Have sheep, but will (not) travel

Regular readers of this post know that our home is in Niagara Falls, Canada. These days I'm reluctant to phrase it as we live here, given we now spend the majority of our time away from this home.

We returned about a month ago, and so are somewhat settled back into our regular lifestyle. In keeping with the theme of what I usually include in our travel posts, I thought I'd do a similar one from our own back yard.

This sunrise greeted me one of the first mornings home. Just beautiful.

For once, no cactus in the skyline!

We have a crabapple tree near our deck, and each year I look forward to watching it bloom. Over about a week's time, I've watched as it started to bud, grew leaves, and then blossomed. Here it is, just as it was starting to flower. 

Then came the profusion of blooms in such a vibrant colour.

Unfortunately, we had two days of rainy, windy weather after this photo was taken, so the blooms were short-lived. Even so, the leaves are still a beautiful colour, and in fall they change to a coppery colour and it's a pleasure to watch that change.

For the past week or so I've watched our peonies, as they seem to grow inches each day. Just in the past two days, the buds have appeared. Give it a few more days and I'll be cutting the flowers and enjoying their scent.

I like to think we have somewhat of an eclectic taste when it comes to our yard. No organized borders for us, or themed decorations. Let me explain in photos.

This was made for us by a good friend. It usually sits by our pond, and somehow always makes me think of the song "sitting on the dock of the bay". I'm probably showing my age there. It also gives me such a great feeling to think someone took the effort to make this for us. Good friends are one of the things to look forward to when returning home.

The significance of this photo is that one of Greg's daughters loves pigs and has pigs in just about every version - other than the live kind. This just reminds Greg of his daughter.

Every Welsh person should have a dragon crossing in their yard. A dragon is on the Welsh flag, and so represents my home country of Wales. Wales really does have a very cool flag.

So where are the sheep, you ask? Yep, we have them.

Doesn't everyone have a large concrete sheep on their deck?

Or a pink faceless sheep sitting on their deck bench?

Or a rather tired-looking, again faceless lamb, meekly sitting in the corner?

Better yet, we have two colourful plates decorating our deck. To me, they look like happy sheep climbing a prickly cactus, so maybe they incorporate both home and away for us? Who knows!

That's it from me for now. I told you it was eclectic. There are probably more things I could comment on in our yard, but I think you get the picture.

We plan to stay here another three months, then we'll be hitting the road - well  actually, the air - for our next adventure. Yes, you'll be able to read all about it then.

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Location: Niagara Falls, Canada

Weather: High 30ºC (86ºF), low 19ºC (67ºF)

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