Meg came for a visit

Brad's Mum came for a visit, I didn't take many pictures though - really just this one when we were over visiting some friends.

The two Margarets.

Meg and Maggie (Joan's dog)

We did a lot of shopping, Meg, my friend Joan and I spent a couple of days gallivanting around the shops in ours and a few surrounding communities. A bit of touring around and generally enjoying the backyard so I didn't think to take too many pics.

We have had a very nice visit the last week or so.

Another addition to the deck

We ordered a gazebo for the deck as the bugs were more than we wanted to manage

Largely made of screening, it maintains the views

Major storm expected, we put all the flowers under the gazebo and just as well as it turns out. However, since then....hail. 

Hopefully the return of the sun will liven things up again.

On a lighter note: my zucchini has doubled in size since this picture was taken last week.

Also, we found a great deal on a fire table through Amazon and are currently awaiting its arrival, will be a nice addition to chilly evenings on the deck.

Getting the Pickleball up and running

Things are progressing in my efforts to get Pickleball started here in our new community. We have a place to play, a basic list of players and have ordered the equipment we will require, a lot of which has already arrived... just waiting on the nets now.

I have begun putting teasers out on our local Facebook page and hope to build up some excitement, enough to get people out to try it at least. I expect that attendance will ebb and flow until it finally settles on the die-hard types with a few once-in-a-while-ers popping in.

We just can't help ourselves

We continue to buy plants/flowers... I'm running out of buckets to put them all in (still have a few :D) In our defence, we had several large bags of potting soil left over from the last raised bed and we wanted to use it up.

Re-homed the plants we had in these and replaced with lovely flowers

Brad found this massive flower planter and had to have it

Brad's Mum bought us this garden planting stand and with everything planted now we decided to fill it too!

Re-homed the 8 Lemon Balm plants that were in this garden bed (as it is a spreader) into pots for the deck and replaced them with more Rosemary & Thyme, then added Spinach seeds. The hope is that this cooler shaded area will allow the spinach to thrive during summer but either way we will be planting spinach also in the fall.

My Zucchini ( I grew from seed) hasn't budged at all.

Amish Peas have cracked and are doing well

Kidney beans are doing well

Scarlet Runner beans are doing well

We went for a drive the other day which took us through the area where the forest fires were threatening our community. Its a mess and thats just the small bit you can see from the road.

The biggest take away from these pictures is just how fast Mother Nature recovers, the fields are filling in already. The fires in our area are still burning but are 'under control'.