Roast Garlic and Other Yummy Things

Flying, Frocks and Fishies.....

2011-05-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

this past week has been a busy busy one, not much gardening was done... it's still chilly and very unwelcoming to my peppers and tomatoes and down right killing to the 2 little cucumber plants that i bought... AND all are in my greenhouse with heat pads and lights... i can 'feel' them shivering in their pots... i managed to build a few barriers from Digger Dora and maybe even the bunnies and occasional deer that might wander closer to the house....

last Friday daughter and i got to go to a lecture for Autism and anxiety...Facing Your Fears: Group Therapy for Managing Anxiety in Children with High-Functioning Autism, it was an an 8 hour day presentation for parents and professionals and then on saturday another 8 hour day for professionals only, put on by ACT ( Autism Community Training) and the host speaker was Dr. Judy Reaven from the University of Colorado.. Dr. Reaven is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine and is the Director of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic of JFK Partners...some of the methods of dealing with anxiety are in the video on this link it will give you an idea of some of the lecture... daughter bought the book set Facing Your Fears which includes a therapist manual, child's workbook and parents workbook... one of the first things we are going to work on... bees and wasps!!!
i'm glad i was invited along, was well worth it...

before getting the lecture we got to fly to Vancouver... on a small plane, a bit lumpy but fun...here's a view as we were leaving Nanaimo Harbour...

crossing Georgia Strait

Vancouver Harbour

the size plane we flew in

on the return trip we took the ferry and i got some rather 'chilly' shots of some of the coastal mountains by Horseshoe Bay... rather reminds me of the Fiords of Norway perhaps... and yes.. unusual at this time of the year...

Vancouver Skyline

bye bye Vancouver..... i'm so not a city gal.....

well that was Friday... Saturday was a fun day.... eldest granddaughter's prom day.... so old... just seems like yesterday she was a baby toddling about.....

what fun... down to the waterfront pictures galore... sushi for dinner, then off to the dance... then after parties....
ahhh to be young!!

Sunday..... new day to do things..... the weather was stellar still and so the other two grandkids and i went to the beach.....

i loaned them my camera and they took some great pictures

of one of the eels they found

they had great fun... the eldest found a bucket and they wandered the beach looking for critter treasures... rocks and shells overturned, crabs a plenty, some bullheads (sculpin) and a few starfish...

and this dead fish below... which we think is a Pacific Needlefish, scanning the internet i came up blank.. anyways if you know what it is.. please let me know...

and now you know why so little gardening this week....

p.s. thanks to queen of string who knew who this little guy is... http://www.elasmodiver.com/Bay_Pipefish_Pictures.htm

Bitten by the bug.......

2011-04-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

if your sqeamish... don't read any further.... if you want to know by what... keep reading....

last Saturday i was out in the garden, making fences to keep digger dora out of the beds and generally tidying up... went to throw in some laundry and something in my chest was poking me... i actually thought i'd managed to get a blackberry thorn stuck under my bra strap.....

wrong!!

a tick...a nasty little black legged tick burrowed into my flesh...YUCK... now i can put up with a lot of insects but ticks are not one of them... they are a bit like playing Russian Roulette... round and round we go, which one is a carrier.....of ... Babesiosis, Colorado Tick Fever, Ehrlichiois, Lyme Disease, Relapsing Fever, Rocky Mountain Fever, Tick Paralysis and Tularemia... depending upon where you live of course......

grossed out yet??? i am!!

this year has been an incredible year for ticks here... i've found at least a dozen of the little devils on the dogs...usually i get them right away, put a drop or 2 of tea tree oil on a Qtip and dab on the tick.. within an hour the tick is dead and removal easier...

anyways...

it was Easter Weekend so doctor's office was closed until today... i went in complete with a photo of the area where it's all red and swollen and the tick in a bag, (mine i killed with teatree oil but today was told they lab requests live specimens).... already i know that i'm going to have to make a few waves in order to get treated..... why you might ask.... because Lyme disease is not well known, not well addressed and finally the government is realizing, poorly diagnosed.... how do i know this??? because last year i went to a seminar on Lyme Disease on Vancouver Island it seems there are some very serious issues.. one being that a great number of people were told there is 'no' Lyme Disease on the island... hmmm i say, considering of the at least 100 people at the seminar, everyone of the audience either had Lyme Disease or knew of someone with it.... so many of the folks said the same story.. that's not possible, not here, couldn't be a tick bite, must be a spider and the list of excuses goes on... fortunately someone is finally waking up...
here is an article from The Vancouver Sun regarding the B.C. government commissioning a report on Lyme Disease in B.C. ... the findings are: "testing is poor," there is "no treatment for chronic Lyme disease patients," "the true incidence of Lyme disease in B.C. is unknown," "the majority of GPs lack knowledge about Lyme disease" and "the current state of diagnostic methods for chronic Lyme and other related infections is poor." i'd have to concur..... the doctor i had today was good.. i'm glad... she finally agreed that prevention was worth it and gave me a prescription for the antibiotics but not before i repeated several times that i have friends who have Lyme Disease and i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy... they were ignored, told they had any number of other things including 'all in their heads' here's the name of a counsellor you should see...they are both in serious condition from 'side affects' of the Lyme Disease.. all because they weren't treated immediately.....

the moral of my post today is if you've been bitten, try and get the offending tick ALIVE in a jar, get treatment as soon as possible.... and if you have to nudge the Doctor into prescribing antibiotics so be it... an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... or in the case of Lyme maybe not even a cure....

here is a list of Foundations:
CanLyme (Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation)
The Lyme Disease Foundation
American Lyme Disease Foundation
Lyme Disease Network
just to name a few
and a very good film about it
Under Our Skin
you can find excerpts and trailers on youtube by typing in Under Our Skin....

a good online news article:
CBC news

this is it after a couple of hrs... when i first discovered the tick, the area around the tick was a raised red mass about the size of a quarter.... what you can't see here is that it's very sore and raised up and actually hurt... until this morning it was like that, this morning it's still the red centre with what looks like a blister in the middle......had i not been more informed i might have thought 'oh it's just a bite' and not bothered with the doctor...

Earth Day 2011 .... love our earth.....

2011-04-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

whether your on the beach or beside the ocean

wandering in the forest

or in the desert

big

or small

or just hanging around...

wherever you are

to you all...

“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”

Ayn Rand

Beauty is only Forest deep.......

2011-04-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

and only a few steps away from the garden... yesterday i spotted a Trillium peeking out from underneath one of the fir trees...

beside another tree is a busy busy mound of red and black ants.. nature's cleaners.. they aren't nice if you wander too close to their nest, so i stayed away... i've accidently stepped too close before and yikes.. i was a hopping and stripping off clothes , much to the delight of my daughter who got to witness it... they maybe small but quite the biting power...

and i found Trouble..... the entrance to Trouble......

and the exit of Trouble....

bunny trouble!!!

every once in awhile i see that waskly wabbit running around and now i know where Trouble lives... i won't disturb Trouble as it seems the dogs haven't found the burrow and the cat from across the road chased Trouble but got sidetracked and wandered off after easier pickings... but i'm going to have to wrap wire around my fruit trees ... i did have the cherry tree wired, but i can see if Trouble and i are going to co-exist i'll have to protect my trees...

i've been pretty busy lately, i'm working on the original raised bed, not done yet, but getting there... i've planted a second batch of peas, all my walla walla onions and shallots, some beets and all the brassicas... i still have covers over everything, still far to early not too.. this week, i woke up to ice on the car... a reminder that the warmer days are just a tease..... momma nature just dangles a hint of warmth then poof ... frostbite!!

Big Worm Little Snake....

2011-04-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

i've been busy busy.... digging, mulching, spreading manure and compost... all actual 'pre-garden' stuff that needs to be done... the price of veggies is out of this world, when one cauliflower costs $2.50 and a cucumber is $1.50 or more one needs to expand the garden space!!!
this year is the 'turn over the raised beds" year... a lot of work but not something i do on a regular basis.. normally i would just top up and or scratch the surface with fresh rotted compost or well aged manure, but this year the 10 huge bags of aged manure from granddaughter's highschool football team, the 2 old compost piles and the bags and bags of 'stewed' greens from my friends house are all being put to good use... in between rain and cold and icky weather i've managed to turn over most of the raised beds, topped up around the fruit trees and am now working on the original raised bed i had....

it's old and most people would consider not worth having but over the years supplied me with potatoes and squash and different herbs as well as a colourful supply of daylillies..... the bed originated with a load of top soil that i never got finished moving, the season was getting late so i decided i would just put a frame around it and make do... well that lasted a couple of years, then my son in law and daughter decided it was 'ugly' and made me a beautiful big E raised bed, which is most awesome i must say.... see the pile of rocks in the left side of the picture? i've spotted many a snake or alligator lizard sunning themselves on the warm rocks in spring and summer... i love those slug patrollers!!!

i'm not sure how much i'm going to do with the bed this year, but i'm going to divide it into sections, put in some squashes and a very thick layer of hay around them and pray that the beds don't get too dry over the summer....
i tend to be a bit of a 'buddhist' gardener... i have issues with squashing slugs and insects, stepping on snails or worms so i'm ever vigilant about trying to not shortening the lives of many a critter... here are a couple of the residents i unearthed today.... a sign that i must be doing something right in the garden... balance is wonderful thing......

When April Comes.......

2011-04-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

When April Comes!

When April comes with softly shining eyes,
And daffodils bound in her wind-blown hair,
Oh, she will coax all clouds from out the skies,
And every day will bring some sweet suprise,--
The swallows will come swinging through the air
When April comes!

When April comes with tender smile and tear,
Dear dandelions will gild the common ways,
And at the break of morning we will hear,
The piping of the robins crystal clear--
While bobolinks will whistle through the days,
When April comes!

When April comes, the world so wise and old,
Will half forget that it is worn and grey,
Winter will seem but as a tale long told--
its bitter winds with all its frost and cold
Will be the by-done things of yesterday,
When April comes!

Virna Sheard

Help!!!!

2011-03-31T11:25:00.000-07:00

please.... i've noticed that on other people's blogs i show up as "home" not as Roast Garlic and Other Yummy Things...... sighhhh i've searched and searched and changed a few things, but still comes up as "home"........ anyone have any ideas what i can do to fix it? oh another issue that drives me crazy... i put the pictures in then when i publish it the text comes up beside, not below where i put it...

speaking of home... the 'homespread' is coming along ... in between the incessant rain and grey, i've managed to take some beautiful aged cow manure and spread it around my Rhubarb and Strawberries, dig it into some of my raised beds and even deposit into my newly moved composter...my composter was originally over by the comfrey and the hops and was useful until the bear came and lopped off it's top... after that i never really used it so the compost in it sat for several years.... i dug up that black gold, sifted and spread liberally over the manure that i'd put around the Rhubarb... i'm envisioning Rhubarb Pie ... mmmmgood futuristic thought .....

the above picture shows the future Rhubarb Pie and Dora the Digger's latest dig... the brat!!!

things are slow this year, including me... an ever annoying neck and shoulder issue that is only allowing me to dig and do a few things at a time... an hour here and there per day... but i guess it's better than nothing... and since i've not figured out away for Dora the Digger to dig in appropriate spots i'll just continue to putz along....as for my seedlings all the lettuces, arugula, onions have managed to come up abundantly but the rest is a bomb... not one single Milk Thistle has sprouted, only 1 Black Cherry Tomato seed and only a few dill seeds managed to sprout...

first planting of peas are up... YAY!!!!
this morning i planted some Squash seeds... if any manage to sprout i'm just going to call them Succulent Suprise.... originally i had several different types of seeds that i'd saved from either my own Spagetti squash from the garden or the Delicia and Carnival i'd bought from the local farmer's market....and a most delicious Butternut that a friend gave me from her garden.. i was dilligent in cleaning and drying, all nicely labelled ready to go... until i took them to my greenhouse..... i was distracted and got to doing something else in there and whoosh my arm hit them and splat on the floor they went..... anyways.... Succulent Suprise was planted this morning... hopefully some will sprout!!

Be afraid..........

2011-03-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

very afraid....... yesterday in ' Take back Urban Home-stead(ing)s 'there was a lengthy discussion on Monsanto and seeds and one of the statements on the Monsanto page was "In the hands of farmers, better seeds are helping the world grow more, while using less. Researchers around the world, in both the public and private sectors, are working to improve seeds through the use of advanced breeding and biotechnology."

the catch word that got to me was BREEDING..... i had no idea that seeds bred... not realizing that Monsanto also was 'playing God' in the animal world too... i must have been sleeping...... missed a few years i guess...

i made comment about the breeding part and nobody replied to it so that got me snooping around on the net and i found a link to a movie which shows what Monsanto is doing and if continues will be doing to everyone on this planet....be afraid.... very afraid....

Wide Eye Cinema presents........ Patent For a Pig: The Big Business of Monsanto

the movie is not current but i think very valid as there are many 'new' and 'current' things that Monsanto has done that should make you go hmmmmmmmm and run to your nearest garden and plant those heritage, unmodified seeds and tend to your unpatented GMO free fed flock of critters......

Houston we have a problem.......

2011-03-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

today's post has been eaten...... just a few biscuits, crumbs and the ripped remains of the paper bag remain....

the above 'mutt shot' shows the guilty ones... Dora to the left, Sampson to the right....
innocence exudes from every whisker and those moist brown eyes just beg for forgiveness..... burp, slurp and a drink of water and the evidence was almost consumed...
fortunately i'd already given a few away to Brownie and Chewy, daughter's dogs and to her 3 degu's, 2 rats and 2 ferrets.. all loved them...

my recipe isn't exact because there is no rising, no 'chemistry' beyond holding together enough to be cut out and baked...

Peanut butter, Molasses and Carob Cookies

2 cups Quinoa Flour
1 cup Kamut Flour
1/4 cup Coconut Flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 1/2 cup Kamut flakes
2/3 cup powdered milk
1 tbsp. flax meal
3 tbsp. brewers yeast or Engevita Yeast (NOT rising yeast for bread)
1/2 cup of carob powder or 1 cup of carob chips
1 cup of peanut butter
1/2 cup of molasses
approx 1 cup of water (enough to make a semi sticky dough)

mix all together adding enough water to make a semi sticky dough....
take a cookie sheet and line with waxed paper or parchment paper put some of the dough on it and cover with another sheet of waxed paper or parchment paper... roll out approximately 1/2 inch thick (like regular cookies) and cut out with your favourite cookie cutter.. place on another cookie sheet and bake approximately 1 hr at 300 degrees.....

for a variation which i actually prefer...

bake 20 mins at 300 degrees then remove from cookie sheet and place on dehydrator racks and dry til crispy dry...

one of the reasons i used many different types of flours is because i have them.. some i have had for quite awhile and eventually they will go rancid.. so what a good way to use them up....anyways, i'm not fond of using wheat for dog treats so usually will use other types of flours such as Quinoa, coconut, barley, oat and even different bean flours...
while dehydrating my house was filled with the smell of peanut butter and molasses.. mmmmm

so i guess the proof of deliciousness is in the eating... burppppp

Fungal beauty......

2011-03-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

i think the Shiitake Mushroom is a rather beautiful creature... majestic even...

well i'm just impressed because it actually grew, i didn't kill it with kindness by overwatering....

the Oyster Mushroom not so graceful.. a clump of tasty goodness tho....

so all of a sudden i had a massive amount of fungal food and what to do with it... i made a stirfry and still had tons left over....

i love my dehydrater... almost as much as my pressure canner...

it's old and very well loved and has made copious quantities of fruit leathers, dried tomatoes, peppers, plums, raisins, jerky ... whatever was available to be dried.... i even tried potatoes but that wasn't such a great experiment... onions were the worst i must say... had to set up a place on the deck... the onion scented 'eu d cologne' wasn't exactly delightful... long lasting tho ;)

at the moment my house smells like a simmering pot of mushroom soup.... not so bad huh!!!

i can't wait to toss in bits of dried mushroom in my next pot of soup....

MMMMmushrooms and Munchies....

