Veragirl

I’m in the doghouse !

2012-01-22T18:53:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I noticed that the fridge was awfully quiet for quite some time already so I checked the thermometers that I now have in the fridge and freezer compartment and they were at much lower temperatures than originally. So I alerted Cliff and he could hardly believe it but he took the whole thing apart again. He noticed that the motor was not getting any electricity but everything else seemed to have continuity. I finally dug out the fridge instructions – keep in mind the thing is nearly 36 years old – and he read that every eight hours of running time it would defrost and the rest of the circuits were shut down during that period. Dohh… it seemed to have been in that state when I noticed it. So he put everything together again, we hauled all the food back form the balcony where it was keeping cold and so far so good, it’s doing well. I hope it keeps on that way. Poor Cliff and his paranoid wife ☺
We had a really big wind storm today. Since we had invited company for this afternoon I made bread and was holding my breath all morning hoping the electricity would stay on long enough for the bread to bake. As it turned out we never lost power. We must have been some of the few people who did not so maybe we are living right ☺☺ I had baked a cake already yesterday. We had a great time.
That was my update on the fridge.
Good night everybody ☺

A sad beginning and a good ending

2012-01-17T17:15:00.001-08:00

As usual we made porridge for breakfast with lots of raisins. When it was time to eat I opened the fridge took the milk out and all of a sudden it hit me…the fridge was too warm! Then I remembered that I had noticed a bit of a smell yesterday but I thought at that time that there might be something in there that would account for it. Sure enough I had a nice Brie cheese but it was still pretty fresh so I never though more about it until this morning when the warm fridge told me something is wrong. Sure enough, checking the freezer compartment everything in there was defrosted and also warm. I guess I never noticed that the fridge was not running for at least 2 days. Since we bought the fridge when we built this house 35 years ago I guess it did not owe us anything and I was all set to go shopping for a new one even though I still really loved it. Not so my fix-it husband! Goodie goodie, a new project he could sink his teeth in!! Pretty soon he had some of it in pieces checking this and that. It took about 1 1/2 hours and the fridge was running again. A wire rubbed through on a copper pipe and all he had to do is wrap it and away it went. There might have been more involved in that but that was all I understood ☺
We had taken everything out of the fridge and set it on the balcony since it was freezing outside thinking to bring it in later after it cooled down again. Lots of the frozen stuff went in the compost. Luckily there was not much in there I could not live without. Everything is back inside and now I have a very clean running fridge ☺.
I am told it is good for another 35 years! Yeah!!!
It snowed here off and on since yesterday but so far not all that much accumulated. More snow tomorrow in the forecast and I have a hairdresser appointment. If the roads are not clear I won’t be going so I am hoping the weatherman is wrong like so often.
That is my tale for today and now I will go back to my slipper-knitting hoping this time they will turn out better than the last pair.
Good night everybody ☺

Saved from mishap ☺

2012-01-03T19:12:00.001-08:00

This is what the rest of my beignet dough turned into:

So all is well that ends well. They were delicious. The dough itself is a keeper and very easy to make. Now I have to remember not to make it too often although I was happy to have it since we had drop-in company yesterday.
Today was a rainy day. We had an appointment in town this afternoon and I was glad that Cliff did the driving since I hate driving in snow or lots of rain. Cliff had to see a dentist and was not to sure how he would feel afterwards so I went with him. It took 2 1/2 hours but I did not mind waiting in the waiting room which was very beautiful. I had my iPod to play a few games and after that I used my Sansa Clip MP3 player to listen to a book. I almost fell asleep. Normally I go shopping when I have to wait for Cliff but I just did not feel like braving the weather.
I read a book until midnight last night so now I am very tired and shall turn in shortly.

Good night everybody ☺

Not such a good start

2012-01-01T15:24:00.001-08:00

in the cooking department that is. When I read the Blogs this morning I read about Janna's plate of homemade beignets. That sure sounded great so this afternoon I decided to make some. I had never even heard the name but googled it and found a recipe on the Internet. The dough went together really well and I kept it cool for 3 hours like the recipe said. I used my cast iron fry pan with enough oil to cover the beignets. I even had a thermometer to make sure I had the right temperature. In go the first four but I guess the oil got way too hot in the process and they were dark brown quickly but when I took them out and cut one open it was still raw inside. Unfortunately I already sugared them so could not put them back in the oil. I finished them off in the oven. Next I tried to roll the next ones out thinner and at least they cooked fully. I still was not too impressed so I rolled out the remaining dough, added butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Rolled it up like a jelly roll, cut into 16 pieces and they are now rising, waiting for the oven. I think they will be OK. Like the other southern recipe I made awhile ago “biscuits and gravy” I still think one has to be born in the South to make them ☺☺☺
That’s all for the first day of the year.
I hope everybody arrived safe and sound.
Good bye everybody ☺

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T14:03:00.001-08:00

I hope everybody had a great Christmas.
Now on to the new year. What will it bring? Nobody knows yet but we will find out in time.
We had a few interesting days. Our granddaughter Rachel was looking for her first car. She got her N (Novice driver) in November and has been looking for her first wheels. Grandpa kept searching on the internet with her and she at dealers etc. where she lives. She finally found one and was soo happy but on the way to finalize the deal the car stopped and would not go any further!! Of course that was the end of that deal. It was a blessing in disguise though since that car did not sound like a good deal to grandpa. Had too many used parts. At first Rachel was very disappointed but found her dream car the next day. A much better deal. She is now driving a 2001 Mazda Protege with a one year guarantee. She is on cloud nine at the moment. It is so nice to see the grandkids happy.

Happy New Year, Everybody

see you next year ☺☺☺

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T18:18:00.001-08:00

We are having a Green Christmas! and that is exactly the way I like it. I hope there will be less accidents on the road.
We have been very busy with appointments for both of us. Finally we could look after our health
The ECO battle has come to a favourable end. You can read all about it here
We now have to wait what will be done with that site. We still have to be quite vigilant.
I did a lot of baking today. Our grandkids and their Dad will come for Boxing Day lunch and after that they will head for Vancouver where they have tickets to see the Canucks in action.
They need to get an early ferry because the other day one of the ferries knocked out the Duke Point ferry docks. The spokesperson said that it will probably be half a year before it will be operational again. Since that ferry line is now unusable the other ferries have to pull up the slack. I am sure glad we did not plan on using the ferries this year.
Last night we went to an open house at one of our new ECO depot friends. It was a lot of fun. They had a life size Santa that dances and sings several Christmas songs and some of us girls danced along with him. Our friend told a funny story about that Santa. During the year it is stored in it’s box. The head comes off and the body is compressed down and to keep it down it has a lever under the box, then the head sits lose on top and the box closes. One year her little granddaughter was going to help put up the Santa, They opened the box and tried to pull Santa up but he would not budge. My friend remembered the lever under the box and pulled it. Up jumped the body but the head catapulted at the little girl. She was absolutely petrified. When the story was told yesterday we really had to laugh. I am sure by now the girl is laughing about that story too.
For now I wish everybody a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Good night everybody ☺

Bad is often not all bad…

2011-12-04T21:21:00.001-08:00

If it had not been for the trouble with the ECO Depot we would not have met so many of our great neighbours .
Yesterday we had a bar-be-cue with the group at our neighbours turkey farm. I have never seen so many turkeys at once and the noise they made was LOUD!

This is only part of the turkey group.
We sure had a lot of fun. To keep us warm we had a fire in the field. Later on we had hamburgers and hot dogs.

This morning my brother-in-law came over bright and early and Cliff and he went to get a load of wood. Cliff saw it on Used Cowichan for sale; it was nearly 2 full cords and they had to make 2 trips. Now we need one more cord and we’ll have enough for this year and next. I even helped a bit to unload. When they came back from the first load I had lunch ready. Pork ribs with potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and a green salad with enough leftovers for tomorrow. I always like to have leftovers for Mondays because I am busy with doing laundry.
Last night I was invited to our new neighbours place for a ladies party. Everybody there was sooo young but it was lots of fun. I met the mother of our neighbour and had a good talk. She and her husband are leaving for a month holiday down South with their trailer. It is the first time they are Snow Birds. I hope they are having lots of fun. I sure envy them.
Now it’s time to say good bye and
good night everybody ☺

Last Sign-waving picture

2011-11-28T21:29:00.001-08:00

It was a fun afternoon with lots of goodies to eat and lots of friends.

It’s over

2011-11-28T18:46:00.001-08:00

or is it? I sure hope so. The Eco Depot was voted down by a large margin at least for the Cameron Taggart site. It was so nice not having to do 3 hours worth of “sign-waving” in the cold. It has been a long time since this nightmare started and hopefully it is over with now but we are still very vigilant.
Here is a video clip I took from the TV about it.

ECO Depot Interview on Shaw TV

We’ll see what the new year brings.
I used to bake lots of cookies to take to the sign-waving and because of baking every week I gained some weight during that time. Now I noticed though that I am so used to eating cookies that it will be hard to break that habit, but breaking it I must!!

We had a beautiful day here on the Island. Lots of sunshine and no rain but it was a tad cool. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain a bit but after that the sun will be out again. In tonight’s News we were told that the winter is going to be colder than normal. I hope they are wrong but if they are not, we have lots of wood to keep us warm in the house.

A few days ago I tried my hand at making biscuits and gravy but I think you have to be living in the South in order to do a good job ☺☺☺, mine sure did not work out too well. So I used the leftover sausage gravy to make it into a pot of soup. That was a success, so all was not lost.
I am looking forward to company on Wednesday. My sister in law and hubby live in Lethbridge and they have arrived in Victoria to spend one month on beautiful Vancouver Island. They like to be independent so they opted for a nice hotel in Victoria. It will be fun to visit often, either here or at their hotel.
Shopping tomorrow morning.
That’s it for tonight…so
Good Night everybody ☺

Long, long ago

2011-10-30T19:45:00.001-07:00

I wrote my last entry. I just had nothing really to write about.
It only took a few days to get over my experience in the hospital. So far everything is OK and I did not have a repeat. My hearing is a lot better too so I am a happy camper.
This is the time we used to pull out of our driveway to start the long trek to Arizona. When I read about the lucky people that are on their way now I am quite envious but I am glad that we have had many nice winters in Arizona/California to look back on.
We had another sign waving today. Two more Sundays and we think that will be the end of it. General elections will be held Nov. 19. and hopefully we will be getting new directors. At the same time we will be voting for or against the proposed site for the ECO depot.

It really is sad to think that municipal forces want to destroy our rural life and a piece of property that is beautiful. These woods are inhabited by lots of critters including bears, cougars, racoons as well as goshawks, cooper hawks and sharp shin hawks.

We are all for recycling to keep stuff out of the landfills and we have done that for years but we already have two commercial recycling centres close by and two more in Duncan. Why we need another one to the tune of over 2 million dollars - that we the taxpayers have to pay for - is beyond me.
OK… I’m off my soap box now.
When I got up this morning it was raining but around 10 the rain stopped and we were lucky that it stayed dry and even sunny until we finished with the signs at 3 PM.
I have been busy knitting felted slippers. It is amazing to see them turn from something that could fit an elephant to something that keeps my feet so toasty warm. Of course I could buy slippers cheaper than what I have to pay for the yarn to make them but buying them is not nearly as much fun as making them.
Halloween tomorrow but I don’t have to buy any goodies because no little goblins will be coming our way, at least they have not for many years now. If I am wrong then there are always loonies to hand out.
That’s all for now,
Good night everybody ☺

Never too old to learn

2011-09-21T16:47:00.001-07:00

I am 75 years old, married for 52 years and have canned since I got married. You would think I would have a grip on the best way to do this but… no… I only learned today. Canning tomatoes has always been a pleasure but it was quite a long process. Today I had an 8 kg bucket heaped full of tomatoes that Cliff picked in the morning. Normally I would can that as juice to use in all kinds of recipes. That means cutting up the tomatoes after taking out the stem part then cooking them until they are soft. After that I used to pass them through a food mill to get the skins out, fill jars and can. Today I decided to just can the whole tomatoes but first I had to get the skins off. Pretty easy to do if you know how. It took me 1 1/2 hours from start to having the jars in the canner. Amazing. Most of you probably knew how to do it but I only knew how to the hard way and now I am a really happy camper.
I was not too happy awhile ago because I lost a lot of my hearing back in July and it has not gotten better at all. I had an audiogram done and I might need a hearing aid. So far I am not doing too bad without it. Watching TV is a little harder to do but I don’t watch that much anyhow. Poor Cliff has to repeat quite a bit for me but he is very good about it.
I also ended up in the hospital with a severe case of vertigo. It came on within seconds and was quite scary particularly since my blood pressure was 200/90. Never happened before. I could not stand up at all and kept on vomiting. We got really scared and called 911 for an ambulance. They were there within 10 minutes and off I went on a stretcher. A totally new experience for me and one I hope will not be repeated soon. The emergency was packed. The nurse later told me that it was the worse she has seen there for a long time. It took about 2 hours before the doctor could see me. All that time I was on a stretcher in the hallway but it did not matter to me, just as long as I did not have to move my head. I was still vomiting although I had nothing left in my stomach. They kept me hydrated intravenously and after I was stabilized around 8.30 at night I was able to get Cliff to take me home. The doctor ordered a CT scan and that came back normal so I am glad about that.

