Back in the Great White North

I arrived back in Canada without incident, landed in Edmonton Alberta and then made my way another 8 hours north to High Level Alberta......my other Home Sweet Home. There are always a few adjustments to coming home, the first one I always notice right at the airport when I flush the toilet....wow! the pressure and the sound it makes when it flushes can be a bit startling the first time and then I always burn my fingers when I wash my hands at the sink the first few times. We do not have hot water like that in Mexico and gravity flushes our toilets or a bucket of water in my case.

Almost immediately after getting home my fingernails all break off one by one, the dry air makes them hard and they just snap off....oh well, not a big deal. Sometimes if I arrive when it is really cold my nose bleeds too but that didn't happen this year.
The crazy price of things is a bit shocking for about a week or two, especially the price of food, and we won't even talk about the quality of the food, it's just something I have to suck up and deal with.....plus people get tired of hearing me whining about it, I'll just close my eyes as I walk past the meat section in the store. But I will say my first bowl of fruit tasted like dishwater but that too will start tasting better in a few weeks, soon I won't notice.

I don't miss baking bread when I am in Mexico because the tortilla is a so good and replaces bread but as soon as I get home I like baking bread first thing. It gets my house smelling like home again and gets me started on a regular routine.....love that regular routine. Gotta  have a routine here or else we get nothing done..right? If you get nothing done in Mexico it just doesn't matter, but it's different here, we need to get things done, and fast. Why? I have no idea, it's just how it is....busy busy busy.

Other very exciting thing for me when I get back is having a bath instead of a shower. After only showering for a few months you start feeling like you can't get completely clean, it's difficult to scrub your feet when you are standing in a shower, and I tend to be in and out of the shower quicker than in a bath....hence, not so clean.  My first bath here is always such a treat. Thats all I'll say about that.

One of the first places I go when I get home is the golf course and I find this;

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So I figure I can at least get a quick round done in my snowshoes, and since they are always in my trunk I put them on and head out, but soon realize I am too late. The snow is too soft and slushy underneath and I just keep sinking, oh well, thats what I get for laying on the beach during show shoeing season. So I went inside and putted two buckets of balls in the lounge, I figured it was safe since the windows are all still all covered in  Styrofoam. Thats how we keep heat in up here in the north, we cover the windows with Styrofoam and/or plastic. My windows are still covered in plastic, I think I'll wait one more week, it could still get very cold. Not my first day here. I won't be fooled.

The next thing on the agenda is getting some garden seeds planted, I need to have some windows installed in my greenhouse so while I am waiting for the guy to show up I planted some seeds in trays in my house. This is a very exciting time for me and I like to get at it as soon as I can. I even took a chance and planted some spinach, arugula, radishes and mustard greens in a bed outside.....I know you are thinking it;s way too early and you are probably right, but I couldn't resist. I covered the seeds with a thin layer of vermiculite and then covered the raised box with plastic, this is why I love raised beds, so easy to work with. I know most of my family members are tired of hearing me talk about my raised beds but wow...I love raised beds.

7 trays with tomatoes, cucumbers, all kinds of herbs, eggplant, some flowers, broccoli and peppers

I need an early salad to go with my sprouts I've started in my kitchen. I've never done sprouts before and am quite excited about them and love checking them everyday for growth...ok ok, every half hour.

The two jars on the left were started 3 days behind the others, this is very exciting for me.

Then I also find out that Telus has been having problems with their wireless modems, most annoying. So I borrowed a phone because I have no phone yet because Telus annoyed me muchly last year when I tried to get a phone so this year I opted for a Magic Jack which hasn't arrived yet. They finally get it all working and it works for 2 days and then not so much anymore, so here I am paying for wireless internet and my living room looks like this.

Wireless looks a little different in Canada than in Mexico..... seriously, 3rd world countries have even got this stuff figured out already.  

I wanted to post some more pictures of my yard and the snow but for some reason when I plug my camera into my laptop nothing happens, I think it't confused about all the things that are plugged into it now, every plug in hole is filled, it might be maxed out, I'll try again tomorrow.
By the way, in case you're interested I had a high of 27C and a low of -6C in my greenhouse yesterday, quite the range.

And I know the picture on the top header is all out of whack but I have noticed that if I leave it alone sometimes it fixes it's self.

My little early salad garden

I talked to the lady that runs our local greenhouse yesterday and she covers her whole garden space with black plastic and she just pokes holes in it to plant her seeds, I 'm debating whether I want to try that.....no weeds ever, not that I had a big problem with weeds but it also heats the ground up for earlier planting.

This was a new addition last fall, I think it's a great place for pea, I have netting that will hang on the fence for them to climb up