Oh my, you shouldn't have.....all these roses just for me?

Our provincial flower in Alberta is the Alberta Rose and it is in full bloom at the golf course and alongside most roads. Every once in a while if I stand still I get a wiff of the sweet sweet rose scent, it's floating throughout the whole course. Last year in the fall I picked the rosehip and dried a whole bunch to make tea and I loved it. This year I am hoping to make a batch of rose water, I guess I better hurry up, looks like the time is now.

The wild honeysuckle is out too

A long over due update

I am so sorry for being away for so long but oh my gosh I have been having the most frustrating technical problems with the internet and with my laptop, which is no longer a laptop since it now has a regular keyboard attached to it and 6 things plugged into it, I had to get a USB port to handle it all. which means it's not portable anymore and boy, I miss that. Now my writing schedule is all wonky. I used to get up early (with the sun) and have coffee in bed with my laptop, this is when I did my blogging and reading up on the news and catching up on other people's blogs that I follow. Now I have to develop a new morning habit and for some reason sitting on a chair first thing in the morning just isn't comfortable......how spoiled do I sound?
So, lets do a little catch up with some photos;

This is my little fruit garden that I am very excited about, the tree on the right is an Apple tree and the 2 smaller ones on the left are cherry trees. 

a neighbor found a little red wagon at a yard sale and bought it for me.....very handy

this is my vineyard, I have 3 little grape vines that you can't really see growing here that are supposed to cover the wall of my house within time

Strawberries look a lot better this year, I am hoping for a few bowls of berries this year

Out of the 20 garlic that I planted last fall 12 are growing.....better than nothing I guess

This spinach has already been eaten and new stuff has been planted

Radishes are almost ready.....much later than last year

This is my shady garden that has plaged me for many years, I finally have hostas and monkshood growing in there and I transplanted some rhubarb (they say you can't kill rhubarb....but how does it do in the shade?) 

All these little cucumbers have since been frozen and new ones have been seeded which are just popping out of the
ground...grrr!

you can't really see but the peas are up and so are the 100 onions I planted along this fence( yes I planted 100 onions, I am expecting an onion famine in the land) )  

Here is the "before" photo for 2011, the goal is to create a green wall along that back fence

My new arbor that is to be covered in green by July, it is where the squash and pumpkins will fight for space (I always plant everything too close together)

If you came to tea in the evening this is where we would sit, among the herbs and Geraniums 

Up close at my vineyard, I am waiting for the gas company to complain because I have planted so close to their meter, I;m thinking since I pay dearly for that meter it shouldn't be their business but sometimes it's easier to ask for  forgiveness instead of permission 

If you came for tea in the afternoon this is where we would sit.....but then, who has time for tea in the afternoon?

The potato patch on the right and a few stray perrenials that have survived over the years

This area has been so ugly in the past so last fall I redid it, it is to be my fruit garden and hopefully all the space will be filled with bushy rhubarb soon 

Now lets see what has been happening in the kitchen;

Here is my version of homemade ice-cream, I did not invent this I got it from  Jamie Oliver's website. First you freeze some fruit, cut it up in small pieces and put in a freezer bags. Don't pack it in there tightly or you will end up with one big round frozen chunk. I lay the fruit on a coolie sheet and freeze for a few hours and then take put them in  bag. I have lots of Saskatoons in the freezer so I use lots of them. When you want ice-cream put some frozen fruit in your food processor or blender (my Canadian blender does not do frozen stuff, m y Mexican blender could make pulp out of a spruce tree) blend it until it is a frozen slush and then put in some yogurt and blend a wee bit more. I use my homemade plain yogurt, the whole point of making my own ice-cream is to avoid all the sugar in store ice-cream and most store yogurt is  full of sugar too. I also add some vanilla and a wee bit of honey and blend. Yummm yummm 

Frozen fruit

With yogurt and vanilla

Creamy smooth ice-cream

You could add any flavoring, like chocolate syrup or coco, maple syrup, whatever you have a hankering for.

So I am back to packing lunches and I know it sounds weird but I really enjoy packing a lunch, I usually cook for the whole week on the weekend and plan a weeks worth of lunch. Right now I still have to buy vegetables from the store so I am not eating as much veggies as I would like.

A great way to sneak in an extra serving of vegetables is to serve everything on a bed of greens....these days I only have spinach in my garden

Always a baggie of fruit laying on the seat of my golf cart (my office)

This week I happy to see my local grocery store had some more organic vegetables, I was so excited.

I chopped it all  up and put it all in a big bowl and will just add some oil, vinegar, and Cayenne pepper and fill little baggies for work....really excited about this (I know I sound like a geek) 

Finally we are getting some heat, it's been a cold spring and still is very cool at night.

