Weather wise, we have had a really nice week. Monday was gorgeous. The rest of the week was wetter but not so much rain that we couldn’t work outside a few hours every day.

We had three dead Arbutus behind our garden when we first moved here. Eight years ago, John was building a driveway for us and took down one of the dead trees with his excavator. He suggested if we didn’t need the extra wood we should leave the other two until we do. It absolutely freaked my mother out when she was here that we had dead trees hanging over the garden.

Well we need the wood now and playing with the chainsaw is definitely one of E’s favourite things to do. The dead tree landed perfectly, behind the garden shed and between two water tanks. It was almost like he knew what he was doing. It was a great morning’s work and now we have more Arbutus in the growing pile of wood waiting to be split.

We had been meaning to buy a ridge cap for the greenhouse but never did, and now it’s leaking. E found a bit of gutter today, which was left over from the reno, and installed it. It solves the problem, it’s free and it looks just fine. It didn’t take long to do and was a good job done.

The island newsletter is at the printers. One less thing I need to worry about. I was then able to have a productive time in the garden for the rest of the week. I moved plants around, pruned shrubs and took divisions for the nursery. It is lovely up there now and I am hoping I am able to continue well into November. I cannot tell you the peace it brings me to putter with my plants, whether alone or with E nearby working on his own projects. The eagles are in the tree beside the us, the dogs occupy themselves wrestling on the lane and we can now hear the song of the robins who have, just this week, arrived to eat the berries on the Arbutus. None of the world’s problems are in my garden. It is in a word, Zen.

A storm is predicted for the weekend. If I can’t be in the garden, I will just have to spend some time sewing. It’s all good, I am no longer letting the world’s problems into

my house either