We are having a gorgeous day – they are saying it could break the rcords from over 20 years ago today for temperatures. Days like this I wish I had someplace to go that is new but cannot think of anywhere.

This morning as I sat in the livingroom drinking my first coffee, I noticed a lot of activity outside around our bird feeder – wow there were a couple of sets of completely different birds than normal, and even the blue Jay was there. When I went to get the camera, they disappeared, and then I saw they were around the patio instead, at least one of the pairs, so through the door window I clicked and was able to capture these pics before they took off again.

sitting on the wires and drain on the corner of the neighbors house

Finaly started hopping on our patio, hard to get quickly enough as it moved around – the little one is one of our resident sparrows, wondering what these strangers were up to

Not sure if you go to the largest picture(middle one might be best) saved whether there will be a clear enough one to tell what kind these were – I would really love to know.

While most of my flowers are struggling to decide whether to die down of continue to flower with this weather, this pot on my patio is doing well. The verbena has some die back, bt is still putting out flowers. They really are just a fill in for the tow main plants here – the Astroemeria Princess lily has decided to put out a second crop of flowers this year, and my red flowered Mandevill vine is doing well ( I have to replace this one as it will not survive the winter) In this pic you get a glimpse of one of my Spider plants. They are doing well, but I am going to have to bring it in soon.

A closer view

Life is very quiet – I do plan to go and see one of my GDaughters at her Hockey game tomorrow as it is going to be played locally – a rare thing for her. Her games are usually in the evenings or too far away for me to attend.

Politics is all that ever seems to be going on in the news. Half the time we are shown what is going on South of us – the Canadians have let the news know it is more exciting than ours hahaha  I must admit, there have been times when I would agree. Still, Harper, our Prime Minister decided he was going to call a Federal election earlier than necessary, hoping he can get the voters to give him more representatives in the Govt than at present so that he can have a Majority. Hmmm, I wonder if it will really change, will just have to see.  I was not happy with him when he started his campaign adds way before he called it, so the other parties were put at a disadvantage. They are not allowed to until it is called. He has been a good Prime Minister(equivalent of President) for the 2 years he has been in office, but he does play dirty, and is known as a ‘Bush Man’  I have no idea if this is good or bad.

We actually have several parties vying for the top. Harper heads the Conservatives(read Republican) DiJong heads the Liberals (read Democrat) Clayton heads the NDP (New Democrat Party) which represents the working class people and Unions, then there is a French man representing Quebec known as the Quebecquios(sp?) Party, and last is a fairly new party struggling to get their foot into Parliament, Elizabeth May heading the Green Party which is very big on Environment issues.
I had to check up to see exactly how all this works and refresh myself. There are 308 sections or Ridings in the whole of Canada, based on the number of people in any area, and all as equal in #’s as possible. Each party has a member in these ridings that we are to choose from as our representative. These are known as our MLA’s (Members of the Legislative Assembly)
When the vote is counted, the MLA with the largest vote will represent us directly in Parliament, and whichever party has the most representatives elected will become the party in power. The other parties become what is known as the opposition.

The whole campaign is for 6 weeks only, and we will be voting immediately after our Canadian Thanksgiving (13th) on Oct. 14th. 
There you have it folks – hope this all made sense. Thank goodness we do not have to put up with all the nasty adds for that long. I am getting oh so tired of them all.

We are having a bonus sunny day again. Will not last long, and I noticed the temps had dropped last night to 4C (around 40F)  Getting cold, but still not low enough for me to bring in my special plants from the patio. I am having to keep a close watch though as it is getting closer and I do not want them to freeze.

As I looked out the window I noticed these two cats sunning themselves against our fence line. I did try to get a better shot of both of them (you can just see the blue one on the left there behind the one bush, but the moment I came outside that one took off). Seeing as I had my camera and was out, I decided to walk around the yard and see if there were any other things that I would like to photo. Came across a few items.

Look closely at this one – my Honeysuckle, almost at it’s end now, was just filled with sparrows.  Again, they took off when I tried to get a bit closer, so was happy I was able to capture this one.

Amazingly enough we still are able to pick a bowl of yellow raspberries every other day. Had a bowlfull last night and it looks like there could be another one tonight. Even more amazing, Elmer had pulled out most of our rapsberries, and these few stalks started flowering and fruiting again for us.

The last of our cucumbers – I bought him a little plant at the beginning of Summer, and this has just given us the biggest bumper crop you could imagine. We have given Icecream bucketfulls to the kids, and eaten so many ourselves all Summer long. And it is still trying to produce, even though the plant is almost dead.

My front flower bed – it is looking quite sad really, and flowers that should be looking good are on their last stages. But what surprised me are my Delphiniums. They have both sent out a new stalk and are flowering again. You can just see the tall purple one full of unopened buds here

and this is a close-up of the white one.

