Feathers and Flowers

We have lovely neighbours down the road in our little village who have a collection of interesting birds. His name is Lorne and he has wonderful, large enclosures where he keeps very special care of doves and pheasants and guinea fowl and peacocks. He has also had a beautiful old fashioned pair of turkeys and some quail. These are the neighbours from whom we obtained our two runner ducks. They met untimely ends, those runner ducks, but they were very interesting while we had them.

My daughter and her boyfriend went for a walk the other evening, while it was still light, and stopped into say hello. Betty knew who she was right away, but it had been years since Lorne had seen our daughter. When he realized who she was, he invited both her and her boyfriend to come back and see all of his wonderful creatures. His peacocks are in their mating season (we know, we can hear their calls from our house). The gorgeous white peacock had knocked off a few feathers, so our daughter came home with four of them.

Here are some pictures of Scooter-the-cat-with-no-tail enjoying a very unique cat toy!

I wonder if he was thinking, "I wouldn't mind a shot at the rest of this bird!"

And now, in celebration of the fact that only about one month and five days ago we had snow, here are some blooms from my home. A periwinkle blue centaurea and a purple iris with beautiful yellow centres.

Recipe for Rhubarb

Hello all! I must say I'm proud to be part of a group of red wine with ice drinkers!! Cheers!

Now, onto recipes. I was asked if I could post the recipe for my strawberry / rhubarb crisp (or rhubarb / strawberry crisp, depending on what you like more!). I don't know how to do that fancy attachment business where you could print off a lovely copy of the recipe complete with nutrition facts, so here it is the old fashioned way:

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup quick cooking oats
1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup butter or margarine (it doesn't matter)
4 cups sliced fresh or frozen rhubarb (could thaw it a bit and squeeze out the water if it's frozen)
aprx. 2 cups strawberries roughly chopped (fresh or frozen - again squeeze out a bit of water if it is thawing)

1 cup white sugar
2 tblsp cornstarch
1 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients (flour, br. sugar, oats, cinn.) Cut in butter or margarine and combine with fingers to make it crumbly. Press half of this mixture into a large ungreased baking pan (9 inch).
Combine rhubarb and strawberries in a bowl and spoon over the pressed flour and oat mixture.

In saucepan, combine white sugar and cornstarch. Stir in the water and vanilla. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Cook and stir for about 2 minutes (it should be rather thick). Pour over the fruit. Sprinkle with remaining flour / oat mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for aprx. 1 hour. Nice served with ice cream, but fine on its own.


I hope all of my fellow Ontarians have enjoyed this beautiful blast of summer weather. The lilacs are in bloom and everything smells heavenly.

viburnum bush 

very pale purple lilacs

Fifty-one captured in a snapshot

This picture tells the story of a fifty-one year old woman. A woman who swallowed her perimenopausal / menopausal supplement with a swig of wine after she used her reading glasses to read the instructions on the jar of curry paste. Sigh.

No, I am not being paid by the makers of promensil, and yes that's ice in my red wine because it is now summer.  I also managed to pull some sort of shoulder/chest muscle by weeding my garden.. I so enjoy middle age.

Ode to a Rhubarb Crisp

Tomorrow is pot luck Friday at work. Sometimes I participate, sometimes I don't. It isn't every Friday. In fact, I can't remember the last pot luck we had. I am participating in this one and I called dibs on bringing something with rhubarb in it.

I did not like rhubarb as a child. My mother made stewed rhubarb which is essentially boiled rhubarb that ends up being mushy and slightly stringy. We ate it warmed up. There was something about rhubarb that made my teeth feel funny. Does anyone know what I mean?

Now that I grow my own rhubarb from a plant that I bought years ago at our little local nursery, I have some favourite recipes. Tonight I baked a strawberry / rhubarb crisp. The strawberries are from my garden (frozen from last year, it's still too early for berries now) and the rhubarb I pulled from the corner of my garden.

There is something about the colours in rhubarb, that scrumptious combination of green and pomegranate red, that I just love. Combine that with beautiful red strawberries and you have a winning combination.

Is that not glorious?

Here is my crisp as it was being "built".

There is still a syrupy mixture to pour over top and a crumb topping made with flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter to add.

The finished product ready to be taken to work to share with my fantastic co-workers.

I have many white blossoms on my strawberry plants. I think it will be a good haul this year. I will freeze more rhubarb as well, so I can keep making this dessert frequently throughout the year.

I will not, however, be making stewed rhubarb.

