Christmas Eve

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…

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

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

It’s over

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

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

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

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 ☺