Now I feel really good again. Last week I made and canned 19 pints of spaghetti sauce and today just tomatoes whole. It was a fun and I will have to do it again.
I went shopping today and the gent in front of me bought 4 tomatoes and I just about fainted, the price came to $ 2.64. Imagine the “gold” I have in the jars ☺
Enough of my rambling.
Good night everybody ☺

Not a cloud in the Sky

2011-09-05T14:42:00.001-07:00

and we really need the rain. Cliff and I walked in the woods yesterday and it is bone-dry. It makes it very scary to live where we are. Lots of tall trees around. I just hope everybody takes care not to start a fire inadvertently.
It really was nice weather for travellers on the long weekend though.
We are having lots of tomatoes now but they still are not ripe enough for my liking. Great for slicing etc. but I want to make tomato sauce and for that they have to be soft to the touch.
I just opened a jar of 3-fruit and noticed that I canned it on Sept. 8th. Our pears and plums are not nearly ripe to eat. It seems that everything is about 3 weeks later than normal. The damp spring and even part of the summer was great for the cucumber crop. I make a cucumber salad everyday and still they are coming on strong. I gave away lots too. Just now I cut swiss chard for lunch but most of it is still out there. This time of the year the vegetable patch is large but when the winter comes we have to buy veggies. The only vegetable I like frozen is peas. Every other type I rather eat fresh. Not sure how the squash harvest will be. They are still very small and not plentiful this year. That sure changes from year to year.
Years ago this would be the time when I start to gather things together for our trip South for the winter. I really miss that time. Now we gather wood for the fireplaces ☺.
We were in Kelowna for a few days some weeks ago. We really hit it lucky with the weather since it was not too hot but on the way home we drove in rain from Hope right to Vancouver Island. Driving was not too bad though and we did not run into any roadwork. I guess that was due to the rain. On the way to Kelowna we saw 2 long line-ups in the opposite direction. We were hoping we would not be ending up in one of those. So the rain was good for us in a way.
School will start tomorrow and we have to be very careful driving through school zones. I am sure police will be checking to try to keep folks from speeding.
That’s it for today.
Good bye everybody ☺

Sunday Sign Waving

2011-07-25T14:34:00.001-07:00

It was a beautiful day yesterday but very hot for waving signs. The turn-out was fantastic, more than 100 people. Lots and lots of cars going by and blowing their horns. As usual the cookies I baked in the morning were a great success and not one was left over. Good thing I saved a few for Cliff.

this is the area where an recycling/dump depot is supposed to be built.

read all about it

We have been battling the local government for over a year now. I hope it will not go on forever because it really messes up our life.
None of us is against recycling (I have been doing it diligently for years now) It’s just the location we are fighting. This area is zoned agricultural and is such a beautiful sight. I cannot understand how anybody could chose to destroy it. Besides that there are 4 recycling centres already in the area.
OK, rant over ☺

It is a little cooler today and I am thankful for that. Yesterday was the first time this summer when we spent some time downstairs in the rec-room because it was too hot upstairs. We left all the windows and doors open last night to cool the house down. I closed the drapes this morning to keep the sun out and now I have to open everything up again to get a bit of heat inside. Crazy weather but at least I have my clothes on the line today. They always smell so nice when they are dried outside.
Lunch is over with and now I have to think what I am going to serve tomorrow. It’s a never ending chore ☺ but I like it.

That is the end for today.
Good bye everybody ☺

Where is our Summer? and Google+

2011-07-20T19:48:00.001-07:00

I had lots of fun this afternoon trying out the new Google+. It is a really good concept and I hope to be using it regularly. My thanks to Rick for blogging about it.
I noticed that 2 more people have joined my Blog. Hope you enjoy it even though I have not been posting a lot.
The summer this year leaves a lot to be desired. On the other hand watching the News tonight I heard that a lot of people from the hot parts of Canada and the US are arriving here and enjoying our cooler weather. I must say that I rather have it this way than too hot. We had quite a bit of rain too which is not too bad since we don’t have to do too much watering in the garden. I am not sure if we ever get corn this year. It is so far behind that winter might come before it is ready to be picked. Lots of nice potatoes and the lettuce is wonderful. For awhile I was running out of greens but now swiss chard is growing great and we eat it every day. Pretty soon the cucumbers will be ready to pick as well. Life is good!
We have about 4 pounds of strawberries in the freezer and the same amount of raspberries. I am not sure what I will do with that. Time will tell.
I have been using my iPad a lot but I still like my iPod too. Actually the iPad is supposed to be for Cliff but I misappropriate it most of the time ☺☺
Between housework (not too much of that ), shopping, computer and listening to books the days just fly. I finished knitting a pair of socks for Cliff and have not started another pair yet. I think that is more for winter time.
That’s it for tonight,
Good night everybody ☺

Watching Swallows

2011-07-06T19:10:00.001-07:00

What a great occupation! We watched 3 little guys starting to fly. Usually one at a time with one parent around. One baby looked out of the door of the nest and another one was sitting on the peg in front of the door. At one time the little guy on the peg tried to get through the door but the “bully” in the doorway would not let it pass. It was almost through when it got shoved back down. That happened a few times and in the end it gave up trying. I must have sat watching the nest for about an hour.

I did not hear anything from the nursery in Chilliwack so I took the “Killer Basket” in the house for a few days. It was a bit of a nuisance so I ended up taking it to the garden and using a fine mist from the garden hose to give it a good bath and hung it outside again. That seems to have done the trick and the bees stopped dying.
In the end the nursery phoned after all wanting to exchange the basket for another one so they could test the bad one. Of course there was no use to that after I had sprayed it. They were very good about it and told me to call back if the trouble came back. So far everything is OK.

butterfly on the basket

We have had a few beautiful days but the weather is supposed to change a bit. I don’t mind because I rather like the cooler weather.

Good night everybody ☺

Happy Day

2011-06-28T20:02:00.001-07:00

Happy in more ways than one.
First, my little iPod got a big brother! I took a flying trip to Future shop in Duncan and bought a brand spanking new iPad… big brother to iPod. It sure is easier to see but I still like iPod because it is easier to transport. Not so good is the fact that I have to share big Brother with big Cliff
On the way to town I saw that BC Hydro was doing something on 2 power poles on the opposite side of the road so when I came back I decided to take the long way around Cowichan Bay from Duncan. That is the reason why Happy time two came into play.
Getting nearly to Country Grocer I saw a truck with a sign that read “Sockeye Salmon”. I came to a screeching halt and walked back to buy 4 freshly caught salmon. Each was between 3 and 5 pounds.
When I got home I alerted Cliff and he scaled them and I fileted them and froze them in usable portions. We love Sockeye salmon but I would not give you a plugged nickel for Chinook. I know a lot of people would deem that heresy but I find it too strong. Cliff likes it though.
When we still had our sailboat we used to fish all the time and mostly caught Chinook and Coho. I always called the sailboat “Tradewind” a fish boat in disguise. One year we even caught the biggest Chinook at the Mill Bay Fishing Derby. That sure was exciting. I have canned hundreds of pints and half pints of Salmon in my lifetime but this year I just froze the 4 fish.
I also have an update on my “killer flower basket” but that is for another Blog entry, right now I want to play with big brother

Good night everybody ☺

Updates

2011-06-20T18:17:00.001-07:00

A while ago I wrote about my Maytag washer.
That break-down was actually a blessing in disguise. Because of that I started to use only a fraction of the Tide soap that I used before. It made my clothes so much softer and actually a bit cleaner too. I am a happy camper now.
Now about my Bee problem.
I asked Superstore where they buy their flowers and was told it is DeVry Greenhouses Ltd. in Chilliwack. I found their website on the net and left a message. A few days later they wrote and were very surprised that so many bees were dying after visiting that particular flower basket. They asked to have a picture of the basket and I sent one. They wanted to pick up the basket to test it and refund my money. I told them I would prefer another basket rather than money. That was the last of the correspondence. I wonder if I ever hear from them again so I wrote another email today. I will not let it rest though because if it happened with this one basket how many others are also affected and how many bees are yet to die. We are having enough problems with the lack of bees around Vancouver Island.
Now I will go back to listening to my audiobook “The Painted House” by John Steinbeck. I read the book twice already a long time ago and I love somebody reading to me.

Good night everybody ☺

2nd post

2011-06-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

I had a terrible time to post my first Blog. Live Writer could not post it. I then tried Blogger and it took ages to enter the pictures. This is the first time I had problems. I guess I am joining the crowd in this. I just wish they would leave things alone when they work properly.
Grrrrrrrrrrr
I also tried this post in Live writer. Both times this is the window that popped up:

What's up with this??? I did the same thing I always did. Very frustrating.

Losing interest

2011-06-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am losing interest in blogging. I guess that is because nothing really interesting happens that I could write about.
Today I went to the garden and took a few pictures.

Our lettuce

Rhubarb

and it looks like we are getting lots of strawberries.

The Dahlias are coming up nicely too. I saved the tubers from last year and had luck with them sprouting. The year before I did not have one that overwintered. It will be interesting to see which type of dahlias we will get. I did not mark them. This fall I will make sure I do.

The other day Cliff came in the kitchen bringing me our first potatoes. Here is a picture:

I almost needed glasses to see them but I threw them in with the potatoes for that day. Now I am waiting for the big ones! I bought a 10 pound bag of potatoes the other day and they are really terrible. I have to peel twice as much as I want to eat because so much of them has to be cut off.
As you see, nothing earth shattering is occurring but I like it this way.
Hope everybody had a great Father’s Day.

See you in the future.
Good night everybody ☺

Doors and windows wide open

2011-06-06T20:00:00.001-07:00

drapes drawn. Only a few days ago I was cold all day but too stubborn to start a fire or turn on the electricity. Looks like we went from Winter to Summer within a few days. What happened to Spring????
This morning I even had to water and if the weather stays like this we will have to do that every day.
A few weeks ago I bought a hanging basket with beautiful blue flowers at Superstore.

I really like it a lot but lately I find about 4 honey- or mason bees dead under it on the balcony floor every day. I really would like to find out why that is. We have 3 other baskets and I use the same fertilizer on all of them, same as last year (Schultz 10-15-10 Liquid Plant Food).
I have never bought any baskets at Superstore because normally they look bedraggled but this one caught my eye. I think I want to find out which nursery supplies the store and see if they sprayed something toxic on the flowers. They might not tell me though.
I finally picked some of our rhubarb. Three stalks was enough to make a batch of “Heavenly Jam”. That is everybody's favourite. Lettuce is also coming on strong. We try to have a salad every day once or twice. Just before lunch I usually look around the garden to see what I can pick to cook. Today it was a bunch of greens and boy did they taste good! These plants are self-seeding and come back every year all over the garden.
Pretty soon the rapini will be finished so it’s good the greens are now big enough to eat.
The tomato plants are all blooming. We plant “Early Girl” and they taste wonderful but it will be the end of July before we can start eating them. I can hardly wait.

That’s it for today.
Good night everybody ☺

Bunnies and Birds

2011-06-01T18:33:00.001-07:00

This year we have an abundance of bunnies around our house. Big ones, medium sized ones and tiny ones. As long as they don’t go in the garden they are safe but we also have one little one in the garden. I have no idea how they get in there. Every morning I expect to see the broccoli plants mowed down. I sure hope not. They play all the time, racing each other jumping over top of each other and just plain hop around. It seems that every few years there are lots of them and other years we hardly see any. It’s neat to see them clip a spent dandelion stem at the bottom and then nibble till it’s all gone which only takes a few seconds.
The birds are a different story though. A few days ago I went around the north side of our house which has no windows and is close to our neighbours' fence so we don’t go around that side normally. I noticed lots of white spots on the ground and when I looked up I realized it was bird droppings all down the side of the house. Hmmmmmmmm. I called Cliff but we thought the birds were roosting on a square vent that was sticking out a bit. The next day I looked again and I noticed a piece of hey or weed hanging from a vent hole. Hmmmmmm again. The day after that I walked home from the mail box and actually saw a robin flying out of that vent hole. That did it. With a tall ladder (the house is 2 storeys high) Cliff checked out the top of the gable. Four of the vent holes had no screens left. This time he stapled wire screening over the holes but when I looked today one of the staples was gone and the edge of the screen was frayed. More staples are going up. I wonder who is going to win this war….
We have four or five birds roosting under our balcony and that’s OK but not IN the house please. They do make a mess there too, but I can clean that up easily.
That was my big excitement for today.

Good night everybody ☺

Long, long ago…

2011-05-31T15:31:00.001-07:00

I wrote the last Blog. I have had inquiries from Janna and Eddie wondering if I am OK. Thank you both for the thought and I am very well indeed, just too lazy to write. Actually there really is not much to write about.
Cliff is still working hard to stop the darn ECO depot/dump from being built in the farmland close by. Nobody is against having an ECO depot/dump but not in a location that is farmland. It should be in an industrial area. It sure is hard to ‘fight City Hall” Last night we were both at a meeting of our area director but when questions came up that he found uncomfortable, he just changed the subject and so the fight goes on!!

Last Sunday we had another sign waving session. We are sure busy bees.

On June 18th we will have a fundraising dance. It should be lots of fun since we will have a live band which is supposed to be really good. This is coupled with a silent auction.

The garden is coming along great. We are now eating our home grown lettuce, onions and still Rapini every day. Our squash from last year lasted until about 4 weeks ago and I can hardly wait for the next crop. I really miss it. The tomatoes are growing by leaps and bounds. They are under cloches. Not long and radishes will also be on the menu.
To this day I still have 3 large bags of raspberries and one large bag of strawberries in the freezer. I really must do something with that.
The rhubarb is almost as tall as I am and I have not touched one leaf. It needs so much sugar that I don’t really want to use it. I will make some heavenly jam with it but I need crushed pineapple and after just checking my supply I find I am out of that. Next shopping trip will remedy that.
I just finished the audiobook “Heaven is for real” by Todd Burpo. It really is thought provoking. As you know I enjoy listening to books while I do otherwise boring chores. It’s a good thing I can download those from the library. I would be broke if I had to pay for them.

Back to my chores.
Good bye everybody ☺

Mother’s Day tomorrow

2011-05-07T18:27:00.001-07:00

and we went to town today to get 2 flower baskets and some plants to put together a third one. The third one is the one that had the birds nest last year and one of the plants actually survived the winter. I originally thought I would just plant a few more flowers in it but the dirt was so matted up that I had to replace it. I hope the old plants will survive because they took quite a beating when I got them out. Now we need one more basket to even everything out. I have a solar light in each one and also solar Chinese lanterns between the baskets. Cliff figures the lanterns look “tacky” but I like them and so they stay
We actually went shopping quite a few times this week. Normally we combine all of it in one day but somehow this week was different.
The weather has been “Medium-Rare” this week but we picked nice days for our outings.
Weather permitting Cliff is outside whipping the garden into shape but he has a long way to go yet. It has been too wet all Spring to do much.
A lot of our Lilies are up but none of the dahlias survived. I have to buy new ones next trip out.
Pretty soon we’ll be eating the first Rhubarb.
All is good ☺

Good bye everybody ☺

Is spring finally here?

2011-04-30T21:00:00.001-07:00

I sure hope so.
According to the above picture it looks like it is true. The Orchard Mason Bees are hard at work. Cliff had to make another bee house to accommodate all of the newly hatched bees. I am glad they are not inclined to sting because there are so many of them.
It was such a fine day that I even went out and weeded the flower bed. It always pleases me to see it free of weeds. Unfortunately that is an ongoing process. It does not take long before the weeds take over again.
We bought our 18 Early Girl tomatoes a few days ago and yesterday Cliff planted them in 2 cloches. He also planted 6 lettuce plants that we bought already about 5 inches tall and 6 tiny little lettuce plants that I raised in the house. All of those are under plastic cloches as well. It is still too cold at night without protection.
I was able to pick the first useable veggies.

