Wednesday, May 7th - it's still not quite spring

It's a very chilly -3' this morning although the sun is coming up nice and bright. We will hopefully reach a little warmer 8' later. Tomorrow is looking even better but it's still unseasonably cool. I'll bet it's cold out on the ocean in a lobster boat on mornings like this. Hard to believe it's a whole week into the season and we haven't had any lobster as yet. Perhaps we will this weekend as it is Mother's Day, after all.

We had coolish weather on Monday morning but that soon deteriorated as the day wore on. By mid afternoon it was almost blizzard conditions for a while. Not a sight you want to see as you look out the window on the 5th of May. Fortunately it turned to rain later in the afternoon and by 5:00, it had almost stopped, but it was  still quite chilly. The first thing I did when I got home was light a fire and warm up the house.










I still had a bit of sewing to do on the conference scarves and I was able to finish that off in no time. I'm really pleased with how they turned out and hope the rest of the committee agrees with my choices, but I never would have been done so quickly without Brenda's help.  The clever use ( I think) of discarded metal rings and a collection of old buttons with shanks on the back,  makes for a rather unique scarf clip to hold the two ends together while allowing some flexibility of length. On Tuesday evening, Brenda came over and we worked on finalizing a few more little details that can now be taken off the list. We're moving along wonderfully now!



I stopped at the grocery store in town on my way home on Saturday afternoon and picked up a copy of the current Saltscapes, which is almost out of date. I was flipping through it when I got home and spotted an article about ways to fish without a fishing rod. I was drawn to a photo of some people digging clams on the shore and it brought back some wonderful memories of a trip we'd taken the first year of Fall Flavours, out to the shore to dig clams. When they were dug, we headed to a local park where our guide brought out a big pot and we steamed the freshly dug clams in beer. They were some good eats. As I was reliving this happy memory in my mind, I took another look at the photo on the pages of the magazine and realized it as actually Lloyd and I. A local photographer had come out with us and taken a bunch of photos. That had to be at least 7 years ago. What a surprise. It must have been meant to be. I haven't bought that magazine in a very long time and the new issue came out today so it was just by sheer chance that I was able to discover that it was there.Everything happens for a reason!

Monday, May 5th - it's a cool and damp one this morning

After a lovely weekend, we're back into rain and cool temperatures again - maybe even a few flurries, if the radio is correct. It's a chilly 4' right now, feeling more like 2, and that's pretty much where it will stay all day. It's not raining here right now, but it has been and will likely start again. No worries, there are still bits of snow around so we need that rain to clear that away, once and for all.

Lloyd left on Saturday around lunch time for Toronto. He was meant to be on the early 5:30 am flight but for some unknown reason, it was cancelled and they moved him to the 11:45 am flight. Made my day not having to get up in the middle of the night, only to come home for a couple of hours and then go back again for 9:00. Thank you Air Canada! It all just worked out so perfectly. I picked Brenda up on my way to town and we went for coffee and a bagel. She dropped me off at work then went and did her shopping and went home. Lloyd came into the dealership mid morning and I left for a few minutes and drove him to the airport, taking his truck with me. Then the best part is that Meghan (1) has a car in Toronto that she very rarely uses. She wants to sell it but that's not an easy thing to do when you're by yourself and lead a very busy life. Solution: Meghan picked him up at the airport, he dropped her off and is using her car for the week and will attempt to find a buyer before the end of the week. She has no idea how marvelous that is for Lloyd - to have transportation and not have to be bothering others for rides everywhere he needs to go. If he can sell it, it's a win/win for both of them, so thanks so much Meghan!

Sunday morning dawned cool and damp after beautiful warm sun on Saturday. Good thing because I had lots to do inside. Somewhere along the way I volunteered to make some sort of scarf for the committee members to wear to identify them at the conference. We only need 25 so sure, I can do that.  I purchased the materials needed and designated yesterday as the day to work on those. There was cutting and sewing and pressing and a little bit of hand sewing involved. I was up early and finished off a couple of other little jobs that needed tending to, but now they are things I can cross off my list. Then I started cutting. Fortunately for me I have a great space to use for that and it went very smoothly. I was about half done sewing them together when Brenda arrived to help out. And what a great help it was. By the end of the afternoon they are all sewn, turned, pressed and half have the little bit of hand stitching done. The rest will work nicely tonight in front of the TV or listening to music in the craft room or perhaps watching something on Netflix out there. That's a pretty major task off my list, so thanks  to Brenda for coming to my aid yet again. It was actually a pleasant way to pass the afternoon - sunshine coming in the windows and a glass of wine to keep our spirits up. It's all good!

