Enjoying the Wonderful Weather

My lack of posts this year is no indication of lack of activity in the garden.  We have been very fortunate with great weather for the past few weeks (we are actually hoping for rain, which sounds crazy in Vancouver BC, but I'm getting a bit tired of watering the fruit trees), and the garden is looking great.  I bought this wonderful tree peony last year, and this is my first bloom, just in time for mother's day.

A few years ago, someone gave me some pink lily-of-the-valley, and this year they have become a  good patch underneath some of my bushes.  I also have the white ones, so was able to bring some into the bathroom, using this cute little vase from my sister-in-law, Cynthia.  Even though a small number of flowers, the fragrance was amazing.

Speaking of fragrance, I have some lilacs at the back of the property, but the bush has grown so high that I had a hard time reaching and cutting a few blooms to bring inside :

This year I have been fortunate to be able to make quite a bit of time to work in the garden.  I will need to take more photos of all the progress.  I had also been painting more bird houses.  This one is my most recent, inspired by images of my 14-year-old's fave bands : BVB & BOTDF.

I have a few more I need to get installed into the garden, and the ones which overwintered needed some glue repairs (I need to find some better quality birdhouses than the ones at Michaels, which look nice, but are junk).  Here are a few of the houses I've painted:

Maui Moments

We had the wonderful privilege to spend one week in Maui during Spring Break in March.  It was quite beautiful, as these photos should indicate.

 

Merry Christmas to All!

I hope you are having a Merry Christmas, or have had a Merry Christmas, depending on your tradition and your timing of reading this post.  We celebrated Christmas tonight with the kids and their grandparents.  A few days before Christmas, it always feel overwhelming at what is left to prepare, but it always comes together in the end.

I made my own Christmas centerpiece this year for the table, and was pleased by the result.  (Unfortunately, Blogger seems determined to upload this photo rotated, even though it shows up in every other app correctly!!) :

The variegated cedar and variegated holly are from my garden, as are the few branches of our silver-tipped sequoia.  The red berries were from a bush overhanding a back lane (behind a commercial building) just a few blocks away.  The container was from a centerpiece I received from a friend a year or two ago, which I kept & reused.  I would have liked a red candle, but I had only white ones, so I used that.  I've learned not to stress about such little details anymore.

I also updated my neglected front planter for Christmas, but am too lazy to get the other camera and upload a photo.  Another time.

I finally got outside yesterday to wrap up my glass path lights, so they will hopefully survive another winter, and my son came out & had some fun playing with snow while I puttered away.

My poor little fairy house, which has been through a number of winters now, may not make it through this one.  It has lost most of its roofing materials, and is leaning now (Okay, Blogger is being really annoying tonight, with these rotated photos!).

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and all the best for the New Year!

Peaceful Place

I have not been posting many photos of my garden this year, but I have been inspired by Suzy's Artsy-Crafty Sitcom's Photography Challenge to post an entry for next week's theme "Serenity".  I recently emailed myself this photo taken with my mobile phone in my garden about a month ago.  I love this little section of my garden, with the granite bench nestled in amongst the lavender and other perennials.  I didn't notice the evening sun streaming across the photo at the time, but I think it gives it a dreamy look.  I have only edited the photo to add a frame.  I've entitled it "Peaceful Place".

Click the photo for a larger view, and [Esc] to return.

Yam and Beet Chips

These yam and beet chips are even more delicious than they look, and very easy to make.

This weekend I amused myself by making yam and beet chips.  I was planning just to make kale chips, which I like, but the family doesn't really enjoy.  But then I decided to try something new.

 

I peeled the yams and beets, and sliced them as thin as I could.  Dried them between two paper towels, and laid them out, non-overlapping, on cookie sheets which I had sprayed lightly with oil, and salted.  Then I salted the tops, and placed them in a pre-heated 250 F oven.  When one side was dry, I flipped each over to let the other side dry quicker.  They took a total of 3 hours or so (and some of the thicker beet slices were still not crispy), but the result was very good.  Within a couple of hours, the family had eaten 3 beets and a medium sized yam, in chip form.

 

So I bought more yams and beets today, and made more chips.  This time I concentrated on slicing even thinner, left the beets between the paper towels for a while to become really dry, and the chips were done and very crispy in less than 3 hours.  I didn't take a photo of the yams or beets when first laid out on the pans, but here is a shot as I pulled them out of the oven, when done.  When they dry, they shrink, so I had combined a couple of sheets together as they came close to the end.

I'm not sure what veggies I'll try next.  I was thinking of carrots.  I need to take a look at one of those gourmet veggie chip bags to see what else I should try.

 

Let me know if you try any veggie chips, and what veggies work well.

Good-bye to our Rattie Girl Sammy

Recently we said good-bye to Jen, and now we have said good-bye to our oldest rattie girl, Sammy.  We found her dead on Tuesday.  She had hung on a very long time, a surprise to us, since she had developed large tumours, and toward the end lost all her beautiful blond colour, and became completely white and then eventually a light grey.  But we still remember her earlier days with her pretty silky blond hair, ruby eyes, and her surprising candy-like scent (none of the other rats smelled sweet like she did).  She was a good friend to Jenny, and to my daughter.  We will miss her.

