Our Garden

George and I have put a fair amount of effort into our property this spring. And it officially paid off last night... a couple were walking by last evening and they stopped to say our flowers were beautiful. I casually said "oh thanks," like it was nothing. But George said I had a smile from ear to ear.

Personally, I think the highlight is George's new lawn. What started out as a field of mud after a very wet winter has been transformed into a heaven for my bare feet.

The front garden is coming along very nicely although i'm having a little trouble with the area in front of the porch. Nothing seems to be growing there. The side of the house looks spectacular... a variety of Lily of the Valley, Hostas, Ferns and more are coming along nicely. The backyard, well, is another story. That'll be a task for next year we think.

The heirloom tomatoes I planted from seed are doing very well indeed. Nice thick stems... should produce some nice stuff. The peas are spreading their leaves and the beens are poking their heads through the soil as i write this. We also planted our lettuce the other night. yummy!

And we got ourselves a clothesline so you can expect to see our nasties blowing in the wind most weekends. Good timing, too, since our dryer just broke down!

Vacation: New York City

Not long after returning from Vancouver, George and I jumped on another plane and made our way to New York City to see the sights with our friend, Mary. I mean Frank.

We landed in New Jersey and after a short train trip, found ourselves amidst the hustle and bustle of Penn Station during morning rush hour. We decided to walk to our hotel in the rain since traffic was bumper to bumper along 8th Ave. After meeting up with Mary, we grabbed our cameras and headed out. After about five minutes, we decided to spend a few bucks and grab some ponchos. but not just any ponchos... I Heart NY Ponchos!

The rest of the day was spent walking around midtown and stopping into stores of interest. The day's highlights include;
• Purchasing a sausage in a moldy bun. BTW... what the hell is with NY and street meat?? Your choices of topping are mustard and ketchup. That's it. That's 1 of Toronto!
• Strolling and drooling through Crate and Barrel
• Seeing our first broadway show: Mary Poppins!
• Enjoying martinis and a lovely dinner at some restaurant near Times Square
• Going to a gay dance bar with a bunch of fuglys
• Going to a gay leather bar with a bunch of fuglys

Our second day was spent literally walking, walking and more walking. Highlights include:
• Seeing the remnants of the World Trade Centre (huge tourist attraction now)
• Shopping for dirt cheap clothes
• Fighting our way through Macys to buy a griddle and Martha Stewart pot

We had a blast!

Vacation: Vancouver

Well, it's been a busy vacation week let me tell you!

George and I decided to go out to visit Michelle and Gary in Vancouver for a couple of days and had a most wonderful time! Oh, and did I tell you we got to fly Executive Class on the way out? Wow... remodeled airplanes with seats that stretch out so you could sleep. And that is just what we did. Unfortunately i missed our freshly baked cookie and ice cream. George tried waking me up after the fact and that just made me miserable.

There were two trip highlights:
1) Mich and Gary took us on a mountain hike that began with a sign that read "this is not a walk in the park." We all laughed at that. Two hours later we weren't laughing. Great work out on the thighs. The view at top (well, not quite top but near the snow) was gorgeous. The hike ended appropriately with beer at a cute bar in some place called sasquatch or something like that. BTW... never sit in the back seat of a VW Bug. Veryyyy uncomfortable.

2) On our second day, George and I decided to spend the day wondering around Vancouver (because our feet didn't hurt enough!) After a couple of hours, we ended up on the waterfront watching planes take off and land on the water. As a joke, we decided to go in and check out prices. For the low low price of $149 each we could take a 40 minute aerial tour of Vancouver. Needless to say it didn't take an arm twisting to convince either of us to do it. Friggin awesome! Taking off and landing is way smoother than i expected. The views are awesome although it's obvious that there is lots of money in Vancouver. Every house along the coast is a mansion.
Mister George, however, decided to ditch me and sit up with the pilot. I was stuck in the back seat all by myself. To top it off, i noticed that those sitting in the back seat would likely die first if crashed into ocean as i would have to rely on people in front of me to open the damn door. But chances are they'd be dead so i'd drown.

We took the red eye home and celebrated my birthday in Toronto. Christine had a delicious bbq for us and we spent evening playing Badminton with kids.

squirrel poo

So it's been really friggin frustrating taking the dogs out onto our upstairs patio because we had a squirrel (s?) living under the damn thing. The door would open and our pups would go crazy smelling what's underneath, trying to get at them.

So the other day we said ENOUGH and tore up the floor.

We were afraid we'd come across baby squirrels - which we'd have to feed to our dogs or make a stew out of - but luckily we didn't. Just enough squirrel poo, newspaper, plastic, leaves and other seeding materials to fill one of those brown paper bags. Spent the whole bloody evening cleaning it up.

And the whole time the cute little guy sat in the tree and watched me. Felt a little bad for him.

But really, our comfort is much more important.

Green thumbs and dirt under the fingernails

This past weekend was spent in the garden planting roots of soon-to-be gorgeous flowers and George spreading his seed.

Grass seed that is.

The property is starting to take shape. It looks neat and tidy and the Lily of the Valley is about to bloom. One of our trees is in bloom and happily, the birds have taken a liking to our property. there is even a nest of sparrows on the roof! We're very excited about this as we've made an effort to make our place bird-friendly. We have two bird feeders and a bird house. Plus we've planted seeds of various grasses that apparently birds will love.

I also transplanted some flowers that I had been growing inside for the last month. George is happy to have the bedroom window sill back. I still have my tomatoes under the grow-op in the attic. They're coming along wonderfully. I'll probably put outside this weekend.

I also planted snow pea seeds in the back.

I can't wait to see our place in middle of August! Pictures will be posted.