Monday, May 13th - hope all the moms out there had a lovely day yesterday

It's a cloudy11' this morning but it's supposed to clear up and reach a sunny 15' later this afternoon.
We finally received the much needed rain they've been promising for quite some time. It did make a mess of Mother's Day but we all made the best of it.

Saturday started out foggy and dreary but actually turned out to be quite nice. When I got home from work Lloyd was working on the garage roof. After coming inside and having a cup of tea, he decided to get back to it. He kept on with his shingling and I got to work extending the flower bed at the side of the house. The ground was very dry so it was easier to dig up the sod and  remove it. I worked away at it until it was all finished and Lloyd was just calling it quits for the day as well. I suggested that if he could take an old table that was stored in the shed up the ladder to the balcony, I'd get the beer. So we have officially christened the new unfinished balcony with our first outing. It was very pleasant up there  except for the black flies that seemed to think we needed their company.  I can totally see this space being put to good use throughout the summer.

CHEERS!

The view from up here is great

By the time we finished our beer, it had started to rain but we were snug as a couple of bugs in our little enclosed space. Of course that's only because the rain was falling straight down and not in our direction!  It was after 7:00 when we went inside so time to make a quick bite to eat and call it a day.

Sunday the rain continued as was expected. I had already planned to spend my time working on the quilt I need to get finished in the next couple of weeks. Brenda and Bernie were going to spend the day cleaning and polishing their bikes.  When they were done, they came over to have a Mother's Day dinner with us.  It was a simple meal but turned out great - one of my better efforts if I do say so myself. I braised some beef short ribs in a combination of beer and balsamic vinegar. After 3 hours in the oven, they pretty much melted in your mouth and the flavour was wonderful. We paired them with a cauliflower potato puree and fresh green beans. All plates were cleaned up so I take that as a good sign. One diner actually used a tiny rubber spatula to ensure getting every little morsel but we won't mention who!
Dessert was  two things - a strawberry rhubarb crisp and lemon meringue tarts. The crisp was okay but it used frozen rhubarb and tasteless strawberries, but pretty soon we'll be able to make it with fresh strawberries and rhubarb - it will be so much better!

Our lemon meringue tarts

Grandson James has a cell phone now so we were texting back and forth a little bit last night. It's probably not really cool to be texting your grandma but I don't think James will care about that.