Shopping Again

I cannot believe we went shopping again! Usually we only go once or twice a week but this week it seems we went every day.
It rained again today so shopping was not a bad thing to do since Cliff could not work in the garden. I also had to go to the library to pick up another book. Yesterday I ordered a book from the library. "The Book of Negros" by Lawrence Hill. It is a no. 1 bestseller. I am No. 138 on the waiting list so it will be awhile before I can read the book. I saw it at a friend's house and it looked really interesting, similar to "Roots". I don't know if it is a true story or not.
While we were out we swung by our sick friend and I am happy to say that he is feeling better but far from well. He will be 85 years old next March, so it takes a little while longer to heal. He was very happy to see us since he is getting pretty bored. Before he got sick he was always working at something. Boredom hits people that are usually busy the quickest.
Our apples are particularly nice this year. Every day at about 10 AM we sit by the fire and eat an apple each. We have done that for years. Thankfully our apples will last until they are all gone, almost into Spring. They were supposed to be an early apple when we bought the tree but turned out to be a very late one and a great keeper. We certainly won't complain.
I was looking for some black pumpernickel bread in all the grocery stores I visited and could not find it. Today I found it at Thrifty's in Mill Bay. When one has looked for so long, it's a big deal finding it :-)
That's all for tonight. Hope you all have a nice evening.

 

Yes, Yes, Yes

I found a pair of shoes today!!! I am a happy camper. We went to Canadian tire to exchange a hammer that did not stand the test of time. I dropped into Mark's Work Wearhouse which is in the same building. I had seen some shoes in their flyer. I was surprised to find something that fit perfectly.
We still had some money left on a gift card that Paul sent us and used that to have a Big Mac. Yes, I know some of you will turn up your noses but we really like them :-)  We usually go maybe once or twice a year. Other than that we try to eat healthy. Which does not always work.
Cliff bought a lopper that cuts through sticks as big as 1 1/4 inch wood. That will come in handy for clean-up outside. He tried them out already and is thrilled with the result. Hmmmmmmmm, I like my shoes better!!
Tonight is an early Blog, because we will get company and afterwards I probably don't feel like writing.
I wish I could write about more exciting things, but staying home for the winter is just a bit boring. This is the weekend we would have started our trip South. Makes me sad to think about it.
Good bye everyone

Shopping Day

I have been very tired today and fell asleep in my chair after lunch. I cannot remember that happening before. I pulled myself together and went shopping. I NEED a pair of shoes for this time of year. I hate shopping for shoes and true to form, I did not find anything. That is partly due to the fact that I don't know what I want :-(  Now I have to get in the mood all over again. When I was young I loved shopping for clothes and yes, even shoes but the money was in short supply. Now I can afford to buy and don't feel like it any longer.
It was quite cold again this morning when we woke up and it did not warm up a lot. While I was in Superstore it started to rain. The weatherman said that it will be like this for the next little while. I guess winter is coming slowly but surely. I just hope we don't get as much snow as last year and not for as long as last year.
When I took the desktop 3000 back that I bought a few weeks ago and did not like  I forgot to pack the installation CD for the mouse. I took that back today too. I think they just put the desktop back on the shelf because the salesman said he hoped that nobody bought it yet!!
Now I will see what the TV has in store for this evening. I normally don't find anything so it will probably be another reading evening.

Have a nice evening.

 

To buy or not to buy ???

After lunch I went to Country Grocer for some milk. I saw all the Halloween goodies piled high. I was greedily looking at them and picked some up already. The devil on my shoulder said: Buy it buy it, but the angel on the other shoulder would not let me. Thanks, Angel!!!
It did not take me long to get back home because I had a really good book that only had one quarter left to go. I just now finished it. I am so glad that I did not do what I often do, that is read about 30 pages and then sneak a look at the end. I have been pretty good about that lately. It was a murder mystery by Linwood Barclay "Too close to Home" . Lots of twists and turns and quite believable. I already read "No time for Goodbye" by the same author.
This morning it was only -1C on our outside thermometer. We are now totally into heating the house. Early in the morning the upstairs fireplace gets started and shortly after the insert in the downstairs fireplace is next. I like looking into the fire but I can waste an awful lot of time doing that.We have our one and only cup of coffee for the day at that time, so that is OK.
Our garden lies lower than the house and when I picked some lettuce this afternoon I still found a few ice crystals in the leaves. Grrrrrrrrr. Reminds me of January around Yuma when the TV announcer mentions "lettuce Ice" until 10 AM or later. It is amazing that lettuce can stand that low a temperature. 
I guess there is nothing else I can talk about. It was just a normal day.
Good night everybody :-)

Same old, same old.....

