Pumpkins!

Since I don't really like eating veggies, but I enjoy CARVING veggies, I planted some pumpkins seeds.

After 1 week they were sprouting like crazy. After 1 month, they are out of control.

Pretty soon we won't be able to walk up the sidewalk to our house because it will be a pumpkin patch. Yay!

Beans

I planted some bean seeds and 1 week later they were growing.

One month later, they are huge! If I know anything about gardening (and I don't!), I believe the yellow flowers (which you might not be able to see from the photo) will turn into beans soon. Yay!

I don't even like veggies, but growing things is fun.

Stanley Park

My favorite part of Vancouver (besides the pizza slice I bought for only $1.25 - it was delicious!!!) was Stanley Park.

The Park is over 1000 acres. There is a totem pole area (I guess totem poles are big business up in British Columbia and Alaska), a huge rose garden, many other gardens, beaches, lawn bowling (what ever that is) and other things. It's named Stanley Park after the same guy that the Stanley Cup in hockey is named after.

Overall Vancouver was a very pretty city.  The day we were there, it was very sunny and warm.  However, I guess it rains A LOT there, which sounds pretty dreary to me.  One of our tour guides said that 20% of Vancouver-ians are millionaires.  So, even though Jonathan wants to pack up and move there (city water is free and health care is free - plus there is hockey!!), I'm going to try to convince him to stay in sunny Florida.

Ahhhhhhhhh!

So I'm outside planting some plants and throwing mulch around, when Jonathan says, 'come here!'

I figured he wanted me to help him with fixing 2 sprinkler heads.

Instead he shows me a SNAKE SKIN on the yard!  I know snakes are around, but I don't want to think about it, see one, or know about it.

This is a month after Jonathan tells me this story:  He's mowing the lawn (push mower) and he sees something.  But it's too late, he's run it over with the lawn mower.  As he looks behind him, he sees a headless snake flopping around.  He came inside to show me (seriously?!?), but the snake head and body are gone.  We're assuming another animal ate it.

Yum.

Worst Day Ever!

So when we first bought this house, I planted 3 flowering bushing between our yard and the neighbors yard.  I wanted them to act as a natural fence.

Over 1 year later, and they are still not as big as I would've liked.  I guess I didn't really pay attention when I bought them, but they are obviously sunloving plants, and this is a shady area.

So, after much convincing, Jonathan let me dig them up, and transplant them to the other side of the house.

Digging them up wasn't too challenging, however the 3 plants had morphed into 6!  So now I had 6 mini bushes (they are about 3' tall) to transplant.  My work just doubled!

The first 2 holes I dug were uneventful.  Then hole #3 ... as I'm cramming the shovel into the ground I hear *CLING*.  As I'm praying for it to be a rock, it turns out to be a white pipe.  As I move the dirt around I see a 1" gash in the pipe.  I use the word "crap" a lot, and I run in the house to start running water to see what kind of pipe it was.  Turns out to just be a sprinkler pipe.  Thank goodness!  I can fix that myself (with a lot of elbow grease).

Holes #4 and #5 are also uneventful.  Then hole #6 ... *TENSION* on my shovel.  I apologize to any virgin ears, but after I saw what it was, I admit to yelling 3 of the "bad" obseneties (I'll let you guess what they were), and they were pretty loud.  It was a wire.  A silver wire coated in black.  It looked just like a root!  I had snaped it clean in 2.

I'm officially freaking out.  I run in the house (by now it's 8:45pm and getting dark) and turn on everything I can - oven, stove, cable, every light, I flush the toilet for kicks ... everything works.  I breath a sigh of relief.  I broke the 1 wire that we don't use.

Turns out it's a secondary cable wire for an internet jack in our master bedroom, that we don't use.  When we went to Lowe's to get sprinkler fixing supplies (only $3.75!!! - jackpot!), the Lowe's guy suggested to bury it and forget about it.  Done, and done!