To show how much I truly appreciate all her help with this project, I thought it only appropriate that we go to Peakes for a burger. In retrospect, we really should have split one - it's a lot of food when you add the fresh cut fries. We'll know better next time.  Then it was off the the Fort Augustus Rec Centre for a fundraising concert in aid of the local bowlers who are off to a tournament in Calgary. It's unfortunate that it wasn't better attended because the entertainment was very good. A really pleasant way to end the weekend.

Friday, May 2nd - let's hope May's weather is better than April was!

It's a chilly 3' this morning but at least it's stopped raining for now. It should start again this afternoon and reach a high of 9'. There's still pockets of snow hanging around so the rain should finally clean that up.
Not a lot going on right now, although I did make myself a list of things I have to complete before the end of the month for the conference. It looks a little daunting but really they're mostly all small tasks so it should be fine. I'll have a good chance to get lots done next week as Lloyd will be away. I'll have no excuses.

He's heading up to Ontario to see if he can figure out what's going on with his plane. It seems to be having some kind of mechanical issue so he needs to get that fixed. Then hopefully someone will want to buy it. In the meantime, I'm left in charge here. Last night was spent getting last minute instructions on how to manage the live chickens, the unhatched chickens, and the seedlings that seem to have taken over multiple horizontal surfaces throughout the house. Some of the tiny plants have grown enough to be transplanted into larger peat pots so now they take up a bit more space. When he gets back, he'll be busy getting the garden tilled and ready for planting (hopefully the snow will all be gone from it by then).

The branches and pieces of wood have now all been cleared from the front yard and are resting in two huge piles in the back. He had planned to burn them but we just haven't had a calm enough day to do that - not an easy thing to find out here on this windy hill. I was wondering if we can rent a chipper for a day and turn all those branches into mulch. It might not be as pretty as the mulch we get from the nursery but it could work. I'll have to do some investigating into that to see if it would be usable and if so, that could be a better use of all those branches.

Burger love has ended and I don't know what the final tally was but a fellow at work was telling me he had the burger at Mavor's on Wednesday night and was told they had sold in the neighbourhood of 6,000 burgers, and that another restaurant in town had sold 10,000. That's a lot of burgers! This has certainly turned out to be a very popular promotion and likely a very lucrative one as well. The nice thing is it's pretty much all islanders who are supporting it, as it's  too early for many tourists to be around.  Great idea well executed!

I was working on my list last night when I got an email from Meghan(2). Very clever and creative, that one. She used some left over Easter treats to make a Peepmobile (Peeps also come in rabbit shape as well as yellow chicks for those folks who are not familiar with Peeps!)

"I made this with the left over peeps from Easter! I used a peep,a twinky, 4 mashmellows, and a small pretzel.
Love Meghan (2)"
Well done, Meg!

Wednesday, April 30th - the end of another burger love season!

Today marks the last day of burger love for the year. We didn't sample quite as many as in previous years but we still did our best. It's always interesting to see if one of the burgers you really liked is the winner. We'll have to wait for a couple of weeks for that announcement. Brenda wasn't out to dance last night so no burgers were harmed. I suppose I could have gone by myself but I chose to go home instead after class. It was cold and windy anyway so once you were outside, you just wanted to get into the car and keep going. After a couple of very cool days it will be nice to see a relatively nice sunny 5' later today. This morning it's -1 but feeling more like -6. I lit a fire last night but it's burned out, so no wonder the house is chilly this morning!

Upon looking around the yard over the Easter weekend, we made the decision to cut down a couple of trees.We have two apple trees in the front yard that are no longer of any use, other than to the birds, I suppose. They do produce apples but they are not edible and then the apples fall to the ground and make cutting the lawn a bit of a challenge, especially once they start rotting. Then your running the mower over mushy brown apples and it becomes quite a mess. Besides that, the entire centre of one tree is hollow and we're surprised it's still standing after some of the wind we've had this winter. So it has to go. The upside is it's some nice hard wood we can burn next winter. It's amazing how many branches come off a tree. It's going to be one heck of a bonfire when we get a calm enough day to burn it. James will be so sorry that he missed that one - the boy does love his bonfires. I arrived home last night to just part of the trunk still standing and the majority of the branches in piles in the back yard. Still a bit of work to do, but it really makes a difference to our view from the front window. In the summer the apple tree's leaves would pretty much block the entire view of the river but such is not the case anymore.
We plan to pick up a couple of small apple trees and plant them in the side yard, and use that area as a bit of an orchard type space. I'll investigate what other kinds of fruit trees might grow here on the island.

Now that we have this lovely unobstructed view, I'll have to return to my not so subtle hints that a porch on the front of the house would be lovely. That will just have to wait till the other unfinished projects around the house are complete, but it's always good to have a goal!

