Jul 02, 2019
You may recall that before we left for Europe, we purchased Charlie the Coyote to stop the geese from coming up onto our lawn to dine and poop on the patio. You can read about that here. We came home to no goose poop whatsoever. Charlie truly did his job. He was worth the money we spent.
Charlie the Coyote.
The other morning we were treated to a parade of geese. Here we have Dad & Mom along with eight little ones.
Directly behind them came a slightly older family consisting of Mom and five goslings.
How fun to watch this gaggle pass by.
Then just around the corner behind them came yet another Mom and her seven goslings. It was a parade.
Several of these photos were taken from inside through the windows. I was curious as to where these geese were traveling to in such precision like formation.
Turns out that they were joining several other goose families about to head up to the lucious green grass in front of the condos. I bet those folks wished they had a Charlie Coyote.
Colin decided to put Charlie away as we had a clean patio. With 24 hours we has three droppings of you know what. Charlie is back on duty. We had told the landscape guy about Charlie. We saw him yesterday and said that a few times while we were away he jumped when he saw Charlie. He is that life like.
Jun 30, 2019
Early Monday morning, our landscaper with Colin’s help got our garden tilled and some fresh soil added. Colin did not have a camera with him so there are no photos.
I believe that it was last Tuesday, the 25th of June that we headed out to the garden. Colin has put as much of our flat stuff down on top of the weeds to try and kill them. The first row on the right is half kale and half Swiss chard. I will start a second row in 2 – 3 weeks.
Because some of the pots we had the tomatoes in were shallow, it was not an easy task to transplant them. Plus we had to find a way to support the plant without damaging it by putting in a tomato cage. Some plants had two tomatoes cages on the outside and this one was the best we could do. The plants were all very root bound. I hope that they will grow taller now that they have space.
We actually already have a few larger tomatoes growing.
So far it was the nicest day we have had since we have been home = hot and sweaty work. The leaves started to curl so I had to water as soon as a plant had been planted. We had been told by another gardener that our cucumber plant with two cucumbers on it would not survive the transplanting but there it is on the right with a taller plastic mesh fence to climb.
We left an empty row behind the tomatoes to plant more leafy greens in a few weeks. As we had seeds left from last year we took a chance on them and planted a row of carrots and another of beets. Hopefully the seeds will germinate. We are still eating beets from last year’s garden which we stored in the fridge over the winter. Apparently because the weeds are so bad this year, the park is covering them, such as you see on the left of our garden, with landscape cloth and then topping that with gravel. Hopefully by the end of the month,
Someone turned their garden into a tiny field of poppies. Lovely.
Jun 29, 2019
We got Carmeh after we lost Channel on the operating table. She was born August 3, 2003, just a month before we moved here to Kelowna permanently. We actually drove the motorhome to Taber, Alberta to pick her up. She was only seven weeks old or perhaps even a few days younger. She was so very sweet. We parked just outside the breeders yard and spent the night. We took Cloii in and went to meet our new puppy. Cloii was 4 years and 10 months older than Carmeh and was not at all interested in interacting with her new sister. In fact she got pretty annoyed that we are giving the new puppy so much attention and peed on the breeders lovely white carpet 😳 Cindy was most forgiving and said that it happened all the time, I don’t think so.
Cloii and Channel were only 20 weeks apart. Cloii had been with us for close to five years and did not want to share us with another pup so very young. Of course over time she adjusted. Carmeh definitely became Colin’s girl. I have previously shared Cloii’s story here. These two doxies would have less than 16 – 18 months together. They certainly played well together and enjoyed our family adventures in the RV. Carmeh cut a deep path into our hearts. She was extremely intelligent and very sensitive to our moods and the que pasa of what was happening in our household. We were so fortunate to have her in our lives for almost 14 years. It is difficult to believe that she has been gone for 2 years and 3 months. She was so very special and we will never ever forget her. She will always be remembered for how she loved to play and to make up games. She was also the professional crab hole finder and then digger.
Jun 28, 2019
Last year we planted our first ever garden on April 28th and came home from our four week trip to Europe to a mess of weeds. This year we decided to plant our tomatoes in pots the beginning of May to help get them established. We also had one cucumber plant. The plan was to transplant them into our garden once we got back.
This was at about 13 days in these pots. We did not want to spend any money on pots so used what we could find.
They were pretty tiny when we left. The cucumber is in the front middle pot.
The person looking after our home, kept our plants at her place so that she could check them every day. They certainly have grown in six weeks. We never expected them to get so large.
Colin went over to the gardens without me and what a mess. A weed had poked its way through the tarp and other weeds totally invaded our area and covered our fencing. Colin had to throw out our plastic fencing. Later I was able to pull the weeds off the metal fencing. Apparently there was a good deal of heat followed by rain and then more sunshine and both the gardens and weeds grew quickly.
Our garden was supposed to have been rototilled while we were away but our landscaper was too busy and was only able to do it until early Monday morning, about 36 hours after we got back. The day prior Colin had gone to prepare the garden area which is when he found the area overgrown by weeds.
Some of the gardeners actually spotted the painted turtle come here ( a very long distance from the lake ) to lay her eggs. It took quite a bit of time for her to first dig the holes and then lay the eggs. She chose a very a bad location but we are all doing the best we can to protect her nest. Our garden plot is the closest to her eggs.
Obviously we have some serious garden work to do.
We have had a lot of unsettled weather since we have been home.
