All Re-Certified!

Good to go for another three years! If I ever have ocassion to use this information, I hope I'll remember what I learned!

So Cute!

I really enjoyed watching this little "mom" walking her baby at Harbourfront last weekend.

Mark & Rosemary's First Anniversary!

Congratulations Mark & Rosemary, on your first anniversary!

Last night we initiated their back yard patio and the BBQ at their new home. Very fitting, since exactly a year ago we had a back yard BBQ for their rehearsal party!

Since their apartment is on the ground floor, they actually have a back yard! It doesn't really feel like an apartment in a high rise. For some reason the neighbour doesn't have a door to the outside so M & R have a double-sized yard. Right in the city of Toronto, a few minutes' walk from the subway, and an apartment with an outside space like this! What a treat!

Here is the result of our gardening in the pouring rain a few weeks ago.

Another Car Load of Plants!

This is the second time I have given away a carload of plants from our garden this spring and you still can't see the difference! The person in charge of the gardens around the church where our mission rents space, was looking for ferns. Well, Gerard had just commented a few weeks ago that we were getting too many ferns at our place. So... I offered some of ours for the church property.

About 40 ferns ready to go. Some of them are so big, they almost look like small palm trees.
The car was stuffed to the rafters with ferns! I had all the seats down and filled the whole car. Felt like I was sitting in a jungle!

Building Block Candies

I saw these candies at the bulk food store. I'd never seen candies like this before. Aren't they neat? It said on the tag that you can actually build with them - just like LEGO, I guess. Sounds like fun, but I'm not interested in all that sugar, though.

Downtown on Saturday Evening

I was invited to attend an event downtown last night so I went early so that I could wander around for a while and just enjoy some of the activities that were going on. My first stop was a music festival at Dundas Square. That's where I saw this balloon guy.

These Telus Eco Cabs were providing free rides between Luminato Festival locations.

One of the many, many international food stands surrounding Queen's Park.

These huge balloons at Queen's Park were one of the art installations of the Luminato Festival.

After all this light-hearted stuff, I headed over to Hart House Theatre at U of T to attend an event organized by one of our small group members who works with former Iranian political prisoners, helping them tell their stories through writing, painting, drama, and dance. This event was a sobering experience - and interesting because it exposed me to stories and ideas that I would never have heard otherwise. In addition to other heavier thoughts, it once again reminded me how blessed we are to live in this country of freedom and peace!!

Beautiful "Weeds"

We have some pretty nice looking "weeds", aka "native plants", growing around our house. I've dug them up or collected seeds from roadsides and fields over the years.

Tall bellflower - I don't know where these plants came from. They started growing in our garden one year and they just keep on spreading. I'm forever pulling or digging them out. But I always leave a few because I love these flowers!

Ox-Eye Daisy - I dug a few plants from the roadside one summer and planted them in our garden. They re-seed themselves and grow all over the place too, but they're easy to pull out. I think they're very friendly-looking flowers.

Orange Day-Lily - I don't know where I first got these. They spread easily. This year I pulled them all out of our flower beds, because once they finish flowering (and the flowers only last a few days) they tend to look messy. Now I'm enjoying them in our neighbour's yard, right along our driveway.

Common Milkweed - I gathered some seeds on a hike a few years ago. I'd heard that the milkweed flowers attract butterflies, and sure enough - the first day the flowers opened I saw a monarch butterfly! An interesting fact about this plant: The fluff from milkweed seeds is so buoyant that it was used as an alternative stuffing material for life jackets during World War II. (The ROM Field Guide to Wildflowers of Ontario - p.137).

More Flags!

As we were out driving around this afternoon we saw flags for sale on this corner...

and this corner...

and on display (for sale?) in the bulk food store too. I think it's fun and very festive looking!

World Cup Fever

The World Cup tournament is almost all I hear about wherever I turn these days. I'm really not interested in it, but I did enjoy watching parts of the opening ceremony. I also like the picture of this colourful soccer ball, that I found on a newspaper stand on my way to work.

The other spin off I enjoy is how it brings out people's patriotism and loyalties to their home country. There are people from all over the world living in Toronto. On ocassions like this they fly their "home" flags on their homes, restaurants and cars. It looks very festive and emphasizes the fact that people of all nationalities can actually live together peacefully and together celebrate the diversity in this city. Here are just a few flags I saw on cars in the parking lot I crossed on my way to a meeting yesterday. Fortunately, for picture taking, it was a very windy day so the flags were "open". Can you guess all five countries? Hint: The first one is from...

And our own at home...

Did You Wash Your Hands?

I found this fun poster in the washroom of the church where we attended a wedding this past weekend. Love the creepy crawly little germs!

This Weekend I...