2011-03-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

i have more to come in my Upcoast series, but taking a break to show you some things...
MMMMMmushrooms are a growing!! Last week i went to Seedy Sunday in town and had a blast, bought some seed exchange seeds and some mushroom bags....the below picture shows Shiitake to the left and Tree Oyster mushroom to the right.. when i first got them i forgot to take a picture... but this is mid-week...

the next picture is 2 days later... the Tree Oyster on the left and the Shiitake on the right...

the pictures below i took this morning... a week and a day past when i first bought the mushrooms...
i don't know much about them but i'm thinking that dinner might includ a few mushrooms :D .... yum yum

the guy that i bought them from had a printout on each type of mushroom so i followed the directions on each mushroom... so far so good... the Shiitake isn't as prolific as the Tree Oyster but i do see small nodes popping up so maybe they are just slower than the Tree Oyster... anyways... yummmmmy in my tummy!!

i've been planting away in my greenhouse as well... it's just not big enough so in my mind by next year i'll have a bigger one or at least another area where i can have seedlings ...

arugula and cos lettuce is just getting going... i no longer have them on the heat mats, but will cover them if the temperature drops down to freezing... my greenhouse gets pretty darn cold when the temperature drops down, so ever vigilant ...

some cress and more different varieties of lettuces...

above you can see the seedling trays are in a box.. i was fortunate to find some fish carrier boxes from a local pet store..... they were suprised that i asked for them but they make awesome seed warming boxes... i put the heat mats in the bottom, cover with a sheet of plastic to keep it dry and then the trays or plugs ... works great.. when the temp dropped to below freezing in the greenhouse, they were toasty warm at a sweating 60 plus degrees....

below u can see how my little seedlings are covered... with what you might ask? foraged goodies!! i truly am a scavenger for things.. these covers are from a friend who had to buy new furniture and these were their covers... recycle reuse i say... the fabric is very similar to reemay which is used for crop covers... anyways.. thanks Cindy....

thought i'd show you my 50cent treasures from the hospital thrift store.... there were about 20 of them ... those clips apparently are shower curtain clips, but they work great for holding up my seed covers...

and last but definately not least...... i sorted out my seed stash.. some seeds are from a few years ago, but hey if even only a few seeds sprout so be it... i've acquired a few more packages this year including a package of peanuts... something that doesn't grow here, but thought i'd give it a go in the greenhouse....

i still have a lot of things to sprout, such as spinach, leeks, cilantro and and ..... ahhhh the list goes on......

more of the alternative lifestyle.....

2011-03-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

when the family moved up coast they lived on an island... yes.. Grandma Hacket owned an island.. small but was functional... apparently they had goats and chickens but was before my time...apparently Grandma sold the island for $800.00 and the man who bought it eventually sold it for a million dollars... sometime during the late 50's or 60's i believe...
i only remember going there to pick plums and sometimes apples from the remaining fruit trees... the house was gone and little remained.. mother nature has a way of covering up abandoned farms...
anyways...

my parents were prolific builders... they built several boats, houses and my mother's favourite hobby, woodworking ...

these float houses are really doll houses that she made... i only remember one of them, the others had been given away to family friends children..

all the characters she made herself with a treadle lathe/jigsaw combination.. here is a link so you can see what it looked like... ...i had it for years until someone convinced me to throw it out because it had a couple of pieces missing ... sighhhhh DUH for me!!!
below are some pictures of the boats they built themselves...

the Ripalong...

the Coquette... the top picture is one with the fishing poles down... for trolling... the bottom photo is one without the fishing poles... they would take the poles off for the winter when they logged and trapped....

one of the unique things about the fishing poles or the mast was if one should happen to break, my father would look for 'the perfect' pole... we'd anchor, he'd go ashore, chop the tree down, debark it and replace the broken one...

in the lower picture of the group above, you can see the smoke stack, that would have been for the wood stove and the smaller stack by the mast would have been for the engine, which most like would have been an Easthope engine .. they were very common in the earlier part of the century... sometimes even today you can hear the putt putt of the engine in some of the old restored wooden boats....

the next boat is the Rae-Maid which was built in 1950... they not only built the Rae-Maid they also built a sistership for the Hadley's who owned the local Sawmill... most of the boats were built with Red Cedar, but the stern was built with Yellow Cedar, which is even more rot resistant than Red Cedar......

the photo in the upper right hand corner is him in the pilot house...

in this boat, was an upgrade, instead of a woodstove they had an oilstove... and in the pilot house (upper cabin) they had a cold cupboard for a fridge.... the boat was high tech at the time, complete with a toilet (the head)and it had a large water tank for fresh water with a hand pump at the sink...

the next photo is the Yellow Cedar tree that they logged to make the stern out of...

they would have chopped it down and towed it to Hadley's mill to be sawn into boards for the stern of the boats...

i'll bet that stump is still there... what a tree....

more to come....

An interlude......

2011-03-07T15:57:00.000-08:00

today, over at Facebook's Take back Urban Home-steading(s) page, it was Action day.. a lot of us got together and made videos and blogs about our Urban gardens... i'm not exactly 'urban' but i am a small 'gardener', did have chickens, pleasants and 1 piggy wiggy... and am mostly interested in the issue of someone trademarking 'urban homestead' or 'urban homesteading' ... anyways... some very awesomely fine videos were posted and this was my collage of earlier photographs... if you've been following my blog, you've probably seen some of the photos.... i'm most impressed with the back to the land/old school folks that are caring and sharing.... gives me hope for the future that doesn't necessarily include McDonald's or Wendy's...

i'm still working on the scanning for my series on Knight Inlet and my parents homestead... today i was busy... we had a family dinner and turkey was the star.... and in my waste not want not mode i canned 13 pints of turkey broth... i especially like the fact that it's about as pure as you can get for broth... no salt, no chemicals.. just straight broth... and it didn't cost me an arm and a leg...

daughter gave me several packages of peat pellets and the little greenhouse boxes they come with...greenhouse here i come... woohoo....

yesterday a friend and i went to Nanaimo's Seedy Sunday... i bought some seeds and ooh'd and ahhh'd over pots of plants and specialty seeds... and came home with 2 blocks of mushrooms... Tree Oyster Mushroom and Shiitake... i've never grown mushrooms before... should be interesting and i hope that i don't kill them... we shall see....... going to the event was good, i feel a sudden surge of plant frenzy coming on... only cure is a good length of time in the greenhouse or soon in the garden.... they are saying more snow tomorrow... sighhhhhh

A little pre-history.....

2011-03-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

my father had a very interesting childhood compared to most, not necessarily a great one.. it was fraught with hardships.... he was born in Burma, of a English military chemist and a Burmese woman.. one of several siblings and the middle child... their father died while they were young.. Grandma Hacket and the children moved back to the United Kingdom and lived in Scotland, where conditions were difficult at best.. for his post education he was enrolled in Navel College... (back row, 4th from the right) and was stationed on the H.M.S. Barham

the exact year of this photo i'm not sure of, but would have been in the late 1900 or early 1920's...

the following picture is dated 1920 and includes King George VI who was in a play on 'a' ship (since i don't know if he was on the Barham or not... my father loved to show this photo to anyone that was willing to look at his photo album...

he must have had a small camera at the time because he had a picture of the final days of the German Battlecruiser SMS Hindenburg

unfortunately he never wrote what ships these are...

he travelled the world, was the only one on his ship to get malaria, was a champion boxer and had a woman in every port...

after he and his brother got out of the military, in the middle 1920's Grandma Hacket and her children immigrated to Canada, to the west coast where they went into the wilderness of Knight Inlet and decided to live...

my father got a boat and went fishing to make a living.. and thats where he met my mother...
she was a young girl who was working in a fish camp where he came to sell his fish....i'm not sure how the story goes but they got married in her home town of Courtenay and moved upcoast to settle.......

i wish i had more pictures of this part of the story but in his senior years he threw out hundreds of photos.... these are some of the very few that remain...

more to follow..... (hope i'm not boring you)

Life on the Water....

2011-03-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

was a very different life to most people but to those that chose that path, it was a very 'free' existence... my parents always claimed it was better to work 18 hours for yourself than 8 hours for someone else.. and yes 18 hour days were often.... the hard work was endless... logging and trapping in winter, fishing in summer....

Out on the Prairie wasn't sure how the house was situated so i'll explain better... it was entirely on water, nothing but the boom logs holding it to the shore...

here you can see the house on the beach.. while the tide was high they pushed it onto the beach and when all the cleaning and repairing was done, pulled it off the beach and returned the house back to where it was anchored....

my parents often remarked about the fact that if they got tired of the view, they could just tow it to a new location... sounds idealic doesn't it!!

i'm not sure of the age of this house, but i'm assuming somewhere in the middle 1940's ... previous to this house they built 3 others....

in the pictures below show the first house (from picture above) but i'm not sure who the folks are... i do know that my parents built several houses and boats, dingies and anything else that was required for themselves or neighbours...

the long poles they are using for manipulation of the logs is called the 'pike pole' ... note the laundry and of course the woman is wearing a dress, apron and heels.... (this is why i know for SURE that is not my mother, she was well known for wearing pants and comfortable shoes)...

i still find it amazing how the houses were built... not so much the skills but everything was done by hand, most likely the trees to make the boards were chopped down by my father, towed to the local sawmill and then either loaded up on the boat or perhaps a small barge to tow the materials back to the place where the house was built... i'm not sure of the process, it was before my time....

some of the settlers actually lived on land in nearby bays and coves... such as Minstrel Island... which is where we would trundle off usually once a week, for grub and mail and company.... it was a big event to catch up on the local news, greet the steam ship that would arrive with passengers and supplies......
the folks that lived on land often had small homesteads with clearings enough for a small garden and perhaps even some livestock... i remember my parents telling me of when 'grandma Hacket' had some goats and sheep on the farm on the island (another island) but i can honestly say i don't remember anyone having livestock of any kind....

next episode...... i'll give some back ground as to how my parents got to Knight Inlet and some of the famous settlers .....

Remembering the past......

2011-02-28T12:16:00.000-08:00

once there was a little girl who lived in the wilderness.... (seriously folks) and had a stellar few years as a free spirit.... so long ago.. i would think about 1955 or so... the wilderness was Knight Inlet on the British Columbia coast ... my parents were homesteaders of the coastal variety.... we lived in Sargent Pass and live in a float house which was attached to the shore with boom logs..... our water supply was a creek behind the house.... our heat was our cookstove and in the shed was a generator which ran an hour a day.....our house was tiny, consisting of kitchen/living room, small bathroom, one bedroom and my 'bedroom' which was the pantry/closet.....i have fond memories of using a blanket, which was held up by the canned goods, to cover my bed, and myself 'reading' books.... or just pretending with my teddy and 'nelly' the elephant.....i was either the nurse or the teacher... and of course teddy and nelly were either patients or students... my outdoor playmates were usually my stuffed animals or Squeaky the cat or sometimes the boys that lived further down the Pass....

such a life i think... my father made me a 'boat' with a wooden box, where i spent many hours... eventually i learned how to use the real dingy and spent a lot of time on the water... my lifejacket my mother made by hand... she used Kapok for the stuffing and i NEVER went outside without it being on... Squeaky the cat (in lower pic) doesn't appear to approve of being with me.. but i owe her my life... one time i was out on the float and was playing with 'princess hair' kelp and slipped on it... into the water i went..... i remember it only too well... as i was floating away, i wasn't concerned with drowning, i knew that i would end up on the shore nearby... mostly i was worried about being eaten by a whale... anyways back to the cat... i guess Squeaky knew that i wasn't supposed to be floating away because she went back in the house and wouldn't leave my mother alone, kept going to the door and eventually scratched my mother... my mother finally figuring out something wasn't right, went outside and saw me floating away... there was no dingy (it was with my dad who was logging) so she grabbed the pike pole and held it out to me.. after that i guess she watched more closely and Squeaky got well treated for the rest of her very long life....

to be continued......

Bags and Brussel Sprouts.......

2011-02-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

unlikely combination right? well i finished another grocery bag and yesterday was 'out and about', going to our semi-local farmer's market... well not exactly since a goodly portion of their produce is brought in from california, mexico and other points far south... i took my beautiful bag with me and filled it up.. i'm happy, they hold a lot of groceries and look pretty, had no distress with the weight of the produce... all good i'd say...

as for the brussel sprouts i've found a very very good reason to grow more and protect them better from the deer.... at $8.13 a kilogram i'll not be buying many more from the produce section of anywhere..... the brussel sprouts do very well overwintering here and in the spring the stalks produce lovely tasty new spring greens and if you haven't eaten all of the sprouts you also have those ... not bad i'd say... and did i buy some? Yes.... sigh.. why? you might ask ...because turkey just is NOT the same without brussel sprouts and cranberry sauce... we are going to have a family dinner next weekend and the turkey has been in daughter's freezer.. time to cook it up and make a batch of turkey broth with the carcass...i've now used up all my canned turkey broth and am needing more...

this winter i truly fell off the veggie wagon and have been eating a fair bit of meat/poultry and fish... not sure why, but i figure if i'm craving it i most likely missing something in my diet... i'm gradually cutting back more and more on the meat department and trying to get back on the veggie/beans/rice wagon... wish me luck!!

am going to have to grow more green/purple beans this year too since i've managed to use almost all my canned beans that i did up... i canned them because i had them and a lot of carrot leftovers and i'm a touch quirky about letting the bounty rot on the compost heap... i'm not much of a canned string bean and or carrot lover but i've used them in a lot of soups and stews and i have to admit they were a good addition..

and here comes the 'rant'... i shall be good, honest!! this link is from Mother Earth News so i'm going to 'assume' that it's pretty correct... it's an article on certain company that isn't on the up and up on their 'organic' status...... as for me IF i could find a supplier of local goats milk i'd be there like a dirty shirt.. but once again.. not allowed to buy it raw and no place local that i know of..... the milk police at work you know... the milk police, the egg police, the slaughter house police .... oh wait... here's a link to an article about how our meat has to be processed.... it is an older article but still rings true.. many small farmers literally gave up and once again many of us are forced into buying meat that is processed in large facilities.....

here on Vancouver Island there is a movement from local small farmers to break into the market, as it is now it's a very small portion of what is offered in larger grocery stores...
rant over..... back to reality....
since gas went up another 10 cents a litre... $1.23 a litre ..... i shall be home much more..so a sewing i shall go.. until i can 'sow' in the garden!!!

Snow and Sewing......

2011-02-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

yes.... sighhhh... i'm snowed in... not a lot of snow, but enough that i can't get out of my driveway... oh what to do...... i have the pre-spring garden bug and it's driving me crazy... well crazier than my normal state ....
my poor little peas.... huddled in my raised bed, tucked under the reemay and 4 inches of snow.... my greenhouse seedlings tucked in their stryofoam boxes with heat pads underneath and triple layers of reemay on them.... brrrr .... i guess we'll see how my plant early experiment goes, since this is an unusually chilly/snowy arctic blast, and those poor little seedlings thought it was spring too....

i must admit it does 'look' lovely out there, as i'm sitting on my chaise, with a cup of coffee, my laptop, Dora behind my back and Sampson curled up at the end of chaise lounge (we're a might scrunched but happy) but i was outside earlier, topping up the bird seed and trust me.. chilly it was!
yesterday i spent sewing and today i will finish my current project... i made 2 grocery bags and am working on a third one... it's not like i don't have enough grocery bags but the ones i have are beginning to look a wee bit tattered and my new ones have a hint of elegance (one must LOOK good while shopping)

this is one of the bags that i made... the new one i'm making is made of a oilskin type of fabric and i'll post a pic when i'm done...it has bottles of wine and grapes all over it... i don't drink wine, but should prove to be a conversation piece....

i 'liked' a Facebook page Take back Urban Home-steading(s) due to the kerfuffle over the trademark issue and the site has taken off... within a week over 5000 people have 'liked' and i'm really impressed with the activity it's generated... some of the folks who's blogs i read such as Deanna Duke's Crunchy Chicken have been commenting and contributing and it really is fun to share ideas with everyone.. i believe that a goodly majority of us farmers/gardeners/earth folk are generally solitary but not adverse to 'visiting' and what a great way, coffee, puter at your fingertips and ideas flowing ... last night the 5000th 'like' arrived and April the owner of Take back Urban Home-steading posted Rachel's blog Turtles Eat Lettuce .. congrats on being punted out into the limelight ....

another blog that i've followed for awhile now is Mobugs ... i really LOVE her site since i'm a bugaholic... but this week she made a post on a Crawdad (Crayfish for us Canadians) that she found attempting to walk on ice... its a heart warming story and if you have children or grandchildren i recommend having a look at it, the pics are awesome and the story will make you feel warm and fuzzy (well it did me) ... the posting after this one is a semi follow-up...

i've noticed that i have a few new 'followers'... thanks for reading and i hope not to disappoint you... cheers.. am off to sew..... laters....

