Happy Day

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

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

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

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

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

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 ☺