Beautiful day. We were up in the garden by 8 am. We had no choice really because half the fencing was down and the deer were lined up to jump our makeshift barriers. The bunnies and raccoons were also anticipating a big feed until they realized there was really nothing in the garden yet for them to ravage. They somehow missed the peas but judging by the excitement of the dogs on the scent when we entered, the critters were too focused on the fish pond to eat peas.

Unfortunately the humpback whale, lets call him Bobby until we know his identity for sure, returned at 9:30 am, when we were in the garden. We were hesitant to leave the garden but took the risk, albeit briefly, to watch the whale. By the time we got down to the deck he wasn’t very close in so we went back to the garden pretty quickly. Our deer don’t need much encouragement to take advantage of an opportunity.

We have taken apart the compost bin and emptied all the gold on the garden path to fill planters and make a bed for my new roses. In one year the compost bin has made another ton of gorgeous soil. We are going to move the composting station yet again. This will be the fourth location since we got here. I just hate wasting valuable fenced garden space for something that can easily go anywhere.

As we are not ever going to raise chickens (E can’t be near birds or rabbits post transplant), we have dismantled the chicken run to expand the garden area under the plum tree. This gives me a nice shaded garden area next to the original shed. So far the dogs are pretty happy to have an area to relax out of the sun. If all of the hydrangea cuttings in the greenhouse survive, they will be very happy planted there, once I remove a ton of stones and add some soil.

We had our covid vaccines last week and have had no side effects. Most of our friends should be done by the end of the week. Most of our family are done already, with the rest to be done shortly. We come from a generation who lived through measles and polio and meningitis and welcomed vaccines. Most of us have seen the eradication of small pox and proudly wear a scar on our shoulder from the small pox vaccine. We were happy to include our granddaughter when we got our shot and to explain to her that we were doing it for our neighbours and our community as well as ourselves.

E poured cement for a couple of the posts, which kind of ended our work day around noon up there. We are only contracted to work four hours a day so we returned to the deck to wait for the

next whale visit