The word is.....

2011-02-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

my washing machine works great!!! Daughter phoned me this morning and let me know that she'd done a load of laundry .... unfortunately her washing machine is broken so i loaned her my 'new to me' one.... she was delighted to use it... one small problem tho... it leaks... but we think it probably won't take much to fix that issue... YAY......
for those of you that posted yesterday regarding Urban Homesteading etc., great posts, i've not read all of them (there were a ton) but have enjoyed reading what i have....
the Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent a letter to the Dervaes, on behalf of the several targets of their takedown requests... the letter is great to read and hopefully will make a difference... we shall see won't we!
another issue i have is with Facebook .... as much as i love the connection it has given me, i find their 'holier than thou' attitude more than distressing...not just because the Dervaes were able to shut down several group pages but also their actions regarding shutting down breastfeeding and art sites which they deem 'obscene.... here is a link to the pictures.. if you don't mind looking at mommies feeding their babies, have a boo.. or perhaps that should be 'have a boob'... and if you object.. just don't look!! now back to facebook.. grumble grumble... one of the owners of a site that was shut down due to the Dervaes objections is unable to find anywhere to send them a letter..... soooooo she wrote a great one and is sharing it with others in the hopes it will be addressed... here is the facebook link, ..... enough grumbling for one day.. don't want to overload my brain and blow a gasket or anything ...

a cold snap is on it's way... complete with cold bitter winds and possibly snow.... in all reality snow first then winds would be better, sometimes snow is a good thing helping to insulate some of the more tender plants...

i have to thank my friend who bought new furniture... they were all covered with some fabric /reemay like product which i cheerfully scored and saved...... new use..... in my greenhouse, covering my new seedlings from the impending drop in temperature..... i must admit i get great pleasure out of recycling things..... i even have my kids saving me things (and yes they DO think i'm a bit ummm... quirky ) such as string and binder twine (from hay bales) , all good and useful items in the garden....

Urban Homesteading (minus the trademark)....

2011-02-20T23:30:00.000-08:00

normally i wouldn't blog about an issue two days in a row, but you know what.. i'm annoyed about the whole issue... and i'm also glad in a rather odd way... i've come across some great new blogs and connected with some like minded folk...
so back to the 'why' i'm blogging again on the same issue as yesterday... it's to show some solidarity with other Urban Homesteaders (minus the trademark) who have been practicing their own brand of Urban Homesteading (minus the trademark), not just the past 2 years, but for years... today (monday) is what i'm going to call an international day of Urban Homesteaders Day of Action , the trademark that is in question affects not just Americans.. it affects all of us... i'm still at a loss as to 'why' it was accepted.. was someone sleeping at the switch?? something 'stinks' and it's not my sweet smelling pile of horse manure, lying rotting and waiting to be spread on my Urban Homestead (minus the trademark) garden.... ahhh feels good to be a rebel.....
i'm looking forward to reading a number of blogs tomorrow... Deanna Duke over at The Crunchy Chicken is requesting people to post their blog Urls if they are going to be rebels and join in on the Urban Homesteaders Day of Action... should be a fun read....

in last blog i mentioned that i'd planted peas... tonight it's supposed to snow..... i'm hoping this is incorrect!!! but i've covered them with a reemay house (made of pvc pipe and reemay).... it's rather cute... reminds me of a covered wagon.. i'll have to get out and take a pic... the actual raised bed is a half life raft capsule that someone gave me last year... it worked very well last year when i planted it up with 3 different kinds of pole beans and 2 spagetti squash plants... this winter i dug in some veggie scraps and freshened it up with some new soil.....there were only a few holes in the bottom but when i dug around yesterday i found some worms... YAY ..... worms make me very happy ... (easily amused aren't i )

speaking of worms.. i've been following some worm gurus and am hoping to try out a bit of worm farming this year... right now it's too cold start them... so sometime later in the season...

anyone want to play with mr. sadsack Sampson? he was very sweet and sat there for quite sometime, watching me, waiting for me to open the door and come and play.... life of a farm dog is good .....

OKAYYYYYYYY i suck......

2011-02-20T11:51:00.000-08:00

and my deepest apologies ..... i've been away for so long... i'm not exactly sure where i've been... i did all the gardening things, canned and preserved things for winter.... and then the doldrums.... long doldrums... but not unhappy... just bleh... between driving grandkids back and forth to school and doing family things, and even a quilt i've been quite busy over the winter....

you (if i have any followers left) might have wondered what happened to me, i received several notes from people wondering if i was okay, i replied and hopefully you got them...

you might wonder what woke me up...... facebook did.. royally... a mental stirring if you will... the issue of trademarks and a certain family that have created quite a stir....... i suppose i'm not suppose to mention the issue at hand without referring back to them.. but tough... since URBAN HOMESTEADING (minus the damn trademark) has been around for a very very long time... the issue that they 'invented' it.. is obsurd... my grandparents were 'urban homesteaders'... they lived in a small town and had a huge garden, chickens, fruit trees, berries and the like.. my aunt and uncle lived next door and had a huge garden, chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, sheep, goats AND 4 pigs.... all URBAN, all homesteaders... thats what people did to survive, have clothing often and other assorted things.. self sufficiency wasn't something that was hip/cool or anything else.. it just WAS..... as for today's world... the more URBAN HOMESTEADERS the merrier!!! we all need to be more self sufficient, to share and care and just be supportive of each other....

i've 'liked' several 'organizations on Facebook because they all 'give a damn' about the issue... for myself, i worry about the precedent that it's setting... i could go on about it, but i suspect that most of you are more than aware of whats going on... here's a link.. many articles and blogs are out there with their opinions etc....

ahhh i feel much better.... my rant for now is done... but definately not forgotten..

just a note.. was out in the greenhouse... i have tiny arugula, lettuces and cress which have popped their cute little green heads out into the big cold world........ bees are arriving during the warmer part of the day, my snowdrops, crocuses are blooming and the daffodils are a couple of inches up... i planted some peas yesterday, covered them with reemay and we shall see.... it's earlier than i normally plant peas but then again...

YAYYYYYY spring is on the way........

see my new washing machine... i'm sooooo jazzed... been looking for a very long time!!! it's an 'apartment' sized one and will be perfect in the summer when my water is at a premium!!! it was a very worthwhile $75.00 and is in mint condition...

Sucking it up....

2010-09-07T23:18:00.000-07:00

i'm really not sure what is going on, but my blue water barrel has been a watering hole in the past few days... hoards of bees, several different species, and wasps have been drinking madly...i've observed the bee 'dance' they do to let the rest of the gang in on their findings... odd stuff i say... if anyone can tell me why the odd behaviour please do tell!!!

sooooo more buggy events... did i ever mention how much i love insects ;)

this wee jumping spider, species unknown, found lunch on the windowsill... i didn't have my camera handy on viewing the initial pounce but did get it out for the remainder of the 'event'... i must say i did feel badly for the fly... hard way to die...

one has to admire the tenacity of the spider to hang on to his dinner...i removed spider and fly from windowsill to outdoors to take 'better' pics... moved them around several times (for better lighting) and not once did the spider let go... i guess lunch was tasty!

outside in the garden i didn't have my camera but there was a difficult drama going on, a poor honey bee and one very determined red/black ant...in the hopes of saving the bee i had to detach the ant from the bee several times, mr/ms ant just came coming back for more.. finally with a dry stalk of grass and a good flick the ant went for a flight of his own.... as for the bee.... i put him/her in my garden in what i hoped was a safe spot... at least for a short while!

Island hopping.....

2010-08-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

last week a couple of friends and i went island hopping... Salt Spring Island to be exact! if you've never been and are on the west coast, it's a very 'cute' little island which is what i like to think of as 'artsy fartsy'... i've only been a few times but i think a fall visit will be required for photography... it was extremely hot, humid and smokey from the mainland's forest fires so my shots weren't very good and i didn't take very many... Salt Spring's micro climate is warmer than where i am so they get to have a bit longer seasons, not so cold and have great little farms which they are famous for their lamb...they are famous for the Salt Spring Island Coffee Company and most famous for some of their art and music inhabitants..

arriving at Vesuvius Bay...

i found this article from the Seattle Post while i was hunting to see just WHO lived on Salt Spring Island besides Randy Backman and Robert Bateman.. it's a great little article to peruse and gives you an idea of what Salt Spring Island is all about...

the stone building says 1901 on it, so am assuming it was built then.. as perhaps the barn in the next picture... they were on the same property....

this was the Morningside Bakery/Cafe that had the most scrumptious goodies... but their fireplace intrigued me more... and their beams for the roof!!

on the way home, after we got back on Vancouver Island we went to Cowichan Bay to a little pub with a great view!!!

can you see the Dragon boat?

was a nice afternoon spent snooping around.. next time i go, it will be me and the puppies and i'll be checking out many more places... hopefully passing on some pics your way!

Dog days....

2010-08-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

of August.. yikes... already it's here... and what did i see this morning...... Geese flying in formation..... i'm assuming its a practice run but there is a definate pre-fall feel, the temperature has lowered, the humidity is up and the garden has that August frazzled look.... the beans are just starting, i've had a few cucumbers and a lot of tiny tomatoes... it seems that i neglected to plant any bigger tomatoes.. no sandwich size... must remember for next year.. (thats what my blog is good for!!) i suffer from a cronic case of CRAFT (Can't remember a flipping thing) disease... and no, nothing new either! anyways... next year i MUST plant at least 1 beefsteak type tomato.. i've even had the first start of my cute little Patty Pan Zucchini... i was beginning to wonder what was going on... flowers flowers and more flowers but nothing would set... i have what looks like crookneck squash and 2 spagetti squashs flowering and even some fruit... wish me luck!!! i've been doing some succession planting of salad greens, a couple of rows of peas and made a spot for my fall brassicas...
my peppers are doing very well and i've had a few in salsa and added them to some dinner things and salads...

this past weekend was a bit of a road trip over to Port Renfrew, which is on the southern west side of Vancouver Island... was a gorgeous day so got a few pics... the bear was on the beach, and thankfully not too close as there have been some 'issues' with bears lately... perhaps they are fed up with us humans!

Sockeye Salmon... this year so far is a decent run of salmon... lets hope more get up the rivers than on the plate!

these guys were setting out a net for fish... one guy swam out and threw in an anchor with a bouy attached, the tide came in and the net stretched out... poor fishies!!

Fireweed

Fireweed fields in the mountains

sorry about the placement of the photos, i'm having some issues with the editing... i'm not sure if it's me, puter or blog site.. but woteva.... you still get to see them ... cheers....

Adoptive 'children'...

2010-07-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

even in the wild there are adoptions going on....i'm not sure whether the baby is a Brown Headed Cowbird ( Molothrus ater) or a Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) .... both are Brood Parasite birds.... a very interesting but world wide phenomenon, there are a few different species but in my world the Cowbird and Starling are the parasites... they will find a host 'nest' lay their egg or eggs and leave..... the unsuspecting parents will hatch and raise the baby as their own.. BUT in most cases the alien baby will 'dispose' of the other eggs or hatchlings and have the parents to themselves... there are some excellent sites if your interested in reading more about the parasitic birds... for a more detailed study on the parasitism of Starlings here is a great site
i've been trying to get a shot of the parent Junco feeding the baby but as of yet, this is the best i've come up with... as for this 'family' there are no other babies, just this one, so am assuming the junco babies were destroyed either as eggs or as hatchlings.... 'ain't' life grand ....

i've been busy in the garden, finally got a few ripe tomatoes, some budding cucumbers are coming along nicely and yesterday i planted some containers with a mixed bag of arugula, lettuce, onions and beet greens... they are in a cool shady spot and hopefully if the temperature doesn't skyrocket i'll have some tasty new greens in a few weeks...

this is what happens to a leek flower when it doesn't open correctly!

this red cabbage is from last year... it came up so beautifully i decided to leave it.. it's not flowered yet, just keeps growing and growing... i keep thinking the leaves would be good for cabbage rolls but since it's from last year and doing so well, i just don't have the heart to pluck it's leaves.....

this hoverfly was pollenating my parsley plant..i guess some people would call me 'odd' but i find wings fascinating.. how such a delicate appendage doesn't rip, tear or fall off is amazing...

the Daddy Longlegs had it's one leg stretched out... thats some gams! i noted that something black was on it's back.. i'm not sure what it was, parasites perhaps?

Blues and Babies.....

2010-07-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

Blues

been awhile since i last posted.. since the last depressing post, i've been kind of in a funk... i hadn't realized how much the death of ms cougar affected me... mr bear i've heard also joined ms cougar in heaven... i really just don't get it... if you live in the country, one should meld with the country and that includes our wild life...'townies' as my children call them... come out to the country, spot the most beautiful site... say " this is the most beautiful spot' promptly bulldoze and build a McMansion right on 'the most beautiful spot'... then when a wild critter does wander forth, promptly phone the 'conservation officer' who comes out and if the animal is deemed a 'threat' then disposes of the 'problem'..... when all along the 'problem' was the human..... my son in law stated this recently... ' you know, the best thing we could do for the wildlife is drive it away, then our neighbours won't have anything to shoot at, complain about or generally 'hate'..... how sad is that....

anyways... enough 'funk'.... i'm trying to be cheery and happy about the fact that the deer arrived and ate a goodly portion of the leaves off my apple tree..... daughter says 'mom, they gotta eat too'...

arrrumphhhh just not MY apple tree!!! that poor apple tree has been delicious for too many things this year... aphids, apple caterpillars and now deer.... it still has apples tho... at least for now....

Babies

Baby Finches that is.... i've been watching this family come and go from my feeder... i've been debating whether or not i should leave it up as momma is teaching babies to come to the feeder and not go scrounge for goodies in the wild...yesterday i noticed she had them on the ground and they were busy pecking about soooo.....
i also have an enormous amount of kale seeds just about ready to burst forth give any self respecting bird a tasty treat... for the birds i've always left any last bits of kale, mustard, or any types of greens to go to seed but kale is definitely the most prolific ... anyways i'm thinking momma finch is going to do the proper thing and teach babies that seeds are on the plants and on the ground... not just in my feeder!!

R.I.P Ms Cougar......

2010-06-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

today was a very sad day on the farm.. not only for myself but my daughter and her hubby... we've always stated that this is sacred ground for God's creatures.. small and large.. unfortunately due to some very irresponsible 'farmer neighbours'' earth is minus one very beautiful creature... and it was especially sad because that beautiful creature's life was snuffed out here on the farm..... her crime - the death of sheep... sheep who's owners didn't put in the barn at night... negligence on the part of the owner as far as i'm concerned... not only did they 'murder' the cougar, they murdered the sheep who's lives were shortened because someone couldn't be bothered to make sure they were safe... unfortunately ms. cougar couldn't read the no trespassing sign, or read a manual that told her what she could and could not eat... i'm know there are plenty of people who would disagree with me.. you know 'sheep killer' etc., but when one puts dinner in front of them... hmmmmmmmm......

my daughter and son -in-law did a very valiant effort to save the cougar and i wish more than anything that they could have saved her... the 'conservation officer' stated he'd try to save the cougar, but we all know.. relocation doesn't happen often, rarely if ever.. for bears or cougars.... we asked how many cougars on the island.. he stated 400-600 animals... in my estimation that is getting down to the extinction wire... (our island is large..... Area: 31, 284 square kilometres (12,076 square miles). i have to say i'm ashamed to be human today...we as a group have raped, pillaged and destroyed everything in our path.....

anyways... R.I.P Ms Cougar

she's in the tree... look just above the centre of the picture and you'll see her hiding in branches...

after she was 'tranquilized', she fell into the creek below....
words can't express how i feel about seeing her lifeless body being dragged up the hill ...

From beasts we scorn as soulless,

In forest, field and den,

The cry goes up to witness

The soullessness of men.

~M. Frida Hartley

p.s. as for the bear that is wandering around we will not call the conservation officer, but we WILL continue to make sure our garbage is clean and tidy, our compost is buried deeply, our dogs in check, in the fall our fruit will be picked or composted properly and hopefully he will wander the land in peace.....

The Good, Bad and the Ugly....

