CANADIAN REGION: What are you doing in January 2018

Happy 2018. May this be your best ever gardening year.

Our dear Kelejan usually starts these Canadian Region threads but so far there is no sign of her in this first month of 2018. I'm praying that she is OK.

Hi, Kelejan. We miss you.

Thanks TD for your concern and for opening the Canadian thread for me, and also for  sanderson's concern as well. 

Just a bit of computer problems due to downloading Mozella Firefox update and seeming to lose all my bookmarks and not having much time to sort myself out due to Christmas and New Year etc.  I have finally sat down and spent some time keeping up with the changes.  I am a real stick-in-the-mud nowadays and I do  not cope well with change.  My biggest beef is Word, it is so complex now and all I want is a replica of a typewriter, I am so far behind. I used to get on well with Word Perfect.

Right now my garden is covered in that white stuff but here in British Columbia we are all keeping our fingers crossed for everyone on the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada.  Where I live in the Interior, we have even missed the bad things that happened nearer to coast that had its problems of ice and cold.  Right now this week the temps. are hovering around the plus one or minus one centigrade, positively balmy.  this evening when I took Guthrie out for his walk I was dressed in a very light windcheater and thin gloves and felt very comfortable. I just had to be careful of the passing cars with their splashes of melting snow and also slipping the hidden ice where the snow had been compressed.

Both Pal and I are in good health, have not overindulged but have got a little bit tired due to so much going on this year.  I will do a bit of catching up tomorrow in this Forum, and hope you all had a good Christmas and all my best wishes and love to you all in 2018.
Kelejan 

Golf shoes for walking on icy terrain?

sanderson wrote:

Golf shoes for walking on icy terrain?

I did have golf shoes like that, in 1980 when I started to play. I may be a hoarder but I do draw the line at keeping a pair of golf shoes for 38 years.

Checking the weather forecast for my city, I see that in 1997, the year after we moved into our little house the previous November, I noticed that in 1997 we had 89cm (25inches?) of snow on the ground. The following February and March it continued to snow and it was not until the middle of April that I could see what was in the garden.
The only thing I found apart from birch trees and grass, was one little clump of Grape Hyacinth; not a single flower or shrub; I was so disappointed.

I am looking forward to a good spring and summer as I have a lot of work to do as I neglected the garden somewhat last year, due to a long cold spring and a long hot summer.  With the dog walking I am doing I feel so much better and with more energy than last year; I did miss my Jazz as he got me out walking every day.

Great to hear from you Kelejan and thanks for the update.

We got 18 centimeters of snow yesterday. The temperature is not too bad, just below freezing.

I love walking in the fresh snow.  Then it melts a little and then refreezes and then I hate it and instead of striding out I walk like a little old lady in case I fall and break a hip.

I find that in our city people who drive cars are catered for very well, but pedestrians are second class citizens with the sidewalks roughly cleared but very little sand laid down.  Very little detail work when it comes to clearing the corners and crosswalks so that there are often piles of frozen snow blocking access with anyone using a wheelchair or motorised chair.  That is why when there is a beautiful day there are very few people walking.

Drains are blocked so that there are sometimes many inches of standing water that ends up being frozen sheets of ice.  I feel that this a problem that could be mitigated by having people who are supposed to do community service are given shovels so that the snow can be cleared to make it safe for pedestrians.

Rant over.  

I am still taking my neighbour's dog Guthrie out for his evening walk and enjoying it in spite of the changing conditions.  We tried bootees on him the other night but two of them fell off.  Luckily had had his paws trimmed of the rather large fringes growing around them that could cause snowballs to stick  to him. No walk for him tonight as I will be going out to dinner as a reward for walking my friend Diane's little dog Oliver while she was away on a cruise over Christmas.

I hope everyone is keeping safe.   

Since Winter Solstice I feel sure that it is getting lighter and I can tell the difference.
Roll on Spring.

21Actual from Ontario  
from Kelejan in British Columbia

See his interesting post under My first Attempt.

Love your rants!

