Yay, My First Butterfly Picture

I'm over the top with excitement. I finally got a picture of a Butterfly. Thanks Pete for telling me how it's done.


It's been an exciting afternoon. I heard there was an iceberg down off the beach. It's probably about 15 stories high...a beautiful sight.

June 30th. A walk around the garden.

Things are starting to bloom at this point. Most haven't but are well on their way. These are some pictures of part of the garden. A lot of it is in deep shade at this hour of the morning so didn't get any pictures.


Pathway with Buttercups.

Wild flower area near stream.

Majestic Lupins coming into there own.

June 28th.

It took me three days but I finally finished cleaning and sorting the books. Roger took eight boxes of books to the Goodwill the first day and the woman told him that they couldn't take anymore until next week. By the time I finished, yesterday, there were nine more boxes. I wanted to go to Glovertown to buy a long planter to go under the kitchen window and as the car was full of all these boxes, Roger said he was going to stop at the Goodwill and beg her to take them now. Well....without telling me as I waited in the car, he told her we were having company and really needed to get these boxes out of the house. So, he comes out of the shop and starts bringing the boxes in and the woman comes out chatting with me and says how long is your company coming for. I say, company? There's no company coming. Duh!! It clicked in my brain that this is what he must have told her so I immediately said, well not for a week. I don't normally tell fibs but what could I do....sigh!

We then went to the greenhouses. At this point the plants are all over grown and root bound and all I could hear were hundreds of flowers yelling "Take me, take me, I'm dying here". I came home with more plants than I needed but at least I gave some a chance.

My neighbor, who is an animal lover, phoned and said her husband was bringing a bag of garbage out to the box for pick up when she looked out the window and saw him in the middle of the road swinging the bag around. She couldn't figure what on earth he was doing so when he came back in she asked him. He said there was a grouse with a pile of little chicks on the road and he was trying to get them off to the side in case a car came by. He did get them off to the side and they went on their way.

Roger said that on his early morning walk yesterday morning he saw a squirrel in the middle of the road dragging a dead baby rabbit across. I couldn't believe it! Do squirrels really eat things like that?

This one is for you Jan....a young squirrel in the garden.

June 26th, I think?

Yesterday morning I decided to take on the awesome task of taking down all the books, sorting them, cleaning them and washing down the shelves. I also decided to get rid of the "junk" books and bring them to the Goodwill store. I'm ashamed to say how long it's been since I did all of this, I kept putting it off until now the guilt had set in and I figured I'd better get at it. I have two walls in the living room that are floor to ceiling book shelves with all the books doubled up on said shelves. We got a pile of empty boxes from one of the stores and threw all but a couple in the guest room until I fill the first few. I threw open all the doors and windows as I knew the dust would be unbearable. Had to move some of the furniture and crap so the living room was up to my ears. I had been at the books for about three hours when I heard a voice outside....a friend who is doing a one man show in Trinity decided to drop by for overnight without informing us. lol, what a state I was in. The guest room you could hardly get into let alone the living room. Anyway, as the guest room has two beds in it, I threw all the boxes from the floor and one bed on to the other one so at least he could get in there and sleep. This morning I was at it all again and am pleased to say that I am two thirds of the way through it all. Hopefully I'll finish tomorrow.

I did manage to take a few pictures while on a break from the books.

Wild Iris.


Buttercup.

Bees.



Don't know what this is. Lots of them at the Lupins. Looks something like a small wasp to me??



I did chase a Butterfly around for awhile but no luck. When it did land, it fluttered off to something else when I came near.

June 23rd.

It's been raining here all week. Everything is soaked. It did clear yesterday afternoon and I tried to do some weeding but alas it was just too wet. While outside I saw two bees on flowers so dropped everything and ran for the camera. Okay, I'm new at taking pictures of small stuff, so got all excited. I did take a moment to tell myself that there would be lots of opportunities to get pictures of bees as summer was coming on.....nah! gotta do it now. Shovel, gloves, clippers went flying as I raced to the house for the camera. (click on pics. to enlarge.)





Rain drops on Dandelion fluffs:

My stream. It sings after a heavy rain.



A pathway of Buttercups through part of the garden.

June 18th. Busy Bee, etc.