Rapini

I will be cooking some tomorrow. Rapini is a plant that comes back every year and tastes great. I always look forward to the first meal. This year it has been much later than normal.
It has also been a much colder Spring and most of our tulips have frozen edges and don’t look nice. Too bad because they looked great last year.
Time for bed.
Good night everybody ☺

Back to normal

2011-04-21T21:06:00.001-07:00

Last Monday before picking up the Maytag parts we went to Walmart to do a bit of shopping.

I picked up a spiral ham that was on special. It must have been a momentary lapse of judgement because when we got home I looked at the size of it and was wondering for how many weeks we had to eat it since there is just Cliff and I at the table! To top it off when we tried it we found that it was very salty. So here I am stuck with about 8 pounds of salty ham. I knew I had to think of some way to use it because I just cannot throw food out.

I cut it up into usable portions and froze some but kept 2 chunks out. This morning I ground those 2 chunks up in my Braun grinder and figured I could use that instead of sausage to make biscuits and gravy, southern style. I checked for recipes on the internet and it sounded pretty easy. That’s what we had for lunch with a substitution of potatoes for the biscuits plus broccoli and a salad. It turned out very tasty and is a keeper. I also think that it would be great as a filling for crepes. Nicki had a good idea to mix the ground ham with cheese in scalloped potatoes for another dish. So now I am glad I bought that large ham.

All in all today was a great day.

Good night everybody ☺

Mission Accomplished

2011-04-19T18:38:00.001-07:00

Mission Accomplished!!

By gosh we’ve got it ☺

It was around one in the afternoon Monday when the Maytag dealer called to let us know the parts kit we ordered was in. We went right to town, did a little bit of shopping, picked up the parts and started work on the machine at around 4.30 PM. At 11 PM, after we gave the washer a run through with just water, we were finished, but not without lots of work and frustrations. Actually I should say not without MY frustrations. Cliff is as cool as a cucumber when he does jobs like this one.

Maytag Man

Here are the tools of the trade:

All the electronic connections had to be made but luckily he was wise enough to take pictures before disconnecting everything.

Before that could be accomplished we had to put the machine together again and unfortunately we did not take any pictures before disassembly. That was too bad since it took us quite some time to figure it out which certainly was not easy. The icing on the cake was a wire around the drum that held the rubber boot from the outer drum to the machine. It was connected by a spring in the middle. What a job that was. Every time we had the boot in the correct position and tried to pull one side of the spring long enough to connect the other side the boot came off again. The spring was too strong. We tried using all kinds of tools but nothing seemed to work until Cliff thought of brake spring pliers he had. Off he went to the garage and after the second try the job was done. Too bad we did not think of that before.

During the whole job we had to change positions. On time I was in front of the machine holding something or other and Cliff in back, a few minutes later we switched. Up.... down, up...down. In the end I could hardly straighten up. This is not a job for an old lady ☺

This morning I did 2 loads of laundry and what a relief to hear the washer run smoothly.

All told the cost was $ 88.79, a far cry from the quote of $ 300.00 to 500.00. Cliff corrected me about the price I quoted in my earlier Blog.
Before:

and after:

Here is Humpty Dumpty put together again:

In conclusion: I hope we don’t have to do this job again any time soon ☺

Good night everybody ☺

Washer Woes

2011-04-17T10:13:00.001-07:00

We woke up to beautiful sunshine hoping it will stay that way all day.
Remember the Maytag Man in the commercials of the olden days????

Well, I think he appeared at our house.

For a few weeks now our Maytag Washer has been making a screeching sound at the spin cycle. It was getting so bad that we could not be in the same room during the spin cycle. I called the place where I bought it but they could not guess at what it might be without having a look at it. They also said that they did not have many problems with our type washer which I find hard to believe after searching on the Internet and finding forum after forum where people complained about these washers breaking down so often. $$$$ signs where in my eyes and I certainly did not want to spend a great amount on a washer I did not like in the first place. I had blogged about it earlier. In that Blog I said that we bought the washer in 2008 but in reality it was February 2007. (senior moment mix-up) so the machine is only 4 years old.

washer Blog

Cliff thought the machine sounded like it had a broken bearing. He called the dealer to find out how much it would cost to replace it. They quoted a minimum of $ 200.—but it could rise to $ 500.00. For that amount of money I would much, much rather buy a top load washer which I should have done in the first place.

Maytag Man to the rescue…
His name is Cliff ☺

As you can see the machine is now unrecognisable ☺ and sure enough one of the bearings is the culprit.

I was shocked to see the grunge on the inside. It is soap build-up. When we bought our freezer last year at Sears I happened to talk to the sales lady about our Maytag washer smelling at times. She told me that a tablespoon of the Tide He-soap was enough for a load instead of the quantity that Tide proposes. At the time I thought that was not enough but I now believe her after seeing the inside of our washer. It took a lot of elbow grease to get it clean again. For the last year I had even used the packets of cleaner that are supposed to clean the washer a few times and still there was the build-up.

The bearing had a number and Cliff knew where to buy one without paying the Maytag price. Instead of around $ 60.00 he got one for $ 20.00 at a regular bearing shop but we also needed a seal kit that is strictly Maytag. Of course it was not “in stock” so now we are waiting for it. I hope it will come soon because our cold room next to the utility room is full of washer parts and there is hardly any room to walk. I also hope that we will be able to put that washer back together again which is going to be a tall order.

or fixing the washer ☺

Stay tuned!!

Maybe Spring is finally here

2011-04-08T15:56:00.001-07:00

I very much hope so. We have had a few sunny days. Pretty soon it is time to work in the garden. For Cliff that is, I don’t really like gardening but do a bit of weeding off and on. I like harvesting though ☺ I did weed the little square in our concrete patio. There used to be an apple tree but the roots were too shallow and every winter it toppled over. For several years we propped it up again and we still got apples but in the end we had to take it out. Since the deer used to eat everything that we planted in there I just weed it and leave it empty.
The Orchard Mason Bees are out of their nests and buzzing around. It will not be long before the cherry and plum trees are breaking out in bloom. I was surprised to see the bees out because I’m not sure where they find food just yet.
So far we have not seen any swallows. Last year they came a bit earlier.
The hummingbirds are back from their winter vacation.
We went shopping this morning at Superstore and I saw this Parking sign:

I was tempted to use that spot figuring: I AM a mother and I AM EXPECTING phone calls and letters from my kids, so I MUST BE an expectant mother. Since I like to park away from the store to get at least a bit of exercise I just took a picture and drove on.
Happy Birthday, Nicki. xoxo
That’s it for today.
Good bye everybody ☺

Fridge Soup etc.

2011-03-30T15:26:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday was our 52nd anniversary so we decided to go out for Chinese food. We have a really good restaurant close by. Cliff and I normally get just the combination plate. The buffet is absolutely not cost effective since we don’t eat very much at one sitting. At least with the combo plate we get to take the leftovers home which we did last Saturday too. We chose different dishes and had enough to warm up at night. That still did not take care of all the food so the next day I decided to make some “fridge soup”. It consisted of the rest of the Chinese food and cut-up leftover piece of the pizza I had made before plus a piece of chicken and some extra vegetables. Best soup we had in a long time but unfortunately cannot be duplicated I am sure. That soup lasted for dinner, evening and next evening. How much thriftier can one get???
I hate throwing food out.
For about 5 days I have had terrible hip pain. I really don’t know why. I could hardly get up the stairs. One reason might be that I carried heavy shopping bags for some distance and another one could be that I started to take calcium supplements. I read someplace awhile ago that too much calcium can be detrimental to the bones. So now I wait for awhile before I try that again and see what happens. Right now I have no more pain and am glad for it.
The weather has not been bad at all. Some rain but not too much and always a bit of sun as well during the day.
I ordered some more knitting books from the library for my toe-up sock adventure. It is fun to try something new.
Now I will find something fun to do.
Good bye everybody ☺

New toy

2011-03-23T15:19:00.001-07:00

We finally broke down and bought a nice new set of phones. Our old ones tended to have a clicking sound as soon as we came close to the computers. Not good… it drove me crazy and in the end one of the handsets did not work any longer with the headset. Off we went to Future Shop and bought a Panasonic 3-set cordless phone.

Panasonic 3-Handset DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone (KXTG6513B)

Now I am a happy camper.

A few days ago I finished knitting my first pair of toe-up socks. I think this is the way I shall knit socks from now on. I have a lot more to learn about that but this is a start.

I used some cheap yarn that I had hanging around for about 25 years because I only wanted to learn how to knit the toe but I was on a roll and decided to finish them off. I can see some of design mistakes but I shall work on that.
With this toe-up method I can make a sock just long enough in the leg to use half the ball of yarn and be sure there is enough yarn for the second sock.

I finally have my computer back to normal. It took awhile to arrange things the way I like them. I would really like to learn how to reformat it myself. If I have trouble again I shall try that and hope that I don’t turn it into an “anchor”. I was also able to download Live Writer again although I thought Blogger is OK too.

Today I was very busy. I helped a friend bottle wine this morning and when I came home I had to make lunch, which is our main meal of the day. At the same time I fixed up a pizza for tonight. I had the dough frozen and it was time to get it out of the freezer. It looks good and I hope it will taste good. Now while I am writing this I am also baking chocolate chip cookies. They are very very good. It’s a new recipe Cliff’s niece gave me. The cookies are almost like Sandies. Now I have to have enough willpower to stay away from them. Maybe…maybe not ☺

That’s all for now.
Good bye everybody ☺

Computer Woes

2011-03-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

After 2 1/2 years my computer started to freeze up several times a day and it got worse and worse. I decided to have it re-formatted. Now I have the unenviable task of installing all the windows updates. I thought the shop had done that, but yesterday the updates came coming. I hope I have it all done now.
I am not sure why but I cannot install the Live Writer that I have used since shortly after I started my Blog. I like it so much better than Blogger. I will keep on trying.
I lost some interest in blogging, so I will only do that intermittently.
I started to learn to knit socks from the toe up and I think I like it well enough. That way I can stop at the length of the leg part when I reach the half way mark of my yarn supply. Last regular pair of socks I knitted I ended up having to buy another ball of yarn because of about an inch of sock that I could not finish. Not good.
That is how I spend a lot of my spare time.
Good bye everybody ☺

No "Maxine" picture today, I still have to sort that out.

Or maybe not !!

2011-02-24T14:32:00.001-08:00

This is what the view from my window showed yesterday morning and it only got worse.
Today it looks like this:

I hope that is the end of snow for the winter and I hope that the plants I showed last time will survive the cold.
I also hope the snow will disappear soon because I need to do a bit of grocery shopping and I hate driving in the snow.
We now have a big motorhome in our backyard. Cliff’s nephew is staying here for a little while. It is nice to have company. Too bad he brought the snow with him ☺
Our granddaughter got married last Tuesday in Georgia. It is amazing how time flies, it seems it was just yesterday when she was a baby in my arms. I hate to think what the time does to us
As usual I have been knitting and listening to audiobooks. The last one was “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck. I tried to find more books by the same author but could not find any. I know she wrote numerous books and most of them are about life in early China. I read “The good Earth” at least 3 times. The first time when I was a teenager.
I just baked bran muffins. Cliff and I have one each every afternoon with our coffee and by now I can bake those with my eyes closed.
Back to my work.
Good bye everybody ☺

Maybe Spring is coming

2011-02-18T21:25:00.001-08:00

This afternoon Cliff came inside, happy to tell me that he saw the first signs of Spring; some plants are coming up already.
Off I went to take a few pictures.
I am not sure what these flowers are called but they are very pretty.

The first snowdrops

Rhubarb peeking through

and tulips coming up as well

I am really happy to see the first signs of Spring. It is supposed to get cold again though, hopefully the snow will not reach the South Island. If it does it probably will not stay long this time of the year.
A week ago I got the duvet cover I ordered from Sears but had another disappointment. A sham was supposed to come with it but was not there. Grrrrrr
I took it back. That is the second disappointment. To top it off the refund will not cover the handling charges both times. I don’t find that acceptable. I don’t mind the charge if I can keep the merchandise but if it is flawed I should not have to pay for it. I am waiting for my Mastercard statement to see if that is true before I complain. It is not the money but the principal of the matter.
Other than that life goes smoothly so there is not much to write about. Housework, cooking, shopping, reading spending time reading Blogs, all is well.
Good night everybody ☺

Not much happening

2011-02-09T17:44:00.001-08:00

around our place.
Yesterday Cliff took our 2 swallow houses down to clean them. One had 5 unhatched eggs. I wonder what happened.
We were given these 2 nests a few years ago. When Cliff cleaned them out that time he found a rats nest inside one of them. Right from the first year one of the houses was never used by the swallows and we think that it must be the one that had the rats nest. Cliff cleaned it out really well and last year he even painted it but still the swallows did not like it. He switched the positions of the nests but that did not work either. There must be a lingering smell inside. We are going to see if a glass of vinegar placed inside for awhile might do the trick. Nicki mentioned that that is what they did to an old dresser that was pretty smelly. The unhatched eggs are from the nest that was used last year and where we saw the young swallows fly from. The parents must have tried to raise another batch.
Last year the first sign of the swallows was on March 17th so we have to hurry up. They seem to fly around for awhile and then go away again. I suppose they check out the available Real Estate.
We both enjoy watching the swallows flitting around.
Today was a beautiful, sunny day but it was a bit on the cold side. It will be nice when we can stop messing up the house with the fireplaces.
Good night everybody ☺

Disappointment? Maybe not!!

2011-02-01T15:42:00.001-08:00

The last of the sheet sets I ordered came yesterday. Cliff picked it up in Mill Bay. It looked really nice and I washed it right away since I wanted to use it soon. When I started to fold it up I saw that it was flawed. A large hole!! That was unacceptable so this morning I took it back. The girl at the counter was not sure if she could take it back since I washed it already but she called Sears and got a green light. Good for Sears because I would have avoided them like the plague had they not complied and made sure that everybody had known about it too.
Now comes the “maybe not” part… In the meantime I looked at the new catalogue and saw microfiber duvet covers. That is something I had been thinking of since I like the microfiber sheets so much and since Cliff does not use the flat sheets of any set I was happy to order a duvet cover instead of the sheet set. Now he can be just as cozy as I have been.
As long as there are no flaws with the duvet cover I will be a happy camper.
So this is the saga of the new bedding
We are having a beautiful day. The sun has been out all day and the temperature has not been bad.