I don't even want to mention 'laundry" but that is what Mondays is all about. Even though the sun was out quite a bit it was a dryer day.
I finally cleaned up the old freezer and now we will have to think what to do with it. Cliff may want to keep it for some "dry" storage but I would rather have it gone. Since we bought a new energy star freezer we get to apply for $ 25.00 from BC Hydro. I downloaded the application form from the internet and scanned the receipt. Now I have to send it all off. I really like the new freezer. The inside is all plastic or Fiberglas and easy to clean but the best thing is that it is frost free and another good feature is the big light inside when the door is open. After throwing out the old food there is not much in the freezer now. Good thing it is only small and not the size of the old one. We used to freeze lots of gallon jugs of ice and blue ice packs when we had the sailboat. It only had an ice box and we used to sail for days at a time and needed to haul lots of ice for the fish we caught. Of course a lot of that was then kept frozen too.
Years ago we used to be on the go all the time, sailing in the summer and RVing in the winter. There was hardly time for the garden because we sometimes took trips with the sailboat that lasted several weeks. Now we have stayed at home for the last few Summers and Winters. First the sailboat went and last Summer we sold the 5th wheel. Hopefully something interesting will come up one of these days.
Pretty soon I shall buy some Halloween treats. I have to do that in the last minute because having that stuff in the house is no good, too many rats live here!!!
As it is we usually don't get any kids calling only once in a blue moon but you never know. Besides that, if nobody shows, the rats can eat all the candy!!!! They  have to hang on until 7 PM but then there will be a mad dash to the candy bowl. I could be handing out some quarters in case we have visitors, but the rats don't like leftover quarters :-)
That's all folks,
Good night.
 

Rainy Sunday

It rained a lot today but I did not mind. I played nurse again this morning for 3 hours and when I came home Cliff had warmed our Chilli up and the table was set. I got up quite late and had no time to make beds before I had to leave so that and doing dishes were jobs I did before we were off to see our other friends for our weekly Sunday afternoon get-together. As usual we had a good time together.
Everything went well today so there is not much to write about.
I wish you all a good night.

Burnt porridge etc. etc.

What a busy day. First thing this morning I started the porridge and set the time for the normal 8 minutes of cooking and went to look at the computer. Soon there was a burnt smell and I did not figure the timer went off yet. Sure enough there still was time left BUT I had forgotten to turn down the burner, so it had just been boiling and burning away. I sure was disgusted with myself. Good thing that came out of this episode was that we checked the smoke alarm and sure enough the battery was dead. We remedied that right away. This is what my pot looked like, but I got it clean again with a lot of elbow grease.

Later on I played nurse to a friend of ours who had an operation last week. He has help coming in but there is always a 3 hour time laps between shifts when he is alone and that is not good. Yesterday hubby went and today was my turn. On the way home, just as I was turning to enter the Highway I heard something that sounded like an explosion with a terrible rattling afterwards.  Luckily I was able to pull to the right into a spot that was wide enough and got out to see if I ran over something. The muffler was hanging on the ground. No way could I drive on like this. Right away a young attendant from the CO-OP station next door came to see if he could help, but of course there was nothing he could do. I phoned Cliff from the phone there (no cell phone) to come to the rescue. Soon  2 young fellows from the station came up with a stack of orange cones that they placed around my car to give me a bit more protective room from the traffic. When I got back to the car another car had stopped in front of me to see if I needed help. I thanked him for stopping but help was on the way. Another truck wanted to help just as Cliff was driving up behind me. It was sure nice to see how helpful people are. Must have something to do with my grey hair, "little old lady" etc. The muffler was off in no time and I was on my way home with a lot of noise coming from the rear end of the car. As soon as we got back Cliff rolled up his sleeves and as of 5 PM the muffler was back on and hopefully as good as new.  It sure is nice to have a handy husband and I am very thankful for that.
I had a great comment by email for yesterday's Blog and it is too good not to mention it here:
"History says that food left by Sir Walter Scott,was found frozen after 60 years at the south pole,and it was o.k so they eat it, and you throw yours out  while it it still fresh, Today's Tip. next time you have frozen outdated food ,make a meal and invite some one you don't like , they could test it       But make a excuse not to eat any your self.  If they survive you did not waste anything, after all ,,we are into a economic recession"

