Envy is not an admirable trait but I have to confess that at this time of year, when gardeners even a short distance to the south of me are picking daffodils and beginning to smell the roses, I am envious. Here, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, patches of snow are still much in evidence and where…
Last week I advised myself not to set overly ambitious garden goals for 2020. I must have been under the weather. This week, I’m back to normal, aiming to accomplish most of the goals I set myself even while acknowledging that doing that will mostly likely be impossible. Although I set six goals for the year, I made…
After a month-long break from blogging, I’m back writing and thinking about my garden goals for 2020. And I’m giving myself some stern advice. Don’t try to do too much! Was I crazy to set myself six big goals for 2020? Clearly the answer is yes. Already I can see that completing two of those goals is next…
If I’m to have any chance of doing all I hope to do in the garden in 2020, I need to do more than set goals. I need to plan and schedule, something I’m not terribly good at. Plus it’s likely that other projects will come up unexpectedly. So I won’t know for sure until this time next…
Today, on the last day of the year, I’m looking back at what happened in the garden in 2019. Without question, the single biggest event was the Open Garden Day in July. Over 300 people attended and we raised almost $10,000 for the Massawippi Foundation, helping that organization to continue its support for community activities and…
We are preparing for the holidays at Glen Villa and waiting eagerly for family and friends to arrive. The group below came early. I counted 15 of the prehistoric-looking animals munching their way through the field where the long line of crabapple trees grow. Until last week the field was covered…
The foundation wall of the old Glen Villa Inn is once again standing tall. Rebuilding the wall has been quite a process. In its prime the wall was the base of a grand structure. Unfortunately, like so many summer resort hotels built of wood, it didn’t last. A colour postcard of the hotel sent…
Work continues as we rebuild the foundation wall of the old Glen Villa Inn. I first wrote about this project a few weeks ago in a post titled We are (Re)Building a Wall and in that post I recounted some of the history of the old hotel. Last week I wrote about…
Slowly the wall that used to hold up the old Glen Villa Inn is beginning to look like a wall again. As exciting as the re-building are the treasures we discovered when the wall came down. We found glass bottles of all sorts, clear and coloured, broken and unbroken. Some of the bits of glass…
The job of rebuilding the hotel foundation wall is progressing but more slowly than we hoped. The slow-down was unavoidable, thanks to (really, no thanks to) the snow that fell this week. The snow is attractive, no doubt, but it has come much too early. The early snowfall is one part of…