Good bye everybody ☺

Sheets and more sheets

2011-01-30T23:05:00.001-08:00

I finally bought sheets from Sears. When I ordered them the lady who was very hard to understand asked if I also wanted to order some sheets that were on special… 50% off. Since they were only $ 9.99 for a twin set I figured why not and ordered 2 sets. They were made of microfiber material. I expected them to be made of the same material that some of the throws are made of, thick and thirsty. When they arrived I was very disappointed. They were thin and felt more like satin sheets. I almost took them back but since I opened one of the sets decided to wash it and at least try it out. Well… they are now my best loved sheets. Even though they are thin they are warm and feel very luxurious on the skin. I can hardly wait to go to bed at night . The sale is finished now but even at full price they are cheap. Originally I thought one set was for Cliff and the other for me but I am re-considering that. Maybe they are both for ME . The other 3 sets are flannel and are also very nice and warm. Good for the master of the house.
That’s my story for today.
Good night everybody ☺

This and that…

2011-01-28T18:45:00.001-08:00

Not much happening at our house. I went to the doctor last Monday and got a clean bill of health. That is always something to celebrate ☺ While I was waiting for the doc to attend to me I was happily listening to my book. That sure beats taking a bulky book along. In the meantime Cliff waited in the car busily preparing for a meeting later that day.
Last Wednesday we had another meeting at our house and I made more cookies for that. I can’t remember baking as many cookies as I have for the last little while. I found a really good recipe for soft peanut butter cookie with chocolate chips recipe on the Internet. Not good for my girlish figure let me tell you!!!
At around 11 AM yesterday Cliff called to see if it was possible for him and two of his colleagues to get a bowl of soup at our house. I had no soup but had just put a meatloaf into the oven. We had that with mashed potatoes, creamed cabbage, squash and a salad. I supposed that was even better than soup!! Everybody left the table satisfied.
Today we did another bit of shopping. First we stopped at my favourite yarn shop and I bought enough yarn for a few pairs of socks. They have a sale on until the end of this month. 20% off the normal price.
Then we went on to do a bit of banking. While there we used a great ballpoint pen. We liked it so much that we stopped at Staples to buy a few of them. Now we should be set for a long long time ☺
After that it was off to Superstore and finally home sweet home, just in time to watch the weather report on TV. Raining off and on in the future with a few periods of sunshine, just like the past few days.
Here is a picture of yesterday morning from our living room.

Good night everybody ☺

Much better

2011-01-21T22:17:00.001-08:00

That was then

and this is now and has been for nearly a week

I was very thankful for the reversal of fortune weather-wise.
I had to go to town several times and it made for good driving. In the meantime I ordered and received a set of sheets from Sears. I absolutely love them. They are nice and cozy and I ordered a few more right away. I should get them early next week.
Today I went to Duncan to the hairdresser and at the same time dropped in at Staples. I was amazed at how much more printer paper costs these days. It has been a long time since I bought the last batch but I needed it.
Tonight I watched Marketplace on TV. They brought out something I had been noticing before and that is how much lots of packaged products have shrunk in size and weight but the price stayed the same. I guess we just have to grin and bear it since we can’t do anything about it.
I sure like my iPod Touch now. I downloaded a lot of free applications but for audiobooks I am using my Sansa clip MP3 player.
Time to go to bed. It’s hard to write when the time passes without much happening. Life is good.
Good night everybody ☺

Mega Snow

2011-01-13T19:07:00.001-08:00

It snowed all Tuesday night and in the morning the scenery looked like this again:

Fortunately it warmed up and some of the snow is gone already but it is a sloshy mess outside. Cliff had to attend a meeting that night but luckily he was picked up and did not have to drive. The next day we saw on the News that many vehicles ended in the ditch exactly where Cliff would have been. We are supposed to get warmer weather for the next few days, so hopefully most of the snow will go.
I had a “high learning curve “ day today. I had been thinking of switching our phone from Telus to Shaw Cable but wanted to be sure of any deals. In the end I stayed with Telus because they reduced my monthly charges by about $ 7.00 and even included call display and voice mail for the new lower price. It sure pays to ask!!! So today I had to program the new features into my phone. As so often happens the person I dealt with at Telus was hard to understand which was very frustrating to say the least. In the end everything worked out OK and I can put away our answering machine.
Pidge and Judy wanted to know what “Digestive biscuits” are so I took some pictures to show you:

They taste very good and are not too sweet. I always try the least expensive type and since these taste great I see no reason to buy the more expensive ones. All kinds of companies manufacture them.

Time to do a bit more sock knitting.
Good night everybody ☺

Snowing again

2011-01-11T19:11:00.001-08:00

We had to do shopping and since the forecast was for snow we started early in the morning. Cliff had an appointment with the dentist at 11 AM so we combined that with shopping first. Well, it turned out he read the time wrong and instead 11 AM it was 1 PM so we went home and had lunch and afterwards Cliff went back to the dentist. While he was gone he had a few phone calls so it took awhile returning them and then to get going for the afternoon shopping. Still no snow! As soon as we finished shopping it started to snow and by the time we got home the driveway was full of it and we started to slip driving into the garage but we made it. Was I ever happy to be home but Cliff had a meeting tonight; luckily he was picked up and did not have to drive.
Yesterday morning I had an appointment to have an exploratory operation in Duncan Hospital. It was under general anaesthetic so I did not feel a thing. A polyp and some scar tissue was removed and I was back home by 4 PM. I have not had any pain, so all went well. In two weeks I’ll find out the results of the biopsy that was done at the same time. The doctor said all looked good.
When I was recovered the nurse offered me some digestive cookies. Boy were they good and because of that I had to buy some today. Now if I can only share them out 2 to a day. (Never gonna happen ☺)
It is still snowing but it is supposed to get warmer starting tomorrow with possible rain. The will be an unholy mess I guess but I will be able to stay home by the fire watching the world go by.
Now back to knitting.
Good night everybody ☺

It’s raining now

2011-01-04T16:04:00.001-08:00

We had a very quiet time on New Years Eve. Went to bed around 10 PM and I never woke up until after the New Year had already started. Cliff told me of some fireworks that went off in the neighbourhood but I heard nothing. I caught up on a bit of reading and knitting over the weekend.
The first few days of the New Year were very cold but now it warmed up and it is raining. Maybe it will turn into sloppy snow but hopefully it will stay rain. I love seeing pictures of snow but not the real thing.
We just came back from shopping in Mill Bay. This week is 25% off week for all Pharmasave products and I took advantage of that.
I also loaded up with Sears catalogues. Since I rarely order anything I had to actually ask for some catalogues at the local outlet of Sears. I am still looking for some flannel sheets. I looked at Walmart and Superstore but could not find what I wanted. Thanks Pidge and Sandra for your tips about buying sheets.
Now I will get busy and see what I cannot live without from Sears.

Good bye everybody ☺

Cold… brrrrrrrrrr

2010-12-31T18:36:00.001-08:00

When we got up this morning it was only -9C/16F outside under a clear sky.

That was COLD for us here on the Westcoast. It was only 14C/57F inside but it did not take long for Cliff to start the fire upstairs and downstairs. It always amazes me how quickly the upstairs gets warm. So far we have only used the electric heaters in our bedrooms for overnight. Just the same, I hate to see the next electricity bill. It only got to 0C/32F outside today. It was a good time do do some baking and as we were out of goodies (that will never do) I made some oatmeal-raisin cookies.

By the time they were done I was nice and warm.
This afternoon I took out my knitting again and cozied up to the fire downstairs.
That is how I spent the last day of 2010. We will sleep into the New Year.
I wish everybody a Happy and Prosperous 2011.
Good night everybody ☺

A Shopping Afternoon

2010-12-29T18:37:00.001-08:00

We are having really nice weather at the moment. After some rainy days the sun has been out for 2 days now. It is cool though. Cliff has been cutting wood all afternoon and I went shopping with our niece Mylisa. Normally I don’t have very much stamina for shopping but at the Shoe Warehouse the time just flew. The shoes were so low priced that I felt like a kid in a candy store. I ended up buying 2 pairs of boots a pair of leather sandals and some brown Hush Puppies. To top it off I also bought a pair of jeans and a pair of dress pants. That should last me for quite some time. I prefer to spend my time and money at Staples or Future Shop
When we were finished shopping we walked over to Tim Horton's for a donut and coffee even though I don’t like their coffee.
We had a very good Christmas. Unfortunately the Young turkey I bought at Country Grocer was young about 10 years ago. It was quite a disaster but we ate it regardless. The soup is not bad though.
In the evening on Christmas day we had company and I was happy to give away 4 pairs of the socks I knitted during the year. I enjoy knitting socks but I also enjoy getting some that Nicki knits.
Watching the News I heard that we are in for some cold nights but the days should be sunny, so all is good.
Life goes by on an even keel, so there is not much to talk about.
Good night everybody ☺

Christmas Eve 2010

2010-12-24T10:54:00.001-08:00

I want to wish everybody a joyful Christmas and hope you all have a wonderful time.
Our Christmas will be wet but at least driving will not be too stressful.
For you people in the desert I hope Santa will find you. For the people at home I am sure he will come.
Merry Christmas from Vera and Cliff

A dusting of snow

2010-12-20T18:30:00.001-08:00

That’s what we saw when we got up this morning. By noon it was all gone. It looks like we’ll have a green Christmas and that’s the way I like it. It’s nice to see a bit of snow but it gets old quickly.
I had a lazy day today. Doing the laundry was the only job on my agenda, that and of course cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I still don’t care very much for my front loading washing machine. It takes so long to do a load. I always give each load another complete rinse. Maybe that is overkill but I hate to have soap residue on my clothes.
Looking at my flannelette sheets I find that they are getting pretty threadbare. I am waiting for Sear’s white sale after Christmas to get new sheet sets for our beds. I hope there will be some colourful ones.
Nothing else new at our house so I will say
good night everybody ☺

Dreary day

2010-12-18T14:16:00.001-08:00

We had two very nice days but this morning it started to rain. Thankfully it is more like a drizzle. Good thing Cliff went out early this morning to replenish the wood supply for the house. He was just finished when the rain started. I am so pleased it is rain and not snow. I don’t miss a white Christmas at all.
Today is supposed to be the busiest shopping day of the Season. I am sure glad I don’t need to go out and mingle with the crowds.
We just finished lunch. I cooked some of our squash together with cabbage. That is a great combination. Since we only have 2 small burners on the stove I like to combine the veggies. Sometime that turns out great and other times not so great.
In the summer I bought a few solar lights for the flower baskets. They were now starting to burn very dim and not for long since the days are not bright enough for a charge. When I had a closer look at them I found that they run on one rechargeable AA battery. I took the batteries out and recharged them on our 110 charger and now they shine bright again. I will probably have to do that again soon but that is OK.

Tomorrow is the 4th of Advent and Christmas is fast approaching. I hope everyone has a healthy and happy time.
In case you are interested in some good food have a look here:

Christmas Island

Good bye everybody ☺

No rain

2010-12-16T19:47:00.001-08:00

I am very happy to report that. Yesterday I had an appointment with my doctor and today I had my hair cut. Glad both of those appointments are over with and I did not have to worry about driving on snow or ice or both.
Most of the time now Cliff drives and I love that but it sure does not help my own driving. When he first retired I would have rather gone to town by myself because I was used to it but now I would rather go together. Time sure changes one’s outlook.
A few days ago I noticed that one of my outdoor solar lights was not working. I had a closer look and saw that it worked with one AA rechargeable battery. I opened the light, removed the battery and charged it up in our battery charger. Then I put everything back together and tonight it burns bright. I wonder if it will work tomorrow at least a little bit because all the other ones only work for a short while since there is hardly any sun to charge them up.
On Tuesday I got a book from the library that I had been waiting for. When I first ordered it more than 400 people were ahead of me. When I brought it home it only took me about one hour before I knew that I would not have the patience to read it. It was No. 2 book of a trilogy. I had a hard time getting through the first one: “The girl with the dragon tattoo” but I thought I would try the next one, “The girl who played with fire” but it was a no go. The books are supposed to be such big hits, but not for me.
One of our baseboard heaters did not work so Cliff fixed it today. It sure is nice to have a handyman around the house. We hardly ever use the heaters but sometimes it is good to have them on a cold night after the fireplace dies down.
Now I am off to do a bit more knitting and listening to a book at the same time. I just love my new little MP3 player.
Good night everybody ☺

Too busy to write

2010-12-12T19:21:00.001-08:00

too busy reading that is. I really like my new MP3 player, Sansa clip plus. It is easy to use and I have never lost my place in a book yet. I sure like that. I can do lots of housework and cooking listening to interesting novels. I also have a regular book from the library which has to go back by the 14th.
Yesterday we had another few hours of sign waving. It was raining hard though so it was not so pleasant. The end of our driveway is full of water which does not happen very often. I am only glad this did not come down as snow.
This afternoon we had a nice visit with Tom and Joyce again. We usually walk to their place and today we were lucky that it did not rain both ways.
Joyce bakes the best buttermilk biscuits. She gave me the recipe but for some reason mine never turn out as well. Makes me mad but I guess we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
Today is the 3rd Advent and it will not be long until Christmas. Too bad Christmas falls on Saturday and Boxing day on Sunday that means less free time for the working people.
Time to get back to my book.
Good night everybody ☺

Gadget update

2010-12-05T09:21:00.001-08:00

I really like my new iPod Touch but the Sansa Fuze + went back to Future Shop. It has a touch pad and the sensitivity was too great. I had it locked and it often unlocked just by moving the gadget and when it did it skipped a few chapters. It was very frustrating and I could not see dealing with that for a long time. I returned it and bought the Sansa Clip + instead. It is so tiny that it would fit in a matchbox, has 4 GB and not a touch pad but a clickable pad. So far I have no problem with bookmarking which is very important when listening to an audiobook. I really think that this is a keeper. I have never taken stuff back this much in my lifetime. Normally when I buy something I hang on for dear life.
I hope this is the end of the gadget chapter.
We spent another 2 hours yesterday waving our signs. This time it was by Country Grocer and it was not too cold and the sun was shining. We had quite a few people with us so we even had a good time socialising.