Time to go,
Good bye :-)
 

New Freezer

Early September I ordered a new frost free upright freezer. Our old one was "only" 33 years old and was on it's last leg. Well, it finally came today and Cliff picked it up in Duncan. In the meantime I moved the clothes dryer out of the way but I did not want to empty the old freezer yet just in case something did not work out with the new one. Well, everything went just great and I now have the frozen food transferred to the new freezer. No more defrosting of a freezer like in the last 33 years, Yippeeeee
In the process I found a laundry basket full of stuff from 2006. 7 and 8. Gosh, it's funny how that stuff can hide. It is now all on the compost heap. When I think of the effort and time it took both of us to grow and process the food we just threw out, it makes me sad and I have resolved to not let it happen again. (I hope)
This is the time when many people are getting ready to fly South and we should be on our way to Arizona but for several years now we had to stay home because we cannot get additional medical insurance for a pre-existing ailment . We both feel great so that is doubly hard but staying in a hospital in the US without insurance is not an option we are willing to chance. So we stay home, sleep in our nice beds, take hot showers and do the laundry in our own house. Slim consolation, but that is what I am telling myself :-) I am only glad that we have been snowbirds since 1989, so we had a good run of it already and have so many great memories.
I wish everybody who is flying South a very good journey without problems and a safe return.

Good night

New (old) TV

Tonight we picked up an older TV for our recreation room. Our old TV broke down awhile ago and we bought a new flat screen LCD TV. Both of us really don't care for it so now we are happy to have another one of the old type. Lots of people are buying the new type and then try to give the old one away. Well, we happily received one of them today. :-)
This morning I baked a sour cherry cake and prepared tonight's supper because my Sil and husband came this afternoon for a visit. We had not seen them for a long time and it was great to get together again.
We tried to convince them to stay for the night but they had been gone from home for too long already. They just wanted to get off the Island and get an early start tomorrow morning. They have to drive the Coquihalla to get home. Originally they had planned to leave from Swartz Bay but luckily we found out on the Ferry website that all the ferries to Tsawwassen were fully booked for today. They headed to Duke Point instead and had no problem getting on tonight, although it takes almost half an hour longer for the trip. They will be getting a Hotel for the night somewhere on the mainland.
This was a full day and I am ready for bed.

Good bye

Rain, Fog, Sun

We had all of that today. Early this morning I helped my friend to bottle 60 bottles of wine. It did not take us very long. It rained when we took the empty bottles into the store but when we came out it was nice. I also mailed a letter for my daughter's birthday. She will be happy to hear that. When I came home it was time to cook lunch. Since that is our main meal of the day it took a while to prepare. The rest of the day was pretty boring so there is not much to write about.                                                 When I downloaded the new Skype I found out I had 1.05 Euro free Skype Credit again. Last time I let it go to waste but this time I figured I better try it so I called my sister-in-law on her landline. I was surprised how good the connection was, just as good as if I had used my normal phone. I am impressed. Now I am sorry I did not use the free credit to call Germany, although since I have YAK as my long distance carrier it is not expensive either. I remember a long distance call from Calgary to Germany around 1962 was about $ 2.50 pre minute!! Needless to say I did not phone but once a year. It sure is nice to be able to make long distance calls without looking at the clock. About 10 years ago the only quick communication with friends and family was the phone but now it's email. I really like email it lets me keep in touch.                                                                  That's it for tonight.

