Happy Canada Day!

True Patriot Love, We Stand on Guard for Thee!

Have a wonderful Canada Day!

Blessings,

Niki

Summer Days

After a lovely weekend away at a friend's cottage, we're home feeling rested and refreshed. The weekend was spent on the water, fishing, for the guys, and swimming and relaxing on the boat for us girls.

When we weren't relaxing on the boat, we were relaxing on lounge chairs, complete with double cushions, double pillows and a towel folded near your feet in case the bugs started bugging you! How spoilt we were. Tea accompanied us out to the lounge chairs, along with our books, magazines, knitting and needlework. And, of course, lots of conversation, which petered out after a while as we would gently drift off to doze under the beautiful trees, by the water....

It's the only place I've ever seen my husband (who can't sit still) relax enough to just nap part of the day away. Absolute bliss.

Sunday evening we returned home, and, as always, that seems to be the best part of going away.

We begin a "staycation" beginning tomorrow, July 1st, Canada Day. Happy Canada Day everyone! Rob begins a fairly major construction project, along with some help from Cory and Jon. We are screening in our large back deck completely. I can't wait to be able to spend the evenings out there without being attacked by swarms of descending mosquitoes! I'll post some progress pictures as we go along.

Around our place the veg. gardens are doing amazing! We're so pleased. We are able to harvest bok choy, kale, lettuce, radish, green onion, and spinach. We have some small green tomatoes on our cherry tomato plant and the beans and peppers are coming along a treat.

The meat birds are growing rapidly, we've only lost one so far, which is very good. Our new laying hens are already laying, and the lambs are almost the same size as their mothers.

Strawberry season is finally here and I will spend a day next week making a fairly large batch of jam, as well as freezing a good portion of whole berries for smoothies and desserts this winter. The best way to freeze strawberries is to place them, so they're not touching, on a cookie sheet and then pop them in the freezer. Once frozen they are easy to remove from the cookie sheet and place in freezer bags. They stay separated that way and don't freeze together in a big clump. I also like to slice fresh berries, sprinkle sugar on them and let them make their own "juice" and then freeze that. When thawed it's a nice strawberries and syrup to serve over Angel food cake or pound cake or in a fruit punch.

After a busy day out with a friend on Monday, today is cleaning and laundry day, and I guess I'd better get to it!

Have a blessed day!

Niki

Having 2 weddings in 3 years has left us with an abundance of Tulle. You know, that white netting stuff that is commonly used to decorate churches and halls. I've stored it for a while now and finally last summer realized what a wonderful food cover it would make for preventing flies and such from landing on our buffet. This is a real issue in the country, where insects abound! So I cut out a nice big rectangle, and just loosely drape it over the entire table inbetween helpings. Works like a charm!

The second thing I've made are produce bags. I really don't like using an endless supply of those thin plastic bags at the grocery store. Tulle produce bags provided the answer. The weigh nothing, the cashier can see inside to get produce codes and they were so easy to stitch up, even for me! I cut out appropriately sized squares, folded the top over and sewed, to create a "pocket" to pull a shoelace drawstring through, and then sewed up the 3 sides, and voila! Easy peasy.

I've been busy in the kitchen. I had to try making these, and Father's Day seemed like a good reason. They were quite nice, but I would decrease the amount of red pepper flakes next time, a little too fiery for us.

These also caught my eye, and they were scrumptious. Not too sweet, which I liked. I frosted some and left the rest plain and both were delicious. I also love not having to use cake mixes and this recipe is a breeze to whip up.

Sunday the kids came over, with my mum, for a Father's day celebration along with my birthday. We had a great day.

Henry did mostly this...

He also spent alot of time looking at me like this, so that I'd do whatever he wanted....

Nessa and Jon looking good...we're missing our Jenny!

Rob and I played a round of Boules

Before we settled down to the serious business of gift opening!

and bbq-ing

and a very nice thank you-ing!

We're off to a friend's cottage for the weekend! Maybe my husband will actually rest!

Have a blessed weekend,

Niki

Menu Plan Monday

Another Menu Plan Monday rolls around again! This is a funny week as Tuesday is my Birthday....hmmm.......and Friday we leave for a friends cottage. So the menu's are a little loosey-goosey this week.

But this is what I'm thinkin'

Monday will be leftover bbq from Father's Day with leftover Pineapple cupcakes and leftover Strawberry pie.

Tuesday my hubby informed me that he was bbq-ing me a really good steak for said Birthday...yum.

Wednesday will be Perogies, we haven't had that in a while. I like to boil them for a minute, then a quick pan fry in butter and sauteed onions. Serve with a big dollop of sour cream.

Thursday a pork stirfry sounds good, along with some Chinese pot stickers I have in the freezer.

Friday we are off..yippee!

Baking will be minimal this week, maybe a loaf of bread or two.

More menus to be found at http://www.orgjunkie.com/

Have a blessed day!

Niki

Happy Father's Day....

to my guy!

Rob & Jon...working together

Rob, Cory & Henry...Grampa, Daddy and the wee one....

Grampa & Henry

The New Daddy

Rob and my mum

and the tractor....

The Best Grampa

gosh, he's good looking

Giving them away, graciously, with tears and smiles

Not once but twice....

We love you!

Our eldest and her little one arrived safely home on Tuesday evening from Alberta. They had a wonderful visit with our Jen, spending the week visiting some tourist areas, parks, shopping, picnic-ing, and if I know my two girls, (and I do) talking, talking, talking. I was so thankful they had this time together, and I know Jenny was missing us and extra happy to see her sister!

Given that Grampa and I were missing a certain little man terribly, we brought supper to Nessa and Cory on Wednesday evening and had a good visit with them. We enjoyed supper at the picnic table outside, while Henry toddled around pushing his car, playing and being fed and cuddled. I made up 2 Family Chicken Casseroles, one for supper and one for Nessa's freezer, along with Pioneer Women's Apple Tart. The tart was ok, not great. I'm thinking I rolled the pastry (frozen Tenderflake puff pastry) too thin. Anyway, nice meal, had together.



I picked up a really nice book from the library this week. I've knit several shawls now. All the same pattern but using different wools and needle sizes, giving very different results. I would like to try a couple of new patterns and this book has a wonderful range of patterns from beginner to experienced.

My favourite DVD this week was Lost In Austen, a 3 hour TV miniseries, which was really entertaining. If you are a Pride and Prejudice fan, you'd probably like this one.

Thursday was a big day in our family. Our son Jonathan graduated from College! He has finished the Police Foundations program and is heading to University in the fall to complete his degree in Criminology. We're so proud of him! All of this while working at a group home for developmentally delayed men, and as a city by-law officer. Ok....I'll stop now.... The lighting in the huge arena was so bad we couldn't get any pictures, but here is one of Ness and Henry about 2 hours into the ceremony, he was so good!

After his graduation ceremoney, we went to see a prospective apartment for him for the fall, when he's in school and then out for a celebratory supper. It was after 9 by the time we got home, long day.

On the home front, something, Hubs thinks a coyote, killed 3 of our 4 laying hens. Just when they were laying a beautiful big brown egg each everyday, with a lovely deep orange yolk, really the most delicious eggs...sigh.... So I am calling around today to see if I can still order some "ready to lay" hens. I really don't like store bought eggs, we're spoiled I guess.

The garden are doing very nicely, everything germinating. The sheep and lambs are happy, the meat birds are growing, we've only lost 1 so far, which is good. Best of all we are supposed to be heading into a week of sunshine and hot temps....I hope they're right!

Have a blessed weekend!

Niki