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.

Christmas is creeping ever closer. I plan to get my outdoor decorations up soon, so I devoted my Sunday to finish the painting my on my gnome.

I got the final coats done, and did the outlining with my new paint pens.

I was happy with it. But it still needed a little something.

And that something was…

GLITTER!!! And lots of it!

I glittered up his mitts, the snowflakes on his hat, and even added a touch to his pom pom (and created a little texture there with the paint).

Now he just needs a coat of clear and he’ll be ready for the front porch!

I am happy to announce that I have conquered French knots!!!

Well, not so much conquered as managed to get them to not look like an utter, crappy, loopy mess. They are far from perfect, but I’m far from a perfectionist, so I can live with it. And with that, the first of the 20 embroidered blocks is complete!

It certainly went far quicker than I expected. And learning the stitches is much easier than I expected. Although I did learn I did my stem stitch wrong. Well not so much wrong, just much smaller than it needed to be. Mom pointed it out when I showed her the picture, so I decided to look up a quick tutorial.

And with that new knowledge, Lemmy and I were off and running on block number two.

We got our stem stitch perfected, and added the Lazy Daisy stitch to our repertoire! If we keep this pace up, we’ll probably be managing a block a weekend soon.

The first Mercury sock is done. The pattern has you take the lace down the foot, but I decided to go with a plain foot instead. I’m loving the rusty orange brown of the Alley Cat BFL. It makes me miss dyeing yarn just a little.

The next sock is already on the needles. It’s probably too ambitious, but I’d love to complete the pair by the end of the month.

I’ve been popping out to the bird feeder with the camera whenever I get a free moment.

And that spontaneity has rewarded me!

The finches can be exceptionally hard to get pictures of, as they are very skittish. (The sparrows are used to me and will buzz my head as they make their way to the feeder). As you can see here, I not only have the sparrows – but the goldfinches (in their winter colour) and the red-headed house finches too!

It’s very unsual to see them on the feeder with the sparrows. Sparrows can be the worst bullies and often chase the finches off.

But they were all minding their manners this day! I’m so happy I was there to capture the moment!

Here’s a few random close-ups taken the same day.

Mother Nature continues with her mood swings. Last weekend was cold and rainy, but by the start of the week it was warming up again.

It wasn’t quite summer like, but definitely spring vibes – but by Wednesday I was eating a handful of raspberries that managed to ripen.

All the mums in the porch boxes were blooming again.

As was the Lavender Butterfly bush. And check this out…

The Pussy Willow bush has catkins!

I got pictures of a starling in the neighbour’s tree, and it looks like it’s budding up again!

I potted up a bunch of Dwarf Irises for a spring display.. and they’ve already started sprouting!

Did we skip winter all together… and head right into spring?

Well… no. Because BAM! Thursday morning we woke up to snow. It wasn’t sticking, and it was mixed with rain. But it was still snow. Yesterday rained a bone-chilling rain all day. So I suspect the real cold stuff is just around the corner.

That said…

These guys are still standing…. They look cold and little sad…. but they aren’t dead yet!

Relic… that’s not how you’re supposed to sit in the chair…

There was some sewing this weekend… well sort of. I only sewed one block. But I at least got the pieces cut to make the 30 more I will need.

His Lordship finally decided what he wanted to go with the nine patch bees we showed last week. A good ol’ Dizzy Daisy. And while these blocks are exceedingly easy to make, they do require a fair bit of cutting if you are doing them in any number. I need 31 daisies total. As you can see, one is made, but for the remaining 30 I had to cut 120 of the petal fabric, 120 of the centre fabric, and 240 of the background fabric.

After that, I just didn’t have the energy to make any more blocks. I’m hoping to sneak in an evening this week to get started on them. If not, it will be a weekend job.

This will give you an idea of the layout we are going for. Alternating bee/flower blocks, with black sashing and yellow corner stones. I think it’s going to look just perfect when its together.