Cookie Day

Today I finally broke down and baked some Double Spiced Ginger Cookies. It’s a recipe I have had from a boating friend a long time ago. I just love those cookies, they are nice and soft and so good you can eat the dough. I only make them rarely since I just cannot leave them alone. Already I have had so many I am about to burst. That will be the end of those cookies for a long time. I have had the urge for quite some time now and it kept building until I could not resist any longer.

While surfing the internet today I came across some interesting news. From Rick's Blog I thought that we could choose either the Sony book reader or the Kindle book reader but according to PCWorld we cannot buy Kindle book reader here in Canada. It's available in lots of other parts of the world. It must have something to do with the fact that one can go on-line with the Kindle book reader. I would think that eventually it will be available here too.

 

Here are a few pictures I scanned from our time in Indonesia.

This is the village of Soroako on Sulawesi formerly called Celebes

With this "INCO Otter" everybody arrived there

Our first Christmas there. Lots of our friends had rafts on Lake Matano and spent Sundays on those.

here we are doing dishes after a scrumptious meal.

 

More pictures after I scan them. For today this is the end of my Blog.

Good bye :-)

The usual Monday job

Working on that this morning I was reminded that I don’t like my new washer. It was February 2008 when our washer finally did it’s last job and was NOT going to work any longer. Sometimes it is not so great when the Man of the house is good at fixing things. We had half of this washer for over 30 years, the other half belonged to a neighbor that handed it over to us. Hubby made one of the two and it worked for another 2 years but it was finally toast. So off we went through slush and rain to look for a washer. We stopped at the first store and saw a Maytag Neptune front loader that was on special. Fellow told us it was a great machine. We were in a hurry because we had half washed clothes at home. (Should have taken them to a Laundromat) We drove back home, picked up the old truck and hauled the thing home. Cliff installed it and when it was done I realized that the darn washer did NOT have a window!!! I could not believe that I had overlooked that. Now I never know if I have not enough or too much soap in there. I don’t really like front loaders now, did not realize how much longer they take to wash a load but I am stuck with it to the bitter end. I have never seen another front loader without a window. At home I looked up the model on the Internet and found out that that particular model had been around for awhile and lots of people had trouble with it. All kinds of faults. There even was a class action suit against Maytag over it that had not been resolved. Never again will I buy something like that without checking it out thoroughly but we were in a hurry so maybe it serves us right. I must say though that so far I have not had any problem with it except that sometimes it smells a little odd after doing a wash and that’s why I like to do all of it on one day. It takes a lot more time than a top load washer.

That is my sob story for today. On the other hand it was another stellar day. Warm and sunny. We had a good meal and play time on the computer, so what’s not to like!!

That’s it, good night 

Leisurely Sunday

I have no idea what I should write in my Blog tonight, nothing much happened. Actually that is not a bad thing since I could enjoy lots of leisure time. Sometimes that is not a good thing either because it makes me feel restless. I always like to do something. We don’t like to eat lots of sweet stuff, so baking was out which is one thing I like to do. Oh well, tomorrow I will be busy gain.

I was just thinking about the 4 years we spent in Indonesia. Like most Expat families we had a maid and a garden boy plus somebody to look after our raft on the ocean. The Expat women could not work outside the house because that would take jobs away from the locals, so we had lots of free time. Usually our poor husbands went to work really early and later in the day we women would get together for games of bridge or other card games. We actually had a lot of fun. Every year we had one 2 week holiday and one 4 week holiday. We usually came back to Canada for the long holiday and took trips to different countries for the 2 week R&R. I did a lot of shopping in the local market. I used to take the maid in my little rag-top Suzuki and we both walked around the market. It did not take me too long to get used to driving on the “wrong” side of the road. I bought a few thin, long dresses that I loved wearing because it was very hot where we lived. Lots of my friends did the same thing and we wore them when we went shopping. Later on we found out from one of our Indonesian friends that those dresses actually were house dresses and that the Indonesians were chuckling about us wearing them to the market. Live and learn I guess. Our main footwear was rubber thongs. It was a real carefree time but in the end I was happy to get back home and do my own house work again. Now I don’t know what I was thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe I’ll dig out some pictures to put in later Blogs. I have to scan them though because no digital cameras in those days.

