Monday. September 29th - the highlight of the weekend had to be the weather!

Conditions at 5:10 am: windy and overcast and 14'
Expected later: 10' this afternoon and showery

What can we say about the past two days except Thank You Mother Nature! Saturday was a glorious 20' and sunny, and Sunday was the same only a bit warmer! It was truly a wonderful weekend to have Saturday off work that's for sure. I did some tidying up in the morning then spent some time outside. Lloyd was sleeping in the morning and I called the VanGaals to invite them for supper, kind of a belated birthday celebration for both of them. I'd spent Friday evening at their house helping peel and chop cucumbers and onions for mustard pickles that Brenda was making early on Saturday morning. A job like that always goes faster when you have help and someone to share a glass of wine with as you work!

So I alternated between puttering outside and getting dinner ready. I suppose you could say it was somewhat of a harvest feast. We started with a curried Apple and Zucchini soup, with zucchini from our garden, Then we followed that up with roast chicken, accompanied by  potatoes, carrots and parsnips, all also from our own land. The chicken was meant to be our own home raised ones but I kind of messed that up. I took our two small birds from the freezer, only to find out later they were the laying hens, which would have been tough as shoe leather. Fortunately we discovered my error in time for Lloyd to go up to Morrell to the Coop and pick up a couple of fresh chickens. That could have been disastrous! For dessert, I tried out a new cake pan I picked up a while ago. The first time I used it, the results were less than satisfactory. I had sprayed it with cooking spray but didn't flour it and the cake stuck. This time I coated the sprayed pan with cocoa after spraying it and it worked really well. Filled with vanilla ice cream it gave a whole new meaning to our family's "Chocolate cake and ice cream". So, yeah, all they got for their birthday dessert was an oreo cookie!

Lloyd has been busy out in the garage. His wall is now up and he's begun building work benches. I suspect thing will be moving along quite rapidly once he has places to actually put tools. Besides a couple of  benches he's also building enclosed cabinets to house the various tools that are stacked all around the place on the floor. Trouble is when he tries to do something he can't find the tools required without spending considerable time poking through piles of stuff! But he's getting there.

All in all it was a lovely and productive weekend.