And an army of odd-looking guinea fowl.

The llamas were feeling especially chill. That one on the left was having llama dreams… his feet kicking while he slept.

They seemed to have less animals than last year – but they did still have my favourite lizard

I do love a Bearded Dragon and this guy was a very handsome specimen.

After our time in the petting zoo, we headed in and checked out the arcade. Dave somehow talked me into playing a first-person shooter zombie game (definitely not my favourite type of game)…. and I managed to live a few minutes longer than he did, which was pretty funny.

And of course, before we left, I picked up a few new plant babies… but I’ll share those another day!

It was a pretty dry summer. And the first few weeks of September have seen barely a drop of rain. As such, the gardens aren’t looking quite as vibrant and lush as they could be. The coneflowers – one of the main stars of the late season, are usually still going strong. But their colour is fading fast and many are turning into seed heads. Last weekend I did a bunch of deadheading, hoping to get a bit of a second flush, but we’ll see.

The Sunflowers are all doing pretty well still. And the Vanilla Icecream Sunflowers have been a HUGE hit with the goldfinches. I will definitely plant them again.

The birds even paid us back by planting a few of their own. These ones are along the back fence where I lost all my sunflower seedlings to the squirrels.

The Japanese Beetles are still kicking around, but there are definitely fewer of them. Good As Gold has taken the opportunity to shine again.

The lack of rain was hard on the daylilies. They can survive without lots of water, but they certainly don’t thrive. But I’ve got a couple blooming here and there again. Sadly, I can’t remember the name of this one but it’s a lovely pale buttery shade.

The driveway walk garden doesn’t get a tonne of sun, but that also means it hold the moisture better. And as you can see – these multi-coloured Susans are thriving there.

And the native Sneezeweed is in full bloom. It’s a little floppy this year – despite a Chelsea chop – but covered in flowers.

They say rain is coming (possibly today). I hope they are right.

Just realized I forgot to schedule a post for today!

We’ll be back tomorrow with a proper post!

Pure Beauty. Pure Burton.

Our temps shot up up again so the butterflies have been sticking around.

I suspect, warm weather or not, I think the Monarchs will be gone soon. But for now, they are filling up on the abundance of nectar in the yard.

There have been a few Red Admirals flitting about.

Like the Monarch, they migrate south – though not all the way to Mexico.

I’ve seen a few of these Checkered Skippers, but this is the first one I’ve captured this year.

And speaking of first time captures…

I give you the Mourning Cloak butterfly!

It’s a big one! Around the size of the monarch. And just look at that colour – especially those bright blue spots! Beautiful!

But the leaves are already changing, the warm weather won’t last forever. So we’ll enjoyed our beautiful visitors for as long as we can!

Sunday has come and gone and I have a quilt top to show for it!

Lemmy and I got started bright and early in the morning.

And by dinner time, Burton and I had a finished top, complete with three borders.

I’m very pleased with this one. Especially considering it came together pretty quickly.

I used almost all of the layer cake – just six squares were leftover. That green butterfly border was from the layer cake too. It didn’t work with the layout for the main blocks, but it was too pretty not to use. So I sliced it up and had just enough for a skinny border.

The stash yielded up this the most beautiful butterfly flannel for the back (seriously – could it be more perfect?) and I had just enough of that dark green for binding. And when I say just enough, I mean it. There was barely a sliver left when it was cut up. Sometimes, things just come together perfectly!

Now I have four tops, and a date set with Mom to get them quilted! Stay tuned!

Stitching hit a few hiccups this weekend.

Hiccup #1

Hiccup #2

Despite their dubious assistance…

I feel like I made decent progress. I was able to finish up the spider webs on the numbers, add in the orange bits, and finish up the section frame. And on top of that, I got a crow, a mouse and one witch foot done in the next section. This next section is the biggest/most complicated, so progress is probably going to slow a bit. That’s okay – I’m still loving it!

On the weekend, I was stitching on the porch, when I noticed there seemed to be heck of a lot of hummingbird activity in the yard. So I set down the needle and picked up the camera.

In actuality, it was only two hummingbirds. Both females. But they did NOT like each other. Hummingbirds are very territorial. I don’t know which one claims my yard, but there was a lot of scrapping going on. It was like a miniature warplane dogfight, occasionally punctuated by sword fights (they sure do put those long beaks to good use!)

Throughout it all, I was able to get some of the best pics of the year.

They are such fascinating little creatures.

I don’t think I will ever tire of taking picture of them.

I did manage to get a shot of the two combatants together, though it’s not quite in focus.

They just move too darn fast!

Our temps have shot up, so they might stick around for another week or two. But soon enough, the yard will be void of their antics. As least until next summer.

It’s the middle of September, but we’re still eating well from the garden.

We definitely have not got as many cucumbers as last year. But that’s ok – we had to give many of them away last year, so it’s not like we are going without this year.

Last year we were overrun with cucamelons, but this year I wonder if we’ll get many. There’s lots of flowers, but this is the biggest fruit so far.

Last year we were overrun with tomatoes. This year, I’d say it’s just about right. And those red ones on the right… that was a plant that seeded from last years. I dug it up and put it in a pot in late July. So it’s really just bonus fruit!

Thank you to Delighted Hands for the tip on when to pick peppers! These will be coming in soon! I think at least one may end up on a homemade pizza!

We’ve got all kinds of neat gourds and just two small white baby pumpkins. They will be nice for a fall display next month.

And… here’s a fun story. I planted two types of parsley – a plain parsley, and a fancy curly parsley. I planted them solely for the swallowtails, though I have snitched some of the plain parsley for cooking a couple times. Anyway, I explaining this to a neighbour the other day, noting that while I had caterpillars in the carrots, I didn’t see ANY in the parsley. She breeds guinea pigs, and said if I was looking for a home for the parsley (which had gone crazy) the pigs would be quite happy to take it off my hands!

A day or two later, she stopped by and we started cutting and bagging the curly parsley! And would you believe… we found no less than TWENTY black swallowtail caterpillars hiding in there!

We transferred them over to the carrots. There’s still half a bed full, so there’s more than enough there for them to eat (and plenty of carrots for us to harvest too!)

And last…

We’re still enjoying berries, and there’s still three melons left on the vine! There’s still plenty of summer to enjoy in mid-September!