Queen Elizabeth Park

At the end of September, we have finally got a stretch of that lovely Fall weather.   My sister is out from Ontario, and we decided to take  a visit to Queen Elizabeth park in Vancouver.  Kind of fitting don't you think, after all my sister's middle name is Elizabeth, after the queen.

Meredith decided to take over the camera, hmmm, maybe so she could avoid being in most shots.

Lovely Fall colours

I'm not sure if this is our better side...

Or maybe this is.  A fellow reading on a bench was recruited to be photographer.

A fountain at the top of the park.  This makes me think of frozen ice forms in the high Arctic

And then we went into the conservatory, which we neglected to take a shot of from the outside.

Fascinating plants, and colourful birds and fish. 

We took advantage of an available wheelchair to give my mother a break from walking.

Outside, the view over downtown was lovely

And after waiting for two bus loads of Japanese tourists to have their photos taken, and then move on, we had these guys to ourselves.

The artist had a sense of humour. 

They are two couples, with this fellow being married to the woman on his left in the leather jacket.  They have matching wedding rings and matching t-shirts.

The photographer is married to the woman in the skirt

And look what the other fellow is doing:)

And more backsides....

And then we wandered down and sat by a pond, where a group of those pesky  Canada Geese were showing us how they take a bath.  It was quite hilarious.

A gorgeous afternoon, followed by a meal at Granville Island.

An Unlikely Pair

A week ago when we weren't at a farmers market on the Saturday, we wandered over to the Fall Fair at a local school and community center.  There was a garage sale close by.  I used to love going to garage sales, but with working on the weekends in prime garage sale time, we don't get the chance much any more. All I bought at this one was this large pottery pear, for 25 cents.  Not sure what I am going to do with it yet.  Next to it is the lone red bartlett from a tree we planted in the spring.

Are you sure this pear isn't for me?

I'll just keep my eye on it in case you walk away and forget that you put it down here....

Too bad Luna.

We ate the pear, and it was good.  Luna got the core!

Searching for Fall

After viewing some stunning Fall colours on other blogs, especially those from the East, I thought I would look and see what I could find this morning. 

I knew that none of the native vegetation would be showing much, and I was right.  Mostly greens and browns and a little yellow thrown in.  Just too much rain and not enough sun.

But, there were lots of red, oranges and yellows in other places.

Chinese Lantern Physalis alkekengi

Queen of the sh*t heap   manure pile

 

Calli Herbivorous

Manure being spread on the hay field.

It's free, and the spreading is free, so it doesn't get much better than that.

It's fresh and a little hot, but it will get washed in tonight, unfortunately more rain predicted

I got the sunflowers planted rather late, but what there are look nice

Luna in one of her favourite spots

And how can I forget my little 'red' dog

And in three hours I'm heading to the the airport to

pick up ma seesta!!

Caught in the Act

The Bartlett pear tree fence was successful in the fact that it kept the dogs from gorging on pears.  What happened though that it was also too good at keeping us out.  Well we didn't make the effort to go in there and keep the pears cleaned up, and we really should have got them all picked off the tree.  Unfortunately we wasted quite a lot.  Not totally wasted, as they went to the chickens and the sheep, and the dogs got the occasional one, but if we had been more organized we could have sold lots more at the market.  I did get enough peeled and in the freezer for quite a few batches of ginger pear jam.

Every once in a while we would see one of the dogs circling the fence, and there would be the odd little hole dug as they tried to get at the pears teasing them right on the other side of the wire.  This was Luna this morning, taken through the kitchen window

I don't hear anyone

Maybe I can get this one before they notice

Got it!

Here are the pears from the Comice tree, they got picked on Tuesday (thanks Meredith).  And that's only half of them.  I'll get some of them bagged up for the markets this weekend.

Women with Grinders

We have made some progress on The Great Deck Project in the past couple of days.  The covering for the deck was bought and brought home yesterday.  I walked away when Larry was going through the check-out.  I decided I'd rather not see what the total $$$$ came to.

So now all the plywood is on.  Of course it has taken three times longer than I thought.  We came across bits of rot in some of the joists where the plywood had rotted at the seams, so that all had to be fixed.

Yesterday I decided I was going to sand all the fascia boards so that they could be painted.   Weathered boards, coated in peeling paint and green algae.  I tried the little 1/4 sheet sander, but after a couple of seconds the paper kept coming off.  I tried a sanding block, which was useless.  So then I was trying to think of what else I could use.  I thought of this wire brush thing that fit into the drill.  After spending a lot of time looking for it, I finally found it, but it was rather worn down.  David happened to come home at that point, so I asked him if he had anything like that.  He did, but he said it only fit on his grinder.  So he got it all set up for me.  He suggested I wear the face mask, as the little wire bristles have a tendency to fly out.  I did pick one out of my upper arm later.  Funny, didn't even know it was there, just happened to brush it with my hand.  Kind of like an acupuncture needle I guess.

All dressed for battle

And my weapon of choice

It worked like a hot damn!

So well in fact that I am eyeing up other things that I'd like to paint

(I just can't help noticing how incredibly blue that sky looks!  No editing was done)

In the afternoon I was putting the new paint on.  Roller in one hand, and holding the roller tray with the other.   I guess I can only concentrate on one hand at a time.  Twice, I let the tray tip without realizing it, and paint was pouring out one corner all over the paving stones below.  A lot of water and a scrub brush took care of that.  The second time, (I must be a slow learner), the paint happened to pour all over my pant leg, and then onto the paving stones.  Good grief:(

At one point, the five foot deep piece of deck between the back door and the stairs to the patio was just open joists with a narrow strip of plywood down the middle to stand on.  Before I could stop her, Luna had hopped across the first gap to the board and then across the next gap to the stairs without a second thought.  Then she came back the same way.  The other day Jake would not cross a 6" gap at the top of the stairs.  Maybe it's all related to the issues he has with the dogwalk.

One coat of paint on the deck edge, and the deck is now all fully tarped over to keep the plywood dry from the rain coming tomorrow, and the next day, and so on, and so on.