Mid - June 2018

Some gorgeous skies tonight. 

I wasn't going to post because I was late in getting photos together. 

It has been cloudy and raining a bit over the past several days. Today the sky was a bit unsettled but tonight the light is still bright enough.  I hurriedly snapped a few pics and  resized for sharing.

Next week we will have the official start of our summer season.

Despite our Spring season starting off rather hot, it has cooled down considerably.

That is probably good to help ensure we don't have so many wild fires this summer (time will tell).

I hope your season is treating you to glorious skies wherever you are.

A few blossoms from my container garden.

The last photo is of a friendly dog I met in the  neighbourhood. 

While I sat on a bench and rested he was wandering around. 

He came up to me several times so I could pet him and would have stayed longer

with me but his owner beckoned him home.

I noticed the dog's rich and luscious fur while petting him.

His owner must take very good care of him.

Sorry the photo is blurred.

I took it quickly and surreptitiously with my phone camera. 

I guess I was trying to take it a little too quickly.

This is a late entry for

Skywatch Friday 

Friday Foto Friends

and

Saturday's Critters 

Thank you for stopping by. Have a great weekend everyone.
Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there.

I Say Goodbye & Welcome Some Cloudy Days

I said goodbye to a friend of mine recently. We met at church many years ago and haven't been keeping up well with one another since she and I no longer attend that church. She also lived another municipality away.  Though she was very busy packing and cleaning, I wanted to take her for a farewell lunch.

My friend Celia did not want to leave the  City of Vancouver.  But most of the condos in her building were bought out by a developer and thus in the end she had to sell too.  She has purchased a much larger home in her new city. It sounds like a wonderful location near shops and a man made lake with walking areas surrounding it.  Now that all the decisions have been made, a new house and furniture purchased, she is looking forward to the move.  Everything has worked so smoothly in her favour that she believes it was a divine event for the benefit of her future.  I'm quite certain she will enjoy living in her new home.  She has the added benefit of her daughter and grandson living nearby. Her daughter has been coaxing her mom to make the move for some time. As my friend Celia says, she had to be forced and now that she has been she is very accepting of the situation.

Here is my friend answering the phone. She was being invited out to dinner the same evening by yet another former church friend.

Salad Bar

Cabbage and Spatzle?

Beef Roulade and perogies

Breaded trout with beans in mushroom sauce

Bratwurst

A small portion of the desserts on offer

We had a fabulous visit but we visited so long that my throat was dry and parched afterward. The only thing that separated us is she began to run behind schedule for dinner! We had a lot of catching up to do and hopefully we'll have a chance to visit again in her new city.


~~~~~

On another subject I haven't participated in a long while in the Saturday's Critter's meme. I'm not sure why but it never seems to be the right time for me to take photos of animals or creatures of any kind.

I found one bee or wasp while I was taking photos of the geraniums.

The seagulls were photographed on my recent harbour cruise. It's always interesting to watch birds flying against the wind.

The last photo is of 5-6 seals lying on the logs, also from the harbour cruise.

Can you see them?
Click to enlarge and it will be easier to see the seals.
I'm afraid I don't have a good lens to zoom in close enough.

I'm a bit behind in posting as I still have a post to share with you about the harbour cruise.


Joining in with

Saturday's Critters

Thank you for joining in.

If you missed my Skywatch post you can find it here.

Have an awesome weekend.

Change is in the Air

Reading these gardening books

Reading this unusual horror book. Not my usual genre.

Ahmed Saadawi is an Iraqi novelist, poet, screenwriter and documentary film maker. He won the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for Frankenstein in Baghdad. He lives and works in Baghdad.  The novel is set in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq. If you wish to read more about the book you may do so here.

Vietnamese Pho Noodle soup with basil & beans sprouts + a roll dip & tea

After a good run of many sunny days we are now having a few cloudy, cool days.

It is supposed to rain. I hope we get a good soak for the garden.

This is the high rise going up.  You can see the clouds gathering. Change is in the air

The high rise under construction is part of a large development. The rest of the building is behind the high rise. Altogether the development takes up a good half a city block. I'm not sure when the development is scheduled to open but all the condos were sold out years before construction began.

Small hotel immediately across from the high rise development.

The blue sky is peeking out from behind the clouds.

The hotel and high rise are located next to shopping, restaurants, pharmacies, coffee shops and so on.

The people living there will enjoy the neighbourhood and they will have spectacular views of the city especially at higher levels.

The high rise proposal came with a lot of back lash and push back from local residents but it will soon become a reality. Since the approval of this particular high rise, similar development has now been approved in one or two other areas where this simply would not have been possible before. That is no doubt why people fought so hard against it but in today's world in Vancouver, there is no where to build but up. 

Thank you for stopping by.

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Skywatch Friday

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Friday Foto Friends

There is no where to build but up.

The Little Patio Garden

The little garden has been keeping me quite busy with buying soil, mulch, more plants and pots to plant in. It hasn't rained much since I planted and I'm finding it hard to get the garden watered just right.  Behind the table there are more plants and plants in containers which I will feature as the garden matures. Many of the plants I bought were so root bound making it very difficult to get the water right where it needs to go even though I tried to break up the roots.  It's one of the reasons I'm spending more time than usual trying to make the garden grow.  I hope my efforts bear success and that everything will look a lot better in a few weeks.

Only two small strawberry plants are planted this year.  But I've been able to harvest a few small berries a few times already.  They make a nice little treat.  Maybe next year I'll be fortunate enough to find more strawberry starter plants or I'll get started earlier and plant my own seeds.  In the meantime I'm happy for what I do have and the little birds, bees and butterflies will have something to feast on.  I'm less happy about the big rat that ate all of my veggies last year before I could.  My neighbours only grow flowers so I guess he doesn't eat those. If my corn stalks grow the squirrel might come back. I really only try to grow corn for the squirrel to eat.

In the photo is a pile of my latest reading stash from the library. I've finished the book at the top of the pile, Bride of New France, about girls from a convent in Paris who make the voyage to Canada to settle with the men who came over before hand to trap for furs. It was a very interesting work of fiction based on history.

The other books are to whet my appetite for gardening in my small space.

Thanks for stopping by.
Enjoy your week.

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Our World Tuesday

Time in Eternity

Dear friends,

Thank you for your kind and encouraging words on my last post. I wish to also thank those who prayed for my cousin Connie and our family.

Last night Connie peacefully passed from this world into the next.

As her sisters said to me shortly afterwards,

"She is now with mom and dad and baby brother".

