A View From the Kitchen Window

After the news I got today that my former employer-mentor died I have to do something positive. On Wednesday this week, I presented our garden club with a movie titled Floral Wonders. The film is really a slide show of member’s flower gardens. This morning I decided to break out my segment of the original. I call it “2012 Monet Vision, A View From the Kitchen Window.” I moved a lot of stuff around and added a few more photos from my garden then added  new music.  It took me most of the day with all the interruptions I had. While the movie processed, I went out for my walk as a reward. When I returned the first thing I did was upload the file to YouTube. I wanted to share the film on grumpajoesplace. Unfortunately, YouTube took a long time to process the upload. That is when I switched to my e-mails and the day blew up.

Right now I’m working off a wine buzz after making a fantastic dish of wheat penne pasta with caramelized onions and sautéed broccoli smothered in sour cream and topped with a Tilapia fillet.

This year’s Monet Vision promised to be outstanding after that mild winter, but the über hot June and July did everything it could to roast the plants in place. In fact, I wound up replacing many  annuals with new ones, and my Lady’s Mantle perennials died of thirst. I hope you enjoy this video.

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The video I mentioned in the last line, well, where is it? I wanted to post this story yesterday, but another IED went off and changed my day. It seems that we can ignore any law we want in the DSA (Divided States of America) except copyright laws. Google threatened to ban me from using their site if I persist in using copyrighted music in my videos. I featured music played by my friend Roger from Starperry Studios in Mulberry Florida with his permission. That is not good enough. The copyrights belong to dead people who actually wrote the tunes not the musicians that play it. They actually belong to companies that purchased the copyrights from the dead people’s heirs. I won’t elaborate on all the laws our government is ignoring in this piece but they are many.

I searched the net for royalty free music to download and redid the movie. I don’t like the tunes, but they are okay.  I crashed and burned before I could get it all completed for my self-imposed deadline.

One more time, please enjoy  “2012 Monet Vision, A View From the Kitchen Window.”

Burning Gas-Butchart Gardens

The following morning we drove out to see the Butchart Gardens. I had been there before and knew what to expect. Peggy didn’t have a clue. We stopped at the entrance kiosk and I paid the man to enter. She looked at me and said,”we’re paying forty dollars to see flowers?”

I ignored her question. We parked and walked through the gates into the garden. For the next six hours we oohed and ahhed at every turn in the path. It was cloudy, but bright. A perfect day to take photos, and I did take a few pictures.

I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I did taking them.

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Burning Gas–Driving Through a Cloud

About a year before Peggy and I took this trip to the Northwest, our friends Bill and Lois toured the area by train. Bill couldn’t say enough for the scenery along the route between Banff and VanCouver. Peggy and I did it by car, and I can attest to the beauty of this section of mountains. One of my grandest memories is coming down the QEW-1 into a valley covered by a layer of clouds. Everything went foggy for a few minutes then we broke through the cloud layer and the grandest little town appeared before us. On the way out of town we went into the clouds again to break out into the blue sky at the top of the mountain.

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Among the many reasons for this trip was to see this section of Canada, and to show Peggy a real garden.

We arrived in Vancouver during  evening hours, and settled into a hotel near the ferry landing. The following morning we boarded the ferry for the hour ride to Vancouver Island. We checked into the Fairmont hotel and did a walking tour of the historic district. The day was sunny, and mild. We enjoyed the shops and the food.