Winter Blues Be Gone

Today was a fair-to-middling kind of weather day.  Having worked all week and never seeing daylight, it is so exciting to get out and look at the garden in winter.  And winter it is, but the weather has been so mild!   It is really rewarding to have blooms that start in winter.  It just seems to kick the blues away.  The sarcococca is amazing, but these hellebores come next and once the buds are open they will last a good long time, giving us hope for spring.   You have to love a plant that can handle what nature throws at it in early winter but can still show off at this time of year. These guys live in my little woodland garden.  I love them!!

Vertical Territory and House Rules

Cats have a social system that includes a dynamic hierarchy.  Cats who hang out on the highest spots are typically top-cat at that moment. Cat hierarchies are not typically fixed in stone, but in our house, Gypsy has taken on the role of top cat, top dog, and top human.  There are a few times when this may change for a short time, and I am not sure yet if it is due to changes in the weather, food, time of day, or just some special reasons we are not privy too. Our cats also time- and room-share. One cat can be top-cat in one room at a specific time, while another shares the same privilege in another area.

Vertical territory is extremely important for cats. My kitties are litter mates and the vertical territory started about the time they had their ugly cat perch.  Once they were too big to share, it became territorial to the point I just got rid of it and sent them outside.

  Next came the windowsill, which was available for sharing; never a contest for top spot, although I did notice a preference for seating - left vs right.

 

It wasn't long after that they discovered counter surfing.  Gypsy in particular liked hanging out on the kitchen counter and using it as her personal highway.  That soon stopped when we cluttered the counter so there was no space to access it properly.  But where there's a will there is a way, and the kitchen area really has the best vertical spots for the kitties.    Smoke inevitably manages to get onto the kitchen window shelf.  If you put things on the shelf he invariably moves them.  If you ask - "What are you doing up there?"  the answer is in the look:  "Being a cat!"

Next came the discovery of the fridge.  Gypsy claimed this spot, and despite the many attack efforts by Smoke to claim the vantage point, Gypsy prevailed.  The higher you go, the better the view - especially out through the front windows and patio.  From the fridge they can watch everything in their world from up high. 

But, Gypsy has since moved it up a notch to the highest possible vantage point: the top of the kitchen cupboard "above" the fridge.  Lounging up this high is really the ultimate spot for the top cat.  Smoke has yet to achieve that level of superiority and doesn't even try to contest it.

 One might say this is a behavioural management issue, and we need to prevent it to preserve the sanitary integrity  of the counter and fridge top.  Yes, and we do our best -but lets face it, the pattern is that as soon as we leave the room or turn around, or go to bed, one or both of them are back up on the counter, or fridge.

The warmer weather will be coming soon and they will want to be outside more than they are now. This will allow for more vertical territorial opportunities for the top cat, like the roof of the garden shed.

January Bloom Winner!

It can be a challenge to find interesting evergreen or flowering plants to include in the winter garden. 

There are some that are nice such as winter flowering Heathers; Camellias; and Witch Hazels, but as I've said this before in a previous post, I think one of the most over-looked winter flowering plant is the Sarcococca.  It not only flowers during the winter, it has an amazing

fragrance, it grows in the shade, and it is evergreen.  The perfect winter plant. 

 I have only 2 of these plants at the moment - and they are both the Sarcococca  "Christmas Box".  Both are in bloom, and have been for most of January now..  Oh it feels like spring is around the corner.

Little Ladybug Living Life

Ladybugs have long life spans compared to many other insects.  From egg to larvae to pupa to adult takes just a month, but they can easily live for a couple of years as an adult.   Have you ever wondered where they go in  the winter?  Like bears, they hibernate; and they hibernate in groups.  Except for those who can find shelter in a house, or in this ladybugs case, in Country Gardens Nursery.  I couldn't help but see quite a few of these wonderful little creatures the other week when wandering through the nursery gardens.  I can't think of a more perfect place for a ladybug to over-winter than in a bright and lush nursery.   I;m sure this little guy would be a snowbird if he were human.

First 2015 Bonfire

You will think by now that we are obsessed with bonfires.  We are.  When you know the rain or snow is about to start, and there is dry wood or garden clippings to burn - then you burn.  And burn we did yesterday.  Chris used the old scooter (now hooked up with a wagon) to haul old wood from his saw pit that needed to be burned

 

  And I gathered more garden debris and old garden furniture

 

 The fire was a good one that started around noon.

 

The flames curled around the chunks of wood and old furniture in the pile, turning them orange and red hot, reducing them to glowing, fractured hints of their former lives. A good purge of old stuff.  We were reminded of the new year, and talked about the good stuff to come and the not so good stuff in the past, and let the tiny, glowing embers fly high above us on the hot air rising from the middle of the fire.  It was cold and getting dark and with the embers flying up it looked like we were making our own stars.  Fire is so therapeutic, and a simple bonfire in the back yard at the beginning of a new year, well, who would think it could do such wonderful things for you.  What more could you want?

We left it when it got dark and went back to the house for NHL and showers before dinner.  The holidays are over.  I'll miss this time between the old and the new.