2010-06-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

was a great movie.. but Momma Nature's movie is even better...so sorry i don't have a movie.. BUT .. IF i had oodles and oodles of 'dough' perhaps i'd have one of those fancy dancy video cameras that does Macro/micro what-have-yous.... but i don't.. so still it is.... and ONE day i'll have a better lense... but in the meantime i'm happy to you show you the good.... bad and (not so) ugly....

the good.....

Nasturtiums...an all purpose plant... great to ward off some of those 'evil' aphids... tasty flowers and seeds to eat... the flowers can be just eaten in a salad or maybe dipped in some batter and deep fried, make a vinegarette, stuffed...the list goes on.... and the seeds are a poor man's capers... not so bad huh!!! apparently the earwigs have found my nasturtium leaf delicious, but not quite as delicious as my marigolds which now have the appearance of a tree who's leaves have fallen off in september....

in my previous post is a picture of two very frisky little ladybird beetles...they have long since flown away... BUT....

'ladybird ladybird fly away home, your house is on fire and your children are alone. (eating those BAD aphids!!)

you can see this baby ladybird beetle larva is having a 'tasty' aphid meal... yummy yummy in my tummy....

and below, i believe this is an 'older' sibling of the above ladybird larva

a brand new hatching of babies... woohoo....

the bad.......

i'm really not so sure what this is... BUT i suspect that it's something come to eat more of my apple tree...

just a note * the apple tent caterpillars i seem to have under control... whew!!!

and the ugly....

a LOT of folks really really don't like snakes, think they are ugly and are terrified of them or just plain annoyed by their existance... pity because they do so much good...as for me i love to see them in the garden and this year is a great year for the garter snakes, at least here on the farm.. i've spotted quite a few... the large amount of slugs i had are no longer.. haven't seen one in awhile....

this snake was 'visiting' another snake.. but unfortunately i disturbed them before the 'dance' ... so sorry mr and mrs snake..

all the critters were found in, on or under my apple tree that was infested with aphids... as for the aphids, they seem to have died down to a dull roar... so i'll leave them and see what transpires... so far... 'full circle'...

Oh My!!!!.......

2010-06-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

after i sprayed the one apple branch with the lemon juice and water i thought i'd better go have a lookie-loo and see if i'd killed any of the dastardly aphids.. and look what i found!!! not only those 2 frisky ladybird beetles but some other multiple legged critters...

below is a rather hairy little fellow, don't you think!!

and this wee spider seemed to mimic the wee honey ants that were tending to the aphids.....

this larger ladybird beetle had tucked himself/herself into this leaf...nothing like nature's own 'fly-in restaurant' !!!

while i was shooting pictures of the other critters these two little ladybugs wandered all over the one branch and ended up in this coiled aphid filled leaf... i'm hoping that copious amounts of eggs will be deposited here...and my aphid issue will be eaten away... i'm not going to spray the apple tree branch again but will keep a watchful eye for more tent caterpillars and carefully dispose of them....

as for the aphids which i'd sprayed earlier, they did seem to be less but the ants were busy busy milking them so we shall see....

i found this great short video on aphid farming...

and in my hunt for ladybug 'stuff' i found this very cute website page, with a poem i like.. i'm not sure who wrote the poem but it so fits my thoughts on Ladybugs...

Lovely little ladybug,

sent from heaven above,

please watch over my garden,

and fill it up with love.

Bugs in the Basil...

2010-06-16T06:51:00.000-07:00

there are a TON of aphids that hatched, waiting to be eaten by ladybugs, squished, drowned... whatever manner works the best!!! was doing well for awhile, but always suspected this was going to be a buggy year, lack of cold winter combined with wet spring... mmmm buggy season!!! my poor little greenhouse plants got swarmed, i think i've gotten rid of most of them but they are now sitting in my basil... grrrrr...

i found a website ( Ramona's Basil Garden Love your Basil ) a few months ago and received an email with a recipe for 'possible removal' of aphids using a lemon juice cocktail ( 1 lemon to 3 cups water )

Ramona has a video clip of how to make the spray... am going to make some today and give my basil a good go with it... wish me luck!!!

unfortunately the aphids have attacked one of my apple trees too... with great gusto they've mulitplied and are causing the poor little tree great stress... yesterday i was inspecting the leaves and was horrified to find....... apple tent caterpillars.... babies but hundreds of them... out came the clippers and off with the branches that were hosting the hungry little critters... as much as i hated to interfer with nature.. they are now in a very large bucket of water... hopefully all have all gone to buggy heaven....

i have my fingers crossed and will be watching closely to see if any more of the dreaded critters hatch... 'they' have predicted a tent caterpiller year because of last winter's mildness.. guess we'll see... this will be the first year that this little tree has had more than 3 apples on it.. i may end up removing the apples so the tree can heal itself... i only have 2 apple trees, both Gravenstein , in my opinion, one of the best varieties of apples..when i think of Gravenstein i think of Grandma's big old apple tree that was in the front yard, down by the river... ahhhh fond memories...

The Living Room....

2010-06-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

2 posts back i mentioned that my friends lost their house to fire... they've since moved into their trailer and thank goodness it's 'late spring' and not winter... thought i'd share the view from their outdoor living room ....

the clothes on the line... rescued from their washing machine... sometimes small things are miracles!!

our dear friend Shadow who has coped very well in his new home...

notice the hail!!! as we were sitting there a thunderstorm unleashed hail and copious amounts of rain.... such is life in the country!!!

Speechless......

2010-06-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

well almost..... these three lovely tomatoes, medium sized.. organically grown..... $5.12

my tomatoes that i bought as plants.... $1.50 each ... on sale....

and i have a ton of ones i raised from seeds, at $1.99 a pkg. ......
if you look closely you can see a small tomato.... i can't wait for that first tomato to ripen, smell like a tomato and taste like a tomato... mmmmm thank you creator...

June is here........

2010-06-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

but except for the fact that its about 60 degrees, it might as well be march!! Rain rain and more rain.....my garden looks lush.. the parsnips in their second year are 4ft high already... the peas finally awakened with their first bloom... when the sun does come out.. ahhhhhh you can almost feel the relief... on a good note, i've not been short of water yet!!!
yesterday we found this little alligator lizard... looks as if it's been in battle already, seems to be blind, the tail already been lopped off... so 'allie' went home to my daughter's.. she got out a spare tank and settled allie into the new home... i'm sure allie will get the best care possible and grow healthy and strong.... in case your wondering, she raises lizards so has an endless supply of crickets, slugs and other assorted goodies... mmmmm aphid snackies... sounds good huh!! speaking of aphids, they've arrived... in my apple trees, the parsnips, the kale... where are the ladybird beetles!!!

back tracking a week..

my friends were burned out of their home and as we watched in disbelief we were reminded of how precious life is.. they came out of it with life, limb and Shadow their dog.. friends and neighbours (of whom some they'd never met) rallied together, supplied them with clothing, shoes, blankets, pillows and whatever else they needed... for at least 4 months they will be living in their travel trailer and as the Phoenix, they will rise out of the ashes... life is good....

also had a visitor a few days ago.. a very large black hairy visitor!! was a rather scary few minutes!!! my dog sampson was outside and got to meet his very first bear... i looked up in time to see sampson get up and move very slowly, i looked towards where he was looking and my first thought was 'who's big black dog is that' and then suddenly realized that it was no dog at all... my heart was pounding asi raced to the door and tried calling sampson back.. fortunately after a few frantic screaming calls he came....and the bear sauntered across the field and into the woods..... whewwwwwww is all i can say... dog and bear 40-50 feet away from each other could have had a very bad ending...

Urtica dioica....... how your leaves caress my arms... my legs..

2010-05-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

and ouch ouch........ the stinging starts..... the local cure??? Mr. Burdock!!!

i'd actually planned this post awhile ago.. got busy, other things came up.. you know how it goes... then i read a great previous post from Moj Vrt on Stinging Nettles... my post idea wasn't for the tea/fertilizer but for the cure for the nasty stinging that comes from being in contact with them and other uses for Stinging Nettles..

i might add, not all of us are affected by them... my grandson can run through them, touch them, grab them and any other manner of abuse by them and not be affected... at all!!! but me... noooooo thanks... it's an ouch... for many years i was unaware of the 'cure' for it, then one of my daughter's friends told me to scrunch up a Burdock leaf and rub it where the stinging was... guess what--- it works!!! now i've discovered that the lowly (low growing ;) ) Plaintain is also handy for the remedy... i once read that for every not so nice plant there was a remedy plant growing nearby...Creator was kind, we just need to observe and pay attention to whats growing around us!!! There are other great uses for Stinging Nettle too.... it's a great spring tonic plant.... i actually have fond memories as a child, eating steamed stinging nettles and drinking the broth.. it tastes much like beef broth... my parents and aunt and uncle were well grounded folks, we picked all manner of wilds.. but Auntie Nina and Uncle Jim were into herbs and wild greens... thanks to them, i've had a life long affair with wild edibles!!

Ahem...back to the Stinging Nettle..i've seen recipes for it, such as stinging nettle quiche, here is a link to some recipes via Mariquita Farms , you might want to peruse through their website... it's a goodie.. at least i think so!!!
Nettles can be made into clothing and rope, it's just an all round good plant to have 'handy' in quantity!!
i know that dried nettle leaves are good fodder for poultry and other livestock but found another website Vitality Magazine that had a few other uses... including wine...... hmmmmmmmmm nettle wine... would be good with beef i'll bet... and here is a link for a Dandelion and Nettle Beer the ingredients also call for other wild goodies, like Burdock!!
as for growing Nettles.. they absolutely LOVE manure... richer the soil the better... at one time our barn was utilized by horses, cows, chickens etc., and the 'wastage' has now been transferred to a very healthy crop of
Nettles... a whole field of it as a matter of fact....they are well loved by many different species of butterflies and moths, as you can see from this photo..

the Nettle has been revered by generations past and hopefully for future generations to come... mmmmbeer anyone??

Happy Mother's Day....

2010-05-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

to Mother Nature.... thank you for your tireless efforts and putting up with us humans.....

Peas Porridge Hot......

2010-05-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

peas porridge cold..... what do you do with porridge one day old..... MUFFINS... i'm not much of a cereal eater, but sometimes there just is nothing like a hot steaming bowl of porridge... i make my porridge with oats, raisins or other dried fruits and a bit of sugar.... sometimes adding some sort of spice like cinnamon or allspice or even the generic (store bought) apple pie spice... and always there is some porridge left over.. usually the puppies get it as a treat but today.. muffins!!! the recipe i used is 'doctored' as my per usual but the basis is from GRIT .. the recipe was easy and the muffins are tasty... in my recipe i used the cup of leftover porridge and added a scant cup of oats and reduced the buttermilk to 1 cup, to offset the already cooked and moist porridge... stirred it all together, cracked in the egg and added the sugar.. stirred till the egg and sugar were all mixed in... added the dry ingredients and mixed like regular muffins... baked at 400F for 15 mins.... yummy yummy....

yesterday i made the best bread i've made in years.. the weather co-operated, the humidity and temperature must have been favourable.. YAY my daughter gave me a great compliment.. 'those buns look and taste like what you'd buy in the bakery'... that compliment will be tucked in my heart for awhile!!! the bread i make in a very long smaller sized loaf pan... perfect slices for me....

today..... is 'dump' day... once a year daughter and i wander off to deposit those dreaded 'what do i do with that' items ... the garbage dump annoys me... just the idea of having so much 'garbage' sighhhhhhh.... i'm trying hard not to use plastic products but it seems never ending.... just recently i asked a good friend... do you remember what it was like before plastic? she replied 'oh yes, we used waxed paper, paper bags, put plates on dishes (to store things in the fridge) wasn't it aweful, thats why Tupperware was invented' ....... personally, i wish we were still back there with waxed paper and paper bags ......

Just checking in......

2010-05-05T16:31:00.000-07:00

this time of the year is always a busy one... baseball season has arrived.. woohooo... i don't actually play but i'm a good scorekeeper and love the game... Coffee League... morning ball, coffee after ;) can't beat that!!!

been gardening and getting things organized even then the weather isn't exactly warm and toasty.... last night was another night of frost... i'm so thankful that i have my greenhouse... some of the plants in there are tiny and some are a goodly size.. with flowers... mmmmm nothing like fresh tomatoes!!! i can hardly wait...

the difference between what i grew from seed and the two lower plants which i bought as small seedlings...

zucchini but of a patty pan type... they are loving the greenhouse.. and even a few watermelon's have sprouted finally... the package said to plant late, so late it was... hopefully they will catch up when we actually get some warm weather....

mmmmm basil babies!!!! yummy yummy is all i can say!!!

have been watching my cold season crops that are in the garden already... apparently someone else has been watching too.. since there are some large chunks out of some of the leaves!!

am assuming the plant in the above picture is some variety of cinquefoil... any ideas??

Big Red..........

2010-04-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

well we have a new arrival on the farm... she joins Randy the backhoe, Oily the delimber, Lulu the pressure washing truck ... Big Red..... she's a beautiful buxom babe with flashing red lights and a horn that would drive a fireman to his hoses.... poor Big Red was sitting out in some farmer's field waiting for just the right owner..... my son in law... she was cheap and he's got some pretty good ideas what to do with her after he does a few major fixes... apparently she was left outside with water in her pump, it froze... well u can imagine the rest!!! he's a heavy duty mechanic and figures that it shouldn't cost too much and for the price was well worth the purchase.... so Big Red... welcome!!! everyone was having a great deal of fun on her, especially the 'boys' big and little.. varoomm varoom... woo woo.... you name the noises and they were made by the boys umm men that is... a little boy's dream.. having a REAL firetruck some day..... ahhhhhhh for childhood!!! my youngest daughter is planning on taking an airbrake course... hmmmmm

they even gave me a ride in the back... from their house to mine!!!

Ommmmmmm.......

2010-04-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

is a bit what i feel when i'm in my greenhouse... it's now getting fuller and fuller with tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, zucchini, okra and a few other things which at the moment i can't remember what they are!! such bliss transplanting wee tomatoes and cilantros, tucking their little roots in warm home mixed potting soil.... the only thing wrong with this picture is my greenhouse is already too small!!! ahhhh next year perhaps an addition is required ;) .... i just looked at the date of my last posting, i'm a slow poke... it's not that i'm not doing anything, or much to busy to post... it's just well... i think i'm boring! i've done no quilting lately but was asked to take some photos of my friend's quilts, she's entering a local quilt show and needed photos for the entries... we discussed the fact that hand quilting is a dying art... more and more quilters are doing wall quilts, like i do, which i suppose is my reluctance to do more of them.. just not 'feeling it' ya know... how many wall arts can you produce and shove in a closet or chest.... but to be snuggled under a warm, soft cuddly quilt is just the best! All her quilts are made with soft batting, no spray glue or any other foreign objects, just cotton and softness... ahhhh zzzzzzzzz....

yesterday i had grandbaby here... and of course she was off bug hunting... observing 'scientifically' the mosquito, ants and woodbugs.. seems to be her favorites lately....
the mosquito was under the microscope (figuratively speaking) and i was been thrown all sorts of questions about the life cycle of mosquitoes... i answered as many questions as i knew and later Googled 'what do mosquito larvae eat' and found this very cool Youtube video... i believe it's going to be a bumper year for insects... mild damp winter, mild damp spring... mmmm the stuff of giant mosquitoes!!! if you watched the video and have children who might be interested in other insects there is a Backyardbugs 'channel' on youtube.. its very good, simple, great photograpy and perfect for kids!
yesterday we did a bit of foraging in the garden and she was quite delighted that brussel sprout greens and flowers are yummy... and Sampson is so not 'doggish' since he was enjoying them as much as we were... we checked out the garden variety of asparagus which is now almost a foot tall.. it's amazing... i looked a few days ago, didn't see any up, in the same bed arestrawberries which are just beginning to flower... i'm sure she'll be keeping an eye out for those fresh ripened strawberries... if i don't eat them first!!!

Once upon a time.....

