For years, I’ve been trying to get at least one of the Poinsettias I’ve bought at Christmas through the year. Some have lasted longer than others, but they’ve all died off for one reason or another – too much sun, not enough sun, too much water, not enough water…

But this year… this year I finally cracked the code!

I managed to get them through winter by putting them in a north facing window and letting them dry out just a little before rewatering. Then, when it was warm enough outside, I moved them to the woodland garden. Unlike the orchids, they didn’t get toasted by the late afternoon sun. I left it to nature to keep them watered… and well just look at them now.

They don’t look perfectly shaped like the ones at the grocery store, but they do look healthy and happy.

Now the real question… will they get enough light in the house to colour up?

Both are showing just a bit of colour. I’m hopeful that they will continue and by Christmas, look like this again….

I’ll keep you updated!!!

But in other news… about those orchids. I was lamenting that not one had a bloom stem after their vacation outside all summer.

But I was watering them the other day and look….

That, my friends… is the very beginning of what will become a long tall spike covered in flowers. It’s only one out of something like a dozen orchids…. but I’ll take it!

I’ll keep you updated on this too – but it won’t be often – orchids are very slow growers so I don’t expect to see actual blooms before the end of the year.

What I will see bloom any day now is this…

That’s the Passion Flower I have in a hanging pot. I find they do quite well indoors over winter as long as you can give them enough light and keep them from drying out. This one is hanging in an east-facing window. It has lost a few leaves, but it’s also put on this bud. In fact, it’s put on several buds.

It’s covered in them! The blooms only last as day, but they are so pretty. It’s a joy to see them unfurl.

Anything in bloom in your house?

It was confirmed on my visit to Mom’s that Princess Winnie still hates me.
And is still one of the softest, prettiest cats living.
I think she exists just to torment me.

(Mom thanks you for all your kind words about Mr. Tibbs)

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago, but I wanted to share a fun little nature fact with you.

Did you know that Jays, just like squirrels, stash food for the winter? They will create little caches of nuts and seeds to help get them through the lean months.

It’s very unusual to see the Jays eating the peanuts at my feeder. They almost always fly off with them, presumably to some hidden location.

Except for this guy…

I watched him fly down to the lawn by the woodland garden with a peanut in his mouth.

He then hopped over to the edge of the garden…

And he tucked that peanut under a pile of leaves.

It’s the only one he did it with, so I’m guessing he’s got another, better hidden stash. That or he’s really just new to this.

Because I’m afraid that stashed peanut didn’t stay hidden long…

In this game, you’ve got to be sneaky… because someone is always watching from on high.

This Wednesday brings with it some sad news. Yesterday Mom had to say goodbye to her ebony companion, Mr. Tibbs. AKA Emperor Tiberius Felinicus. AKA Tibbi. AKA Mr. Bones.

And you’ll note by the years listed in the title, he lived a good long life – 21 years and bit to be exact. I was still living at home when he joined the household. In fact, he was supposed to be my cat. I had just lost my pal (Kobiashi Thunderdaemon Satancat), and mom went to the pet store and brought home the tiniest little slip of a black kitten with a white patch on his chest.

And while Mr. Tibbs and I got along just fine, it was soon pretty clear that he’d chosen Mom as his person not me. So when I moved out a few years later, he stayed right where he belonged.

He was a very social cat, always right in the middle of whatever we were doing. And when I say the middle.. I mean it….

He was half Siamese, so when he wanted your attention, there was no ignoring him.

And while he lived a very long, happy, spoiled life. It doesn’t lessen the pain of saying goodbye.

So long, good Sir. You will be forever missed.

As I mentioned yesterday – I headed off to Mom’s for the weekend. The plan was in the works before the furnace stopped working so I wasn’t just trying to avoid a potentially cold house.

I had two quilts to quilt, but I only managed to get one done (the story of my life lately) and that one is Bee a Star

As you may recall, this one was created from the blocks provided in the second half of the Moda Blockheads 5 sew along. (The first half resulted in this quilt.). Like the first half, I kept this layout simple, this time opting for some cornerstars with fussy cut bees.

Of course this one has all kinds of wonderful bee details throughout the blocks

The backing fabric is a lovely yellow paisley that just matched so perfectly.

I have a small chunk left so no doubt it will show up in some scrap quilts at some point.

This one is destined for the shop, but sadly, not just yet. You may or may not know, but Canada Post is currently on strike. Shipping by courier is exorbitant unless you’re a bigger business that can get a decent volume discount, so we’ve put the shop into vacation mode until the strike is over.