I watched a YouTube video yesterday of a German shepherd trying out his new booties. It reminded me of a lizard on hot sand.

I had trouble logging in for the last few days as the computer (Firefox) kept telling me that I was using an insecure password.  Perhaps I was without knowing it.  I finally got in just using the name and password I had been using like forever.

Since I downloaded an update everything seems to be so much harder to do as it seems that everything has changed.  I am getting used to it and finding out where things are located but it is hard going.  In some ways I wished I had kept my last typewriter for the simple tasks of writing a letter, envelope or a sticky label, or get back to handwriting in a nice script instead of the scribble I use that I cannot understand later. 

Anyway, dear friends, all else is well with me except the weather, but that does not really bare talking about as everyone elsewhere in Canada and the world seems to be worse off than we are in the Southern Interior of British Columbia.  I do notice the daylight is lengthening especially when I walk my neighbours' dog in the afternoon.  Soon I will be walking him in the evening and down the nearby footpaths once again.

The weather here is hovering around the above and below freezing marks that make for snow/rain/ice/cloud most days this week;  I really prefer the deep, soft snow that holds it shape and does not melt until it is all ready to do so and that does not require loads of sand, gravel or salt on the roads. Most of the stuff remaining on our walkways has turned to ice that it is not enjoyable to walk. I have noticed that the paths around the City Hall are pretty good.

So many accidents on the roads, with two of my friends in a local women's group losing their only daughters;  even on Friday I was waiting for a bus and witnessed a fender bender where one driver shot the red light. No injuries but two damaged cars.  Five minutes earlier and I was walking across that junction.

Some cheering news; two afternoons ago there was some sunshine on the near mountains, it was beautiful for a half hour.

There is Seed Exchange on this Forum, and as the US and Canada are different countries and perhaps have different regulations about border-crossing of seeds, and also due to the high cost and time of mailing seeds cross-border, it is suggested that we have our own Seed Exchange.

I don't thing we need have a separate thread, as Canada is such a small country garden-wise compared to our friends south of our border and our climate is far more restricted as well.

So, let's give it a go. If you go to the thread; 2018 - First Annual Seed exchange Week - 20-28 edited, you will see how it done.

Mrs TD and I are really enjoying this Amaryllis (now multi-flower head), especially on a dreary winter's day. 

Beautiful!

Scorpio Rising wrote:Beautiful!

+1

Not very much I am afraid.  A couple of days ago we actually had a day free of snow, wind, rain, fog, etc., and I could have gone out into the garden and done some pruning of the bushes.   But I had a couple of appointments so as the very next day we had a large dump of snow.  I seldom Carpe Diem.

I do notice the lengthening of the day light as I take Guthrie out for his evening walk and it is not pitch black by the time we return. Soon I will have to make the decision whether to have my main meal before or after I take him out as I don't like walking straight after eating.

Harbingers of Spring include the seed catalogues and the date for the Peony Show. I am looking forward the the emergence of the peonies given me by one of my neighbours who finally retired from growing them. Unfortunately when delivering them to me, they fell off his truck and he could not remember what colours each of them were.

The weather is so-so here in the British Columbia Southern Interior. Not very cold at the moment, some snow that does not disappear, partly melts then freezes, more snow on top, sometimes heavy deposits then the next hour the sun shines.  Walking is difficult at times for pedestrians as the snow deposits heaped up have frozen and block the walkers. I feel sorry for any chair-bound elder who is confined to the homes.  I have cut some squares of black landscaping cloth to lay on my two 4x4s to warm up the soil a bit early, that is when I can find them under the snow that is there.

I check on the weather in other parts of Canada so at once I stop complaining.
Keep warm TD and others in the East of Canada.  A couple of days ago I actually felt the warmth of the sun on my back.

Once New Year's Resolution that I have nearly completed is my income Tax; just waiting for the official forms so that I can send it off.  In past years I had that little home business of selling printer cartridges and just because I had until the middle of June to send of my completed taxes, I only ever managed to creep in under the deadline.  It feels so good that I have beaten one of my long-standing procrastination items.