Friday was pretty scary, there was a forest fire just 3 klms from us. The first indication that something was amiss were fire trucks and police cars racing past the house. Then we saw a water bomber and helicopter. Finally word got around that there was a forest fire. I made sure I knew where all the cat carriers were, now, what to do about the chickens, well, have to shove them in the car as well I suppose. Not that it would come to this but if the wind changed direction we could be in serious trouble. After a while we heard it had jumped the road and they evacuated the community nearest the fire. After a few hours we got word that it was pretty well put out except for hot spots. Whew!!! I guess there were people keeping watch all night, we went down the next day and there were still hot spots but the hoses were still there and men keeping an eye on things. The weather has been so hot the woods are tinder dry. Snapped a few pictures of a small section of it by the road.





Very excited today, got my first Bee picture.

June 16th.

A fabulous day once again. I spent part of yesterday practicing with the Macro setting on the camera, hoping to see a bee or butterfly. I did see a couple of butterflies but they wouldn't land on a flower and keep still....sigh.....so took pictures of tiny flowers once again. So, this morning after weeding and watering I thought I'd get the camera and have another walk around. Nothing....except...

Flies on Poop. My daughter after seeing it said I should call it "World gone to Shit"!

June 15th.

Yesterday the weather turned glorious after lunch. Back to summer conditions once again, and suppose to be beautiful all weekend...whoo hooo! I heard on the radio that there were a lot more black bears on the go this year than last. Fortunately we haven't had any around this house so far this season. Apparently, in a community very near here, one killed a dog and another got into someones house. This is always a worry at certain times of the year. Although, I must admit, it's a lovely sight to see one of these beautiful creatures sitting in the herb garden munching away, but not something you want to fool with.

While in the city last weekend I took some pictures of the colourful houses in the old part of town. They are often referred to as "Jelly Bean" houses because of the bright colours. These are just a few of the many.





This is my daughters house. It's over a hundred years old and one of the first ones built in the area.

June 14th.

I've been trying to put a flippin slide show of Ducks on here this morning but have been messing it up every time I try. I've clicked on every bloody thing I can find to try to figure it out. I now give up!!!!

Cold again today so that alone has me in a bad mood. I figured the best thing to do was to go up to the green houses and buy something to fill in an area where I had bulbs planted that didn't come up. I came away with six Teddy Bear Sunflowers. Yesterday I bought a dozen and a half very nice annuals to put in a spot that was bare. The chickens were driving me mad while I was digging, with the thoughts of worms in their little heads no doubt. Finally got the plants in the ground and put a chicken wire fence around the whole lot until they get established. Well.....an hour later I checked on the plants and the hens had beaten down the fence and the plants. I could have cried. I can only say that the air was black with the thoughts that were going through my head. I re-built the fence so am now hoping it will hold up.

I now have the sunflowers in the ground....for how long I don't know. Must go out and check. The feathered creatures could have them tossed hither and yon by now.

June 13th.

It's turned cold again here, only 6C this morning. Thankfully it's suppose to warm up again by the weekend. The perennials are growing like crazy, leaves are out on the trees, it's looking wonderful. Starting to get that magical look to the garden. Off to the greenhouses again yesterday, not much else to do really as it was cold and wet. Picked up some pepper, cucumber and squash plants. A friend reminded me that it was only six months til Christmas....argh!!!! Time is going too fast. I remember my grandmother often saying that the older you get the faster time flies....and she was right.

These are pictures of some of the old churches in St. John's. For you Pete, not half as good as the ones you take but never the less here they are:

Saint Patricks


The priests residence


The RC Cathedral


United Church


Entrance to the Anglican Cathedral, sorry, couldn't get far enough away to get a full picture.

Thought I'd pop this one in...The courthouse

June 12th. St. John's

A lovely weekend in the city, sunny with temperatures reaching 30 C. Couldn't have asked for better. I hardly know where to begin with the pictures so thought I'd start with Signal Hill. It's 500 feet high in the old part of the city and on top is Cabot Tower, where Marconi sent his first wireless message. There was talk of an iceberg off the shore, but there was lots of fog so couldn't see the berg. Lots of tourist with cameras hoping to get a shot of it.

Cabot Tower



Scenes from the top




The city


I had to make another attempt to see the iceberg so went up again the next morning and there it was. Two in fact. It's difficult to tell how big it is as there is nothing to compare it with. Too bad there wasn't a boat nearby. Believe me, it was big.

Tomorrow...some of the buildings.