The Last Supper?

Ok, my goal in 2015 is to loose some serious weight.  I am an all or nothing kind of girl so there is no middle ground.  I am committed to do this starting Monday.  I am not sure how it is going to play out or what approach I am going to take, or what program I will use other than to say it includes a change of diet and lots of exercise.  2015 is my self-improvement year.  With that said, Chris and I went to our favourite Bowen restaurant last night for dinner.  We were gifted with a certificate for the Rustique and I wanted to use it before my new diet program starts.  What a lovely meal:
Our chef complimented us with his special homemade duck foi gras as a started.  Wow it was rich!

I had the lamb shank, which is one of my favorites

And Chris had grilled lobster.

Delicious all around, to say the least.

That said, I’m still not sure how I feel about starting this year with a weight loss program.    I've been on every diet imaginable over the years - even when I didn't need to loose weight.  But then I have also always been incredibly active in sports and fitness and that is what has gone to the wayside due to my commuting and long hours since moving to Bowen.  But I want to be better now, I want to feel better and have more energy again. I need my life-force back.  As I have aged I have made poor food choices and that needs to change.  I’ve never been truly happy or comfortable with my body and I definitely haven’t been proud of how I looked.  Especially these days.   I am not going to blog about the process of getting to where I want to be, but I may post updates.  By sharing this, I am committing to it. 

What About those Nails?

For me, pedicures have always been the way to go.  I just love for my little toes and feet to feel better and look pretty...and I love the leg massage that goes along with it.  Our  feet are very important and should be pampered.  After all, they are what keeps us walking around, skipping and hopping. 

This week I started thinking about my poor neglected hands and nails.  They are consistently neglected because they are always in use some way or the other – either in the soil of the garden when I am planting or weeding, or in some abrasive household cleaning product when I am doing housekeeping chores. I don’t wear gloves and my hands are a mess. So why do I neglect them, and not my feet?  More people see my hands than my feet, and my hands will always be seen. So last night I decided to throw a coat of nail polish onto my tired broken nails before we went out for dinner.   What a sorry sight!

 It perked me up though, as I could see the potential.  I instantly felt more elegant and more confident.  But I did a quick slap-ass job of it so my nails and hands are still in really rough shape.  I decided right then that I would start to have manicures. I will grow my nails just a wee bit and before the month is up, I will go see the lady who does my pedicures and have her perform magic on my hands and nails.  I feel I have just grown up.  I shall get manicures for any reason now, be it monumental moments or bad days.  As a working woman, I will now extend manicured hands when I shake hands with colleagues or other business professionals.  I will feel more beautiful, more confident, and more powerful with my nails done.

Even though it is such a tiny and minimal thing, it changes the way I think and feel. I will take on the world in 2015 with these ten fingers painted in the color of my choice.

Why I Blog:

When I first started my blog in 2009, I thought it might be a creative outlet for me.  I had just been given my first digital camera from Chris, and I didn’t seem to be printing photos anymore for the old keep-sake photo albums. I was also just getting into gardening and we had the looming project of developing our property in front of us.  

Now over the course of my life I’ve embraced a number of different hobbies, most of which fell by the wayside for one reason or another, so I thought I would create a blog as a hobby.  I knew nothing about blogging, but it is the first personal hobby that has brought me as much satisfaction as gardening. In almost too many ways to count, it has changed me and the way I look at my life.  In fact, so much so, it has become a hobby I regularly recommend to others. 

I started blogging as a personal tool to journal the experiences I was having as a gardener and pond creator, but somewhere along the line, it became less about me capturing a moment or telling a little story, and more about the moment changing how I view life.    You see, the process of writing includes putting thoughts on paper so to speak, and the blogging process encourages you to stop and think deeper.

Once you start writing about your life and what shapes it, you begin thinking more about who you are, who you are becoming, and whether you like what you see or not.  I find myself to be boring, quite frankly, but it’s not possible to write about every event, every thought, and every happening in your life.  Instead, you have to go through a process of choosing to capture the most meaningful or significant events and the most important thoughts of the day or the week, or the month.  Often I am reminded that sometimes the most meaningful things appear in the most mundane— like my post about finding pleasure in “fog”;  or  my `bee buzz`; or  being eye level with eagles!

When you blog, you can open the doors of your journey and allow others to join you if you want.  My blog is not public; my privacy settings limit viewing to those I have given the link to, or  to those who have signed up to follow by email.    My blog is for me really, and I share (with those who are interested), my successes and failures, my good moments and the not so great ones.

My blog is a digital record of my life that is electronically saved.  It can never be lost, or destroyed in a fire.  But the most important thing for me,`and one of the main reasons I continue to blog,  is that each year, on January 1^st,  I turn my bloggings into a soft-cover book comprising all my posts from the previous year, and these books become my year in review – my annual photo album.  My life.!

I believe it is when you share your life, that you feel connections forming.  So as I start another year, I will try to ponder more effectively, the meaningful in the mundane and in the not so mundane.