Thursday night I went to bed at 7:45 pm. Totally tuckered out. With Ray only an hour behind me. We both had a great sleep. Nice to be in our own bed again. I usually pack my neck pillow when we travel, but thought that for 2 nights, try without it. I should've packed it. lol
Friday at 11 am Penny arrived to help with digging in my new plants and move some other ones to make room. 3 bunches of Black Eyed Susan's were planted in the back amoungst the heather. More Black Eyed Susan's were donated to my neighbour Pat this time. The ones I donated to June last spring are doing fabulous in her garden.
This is what my Jeruselum Sage should look like next fall. It has furry leaves so the deer should leave it alone.
3 hours later we were done. I don't know how I would handle it all without Penny coming once a week. She does all my digging and heavy lifting. :)
Saturday morning, I'm back in the garden, fertilizing my rhodo's, applying slug bait around my new plants and making little cheesecloth packages of Irish Spring soap to place around my new plants to prevent the deer from eating them, especially the stargazer hydrangeas, hopefully. This worked so far for me the past 2 years. My garden should be even more beautiful next fall. I did pick 4 bouquets of flowers for the house, and one for Pat. Might as well enjoy them inside before they all die off.
Two weeks ago I ordered a new gazebo for the dock, twice as big as our current one. This is to provide more shade and curtains to block the wind. I purchased it now, as it's 50% off and saved $2000. I also purchased a firetable and 4 new recliner chairs at a great discount. It pays to buy at summers end if you are patient enough. Now I must be patient until next spring before I see my vision come together. :)
Jason and his friend will set it up next spring. We will move the current one to the other jut out on our dock over the picnic table. We've found it very windy down at the dock for the past 2 summers, so time to fix it so we can still spend time down there where we would rather be.
The last box of steel came the day after we left. Poor Darryl had to get it into our garage. Thanks a bunch Darryl!
Next problem is how to get it into the basement for the winter...... Mike told me Friday afternoon that, all his kids were coming tomorrow for the last "summer weekend". Bonus! For a case of beer the boys moved it all for us. They would have done it for free, but beer got them over here by 10 am!
10 minutes later they had it all moved to the basement :) All 525 pounds of the gazebo and 160 pounds of chairs. The boys left with a cold beer in hand, and a case for later. Thanks guys! So nice to have such great neighbours.
The rest of the day we just puttered. Ray doing his puzzle and I working on our blog. Very windy today, although we are supposed to get rain late this afternoon before returning to sunshine tomorrow. Summer is still hanging on.
The rain came and went. Back to emptying front planters on Sunday and Monday, ready for the fall. Managed to pick up some Fall Asters from Country Grocer. Four different colours. I'd been eyeing up an Aster bush by the town's museum every year, as it keeps blooming until November. So I bought enough plants for Penny to plant in between my lavender bushes so we have colour longer than just the month the lavender blooms. Orginally the lavender hedge had to be short so that the slide in the motorhome could go across it. Not a problem anymore. lol We will be tackling this on Thursday.
The days are sure getting shorter quickly and the temperature certainly has dropped several degrees. The wind is still up on the lake so when the sun is out full, we still can sit outside on the front patio for an hour or so.
Tonight's dinner is coconut prawns with coconut and sunflower seed coleslaw and a fresh mango salsa. Delicious. There's enough for dinner tomorrow too. Bonus!
Tuesday we moved all the planters under the sundeck for the winter. That's a back killer lol Spent the afternoon down at the dock in the sunshine as there's no wind. Might be the last time this year.
Wednesday, while I did the pressure washing to clean up all the dirt from the planters, Ray did 2 dump runs. The first one with all the dead flowers etc. with the help of Darryl. His stuff was in there too. :) Then a second run of just junk, cardboard etc. He gave up waiting for the lawn to dry out so he mowed that too, in the afternoon.
This was also my cooking day. I did a bacon wrapped pork prime rib roast on the traeger and homemade potato salad with apple pie for dessert. Yummm
Thursday, planting the last of my fall asters in my lavender bed. (Well Penny did lol ) Getting to the end of our list. The garden on the other side of the driveway won't be cut down for another month once everything dies off, including the back garden hostas. We still have a lot of flowers blooming right now.
Ray spent the morning putting some stuff away in the basement and pressure washing the dock ladders and some wood he rescued from a house construction toss pile. It needed to be cleaned before coming into the house. I used my hand shampooer and washed up the cushions from the chairs on the sundeck. Fortunately all the small pillows fit into the washing machine. 4 loads later, it's all done. By 3 pm we were both done and relaxing in our lazy boy chairs. No one wanted to move. lol Fortunately we have last night's dinner for leftovers tonight.
We are mostly set in for the year, other than the boat needs to come out.
Friday we woke up to see a little rain fell overnight, but it's just cloudy and damp out. Definitely much cooler than it's been. Definitely a weather change. The next few days it's supposed to shower off and on. Hopefully we get a substantial amount to start increasing our lake level. It's pretty low right now. Usually the low is about 3 more feet up the beach. Some peoples docks are now grounded at their ramps. Ours would have been if we hadn't moved it out another 5 feet when we put in the new dock. We still have about 4 feet of water under the edge of our dock.
Saturday morning, drizzly but then we had a few breaks of sunshine. The rain is scheduled to fall all afternoon.
Amelia and Kristi with Olaf arrived at 1:30. We managed a walk to the subdivision park before the showers started again.
Kristi left at about 3:15 pm to Chemainus for her housewarming party and we played with Amelia. After dinner and dessert, I got Amelia ready for bed and mommy arrived at 7:15 pm, in time, to tuck her in. A busy but fun afternoon.
Sunday, everyone up by 6 am. Olaf walked by Kristi and Amelia, and then blueberry pancakes and sausages for breakfast. I had to up my game after my cousin, Gordie made her pancakes last weekend.
His pancake ...
My pancake not as great of an "A" but I had blueberries, chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkles. lol
After everyone fuelled up, and dressed, it's time to go to the Duck Pond park for Amelia to run off some energy.
Next up Kristi treated us to lunch at the Riverside Pub before heading home back to Nanaimo. Loaded and on their way by 1 pm. A great visit with our "girls".
The supposed Atmospheric River hitting Vancouver Island this weekend, mostly missed us here at the lake. There were some overnight showers but nothing significant. Nice to get outside, but we do need more rain.
Tomorrow off to Kelowna for another adventure!
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