Well, I guess I did find something to write about after all.

Good night everybody

Great Rain

It is finally raining here. I don’t really like to see it but I know we really need it. The woods have been so very dry.

I am very glad that the problem of comments has been solved by Rick and want to thank him very much.

We had a new problem today though. Actually it started last night when the 3 month old Acer 23” monitor lost color and faded almost to nothing. We played with the settings for awhile but could not fix it. This morning we tried again but in the end gave up and Cliff took it back to Staples. Of course the guaranty was finished but he was able to hammer out a deal and he now has a new monitor. I have decided that I will not buy another Acer product. My first laptop was an Acer and it had monitor problems too. The second laptop was also an Acer and in less than 3 years I had to have a new hard drive installed. It is now only limping along and slower than molasses in January. Now the problem with this Monitor, so that’s it. I have learned my lesson.

It’s quite a slow day today and I don’t feel like doing too much. Just playing a bit on the computer, that’s it. Maybe I will listen to my book. Somehow I don’t even want to do that.

Hope everybody else is feeling fine

Cannot post comments on some Blogs

 

This has been frustrating me for some time. There are several Blogs that I want to comment on but my comments end up somewhere in cyberspace but not on the Blog. Here are some screen shots of what I see when I click on “Comment” I write my comment, then click on “Comments” and “Select Profile” Click on “Google Account”

I then click on “Post Comment” and poof it’s gone. I am always signed in to my Google Account. I

On the other hand there are Blogs that I CAN comment on. They look like this:

I never have any problems with this type of comment box. I would love to find out what I can do about this. It bugs me when the internet defies me. Help!!

Good Day Today

Just to learn how to do it I added a site meter to my Blog. It’s a pitiful count but I wanted the learning curve. I always like to learn new things on the computer and I have to try until I succeed. Sometimes that leads to disaster but on the whole I do OK.

Just went up the road to get the mail. I wore a jacket with a double zipper. I hate those things!! They are so hard to open again. I have one of those on an expensive Jacket that I now hardly wear because of that zipper. One time I had to work on it for a long time and that is the last time I wore it. I am not good at sewing in zippers otherwise I would alter that. This is my beef for today.

With everybody getting ready to fly South I have been thinking of our last winter there. It was 2004 to 2005. That was the time when it was very wet down there and we came home earlier than expected because it was just to damp for our liking. It was also the winter that I had my first digital camera. I must have taken thousands of pictures. I talked to one of the girls that worked at the Beacon service station on Tom Wells Road she said that she lived there many years and had never seen the area so full of flowers. We felt really privileged to be able to see that.

The area of Tom Wells Road North of Interstate10 was one of my favourite spots. There used to be a gravel pit and it was worked once in awhile for a couple of weeks every year. Luckily we were up-wind from there and were not bothered with dust. They also ran a water wagon all the time to keep the dust down. Because of this that road was kept in pretty good shape and we had no problem getting to our site. Jan. 2005 they hauled all the equipment out and now the road will be in disrepair. There is no more camping on that side of Tom Wells road and the Beacon service station has been razed and a new Texaco Station built. I have not seen that since we have not been there afterwards.

Every morning we walked to the Beacon Station to use the pay phone for our Pocketmail We did not have cell phones or Satellite Internet so that was a good alternative. I cannot imagine people using that any longer.

This is getting too long, so I will call it a day.

Good bye for now.

View Full Album

Raining today with a little sunshine

A quick Blog tonight because I still don’t feel too well. I managed to make a good meal and do a bit of house work but that’s it.

While resting on the couch I was thinking of all kinds of things that I could write in my Blog but now it’s all gone. Darn. I should have a little booklet with me.

I usually use http://www.pocketmod.com/ to make my shopping list. One sheet of printer paper lasted 2 months for me. Before I always had little pieces of paper all over the place and usually lost them when I really needed that list. Now I have no more problems, that is IF I remember to stick that little booklet in my purse.

Enough of that.

Good Night to all

Keyboard and mouse gone!