Sausage Fingers

It is nearing the end of May and if you live anywhere in my part of the world, you know that it is blackfly season. Blackflies, for the uninitiated, are not as large as a house fly. In fact, I don't think they ever come into a house. They can be found outside when you are gardening, cutting lawn, canoeing, camping, just sitting having a beer...

This past weekend, I got quite a bit of weeding and yard work done. Even though the temperature was fairly warm, I had on jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and leather gardening gloves. By the end of Monday, I had been bitten on my wrists (where gloves met sleeves), side of face, and inside my gardening glove where one little bastard had found a way in. I also managed to sunburn that shiny white piece of skin where your shirt rides up and your jeans ride down on your back. Every. Year.

I react badly to blackfly bites. First, they take a nice little chunk out of your skin when they bite, and then they spit in the hole they make. Nice. I swell up after I've been bitten, and the itching continues to the point where I could take a cheese grater to my skin if it didn't gross me out completely. I take antihistamine for the itch, but even that doesn't help completely. Topical creams and gels are fairly useless.

Now let me tell you about my morning. I know that I had been scratching throughout the night on the tops of my wrists. I got up at about 2:00 a.m. to take more benedryl so I could get some sleep. When the alarm went off at six, I stumbled downstairs and had a shower. Then I had a good look at my baby finger. It was extremely swollen (that's where I got a bite from inside the gardening glove). In fact, I didn't have a whole lot of sensation. This was due to the fact that my ring was cutting off the circulation and probably had been all night long. Then mild panic set in. What if I'd already lost too much circulation? I tried to pull on the ring. Absolutely nothing. No movement. It was on there for life!

I googled something like "loss of circulation, swollen finger, ring" and found videos showing me how to wrap my finger in dental floss and ease the ring over the wrapped finger. Tried it, and no. Then I went to my husband. Did he have a tool in the shop that we could maybe use to cut my ring off? We both chickened out of that idea. Too close to the skin, not enough leeway.

At this point, I knew I would have to go to the emergency department of our little local hospital. I'd heard of people having to have their ring cut off for various reasons. That's what I was on my way to do. A very nice nurse brought me into a room. It was about 7:15 a.m. at this point. I had to go to work by about 8:45. She agreed that this wasn't looking good and brought out a box that contained the cutting tool and some instructions. She'd done this once. A year ago. So, a little guide / spacer was put under my ring and she affixed the proper cutting blade to a little dremmel-like tool. When she put it in place and started cutting, I pulled my hand away in a hurry because my ring heated up like a thing on fire!!  Upon second glance, she noticed that the instructions called for lubricant to be put on the finger to help keep things cooled down. So, she started up again and managed to whiz away a few times before she had to stop to let things cool down again. This continued several times (now with another nurse watching just to see what was going on) until a score was made into the ring. Then we had to rotate the ring and cut again on the other side. My finger was a lovely shade of purple. Finally, after the second cut was made and we were able to pry the ring apart and get it off my huge purple sausage finger.

This ring was just a simple little gold band that I wore on my pinky finger. It wasn't a family heirloom and not a priceless piece of jewelry and quite frankly I was just so relieved to get it off my finger! Then I started to look at my other hand and all of my other rings. Oh boy. Remember, I had been bitten on the tops of both wrists and the swelling was travelling through my hands. So I decided to get all of my rings off. Two on the opposite hand just took a bit of soap and some twisting. However, my engagement ring and wedding band were frighteningly tight. That finger was also swelling. The two nurses had other business to attend to, so they left me at the sink with soap and hand cream. I managed to get my engagement ring off because it had a higher stone setting that I could grip onto and keep turning. The wedding band was another story. At one point I was certain we'd have to cut through that as well. But with lots of hand cream and twisting and saying to myself, "Just relax, just relax" I managed to ease it toward my knuckle and then micro-measurements at a time, I got it onto the knuckle, and then finally off. That finger was also a horrible purple mess by the time I was done. The relief was incredible. The nurse gave me a sample jar to put all my rings in. (Those were the best things I've ever had to deposit in a sample jar, let me tell you!)

After I got all registered (they had brought me in and started proceedings without even registering me), the nurse said the dr. would be in after 8:00. I asked if I really had to see him. She hemmed and hawed and finally I signed something saying I was leaving the emergency dept. without seeing a dr. against advice (or something like that). I reassured her that she did a fabulous job, but I hadn't even had coffee yet, I had to whip home, do something about my scary hair, eat something, and then whip to work. Which is what I did.

