Megascopic Monday

megascopic visible to the naked eye

If you’re lucky enough to be living here in Canada, then chances are you have the day off today. All hail Queen Victoria!

Traditional, the 24th of May weekend is the long weekend set aside for planting gardens and opening cottages. Well, it sounds good in theory, but we’re still getting frost warnings and cottage country is pretty much under water.

I’m still having to wear a jacket, or at the very least a sweater, when I go outside for any length of time, and I’d better remember to check to make sure I have rubber boots to wear when I go on the trip to the farm with the granddaughter’s pre-school class on Wednesday.

The Orange Menace to the south can say whatever he likes about there being no such thing as global warming, but even he can’t deny there’s been a change in the climate. We’ve been subjected to some pretty extreme weather the last few years.

There’s been a rise in both the number and the ferocity of hurricanes, droughts resulting in wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides, sink holes, the list keeps growing. And there’s been a subtle, but relentless, shift in the seasons.

Several years ago I did a series on prophecies, and I remember while doing my research I came across an aboriginal prophecy about the earth having enough of what man was doing to it and retaliating with fire, flood, and wind. I wish I could better remember the details or at least what tribe it had been so I could try and find it again, but unfortunately I didn’t save any of that research. But it makes you think, doesn’t it?

In the meantime, the granddaughter and I got impatient waiting for spring, so we planted a tray of seeds in the house. Everything but the pumpkins sprouted in less time than I imagined, and actually they’re more than twice as high as they are in the picture. And yes, I made little toothpick flags to mark what exactly I planted.

Now all we have to do is wait for the weather to settle enough to plant them in the garden.

Mucopurulent Monday

mucopurulent ~ of mucus and pus

It’s the 24th of May
The queen’s birthday
And if we don’t get a holiday
We’ll all run away!

Yes, I know it’s actually the 21st of May, but that’s the way the rhyme goes. :-P

It’s the first official long weekend of the summer season for us here in Canada, the weekend where cottages are opened and gardens are planted. The barbeques are being brushed off as I type. When I was a kid it was also the time for major fireworks displays, but although some people do still set them off now, the big fireworks holiday is Canada Day.

I got a jump start on the weekend by starting my planting during the week. Wednesday the grandbaby and I went shopping for plants for the small square garden at the front of the house. Of course by the time we got them home there wasn’t enough time to plant them that day, so the next day I went ahead and bought the rest of my bedding plants to have ready for Friday.

Friday was a little cooler, but we filled the square garden and the long narrow garden along the front:

But while the front is looking pretty good, the back is another story. This is the pond garden:

We were already planning to redo this garden, but we were hoping to save at least some of the plants. It needs the saw dust removed (obviously), a retaining wall built at the back, and the entire garden will be more than doubled in size. We want to get a properly formed shell for the pond itself, one deep enough that maybe we can have fish. If we can get it to the point where it’s ready for plants by the end of the summer I think it’ll be a job well done. We can worry about the actual plants next summer.

Another project for the back yard was going to be putting in a couple of raised vegetable beds. This won’t be a particularly difficult project, but it will be a little time consuming so it’s been put off until later in the summer. Once again, if we can have them ready for planting by the end of the summer, then in the spring all I’ll have to do is pick out my seeds.

Speaking of vegetables though, remember the tomato seeds the grandbaby and her grapy planted?

Aren’t they cute? Yes, well, a funny thing happens when you leave plants in the sun and keep watering them. They tend to grow. I thinned them out once, but now they need bigger pots (maybe even later today). I’m beginning to suspect they’re not going to be cherry tomatoes as I’d first hoped, but some much bigger kind.

So… How’s your garden coming?

Mirific Monday

mirific ~ wonder-working; marvellous

It’s the twenty-fourth of May
The Queen’s Birthday
And if we don’t get a holiday
We’ll all run away!

Okay, so it’s only the 23rd of May. But close enough for it to be Victoria Day. This means that if you live in Canada you probably have the day off. And if you live in the States ... well, we’ll raise a glass to you as we sit on our decks enjoying our barbeques. ;-)

Victoria Day, as you might have guessed, is celebrated in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday. When we originally started celebrating it, back in 1845, it was held on May 24th, the queen’s actual birthday. But after she died in 1901 it was decided that in order to give everyone a long weekend, it would be held on the Monday before May 25th. Nice of them, wasn’t it?

Last week was pretty mixed up for me. The daughter had to go to a conference in Vancouver, so her hubby switched to a day shift so that I could babysit during the day and he’d be home in the evenings with the baby.

This was going to be fun! Or so I thought. Since I’d have the use of the daughter’s car, I envisioned road trips to the parks and maybe a visit or two to the drop in play group at the local YMCA. Girls going wild, Grammy style!

However, Sunday night my little Ellie came down with the sniffles, and was no better on Monday. This meant play group was out. And though the sun was shining brightly, the wind was really cold last week, which meant the park was out. *sigh*

My son-in-law took Thursday and Friday off, so my services were no longer needed, but as a lovely parting gift, Ellie gave me her cold. Wednesday I woke up with a really sore throat and was getting sniffling myself, and then Thursday it blossomed into the Epic Mega Death Cold From Hell.

Who says good deeds never go unpunished? On the other hand, look at that smiling face. It was totally worth it. ;-)