I returned the Microsoft Desktop 3000 to London Drugs this morning. They took it back no questions asked and credited my MasterCard with the full amount. On the way home I realized that I forgot to add the installation CD to the package. Grrrrrr now I have to think about that next time I go to town. Don’t want to do that too soon because for some reason my neck is really hurting. It started last night and I hardly got any sleep. I wanted to get that keyboard off my mind so Cliff took me to town since I did not want to drive myself, too painful to turn my head.

It was not so cold this morning as yesterday but we still started the fire upstairs and downstairs, just to get the chill off upstairs and be cozy downstairs. It rained when we were in town but not too much. It did not take us long to get home again. This is the time of year when I like to be in the house.

I was dozing on the couch almost all afternoon. My neck is now really hurting. I hope it will go away soon. Did not even feel like listening to my audiobook and don’t feel like writing any more.

Good night.

Fall is here

When I looked at the thermometer by my kitchen window this morning I got a real shock...It was minus 4 C. Oh oh....... lots of tomatoes still in the garden and the apples still on both trees, beets in the ground and lettuce unprotected. We had our job cut out for today but all went well. The apples needed to be picked anyhow because we have some resident grey squirrels around and last year we saw them running off with apples in their mouths. I was really surprised to see that because the apples were very big. We used to have racoons hanging around that wreaked havoc with the fruit trees too but now the dog from the neighbours is running lose and he scared them away. Hurrah for the dog.

We lit a fire in the upstairs fireplace as soon as we got up and when that died down at around 11 AM we started the fire in the insert in the downstairs rec. room. I sure like the heat from a wood fire but I don’t like the mess. Dragging the vacuum cleaner up and downstairs is a pain but last year I bought a little cordless hand vacuum that works really well. There is always work to do, if not in the garden then in the house. I am glad I can still do it, It would be boring otherwise.

For the first time in awhile I had to dry my laundry in the dryer. It did not rain but I just did not want to hang the clothes on the line in this cold weather.

I hope to make it into town tomorrow to exchange this darn keyboard. The clicking of the space bar drives me batty. Maybe I revert back to my old keyboard and mouse.

I hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving weekend.

Greetings

Painting the Balcony railing

We had the whole summer to do this but somehow everything else was more important At least it’s done now but just at the very last minute because it may rain tomorrow.

For the last few mornings we had a fire in the fireplace. We get up, Cliff makes the fire and I brew the coffee and make our porridge for breakfast. Those are great comfy mornings. It is amazing how much time we can spend staring into the fire. It was quite cold today and we ended up with another fire at night while watching 60Minutes on TV. They had a segment on Football. I am sure glad nobody in my family plays Rugby or Football. Too many head injuries and a lot of the players end up with early onset of Alzheimer’s from Concussions while playing. I never liked those Sports or Boxing and Ice Hockey. Too physical and people get hurt too much.

I picked a lot of beets yesterday and that is a good thing because we had our first frost overnight. I also picked the rest of the beans to keep for seed and soup in the winter. After that the bean poles came down and now we can prepare the ground for the winter. Last year we left a lot of beets in the ground but they did not taste good maybe that was due to the very cold winter we had here. I sure hope it will not be so cold this winter. We still have tomatoes in the garden but they are under a cloche. The lettuce is still doing fine outside but our Dahlias are finished. There were a lot of flowers left yesterday but the frost got to them, so no more flowers on the table.

We had a nice time today and now I am tired.

Good night !

Is this Spring?

Today I found new blackberry blossoms in the garden!

They will get a rude awakening in a few days. We still have quite a few berries on the hedge but they are not sweet enough now. Every year that hedge has to be cut down to almost nothing but it comes back all the time. I love blackberry jam but I make it without the pits.

Yesterday I tried to make sweet milk coconut bars. I had the crumbs and coconut left in the cupboard for some time and figured it was time to do something with them. It turned out that what I thought was graham wafer crumbs was actually bread crumbs that I always make from old bread. Not so tasty!! I scrape the crumbs off and then it’s edible :-)

I have been reading  Willy's Blog and really enjoy it. We bought a tent like his when we were first married in Germany. We had a lot of fun with it. He sure is a handy fellow. I would like to leave a comment on his Blog, but I just cannot do it. I write it, use my Google address but it never shows up. I wonder what I do wrong. In 1972 we also had a small trailer similar to his but we had to sell it because we moved to Germany not long after we bought it. We pulled it with a Buick LeSabre. When we first had it we sometimes sat in the trailer with our company right next to our house. It was a fun time. When my Aunt and Uncle visited us from Germany the whole Family went to Niagara Falls with the trailer. There were 6 of us in the 17 ft. trailer, needless to say it was pretty crowded. Hard to sleep when several people snored!!