For those of you who are history buffs and into photography, I received this link in my mail today, and just wanted to share it. History through photographs – so neat.

A Look Back In History
http://www.openmyeyeslord.net:80/ALookBackInHistory.htm

I think we all have special foods for different emotions – chocolate to make us happy, comfort foods that are just ours, or foods that make us feel warm on a cold wintery day. When it gets gloomy and dull as it is today, I bring out the ham hocks from the freezer, and the green lentils from the cupboard (I always try to have these items in my stock), I am happy when there is some celery in the fridge, and there was today. Carrots are a must, but these we always have either fresh or frozen.  Over the years my recipe for Pea soup has evolved a bit, but the main ingredients always are there. Onions are another staple, and those I always have, if not fresh then my stand by of dried ones in my cupboard are used. Another staple I will never be without if I can help it. 

The house just smells so good right now! Here it is starting to take shape. Still many more hours for it to simmer and thicken before it will be ready to eat for supper tonight. More than enough to freeze at least a couple more meals from it for another day too. I have used this old pressure cooker for over 30 years now to make this dish. I have tried slow cookers but it just is not the same. My girls have taken over this recipe, and it is a tradition for them now to have this dish for winter also

Does anyone else have a dish they have for days like this?

Just a short post for those that would like to see the rest of my photos from my time at Mill Lake, and another album I finally got around to putting photos into – the spring flower collection was long overdue, and some of these pics have been posted here long ago.

Spring Flowers 2008
http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/449078385/Spring_Flowers_2008/

Mill Lake Sept 2008
http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/449078385/Mill_Lake___Enjoying_our_Park_Sept__2008/

I have reached a point where I am not a very happy camper
The political fighting going on both in the USA and here in Canada, along with all the smut adds and Emails is just getting to me big time. I guess I am not a person that enjoys this type of hype at all, and so much of it just gets me angry and depressed. While I like to know who the people are and what they stand for, some of what is going around is just plain nasty. And I am not exactly on the same page as many of my family or friends, so I do get blasted for my way of thinking. 

Yesterday, I could not stand to be on the computer that long before I had had enough, and had to get out of the house. The sun was shining – the world beautiful, and I needed to get out there and enjoy it. At the same time I need to find my equilibrium again.

I talked Elmer into going with me and our cameras to our local Mill Lake Park. Needed to at least take some pics and breath some fresh air for a change. This is one of the pics Elmer took of me.

this was one of the first cuties we saw after parkiing the car. Such an adorable little Pomeranian, who loved to have a cuddle from me and the owner just delighted to let me do so and take their pic afterwards.

Normaly these ducks are everywhere, but we had to walk a bit to another section before I came across the gang   Have taken several pics of the ducks and geese, which I will be putting into an album soon, but just had to sare this one here for now.

Thursday already!
Last night we got to watch the finale of Canadian Idol. What an extraveganza. It was so good to see some of my old favorites come back and be part of it. I guess the one I would have loved to have seen more of  was Mookie – no idea why I truly like him, he is so very different from the others, and something about him just appeals to me. I do not think anyone could guess which of the remaining two would be the Idol. I know Theo Tam is someone that just is so perfect no matter what he sings, but Mitch is also good at what he does and I thought just maybe he would be the one. Turns out Theo got it. With the end of this show, it heralds the end of the Summer for me, and now we can look forward to the Fall shows either bringing back some of the shows I like to watch (other than re-runs) and many new debuts to check out as the season progresses.

On Tuesday, I phoned my daughters  to see if they were interested in joining me – the day was cool, but I wanted to go to the Devon Nurseries to see what they had and if there was anything I liked that would fit into the area the Rhodos were in before. I have to fill that bit of space, but am not going to get any more Rhodies. They were delighted at the prospect so I picked them up on my way there.
After looking at many of the plants, I picked up a little white with red center single Rose of Sharon bush

Got Elmer to plant it for me and if it takes should look pretty as it fills this part of our “hedge”  At the top of this pic you can see a small red flower – I spotted this one as I walked around. Different. So I bought it   A Schizostylis coccinea-Kaffir Lily (what a name LOL)

This is a closeup of it. A bit blurry, but there was a fair breeze and it just did not stay still long enough to get a pic that was not, even though I tried a couple of times. Still this gives a good idea of the flower.

While I was at it, I also picked up a couple of little Balloon flowers (Platycodon) Angela has some from last year and most of hers survived the last winter and are just gorgeous this year. I do hope mine will establish themselves in time to do the same.

This white one is a double, which I had not seen before.

And this is the blue one.

