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We’re getting new neighbors

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On January 1st the home next door will have new people living in it. Renters … not sure how I feel about that.

Sofie, my former neighbor (and stalker) and owner of the house, had a stroke last February and she’s now living with her youngest son. The family tried to sell the house in the Fall but it didn’t sell so they decided to rent until the housing market is a little better.

So … come January 1st a lady with two kids and a young boyfriend will be moving in. The kids are 6 and 9 years old or so we’ve heard. We haven’t met the new people, but in talking with our former neighbors son it sounds like the people gave them an “iffy” feeling. I hope they turn out to be ok neighbors.

Our former neighbors on the other side of our house had a kid, but we have a high fence on that side so we only had to deal with the occasional toy thrown into our garden.

The side of the house that the new neighbors will be on has a shorter chain link fence and some of our roses and other plants tend to hang over or creep over to their side of the yard.

I hope that the kids are well behaved and don’t start pulling on my plants or damaging them come Spring and Summer.

In the Spring Chris and I will take a good look at the roses and Rose of Sharon that’s growing on that side of the yard and give them a trim in order to make sure that they aren’t going into the neighbors yard.

If you have neighbors with kids or possibly bad neighbors have they ever gotten into your garden or damaged your plants? Yes I know, some of you will probably have horror stories of wars with neighbors.

I’m just asking since I’m used to having older neighbors around rather than young kids. I also have some poisonous plants in my garden (monkshood, Datura etc) and that’s another reason why I hope that the new neighbors kids are good and stay in their own yard.






Who said you could pick my flowers?

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I’m just seething right now.

I was just coming outside a little while ago to clean up the dog fur at my front porch after a long grooming season with my Labrador Retriever, and as I exited my front door I noticed an older lady practically standing in my planted boulevard pulling away at my sunflowers. sunflower

She had a huge bouquet of yellow flowers tucked under her right arm, and with her other arm she was trying to get some of my sunflowers to add to her collection.

She noticed me come outside and she had the gall to turn to me and ask for scissors???

I told her “No I’m not going inside for scissors” – 1. I was covered in dog hair and wasn’t about to go inside where my husband had just vacuumed to get a thief something to aid her assault on my plants and 2. I was just stunned that she was hacking and pulling away at my plants right in front of me!

She told me she wanted the flower to take to the hospital. Yeah along with the variety of yellow flowers in the bouquet she was carrying – the flowers that she’d probably stolen along the way as she walked towards the hospital.

I let her take the flower. I mean she’d already ruined the stalk. But I’m really ticked off at the nerve she had taking the flower(s) in the first place without even attempting to ask first.

If she hadn’t had a whole bouquet of what I can only presume were flowers she’d lifted from other peoples gardens, or if I’d recognized he as a volunteer at the hospital I might have felt a little differently …

I guess I know now why some of the stalks on a few of the sunflower plants were all hanging down and trampled last week. She’d probably stolen flowers last week too.

Just her whole attitude ticked me off. I can picture her walking down my driveway and going into the backyard to pick roses too! Arghh

I don’t even pick my own flowers! Not for myself anyway!

I feel like putting a sign up that says

“These flowers are for those in the neighborhood to “look” at, not to pick!”

Should I bother? Or maybe I should leave some of my dogs droppings right where she’ll be likely to step in it if she tries to get my flowers again? Ha Ha! ((( yes I’m feeling evil )))

After she wandered off down the street I went and got my pruners and trimmed the stems and stalks she’d broken. I also shortened and thinned out the patch of sunflowers as they were beginning to get tall and were starting to hang out into the roadway. Remember last year I got a bylaw order to cut my sunflowers down to three feet? Well, they are about four feet tall right now, but look a lot tidier than they did this morning.

I’d hate to get a bylaw order to cut them down again with only about a month left to enjoy them, well if I can keep the flower thief away that is …

The thing that gets me most is that if she’d asked I probably would have let her take a flower. I would have even helped by cutting it myself. Heck, after she’d damaged the plants and I went out to fix the damage there were sunflowers all over the ground. Chris came out to help me put the cut stalks and leaves in a bag and as people walked by us we even gave them some of the sunflowers. So it’s not like we aren’t generous with our flowers – it’s just the fact that she didn’t even bother asking and that she damaged the plants. Grrrr

Oh what a storm

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I really don’t know how the majority of my roses and flowers manage to stay mostly intact with all the rain and storms we’ve had this summer.

We just had a big rain and hail storm and yes there are petals littering the ground around my flower beds, but there are still a lot of flowers on my plants.

I guess I’ll just count myself lucky and cross my fingers as we’re expecting more storms!

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I took that photo while I was safely inside my enclosed back porch. It’s through the screen so it’s not as clear as it could be, but it’s not that bad. The vertical streaks are rain and hail. For some reason it never looks like it’s raining as hard in my backyard as it does in the front!

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The hail was literally bouncing off the ground and making large splashes!

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Speaking of hail … I managed to capture one as it fell:

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That while blurred blob in the red circle is a piece of hail. I’d say for the most part that the hail was approximately the size of M&M’s but that one looks bigger .. maybe grape size?

We’ve had more hail with our storms this summer than I can ever remember having! We’re lucky that the hail in this area has been rather small. Some areas (even other parts of Toronto) seem to get even larger hail – like golf ball size and as a result there’s been a lot of damage to cars and other objects this summer thanks to the massively sized hail!

I love how you can actually see the hail “trails” in this picture as it falls to the ground and lands on the grass.

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Have you had strange weather in your area this summer too?

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