Thursday, October 6, 2011
Whee .. a sunny day at last! And, once I take care of the car full of plastic recycling and bottle returns, I can play outside for while .. and then I have to go somewhere.
I quickly bring outside all the bags and boxes that I’d prepared yesterday …. tidily placed them in the back of my car and set out, early morning .. first to the Bottle Depot. I soon had the wheeled cart full of returnable bottles, all sorted, neatly in flats … wheeled them to the cashier and waited for my receipt.
She told me that the broth tetra paks are not recyclable .. they just get thrown into the garbage!! What ??? I’ve been washing these and returning them to the local recycle area for a year. I’ll have to contact them to find out if these aren’t recyclable .. if not .. well, guess I’ll stop buying the broth. Too bad, though .. organic and all.
Next I make a quick trip to Syntal in Central Saanich and drop off our cleaned plastic items .. to be used in making those plastic lumber items.
Some shopping and then, yea, I can go home and garden for a few hours.
Lovely, in the hot sun … dug away for a while … trying to visualize a different garden layout. Shaped a curving pathway in the garden .. looks good .. dug up some plants, moved them around. Noticed some strawberry plants were bearing fruit .. wonder if they will turn ripe before the frosts?
Picturing some berry areas, raspberry, salmonberry, blueberry (and the strawberries). Played around with some ideas. Brought out some gardening ideas for inspiration. Saw a great idea of using bricks, create a circle, lay the bricks in the ground at a slanted angle…. create a hub and sections .. plant herbs .. very interesting. This idea I will use, for sure.
Walked around the yard . .looking at the growth pattern of a number of plants. Checked the boxwood cuttings .. well rooted. Think I’ll try some small hedgings in the yard, using these .. just for fun.
So many more ideas ..vertical gardening, using lattice panels for seating areas ..on and on … oops .. time to go.
Back a few hours later, I return to the back yard… shovel in hand. Move some soil.
Heard some familiar sounds up in the sky .. looked up .. saw two eagles thermalling … lovely sight. Watched for a while.
Watched the sweet yellow songbird (I’ll have to look this one up) as it chirped and flitted in the Hawthorne tree. Also saw a Junco in the same tree, high up .. most likely waiting for me to leave the yard so he could feast on the sunflower seeds!
Then .. time to change the location of the hummingbird feeder .. currently its hanging from the metal entryway to the garden .. I’ll be moving this item .. so decided to hang the h/bird feeder from a sturdy tree branch. The Annas are clever enough to find it.
Sure enough, a few hours later, a h/bird flew around the yard .. zoomed in to the area where the feeder used to hang .. I could feel the questions flowing from the bird .. where is it? Finally .. he located the feeder, checked out each blossom feeder and then flew away. Later on . . the exercise was repeated.
I also moved the newly washed & filled the bird feeder to another tree .. hopefully the birds will find it tomorrow.
Dug up the rest of the tomato plants .. dearly wanted to dig up the squash plants. The season is over. However, the plants are growing well and look so pretty, I find it hard to do that. I wouldn’t make a good farmer! Too wishy-washy.
Tomorrow I plan to spend the entire day working away … create a propagating area .. pot up more cuttings for the winter. Prepare some areas for garlic. Lots to do.
🙂