2010-04-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

i had a greenhouse.... for about 3 months....then we moved..... sigh!!!! that was about 30 yrs ago.... i'd always wanted a greenhouse, finally got it, then poof, we moved about a 1000 miles away... so for another 30 yrs ago i wanted a greenhouse..... and finally......

i can't tell you how excited i am!!! the total cost of the project was about $350.00 for the materials.. and $600.00 for the labour.... the windows were my Freecycle score... i have to thank my neighbour/handydude for building it for me... now i have to get the materials for the shelving... ahhhhhh a trip to Home Depot and the Restore store.... that will be later today... can't wait!!!
somewhere inbetween the new greenhouse and the building of the deck, i decided i wasn't getting any younger, veggies aren't getting any cheaper and materials aren't getting any cheaper either!! sooooo bite the bullet, cough up the dough and tada..... a new greenhouse is sitting next to my house.... when i get more of a cash flow, the 6mm plastic will be replaced by a twin wall polycarbonate sheeting... not looking forward to that bill!!!

my little seedlings are doing well, but need to be transfered as soon as possible... as soon as i have some sort of shelving in there, maybe later today, if i get cracking!!!

i had planned on posting this yesterday, but we had a wicked storm, a lot of rain, high winds and a 12 hr power outage... what a reminder of how attached we are to power.... my daughter and son in law have a generator, so they had heat for their lizards, power for the coffee maker and microwave and even a heater!! such luxuries!!! as for me... i had a very quiet day, watching the trees whipping around in the wind, the rain beating on my windows and me snuggled under a blanket, sitting on my chaise lounge, with 2 dogs sitting on my feet... a good book and a thermos of tea... was very pleasant.... even had an afternoon nap... now we're talking luxuries :D

Rata-tat-tat......spring vibrations...

2010-03-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

on my roof, on several trees..... the flicker aka 'mini jackhammer' is busy busy letting the world know he's available!!! i love the sounds of spring.. the chirping robins who've arrived in hoards... the toehee that's looking for goodies on my deck, to the chickadees and nuthatches that are zipping back and forth from feeders to trees...

i was kind of sad today, i had to bury a wee robin who'd hit one of my windows... i was amazed that sampson my 'bird' dog was interested but only in passing and seemed to understand that i was feeling sad about the bird... since having feeders up he's getting much better about not chasing them and i even managed to have 2 mallards come for 2 days and borrow my 'winter' pond... 'winter' because it dries up in about june...

i also have noted the amazing number of scurrying red/black ants... i managed to save a rather large caterpiller who was vallantly attempting to 'outrun' them.. poor creature was covered with the ants so i scooped him up with a big leaf and managed to get all the ants off him... placed him over by my compost pile, where no red ants are.. and left him to defend himself again, all the while hoping that he won't just eat all my comfry or other herb that is planted in that section!!!

it's been a bit since i last posted... my kitchen has a small addition of a microwave stand and i'm in need of discovering some sort of 'treasure' to put my spices in.... i've painted my hall, put up some 'sally ann' specials and now am in the midst of having my much wanted red front door...i know it's supposed to bring good luck, but i just feel that is brings in good energy.. and a hint of the person living inside.. (or not)!!

sally ann special #1

sally ann special #2

at first look i thought they were bathing but no.. they are fishermen and
women

sally ann special #3

all for $15.00 each and they've been sitting in my closet for several years..

i've gotten my little seedlings going, yesterday started my tomato seedlings, their a wee bit late but lots of time before may, when i'll have my little hot house ready for them....

i've attempted further organization of my big shed and in the process of all the painting and fixing.. my little shed is back to being in an upheaval... ah well... life in the 'fast' lane huh!!!

Recycling at it's best.......

2010-03-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

in my world!!! Some time ago i'd thrift store purchased what looked to be two china cabinet tops, painted and used previously as bookshelves... and i was just waiting for something to put them on... my 'plan' came to fruition when some friends came to visit and brought a lower cabinet set which consists of 2 lower cabinet units and one countertop.... TADA!!!!!

my kitchen is very tiny but now functions much better.. i'll be doing a few more changes to make it more functional but hey... i'm LOVING it!!! i now have a storage space for my pressure canner and accessories, my other big 'not always in use' pots and other things which always were being shuffled around...

in the garden world... my 'recycled bakers rack has been helping in the food dept.....

arugula on the left half and basil on the right half... YAY!!!

this morning i went to let my dogs out when i went out on the deck... they were very much preoccupied with something on the ground... i went to see what it was... sadly it was a wee little nuthatch looking much like being on the verge of death... i'm suspecting it banged into the front window .... i picked it up and remembered what my son-in-law says... 'if keep the bird in an upright position, it has a much better chance of surviving' .... sooooooo ... i recycled an old nest which i'd found a couple of weeks ago... put it in a shallow container, my gloves and the nest on top... placed the poor little bird in the nest... and hoping for the best!!

update.... just checked on the nest... empty and the birds are all back feeding...
life is good.....

Wrapping it up......

2010-02-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

so to speak... i simply couldn't stand it anymore.. all this beautiful weather, seeds to be planted, decks to be sat on, tea to be sipped on in the afternoon sun... ahhhh pre-spring... so back to the 'wrapping it up', i have the greatest little gadget which i got a few years ago and i LOVE it... didn't cost much, easy to use, no mechanical or technical devices.. just my cuppa tea!!

tada!!!! all ready for some potting soil... no trip to the feedstore for peat pots just recycling newspaper and recycling those plastic flats from way back when... gotta love it!!!

yesterday i splurged and bought myself 2 heat mats.....

today i planted up cilantro/coriander, lettuce, dill, some very old seeds which are some sort of greens... i figure if they grow, they grow, if they don't... i still have plenty of time to replant with something else..

i found a baker's rack at the salvation army that i've converted into my seedling stand(mini greenhouse)...

i also recycled the stupid styrefoam packing container that a heater came in.. it's just the bottom piece but i think it's going to work just fine...

all got wrapped up in more 'recycled' plastic... thanks Home Depot!!!

it's located under the covered portion of my deck, i'm monitoring it with a thermometer and later tonight will put a blanket over the rack... should be warm enough for the seeds that i planted... all are semi cold season crops so have my fingers crossed and said a prayer, grow babies grow!!!! if necessary, in the event of a cold snap or spring snow, i can move all of it into big shed, where it's not heated but warmer than my deck...

Mr. H.. thanks for the great link to BugGuide , i had been there, many moons ago, and had forgotten about it... in my own quest for good sites, i've found these sites too... the MOST INCREDIBLE photos about bees from THE BEE PHOTOGRAPHER .. if you've not been to his site, please go check it out, snoop around, the photos are absolutely amazing...a very complimentary site to The Bee Photographer and where i read about Eric Tourneret's site is Pencil and Leaf an interesting blog by a very talented artist with a passion for bees.... another pretty awesome site is An Inordinate Fondness which is dedicated to Beetles....

A Sad day.......

2010-02-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

for us doggie folk, who were fans of Daddy, Cesar Millan's pitbull who passed away at 16... 16 is a very very old age for a larger dog... Daddy was an ambassador for Bully Breeds may he rest in peace....

i confess, i'm a pittie lover.. i do love all dogs, but i especially love bully breeds, i love big stocky short haired dogs..... my previous love was Pit/Shepard cross... i knew his 'daddy' and 'mommy'... he was also an ambassador for the 'bully breeds' in my local circle... he loved life, loved people, most dogs, unless the other dog was aggressive, then he was assertive, but not agressive... my Shadow was just short of 14 when he passed away with cancer...

my dogs that i have now are 'rescues'... Sampson removed from a previous 'home', with a previously broken leg and slated for amputation, and Dora who was 'fostered' from the SPCA, when she was feverish after surgery...

Sampson on the left (with 4 legs), Dora on the right... thanks to The Dog Whisperer show we've come a long ways... has been difficult sometimes to train 2 puppies at once, especially after my leg injury last year.. but we're getting there!! i know there is a lot of controversy over Cesar Millan's methods, but for me, i've utilized some of his pyschology technics and had great success... they both need more training, it will be a constant work in progress...and i assure you, this is a rare photo of Dora, she's most camera shy!!!

One wee Caterpillar......

2010-02-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

only about 1/4 inch long... i'm sure fully grown would be trouble for some poor plant... found this little guy in a patch of just greening grass...

this little guy was about the same length and had an injured leg... found him in my compost bin... hmmm looking for a mate perhaps??

the next beetle? i found in my shed... almost squished the poor little fellow...

note the long proboscis... hmmm perhaps for boring in wood?... i 'think' it's a Western Conifer Seed Bug....i really need a good insect book...

he did a most delicate balancing act... balancing on his 'butt' and back legs, while cleaning his proboscis...

i wanted to show you the exquisite markings... the outer wing coverings in mirror image, his wings tucked in, looking like grainy wood.....i'm forever amazed by the beauty of nature... the awakening in spring allows me to take photos of insects because they're still slow and rather still without a bit of prompting... now lets hope these little fellows and their relatives don't eat too much of my garden or my trees...

True Love....

2010-02-18T09:02:00.000-08:00

was looking for some other pictures to post and came across this one.. i'd been wondering where it was... my mass disorganization in effect....sometimes nature appears to be gentle and loving...
the weather is wonderful... warm during the day, freezing at night.. not time to plant... must control my urge... soooo have been sorting out more things, transfering 'junk' ( you know the 'stuff' that you've saved and just KNOW that one day you'll use it for that whatchmacallit) from the little shed to the bigger shed/studio... the little shed will become what it was supposed to be.. a garden shed... also some 'recycled' cabinets will be coming in a couple of weeks... hoping they will work in my small kitchen, if not.... out to the big shed they go and will work as a great work station!!

Leftover soup....

2010-02-16T08:25:00.000-08:00

just how many times can one eat the same soup........ i don't seem to be able to manage to just make a small pot of soup, it always ends up to be a big pot of whatever kind of soup i'm making... yesterday's fare was leftover leftover potato leek soup... not the mushy creamy kind but soup with chunks of potatos, leeks, carrots, celery and whatever else i had handy that i thought would make it tasty.... when i made it a few days ago, it was fresh and tasty, served with fresh french bread, butter, cheese and a most delicious lemon cake, which my friend brought.. mmm was very good... but unfortunately that was a few days ago.. now the soup flavours have melded together, the potatoes more than soft, the leeks turning to semi-mush... still tasty, but i'm sick of it, and i've still got a quart or so leftover ... time for a transformation i'd say... Veggie Pot Pie ... i cut some cabbage, red peppers and mushrooms, sauteed them in a bit of Olive Oil, added a cup of Barley and about a teaspoon of Bragg ... for those who might not know.. Bragg is a tasty 'alternative' to soy sauce... the flavour is close enough for me... adds a rich flavour to whatever you add it to... and according to their website 'good for you' and all i know is that it's been around for a long time .... for the pot pie, i made a biscuit topping from my biscuit mix recipe and baked for 30 mins... i tried taking a picture of the end product but nothing seemed to work.. my lighting just wasn't co-operating so i gave up and ate some! was delicious... the barley worked great in soaking up the excess flavours and liquid, transforming my 'soup' to a great little pot pie... kitchen recycling at one of it's best!!!

here's my photo for today... in the Bee Theme... i took this a few years ago... the Comfry flower supplied the backdrop for a bit of drama....

Valentine's Visuals.......

2010-02-14T17:11:00.000-08:00

today was an absolutely stellar day... the sun shining, the crocus and primulas blooming.. and the bees!!!!

there are some hives at a neighbour's and for the past 2 years, the bees have arrived early, unfortunately if there is a cold snap or snow it could be disasterous for them..... but for the moment, i had a great time, just sitting and watching them be 'in love' with each and every flower...

i got to sit and bask in the sun... my vitamin D fix!!

'just hanging around'

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Wanna see........

2010-02-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

my new deck!!! and with the extension to the small shed... originally it was supposed to just be the upper part then do the rest later when i had more money... but i changed my mind, the idea of 'running out to the shed' without walking in muck was very appealing... so much against my better judgement i bit the bullet and did it all at once... and yesssss i'm sooooo happy.... i can't wait for summer to have it all painted or solid stain... the half with the table and chairs is covered, the lower half is not.. later later!! my handy dude put up a great gutter system which will drain into some of my barrels... just can't get enough rainwater in the summer.. every drop is precious!

i'm afraid my greenhouse dream has been put on hold for this year... but am thinking of making some cold frames with the windows that i got from freecycle... will have to scrounge up some more boards for them, but since it's only early February, i'm not too concerned yet...i need to be content with cruising the internet for ideas and watching diligently for freebies... for this year i'm going to use my big shed for starting my seedlings, i already have the lights and racks set up, it's not large, but enough for me... i'm thinking that my new deck will cheerfully be graced with potted peppers and tomatoes... mmmmm can't wait!!!

i've been checking on the garden to see what is growing... my rhubarb is peeking out, the swiss chard is looking very soggy and just hinting at waking up, i still have brussel sprouts to use up and the kale is wonderful... green and lush looking...just daring me to pick and cook... my favorite way is steamed and top dressed with butter and sweet pickle juice... yum yum!!! i've found some recipes online for a Portuguese Green Kale Soup so my next soup will be some sort of variation of it.. i love to make soups, nothing says warm and comforting that a big bowl of soup, besides what better way of getting rid of leftovers....

A walk in the woods......

2010-02-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

turned up a very lovely suprise... beautiful orange fungi

i wish i knew what kind it is, but i'm fungi challenged.. i've never really gotten into mushrooms, beyond buying them from the store, at one point many many years ago i did pick some shaggy manes and did a stirfry with them but that was it... i'm afraid i'm hesitant to go out in the woods and pick dinner... anyways if you scan the fungi, you will see 'someone else' is having some dinner!! Someone once said to me 'don't you get tired of viewing things through your lense... i don't.. and as you can see, this is why... when i looked at the fungi with a naked eye, i didn't see those wee critters, it was only when i uploaded the pictured did i SEE... if you click on the photo you will get to see a larger version... if anyone knows what kind of fungi and or insect i'd love to know!!!

another one

whatever they are, they turn into this gelanitious blob

as i mentioned in an earlier post, i've been going through old photos and on a buggy note here is a photo of a very large and exquisite wasp 'abode'... i'd had some foamies rolled up in the garage.. one was green and one was cream coloured... the wasps had utilized the foam to make their home...i wish that i'd gotten a better picture

this picture didn't do it justice.. nor does it show the size of the nest.... it was HUGE, this was only one portion of it.. originally i'd gone into the dark garage, spotted a blanket which i'd been looking for... went to grab it and realized that it was moving!!... it wasn't a blanket at all, it was wasps, thousands of them!!! anyways... sadly, i had to get someone in to 'remove' them ... did i feel bad? Yes... us gardeners KNOW that wasps are equally good, just don't get in their way!!!

Decking decisions.....

2010-01-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

had to be made this week... my wee porch is just that... WEE, only 6 1/2 x 7, so i wanted some sort of addition, i wanted a greenhouse, i wanted a sunroom.... i wanted i wanted... but had to settle for something multipurpose... at least for this year...

i now have an 8x10 deck addition which will have a clear polycarbonate roof next week.. this ensures that i won't lose much light in the kitchen window or the bathroom window.... i've requested it to be built so that eventually it can be enclosed and become a 'sun/greenhouse room, with steps and a lower deck leading to my small shed.... oh and did i mention in my 'dream' a small hot tub sitting on the lower deck... . one day!!! in the real world i'll be saving for my 'real' greenhouse, you know the kind.. with automated vents, glass windows.. good flooring... and enough space for a comfy chair for when i'm old grey and needing a good warm sit in the early spring.... okay okay... back to reality .... i'm very excited about this new addition... it maybe small but when one lives in a single wide mobile... any addition is a good one!!!

not only is there a new deck in the works, a new raised bed!! YAY.... now my lilacs and mulberries will have a home!

in case your wondering about the pictures... i took the above one many years ago... a few houses ago... fond memories of sitting in the shade, on my balcony, with my new Canon SLR camera, experimenting with different shots... my Oakley's when i didn't need glasses and a gorgeous begonia flower...

i believe (please correct me, if i'm wrong) that this was a ladybird larva.... there were several attached to piece of grass ....i love insects, as long as they don't eat my veggies or bite me or my dogs... RAIDDDDDDD .... just kidding!!!!

Monday Monday....

2010-01-25T07:37:00.000-08:00

is dark and dreary and rather blustery.... a typical January morning.... a cup of coffee and one puppy snuggled behind me, another at my feet, life is pretty darn good...on Saturday i went for a bit of a drive, cabin fever finally getting to me, and ended up at Russel's Farm Market.... they had red peppers and cauliflower on 'special' so ended up with a big bag of red peppers and a couple of heads of cauliflower.....
daughter has been hinting at the fact that there was no more red pepper relish left and could i make some...
the jar of relish that she had actually was made by a friend.. so i got the recipe from my friend and sunday morning was spent making relish...
the recipe is very simple, not a lot of ingredients, the hardest part was chopping and grinding the peppers the night before and then doing the same in the morning for the apples....