- drove a few hundred kilometers through the beautiful countryside
- bought 6 more jigsaw puzzles from Value Village
- had coffee and lunch with my parents
- felt like I was on vacation
- saw 7 ground hogs
- enjoyed an iced cappucino from Tim Hortons, resulting in a happy day and a restless night
- wore nylon stocking for the 3rd time this spring! - a first in about 10 years
- attended Liz & Bryan's wedding
- heard that strawberry season is about 2 weeks early this year
- played ladder golf
- enjoyed great visit and dinner with my brother & sister-in-law N&F
- saw lots of cows, horses, and sheep
- ate my first locally grown fresh strawberries of the season
- got a whiff of that "fresh country air"
- got up at 4:30 am to make carrot salad (cappucino!)
- gave away some dill plants
- read a few chapters in Jan Karon's "At Home in Mitford"
- attended church
- went to a farewell potluck BBQ for one of our small group members who is moving away
- visited with Dave & Marian - our friends for about 35 years already
- ate nasi goreng

My brother and I preparing strawberries for our dessert. It was delicious!

Summer Has Arrived at the Mission!

After processing students' applications for the last six months, today was the big day! The camp t-shirts were hung on the chairs, the summer staff manuals and name tags were ready....

...and then our 29 summer interns arrived! All these students will be learning, growing, preparing, and then serving in our six summer day camps around the city. A very exciting day!

Around the Garden

The peas are almost ready!

Some kind of cabbage is growing from a stem that we threw into the compost. There are also tomatoes and little plants that could be squash, cucumber, or gourds coming up all over the place.

And here are a few of my friendly pansies in the barrel on the back patio.

Look What I Found!

Look what I found when I went to open the blinds in the living room this morning! This philo cactus just sits around looking rather plain and unattractive most of the year and then every once in a while it sends out a gorgeous flower like this. They only last about one or two days, but they're gorgeous while they last.

And then I went out to pick some tender fresh greens from the garden for a salad later today.

This Three-Day Weekend I...

- Joined "This Weekend I..." at www.keystothecottage.blogspot.com
- shopped at Value Village
- was treated out for lunch at Ali Babba's by our daughter-in-law
- left my sweater behind in the restaurant on the other side of town
- saw our neighbour's newborn baby for the first time
- went lane swimming
- saw a rabbit in our back yard
- bought pepper, corn, zuchinni & red salvia plants
- planted a "three sisters garden" (corn, pole beans, squash)
- noticed that one of the corn plants got eaten by someone already
- put a barrier around the rest of the corn plants
- enjoyed Gerard's delicious home-made hamburgers
- had an icecream cone
- prepared our first salad of greens from our garden
- sorted & recycled or put away the piles of magazines, papers & books that had accumulated in our living room
- phoned members of our church to remind them of their upcoming photo appointments for the picture directory
- baked strawberry-rhubarb crisp
- attended a prayer meeting and a church service
- listened to the men's double quartet practice "The Lord's Prayer"
- went for a refreshing long walk
- read a whole book

Our Back Yard Columbines

Creating Family Memories

Mark & Rosemary moved into a new apartment a few weeks ago. It's located at ground level and has a fenced-in yard. They are so excited to have this outdoor space! Rosemary was very eager to get gardening. So for her birthday I gave her a gardening book and a note that said something like, "This is good for as much gardening help and advice as you would like, and for perennials from our garden."

Last Wednesday evening was the only time for a while that all four of us were all available at the same time to do some gardening together. Even though the weather forecast didn't sound too promising, we decided to at least get started on our project. It was drizzling as Gerard and I gathered gardening tools, supplies and plants from our place. Gerard followed me around our yard with a big golfing umbrella trying to keep me dry as I dug up perennials to take along. So far so good. Most of the rain that is forecast for our area ends up blowing by south of us anyway, so we were pretty sure it would let up long enough at some time in the evening, so that we could get everything planted into the new garden.

We loaded our car to the rafters with plants, pots, tools, manure, peatmoss, and a dolly.

By the time we arrived at Mark & Rosemary's it was pouring. Rosemary had spaghetti dinner ready, so we ate first. By the end of the meal the rain had almost stopped. See? This will work out just fine!

Just as a precaution, we strung up a tarp to cover most of the area where we planned to be working. It started raining as we were tying the tarp to fence posts and bushes. Maybe the garden umbrellas could be used to prop up the tarp? We laughed so hard - we could hardly get the umbrellas set up! In the meantime, the rain was starting to run off the tarp onto us. Should we keep going or leave the rest for another day? This is kind of crazy, but we got this far, let's just keep going. (I have a feeling that Mark & Gerard were not so much in favour of our enthusiasm to keep working in the pouring rain.) We got soaked to the skin, and our shoes became big blobs of mud. I could hardly see because the rain was running down my face and over my glasses. We wondered whether we should keep going. We got the herbs planted. By then the soil was so soggy that we couldn't even dig it anymore. We were muddy. Our tools were muddy. We finally gave up.

What a mess! We were covered with mud and soaked. How could we get into the house without getting everything dirty? Gerard put a big bowl of water just outside the door so we could wash off the worst of the mud. We each put our muddy shoes into plastic bags and then took turns in the bathtub getting all our dripping wet clothes off.

It was a mess! It was fun! It was an adventure! I'm sure we'll be talking about this for years to come. "Remember when we planted your first garden in the pouring rain.....?"

(My hands were too muddy to hold the camera for pictures of the results of our planting. Mark and Rosemary finished off the planting the next evening. I'll have to go back for some pictures so I can show you the final results.)