Camp Day

I trust all you good Canadians will be going to Tim Hortons today, more than once if you possibly can. This is the day that the revenue from coffee sales goes to support their regional camps. We'll pretty well start the day there. We'll be taking The Bonnie Wee One along with us to buy kosher food in town for an upcoming distinguished guest, and our trips into town always begin at Timmy's. In fact our trips to anywhere begin there. It's the altar at which Cuppa worships and is renewed. Praise be. We could drive all of the way out west or down east, which we have, and the biggest thrill for Cuppa would be starting at Tim's ... and then hitting as many as possible. I drink extra large, double cream in a travel mug. What about you?

Enough Already

Seriously folks: enough is enough. It's the second day of June already, but I'm tempted to turn the furnace on as I sit here in my winter jacket and woolly socks. When we've only a few weeks to go until summer officially begins, is a modicum of warmth too much to ask?

...

I've now peeked at the forecast, and it appears that the worst is over and that more seasonable temperatures are on the way. If I can just survive a few more hours without losing limbs to frostbite ...

Difficult Partings

We have great trouble leaving Nikki Dee these days because goodbye's upset her so much. It's hard to know what to do; often, we'll try to sneak out to prevent her from having a meltdown, but we don't want to lose her trust either. Yet, if we do leave with normal goodbyes she'll wail pitifully and want desperately to come with us. She'll find her shoes and bring them to us with so much hope in her heart. This sometimes works as it's really really tough to let this darling kid down.

Yesterday, she somehow picked up the cue that we would be going in a little while because she was getting her shoes and jabbering about the car well before we had made any sort of tangible move. I'm not sure exactly what the cue was, but she's a very clever little girl to have figured it out.

Mom and Amma got her out to the car before me, and this is the sight that greeted me when I arrived to take my place behind the wheel. There she was sitting in the driver's seat wearing Buppa's jaunty cap and sunglasses.





Oddly enough, even though she clearly wanted to come with us, she still had some mournful farewells for her parents. As we were driving up the street, there was a repeated, "Bye Daddy, bye mommy." Soon, however, Cuppa started up her Raffi CD, and Nikki Dee smiled happily and got into her Raffi groove. Let's hear it for Baby Beluga in the Deep Blue Sea.

I don't know how we're all going to be able to deal with partings in the future because I don't expect that it's going to get any easier.

However, I do trust that she will leave the driving to me for about another fourteen years.

The Garden Continued ...

It took almost a whole week, to lay some newspaper over this bed and then cover it with good soil. There are two reasons for the delay: (i) it's been raining buckets; and, (ii) we've been busy with company. Still on the agenda: more flowers and mulch cover. I want this to become a perennial garden, but perennials take time to mature. The old saying is that they sleep in the first year, creep in the second year, and gallop in the third. Whether that's completely true or not may be somewhat debatable, but I do know that whatever perennials we put in this year, there will have to be plenty of annuals to supplement them. That's what we've planted so far, and we'll have to put still more in.



The same neighbouring young man (see their dog looking out their door) who was going to bring the rocks (see previous post) also proclaimed that he would fill it up with top soil. After a week, none appeared, so we did it ourselves — sixteen bags in all. Truthfully, I didn't expect him to come through, and I didn't particularly want him to as I preferred to lay the newspaper (as a weed barrier) and then make that sure the soil that did go in in would be of decent quality. Still ...

My Personal Stonehenge

How do you love My Personal Stonehenge on the front lawn?

When we moved here almost four years ago, the lawn was in terrible shape. For the most part, it remains in that state, but at last we are moving in the right direction — I think.

We share this tiny space with a neighbour and, being the newcomers, didn't want to step on toes at first although the situation desperately required intervention, but since said former neighbor seemed to want to try to try his own rather ungreen hand at improving the situation — a task which resulted in an F grading — we kept our own council for the first two seasons. Last year, however, we became a little more assertive — gently so — and put the former and pathetic tree out of its misery, replacing it with the twig that you see in the photo down below. A least it's a healthy twig which, hopefully, has a promising future. We also elicited our former neighbour's permission to begin sowing white clover since normal grass doesn't seem to destined to flourish in this yard.

The former tree, a Mountain Ash, is perhaps worthy of a digression. We are told that the previous occupant of our house thought its roots were too close to the surface, so he decided to hack them out, clever fellow that he was. Apparently, the tree was never the same after that although, for the life of me, I can't begin to fathom why.

Fast forward to this year: the clover is coming along, and the new tree seems to be taking hold. However, the new lilac tree was no longer in the original flower bed, and I thought the two should be brought into one as a flower bed circle in front of the tree seemed rather odd. So, one day early last week, Cuppa and I were out measuring an outline for a larger flower bed in order to know how many bordering stones to purchase for the newly envisioned bed when one of our new neighbours offered his two cents: our new neighbours being a group of young men — nice but young — an important caveat, I'm afraid.

One of these stalwart fellows works for a paving company that apparently does some landscaping. He offered to bring home field rocks that they use. And so he did bring five here and dumped them on the lawn. But that was Wednesday, and by Sunday no further rocks had appeared. Young males, you see, would not necessarily see the importance of getting the job done rather than leaving gargantuan boulders strewn about willy nilly for half the summer.

So, old AC and his decrepit spine, went foraging. Fortunately, as I have previously posted, rock is abundant here. Just find a construction site, and you'll find rocks aplenty, and since there's much construction going on locally these days, rocks are plentiful. Unfortunately, they're only available on a carry-out basis, so back and forth we went on Sunday, what passes for my back and me, trying to choose rocks that would fit together in some sort of semi sensible fashion. And this is the result.



The next step will be to lay old newspapers down as a weed barrier before filling with garden soil and putting in some plants. I had a respectable perennial garden back in Sarnia a few years ago but was glad to take a hiatus from tending plants for these past several years, which partly explains why I distanced myself from proper grounds keeping. However, I am beginning to itch again — for more modest acreage this time, however. I suppose that annual bedding plants will take centre stage this year, but I hope to have a bit of perennial garden again in the near future.

And that's the account of the little Stonhenge that lies upon my tiny front lawn ... where hopefully only young virgin mosquitoes will be sacrificed.

First Day at Daycare

Nikki Dee went to Daycare for the first time yesterday. It's only for one day a week, partly because she's a very sociable child who thrives on having playmates around and partly because she's a very active munchkin, and with a young baby at home, Mom can use a little relief. Apparently, she loved it. One thing, however, is that Little Missy would not be indulging in the de rigeur nap that all of the ordinary children partake in. When you consider the song and dance (literally) that we have to go through to perhaps, just perhaps, get her down for a nap, it's not surprising that both she and the caregivers would pass on the nap. She's getting rather big for the Buppa to rock and dance with, but he loves this time with her and will miss it in a way when it's no longer the norm. This photo was from a recent day when we dropped over. I was so hot that I borrowed the SIL's shorts for a while.



Have I ever mentioned that I love this kid?

Silent Sunday