When it gets warm like that I make an extra batch of yogurt and let it incubate in my greenhouse, see the towel covered bowl on the left

Then I made cream cheese with it;

All you do is take your yogurt and put it in a cheese cloth and hang it up to drip, I save the dripping, it is the whey which is high in protein I put it in whatever I am baking at the time, bread, muffins or granola bars. Yesterday I had beans in the crock pot so I poured it in there. After about 5 hours you have a nice lump of cream cheese. Once I have fresh herbs I plan on seasoning it with herbs,  it's a great dip for crackers or chips. If you like a bit of a tart flavor drip it out in the fridge instead of on the counter.

Now, on to something real serious, I got old, real old. When my birthdays come they just come and go and sometimes I even forget, my birthdays have never bothered me or excited me in any way. I have never enjoyed birthday parties either, it's just another day. But....when my daughter has a birthday it is always a really emotional day for me, I always reflect back on the day she was born (May 28) it was a  beautiful sunny spring day, so full of joy, new hope, new life, new plans, new promises, new commitments, it was a life changing day for me. This year she turned 22, which makes me feel really old.  There is an ornamental apple tree in my yard, now I would never plant an ornamental anything tree, whats the point of having an apple tree if you never get apples but it was here before I and has survived over the years, it always blooms on my child's birthday.....glorious, stunning pink flowers, I call it her birthday tree. This year spring it was later than usual so it bloomed a week later.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful little one

So from there we go on to mayonnaise, over the last few years I have tried many recipes for homemade mayonnaise as the store stuff has too many things on the ingredients list that doesn't sound much like edible food and the fact that it can be in your fridge until the sides of the jar and inside of the lid look like you catch a new disease and .... it is still not rotten is also very scary (that also goes for catsup and cheese whiz) These recipes have all been good and defiantly edible but have really never been very wowing to me until I tried this one. I found it here;  Thank-you so much Brenda for posting this. This stuff by the way will keep for a few months in the fridge but not as long as store mayo.

http://myfavoritefoodsyesterdayandtoday.blogspot.com/

So I won't bother retyping it, I did not put in any white sugar  but just added about a tbsp of brown sugar and next time I won't put so much vinegar, I don't like things to be really tart and this was just a wee bit too tart for me, it was more like tarter sauce, which was great because I just happened to be cooking  fish that day and it was so great with it. 

My so good mayonnaise, love it, no story about the noodles in the background they just happened to be
 there

Fish with a nice lump of mayo

Then I had a visit from Flat Stanley for those of you that don't know him you can read up on him here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Stanley  Flat Stanley came to me all the way from Oregon, it is his first visit to Canada. When a Flat Stanley comes to your house you are to treat him like a guest and send him home with pictures and stories of his visit so I tried to be as good of a hostess as I could.

I took him to work with me

He rode around with me in my gold cart (my office) while I watered the grrens

Check it out, it'a only 7 am and the sun is bright and high

He went on a rode trip to La Crete, we crossed the Mighty Peace River

Standing on the banks of the Peace River at my mom's house

"Look  at me" he says, I am in Canada

Just after 10 pm and the sun is just setting ( this was on May 28th, sun sets later now)

This is shortly before 6 am, sun has been up for about 2 hours already, "this Canada sure is a sunny place" he says. 

He opted to not ride on the bobcat with me, I don't blame him, I am not exactly smoothie poothie on the bobcat and the noise would have curled his ears

Due to me not being on the ball and sending him home right away he is now stuck it Canada due to the Canadian mail strike, I might have to send him on the Grey Hound Bus. 

Still here

Just a short note to let you all know that I  have not fallen off the end of the earth, although I feel I am living pretty close to the edge of it. I have been having telephone, computer and internet problems, some of it my fault (do not spill water on your laptop) and some of it is the my internet carriers fault....most annoying. I do have many thing to report all backed up with many pictures but since I am writing from my local library I will have to wait until I am up  an running from home. For now I will report this:
- most of the garden has been planted
- the greenhouse is hot hot hot hot
- temperatures are ranging from -1C to 28C (I know, I range is huge)
- due to the dryness in the air and my hardworking self I no longer have fingernails (not exactly news)
- days are long, have no idea when the sun sets I am sound asleep by then
- I am up at 4:45 am and it is daylight then
- little stick that hitched a ride from Mexico is still alive
- have a great reciepe for homemade mayaonaise which I will share later
- am planning on making dandelion wine soon
- will be making tamales on Saturday with a friend
- learned to make fruit ice-cream, will share more on that later
- spinning has been abandoned but not forgotten
- I have a child that turned 22 last week, 22 years just flew by so fast, unbelievable
- I am now saving my dryer lint for the birds to make nests with (nutso)
- I am really really misisng coffee, I want some bad, I might have some soon

So, that is all I can think of here at t he top of my head. Hopefully I will up amd running at home soon and I can once again sit up in bed with my laptop and cup of coffee/ I mean tea, and just blab blab away to you all.
Do you like how I pretend I have many many followers?

