I love these lingering days of summer  and my older neighbourhood, because I suspect that one would never have the same happenings in the suburbs, in some gated district where there are regulations on what color and style you build the fence and outdoor clothes lines are taboo.

Always found back lanes more interesting than front yards and frequent them often whether walking the dogs or riding in safety. The avenue I live on, for the most part as is a throughfare, does not allow front street parking. Consequently most of the activity and interaction between neighbours occurs in the back alley. or over the fence.

My front gate is very securely wired together so the dogs don’t wander when no one is home. The mailman just reaches over to deliver contents to our covered box…remember the previous stories of mail toting dogs.

The other morning I was working downstairs and heard my name being called from the back porch came up to discover my neighbour from across the lane toting a large framed picture. This had been a wedding gift 27 years ago from some Philipino friends and spent most of it’s life in their basement. Terry thought perhaps with my “religious leanings “ I could find a more appropriate home for it…. The Last Supper still for the moment sits on the back porch.

The granddaughter came over night on Wednesday and pitted cherries and did some cleaning to earn abit of cash towards the hair cut and dye before school starts. Thursday morning we walked both of the dogs down the back alleys with a few stops of sunflowers and brightly painted garages. Down the ravine and left me at the pool, tied up dogs while she proceeded home further on in mill creek.

Garden greens and rice make lovely out door meals.

As we have a PhD university student friend of my daughter Amelia http://www.dreamingovertheocean.blogspot.com moving into the basement, my sewing room  needed to do a quick conversion, and was lacking a few extras.

Had fleetingly noticed the “ Take It “ sign a few doors down the back lane …so decided to investigate. The result is a new chair, dresser which came in two pieces and had to secure the backing on with small nails and a bedside table.
All hauled by yours truly on the dolly and bag of cherries gladly received in return.

The Evans cherry tree is slowly being picked and in return have done raspberry and green bean picking as in the two center rows here of shared garden…owners away. Eva and Sigfried, almost 90, have this backyard garden and still maintained between the odd nap in chair outdoors.

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