After that I had time to play on the computer and read all the Blogs I follow. In the evening we had friends over for tea and cake. It was very enjoyable. We stayed up until after 11 PM which is very rare for us. Usually we get sleepy around 9 PM.
Now I better start our Sunday pork roast.
Good bye everybody ☺

iPod again

2010-12-01T19:18:00.001-08:00

This morning I had to be in the hospital by 8.15 AM for a CT scan that had been booked about 2 months ago. Cliff drove and stayed in the parking lot doing some of his paper work. By 10.15 I was finished and we went to Superstore for some gas and a few groceries. When we finished we were on our way back when I remembered that Walmart had a good deal on toilet paper this week. Of course right next to Walmart is our new Future shop!!! which was the big attraction. I bit the bullet and bought another iPod Touch. I really enjoyed the one I had but took back because I could not download some audiobooks from the library. I am keeping the Sansa Fuze + so now I have both players. Hopefully that are all the toys for a long while.
We got home too late to cook so we just had a few snacks and I made a good meal tonight. I prefer having my big meal at lunch time.
We still have a fair bit of snow on our property but not far from here the fields were free of snow. It is supposed to be sunny for a few days although it will be colder too. Just as long as the snow stays away I don’t care if it is cold.
Cliff is at another meeting and I will sit by the fire and read my book for awhile.

Good night everybody ☺

1. Advent

2010-11-28T18:21:00.001-08:00

Today is the first day of Advent. When I was a child my brother and I as well as our friends used to go carolling on this day starting at 6AM. We would go around an area assigned to us by our pastor. Quite often we heard not so nice comments from the people who would have liked to sleep a little longer on a Sunday morning but most people enjoyed listening to us. After we finished we would all go to the church hall for coffee and donuts. I always like this time of year even though sometimes it was really hard to get out of bed at around 5 AM.
Yesterday was a super day around here. It was sunny and not too cold. Cliff and I went again to wave our signs at the motorists.

It was amazing how many people gave us the thumbs up and honked their horns. We had a lot of fun doing it. Again I took a bunch of cookies and now Cliff and I are called “The cookie lady and her gentleman”.
Cliff went today also but I stayed home because we were going to have company and I had to prepare for that.
As usual we had a great time with our friends.
Tonight will be an early bedtime.
Good night everybody ☺

Not so cold

2010-11-26T18:33:00.001-08:00

I am happy to say that the snow is melting. It rained quite a bit which helped to clear the streets. Unfortunately it will probably freeze later on tonight which makes the streets slippery and unsafe. I hope people take heed and stay home.
That’s what I did today: Stayed home
I finally backed my computer up to an external hard drive. I had not done that for some time and this morning the thought hit. I would hate to lose all my documents, pictures etc. Tomorrow I will back up Cliff’s computer.
I also read a bit and finished my latest book: “The girl with the dragon tattoo”. Now I am waiting for the second book in the trilogy “The girl who played with fire”; I am no. 17 on the waiting list and I also wait for the third book “The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest” My number for that is a distant 439. It will take awhile before that arrives. The first book was a bit long-winded with lots of names to remember.
I fried some Coho salmon for lunch. Our friend Donna vacuum packed that for us when we were in Sointula. It sure is better than just wrapping it in freezer paper for freezing. The filets tasted fresh. I don’t normally like fried salmon but I am changing my mind, it was delicious.
Tonight we had chicken soup with lots of veggies and quinoa. I use quinoa for every soup I cook lately. I really like it.
Now to go and sit by the fire and read some more.

Good night everybody ☺

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T13:07:00.001-08:00

I hope everybody has a great time.

Happy Thanksgiving to all !

Here yesterday and gone today

2010-11-23T18:41:00.001-08:00

I liked my new iPod Touch but I took it back today. I could not download the type of audiobooks I wanted. The rest of the features are great and I miss them already
I now bought a “SanDisk sansa fuze+” 8 GB and already downloaded 2 books and am listening to one of them. I hope that it will give me lots of pleasure.

Yesterday we had lots of snow flurries but all told there was hardly any new snow on the ground. It was very cold today again but it was sunny and driving was OK.
When we came home I made lunch and then I plugged the MP3player in to charge it up. It sure was hard to wait about 3 hours for a full charge before I could play with it. In the meantime I downloaded the User Guide for it to familiarize myself with the features of it. There is a lot to learn, not like my other 2 players which did not have so many features. While I waited for the battery to charge fully I baked a batch of oatmeal cookies with raisins and chocolate chips.
That’s about all I did today.
Hopefully the weather will warm up soon but before that we are supposed to get another dump of snow. Not good

Good night everybody ☺

First Snow and a Toy

2010-11-21T18:45:00.001-08:00

Friday night it started to snow and when we got up Saturday morning it looked like a winter wonderland.

Our driveway is very long and Cliff went out to shovel it when I got a phone call from our friend Tom telling us he would be over with this tractor to give us a hand. What a relief that was.
Here he is,

A friend in need is a friend indeed

After the driveway was cleared of snow we had a quick lunch and then went to support a sign rally against the proposed ECO Depot that the CVRD wants to ram down our throats.

Finding the roads in good condition we decided to drive to town to do a bit more shopping. We went to Canadian Tire and after that stopped at Future Shop where I bought my new toy, an iPod Touch. The service there was excellent. A young lady by the name of Jenelle showed us the iPod and could tell us a lot about it.
When we got home I tried the new toy out. It took awhile to be able to get to my email but I finally figured it out after finding a PDF Users Guide on the internet. Because I had been working on that until nearly 11 last night I was so wound up that I hardly had any sleep at all. It is an affliction of mine, when I have something on my mind I cannot sleep.
This morning I finally got around to transferring some audiobooks from the library to the iPod but unfortunately it did not work. According to the instructions I need iTunes 7.4 version which is one that is already 3 years old. The one that I had to download for the iPod is the latest version.
Since being able to listen to audiobooks on the iPod was the first priority for me I think I will return the iPod Touch to the store and buy some other MP3 player. I am really very disappointed.
That is my sad story for today.
Good night everybody ☺

An unsuccessful shopping trip

2010-11-18T16:01:00.001-08:00

This afternoon Cliff and I went to town. Cliff had an appointment and I wanted to look for an iPod. He dropped me off at London Drugs where I eagerly looked for the right department. I found the iPods and could even turn one on but something was wrong with it so I was waiting for a sales person to help. One was busy with another customer but then the customer left and so did the sales person. I waited for another few minutes but nobody came so I turned around and while I walked to the entrance I met up with a clerk and told him they just lost a sale because nobody came to serve me.
Off I went to Staples not far from London Drugs. There I found all kinds of paraphernalia for an iPod but no iPod. I asked at the front desk where the iPods were and they told me “in front of isle 10.” I went there but all I could see were pictures of an iPod Touch, no iPod. Back I went to the desk and the fellow told me that the iPods were locked up but none were ready. Hmmm don’t know what he meant by that. He also said they were too easily stolen and made no move to help me further so that was the second store I left unsatisfied.
I guess the only other place around here is Future Shop. I was there a couple of weeks ago and they had them on display tied with a wire to the shelf and I could even handle them. At that time I had not made up my mind which MP3 player to get so I left.
The stores want to make sales to beef up the bottom line and then they treat their customers in above manner. I just don’t get it.
That was my beef today but the rest of the day was great. The weather held on but it sure looks and smells like snow.
Time to have a bran muffin and a cup of coffee.
Good bye everybody ☺

Preparing for possible snow

2010-11-17T19:05:00.001-08:00

The weather forecast is not very good for our area so I decided to make sure I have all the groceries in the house that I could possibly use for awhile. I also went to the library for more books plus I have quite a few on my MP3 player to listen to. Wood for the fireplaces is close at hand and 12 gallons of drinking water in the bathtub so I think we are prepared for the first snow fall. Our bathtub is the best place to keep the water since once a gallon bottle leaked and most of the water soaked into a rug.
Tomorrow we have to go to Duncan for an appointment so I hope the weather will hold. After that we should be OK.
I played at the computer ( or is it on the computer?) for quite some time today. I found a new free program to create vision boards. I used it to tweak my header picture. It was fun but I have to learn how to use it better.
My day was very enjoyable.
Good night everybody ☺

Helping out

2010-11-14T15:48:00.001-08:00

My daughter Sonja is the volunteer coordinator at the Kelowna Gospel Mission. They look after the homeless of Kelowna. At times I have volunteered there too when I visited with Sonja. The Mission has a free dental office for the homeless and are trying to raise funds for 2 more chairs to facilitate dental services. Pepsi Cola has a project on-line to give away $ 100 000.00 for a good cause. The public is invited to vote for the cause they think is best. Sonja asked me to vote, vote, vote, which I have been doing a lot. I was wondering if some of you would also like to help out. Each vote could mean the difference between success or defeat. Here is the website:
http://www.refresheverything.ca/expandourfreedentalclinic
I usually vote and then sign out at the bottom of the page and then I can sign in again to carry on.
Right now the Mission project is number 17, so quite far away from no. 1 but the voting goes until December 31. of this year. It would be nice to see 2 more dental chairs in the Mission dentist’s office. I am sure the homeless would appreciate it.
I have not been doing too much today but I made chicken a la king for lunch and also made a chicken soup that will last for 2 evening.
My iriver MP3 player has been giving me some grief and I tried to get it going properly which took quite some time. I still don’t know exactly what I did but it works again after a fashion. I would love to buy a touch iPod in the near future thinking that I could use it for my audio books plus I could get my email at some Wi-Fi spot if
I am travelling. What do you think Rick about using it for my audio books? I would appreciate your thoughts on that.
Now I will do a bit of reading.
Good afternoon everybody ☺

The verdict is in !

2010-11-13T15:23:00.001-08:00

Like I said in my previous entry, I started the “Cincinati Skyline Chili” We ate it the day after served over spaghetti with lots of cheddar cheese and soft assiago added. It sure was different from our normal chili but both of us liked it. So the recipe is a keeper. Today we had a meeting at our place this morning so not much time to cook. I had frozen lots of the chili because using 2 pounds ground beef made a large amount. I quickly defrosted one of the frozen tubs and we had it over potatoes, also with lots of cheese. That tasted even better than over spaghetti, so it’s a double keeper
We had another sunny day yesterday but needed the fire going inside. In the morning a friend and I went shopping in Mill Bay and had a coffee afterwards at a little coffee shop in Shawnigan Lake. That was a disappointment because they had changed to a different coffee type. They used to make each coffee separately but now ours came from a large thermos sitting in the back. It was not very good and we will have to find a new haunt for our coffee breaks. In the afternoon I baked 2 kinds of cookies and one pan of bran muffins for our meeting this morning. That took care of the afternoon.
Right now I see it is raining and the rest of the day will be very lazy for me.

Good bye everybody ☺

Trial and Error

2010-11-10T19:28:00.001-08:00

I have just spent a few hours fooling around with a trial Blog. Rick got me going on that with today’s post. First I opened a YouTube account which took me ages to do (I’m not too bright at times) I had to find a video but unfortunately I did not have one to post so I used my webcam to make one. It turned out way too long because I did not figure out how to turn it off in time. Grrrrrrrrr (Did I tell you I’m not too bright at times????)
I added it to my trial Blog anyhow, and now I have a Blog with an embedded video. All things considered I did not do too badly.
We had a bit of sunshine today after yesterday’s rainy day. I did not take advantage of it though since I stayed indoors all day.
A few days ago Pidge mentioned “Skyline Chili” and it sounded real interesting to me so I googled a recipe and prepared the meat part today. Tomorrow I shall finish it and see if we like it. I know Cliff will be surprised when I serve it over spaghetti because until now we only know chili made with beans. In our younger years I used to try out all kinds of new recipes. It was hit or miss but mostly hits.
We are enjoying the last of this years flowers but not for much longer.

I never thought it would open up when it was still in the garden but as soon as I brought it in the house it started to bloom.
Time to do something constructive.
Good night everybody ☺

Visit over

2010-11-06T13:35:00.001-07:00

We had a great time together. As usual it was way too short.
I always like it when one of my girls is visiting. We go shopping together and I finally get some clothes that are not years out of date This time it was only a top and I really like it. Tomorrow I will wear it when we have company in the afternoon.
We were also able to get the Christmas gifts for our grandchildren. It is so much better when the Mom is with me since I have no idea what young ladies and gents like these days. (other than cars and such.) The kids live too far away from us to find out easily.
We left very early this morning to take Sonja to the airport just in case there was a delay on the Malahat but the traffic was very light and we got there too early. We are still from the old school when 5 minutes before the time was the right time. We got home before the flight even left Victoria and I was able to track it all the way to Kelowna. We hope Nicki will come for a visit some time too. (ya hear, Nicki!!!)
Before Sonja came I bought some Moosetracks ice-cream but we did not eat very much of it so now we have to finish it ourselves. What a calamity
I better go and suffer through some of it!
Hope everybody has a great time ☺

A beautiful day

2010-11-04T08:13:00.001-07:00

The weather yesterday was beautiful. Sunny all day long.
Last Monday was Sonja’s (our daughter) birthday and on Tuesday we picked her up at the airport. It was so great to see her. Yesterday we went shopping for her birthday gift. We stopped at the Shoe Warehouse first and both tried on several pair of shoes for me and boots for Sonja. Neither of us bought any. Sonja could not make up her mind and I could not find anything that I could not live without. Off we went to Mark’s Work Warehouse. The first pair I tried on had the “It’ factor and I bought. On the way home Sonja thought about the boots she did not buy and after a bit of back and forth we stopped back there and bought those for her.
When we got home I made a birthday dinner. We had invited Sonja’s girlfriend.
The day before Sonja came I made our family’s favourite cake, a “Prinzregententorte”. It takes at least 2 hours of constant work to build that. 7 cake layers with chocolate butter cream in-between. Each layer is individually baked; cleaning, buttering and flouring the pan between baking. It is a sweet-lover’s dream.

Sonja will be here until Saturday morning when we will have to be at the airport by 8 AM, no later.
I hope everybody will have a great day ☺

Bedtime for the Garden

2010-10-31T15:01:00.001-07:00

Cliff has been working hard in the garden and even I have gotten into it but only for a little bit.
It was time to dig the dahlia bulbs. I was totally amazed by how many corms (is this what they are called?) there were under each dahlia.
I think I look like a real gardener??

