Tuesday, October 31st - Happy Halloween!

Good Tuesday morning! Gosh, the days are getting so short. As I sit here at 7:10 in the morning, it's still pitch black dark outside. I suppose that will change slightly for a short time when the time goes back this coming weekend.

Our mild weather still continues. It's quite remarkable to have temperatures close to 20' on a regular basis at the end of October, but we'll take it.  This nice weather was a contributing factor in finally getting Lloyd up in the air.

He went for his first flight in over a year and a half, on Saturday. He went out to do some circuits and get his head back into the game. I was going outside to the garage to get something when I heard a small plane overhead. I looked up and saw what I was pretty sure might be Lloyd. As I watched, it made a couple of circles over our property, so I knew it was him. I was standing in the yard waving like a mad fool, but not sure if he saw me.

He flew again on Sunday, when he moved the plane to Summerside to be housed in a hangar out there. Bernie drove out to pick him up when he was landed.

Brenda was away on Saturday and Sunday at her annual girls weekend, so I invited Bernie to join us for supper. Meghan was out helping him so she came over as well. I was making lasagna, so it was easy to make a smaller vegetarian version as well. I made fresh pasta, tomatoes from our garden were in the sauce, and the ricotta used was made from our goats milk. Pretty much a local product, I would say.

I got some great news this week - my friend in London, England, is coming over to visit over Christmas. I'm really looking forward to sharing a Canadian Christmas with her. She's from New Zealand and her family, who also live in England, are going to Australia/New Zealand for 3 months and will be away for Christmas, so I suggested if she had enough time off work, she should come here. I was surprised to learn that she's never had snow at Christmas so I really hope Mother Nature cooperates.  She's flying into Halifax and we're going to pick her up and we should be able to come back on the boat as it will still be running when she arrives on the 15th.  Now I'm really looking forward to Christmas and all the festivities that go with it. I was reading the November Buzz yesterday and Decembers will likely have lots of ideas to keep us busy while she's here. She will be leaving on the 1st of January, the same day I'm planning to fly up to Ontario so Lloyd will drop me off and then take her to Halifax. Again, hopefully the weather cooperates!

And to start preparing for our Christmas feast, the wild cranberries over on the VanGaal property are now ready. Brenda has picked quite a few so I think I'll need to go over and pick some to freeze to make our own festive cranberry jelly in December.

Tuesday, October 24th - Glorious weather in store

Mother Nature has given us a great fall this year. We had a couple of cooler days last week but we've had more nice days than bad. In fact, last week I was in town twice with the Miata and I was able to drive home with the top down! Not so shabby for mid - October.

If the old adage of "red sky at night, sailors delight " is true, it explains some of our great weather, not to mention some pretty spectacular sunsets.

But it seems to work

Even Oreo was outside basking in the sun

It was a pretty quiet week out here. Lloyd spent pretty much the whole weekend working on his airplane. It was in need of some repair as well as an annual inspection. All is now complete and he hopes to get up for a flight this coming weekend. He thought about it on Sunday but it was a bit too windy. He wants good weather for his first flight in quite a while.

There's a lovely flag display in town that is put up every fall, and will remain until Remembrance Day. It really is quite a sight to see, especially when there's a breeze (which really is most of the time).

Meanwhile I've been working on a couple of projects that will become Christmas presents eventually.  Other than that, not a lot going on.

I have to do cards at all three stores this week. Last week I only had one to work. We've already put out some of the Christmas cards, and the rest will go up once Halloween is over. Hard to think about Christmas coming up when we have temperatures inching towards 20' later this week.

Happy Anniversary Patti and Greg - Monday, October 16th

Hey everyone. More than one person questioned why there was no post last week. Turns out I got my days all mixed up with the holiday and I missed it! Not much of an excuse, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

A big happy anniversary to Patti and Greg. Hopefully they might find some time to go out for a nice
dinner or something. Although I know what that family's schedule is like so it's doubtful. Regardless, hope it was a great one.

Last week I was busy planning and prepping for our home town hockey function. Then on Friday I was advised that due to circumstances beyond their control, they were withdrawing their request for our services. Seems they moved their operations to a local hotel and said hotel wouldn't allow an outside caterer in the place. It would have been helpful to know that a few weeks prior, but that's business I suppose. We hadn't asked for any kind of a deposit (didn't expect to need one) but in retrospect, we should have. Lesson learned. We're still new at this and we still have a lot to learn. Just one of the many hurdles we are likely to encounter along the way.

The up side is I think we have a booking for a Christmas party in December. We'll be asking for a deposit this time!

Other than that little set back, it's been a good couple of weeks. The weather has been great for the most part. We're working on getting all the outside stuff done before it gets cold. We worked on wood on the weekend and now have the wood shed packed to capacity. One of the less enjoyable jobs done and out of the way. Lloyd had booked some vacation days later this week for the catering event, but I think he's still going to take them. Good opportunity to finish up a few more chores. One of the big ones is clearing out the barn. He's taken out all the pens and is in the process of removing all the old straw and manure. Our neighbour has brought over a manure spreader and parked it in the back. When it's filled, the manure will get spread on the fields. Win/win for everyone.
Once that's done, we'll be able to use the barn for storage for lawn tractors, etc. Rumour has it my little car will also fit in there for the winter. Yay!

