Texture Tuesday

It's been such a long time since I've used my camera and posted to this blog.  Hopefully, it will start to be a regular occurrence.  Here's my photo for Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday.  Peonies are now in full bloom in the yard.  I simply added a layer of Kim's texture letgo.

Devonian Botanic Garden Luminaria

For years I have wanted to see this event.  It was either too cold, no snow or bad highways.  Yesterday was perfect.  A little cold (minus 17 Celsius) but no wind so I spent the evening at the Devonian Botanic Gardens with my two photo buddies.  Both of them being so polite, neither would tell me it might be a tad too cold for this.

First a stop at an Indian restaurant for a fabulous meal.

Ice cold water was served in beautiful hammered copper cups.

We had the most delicious mango milkshake with dinner.

After dinner back to the truck and the drive to Devon.  At the Devonian Botanic Gardens we were greeted with thousands of luminarias leading the way to the Japanese Garden.

Lanterns and luminarias adorned the trees.

During the summer a large pond and bridge are the focal point of the garden.  Seeing this in the winter I sure want to make a trip back in the summer.

Ice sculptures along the paths were plentiful.

Looking back at the end of the trail through the five acres, it was a beautiful sight to see and certainly worth the frozen fingers and camera.

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Ted and Lois Hole Healing Garden

With a weekend of hospital visits, it was only natural to take a walk around the Robins Pavillion, part of the Lois Hole Hospital for Women.  Lois Hole was a remarkable woman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Hole and we found a beautiful garden in the hospital, appropriately named The Ted and Lois Healing Garden.

Water features and stained glass great the visitors as they enter the garden

Stained glass "fences" provide shade and privacy

The gardens are colour coordinated of course

And I think my favorite from the garden is the abundance of grasses, giving you a feeling your in the prairies and being able to escape the reality of the hospital.

My daughter now has an appointment with a surgeon at another hospital on Tuesday, so we're remaining very hopeful.

Sharing with A Flash of Inspiration - Weekend Walk

Standing on the outside

Sometines I feel like this red poppy, standing on the outside, perhaps dancing to a different beat but I think I have finally realized that it can be a very good place to be.

Texture used was Kim Klassen's Annabelle.  Sharing with Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday

Have you ever noticed that your style of processing photos on any given day, depends on your mood.  I'm not a professional photographer doing work for hire, so my "style" can change on a any given day.  Today was not an exceptionally happy day.  The photos in today's post were taken at the same greenhouse, my happy place, as yesterday's post, but processed this afternoon.

Today I had to go into my parent's home and remove some of my Dad's bedroom furniture and clothing.  He is now on the "First Available List" for a safe place for persons with Alzheimer's.  He's still in the hospital where he'll remain until a suitable place is available.  My Mom is still living at home with dementia and has not come to terms with the fact that he will not be coming home.  Moving his things with her in the house would have been tramatic for her so it was done while she was visiting at the hospital.

I must say that I felt like a bit of a thief when I was there, wondering who was watching me.

And who might be giving me the evil eye from behind their curtains.

But it seems that there's always those neighborhoods where no one really sees or cares what is going on next door.  Today I was lucky I was in this type of neighborhood.

I must say after being with my parents today and seeing how well he's doing in the hospital with proper care and how much she's failing living at home alone, I feel much better about working towards having them live together in safe, assisted living.

A yellow walk

Inspired by http://www.lafcustomdesigns.com/2012/09/walk-and-click-wednesdays-2-yellow.html I took a walk around the yard after work to see what I could find in the yard that was yellow.  It was a perfect day for shooting yellow, a little gloomy and overcast.

A bottle on the shelf to start the walk.

This little yellow flower certainly stood out surrounded by orange.

Such a soft pastel yellow, this little daisy waited until now to bloom.

Sometimes the back can be just as interesting.

Dill flowers in the garden.

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Outer Space in the Garden

I have a confession to make.  When I read, I tend to skim, reading only the words that seem important at the time.  When I was reading Roxi's blog, Creating Beyond the Layers, the words I read were "Outer Space" not realizing that she meant someone else's garden.  I immediately thought "Outer Space" as in creatures and the flowers that these creatures would land on when they came to visit.  Grabbing the camera I went into the yard looking for unusual views of the flowers.  Only later did I realize what Roxi meant.  Thinking that I live in the county with no neighbors with flower gardens, I thought I might as well go with my original thought.

Here's the little creature I found lurking on a cucumber

 

 Landing pads for the little creatures   

Possibly what a home planet might look like

   

 A bad hair day after a long trip   

A hungry mouth looking for a meal   

And a nasty little visitor I wish would find somewhere else to visit   

Next week's theme is 'Back at home, what's blooming". Could be interesting. 

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Waterlily, The Movie

"Slow down, you move too fast, you've got to make the morning last
Just kickin' down the cobble-stones, lookin' for fun and feelin' groovy"

From the Song: Feeling Groovy (59th St. Bridge Song) by Simon and Garfunkel

Lately life seems to be a blur and moving too fast.  I think sometimes we all forget to slow down.  This morning, I did slow down and play with a new program ProShow Gold by Photodex, an easy, affordable program to make a slide show.

Hope you'll take a few minutes and relax with my waterlily.  Music is Sleep Away by Bob Acri.  I don't have alot of music and found this piece in my sample music provided by Microsoft.  Seemed fitting.

The new front step

Being the queen of unfinished projects, last weekend was monumental.  The front step was finished!!!

As part of the yard makeover for my daughter's wedding, my husband and son-in-law to be, replaced the front step last April.  My job was to install the railings and make the post caps.  I love to do wood work but don't have the strength for the heavy work so I do the finishing and painting.  I've been putting it off for a while but finally decided this was a project I would finish.

The front of the house faces north and there's not much color in the flower bed.  The ferns have taken over the flower bed for the past 30 years and with them being so easy to take care of, I've let them grow.

And the new posts have given me a place for a hanging baskets.

 

This is the view from the front step leading into the east yard.

Getting the yard ready for the wedding has been a major undertaking but I'm loving the results.  Hope to share more with you as we start to finish up the projects.

The Garden Walkway

It's been my dream to have a flower garden on the south side of the house. Years ago we did have a little flower bed, but as time passed, it had grown over and attention turned to a larger vegetable garden. The south side of the house has been sadly neglected, with the exception of cutting the grass for quite a few years. With our daughter getting married in the yard in August, landscaping changes have had to be made. The vegetable garden hasn't been used for some time and has been turned back to lawn. The south side of the house needed attention, so the flower garden dream turned into a reality. Since the house has a walk out basement a walk way was needed through the flower bed and it started with a trip to Totem to pick up a few pavers.

The walkway had been leveled by my son-in-law to be and filled with sand by my husband so all I had to do was level the sand and place the pavers.

 

This iris is the last remaining plant from the original flower bed. It's been growing in the lawn for the past 25 years and withstood the "renovation" giving us a few blossoms this year.

 

The wagon wheels were purchased at an auction years ago and repainted last year, waiting for their place in the garden walkway. We still have to put in a deck between the garden and the house, but the wedding isn't until the end of August, so we have a little time.

 

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