I had to rinse the corms because there was too much dirt hanging on. I dried them in the sun for awhile and now they are in the family room drying a bit more. After that I will dust them with Wilson Bulb and Soil Dust, a combination of Insecticide and Fungicide, put each lot in a paper bag and all of them in an orange net bag and hang them up to wait for the Spring. I will check them often to see if none of them rot.
If anybody knows of a better way to store them please let me know since I am just a novice gardener. My “normal garden job” is weeding. I am good at that ☺
Today is supposed to be the last day with some sun; tonight the rain is supposed to start with some wind thrown into the mix.

For the first time in years I did not buy any Halloween candy! How horrible is that!!! In the last few years nobody came to our neighbourhood for trick or treating and I used to eat all the candy by myself, hardly waiting for 7 PM when I figured nobody would come. Sometimes I could not even wait that long. So this year I fooled myself and I am already sorry, so if somebody should come I have a stash of quarters ready.
Now it is time to eat my Bran muffin.
Good by everybody ☺

Flu Weather

2010-10-30T15:40:00.001-07:00

This surely is a Fall day. When we got up this morning it was foggy. We had an appointment to get our Flu shot in Duncan. A few days ago, when I called to find out when the flu clinic would be in our area I was told that it was “yesterday” Grrrr but luckily there was another one not too far from us. Our appointment was at 9 AM so we got up early to have breakfast and a quick look at our computers (can’t start the day without that!!!) and off we went into the foggy world. I was the first person to get stabbed and Cliff was next. Now we are good for another year. While we were there more and more people arrived and I was astonished how many cars were in the parking lot. I was sure glad that I had elected to have an early appointment.
After we left there we dropped off a couple of old tires and old oil at the dump/recycling centre in Duncan. I have never seen so many seagulls in all my life.

This picture is nothing like I saw a short while after but I was too astounded to grab the camera. Thousands of gulls flew out of those two tall doors in the picture. It reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's “The Birds”
What really terrifies me is the fact that the “Powers that be” want to build a similar facility about 500 meters from my house! We are fighting this tooth and nail because it’s in an Agriculture zoned area. How dumb is that plus there are houses all around it. One property's well is about 200 feet from the proposed site.
One of the workers at the site today told Cliff they had “non- lethal poison” to get rid of the rats. HUH????????
One nice thing today though: We finally bought a new Radio receiver. We don’t want a home theater just something to listen to FM and AM. Just the same this thing has a remote control with half a million buttons. Our old one is 37 years old but it needed to be retired. The speakers are as good as new and they are nice pieces of furniture so we kept those.
After that I wanted to have a Big Mac but when we got there it was so noisy and crowded that we decided to go home and eat our home cooked meal. We had Hamburger curry on rice with squash and Swiss chard and a salad. Beats a hamburger I think.

So that was my day so far.
Good bye everybody ☺

Busy Day

2010-10-27T16:44:00.001-07:00

I was busy all day long but cannot show too much for it. Some days are like that. Only thing to show is 6 loaves of bread.
We only have one loaf in the freezer and

Sonja is coming for a visit and I did not want to bake when she was here. It will be the first time for bread in the new range. I also baked bran muffins. Lately that is what we have for a break in the afternoon. I would call it “coffee break” but that might keep me awake at night.
This morning I went to Mill Bay to get some toiletries at Pharmasave. It is Senior Day with 15% off so I took advantage of that. A penny saved is a penny earned (or you might even have to earn more depending on your tax bracket )
Cliff has been busy in the garden plus getting fire wood in for the day. Most of our wood is cut in fireplace lengths but now with the insert it has to be cut shorter. Makes for double the work but sooner or later we run out of the long stuff.
Our flower baskets are still hanging in there but they will have to come down soon.
This is the time when we used to leave for Arizona and I feel a bit sad for not going but it is nice to be able to follow the RVing Blogs. Pretty soon Al and Kelly will be leaving and I will be able to read all about their travel.
I still miss reading Margie and Bruce’s Blog. It was always so interesting.
That’s it for today,
Good bye everybody ☺

Someone is going hungry tonight

2010-10-23T16:39:00.001-07:00

Those darn rats!! We pulled the rest of the squash vines from the garden this afternoon. All told we have 26 nice size squash and quite a few little ones that taste great cooked even unpeeled. The harvest is a far cry from the over 70 last year and over 90 the year before but the plants started very late this year. I guess that was because of the wet spring. I am quite happy with the count since it is always difficult to find enough room to keep them all. This way I can look after them better. Every few days I check all of them for bad spots. So far so good.
I also cut all the Dahlias. Maybe they will come back next year but I am not holding my breath. None came back from last year. While I went around pulling everything Cliff ground it all up and we were just finished when it started to rain.

Above is the last of the gladiolus but I don’t think it will still bloom.
Below is the second last one that I have had in the house for a few days.

Our one and only rose bush is still blooming but because of the rain the roses don’t look very good so… no pictures.

We have a bunch of these flowers that come up every year. The seeds were given to us many years ago. They are supposed to be edible flowers. I don’t know what they are called. We have never eaten any.
Time for the News,
good bye everybody ☺

Timers

2010-10-22T16:12:00.001-07:00

A long long time ago we had one timer, now in our “Old Age” we need three. I was thinking about that today when I timed a pork steak with potatoes, carrots and onions smothered in mushroom sauce that was in the oven. Of course I could not use the oven timer (number one) with this new oven so I used the second timer. Then Cliff added wood to the fireplace so we needed the third timer to tell us when to turn the insert down. Actually there is another timer in the family room but that one is not working too well any longer.
If we don’t use timers we forget the time and end up with burnt offerings.
Now an update on the new stove. I really like baking in it. I found out that the oven is a bit bigger than the old one even though the overall dimensions are the same. I like that because sometimes my bread would stick together since I always bake 6 loaves at the same time.
One thing I don’t like about it is that the top of the stove gets really, really hot just from using the top burners. I had a bit of a spill and by the time I was finished cooking the spilled food was baked on and it took lots of elbow grease and a scrubby to clean it up again.
I find that the burners are a lot hotter and faster than my old stove. I wonder if they have more kw than the old stove or maybe old age affected the latter. It is a bit of a learning curve but I like it. A kettle of water boils in no time.

That is all for now.
Good bye everybody ☺

New kitchen range

2010-10-20T14:29:00.001-07:00

Here is my new beauty

It was delivered last Saturday. I really like it so far. I have been baking and of course cooking. The old stove is sitting in the garage and I am sure lots of it’s parts will surface attached to some other items when Cliff is through with it.
Our kitchen is very narrow so I cannot take a picture of the whole stove.
When we looked for a plan for our house way back in 1974 while we were living in Germany I wanted a kitchen that was small and that I could close off from the rest of the house. That way the smells and heat created by cooking, and canning would stay in the kitchen and not go through the whole house. Of course smells of baking is another thing, those I like.
We could not find a plan that suited completely so we just modified the one that came closest.
Now I wish I had a bigger kitchen with a small table just for the two of us. Times change and tastes too. Oh well I am so used to it now and am happy.
We have had a great run of sunny and warm weather although for 2 days there was frost on the roof. Rick is very lucky to be on his shake-down cruise with his new 5thWheel while the weather is good.
Nothing in the garden got killed so that was good. I still could pick the second last gladiolus and I hope the last one will make it too before the frost comes for real.

Good by for now ☺

Sad

2010-10-17T17:56:00.001-07:00

I was going to write about the arrival of our new stove but somehow I cannot do it at the moment.
I feel so sad about the untimely passing of Margie and Bruce. I first read about it on Rick’s Blog and could not believe it. It has been haunting me since yesterday afternoon. I only know Margie from her Blog and comments left on mine but it felt like I lost a friend. Every morning I looked forward to her Blog and now there will never be another one written by her. Makes me really believe that we should all live every day like it is our last. I hope that Margie and Bruce had a really good last day.
My sincere condolences to all of Margie and Bruce’s family.

Going shopping

2010-10-09T16:07:00.001-07:00

As usual yesterday, Friday, the new sales flyers come out with the local papers. First one I always look at is Canadian tire, then Future Shop, London Drugs and lastly the food flyers. Staples has their flyers in Wednesday papers so that is another one I scrutinize.
Canadian Tire had a door crasher sale on. One item I just HAD TO HAVE was an electronic kitchen scale. It was 65% off and the cost was 9.99. Since it was a door crasher and no rain check offered we decided to what we have not done before: get to the store at opening time. Since Canadian Tire opens at 8 AM we had to leave the house around 7.30 AM, pretty early for a Saturday.
We got to the store ready to elbow everybody out of our way to get to the prize. 5 Minutes early and nobody but us in the parking lot!!! So much for crashing down the door. It did not take me long to find the scale

When we got home I unpacked it and for a change read the instructions. It has a neat feature. I can place a bowl on the scale and it weighs the bowl and then I press a button and the scale goes back to 0 ready to weigh only the contents of the bowl. It can be set to grams, kg and oz. The trip to town was worth it. I bought a few other things too. Going this early has the added benefit of roads that are not crowded, so that is good.
For lunch I made a meatloaf with potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, lettuce, cucumber and tomato.
It rained last night but so far no rain today.
That’s all for today,

Good bye everybody ☺

Lazy Day

2010-10-08T18:30:00.001-07:00

It rained almost all day today. A perfect time to hibernate partly in the computer room and in the rec-room by the fireplace.
Accidentally I came across a neat feature of Live Writer. When inserting a picture I used to click on the icon for that task then click on “from your computer” then I had to find the right picture and insert it. Now I just find the picture I want to insert in my “Pictures” folder. Having that folder side by side with Live Writer I can just drag the picture I want to insert into Live Writer.

I also saved all of my documents to my external hard drive. Sooner or later I want to convert from Vista to Windows 7. I don’t know how to do that myself, so I have to get our local computer store to do it. When that is done I have to install the many little programs that I now have which will be quite the job. Just thinking about that gives me a headache. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, plus webcam and printer. I hope I still have all the installation disks.
That’s enough thinking for tonight. Nothing interesting happened today so I better say

good night everybody ☺

Saying Good-by to an old friend and helper

2010-10-06T15:07:00.001-07:00

That’s what I will have to do in a few days. This helper has been in my house for the last 34 years but now it is time to retire it.

My friend and helper

By the colour you can see that it really is an Oldie. It has served me well for all those years and I really hate to see it go but the time has come. Over the years Cliff has kept it going many times. The oven burner had to be replaced a few years ago. Then the large back burner needed a bit of tender loving care and it is still working now but the large front burner that Cliff fixed a few weeks ago is very temperamental. It works one day and refuses to do so the next time I want to use it. The timer stopped functioning quite some time ago but the self-cleaning still worked great. I just had to turn it off manually at the right time. I finally was fed up and went to town to buy a replacement. I found what I wanted at Sears. No smooth top for me after I googled reviews on those. They are probably fine for people who don’t use cast iron cookware or do canning but I have and do both of those things, so I definitely wanted coil burners. Now I hope that the new stove will last longer than I do It should be delivered some time next week.
The matching fridge still works great and I hope it will do so for a long time. So now I have a colour miss-matched pair, but that does not bother me.

Great sunny day here again and life is lots of fun.
Good bye everybody ☺

Sointula finale

2010-10-04T19:17:00.001-07:00

On Saturday Donna and I canned 2 dozen Sockeye Salmon and after that we used her foodsaver to package the 3 Coho salmon that the guys caught the day before. I really liked the foodsaver. It works like a charm. If we still did a lot of fishing like years ago I would surely buy one of those. The fish lasts so much longer in the freezer when it is packaged like that.
When we were finished with those jobs I already started to feel bad but we still managed to bake some bread the following day.
The weather turned really nice after we had one day of rain.
Donna has 3 little dogs and I fell in love with them.

The one on the right is Abby. On the left is Sadie and below is Chaka who is the
“husband” of Abby. The two of them have had several litters of the cutest babies.

They have such great personalities. At night they sleep in Mom and Dad’s bedroom each in their own little kennels.

In the mornings all three race down the hall through the kitchen and out the back door into the backyard. It was too funny to watch. When they come back inside they all need their feet dried before they can get the run of the house again.

When we were in town that Friday I bought some Finnish soap. It is used after a sauna. I thought it would be great as a souvenir but I could not leave it alone so I used it but only a few times I really don’t like the smell of it. It is nice and creamy though. (It should be for the price I paid )

The following day, Sunday, was a wash for me; on the couch or in bed and I was so glad when Monday arrived and we could take the ferry back to Vancouver Island and the long drive home.
I am really glad that I feel well again. Being sick is no fun!!
Good night everybody ☺

Runaway crookneck squash

2010-10-03T14:05:00.001-07:00

Today Cliff worked in the garden and he kept coming in the house with more and more produce. I was already working on the last lot of tomatoes that needed to be cooked. I washed them and chopped them up a bit and then ran them through the food processor and froze most of them that way. I have too much pasta sauce already. For tonight I am building a soup with some of the tomatoes and lots of crookneck squash.

Remember the jungle we have in our garden?

The corn, squash and blackberries are all intertwined and there was no way we could get in there to check for squash. Now that it is time to harvest we finally see what’s growing. Crooknecks are a summer squash much like zucchini, only better. They were hiding and this is what it turned out to be:

On the left is the size they are supposed to be! We tried one of the big ones for lunch and we still liked them like that, so there will be no waste.

We also have a crisper full of cucumbers in the fridge. Too bad we cannot preserve those for the winter. Contrary to most years we don’t have very many potatoes.
Cliff picked all our apples even though they should have stayed on the tree a lot longer. Every day he noticed that there were less and less of them on the tree which did not bear well at all this year anyhow. We have a few resident grey squirrels and they can strip a tree in no time at all. Same thing happened with our prune plums. One day the tree is full and the next day they are all gone. Very maddening!!! Now I hope the apples will ripen in the house.

Enough of my garden woes and successes,
Good bye everybody ☺

Sointula. Part two

2010-09-29T19:12:00.001-07:00

After a 20 minute ride on gravel roads we arrived at our friend’s house. What a beautiful area they live in. The driveway is a little steep but that makes the house overlook the ocean from a higher vantage point. Only the road is between them and the beach.

We had not seen each other for a long time so that night we had a great sockeye salmon dinner with a nice bottle of wine and a good talk session.
The next morning the fellows went off in the boat to catch some fish. They could not leave too early because the fog had rolled in. It cleared in due time and off they were.

They came back with 3 nice Coho.

Meanwhile Donna and I went on a trip around the Island and stopped in Sointula to do some shopping. Fridays and Tuesdays are Donna’s shopping days.
http://www.island.net/~sointula/

“The 800 or so residents of Sointula (on Malcolm Island) are proud of their heritage - a socialist commune founded in 1901 by a group of far-sighted Finns. The name "Sointula" means "place of harmony" in the Finnish language.

