You know Autumn is closing in when you see lovely flower seed heads like this.

I came across this lovely seedhead when I was out walking my dog with my husband almost two weeks ago on our Canadian Thanksgiving weekend here in Toronto.

We were at a local park that we often go to for long hikes with our Labrador Retriever. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was bright and low in the sky. I saw the seed head with the sun shining behind it and knew I had to take a photo. I hope that you appreciate it’s simple beauty as much as I do.

This is my Black Labrador Retriever, Midnight .. having fun at the beach.

She just loves to play and swim in the water, even if it’s freezing cold! She also loves it when we throw balls or sticks for her to fetch … loves it so much that she’ll stand in the water and literally whine as she waits for us to find something to throw to her. Uhm … even if she’s got a darn stick right at her feet! LOL

I took this photo in March (the 7th to be exact). We always seem to go to the beach more often in the winter than the summer. If we lived in a warm climate that wouldn’t be so weird, but we live in Toronto which is normally fairly cold in the winter. However, every one in a while there’s a nice semi warm day .. often in February and sometimes in March and that’s when the bug to go to the beach gets us.

The day we went happened to be very warm for March. It was 19 Celsius (66 F) … more like April or May temperatures, so of course we had to get outside and enjoy the day. After spending some time at the beach we went and ate a late lunch at an outdoor patio … but in between we found a really strangely decorated house. If you’re curious take a look at the post on Odd Planet to see this very funny and odd house.

Enjoy!

Yep, my dog is a Ham! She rolls over onto her back at least twice a day and lets out a few high pitched barks and wookie growls hoping that we’ll come over and rub her chest, thighs and bum. LOL

This is a photo of her on her back enjoying a rub … just look at that face … she’s one happy girl!

BTW if you’re wondering what the white thing is in her mouth, it’s a toy bone (power chewer) that she’d chewed down to a nub … it was replaced with a new one shortly after the photo was taken.

All of the spring flowers in my garden are coming up earlier than they usually do!

My crocuses came up on March 15th and bloomed until about the middle of April. They usually come up toward the end of March, but we had a beautiful winter this year with much warmer than average temperatures (above freezing most of the time) and absolutely NO snow in March at all! We set records!

So no wonder all my plants are ahead of themselves, eh?

Right now my garden has Tulips, Daffodils, Muscarii, Hyacinth and more in bloom and my roses are and many other perennial plants are all leafed out. All of these plants have been active and showing signs of life since mid to late March and the flowers that I just said were blooming started blooming in early April! Way earlier than normal.

How’s your garden this year? I know that a lot of my readers in the US had a terrible winter with lots of snow … but most of us here in The Great White North (Canada) had a fantastic winter with very little snow (uh remember the Olympics?).

I know, I’m gloating .. but we usually have worse winters than most, so give me this one, would ya?

This is the time of year when I begin to long for summer. I guess I have the winter blahs (having a cold to go with it doesn’t help!).

I can’t complain too much about this winter. It’s been rather spring like for the most part with only a few extremely cold days so far this year. For the most part we’ve had above average temperatures here in Toronto with rain rather than snow.

With some luck this weather will keep up and we’ll ease into spring and it won’t be all that long before I start seeing beautiful flowers like this Climbing Westerland rose growing in my garden again.

Do you have the winter blahs too?

We often take our dog to a special area in the Toronto beaches, called Cherry Beach, where dogs are allowed to roam off leash and play in the water.

Earlier this summer we took Midnight to the beach where she made several dog friends and as you can see from the photo above, had a great time swimming in the lake with her new friends.

I love that I was able to capture her and her pal swimming out into Lake Ontario beneath a fiery sky as the sun set. Lovely. What do you think of this picture?

Earlier this evening we had a severe weather storm here in Toronto … severe enough that there were Tornado warnings for the city and surrounding area (very rare!), funnel clouds and even some Tornado touch downs!

About an hour after the storm began, the sky began to lighten and the dark clouds started to blow away … and this is what was left – the sun setting over the city after a violent storm.

I love how the clouds are reflected in my neighbors front windows. The sky was beautiful and I’m glad that I can show you a tiny piece of my world – after the storm.

Isn’t this pink Clematis flower lovely? I grow several different Clematis vines, but this one is one of the largest vines! It’s located at the front of my house – well front corner, and it grows on a trellis. It’s perhaps 14 feet in height and two weeks ago when it was covered in pink blooms it was an amazing sight.

The flowers are pretty much gone now, especially after the heavy rains we’ve had this weekend, so I’m happy that I captured this beauty when I did.

Do you grow Clematis vines too?

This has been a funny summer here in Toronto. It’s cooler than normal so my plants are growing slower and blooming less frequently.

Still … when you have gems like this beautiful “Prince Napoleon Climbing Rose” you can put up with a colder than normal summer.

Fact … They say that this is the coldest summer we’ve had in Toronto in almost 20 years! I guess I should be happy that some of my plants are still blooming! It’s a big change from our extremely hot and humid summers that we normally have here in Toronto though!

This climbing Iceberg rose, caught blooming in my garden in late June, is just about perfect.

Too bad they didn’t stay that way! Shortly after I took this photo we had a lot of rain and the rain drops caused the petals to get pink dots on them. Pretty … but I believe it’s a form of Botrytis. Odd that a fungal problem can cause such pretty spots on the rose petals isn’t it?