Red Pepper and Apple Relish

12 Red Peppers
10 Apples

grind peppers and put in a colander, sprinkle with
2 tbsp of pickling salt

let drain minimum of 4 hrs, best overnight

in the morning
grate or grind peeled and cored apples
add to drained and lightly rinsed red peppers
add
3 cups of white pickling vinegar
5 cups of white sugar
2 tbsps of pickling spice in a spice bag

cook till peppers and apples are soft, and thickened, about 40 mins at about medium low... or low if sticking to bottom of pot...
ladle into hot sterilzed jars, seal

this relish reminds me of a sweet, slightly vinegary jam and is delicious on rice, with meat, on crackers with cream cheese.....

also this past weekend i was sorting out my photos... yes REAL negatives, with REAL pictures... not digital... i must admit i really miss film... it's getting harder and harder to find and expensive to process.. which has encouraged the digital age... unfortunately i think that a great deal of our history will simply vanish... the quick turnover in technology will see to that... remember the 'floppy disc'? cds which are soon becoming defunct, replaced by huge storage external hard drives which will be replaced by..... ??? i still have floppy discs and one very old laptop which i've saved because it still has a compartment for floppy discs... anyways... you see where this is going.... the mom and pop history will vanish quicker than the dodo bird...
i've scanned a few of my pictures just to post here...
i took these 2 pictures in Alberta, about 100 miles south of Calgary.. i don't know if those are 'pre-tornado' clouds or not, but definately not something i'd seen before... imagine the wind blowing, distant thunder and standing on the edge of a field in the middle of flat land... was very cool!! i left the date on the picture, just for historical sake... i should actually hunt down the negatives and scan them.. some day!

if you've noticed some changes in my blog your correct... i've been trying hard to organize it, so one could find that old recipe of Grandma Wilson, or how to made Antipasto... i've change the header, put in a spot for 'home' so i can change the photo once in awhile and added a few more links to some great blogs...

just a quick mention of a GREAT blog, done by a friend of mine...

Rambling Jill if you haven't checked it out please do.. you will see some truly spectacular underwater photography.... jill and her husband are friends of mine, on 'vacation'... national geographic move over!!!

To Bee or not to be......

2010-01-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

the past few days i'm seeing bees ... not a lot but bees nonetheless... in January... i'm sad to say their lives will be shortlived with a change of the weather....i'm afraid it's much too soon, not many flowers out... my snowdrops ( all of a dozen at best) are looking lovely.. but not enough to feed a hive..aside from the bees there are an incredible number of other insects flying, walking, crawling around....and not even February!!

El Nino is busy busy heaping rain, hail and tornado warnings at California... some places having over a foot of rain this past week while we got a bit of a break this week and as much as i'd love to be digging in the garden, it's soggy and not safe to dig in....

today was a beautiful balmy day here on Vancouver Island...i took a pic, just because i really didn't believe that with just a hoodie and vest, i was nice and toasty, the warmth of the sun on my face.... ahhhh rejuvenation!!

what on earth?

was snooping around in an old bird bath i have, recycled as a stone bath, since it no longer holds water and there was one of my treasures... it's a 'rock' that my old Shadow brought home one day.. one of his rock treasures... and dropped it at my feet "here mom, see what i got for you!" so being the wonderful mom of 4 legged critters, i scooped it up and heaped praises upon him "what a good puppy" YAY.... then actually looked at it.. it wasn't just any 'rock', it was a fossil print of a shell... i have a habit of collecting rocks, one day when i'm too old to garden, maybe i'll have a rock garden with just a few herbs and some pots of tomatoes and peppers...

Just shut your eyes and imagine.......

2010-01-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

SUMMER!!!!!!!! unfortunately it's only 3/4s of the way through January but yesterday was a pleasant treat.. it was sunny and about 45 plus degrees... balmy for January... any day that is sunny is a day to be outside, so after school pick up, grandbaby and i went for a short walk, with dogs in tow, actually us in tow.... there is a flat road just down from grandbaby's house and thats where we went... in our world, the ditches would be clean, no garbage, no dead animals, nothing but pristine earthly beauty... in reality there was garbage everywhere, remnants of carcasses, bits of bones, and the worst of all...... PLASTIC!!!! it's interesting to see through the eyes of a young one, who was dismayed by the garbage, fascinated by the carcass and bones, and wonderously excited by the view of the distant mountains.... she couldn't understand WHY people would just dump their garbage on the side of the road... in one patch there were about 10 garbage bags full of leaves, something that could well have been composted in someone's backyard, or even taken to our local compost company who love such items... as i explained to her, it's not so bad that they deposited the leaves, but to leave the garbage bags was a sin, that worms and other insects will eat the plastic and think they are full.. and die of starvation.... grandbaby's lesson 101 in ecology

on the way back to the car we found some pussy willows of which we picked one small branch to take home..it now resides on the windowsill in a jar beside the resident plants, waiting for some roots to sprout, and eventually will be planted in a back corner of the yard...

i wasn't quite done with 'summer' and as i drove home i thought about dinner...something light and airy was on my mind.... Falafel wraps... southwestern... mmmmm good!!!

Garbanzo beans/chickpeas in my mind are one of the best beans of all for cooking, extremely versatile and nutritious.... i don't have a good recipe for Falafel from scratch, so i keep on hand a few boxes of Falafel mix.. easy to whip up in short notice....

Falafel Wraps

wraps of your choice

1/2 box of Falafel mix made into falafel patties (directions on box) (lazy i know ;) )
1/2 tomato chopped

cucumber sliced or chopped

cilantro chopped

parsley chopped

sunflower sprouts

small can of corn kernels

small can of black beans

mayonaise and small can of chipolte pepper 'sauce' ... mixed to you spicy liking

spread the mayo and chipolte pepper sauce on the wrap... 'sprinkle' the wrap with the rest of the ingredients... roll and EAT!!!!

once again, my recipes are vague, but this is definately a throw together meal... tasty and nutritious :D

i love chipolte peppers... yum yum... a wonderfully rich smoky spicy kick of which i can never use the whole can at once.. so i put it in tiny containers and freeze, thus always having some when needed...the leftover falafel, black beans and corn i'll turn into some other southwestern dish or maybe just another round of 'summer wraps'........ MMMMMMM

Morning memories.......

2010-01-19T09:24:00.000-08:00

as i sat in my chaise, sipping coffee and cruising the internet.... i observed the most beautiful sunrise... glorious shades of oranges and blues, enhanced by the moving clouds.. another storm is on it's way... yesterday there was a terrific wind storm, of which the farm managed to miss... yes the trees were moving but nothing serious.. but the drama at the shore was ferries cancelled, trees blowing down, power outages..... and me oblivious of it all.. i must say i'm totally 'home'sick for my little hamlet of Yachats... i miss walking the dogs at sunrise, in the rain, in the wind, walking them along the ocean, watching the sunsets.....the excitement of a wicked storm, the raging sea ready to swallow you whole....

visiting friends, impromptu breakfasts, celebrating a birthday, anniversary or just because we could!

sometimes memories are good... they remind one to enjoy each and every day...

a winter's day just south of Yachats Oregon (2007)

the sunrise is gone.. the clouds rolled in... and it's pre-rain...

Borscht, buns and the blahs.....

2010-01-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

Bronze Fennel skeleton

Brussel sprout greens.... and yes lots of little brussel sprouts are still there, waiting for me to pick and cook....

Winter... blah... this ol' gal is not a winter person at all... except for one thing... i love to cook which is a good thing, and i love making soups and stews... this past weekend i made Borscht and cornmeal muffins/buns... i wish that the veggies had been all mine, but alas, no.. i had to buy them... i keep looking at my very sad garden and wishing it was spring... it's knee deep in muck because of all the rain we've had lately.... seems never ending... and my pond unfortunately is full and overflowing in the winter, dry as a bone in the summer when i could use it!

there is a promise of spring... a tease if you will... some snowdrops are peeking out and saying hello again world...

my garlic chives are poking their noses out too... but i'm afraid it's much too early and at any time the weather could change, an arctic blast could do some great damage.. i'm seeing some catkins already on some trees in the city... or perhaps the plants know something we don't....

on a very serious note.... Haiti... i confess i've been watching the news... so sad.. makes me want to scoop them all up and make it better... but myself and millions of others are sitting here helplessly watching the drama, suffering and great loss of the Haitian peoples... so if you read this, please please donate to the charity of your choice.. even a dollar will help.... if 30 million people donated a dollar that would be 30 million dollars... the rebirth of Haiti will be a very long and difficult road...

the disaster is a reminder of why we should be more selfsufficient... we north americans are blessed.. even if we think we are hard done by... we need to remember there are millions of people who are a breath away from death....

on that note... i'm excited, from Freecycle, i'm getting six old windows.. old fashioned ones, with the weighted openers (like in 100 yr old houses) and i have 3 skylights waiting in my shed.... now to decided what to do with them... if the new windows are in good shape i'm thinking of building in my front 'porch'... and perhaps extending it a bit... or perhaps the greenhouse i've always wanted... decisions decisions....

From October to Now.......

2010-01-11T20:12:00.000-08:00

Well, its been awhile since i posted... a long while as a matter of fact... much has happened since then... some good, some not so good... some deaths... some births... the circle of life...

suppose i didn't post because i had to go south and move... south being my wee hamlet that i so love... Yachats... 'the gem of the oregon coast'... actually i truly believe that area is the gem of the 'coast' including b.c., washington, oregon and california...not only is the country beautiful but many of the residents are as well...anyways.. i had to leave due to rental raises and income dropping ... gotta love it! much thanks to my friends there who so diligently assisted in my packing and purging....

christmas came and went.... quiet but not bad... made a few gifts, spent a little money, and the first time in years that i spent it with my family... was wonderful but strange..

new year's equally strange.. my new year's toast without my yachatian buddy... i decided that my new year was to start with a good smudging of my house, a final goodbye to 2009 and a lighting of a candle and prayer for the new year... goodbye 2009, hello 2010!!!

on a wonderful note... yachats's latest member arrived yesterday... wee baby..... it's amazing how a birth can bring hope and warmth to even the most jaded of souls.... welcome to the world baby... the world will be your oyster....

Of Cougars and Marmalade....

2009-10-13T08:07:00.001-07:00

fall is creeping in... slowly the temperatures are dropping.. still dry as a bone tho... maybe next week we'll have some rain...
my chilly morning got off to a cooking start.. mmmm marmalade!!! a friend gave me a small bag of beautiful green tomatoes and since my motto is waste not want not in the fall season... i had to come up with something different... my standard fare of green tomato relish and green tomato mincemeat is already on the shelves from last year... so i went a 'hunting' online for something different.. and found Lemon Green Tomato marmalade from the NY Times website... was a hit in my books.... so much so.. i went and picked a bowl of my own green tomatoes and made a double batch... with a twist.... the first batch was just with lemon, the second batch i made with lemon and lime, using up the limes i had in the fridge... was very good i must say!

Lemon Lime Green Tomato Marmalade

17 cups of sliced green tomatoes
3 lemons zested and juice
3 limes zested and juice
5 cups of sugar

cook all together until thick and drops hang together on a wooden spoon... mmm good

i pulled the last of purple beans and got a colander's worth of beans... bye bye for this year...

fast forward to today... well we've had our first frost, B.C. has broken temperature records again, but this time, downwards..... brrrrrrrrrrrr is all i can think of!!!

i'm trying to finish canning, got a case and 1/2 of the most perfect pears ever!!! the 1/2 case has mostly been consumed for Thanksgiving, 2 very large Pear Pies ... i made 4 batches of pastry and we had pear pie, meat pot pies, chicken pot pies and ham pot pies...
and a pear pie experiment of which i had a hearty thumbs up to from daughter... YAY... i love cooking experiments!!!...the Pear Pie was delicious and i still have a small one left, which should be dessert or maybe even a yummy breakfast!

i'm not a pastry person, so i'm very happy making deep dish pies, so after canning 6 pints of the 1/2 case of pears i had some leftover slices which cannot go to waste (obsessive??) and created this:

enough to make 1 pie:

Ginger Cranberry Pear Pie

1 cup of dried cranberries heated with
1/2 cup of water
zest from 1 lemon
1/4 cup of chopped candied ginger

simmer the cranberries, ginger and water and zest until the water was mostly gone and the cranberries plumped

mix cranberry mixture with

5 cups of sliced pears and juice from the lemon

put in a pie pan or casserole dish

sprinkle with a mixture of

1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup brown sugar ( or less )
1 tsp cinammon
1/2 tsp allspice

top with a pastry rolled out a bit thicker than for a regular pie...
bake at 400 for approximately 30 mins or golden brown...

if you've read this far down, you might be wondering why my title says Of Cougars and Marmalade... well there is an 'errant' cougar wandering in the neighbourhood, 1 dog missing and cats?? perhaps... i'm saddened by the fact that someone has called the conservation officer over the cougar and the 2 bears that found an apple orchard... we've invaded their territory and they've no place left ... our area is being overwhelmed with 5 acre plots and mcmansions... UGH... i'm praying our cougar has left and won't be shot... sad world we live in... the deer have even moved away... now when we want to go see the deer, drive INTO town... something wrong with that picture don't you think~

Flu season is upon us.......

2009-10-02T06:38:00.000-07:00

and unfortunately 4 of us in my family have gotten it so far... 2 fairly badly, grandbaby ending up covered in one giant hive (allergic reaction to the virus according to her doctor), myself was just woozy and out of sorts for days... and now another grandbaby has come down with it...

ginger tea and more ginger tea, garlic and onions any way shape or form i say!!! i really have no idea if it helps, but i'm sure that no vampires will come a knocking on my door!!!
i've used a LOT of garlic and onion in anything i cooked.. its suprising how much i used in the last month.. i long since used up any that i'd grown... sighhhh... need a bigger garden!!!!

My one daughter has learned through me and Lades (baby grandbaby's other grandma) that sometimes traditional commercial concoctions aren't as good as old fashioned methods...

a steaming cup of ginger tea with a bit of lemon and tsp of honey are as good or better than most 'fixits' we can get from the store... most viruses aren't fooled by the pretty packaging and promises of what they can do.. most viruses simply run their course... but one can hopefully keep up the immunities in the body, soothe the throat and keep away further bacterial 'ickies'...

when i know i'm coming down with a cold or the flu if i don't already have fresh ginger i promptly go the grocer store and stock up on ginger... i grate or chop finely a pile of ginger( couple of tablespoons), toss it in a pot of boiling water and let it simmer very slowly on the stove... and drink ginger tea either plain, mixed with lemon and honey, or even toss in some black or green tea leaves if i get tired of the taste of ginger .... ginger acts as a cleanser as well, so be careful or you'll be reading old issues of Farmer's Almanac in the outhouse.... errr so to speak....

also very sadly my daughter has a very sick puppy (of nine years)... she was finally diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver... poor thing.. so we've been on the hunt for dietary changes or medications or anything that will hopefully make her life longer and more comfortable..

one such dietary change is a diet that i keep coming across online Sunny's Miracle Diet we are going to try it and hope that her edema and perhaps some toxins will abate.. will let you know how things go.. i also joined an Egroup that is for dogs with liver malfunctions, they aren't vets but are serious pet owners who have lengthened their pets lives with dietary changes... who knows, but at this point there is nothing to lose and all to gain...

so enough of gloom and doom.... remember my 'ginger boy'

i think he's been a naughty boy....
because his nose is growing!!!!

"ginocchio!!

Gifts from the Compost....

2009-09-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes ya get lucky... sometimes it's an onion or some sort of brassica, maybe a tomato... or even a suprise pumpkin.. the compost pile often offers some suprises... for me this year.. a small crop of wee red potatoes.... mmmmmm spuds... well for a lot of people it's mmmm spuds.. i'm not one of them, but i make an exception for little potatoes!! Tinier the better.. mmmmgood....

so back to how i got the little potatoes... a friend has been saving me weeds, grass clippings and other assorted 'goodies'.... one such bag of goodies way back in June was a bunch of old potatoes... on the compost they went with all the other treasures... a generous helping of several inches of soil and the compost pile was left to it's own devices....not a drop of water was spared to it.. the sun beating down relentlessly for weeks... and still those potatoes sprouted and grew tall and eventually flowered and died back down to earth..... the other day i went out to pile up more goodies and unearthed a small potato, upon rifling through old decomposed leaves and bits of hay.. more potatoes... an ice cream bucket full.... not bad for neglect!!

mmm dinner comprised of fresh green beans, frenched and sauteed with red pepper, hot habanero pepper and garlic, tomatoes sliced and alternated with Mozzarella cheese and chopped basil, lightly drizzled with olive oil...

and because several family members including me are sick... today's fair is turkey soup

with new potatoes......