Today the Island boasts a more diversified population, but still retains much of its founding philosophy and lifestyle. It is no cute, commercialized tourist trap. Instead, Sointula is genuine, from the commercial fishing boats in the harbour, to the oldest cooperative store in British Columbia, Canada, to the network of gravel roads that allow access to a natural wonderland.”

We had a great time on that trip and collected 3 shopping bags full of discarded cans and bottles. It never ceases to amaze me why people have to throw their empty cans etc. just out of the car. Don’t they realize that somebody will have to pick them up???? Anyhow, we turned them in and got some cash for them. It was a fun thing to do, almost like looking for Easter eggs
We stopped at a campground by the ocean. Not too many people were there since the holiday season was over. I loved the smooth rocks that the beach consisted of and took a few home with me.

This is getting too long, so I better say Good night ☺
more to follow.

Back to Mini Holiday

2010-09-27T15:32:00.001-07:00

I am feeling better and hope it stays that way.
We left home on Thursday, 9th Sept. around 9 AM. The weather was beautiful and the drive up Island great. It took about 5 hours to get to Port Mc.Neil where we would take the ferry over to Sointula on Malcom Island.
After Campbell River the scenery was breath taking at times. We stopped many times to have a look around. The traffic was very light, only a few cars and some logging trucks. I tried to take a picture of a logging truck but they were gone too fast.

Part of a logging truck

Coming closer to the North Island the weather deteriorated a little bit but we did not see rain the whole trip.
Arriving in Port Mc.Neil we had lots of time to look around before the ferry left for Sointula. We bought a few goodies from the local Field’s store. Later on we found out most of that stuff came from somewhere in Asia and was out-dated. Live and learn. We ate it anyway ☺ and most of it still tasted OK. Normally I always look at the best-before date but that time my eyes just fell on the yummy packaging. We very seldom even buy cookies and such, so this was supposed to be a treat!
One of the packages was particularly “un-tasty” so I started to throw a little piece to the one crow that was looking for hand-outs. Should not have done that…. within seconds a whole herd of them arrived. They were so bold they tried to hop onto the window and on top of the car. Boy, I was ticked off at myself.

In due time we caught the 4.05 PM ferry. It only takes 25 minutes and the weather was still quite nice.
To be continued later ☺
Good bye everybody ☺

Feeling better

2010-09-24T18:05:00.001-07:00

Last night I took the last of my antibiotics. Even this morning I still felt faint and had to lay down as soon as I climbed the stairs. Now I feel a lot better. It looks like the effects of the antibiotics have faded. It sure is great to feel more like myself. I even have my appetite back which maybe is not such a good thing ☺.
We had 2 ice cream buckets of tomatoes waiting to be processed and between sitting and resting I was able to make a tasty spaghetti sauce. There was not enough to start the canner so I froze 4 cottage cheese tubs full and kept the 5th one in the fridge. I also did all the dishes today so I am a happy camper now.
Good night everybody ☺

Mini Holiday

2010-09-17T19:04:00.001-07:00

It started great but then turned to be not good at all.

We went to Sointula on Malcom Island across from Port McNeil. Unfortunately the bladder infection I have had since beginning of August kicked into high gear and now my day consists of bed, couch and dining room table. I had 2 courses of different Antibiotics for one week each which in the end did not help so now I am on my third different one and this one will be for 10 days and is supposed to kill even superbugs. I hope it works. I have lots of pictures of the first 2 days of the trip which I will post when I feel better.
Off to bed again.
Good night everybody ☺

Shopping

2010-09-08T18:17:00.001-07:00

We needed a few groceries and decided to go to town after lunch. The weather was nice and sunny as well as warm. As we were getting closer to Duncan we saw a large cloud that looked very menacing. Since it was so nice at home neither Cliff nor I were wearing a jacket. No umbrella either!! Cliff dropped me off in front of Superstore and then went to get gas for the car. When he met me in the store he had an umbrella in hand. It was in the trunk of the car. As the nice guy he is he let me use it and got wet himself!!! Am I lucky or what!!
While we were watching the News tonight Cliff saw a large bird scoot by the window flying to a tall fir in the back yard. He thought it was an eagle but turned out to be a Horned Owl. It stayed in that tree for quite some time. Maybe it is waiting for the grey squirrel that lives there. That squirrel is persona non grata here. It and it’s relatives wreak havoc with the plums and apples on our trees. It is amazing how heavy an apple they can carry in their mouths running across our lawn. This year there will be slim pickings because our fruit trees are not bearing well at all. I guess we cannot be lucky every year.
We are still enjoying our flower baskets. They turned out very well.

This is the beginning:

and this is how they looked a few days ago:

Time to move on.
Good night everybody ☺

Dreary Day

2010-09-07T15:43:00.001-07:00

We had one moment of sunshine the last few days but I am not complaining. We really need the rain.
I decided to wait until today to do laundry but it still rains so I had to use the dryer. I guess from now on I have to get used to it.
Last week we got word that our granddaughter got engaged. What a lovely time for her. We wish her and her husband-to-be all the best.
When we went shopping last Sunday at Home Depot I saw a pallet with a big sign “6-pack of solar lights $ 2.00 each” but unfortunately they were all gone. I really wish I had been there earlier. Our neighbor has Solar Lights along all edges of her circular driveway. It looks so neat at night.
On Sunday night we came home and our 4 lights in the flower baskets were shining brightly. I would have loved to take a picture but I know it would not have been great so I decided not to.
I remember that my Mother used to make a wine soup with little egg-white-balls. I really liked that when I was a kid. Since I have 2 bottles of white wine in the fridge that have been there for ages I googled for a recipe. I found quite a few and they look like they might be what I remember. I have not made it yet but will in the future.
That’s it for today.
Good bye everybody

Computer background

2010-09-03T19:09:00.001-07:00

I am with John on this. I love to have my pictures as desktop wallpaper. I have used this free little program for over a year now and really like it. I made a folder in my Documents under “pictures” and called it “Wallpaper” When I get tired of a picture in that folder I take it out and add a new one. It’s nothing earth shaking but it gives me pleasure to see my pictures on the desktop. Maybe somebody feels the same and can use it.
We went shopping again today and this time to Duncan Canadian Tire. They had several items on that I could not live without ☺ One of them was small solar lights. I now have one each in my flower baskets and one outside by my windsock. “Small things amuse small minds” I can hear that already ☺
The traffic through Duncan was unbelievable. It took us over 20 minutes to get through on No. 1 highway. Lots and lots of RVs on the go. The same thing will probably happen on Monday or Tuesday and then the School holiday’s are over and we can get back to normal.
Now I am waiting for it to get dark so I can see if all my lights are working.

Good night everybody ☺

Quinoa

2010-09-02T18:52:00.001-07:00

Pidge and Judy asked yesterday what Quinoa is. Here is an excerpt of what I found on the net:

”Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wah) is an ancient food that is not yet well known in North America. It has been cultivated in South American Andes since at least 3,000 B.C. and has been a staple food of millions of native inhabitants. The ancient Incas called quinoa the "mother grain" and revered it as sacred. Each year at planting time it was traditional for the Inca leader to plant the first quinoa seed using a solid gold shovel! Quinoa was used to sustain Incan armies, which frequently marched for many days eating a mixture of quinoa and fat, known as "war balls." Beginning with the Spanish conquest in the 1500s, there was a 400-year decline in the production of quinoa. It became a minor crop at that time and was grown only by peasants in remote areas for local consumption.”…
You can read the rest here.

We really liked it and I added some of the leftover to my soup last night and to todays ground beef mishmash. We had the rest of that tonight.

This afternoon we took a trip to Costco. I “needed” some of their great prunes. Since I discovered those we have used many packages. Cliff and I have 5 prunes each afternoon when we watch the News.
On the way back we turned on to Stebbins road off West Shawnigan Road. We followed that up, up and more up. Very few houses but quite a few lots sold and still lots available. Most of them were around 5 acres. We saw a price tag on some of them $ 369 000.00 Canadian. The views were breath taking. I cannot imagine living there though. OK in the Summer but to drive up there in snow and ice must be hair raising even worse trying to drive down. If I lived there I would never get off the mountain in the winter!! Not for me I’m afraid but it sure was nice today. I took some pictures but they did not turn out too good.

The day looked so clear but there must have been a haze.
Now I have to package some of the meat I bought.
Good night everybody ☺

3. fixing problem

2010-09-01T15:20:00.001-07:00

I hope this is it. Our water filter tap leaks and we have to wiggle it lots to shut it off. It is only 4 years old but the valve does not have a guaranty. Darn. We called the company in Toronto and they are sending a new one out by mail. It was under $ 10.-- including postage, so that was not too bad. I only wish we did not have pony mail here in Canada. Trying to shut the tap off is very annoying.
The weather has been beautiful here today, sunny and warm. I noticed that when Rick describes our weather here in Cobble Hill we quite often differ. He does live close to us but there seems to be a distinct weather line between us. I often notice that when I drive to Duncan.
Today I cooked a first for lunch. I was watching a program on CityLine this morning (I have a TV in the kitchen) where they were preparing quinoa. I decided to give it a try. First I looked on the internet to make sure I cooked it right. I combined it with chopped red pepper, celery and carrots. I had a bit of chicken left over and added that too. It was very tasty. I used a cup of quinoa but that was way too much so I decided to make a soup for tonight with leftover corn that we did not eat at lunch. My cooking for today is done already. I love that.
Now I better go out in the garden and pick beans. There is not too many of those left. I am actually glad about that because I am just about “beaned out”
Hope everybody has a great day.
Good bye everybody ☺

More fixing to do

2010-08-31T13:41:00.001-07:00

One problem solved and here comes another one. One of the burners of our stove started acting up. The stove is ONLY () 34 years old but I am used to it and I don’t want a new one. So… in comes the resident handyman with tools and an old cord from a waffle iron. That man is GOOD!!!! A 2 hour job and it is as good as new!! I am very thankful and happy. It is the burner I always use for frying things and canning. It would only get really hot once in awhile. I hope I get another 34 years out of that stove. Hmmmmm … that would make me 108 years old. Yup, that should do it.
Last night we had a great rain. We sure appreciate it. The Island was very dry. So far we have had no problem with our well so we were lucky. Right now the rain stopped but it is cool and dreary outside.
I just picked a few more beans and I think there will not be many more. The ones that are still coming are way up and we need a ladder to get to them. There is still a lot of them on the stalks but they are too big already so we will use them for dried bean soup and chilli in the winter. Half of the beans are Appaloosa beans which are not good to cook fresh but are great as dried beans.
While I was out there I took a picture of on of our Dahlias. These ones are as big as a dinner plate. Very pretty but not good in a Vase.

That’s it for today.

Good bye everybody ☺

A plumbing emergency

2010-08-28T15:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I cleaned out under the kitchen sink and found a small leak. The newspaper I had there was wet. Of course I called the resident handyman and he tightened whatever it is called under the sink. I had placed a little dish with a Kleenex under the area that leaked. When I checked that awhile later it was wet and the handyman was called in again. This time her really tightened it hard which left the water gushing out . When we checked it out we saw that the pipe had corroded and so we needed a whole new strainer basket assembly. It was too late to go shopping so we left it until this morning. Since I also wanted to buy some green peppers and celery for my tomato sauce we decided to go to Canadian Tire instead of Rona and stop at Farmer’s Market on the way.

I was able to pick up a bag full of green and yellow peppers for $ 1.99 of the quick sale table. That was great.
Canadian Tire had quite a few different basket assemblies and since we had our old one with us we picked one that seemed the same except it was made of PVC which we figured would be better. I also wanted a new faucet swivel for the kitchen tap. Our old one that we bought years ago on the flea market in Quartzsite had come apart. I don’t know what I would do without one so I picked one up as well. Home again Cliff got to work and installed the new unit but we saw that it stuck up too much above the drain and there would always be a little water still in the sink. Also the swivel was not the right one, it did not turn into a sprayer. Canadian Tire is quite a ways from where we live so we decided to go to Rona after all, it’s just up the road from us we could have saved a trip into town but then I would not have had my peppers and celery. We found exactly the right strainer and tap swivel. Next time we get to Canadian Tire we have to take both back.
That was my exciting day so far. Hope the rest is better.
Weather was great again. On the way to town this morning we had turned the heater on in the car and on the way back the air conditioner.
Good bye everybody ☺

Lots of Veggies

2010-08-26T13:59:00.001-07:00

Our tomatoes are finally ripe and Cliff picked a big bucket of them this morning.

Now I will make more sauce after all.
Blackberries are ripe as well and the yellow jackets have been in them. Today is not too bad because it is quite windy so Cliff wants to pick some. I have too much blackberry juice and jam already so I told him to cut the bushes down ☺ which of course he will not do.
Yesterday I picked 10 great cucumbers and we have a salad every day until they are gone and hopefully by that time there will be more.
I started 8 more lettuce plants in the little peat pots and it looks like at least 7 of them are starting to grow.
For some reason our beets don’t make a round beet but only thickened roots. The greens on them are lush though and I like to cook them up. Maybe it’s because I saved the seeds from last year. Next year we will buy seeds again.
We have also been eating our corn every lunch and supper. It is really nice and sweet this year. Last year we did not have too much but this year it is plentiful. Must be the horse manure Cliff spread this Spring.
The squash is winding it’s way on everything. I just hope they all ripen. There are more vines than squash but it is hard to see in that jungle out there. I saw one crookneck the other day. I like to eat those raw. I have to wade my way through all the vines to get to it.
Our weather has been outstanding. This morning it looked like we might finally get some rain but the clouds went away and now it is sunny.
That’s it for today
Good bye for now ☺

Much better !!!

2010-08-19T09:25:00.001-07:00

The temperature has been much more to my liking the last few days. Nice and sunny but not too warm. We have bamboo blinds on the outside of all the windows that get sun during the day and that helps keep the inside cool.
This year our tomatoes are not not as plentiful as in other years. We just get enough to eat every day but I don’t think there will be any for canning. I don’t mind that because we still have lots of tomato sauce and tomato juice from other years to last us for next winter. The beans are coming on with a vengeance but I don’t like to can many because I would rather eat fresh veggies even in the winter.

our bean poles

I made a big pot of hamburger meat, beans, onions and green peppers yesterday for lunch and froze enough of it for 6 more meals. It will be easy cooking on busy days, just boil a few potatoes and that’s it plus our daily salad.
This year we also don’t have many potatoes. I am quite happy about that because normally we have too many and in the Spring I am peeling all “pruned-up” potatoes which is not a pleasant job. Here is one of our malformed potatoes but they all taste good.