Angela found some tomato and cucumber plants filled with ready to eat fruit on clearance, so picked up a couple of them for her hubby – John was just tickled and so happy with them
Afterwards I treated the girls to lunch at Wendy’s and then dropped them home.  Angela has a couple of Butterfly bushes, and I love the bi-colored leaf one. They are due to be trimmed back, so I took a branch from her. I am going to see if I will be succesful in attempting to grow one from this cutting, and if I am this will go into the other spot left. If not, I just might buy one for there next year.

  
The couple of flowers still on it I put into a small vase and set on my kitchen windowsill to enjoy.

Before I look at what everyone else has posted I had better put my blog in first The other day I started looking first and then got interrupted and never did put anything in.

Yea! the sun has come out and is actually warm. So lovely yesterday and today – I should be outside instead of in here LOL
Elmer was bored and wanted to do something out there so came in and said he was going to dig up my dead Rhodos and hoped I did not mind. Oh well, they were definitely not making it so he might as well, but it was sad to see another of my plants disappear. Have no idea what I will do with that space now, so will have to go to the nursery this week and see if they have anything that will catch my eye.

He had a great time taking them out and afterwards bringing out his little shredder and shredding them up for the compost heap

While it was not exactly that warm at 8am yesterday (62F – 16C) the two of us enjoyed sitting on the patio to have our morning coffee. Everything looked so bright and fresh with the clear sunny skies. Never know just what we will see as we sit there and look out over our neighbors. This time it was a resident ginger cat that came from it’s home, running low and fast towards the flower bed that lines the front of our yard. As we wondered what that was for, a squirrel flew up the electrical pole at the corner of our boundary, chattering away and obviously scolding that cat. I ran inside for the camera and just hoped I could get a pick of it before it took off. As it is a distance from the patio, I was not sure if my telephoto would be strong enough, but I was lucky and it turned out not too badly.

Well seeing as I had the camera out, I noticed the sun shining on the tree across the road from us. It had not registered before this that Fall colors are already coming out and are early – the leaves have already started to turn and these red ones looked so pretty amongst the green as the sun caught them

I know a lot of my plants that would normaly be vibrant with color this time of year are dying rapidly instead. In fact I had thought this little hanging basket of minature bicolored double begonias? was on it’s way out. But it seems, by bringing it down and putting it out where the rain could catch it has given it a new lease on life

It did not take long to perk up and put out a lovely show of new flowers.

Yesterday was great – the sun came out and everything seemed so bright, I felt restless and needed to go out somewhere – hmmm had some books to donate and some to return to the library, Elmer wanted me to take a couple of icecream bucketfulls of tomatoes and cucumbers to Sheilagh (we are getting a bumper harvest and cannot keep up), and I wanted to hear all about their trip to Vermont too.   I also got a notice in my Email to say one of the books I had requested was in. Good, I had somewhere to go LOL.
On the way to Sheilagh I got held up on the road by several very large, what looked like, moving vans. As they were slowly moved into the parking area of one of our smaller motels, I saw the signs on their sides – a Movie Co. No name, but am so curious to know what kind of a movie they would be filming there, or what that was all about. Of course – no camera with me! I keep saying I should take one with me, but with my hands full I did not bother. Isn’t that always the case  
Sheilagh was just thrilled with the bounty. I had no sooner arrived when her phone rang and a long time friend of the family called to say they were in town and going to the Mall for lunch, and would love to have her (and me when she heard I was there) join her and her Mom. I had already eaten, but who cared? I was game, so the two of us took off to meet them. I truly enjoyed the visit, and we gabbed for a couple of hours while they ate.

Afterwards I went to the library and found a whole group of books to read – I am happy

Today it has been overcast and damp. Nothing going on and I was bored. I have been thinking a lot of the crafts that some of the ladies have talked about here and decided to have a look at my albums and see the pics I had taken of the ones I did over the years. Not digital days, so hard copies, and very few were ever scanned and put into the computer. Even those that I had scanned were very small and not exactly the nicest ones to show off. and I never took pics of all I did. I wanted to play with my camera too so decided to see how they would turn out if I took pics of the photos. Not too bad, but not the best, still I put them into an album on Facebook and hope the link lets you see them here if you are interested.

Crafts Facebook
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50176&l=99616&id=701722201

As most of what I made was for the children and grandchildren as gifts and they were so young then, I wonder just how many of these have survived or are even rememberd by them.  

Elmer and I have been watching Canadian Idol – we are now down to the last three and one will be eliminated tonight, with Brian Adams as their guest. This is not an easy one to guess at, as all three are good, and their own uniqueness.

http://www.ctv.ca/idol/gen/Home.html

http://images.ctv.ca/gallery/photo/CI6_ep29_top3/image0.jpg