The First Pie...

2009-09-22T11:49:00.003-07:00

not my first pie, but grandbaby's first pie... after making all that Apple Pie Filling i had some leftover.. so last night i made up some pie dough, made a few pies.. and had some leftover dough... grandbaby is still sick but getting bored already.. the perfect time to get a couple of life lessons under her belt.. making a pie!!!

There wasn't quite enough dough left to make a double (bottom and top) crust pie, but certainly enough for 2 small deep dish applie pies...
the dough recipe i use is great.. a 'never fail' good till the last drop (err roll) type of crust.. originally comes off one of the shortening packages.. even my mother used this recipe... she once told me she could never make pies and one of her older friends took pity on her and told her the secret ;) shhhhhhhh... anyways.. my mother was an awesome home cook and made the best blueberry pies your mouth could drool over.. and a mouth watering grated apple pie....

5 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 lb tenderflake lard
1 egg stirred slightly
1 tablespoon vinegar
7/8 cup ice cold water (approximate)

Stir the flour and salt together.
Cut in the lard with a pastry blender or 2 knives until the shortening is in pea size pieces.
In a measuring cup, combine the egg and vinegar.
Add enough cold water to make one cup.
Stir the liquid into the flour mixture, adding just enough to make the dough cling together.
Stir the water in with a wooden spoon until mixed thoroughly, then gather the dough into a ball, and separate into 6 portions.
Cover and refrigerate for one hour, you can chill overnite, covered, providing you leave it at room temp for 15 mins before rolling.
Lightly flour surface and roll into circles, then pat the dough into pie pans, following pie recipes. Be careful not to stretch the dough.

we peeled and cut up the apples, put them into 2 little baking dishes.. sprinkled the apples with a mixture of approx 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 2 tbsps of flour, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon and 1/8 tsp of allspice...

she rolled out the leftover pastry dough into 2 circles, cut them to fit each dish..
baked them for 45 mins in a 350F. oven...

TADA!!!!!!!! all done

Back to School bugs....

2009-09-20T23:09:00.000-07:00

Mmmmhmmmm... the bugs are rampant in the schools.. once again..... a cold or flu we're not sure of but grandbaby will be here drinking ginger tea, lemon and honey... we'll have a tea party... watch movies, drink tea and maybe even do some sewing.... the wee one has decided that she likes all the pretty patterns my Pfaff machine will do... on the other hand i am hoping that she'll like to sew enough to maybe make a small quilt... there is a method in my madness of allowing her to play all she wants on it!

Day before yesterday.... i made Apple Pie Filling... very very tasty, but a definite pain to make.. i've not decided whether or not it's worth the work.. maybe just peeling apples and freezing them would be better.. but thought i'd give the recipe a try...

Canned Apple Pie Filling

4 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
10 cups water
3 tablespoons lemon juice
6 pounds apples (peeled, cored and sliced)

in a large pan, mix sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add salt and water and mix well. Bring to a boil and cook until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat and add lemon juice

Peel, core, and slice apples. Pack the sliced apples into hot sterilized canning jars, leaving a 1 inch headspace
Fill jars with hot syrup, and gently remove air bubbles with a knife (or small spatula)
Put sterilized lids on and process in a water bath canner for 20 minutes

it was extremely messy to put the hot syrup into the jars, and yes i had to use the spatula to remove the air pockets out...

a mistake i made was using my pressure canner, 5 lbs/5 mins.. it made the apples too mushy.. but it really is delicious.. and i think my 'mistake' can be a great filling for something like a 'date' square, instead it would be an apple pie square... or a nice warm dollop on top of a dish of ice cream...mmm the possiblities are endless..

yesterday i got an unexpected gift of a huge bucket of Pears and equally huge bucket full of Apples.... windfalls and odd shapes, but FREE... YAY for FREE...

i made Pear Ginger Chutney.. a new recipe which i found online at another great little/not so little blog by the name of Chow Times .. it's a great site from Vancouver B.C. lots of foodie delights, great pics, good info...
i won't retype out the recipe as it's in Chow Times complete with great photos of the steps..
over the years i've made a lot of different types of chutneys this one has a great flavour i thought, heavy on the ginger.. i'm not keen on the texture, not enough chunks and i had trouble reducing it, in order for it to thicken..but all in all.. yummy!

Pear Ginger Chutney to the left, a jar of Apple Pie Filling to the right... and no it's not the only jar i made ;)

unless i have a reason to make another post, this will be my last posting of the Summer of 2009, tomorrow will be Fall... Autumnal Equinox Sep 22 2009 5:18 PM EDT... good bye Summer, i will miss your warmth and sunny disposition, your flowery scents and your visual kalediscope...

Tomato and Zucchini Casserole......

2009-09-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

Last night's dinner started with a 'what can i do with the rest of this tomato'.. and ended up a very scrumptious veggie casserole dish... i'd picked the rest of my ripe tomatoes the other day and there was one very large and bruised Bull Heart Tomato that i'd put aside and thought i could maybe utilize in a sandwich.. well it was looking a bit 'tired' last night, i'd not a thought to what to make for dinner... hmmm what to do... i love to cook with no plan, just an evolutionary process... i sliced the tomato and had a huge amount, i had a leftover piece of zucchini which i decided should be sliced as well...the leftover beans... a carrot....some peppers.....
hmm the makings of a lasagna...
which is exactly what i made, minus the pasta....

Tomato Zucchini Casserole

1 very large tomato or several medium sized sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 or 2 zucchini sliced 1/4 inch thick
put aside

saute

1 onion and 2 garlic cloves chopped
add
chopped peppers ( i had red and green and one little hot fellow)
hulled scarlet runner beans (actual beans!) and sliced green beans (all leftovers from canning the day before)
1 julienned carrot (made with my new torture device)
1 can of sliced mushrooms (drained)
1 pint of home preserved whole tomatoes
1/2 pint of home preserved tomato sauce
a bunch of fresh basil and oregano (chopped)
simmer until beans are almost cooked

1 lb of grated Mozzarella cheeze
1 lb of sliced cream cheese
1 cup grated parmasean

in a casserole dish put a small amount of sauce and add a layer of zucchini, layer of mozzarella and cream cheese, layer of tomatoes, layer of mozzarella cream cheese, just as you would to make lasagna... ending with a topping of of the 3 cheeses... bake 350 till brown and bubbling
about 3/4 of an hr...

my 'recipe' is approximate.. such is life when you make do... isn't it grand!!!

speaking of grand..... a couple of days ago grandbaby (the littlest one) had her 10th birthday
i think the family covered all the bases.. she got a fish tank with 3 fish, beta and 2 goldfish, a couple of hoodies, a 'camo' vest, a bug observation jar, a crystal making kit, an outdoor microscope kit and a couple of computer games for the upcoming wintertime...

Billions of Beans......

2009-09-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

well not really... but certainly feels like it... after the peak crop, then a mass heat wave again, they stalled and didn't do anything... then UTOH.... mass produced more again!! From my 6 Scarlet Runner Beans and my 3 x 3 patch of Bush Beans I picked 2 gallons of beans and I also picked most of the rest of my tomatoes and the very last of my peppers...it made me feel sad that the season is ending already.... was a great year for a lot of crops even tho it was hot and dry...

so back to beans, beans and more beans!!! I have all these beans and I wanted to french them... a small order or so i thought... tedious slicing of beans, or Bean Frencher... hmmm

I went in search of the elusive Bean Frencher... apparently not in this community.. i'm actually suprised .. they had little plastic things, and bigger rotating cutters... but not one lousy Bean Frencher.... so i managed to find a hand Julienne 'peeler' that looked like that link... not a bad tool after i stopped bleeding... it maked a delightful equidistant pattern on my thumb.. could be used as a torture tool i'm sure....

Aunty Pasto how I love you....

2009-09-16T07:58:00.000-07:00

well not really Aunty ... but Antipasto... mmmmm delicious... and something i don't often make either... it's not cheap to make, but ohhhh sooooo yummy!!!! When my children were in their teens, I'd stock the shelves with a double recipe, usually approximately 18 quarts... and long before winter was over, so was the Antipasto...they ate it with everything.. but usually a box of crackers and a pint of antipasto, they were happy happy.... this year i made only a single batch and sent 3 quarts to each household.. and 3 for me... if i hadn't run out of jars, i probably would have made another batch... the season isn't over yet, so you never know!! I don't put in the Tuna or Shrimp and the girls even requested that i don't...

Antipasto

4 lbs of Cauliflower
600 ml jar pickled onions (approximately 1 pint)
1 quart dill pickles
2 cans green beans
2 cans yellow beans
2 lbs green peppers
2 lbs red peppers

5 tins sliced mushrooms
1 big bottle green olives
1 tin black olives
2 tins chunk Tuna
1 tin shrimp
2 kegs of ketchup (or the big tin)
1 1/2 cup vinegar
1 1/2 cup olive oil

Mix ketchup, vinegar and oil in a BIG pot, cook over medium heat.
Chop everything else coarsely and gradually add to ketchup mixture... (drain beans and mushrooms)
Mix well and heat to boiling...
Bottle and process 20 minutes Hot Water Bath or Pressure Can 5lbs/5 mins (according to manufacters directions!!)

yum yum is all i gotta say.....

Relish the thought.....

2009-09-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

of Corn, Red Pepper and Onion relish.... mmm i say! I did up 7 1/2 pints of it... was the old "i need to use up these corn cobs and oh i have some red peppers left over" trick... those thoughts get me into more trouble, but at least it was tasty trouble, and very pretty to look at.. will give a nice brightness to my rows of jars in the 'larder' (oh i wish i actually had a larder)...
because it's a relish i wasn't too worried about mucking with the recipe so i used up all the corn, plus some frozen i had and 2 onions and some of the red peppers and tossed in a couple of green ones from my garden...this is the basic recipe i used... just the corn and pepper quantities aren't the same as the recipe below.. but pretty close...i also added a bit more vinegar and touch more sugar to make the liquid be enough for the veggies...and i left out the flour the original recipe called for...

Corn and Pepper Relish

5 cups (1.25 L)corn kernels
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) finely chopped onions
1 cup (250 mL) each diced sweet red and green pepper
hot sauce or dried chilli peppers to suit your taste
2 cups (500 mL) white vinegar
1 cup (250 mL) granulated_sugar
1 tbsp (15 mL) each salt and dry mustard
2 tsp (10 mL) celery_seeds
1 tsp (2 mL) turmeric

In large Dutch oven or saucepan, bring vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard, celery seeds, turmeric and hot pepper sauce to boil. Stir in corn, onions and celery; reduce heat and simmer, stirring often, until softened, about 20 minutes.

Add Peppers and stir gently, heat till boiling....

Fill hot jars leaving 1 inch headspace. Cover with heated prepared lids. Screw on bands until resistance is met; increase to fingertip tight. Boil in boiling water canner for 10 minutes. (i used pressure canner according to directions... 5 lb/5 mins... )

I finally got out into the garden this morning.. it's getting that 'fall' ugly stage.. i've noted that the finches have eaten most of my brassica seeds... i was hoping for some volunteers next spring... every year i've had volunteers come up in the spring... but i'm sure enough seeds have fallen to the ground to at least get a few... i've started to pull out a few things, and will rake the hay off the potatoes and might get around to digging some up.. i'm not expecting much of a harvest, but enough to have a few meals....the aphids are in heaven... they've decided that my brussel sprouts are delicious.. and my newly planted kale.. grrrr .. i think a soap and pepper spray is in order tomorrow!!!

"Biscuits" and Visitors......

2009-09-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

I've been rather busy the past few days... had some very dear old friends come and stay... i don't have very much room in my kitchen, it's basically a one person kitchen! Mealtimes i like to keep very simple, visiting is more important i think!! BUT.... yummy things from the kitchen just makes a visit divine! One of my secret 'weapons' is a pre-mix that i make... its a fakery... shhhh don't tell Bisquick...... i've used several different methods.. sometimes i will add a cup of powdered milk to the Biscuit Mix... it doesn't seem to make that much difference to the flavour, and if you don't have it... no worries! Some recipes will call for a bit of sugar to the mix, but i think i get enough sugar from other sources so i don't bother adding it....

Biscuit Mix

10 cups flour
heaping 1/3 cup of baking powder
1 tablespoon salt ( optional in my kitchen)
2 cups of shortening ( i used crisco butter flavoured)

mix the flour, baking powder and salt together... cut in the shortening... i used a pastry cutter, and then my hands to make the shortening mix in really well with the flour...

put in a large container with a tight fitting lid ( i have large glass jars) and store.... on your shelf!! no fridge, no freezer... can't beat that... if you live in a hot humid area, the fridge would be wise... anyways... it will keep on your shelf for months(1 to 6 months) but i doubt it will last that long...
its a very useful product as it's multipurpose.. biscuits, pancakes, waffles, cobbler toppings, casserole or chilli toppings, dumplings...

while my guests were here, i roasted a large chicken, after the first meal, i cooked up the bones and made Chicken garden soup, using up a pint jar of my tomato sauce and fresh veggies from the garden... and of course.. BISCUITS!

Biscuits

2 1/2 cups biscuit mix
1/3 cup of powdered milk (optional)
mixed together

add

2/3 cup of water

mix till just moistened, gently knead several times, roll out or pat out 1 inch thick, cut out with cookie cutter... place on ungreased cookie sheet.. bake 10-14 mins at 450F (golden brown)

the next morning i decided that something sweet to go with the coffee was in order... mmmm
Cinnamon Rolls...

Cinnamon Dried Fruit Rolls

2 1/2 cups Biscuit Mix
1/3 powdered milk

mixed together

add

2/3 cup water

mix till just moistened, knead gently several times... roll out on flour dusted surface, 1/2 inch thick.... spread butter or margarine over the dough... sprinkle generously with brown sugar, sprinkle with cinnamon, add a generous amount of chopped dried fruit (i used whole raisins, cranberries and blueberries).. roll up like a jelly roll... cut into 12 slices... place cut side down in a greased pan.... bake 400F for approximately 20 mins (golden brown)
i don't bother to glaze them like cinnamon rolls.. i like them just the way they are... hot with a good cup of coffee or steaming cup of tea... mmmmm good!

If you need recipes go to the Betty Crocker website and type in Bisquick in their search engine and you'll find a ton of them... i don't bother... the only differences between recipes is an addition of egg, more or less liquid, additions of herbs or spices... it's only limited by your imagination!!

From the other side....

2009-09-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

I'm making this post because i felt it should be heard... its a letter to a Father, from a Son.....

R.I.P

a good man who made some bad choices.
he was always there for me when i needed it
I knew he cared. and he always made sure i knew it
but sometimes people dig a hole they never really make it out of.

he died so young. with so much left to see in the world.
like his son and daughter grow into adults.
and become parents

it feels weird to think. that ill never see that smile again.
i wont hear your voice,
or laugh at your jokes when your being dumb.

there was so much left i wanted to tell you and do with you.
and now i never will.

i want more than anything to be with you right now. and see you that last time.
hear you tell me that everythings gonna be alright.
because that the one thing you always had.
hope that things would get better eventually.

and you were right. things are alot better now
your in a better place. somewhere where you can escape your addiction. and be yourself again. the man i lost to drugs years ago.

i will see you again someday dad. i dont know where or when/.
but ive still got some things left to do down here.
so until than, i will be thinking of you.
everyday

because no matter what happens. your still my dad. and i still love you

Happy birthday dad. i hope wherever you are, your enjoying it.

the young man who wrote that letter was just turning 16, when the father was murdered, and in the news reports was just a 'homeless man'..... they forgot to mention he was also a father and loved...
the young man posted this on Facebook on the anniversary and birthday of his father...i asked him if he minded if i posted it on my blog, and he said he wanted people to read it, to understand he wasn't just a homeless man...

i see 'homeless' folks often these days, for whatever reason they are on the streets, all of them have a history, a story, a life..

sometimes we forget....

