My garden in May.

 Anyone who knows me well is aware that I spend most of my summer on my knees praying to " the God of weeds" to be kind.  May is a time for lush fresh growth and as we were home at the end of March I had a head start on the weeds. 

First come the crocus. 

The Mexican squash seeds are coming up. 

We love the little calabacitas or squash that they grow in Mexico.  I found some seeds at Home Depot in Mazatlan so I decided to give them a try. 

I spotted this young bear out the window and then we decided that it's long legs and brownish color identified it as a young grizzly.  We rarely see one as there are mostly black bears here. 

I'm not fond of cute garden ornaments but I do like metal birds among the low growing natural vegetation.  I'd just given these birds a quick spray paint and they turned out just like new. 

Okay...these guys do have a bit of a smile but they do look real.  I repainted the one on the left with my 40 year old oil paints and then I did the one on the right.  Much better. 

The hostas, ligularia etc. by the dry stream bed. 

Some areas of the garden have all wild vegetation that I just weed. 

The dry stream bed has drainage pipes under it that terminate farther away.  Without them the garden flooded in the spring.  However it is a nightmare to keep the rocks tidy with all the deciduous trees in the garden. 

The is my round hosta garden with at least 20 different varieties worked into a colorful patchwork.  The rhodo in the back is about 40 years old and started as a very small plant.  It's the same color as one my grandmother had planted in front of her house. 

Granny's rhodo behind me and our two girls...Krista and Erika.  Probably May/June of 1970.

It was a huge plant. 

Pretty!

Me...I'm usually taking the photos and not in them. 

April was very dry but by late May there was enough rain that I didn't have to water.  

Easter 2020 with family.

 Yes it's almost March of 2021 but I have decided to update the blog chronologically so that it actually follows what happened over the last year. 

Although it was snowy and cold when we returned home from Mazatlan in March the month of April turned out to have the best weather while we were at home.  Sunny and warm and the snow soon melted.  As we were dealing with lock down at that time we celebrated Easter outside at our daughter Erika's with her husband Wade, grand daughters Holly and  Abby as well as Holly's boyfriend Chris who was living with them.  Holly returned home with Chris from Vancouver to Terrace in late January to live with Holly's parents, work and save money so they could go to Scotland in the summer.  Chris is a trained chef who came out from Glasgow in Scotland and as his Canadian work visa was ending in Feb.2021 they were planning to head back to Scotland, work and then do some travelling.  Holly had just graduated from UBC with a degree in kineseology so she was hoping to get a job in Terrace as well.    Well....you know how all of that turned out.  Covid hit, everyone was locked down, restaurants were closed and their lives ground to a halt.  Abby was just finishing college and hoping to continue her summer work as a vet assistant and that didn't happen either.  We had just finished our two week quarantine but we obeyed the rules and met outside for Easter dinner. 

That's Chris with Chloe ( a.k.a Shmoopy to us) on his left and Abby's puppy Flynn is upside down!

A beautiful warm day and Eric is enjoying some sun.  Wade in the background. 

Daughter Erika relaxing in the sun. 

I'm not sure if Eric is patting Shmoopy or Maple...hard to tell from a distance.  They are Greater Swiss Mountain dogs. 

Abby with the dogs in front of her. We made it easy on ourselves for Easter dinner.  I made a potato salad and the Watson's supplied, wieners, smokies, buns and all the condiments.  

Gorgeous warm afternoon.  

Holly, Chris, Abby and Wade..." cooking Easter dinner!"  We decided it was the easiest most enjoyable Easter dinner we'd ever had.  Usually we are still in Mexico at this time so this was an opportunity to all be together.  

                                Flynn was still teething so every stick was fair game.  He's a Bernese mountain                                                                 dog so he still has some growing to do.

Flynn needs another stick. 

A perfect day and not even a picture of the food.  I must have been hungry!

What's been going on over the last 10 months?

 This morning I was feeling nostalgic and I had a look back through some of my old posts.  I realized what a great diary of our travels and special family events the blog is.  I have been doing some small posts on facebook because it's quick and easy but it's not the same as the blog.  Last winter when blogger stopped supporting my off line open live writer draft program the blog became difficult to keep up.  We do not have access to to internet when we are at home.  It wasn't a huge problem until I couldn't do an off line draft and then publish it later.  Now I must be online to create a draft.  We are in Mazatlan and never got the internet installed in the house until late December and then it seemed like a big pain to try and catch up the blog.  Well I've decided to give it a go.  

We arrived home last March after a whirlwind 8 day dash from Mazatlan to snow.  

We are now in Mazatlan and it will soon be March again.  Last March we were advised by the Canadian government to come home due to the Covid 19 pandemic and we complied.  In November of 2020 we left Canada to spend our winter in Mazatlan, Mexico where we own a house.  We could not drive due to the border closure and so we had to fly.  We had a direct flight planned with WestJet from Vancouver to Mazatlan but that was cancelled.  In the end we flew from Terrace to Vancouver and then on to Edmonton, Alberta where we spent the night before flying out on Swoop direct to Mazatlan.  We have spent a warm, healthy, quiet winter here in Mazatlan and now we will encounter a difficult, expensive journey home due to the new Canadian quarantine regulations for international flights.  When we left in November the government had advised against unnecessary travel but that means different things to different people.  I have no intention in getting into a debate about the travel restrictions but suffice it to say " too little, too late."  We will deal with what we have to.  In the end we have not and will not create any health problems for our home country.  We have adequate health insurance for our winter here and we have abided by the same rules that we would have had we stayed home.  

Below are some pictures of the beach, our friends Frank/Sandi and Dennis/Marilyn who have been our safe circle over the winter.  There has been no ladies lunch, bingo, trips out of town (no vehicle!) trips downtown except for necessities and no theater on Sundays.  We ladies have played "masked up cards" outside twice a week with Ruth, Eddie, Diane and Jackie.  So, yes we have had a better winter than most but we have also been incredibly careful as well.  

Over the coming weeks I will attempt to put the last ten months in some semblance of order now that I've decided that the blog is still a worthwhile venture.  These are difficult times but hopefully things will get better by the end of 2021 and people will be able to get back to some semblance of normal.