Lloyd had a few guys over for a BBQ on Friday night so Brenda and I made ourselves scarce. We watched a movie in the house and had snacks while Lloyd BBQ'd three chickens on the spit, with supervision of course. They turned out really well, in spite of the cooks having quite a  few beverages. By all accounts a good time was had by all.

Brenda and I are going to community school on Tuesday nights for an exercise class. It's not too bad - mostly low impact so my poor old knees don't suffer too badly.  Of course the tea and cookies at the end are the added bonus.

In keeping with the fitness efforts, she and I and Meghan went for a hike in the woods on Saturday afternoon. It was a decent kind of day, not too cold or hot, and the leaves are just starting to fall. It was a lovely day for a walk and we got some great photos of PEI in the fall!

Some areas of the trail have very little colour

Some areas have a tiny bit of colour

And some areas are absolutely brilliant!

Tuesday, October 3rd - summer is still trying to hang on a little

In spite of a very chilly day yesterday, the rest of the week is meant to get warmer as it goes by, maybe almost 20 by the end of it. We'll take it!

It was a very busy week. All efforts focused on preparing things for our first 'Farm Day in the City'.  Our plan was to pass out samples of various items we might include on a catered menu. We saw on the news last night that there were approximately 15,000 people who passed through the event over the course of 6 hours, from 11 to 5.

Getting set up

Of course, it helped that there was a VERY large cruise ship that docked early that morning so that added at least another 4,000 people to the mix. The fact that it was a sunny and mild day helped tremendously to bring people out.  And what a great event for all those tourists to experience.

Our day started very early, and we were on the road shortly after 8:00. There were a few challenges along the wa,y and while setting up, but we managed to overcome them.

We were located at the corner of King Street and Queen Street. Once we got there and unloaded the car and truck, it was time to get busy setting up our booth. We had brought straw bales and corn stalks for decorating and all the supplies we would need to serve our food.


Our menu included:

• BBQ pulled pork on a lightly toasted baguette slice
• Buckaroo Baked Beans
• Savoury Phyllo Tarts with cream cheese and red pepper jelly
• Lemon glazed shortbread cookies
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Mini apple tarts topped with whipped cream

Besides the food, we also had a draw for a small gift basket that contained a jar of honey, a jar of raspberry blueberry jam and a dozen short bread cookies.

We had a limited quantity of honey and jams for sale and we sold out, all except one jar of jam.
We also had a power point presentation that looped around and played all day, telling our story.

We probably had close to 1500 pieces/servings and it was all gone. We received a lot of great feedback from folks so that was good. Several people asked for more information on our services so we may get some calls. In fact, one lady loved our beans so much, she emailed us and asked if she could buy some. Then she also asked about a date next summer for her nephews wedding. He lives in Toronto but is getting married here on the island. We could become very busy.

All in all it was a really great day. Of course, Meghan and Brenda saved the day. I'd forgotten to bring anything to fill out the ballots for our draw. We had ballots and a ballot box but no pens or pencils. A short text to Brenda and within a very short time Meghan arrived with pens. A little while later Brenda arrived with more. They brought us coffees and Brenda was still there to help pack up. I could not ask for better friends.

I was a little sad that Tristen had too much going on to be able to come out as planned. I think he would have enjoyed the day, but maybe next year.  Our baby is growing up and has a life of his own!

 Lloyd finished up my storage shelves in the garage. It's a really functional space. It was meant to be painted but I just wanted to get things put away. The clutter was making me slightly crazy. Since it's a space few will ever see anyway, I opted to just go ahead and fill it up yesterday. And fill it up I did. Now things are super organized and I have space for more equipment that's arriving later this week. We've ordered 3 more chafing dishes and 2 hot boxes. We don't know for sure if we're getting the job we submitted a proposal for last week, but even if we don't, they were things we are going to need going forward.

Things are a little quieter this week so we're taking advantage of the chance to get some work done around the place before winter gets here. Lloyd worked yesterday at gutting the barn. All the goat and chicken pens are gone and now it just needs to have the old bedding taken out. It will be a great storage space for the winter for lawn tractors, motorcycles, etc.

Later this week when the weather is warmer, I may get to cut the grass one more time. But who knows. Everything is still so green, and all the leaves are still on the trees, with very few of them having changed colour yet. It's hard to imagine that in a few weeks, we'll be into November and snow will be on the way. I know we've just gotten into October but the time seems to really fly this time of year.

This week I felt a certain sense of permanence for probably the first time in my life. I've moved around so much both as a child and as an adult and believe it or not, the 8 1/2 years I've lived here has been the longest I've ever lived in one place in my entire life. My friend Sharyn has a couple of us over to her house on Sunday evenings to knit, or do whatever crafty item we're working on, but mostly just to sit around and chat. This Sunday she had to cancel as it was her mother-in-laws 87th birthday.   Then is struck me, that I remember when Anna turned 80.  I really felt settled in one place for the first time ever. So, thank you PEI.