Wednesday, October 12th - Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Weekend, however you spent it

Well, that was a thanksgiving to remember!  After a beach day on Saturday (for some folks, anyway) with the humidex into the high 20's we were treated to the remains of Hurricane Matthew on Monday. Very strong winds, and copious amounts of rain for most of the day and well into the night.

We were very glad that the pens had finally been installed in the barn and the goats all spent their first night inside on Sunday night. Needless to say they stayed inside all day Monday. It was a wonderful sight to see Monday afternoon when I went out to check on things. The lights were on inside and the goats were all just lying down content in their own spaces.  You could hear the rain beating against the tin roof and the wind howling but inside the barn was nice and  cozy. There are a few spots that still need to be made weather tight but for the most part they were pretty happy little campers.

All in all it had been a pretty busy weekend. I had Saturday off so we spent the first part of the day

finishing off the floor in the barn, so Lloyd could continue with the pens. Meanwhile I spent the afternoon bottling honey. Lloyd had finally come up with a plan that worked, for spinning the honey out of the frames without destroying the wax honeycombs. In total we gathered and jarred approximately 56 pounds of honey. That was just from one section of each hive. The rest is staying in the hives for the bees to use over the winter.  This was the first year we actually got any honey so it was pretty exciting.  (I know, it obviously doesn't take a lot to make us happy!)

Sunday was busy baking cupcakes. We had a benefit to go to on Sunday evening and I decided to bake some special cupcakes to raise some money at the event. I made three different kinds.

By all accounts they were a success. I had thought they were having a cake auction but in the end I think they raised more money by selling them individually.  Brenda, Meghan and Caitlin came over to help with the final assembly and packaging on Sunday afternoon so it was a great time.






The hamburger and fries cupcakes were a big success. It was a lot of work but with great help it was fun to put them all together. I just realized tonight we should have had wine to sip while we worked but then they might have turned out a little wonky. In the end the extra effort was worth it.

A thin brownie sandwiched between the two halves of a large white cupcake  

looked for all the world like a hamburger. 

 Rolled fondant cheese slices. lettuce and tomatoes with buttercream mustard

 A few sesame seeds sprinkled on top with a toothpick completed the look

 Pound cake slices with red piping gel filled our baskets.

  A final wrapping and they were ready for the sale.  

All in all it was an interesting experiment in cake creativity.

We had some friends over for lunch mid afternoon on Monday and it was terrible out. Just as we finished eating, Lloyd received a call that his plane was bouncing around a lot, as it was tied outside at the airport in Charlottetown.  He and Jens took a trip into town to find things not so bad. A bit of damage to the plane but at least it wasn't flipped over or anything traumatic like that. We lost power  around 6:30 when I had just finished the dishes. It came back on briefly at midnight then went out again until sometime in the early morning hours.  But Tuesday morning the sun came out and the winds died down so I think we fared rather well. I heard on the news that parts of Cape Breton and Newfoundland were badly battered and flooded so we were pretty lucky.



The Dennisons were hosting Thanksgiving dinner at their house this year. A few text messages were sent back and forth as well as this picture of Tristen making a cherry pie for dessert. I think we have our next junior chef in the making.  They're planning on coming down for a few days after Christmas so I've told him he's on pie duty! He did the pastry all by himself as well as crimping the edges of the crust. Well done, T!

Which leads us to our weekly feature of

Where in the world is Patti?

After hosting thanksgiving dinner, she was off to Japan and sent me these photos from Yokohama, a suburb of Tokyo:

Her hotel lobby

The view of the city from her hotel room - not quite the view we see in tourist photos.
 I imagine you have to get away from the cities to see the tranquil beauty
that we westerners have come to associate with Japan.

Food, food ...

...and more food - yum!

As Patti noted, it seems some things are universal...I
wonder if their menu looks the same as the western worlds

It was a surprise to learn they celebrate Halloween in Japan

And of course, no trip to Japan is complete without a visit to the 100 yen store
 (Japan's version of our dollar stores) I wonder, is everything in their stores made in China?