Balconies and Beets...

2009-09-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

My friend Lori has only a balcony garden and it is very lovely!! On that balcony she has/had a very large tomato!! The variety only gets orange, never red, and she made daughter and I sandwiches with her cucumbers and the orange tomatoes.. yummmm!! Tomatoes are her specialty but she also had a very large basil plant which she generously gave me some and a few herbs... a few very healthy blueberry bushes but mostly a lot of chairs, a few tables... and an awesome view of Lake Cowichan...

the tomato weighed in at a 21 Oz... no Guiness World record.. but not too shabby either!!

the tomato guardian...

the 'other' use for a toilet....

on our return trip daughter showed me a place that has quite a few Blue Elderberry bushes, so we might go and pick some later this week... my last few days have been filled with beets and more beets..... and did i mention Pickled Beets.... i'm truly a glutton for punishment, i canned 20lbs or 13 quarts of sliced pickled beets and went and got another 10 lbs of them this afternoon... daughter said 'can never get enough Pickled Beets'... soooo

my Pickled Beet recipe was from Great Grandma Wilson... so i was hesitant to give it out.. but then again.. we should share more so here it is...

for 5 lbs (approx) of beets

Clean and simmer beets for approx 30 minutes (till just fork tender on the outside)

put in cold water (will help the skins to come off) rub or push the skin off with your fingers, they 'should' come pretty clean...

if the beets are small ( size of a large marble) i usually will can whole, and if bigger will slice them up...

combine the following and boil for 5 mins

2 cups cider vinegar

2 cups water

2 cups sugar

1 Tbsp. of salt

i put the sliced or whole beets in sterilized jars, pour in the boiling syrup, put the lids on and process... either water bath or pressure cooker according to manufacturer.. for myself, i have a presto canner and it's 5lbs for 5 mins...

in other recipes people will put in cloves or cinnamon or pickling spices but we like them 'plain jane' the best....

Dinglehopper and Hunte Corporation...

2009-09-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

this is more a rant than a ramble!! I just watched a CBC documentary (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for those who might not know) How Not to Buy a Puppy on purchasing purebred puppies in 'reputable' pet stores.. the pet stores maybe reputable but the Hunte Corporation where they purchase the puppies from is a company who is nothing more than a puppy warehouse, they collect puppies and ship them out to petstores... i'm hoping my american readers will be able to see the link.. i've found when i'm south of the border (in America) i can't get most Canadian t.v. links, and vice versa when i'm north of the border! ( so much for freedom of the internet) Dinglehopper is a Pomeranian who was featured in the documentary and has two Blogs... The Life of Dinglehopper the Pomeranian and Dinglehopper

Anyways thats my rant for the week ;) ...as i watch my 2 'heinz 57' 4 legged children romp and play, i thank my lucky stars that i'm with them and that they now are healthy and happy....my charges were both 'rescues'... one as a young puppy, who'd had surgery but an infection (came home as a foster 'child')... mmm 3 1/2 yrs ago! and the other who'd been removed from his home because of a broken 'unfixed' leg and was slated to have it amputated....also came home as a foster 'child' at 10 months..... fortunately a Veterinarian Specialist from Victoria B.C. was able to repair it with a rod.. and today 2 yrs later, he runs and plays with 4 legs :D life is good!!!

Home again, home again....

2009-09-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

the puppies are both happy happy, freedom again, i'm listening to the neighbour's rooster crowing and the ravens welcomed me back with a caw and a fly over... back to reality!

Our last couple of dinners in Yachats were delicious!! All the veggies our friends shared with us were chopped up and nothing went to waste... daughter and i made a delicious stirfry of zucchini, beans, beet greens, peppers.. we baked all the little squash and roasted the beets with rosemary, thyme and a bit of olive oil... and the best..... i made a huge container of Salsa with the tomatoes, tomatillos and onion.. unfortunately i did need to buy the cilantro and a couple of limes ... we snacked on salsa and chips all the way home...

a long 14 hr day... 9 on the road, 2 waiting for the ferry and almost 3 on the ferry....and only 1 semi serious mishap.. not bad for 4 people, 2 dogs and 2 cars! My daughter's car got beaten up on the freeway, by a piece of particle board... i was ahead of her, saw the board, couldn't avoid it, and i gather that after i drove over it, the wind caught it and lifted it... right into her bumper... at in rush hour traffic at 70 mphs there is no avoiding objects.... anyways.. the angels were with her and only the bumper was seriously injured... off to the insurance adjusters today... sighhhh

waiting for the ferry to leave!!

My garden.... oh dear... it's amazing what almost 2 weeks away can do... even with watering, there's been no substantial rainfall and everything is looking very dry and yesss... fallish... where does the time go, just seems like i planted a few weeks ago... i'm sooo not ready for fall! after making an 'inspection' of the garden... the pole beans that had taken forever to grow, finally a few beans, the purple bush beans are stalled and the beans don't look much bigger than when i left, the swiss chard looks like it's just waiting for the rainy season, the scarlet runners have a LOT of beans.... mmm what shall i make! the tomatoes did very well but look terrible... our season just isn't long enough!! the peppers are turning red and the cilantro has gone to seed!!! my little 'reemay greenhouse' is looking very sad... there must have been a good wind while i was gone, it's askew , ripped and looking very bedraggled!

i forgot to take a picture of all my tomatoes that i picked this morning! there are more in the freezer at daughter's house (next batch)! am making tomato paste... mmm tomorrow it should be ready for canning!

Up River.......

2009-08-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

soooooo pretty!!!! i have friends that live up the Yachats River... it's a delightful place, often sunny and warm when by the sea, its raining or drizzling!! Quite a different climate than down river on the coast, not so foggy, not so grey, much warmer in the summer, colder in the winter, and sometimes even some snow! The garden/greenhouse is much different than at the coast.. up river they can grow corn and squashes, there are fruit and nut trees and they grow mushrooms, as well as picking wild ones!

their greenhouse has no raised beds, but to keep the weeds down they have used a plentiful supply of cardboard with straw over top..

turtle heaven!! this little fellow needs the extra heat and security of indoors...

these turtles live in the greenhouse, they have their own garden.. nothing like fresh produce!!

Hops!!!! mmmmbeer... not that i drink it, but i've heard that my friend makes very good beer....

the chicken coop is beautiful!! unfortunately due to the number of predators they need to be contained..

note the stained glass window!!! luxury for chicks!!

Chess anyone??

2009-08-29T11:14:00.000-07:00

tomato chess that is!!! The players are arranged, the spectators piled on the sides...and OH NO... a salt shaker to the right... waiting for unsuspecting spectators or one of the losing chess tomatoes....

i went back to visit the community greenhouse and had a tour by one of the hosts...

this Rhubarb (inside the greenhouse) and the Rhubarb in the picture below(outside the greenhouse) , were both grown by seed, this year... i've never tried growing Rhubarb by seed, but it definately is interesting and i might let one of my Rhubarb plants go to seed next year...

my kindly host gave me one of these beans to sample.. mmmgood! i'm not sure of the variety, but it looks much like a Scarlet Runner, but has white flowers and the bean didn't have a 'fuzzy' coating like the Scarlet Runner has....

the fall crop of Choi is just starting, beets to the left and in the far left is kale... because of the mild climate, rarely snow and not a whole lot of frost the fall crops should do quite well ... the cold weather crops do quite well in the Oregon coastal climate, the sun days are short, a lot of fog or rain or just grey days...the 'field' behind the garden is their 'poor man's golf/driving range course!! soooo fun!!!

nothing like 'organic' means of insect control! a lovely little Skink stayed still long enough for a picture...

an alligator lizard was sitting on another raised bed... one of my hosts felt she was pregnant.. apparently she's very friendly and comes out when people come into garden...

all in all, the community greenhouse has a wonderful 'organic' feel, no wonder the plants were doing so well... as one of my hosts explained... we learn more from our mistakes and 'failures' than when the crops all do well.. they had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, next year the plan is to have less tomatoes so there is more room for other types of veggies... the squashes didn't like being outside, too cool and damp, and did much better in the greenhouse... the newly transplanted raspberries had been munched on by the elk but with better fencing should do well next year.. the hosts request dogs to come visit, more dog scent, less likely the elk will come and raid the gardens... and surrounding the gardens were lots of huckleberry bushes, blue and red, and lots of salal bushes... how lucky can they be!!!

thanks to my hosts for the tour, and thanks for the bag of tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini!!

Community Gardens....

2009-08-28T07:46:00.001-07:00

are very prevalent in the small community of Yachats Oregon.. there are several of them actually, quite a feat for a village of approximately 600-700 people...there is a beginnings of a Master Gardener teaching centre, a very nice greenhouse which is located 4 miles out of town, and a city lot sized Community Garden and all of them had their start this year... the climate here on the immediate coast is good for acidic loving cool weather plants who don't mind a dusting of salt air and a lot of mist or fog, further inland (a mile or less) is considerably different, the temperatures are higher in the summer, cooler in winter, not as misty or windy, and generally more conducive to more varieties of plants... i have friends that live approximately 10 miles inland from the coast and they get very warm in the summer, some snow and much colder in the winter.. and did i mention ... RAIN!! a LOT of rain in the winter!

The community garden is doing very well, in February just before i left, the garden was a buzz with 'tenants' who were just making raised beds, planting cold weather crops and generally turning a vacant (donated) lot into a wonderful four letter word - FOOD -!!!

note the Cloches around the corn!

The greenhouse 4 miles away was the concept of a different group of folks, who banded together, built a sizable greenhouse and have built raised beds and are continuing to build more beds which will surround the greenhouse... and they have a created a very prolific array of veggies!!

the seeds looked like some kind of brassicas but not sure..

this next set of 3 pictures is because i couldn't fit all of the 'lean-to' in one picture.. but it was built a few years ago, and was the original 'greenhouse', it's a delightful area filled with herbs and veggies... very warm and inviting... i just wish that i could have shown what it really is like!

the real Master!!

The Master Gardener - Demonstration and & Community Garden is something that hadn't been started before i left and i'm not sure of the details... i just know that there are a lot of potatoes and different kinds, and it seems different growing techniques...

Darling Darlingtonia Californica....

2009-08-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

A truly remarkable species, at least in my edge of the world... there is a small State Park in Florence Oregon that is dedicated solely to the Darlingtonia Californica , the park is free, the walk is short, and the plants are amazing... unfortunately we've missed them blooming, which is in May and June but still a wonderous sight indeed! i do have pictures of them blooming, which i took at another time, but they are back in Canada, or i would have scanned them and included them in this posting.. nonetheless the links i've posted are awesome, the photos remarkable..
my daughter says they are 'alien'... they do look rather alien, with their hoods and split 'tongues', a rather reptilian breed, waiting for unsuspecting flies to wander into their traps..their method of reproduction is rather unique and a bit of a mystery it seems... if your interested please read the links i've posted, well worth the read...

We're at the BEACH!!!!

2009-08-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

Oh yes... we are at the beach... the cool breezes, the sun, the fog, the sunsets... ahhhhhh... not bad not bad! We're mid coastal Oregon, my other 'home' ... they say home is where the heart is.. my heart is here... it's a wonderful little place, filled with character and some of the most beautiful scenery on the west coast of North America..

my poor garden is being neglected... for 10 days it's going to be neglected.. but my eldest said she'd water it for me.. sooooo i'm crossing my fingers that all is well!!

on the way south we stopped at some friends house and of course did the garden tour!!

Innies and Outies... and Hidden Treasures....

2009-08-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

Zucchini as prolific as they can be, sometimes aren't.... as i pointed out in Pollination for the Nation , so very frustrating if they decide to not produce male and female flowers at the same time.. my friend so cutely calls them Innies and Outies and it's a great way for kids and forgetful people like myself, to remember which is which!

Innies (female)

Outies (male)

this morning was a watering morning and i discovered some hidden treasures...

my Marion berries, which are not native to here, and i'm hoping will do well with our colder winters have blessed me with several small bunches of berries... i've sadly neglected them over the summer and i was shocked to see berries on them.. the actual plants (only 2 of them) are only about 2 ft high at best and hidden behind the volunteer potatoes and choi which were lurking in the compost that i used for the new bed...

a very beautiful and delicate eggplant flower, i'm sure much too late for any fruiting, but nonetheless a treasure...

the first fall raspberries!! i'm very glad that the picture turned out because i promptly picked them, thanked Creator, and popped them in my mouth!

a Tansy Ragwort with a guest.. i don't know my moths but it's was a beautiful white with black markings... Tansy Ragwort is on the invasive plant list but it's one of the least invasive in my yard... each year i only have one or 2 plants which usually shrivel up and die long before they produce seeds...

Pearly Everlasting, i missed taking pictures when they were at the height of their blooming and this poor little one is struggling with no water for a long time...

Plums and MORE Plums....

2009-08-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

daughter and i got lucky! A friend phoned and said come and pick some plums... she wasn't kidding.. the tree was overflowing and she'd already done her jam and canning and giving away... and still we got about 50 lbs of yellow plums.. YUM YUM!! so that afternoon we cooked them up and in the freezer is enough plum 'puree' to make 12 batches of jam.. and here at my house i cooked up the remainder and made some tomato plum barbeque sauce and so far 2 batches of plum jam..

just some of the jars i put up this morning...

some of the 'tools of the trade' that make my life much easier when canning are my food mill which has been used forever.. its just the handiest item for making applesauce, plum puree and excellent for making puree for fruit leathers..

my 2 sets of tongs, one for jars, one for lids, my funnel for pouring product into the jars, 1 cup measuring cup and i also like to use a 2 cup plastic measuring cup for pouring jams etc., into the jars...(incase your wondering, i like the plastic 2 cup measuring cup, it's because it won't break when i scoop the jam out of the pot and it's flexible if i'm pouring something like relish, i can squish the sides a bit, so the relish doesn't end up on the counter instead of the jar)

i use 3 pots, besides my pressure cooker, 1 for sterilizing the jars, 1 for cooking and 1 for simmering the lids in

and last but not least.. my wooden spoon... it's got holes in it and slanted with a flat bottom... it's awesome for stirring jams or jellies, as it scraps the bottom of the pot so nothing gets stuck on the bottom to burn...

Dog days of August...

2009-08-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

Already things have that 'fallish' feeling, warm days, cool nights... some leaves already fallen and crisp when you step on them, crickets chirping and giant Dragonflies flitting about... the good thing is i've not seen any wooly bears yet, they are a signal of impending autumn.. and always a childs delight at they creepy crawl across their hands, only to curl in a ball when frightened..

my garden was having a bit of a break with the cooler weather, but unfortunately the temperature popped back up.. the fortunate part is the days are getting shorter so it's not doing quite as much damage, and the garden isn't drying out as quickly...
our unusual heat spell really did a lot of damage, so many trees have died from the lack of water and many more have been distressed severely, their leaves have shrivelled, turned brown and fallen... my poor little fruit trees have done okay, but only because i packed water to them.. not a lot of water but enough to keep them from wilting and drying up entirely... all the fruit i had on them fell off, not such a bad thing because they are young and a few years of no fruit will allow them to establish and grow longer taproots.... two of my cherry trees didn't make it.. within the first year, their leaves shrivelled, turned brown, the branches crisped and that was it... i was so upset because none of the other trees were dying, only two cherry trees... later i found out that often the nurseries will 'dig' up the young trees and cut off the taproot too short... and apparently cherry trees need a longer one in order to survive.... anyways in place of the two cherry trees are two Quince trees... two different varieties.. this was their first summer with me and are looking pretty good! they were covered in blooms and i'd hoped for at least 1 fruit but alas they all fell off with the heat... no matter... i can't wait until they get big enough to produce some fruit and then i can 'produce' some Quince preserve and or jelly!!

i'm going to Oregon for a few days.. so my garden will be left alone.....the temp is supposed to drop much lower and daughter will water a couple of times for me... i'll pick all the ripe tomatoes and beans and give her the cucumber that's waiting for a 'home' and the zucchini i think will be large but usable when i get back...i planted the wee fall lettuce and kale, hopefully they'll do okay while i'm gone... its a bit like leaving your children, can't wait to go but worry something will happen...i'm not sure of my internet down there, so if able to, i'll post, if not.. see you when i get back.. cool winds, lots of beach, the smell of the ocean.. ahhh can't wait!