I also baked yesterday. I wanted to have something nice and sweet so I baked what in my hometown is called “Amerikaner”, a stiff batter with flour b.powder, sugar, custard powder, eggs and milk. Good size blobs of that on a greased baking sheet and baked for 14 minutes in a hot oven. They spread out and look like a little hill when they are done. While still warm the flat bottom side gets a glaze of icing sugar and hot water with a squirt of lemon juice. There were 9 of them and only one was left this morning and that is gone now at 9 AM. You can see why I don’t bake too often.
We don’t have too many flowers but I love these Dahlias.

I better start my jobs for today.
Good bye everybody ☺

It’s a jungle out there

2010-08-13T19:24:00.001-07:00

We had a great lunch today. Sockeye salmon filets, fresh carrots and beans, a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, radishes and onions, home-made dressing with cilantro, beets and beet tops and potatoes. All the veggies straight out of the garden and we got the fish a couple of weeks ago. I canned 32 jars and froze 5 of the tails.
Our garden is absolutely overgrown.

Corn patch

Squash

Back gate to the garden

Cliff is starting to clear parts of the garden to get it ready for the winter. I think it is way too big. Today I tried to give away some beets and tops but nobody was home so they will go in the compost since I don’t have any more room in the fridge.
We just started to pick beans and there will be tons. I will have to do a lot of canning. On the other hand we like to eat fresh veggies even in the winter so the canned stuff will just sit there. Grrrrrr. I really hate the thought of so many people going hungry and I am crying about too much food. It does not seem right.
Somebody asked about Moosetracks ice-cream. It is super delicious and consists of vanilla ice-cream with tiny peanutbutter cups as well as lots of chocolate fudge throughout. Here come the pounds!! Try it….. you’ll like it ☺
It was really hot today and when I went to the Mill Bay library and to do a bit of shopping I was very thankful that we now have air-conditioning in the car, so I finally found something that I like about the new car. I am still struggling with parking. I don’t drive too often because most of the time Cliff and I go together, he does the driving and I like it that way..
It is starting to cool off a bit so I better go outside and enjoy the evening.
Good night everybody ☺

Quiet days

2010-07-31T14:44:00.001-07:00

Until last Thursday it has been very quiet around our house but now our daughter is visiting and it is a bit livelier at least while she is around. It is her 30th School Reunion and that means a lot of visiting and functions.
Right now she has gone golfing and last night was a Pub Night. As usual I did not sleep until she was home again just like when she was a teenager. How dumb is that!!! I guess once a motherhen always a motherhen ☺
The weather has been outstanding although Sonja wishes it was warmer.
I finally have been able to water our flower baskets to my heart’s content. The one with the bird’s nest does not look very good and I don’t think the flowers will come back. They just did not get enough water.
Yesterday we had our first 2 egg plums. They taste so good but there are not very many on the tree. I think the tree is getting too old. We are still harvesting raspberries and I already have 5 bags of 3 pounds each in the freezer. The squash plants are absolutely growing wild. They are through the corn and now attacking the raspberry bushes. Some of the branches were outside the wire fence that surrounds the garden. I tried to lead them back but a few days later they came back through another loop so I guess the deer will have fun with that.
I have not weeded for ages and it sure shows. My knees really don’t like the crouching, so the veggies must fend for themselves.
I would like to welcome Karen and Al to my Blog. I have read your Blog and enjoyed it. My Granddaughter also lives in Georgia and likes it very much.
It is time to eat a bowl of “Moose Tracks” ice cream now.

Good bye everybody ☺

Back to general blogging

2010-07-26T18:37:00.001-07:00

Now that the birds are gone I can get on with blogging only once in awhile. Not very many blog-worthy events in my life. That is the way I like it.
My flower baskets are finally getting their due in moisture. I have to water several times during the day because they are in full sun most of the afternoon.
I also have a cherry tomato on the balcony but they only get the morning sun. So far there are only 3 tiny tomatoes but lots of bloom. It seems that the blooms just shrivel without setting fruit. I have no idea why that is. I even shake the stalks a bit but it does not help.
Cliff was telling me the day after the baby birds flew the coup that he saw one parent with one of the babies trying to teach it to fly. It looked like they had success, so I was pleased to hear that. I hope the other baby survived as well. I saved the un-hatched egg. It is fairly heavy for it’s size. I tried to get the nest out of the basket but it is totally interwoven with the dirt and flower roots, so I have to leave it in there.

un-hatched Junko egg

It has really been hot here lately and I don’t like it. My favourite temperature is around 22 C. I have all windows and doors closed with bamboo blinds on the outside and insulating drapes on the inside so the rooms stay pretty cool until around 5 PM when it gets too hot upstairs but it is still bearable downstairs. At that time it starts to cool down outside and I open all doors and let the breeze come through. At night it cools down to 12 to 14 C and the house starts cool again the next day. I like Spring and Fall better than Summer except that this Spring was not very good. Too much rain. We could sure use some of that now !!!
Well, that’s it for today.
Good night everybody ☺

Last picture

2010-07-22T10:23:00.001-07:00

I took a picture of the babies this morning.
It did not turn out too good so I wanted to take another one but when I tried both birds left the nest and flew first to the balcony and then down to the grass.
It is the 12th day since the first one hatched so they probably will be OK. On one website about Oregon Junkos it said that they take 9 to 10 days to fledge.
I have been watching them through binoculars and it looked as if Mom was trying to teach one of the babies to fly and I also have seen them feeding the babies on the ground. Right now I can only see the parents. The last I saw of the babies one of them was hopping into some taller grass under a tree and the other one was also under some grass by the fence. I guess the parents led them to safety, at least I hope so.
I certainly wish them well and hope they have a great and long life.

Last picture in nest

Last picture on the ground

I’ll update if something new occurs.

Very shy birds

2010-07-21T18:16:00.001-07:00

I have not been able to take any pictures that are worthwhile. I can see the little birds peaking above the nest with mouths wide open but as soon as I open the patio door they duck down and lay there quietly. Also Mom and sometimes both parents will fly in and sit on the power cable leading to our house and scold me or maybe they are cautioning the babies to keep mum in the nest. It is now the tenth day since the first egg hatched. I would think that it will not be long before they have their flying lessons and then disappear. My flowers will be very thankful. They look pretty scraggily.
Until the sun hits the nest sometime after lunch the parents fly back and forth to gather food and feed the babies but as soon as the sun hits the nest the Mom sits on the nest again until the sun leaves. That really makes me think that this is to keep the babies from frying in the sun.
It has been hot this afternoon but there always is a nice breeze. Cliff and I picked up quite a few wheelbarrows full of firewood to put in the woodshed. It was drying behind the house in the sun before going into the woodshed. It will not be long and the shed will be full. Then the heating season can come whenever. Sometimes I wonder if we are sane to do all that work ☺ Cliff always says it is good exercise.
Good night everybody ☺

It’ official… only 2 baby birds

2010-07-19T18:44:00.001-07:00

When I looked into the nest yesterday morning I saw 2 babies and one egg. Too bad the third egg did not hatch but I guess the parents have enough to do with the two they have. Until the afternoon they fly and feed the brood all the time but in the afternoon when the sun shines on the flower baskets one of them sits on the nest constantly. I think it is to keep the baby birds from overheating. I noticed that then the parent has it’s beak open most of the time. I wonder if that is how they cool off?? That’s what dogs do but do birds do the same thing? Normally they spread their wings. As you can see I am not a birder ☺
I try to take pictures but as soon as I enter the balcony the Mom is there and chirps at me. Also when I look into the nest the babies just lay there. They must sense that I am not supposed to be there and they just play dead.
We had a pancake breakfast with our friend Heather this morning, It was a very pleasant visit and her company is always welcome. She is a childhood friend of our daughters. Heather visited lots of times when she lived in Kingston with her Mother and we lived in Gananoque. The kids are still good friends although they live very far apart. Heather has a bed and breakfast in Gibson on the sunshine coast. She was telling us that there are only 2 small hotels in Gibson and most visitors stay in bed and breakfasts. She really enjoys running it.
We had a few clouds this morning and it was a lot cooler but after lunch the sun came out full force again and it got hot. I changed from shorts and sleeveless blouse to long pants and long sleeve t-shirt and then back to shorts and blouse. That is Vancouver Island for you ☺

Good night everybody ☺

Only two???

2010-07-17T19:59:00.001-07:00

I cannot see more than 2 little birds. It's hard to take a picture because I have to blindly point the camera since I cannot see the view finder from the angle I am shooting from and I am always in a hurry to get out of there.
Before I go out on the balcony I look to see if a parent is sitting on the nest or one is sitting on the power line and if there is none I venture out and invariably it only takes less than a minute before one of them arrives and starts chirping at me so I retreat quickly.

They are starting to get feathers now. This time next week they will be gone. Too bad because it is fun watching them.
I did not do too much today just the normal puttering around. This morning I picked some veggies and took them around to the neighbours. We have more than we can eat. I think we really should only have half the garden although it's nice to give away what we cannot use.

Good night everybody ☺

Hungry brood

2010-07-16T18:45:00.001-07:00

A warm welcome to Mary Ann and William who are newly following my Blog. Glad to have you aboard.

I have been watching the nest and when I did not see either parent I took some pictures

Boy, they look hungry !! I could only see the two wide open mouths and hope the third baby is hunkering down in the nest. It looks like the eyes are now open. They are starting to look more like birds than a few days ago.
In the meantime my flowers are suffering but it will not take long now before the youngsters fledge and then I can look after the flowers a lot better.

This morning I made a quick run to Mill Bay. I had to do a bit of shopping and I almost parked the car right ☺ I came back just in time to make curried chicken thighs for lunch. Cliff and I love this kind of meal. Instead of rice I used potatoes. It seems as soon as we have our own potatoes rice and noodles are off the menu. In the afternoon I spent a bit of time helping Cliff pile some of the dry wood in the wood shed. It will be awhile before that is full.

Good night everybody ☺

No new development in the Nest

2010-07-15T18:31:00.001-07:00

Both parents are around and Mom sits on the nest most of the day. I had a chance to take another picture but the babies look almost identical to the earlier picture.

I only saw one of the parents with a moth or something in it's beak once today. Of course I might have missed a few feedings.
We had beautiful weather here with a nice breeze to keep the house cool. I was in the kitchen a lot. Cliff brings raspberries and strawberries almost daily and I freeze most of them. We have a bowl of either berries in the afternoon with whipped cream. Very satisfying but I think the cream is probably not too healthy ☺
Our new lettuce is ready to eat and I harvested a lot of it this morning. I wash it, tear it up and keep it in a Tupper ware container in the fridge. That way I can just grab a handful at lunch and supper for us. We have been eating our new potatoes for awhile now. I like them for potato salad and always look forward to that.
While I am doing all that I am glued to my audio book "The Rainmaker" by John Grisham. I am almost done.
Time to close this.
Good night everybody ☺

2nd. post

2010-07-13T19:07:00.001-07:00

Janna from the http://tinteepeelogcabin.blogspot.com/

asked about Indonesia. I have done several posts about it. Just write "Indonesia" in the search box and the post will come up. Thanks for the question ☺

All accounted for ☺

2010-07-13T18:52:00.001-07:00

Success for Momma ! This morning we saw the third baby bird. At the moment I would say they are kind of ugly but just wait a few days and that will change.

Early this morning Cliff moved the basket around so that we could see the nest again from the window. In doing that we disturbed Mom and she flew off giving us quite the scolding and did not want to stop. It did not take too long until Dad arrived and helped her scold. That was the first time I saw both parents together. They look a lot alike and I was not even sure if Dad was around until I saw them together. Shortly after we went in the house Mom was back in the nest and Dad sat on the railing for a long time guarding the brood.
If I did not know better I think the two got together and moved the basket around so that we again could not watch them !!! Later on when Cliff saw one leave (usually there is only one on the nest) I went and tied a string to the basket so that the wind cannot move it around any longer. ☺
I was able to take a picture of one of them as they sat on the railing which they do before flying into the nest.

Here is Mom sitting at the edge of the nest

Our flower baskets look pretty bedraggled in this hot weather because I hate to disturb the nest and do the watering and removal of old bloom. Oh well, watching the birds is well worth it.

Good night everybody ☺

Here is a good cartoon

Two down one to go

2010-07-12T18:31:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a false alarm, thank goodness. Number one is alive and the second one hatched and one egg to go.

and they are ready to be fed, mouths wide open ☺

We had quite the wind last night and this morning. It turned the hook that holds the basket with the nest, we now call it the bird-basket, half way around which does not let me look into the nest from behind the window. I tried to sneak up to it but Momma saw me and flew away, so I will wait until I know that she is gone and then Cliff will try to turn the basket back to where it was before. So far I have only disturbed her twice the whole time and it does not really seem to bother her but I just don't like to do it.
I see Momma fly off the nest directly past the balcony to somewhere below but when she comes back she lands on the railing and goes back and forth quite a few times before she flies up to the nest. I have seen her with something in her mouth but am not sure what it was.
I hope I will see number three tomorrow morning.
It is still a bit windy but the temperature was more to my liking. This coming week it looks perfect for my taste too.
I did some laundry and the sheets dried in record time but some were tangled around the line but I still like them better drying outside than in the dryer.
I am thankful for the dryer though. My girls were already 7 and 9 years old before we got the first dryer. In those days it was always quite a chore to get everything dry in rainy weather. I am glad those days are gone.
As a postscript to yesterday's Blog I have to say that the creek where I took the pictures gets deep enough to swim and snorkel in spots. Cliff saw lots of fish and wished he had his fishing pole.
With that I'll say
good night everybody ☺

The first bird hatched

2010-07-11T21:09:00.001-07:00

but it looked to me as if it was not alive but I am still hoping since Momma is back on the nest. She was not there when we came back from our afternoon happy time with our friends.
It was not quite so hot today which is a real relief. All afternoon we sat by the creek that flows through their property. Everybody went in the water except I. I need unbearably hot weather before I hit the water. When I was younger I almost lived at the swimming pool and in Indonesia I was always in the water. Somehow I prefer to sit by the water now rather than be in it, so I took some pictures instead

It was a great afternoon and now it's time to go to bed. I sure hope I will be able to see Momma raise he 3 chicks.
Good night everybody ☺