~~~

 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

Revelation 14:13 

An Update on This and That

I was hoping to share some photos of the harbour cruise from last week but I didn't have time to resize them. 

Instead I'll share a few snippets and a bit of sad news.

Two snapshots from my harbour walk. I always love to look at all the boats and yachts at the marina. 

These first two shots are for Skywatch Friday visitors.

The next photo is of a vintage dessert. This one reminds me of my late mom. Years ago when she still had a school age child at home she would make a dessert out of fruit, gelatin and whipped cream mixed in. This one has less whipped cream than she used to use because I wanted to save some as a topping.  When the jelly is half set, I diced fresh strawberries and bananas into the jelly along with whipped cream and then put it back in the refrigerator until fully set. Yummy! Though next time I will use more whipped cream mixed into the gelatin, lol.

I'm reading my 24th book for 2018. This one is by a new to me author.  

Read more about the book here if interested.
I'm enjoying the book. Nothing too taxing. This is just the right kind of reading when I'm very busy and need a small diversion.

I finally finished planting my garden. I got a late start on it due to the long winter we had.  Once the debris was cleared I amended the soil with 160 kgs of compost.  Another 180 kg of potting mix was needed for the many containers.

I've planted vegetables and flowers again.  I've noticed that it is is getting harder and harder to find the starter plants I want (petunias, geraniums and pansies) even though they are common plants.
If, and when I do find them, I might only find one or two small starter plants.  That means there is no selection when the remaining plant might not be well watered or healthy or if you want a different colour than what remains.
Sometimes you just have to suck it up.

I'm not sure why it is getting so hard to find common starter plants.  It may simply be that I arrive too late to the stores and they sell out quickly.  When I purchased the geraniums I asked the store owner if he was going to get more as they only colours were red and pink. He said he hoped so and that there shipment had just arrived that day. They were already very low on geraniums when I arrived.

Another explanation for the lack of plants may be that certain plants are no longer in fashion and so stores don't carry them like they used to.  I remember I had the same issue for the last few years and so last year I went to a large garden center hoping to have more selection. They did indeed have a huge selection but not of the plants that I want.

 I like to plant a lot of pansies. These seem particularly hard to find. This year I only got one container of purple ones.  Fortunately I had one pot of very hardy, yellow  pansies that had survived being outdoors all year even through the cold winter.

 

This year I tried starting plants from seed by purchasing a large tray.  Most of the seeds didn't sprout so I didn't use any of them. I think next year I will plant seeds again but I won't use a large tray. This way I can actually label them first so I know what I've planted.  This will only work if I can get started much earlier in the season.  It's a bit hit or miss when the last few planting seasons have arrived so late after a long winter.

Grandma Sally seems to be doing well at home. So far she has needed one tank of oxygen which the nurse was able to take to her home and administer.  Jonah (Grandma Sally's grandson) has returned home a few hours away for some much needed rest.  He was taking care of Grandma Sally's needs and visiting her every day in hospital for the past 3 months. Now that Grandma Sally is home, culture dictates that males do not enter the bedroom of the females so she has females taking care of her needs. Of course at the hospital when Jonah was visiting, Grandma Sally had staff attending to her immediate care needs.