Good-bye to our girl Jen (and our Bear)

2012 will be a very sad year, especially for my daughter, since we will likely say good-bye to all 4 of our ratties by the end of the year.  They are all at end-of-life.  July 1 we said good-bye to Bear.  We were surprised that he was the first to go.  We had expected Sam, our oldest girl, with her enormous tumours and white hair (she used to be a blond), would be the first one to leave us.  But she is still hanging on.

This weekend, we said good-bye to my girl Jen.  We returned Saturday evening from being out all day, and my daughter found her at the bottom of the cage.  She looked like she was near the end.  So we gave her a soft cloth to lie on, and petted her beautiful little black head to comfort her.  She departed peacefully.  It was still sad.  She is now buried under the plum tree, not far from Bear.

I don't think it will be long for poor Sam.  She is not doing well lately.  Hopefully Archie, our youngest boy, will be with us for some time.  It will be sad when they are all gone, but unfortunately due to my allergies (which I didn't know about until we had all 4 rats), we will not be replacing them.

Here are a few photos of Jen.  She was our sweet little curly girl, with the curly whiskers and fur.  She loved to run (she was fast!), and give my daughter kisses.  She was a good friend to Sammy.

 

Here are also some memories of our gentle and huggable, squeezable Bear, who we thought would be a nice companion for Sammy, until we discovered he was a boy.  I have to admit that his dopey dumbo look never melted my heart, but he was a good friend for my daughter, a favourite of her friends, and a good companion for Archie.

 







More Glimpses of Europe : Vienna, Venice, and More

We passed through Wien (Vienna), Austria, where we visited and toured the beautiful Schoenbrunn Castle.  Again, photos were not allowed inside the tour, but even these mostly exterior photos hint at the grandeur of the castle :

We stayed three nights in Meste, just a short bus ride from Venezia (Venice), Italy.  Two days in Venezia was not nearly enough to see it all, but we got a pretty good flavour of the city, and visited many interesting shops too.  Here are some of the classic Venice views :

 

The highlight of Venezia for me was the San Marco Piazza.  It was crowded, noisy, the restaurant where we enjoyed sitting on the plaza was too expensive, but the architecture was gorgeous.  These samples don't come close to expressing the many wonderful views :

I really liked this image of Adam and Eve and the serpent in the Garden.  You can see the finger pointing so clearly.  "It wasn't my fault, it was the woman who gave it to me."  "It wasn't my fault, it was the serpent who deceived me."

Finally for today, another beautiful cathedral, the Saint Jacob's Church which we visited in Brno, Czech Republic :

Stay tuned for a few more photos when I next have the opportunity to organize and post.

Glimpses of Europe : Dragons, Cathedrals, Cobblestones and Castles

Our family had the wonderful privilege to take a 3 week vacation in Europe, returning this past weekend.  It was my first time, as it was for the kids.  We ended up visiting 6 countries, spending a good part of our time in the Czech Republic, where my husband comes from.  I amused myself by taking about 1400 photos during our trip, of which I hope to share a small sampling.

It's hard to know where to start, since there was so much to see.  We visited a number of beautiful cathedrals.  This one is Katedrala Svate Barbory (Cathedral of Saint Barbara) in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic (not far from Praha) :

This one is the Saint Vitus Cathedral in the Prague Castle :

I am fascinated by dragons, so was pleased to see a number of statues and images of dragons, many of them featuring Saint George slaying a dragon.  The dragon at top, who is dismayed that a pigeon is sitting on his nose, is from Klagenfurt, Austria :

I was also amused by the many buildings in the Czech Republic which appeared to be held up by statues, many of them with anguished or strained looks on their faces.  After all, it is heavy work to hold up a stone building :

The timing of the trip was fortunate for me, in that it was eight weeks after my nasty ankle sprain, so I was pretty much back to walking normally, navigating stairs, and mostly without pain.  None too soon, since the walking surfaces were quite challenging, with cobblestones featured in most of the roads and sidewalks in the Czech republic, and even in some of the other countries we visited.  Here is a sampling of some of the surfaces on which we trod :

In the Czech Republic, the castles were classified as either a Hrad (fortress), evoking scenes of great sieges and battles, or a Zamek (chateau), displaying elaborate exterior and interior decor, often with grand formal gardens and collections of unique and now ancient trees.  We visited a number of both types.  To my dismay, the zamek could only be visited by guided tour, and photos were not allowed, so I only have the images in my memory, which make my otherwise grand house seem rather plain in comparison.

The boys preferred the hrads, which usually involved some hiking to access. This is the Hrad Spilberk in Brno, CZ.  It was built in the 13th century, withstood a three month siege by the Swedish army in the 17th century, and has been modified and used as a prison at various stages of its history (for a more extensive historical description, see the Spilberk Castle website).  We walked through the dark, damp and very dreary dungeon which served as prison cells for large groups of prisoners :

I'll share more photos when I next have the opportunity.