And so ends the week and another starts

I don't have much excitement to report this week. We up north here are whining about wanting rain.....all of us want rain, I know everyone is used to the farmers always whining/complaining about rain, not enough of it, too much of it, rained at the wrong time and so on and so on, but right now we are all sounding like farmers. We just want rain! I added up our rainfall this season from my weather diary, from April 08 to today we have had 18 mm of rain. Yes I keep a weather diary during the golf season and I measure rainfall .... a bit geekish, I know.
Regardless of how parched the land is I of course can always find a mud hole at work to fall into.

I actually do have a bit of excitement that I almost forgot about about. Remember one of my favorite things at my house in Mexico, the concrete counter? I loved this counter because it was the right height for me for once ( I am tall) and it was so solid that I could roll out dough on it, transplant plants, block a long scarf on it, it had many used and I wished I had a work space like it here.....well, now I do. 

Favorite work space in Mexico .... uh! coconuts, I miss coconuts

My new work space i n Canada

It has a sink.....how cool is that?

I built it all by myself, which is why it is not square or straight but I love it. whenever I bring in vegetables from the garden I hate how I always have a mess in the kitchen. Even when I hose off the produce with my garden hose I always manage to bring in grass and dirt bits. Now I can wash them on my nice work bench and scrub them and even cut and dice them up. By the time I am done with them on this bench they will be ready to eat. I can also use this bench for other things, today I folded my laundry on it after it had dried on the line. How awesome to walk into the house with  the laundry all folded, or walk into the house with the salad already in the bowl. I might even install a second sink, we'll see after I test it out, right now the only produce I am eating out of my garden is spinach and the occasional radish.

Laundry day

Today I made a batch of rose water, I found instruction here; http://www.care2.com/greenliving/rose-water-how-to-make-your-own.html#   There is an abundance of roses at the golf course and it took me all of 20 minutes to pick a bucket full. I have foraged at the golf course for many things since I started working there. Last year I picked Saskatoons, wild raspberries, rose hip, a few strawberries and I have brought home many a willow for different projects as well. As I was wandering around picking roses today I was wondering what else I have there that I just don't know is edible or useful. Anyway..... back to my rose water, of course I had my roses in my "stil" and cooking before I read all the instructions (I tend to do that) I realized that I didn't have enough ice i n my freezer so I only got a small jam jar of rose water and it didn't smell as delicious as I had anticipated. I thought it would smell very  much like the roses but it just has a faint rose smell. I will use this on my face and see how I like it. I was hoping to use it in my laundry rinse water as well. I use homemade laundry soap that is made of lard (tallow) and sometimes I get a wiff of myself and I smell a bit lardy, so I thought if I put a bit of rose water in the rinse water it would make me smell more like a rose garden instead of a french fry, but since I just have a jam jar I will have to make another batch....and have more ice on hand.

Beautiful, soft and silky rose petals

I can't stop taking pictures of my pea fence, I love it. The wood that I used to make it also came from the golf course.

The strawberry bed is looking promising

waiting and waiting for beets

so you have to look very closely and I know the picture is blurry but can you see the itsy tiny cluster of grapes?

My lunches this week will be fish, rice and steamed vegetables ... on a bed of spinach 

and baggies of fruit, 1 peach, 1 apricot, 1 apple, 1 orange and 1 banana for each day

I also made a cake, I found a recipe for a layered fruit cake, it was a layer of cake and then a layer of rhubarb and saskatoons and then a layer of jello and then a layer of cake again, sounds good right? So I go to the store to get jello and take my rhubarb and saskatoons out of the freezer. After the cake in in the oven and I am cleaning up my kitchen I see the package of jello on the counter, what the heck? How did I miss the jello, I look at my recipe and it doesn't call for jello, but I went to the store to get this jello just for this recipe then I realize it wasn't layered either, I look again, and I was following the wrong recipe on the page in the cook book. I am so annoyed at myself and disappointed in my cake. It's edible but now great....oh well, next week I will try again, I still have the jello.

As I writing this it started to rain and it looked like it was hailing and I thought to myself as I am looking out of the window "oh if that is hail we are so going to complain about that" but in the next second it stopped.