Out & About

Last week I was able to get out on Ruby and take a jaunt to our nearby market.  Oh, it was lovely!  It has been a challenge to be housebound  and having challenges more than normal this year.  The end of June found me not quite my usual ‘sunny’ self, so getting out on my own in the summer air was SO uplifting.

I was quite taken with the above flower which brushed against me as I passed by on the sidewalk, demanding that I notice it.  It was outside of any residence’s fence and was in the no-man’s zone of the gravel by the sidewalk.  There it was…belonging to nobody and yet growing strong, beautiful and reaching out to passer-by’s.  (I know it was reaching out towards the sun but I like to personify it, tee hee).

I included this picture to show that you can see the mountain’s across from our house.  Most of the vegetation in these yards stays all year round.  In many ways Vancouver reminds me of Hawaii (too bad the rain in the winter is cold instead of warm and tropical :)

This is the path I take from our lane to get to the street to go to the market.  I love this path…so pretty.

This tree is located half-way down the above path.  It is a gorgeous, huge tree.  One of the things I love about it, is it has many nooks and crannies where things grow and insects have made homes.  In the middle, as you can see, another young tree grows from within the tree.

I thought the juxtaposition of this chain link fence with these gorgeous white roses growing wild with some wheat was just beautiful!

This is the bus stop nearest to me.  It is hard to tell from the picture but it is an AMAZING bus stop on a hot day.  You can be walking or riding by on a hot, sunny day and as you approach the stop the air starts to feel differently.  The area surrounding the stop is surrounded by huge hedges that block out the sun and make the spot feel shady and damp.  It feels like you have gone from being on a beach baking to walking in a fine mist of a fog.  Refreshing!

I had passed this yard and seen these little posts a million times (there are four of them) and always thought they were hardware of some kind.  The other day I noticed all four have RIP written on them.  The other 3 have dates on them and a few have names as well.  I suddenly realized these are markers in the yard of this home to mark where their family pets are buried.

 

The other 3 markers are closer to the house and I didn’t want to intrude on their privacy if they were home so I contented myself with this one.  I am always amazed how there is always more to notice even on routes we have taken many times before!

This is our backyard.  The owners of our property take such wonderful care of the yard.  C. especially loves to grow things.  She has a green thumb with flowers and plants and was explaining that when she was a girl they grew many fruit trees and vegetables in containers, in her small yard in the Philippines.