Cliff was so busy getting our winter wood ready that he only now started to sand and paint the balcony railing. I needs it badly. It is a little late in the year but there were more fun projects to do like getting manure for the garden :-) Who says retirement is a leisure time. I am sure he did not work this hard when he actually had a "job"

Well. that's enough for today.

Good night.

A lazy day

The last few days we had some wonderful sunsets but it looks like they will come to an end soon. Rain is in the forecast for Thanksgiving Monday.

Soon it will be time to run the fireplace all day long and later on we keep it going over night as well. No problem because we have lots of firewood. That will be the time when garden work will be replaced by vacuuming and dusting to get rid of the grime that a wood fireplace brings. When we get up in the morning we like to sit in front of the fire and enjoy our one and only cup of coffee. It is my favourite time of the day.

It is also the time when we used to load the 5^th wheel to go South for the winter months. Now I can only experience the Snowbird Life by proxy, thanks to all the good people that write Blogs. I sure appreciate that. It’s fun to see where everybody is hanging out.

I had a good day today but nothing very interesting so I shall go and read my book.

Good night!

Haicut today

 

It was about time. I went to my appointment early this morning. Lots of people on the road. I figured that after 9 AM traffic would ease up but I must have hit a bad time. It was sunny and warm and still a nice drive.

I don’t like going anywhere in the morning because I don’t have enough time to concentrate. We usually have our big meal at noon hour so I do quite a bit of cooking in the morning. Today I used my new George Foreman grill. We had pork tenderloin. That grill sure does a good job. It took about 2 years for me to make up my mind to buy it and I am happy I finally did. It is only a small one but for 2 people big enough.

This afternoon Cliff picked up another load of wood and I helped him to throw it off the truck. It should keep us nice and warm. Of course I would rather be in Arizona sitting around a camp fire. We had some good times telling stories while our backsides froze and the fronts were boiling. Someone told us about using an old frying pan, adding hot coals to it and sliding the pan under our chairs. It worked great until I noticed that the cord on my chair started to melt. I caught it just in time and with a bit of extra cord welded in I am still using it. The frame is not too good any longer but I hate to give it up since it is my favourite chair.

 

Palo Verde Stump we called our “chimneys”

I enjoy the memory of the good times we have had but now I say

Good night

Installed new keyboard and mouse

No problem with the installation and I really like both except for the space bar, which makes a noise. I might go back to London drugs and find out if that is normal. If not I’ll see if they will exchange it. I was in the kitchen next to the computer room and tried the keyboard out by clicking on the media button and when I got back in the computer room windows media player was up. How cool is that!! Except I cannot see the monitor, so it’s dumb to do :-) I was just wondering how far away the keyboard could reach.

Today I will stick close to home. No shopping. I have to sort out the meat that is in the freezer. I don’t want to buy too much since I ordered a new frost-free upright freezer from Sears for the utility room. It will arrive on Oct. 23. I ordered it early September and gave them my MasterCard number. From the MasterCard site I saw that Sears  posted it the very same day. That upset me because Sears will have their money over a month before I get my freezer. I don’t think that is right. Next time I will order and only pay when I receive the goods. If that is not possible I shall buy someplace else. I don’t mind a down payment but not the whole ball of yarn.

I am not sure what do do with the old freezer, most likely it will go to Freecycle.

Last Sunday I tried a recipe for French Bread that I had for a long time but never used. It turned out very well. That will be my recipe of choice if I want French Bread. Normally I use a lot of whole wheat in my bread but once in awhile a French loaf is great.

We usually watch TV News at 5 PM  on CheckTV . I just saw today that they have News on from 12 Noon, repeating all the time. I wonder if that is just a transition  for the new owners that bought the station. Maybe later  the programs will normalize.