Problems

spilt water on laptop. having typing problems

Some tea, some new moccasins and some babbling about food

My new moccasins are done, and I think they are very pretty, despite what my not so bright pictures say. You can't really tell but the pink beads are shockingly hot pink with a chrome like finish on them. The hide is as black as black as be and the fur is so shiny and soft...and so black. They are pretty but they do not smell like a warm comforting fire, it seems to be a constant reminder that they are "fake" in some way. I like them though and because they are so pretty they will be my indoor moccasins....maybe I can smoke them in my BBQ or something.
I only had one injury making these,  I sewed the 3 sided hide needle right through my thumb nail, yup, had to get a nail clipper and clip off my fingernail and yes I was a geek about it and took a picture.

Just barely missed my finger

ok, once the picture of my moccasins was up here and enlarged, the color just looked so off, so I took it off, (is that too many offs in one sentence?) I will try to take a better picture in the morning with better light and insert it here.

I have just concluded that black is difficult to photograph, but here they are

So, I don't have anything interesting to write about so I will just give you the recipe for my favorite healing tea.  In the morning I usually peel an orange or two for my lunch, If I just have one orange I put the peel in a 500 ml canning jar, if two oranges in 1L jar, I fill the jar up with boiling water and put in a cinnamon stick and sometimes a clove or even a piece of ginger....whatever I have on hand. When you pour the hot water in the jar place it in the sink, once the jar shattered on me from the sudden temperature change....what a mess first thing in the morning so now I take extra precaution and put it in the sink. Let it stand there all day (or night if doing in the evening) When you are ready to have tea, pour the water only into a little pot and heat up....add some honey and you have a very nice tea that your body will thank you for by not catching any nasty cold viruses. Spice it with either ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and honey or with all of it. Find your favorite combination. You get double use out of your orange this way....and all the vitamin C it has to offer.

Speaking of my lunch,  a long time ago I wrote a post about my New Years plan to better eating and I have been sticking to it for the most part, although I still snarf down a bag of potato chips once in a while. (and we will not talk about all the tacos I ate in Mexico) I find the easiest way for me to eat healthy is when I am working because I always take a packed lunch to work with me. I pack my lunch in the evenings, sometimes I will even pack a whole bunch of lunches on the weekend. By pre-packing them I put more thought into what to pack instead of being stuck with whats in the fridge at the last minute and I am also avoiding packing what I am hungry for at the time, when time is limited I tend to pack unhealthier stuff. A fairly common lunch for me these days is a baggie with a cut up orange and two cut up apples, I always cut up my fruit because it's easier to eat with one hand when you're driving a tractor, I squeeze a lime in the bag and spice it up with my favorite spice that I bring from Mexico called "Tajin Clasico" which according to the ingredient list is just Chili, salt and lime...so good, the best part is drinking the juice that is left on the bottom of the bag. I also pack a baggie of cut up vegetables, which is a bit sad tasting right now but soon I will have garden produce, the baggie gets bigger then. We are only working 8 hours days right now so my lunches don't need to be that big, once I start working 12 hour days my lunch is so big I have to make two trips to carry it to the car in the morning, just kidding...but seriously I pack a lot of food then. Working outside seems to make me so much hungrier plus I love snacking when I am mundaneisly (I know that is not a word) driving a tractor all day so I make sure I pack plenty of fruit and vegetables to munch on all day. My favorite last year was a big bread bag full of my home grown cherry tomatoes tossed with a wee bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt....could munch on them all day long. I can't wait for garden produce, the organic produce in our local grocery store is very limited so I can't be too choosy right now.

My lunch today

Yesterday we had an overcast day, although it threatened to it didn't rain or (heaven forbid) snow. I still love my job even when the weather is bad, I always find something to make me smile when I am out there.

The robins are out and about

One of my favorite trees....so tall and slim.....and green

I challenge you to find this guy out there when you are golfing, I hung him up the other day....just because

No residents yet in house #5

A little disclaimer here about all my plastic lunch baggies, after writing a post about trying to get the plastic out of my life or at least away from my food. When I pack a big lunch I do put my fruit in a big glass Pyrex bowl but I take so many vegetables that a big plastic glass bowl is too bulky to take on a tractor and just doesn't fit on there and I can't have it rolling around on the floor or it would break. I did try cloth bags but that makes them dry out too much in the heat. I have tried a few thing but keep coming back to a plastic bag......It's a bit of a problem, I do wash and reuse them though.