Hopefully, the two sides will come together soon and we can get back in business.

I did not get the second Mercury sock done by the end of November. Not even close.

That’s all I’ve gotten done on the second sock. Last week was a crazy week, and it culminated with our furnace crapping out on us.

We were already in the works (ie had just signed the paperwork) for a new one, but it wasn’t set to be installed for a couple weeks. We are taking advantage of a government program for “greening” up our home, but it means undergoing an energy audit and jumping through a bunch of hoops for approval.

When we called the installation company to let them know we were without heat, they said they could bump up installation, but it would still have to be after the audit.

The audit is tomorrow morning. Thankfully, we’ve got a couple infrared space heaters, and they’ve kept the house quite comfortable throughout the weekend. (Though I took off to Mom’s to do some quilting – more on that tomorrow).

So the furnace will be installed Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. Maybe then life will slow down just a tiny bit.

I’ve got some more action shots from the feeder – this time with the squirrels.

If the blue jays are hard to capture in action – the squirrels are even hard. Those little guys can boogie. They don’t walk anywhere, but instead leap, leap, leap across the yard.

There were a lot of throw away shots for the few decent ones I managed to get.

Getting them travelling to the feeder was quite the challenge.

Once they get there, they slow down a little, but not much.

And once they’ve got a peanut – they don’t stick around long.

Of course, you can’t blame them when this is lurking about. Now Lemmy can’t get to them, but there are plenty of neighbourhood cats that can, so it’s good that they are wary.

They do take a little time to rest when they are safely up on the fence.

I personally love it when they hunch on top of the fence posts. Like little furry gargoyles.

I realized the other day, that I never told you guys about the results of my summer orchid experiment. You may recall, that at the start of the garden season, I said I was going to put my orchid collection out in the Woodland garden for the summer. We have very humid summers here, so I thought they would LOVE it.

Well… they didn’t. The orchid lovers out there will know that orchids can’t take any direct sun. I thought the cover of the maple tree would be enough to keep them safe. But it turns out, that the woodland garden got a lot more sun in the late afternoon than I originally thought.

I thankfully noticed before all of their leaves got burned to a crisp, but not one orchid got out without some serious sunburn on one or more leaves.

So I gathered them all up, and brought them back in the house for a little surgery (i.e. cutting off the burned leaves). Then I put them back out, but this time in the protection of the sun porch. They’d still get all the heat and humidity, but with out the chance of frying in the sun.

My hope was that at least one or two would put up a bloom stem. I have gotten orchids to rebloom, but only sporadically. I have a couple that have never rebloomed.

And while the all recovered from the sun incident, and put out lots of new roots (probably soaking up all that humidity) not one got a bloom stem.

They are all back in for the winter, have been cleaned and given a good feed, and most are in a north facing window (I’ve had the best luck with north and east facing windows when it comes to orchids). Maybe we’ll have some luck this winter.

But that’s not to say I don’t have any orchid blooms at the moment.

The bright yellow one I got on our adventure to Colasanti’s back in August still has a couple flowers on it.

This big beautiful white one I got from Home Depot back in March. Can you believe it’s still in bloom? I didn’t put this one outside over summer because it was just so nice having it in the living room blooming away. The flowers on this one are huge too – about the size of my palm (minus the fingers)

And this one is a new addition. Picked up from Walmart the other night. I feel like I haven’t bought myself a plant in ages. It’s probably only been about a month to be honest, but it feels like forever. And I don’t think I have one quite this colour. (Though it’s entirely possible I do!)

So I’ll enjoy the flowers on these ones for now, and you’ll be the first to know if any more decide to bloom.

The face you make when she’s not sharing her lunch fast enough.

A few weeks ago, I was upstairs, and Dave yelled up to me to get my camera. There was a hawk in the fence.

By the time I got down, the hawk had flown off. But Dave got a picture with his cell phone.

Can you see it? I had a good giggle when he sent it to me. I’m going to have to teach him how to use the zoom feature.

About a week later, I went out front to check on the gardens, and all of a sudden he flew off from the top of the arbour. I barely even caught sight of him.

But then a few days later, I was working away in the office, and guess who appeared in the tree outside my office window.

During the day, I keep the camera in the office with me just incase anyone interesting stops by. It’s usually just the jays and the sparrows. I certainly wasn’t expecting him!

I’m not sure if he’s a Sharp-Shinned or a Cooper’s Hawk. He was on the small side, so I’m leaning towards a Sharpie.

He hung out for a good 10 minutes and then flew off. I haven’t seen him since, but I hope he visits again.