Ready for some pictures?

Here is my big fat hand.

These are the dents in my fingers where rings used to be. This is nine hours after getting the rings off.

This is my sad little ring. 

Here's the lesson I learned today. When I get bitten on my hand or on a finger by a blackfly, I should take off my rings immediately. 

O.K., folks. I'm guessing someone out there in blog land has experienced some sort of similar mishap. I can't wait to read about it!!

May 20, 2018

I did not watch the Royal wedding, so let's get that out of the way. It is currently 10 degrees Celsius and I'm waiting for the temperature to warm up, but traditionally, the long weekend in May is wet and cold and totally unacceptable for the camping and outdoor get-togethers that many Canadians engage in. We do not camp. However, there are so many outdoor jobs that need my attention, that I may just have to put another layer on and get on with business.

I walked around a bit this morning and took a few pictures to share the Spring progress with you. It rained throughout the night and was extremely foggy at 1:00 a.m. when I was out picking up son from a party (arranged ahead of time, yes I'm a good mother). He still managed to get up in time to go to work at 8:00 this morning.

There isn't much in bloom yet. I do love these pink tulips, complete with raindrops.

Wet grass means wet paws, and underbelly, and everything else for Scooter the-cat-with-no-tail.

The rhubarb loves the rain and it is exploding. Time for rhubarb crisp soon. Note how the dandelions are also enjoying the rain.

When we first bought our house, we were at the end of a dead-end road surrounded by farm land on three sides and a little yellow brick house on the fourth side owned by an older couple who only came up from the city a few times a year. Now we have a very big house right across from us and another house is going to be built beside that one. It is currently a big mess, but no doubt with the good weather upon us, there will be a flurry of activity. We're practically in the suburbs now! (You would find this amusing if you saw our little village which doesn't even have a store or gas station anymore).

The forsythia is fading and the ground phlox was very soggy this morning. Oh, the grass, the grass, the grass that I must try to dig out of my flower beds.

More wet tulips surrounded by taller phlox which will show their blooms later in the summer.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed at this time of year when the earth wakes up rapidly after the final dregs of snow disappears and Spring seems to last about a day and a half before Summer hits us. Yesterday I juggled grocery shopping, baking muffins, and doing a bit of trim mowing and "whipper snipping". Supper was chicken and pork souvlaki that was on sale, with rice and Greek salad. It was the first time I used the barbecue this season and it felt nice to be on the back porch with the smell of meat barbecuing and a half a glass of red wine.

I am happy that it is a long weekend (Victoria Day weekend) so I can have an extra day to tackle chores. I still have some perennials and shrubs that need cutting back, so much trim work to do along fence lines and around trees, weeding, and it's best not to even talk about the strawberry bed and vegetable garden. I did manage to push the vacuum around yesterday morning, however. Although it seems like I'm bemoaning the fact that I have all of these seasonal jobs to do, I get a great sense of accomplishment when I can look at a cleaned up flower bed, or see how nice and neat the property looks when the trim work is done. It's always this first push of the season that is so daunting, but once that is done, the rest is manageable if we keep on top of it. How are you spending your weekend?

This is all I have...

I don't write about work, and I don't write about "personal" life, so this is all I have to offer.

Behold my smoothie. This was my breakfast a couple of days ago. My home is decorated in very traditional colours with lots of wood. But there is a little piece of me that adores pink and green - together. When I made my smoothie, it turned out to be such a lovely shade of pink that I popped a spring green straw (bendy!!) in it to create the perfect combination.

This smoothie was, I believe, frozen chunks of banana, frozen strawberries (from my very own garden, although it is very weedy, Mama Pea), frozen cherries, vanilla protein powder, and a little container of whatever yogurt I grabbed out of the fridge.

You can see from the picture that part of my normal routine in the morning after showering, putting on my face, straightening my crazy frizzy hair, is to have a coffee  while sitting at the computer desk and reading blogs. Then breakfast at the same computer desk. After that I throw a lunch together, sometimes make a sandwich for a child if I'm feeling nice and motherly (they're not really children anymore and can make their own), and then off to work. If you look closely, I was reading Martha's blog, Plowing Through Life. If you haven't read it, it's great! Another Canadian girl, like myself.

I don't always have a smoothie. In fact, I can't eat the same breakfast every day or I would go berserk. I need to change up my food. I always have coffee, though. No sugar, just milk. Instant coffee. Yup.

And there you have it folks, I have just written a post about my breakfast. It's a safe subject. We can all relate.