Welcome to Colleen’s Corner. This is a column meant for fun and some information About myself: I am a Freelance Photographer you often see me on the side of the road or in various places taking photos of different things animals, birds, places, people etc. l have lived in Lumby for over 8 years, you have seen my photos in the newspaper (Lumby Valley Times) and once in awhile in the Vernon Morning Star, and the Lumby Art Gallery. Photography is my passion. Disclaimer: The information on some of my photos that I write about a lot of times come from the Internet or books I research them, hopefully the facts are as close to the truth as I can come.
By Colleen Fielding
One of the many first signs that spring is here, as I take a walk I see that the fountains at the Monashee Family Park are turned on. I just love fountains. I need to clean out my small ones and get them working this year.
The sun is shining. I get to wear my sunglasses Hooray.
The songbirds are in the trees singing their sweet songs. My trees are loaded with the birds right now singing their little hearts out.
As I sit on my porch in the warmth of the sun, I see the flyers with all the different colours orange, red, yellow, green, rainbow, and other colours from Freedom Flight Park gracefully flying high in the sky.
I go into my back yard, and it’s time to do the cleanup. I start at my red arbour, the Clematis and the Climbing Rose Bush that both grow on the red arbour needs tending. As I am cleaning up the Clematis I wonder if the climbing Rose Bush made it again this year. As I get closer I find out the hard way that yep it definitely made it this year. As my arm casually brushes near the rose bush…ouch, it’s still alive. I continue to work on the Clematis… ouch, ouch, ouch the rose bush gets me again. I have long sleeves and my gloves on but the thorns seem to go right through my sleeve. Now, I am done with the Clematis. time to retrain the climbing rose bush to climb up the red arbour once again. A couple of the stems go on nicely, and then….. you guessed it, OUCH! I am sure I said more words than just ouch, but I don’t think I can put them in the paper.
Ok, now I’m done with the rose bush and the clematis attached once again to the red arbour. The rest of the garden in the backyard will wait until I can find my tool to pull out the long grass. I don’t plant grass in my gardens, but every year there is that tall grass that has roots that seem to go forever, and of course other weeds as well, I think it’s called crabgrass I’m not sure but whatever it is it’s definitely annoying!
The next chore is cleaning out the front garden, which I am not happy about as here I have discovered that my neighbour’s cats have decided to use my garden as their personal bathroom. Tons of cats scat in the garden. Yuck! I think it would be nice of the neighbour to offer to come over and help me clean out my gardens.
After I was done cleaning out that gross mess I looked up some plants that might deter cats from coming into my gardens to do their business, Lavender which is a plant that I like a lot, so that could work for me. Rue, Pennyroyal, Rosemary, Coleus Canina also called the Scaredy Cat Plant ( which apparently smells horrible even to humans) and Lemon Thyme. It also says to put citrus peels in the garden as this may also help.
I don’t know what will actually work but it will take some time for whichever plant I buy to grow, so I guess I need to head to the store and buy some oranges and other citrus fruits.
It’s a great sunny day today, as I head down to pick up my supplies at the store guess what I will be wearing; my sunglasses of course, because like I always say it’s a good day when you can wear sunglasses!