In sad news, one of my cousins, Connie, was diagnosed with cancer about 2 weeks ago. It was at a late stage as a result of doctors not testing her when she started trying to ascertain the reason for neck issues several years ago. Finally one of her sisters accompanied her to doctors and they were given the runaround until the sister insisted that proper testing be done. This is when the cancer was diagnosed and it was already quite advanced.  Treatment began immediately commencing with some surgery on her spine. The doctors are saying she needs to be moved to palliative care soon as Connie's health is deteriorating rapidly.

My cousin is unaware that the photo below was taken by her sister and shared with me on the occasion of the birth of her great grandson in April. I share it here so you know who to pray for if you feel so led. But I will likely delete the photo soon out of respect. I can just see the love on great grandma's face and the little one in her arms is so very cute.

~~~~~

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Skywatch Friday

Thank you for stopping by.

Happy Birthday to Me

Happy Birthday was sung a few times yesterday. I celebrated a birthday on Monday and though I don't generally go for big parties I do enjoy more intimate gatherings with family and friends.

~~~~~~~~

A friend made a scrumptious and diverse dinner.  There were 3 kinds of rice (plain white, brown and chicken pilau), millet ugali, chicken stew, sauteed kale/onions, roasted plantain, roasted chicken legs with a lemon sauce and chapati. Not to be outdone her son made 2 flavours of muffins in two different sizes.  We had a feast and I was stuffed.

I thought it was rather creative how this young boy made cupcakes and bought candles to spell out Happy Birthday. 

It was very sweet.

Here is the young chef lighting up the cupcakes before they sang and I blew out candles.

Not to be outdone my "baby" brother bought me a beautiful fruit cocktail cake with whipped cream frosting topped with fresh fruits. This is my favourite cake and it has now become a staple for family birthday celebrations. I will have a few more birthday luncheons as friends have invited me out later and as time allows in my schedule.

~~~~~~~

I haven't had time to post a lot of photos of my various outing over the past few weeks so I'm sharing a few from a few weeks ago when a friend invited me on a harbour cruise.

I have a lot of photos to share.  This post will only cover the walk along the northern sea wall toward the departure point for the cruise.

I alighted near the sea wall close to the entrance of the Westin Bayshore Hotel.  This hotel is popular with tourists and is located almost at the entrance to Vancouver's Crown Jewel, Stanley Park. Stanley Park is a 405-hectare public park that borders the downtown of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada and is almost entirely surrounded by waters of Vancouver Harbour and English Bay.  Read more about this beautiful park at this link.

I'm headed north west of the hotel so I need to go around it.  I found the hotel rather large and spread out.  It is also undergoing some redevelopment though it is still open for business.

A view west towards downtown Vancouver.

A small marshy pond located adjacent to the hotel. Too bad there were no birds splashing about

I love the riotous colour in all the blossoms.

Just as I am about to head due west, I look to the east and snap a few photos. 

The  white building with the 'sails' in the background right is the east wing of  the Vancouver Convention Center and where I was last week for Flyover Canada.  I just learned that it is still part of the Convention Center. I thought it had been replaced altogether by the new one (see photo below) but now I understand there is a west wing and an east wing which are actually two separate buildings.

See the paddle boat with tourist on the top deck.

You can see the port of Vancouver with the multi-coloured shipping containers in the background.  The float plane on the far right is part of the fleet for Harbour Air which flies to our provincial capital, Victoria and to many other points on Vancouver Island.  In late April the airline added flights to Seattle, Washington.

In the photo above you can see the structure in the middle with a green roof. That is the new 'west wing" of Vancouver Convention Centre.   It is built on stilts over the water.

 The living roof, seawater heating and cooling, on-site water treatment and fish habitat built into the foundation of the West Building make it one of the greenest convention centres in the world. The Centre recycles an average of 180,000 kilograms of materials annually, nearly half of the total volume of waste generated. It avoids canned goods, disposable utensils and dishes, and donates leftover food to local charities (source: Wikipedia)

The grey, concrete building peeking out just to the right of the lamppost in the foreground is the Vancouver Lookout Tower. At the top there is an observation deck and the only remaining revolving restaurant in the city.

I enjoyed my walk along the waterfront looking at all the activity on the water and the various boats and ships which were docked. Though the weather was overcast it was perfect for a day out.  Signage was present here and there announcing various tours and yacht rentals.

A float plane comes in for landing.

Signage announcing some water adventure tours.

 

I've now arrived at the departure point for the Harbour Cruise. Here I sit and wait on a bench for my friend to arrive. 

It isn't too long before I heard my name.

My former boss was out for a luncheon walk and recognized me in profile as I gazed out over the boats and yacts.

What a small world we live in.

In a short while afterward my friend arrives and we set off for our adventure.

Stay tuned.

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Our World Tuesday

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