I did not take any pictures today, so here is another cartoon.

Good night :-)

New keyboard and mouse

Today I fulfilled a wish I had for a long time. A new wireless keyboard and mouse. “Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000” I still have to install it. I don’t like doing that, it’s nerve-racking for me :-) Maybe tomorrow.

The squash is all tucked into the cold room and it gets crowded in there. In the next few days we will have to gather up the rutabagas and beets and then I have to find room for them too. BIG job. I better do that soon because it might freeze in the garden any day now. Other than being cold at night the weather has been outstanding, sunny and warm. Cliff finished grinding up all the vines. They should compost fast now. Pretty soon the garden will be done and then what will I blog about???

The usual Monday jobs got done. Since nothing interesting happened today I quit writing now.

Good night.

Bunny in the garden

This morning I picked the last of the squash.  Not a good thing for the resident bunny and friends. They must be awfully mad now. I found a lot of squash had been bitten into. We had seen the bunny from a very tender age on but could never catch it or find out where it got into the garden. We ended up with 45 larger squash and a bucket full of small ones. 3 years ago we had 98 which was way too many but we were able to give a lot away.

I just picked some more broccoli. This is the time of year I never know where to keep all the winter veggies since we don’t have a basement. One of our downstairs bedrooms doubles as a “cold room” but it is not really all that big. Also potatoes and apples don’t go well together but I am afraid they have to “play nice” this winter since there is no other place to keep them apart. The rutabagas and beets are still in the garden and have to come into the house pretty soon. I just have to spend some time and re-arrange the cold room so all has a spot in there.   

We had our friends over this afternoon and as usual had a great time. We watched a DVD that their son who is a Professor of History made about the Indian war on the Fraser River around the time of the gold rush there. It was well made and worth watching. His field of expertise is American Indian History.

Good night for now.

Harvesting some of our crops

We had another beautiful day. I took advantage of that and harvested most of our squash. They did not turn out very well this year. I can see some lesions on a lot of them and some were eaten into. Hopefully they will not go bad quickly because of that. Last years squash lasted until nearly June to the point where I was getting sick of eating them. I also pulled all the basil and cucumber vines. Tomorrow I will get the rest of the squash and Cliff will grind down the squash vines. That will be good for the compost.

 

Our apples are almost ready too. We have been eating some already but they are still a little sour. We bought this tree many years ago as an early apple. When we got our first apples it turned out that it is a late apple and we don’t really know what it is. We think it is an Ellisons Orange Apple, one of Cox Orange Pippin parentage. Last year we thought we bought broccoli plants but ended up with Brussels Sprouts. So you can never really know what you get :-) Somebody might get a kick out of mixing up the tags at the nursery. In the case of the apple tree we are very happy with that mix-up because the apples taste great and are good keepers. I might start the plants myself next year. I have done that before but since we don’t have a greenhouse they get very leggy just on the window sill so I am not sure yet.

 

This morning I cut up lots of tomatoes and ran them through the food processor. I ended up with 6 tubs of tomatoes for the freezer each making excellent tomato soup in the winter.

Now I shall sit down, listen to my audio book “Firewall” by Henning Mankell and knit some on my slippers that I have started a year ago.

Good night :-)

View Full Album

A fire in the fireplace

When I got up a little earlier than normal it was only 16C in the house, so we finally broke down and had a nice fire in the fireplace. Later on the sun came out and it was almost too warm in the house. It reminded me of mornings in Arizona when we would have a fire and huddled around it. Most of the time there was the knowledge that it would warm up if we waited long enough.

We also had a catalytic heater in the 5th wheel that would keep us warm. We boondocked most of the time and did not want to use electricity to run the furnace. Our small generator was used very seldom since we had solar panels that looked after everything very well.

I finally went shopping this afternoon. Sometimes a week or more passes before I get to it. Years ago I loved to shop but not any longer so now I wait until I have to do a lot and get it done in one trip, although I still have to take another trip into the “big” town of Duncan. Lately we have a lot more shops there and I find it unnecessary to drive further than that.

For the rest of the evening I shall take it easy :-)