Monday, April 28th - another successful Pancake Breakfast in the bag!

It's a chilly, rainy  3' this morning but the howling winds make it feel more like -3' and that's pretty much where it will stay for the day. It's not looking to get much better till towards the end of the week. Spring is really resisting hanging around this year, and we are so waiting for it. Actually Saturday wasn't bad at all - a bit warmer and some nice sunshine. Sunday was back to cold and damp.

After work on Saturday, I stopped in at the Rec Centre to see how I could be of assistance but Brenda was already there and had everything done, that could be done, that far in advance. We had gotten together on Friday evening to measure out the pancake dry ingredients and put them into individual plastic bags. Then all that was required to do was add some eggs and milk and whisk away.  We still were not sure just how much we would need so we just kind of guessed and then added a couple more.
On Saturday afternoon, she came over when Lloyd was putting the beans together. We helped him by chopping up onions, and measuring out the needed ingredients while he first  prepared the raw beans in the pressure cooker that we had set soaking the night before. Once that was done, she headed home and we decided on what to do for supper. We opted to go to a local golf course down the road called Peakes Tee, that has the most amazing hamburgers! They aren't part of the burger love campaign but they really should be. They had a large special burger that  Lloyd enjoyed and I had their usual Volcano burger - a bit hot but very delicious. I still insist they make the very best burgers around.

Sunday morning we were up early to do a final check on the beans, and to pack up what we needed for the breakfast. I met Brenda at the hall at 8:00  and we got to work, although most of the work was already done. Shortly after, people started arriving to help out. By 9:30 we had pancakes being flipped by several people, eggs being scrambled (Lloyd'd domain besides the beans) and and sausages being turned in the ovens (Pat did a great job for his first time out).  Promptly at 9:45 people started filing in and soon the place was filling up with hungry church goers.  It all ran like a well oiled machine and in no time at all, everyone was sitting down and enjoying their breakfast. In fact Will and Bernie arrived at what they thought was an appropriate time only to discover that everyone was leaving and breakfast was being cleared away. They arrived just in time for some food. They underestimated just how efficient we were going to be this year. I managed to get some photos in the kitchen but then forgot to take any of the crowd as I was serving eggs in the buffet line! I'll have to be better organized next year.

After breakfast we met at Brenda's to make some notes on what we need for next year so we're not scrambling around wondering "What did we do last year?" Well done Brenda, you did a really great job!  And also thanks to everyone who helped in the kitchen as well as those who brought baked goods.

 I'd like to say that the rest of my day was just as productive. Such is not the case. I came home and went upstairs and had a lengthy nap for an hour or so, then came back downstairs and watched some TV. I had lots of things I should have been doing but the cold damp weather outside just made you want to curl up in front of the fire and the TV and stay there. And that's precisely what was done. When Lloyd woke up from his nap, he joined me and that's where we spent the rest of the day. I suppose it's okay to slack off every now and then.

Friday, April 25th - narrowly missed a return to winter!

We were told to expect perhaps 2 to 4 cms of snow last night but fortunately it's just a light dusting this morning, although it is -1' , so not quite as spring like as earlier in the week.  We should reach a blistering high of 2' later and the sun might peek through from time to time but that's about it.
It's been a busy few days at work, but the week is finally winding down.
This weekend will be a tasty one with the 2nd annual pancake breakfast at the Rec Centre on Sunday morning - pancakes, sausages, eggs and beans for 150 people - who will all be arriving at the same time, after church. Can we do it? You bet we can. We proved that last year. It was the first ever and Brenda was eager to give it a try. By all accounts, it was a great success, so hopefully this year will be just as good. Of course it takes a lot of help to pull it all together and I'm sure those folks will be there again this time. It was a bit of work but a lot of fun.

Lloyd isn't worried about a few flurries. He's busy getting his seedlings started for the garden. They're coming along quite nicely. He's been doing lots of research (it's what he does best!) and will start the seeds at various times depending on how long they will take to grow. It's still a while until they will be able to go into the ground (the snow still needs to melt off the garden) so these early ones should be quite a good size by then. We were a little late getting things in the ground last year but this year should be much better.



The chickens have really been enjoying the nice weather earlier this week. They are outside early in the morning and enjoy digging around in the dirt. They were enjoying it so much that I had a hard time to get them to go inside. Lloyd was working 4:00 to midnight this week so it fell to me to lock up the birds for the night. They were having nothing to do with going inside as long as it was daylight out so I had to wait till after dark. Of course, three brave hens decided they would rather stay out to play and put up quite a battle. Chasing chickens isn't something I'm really good at but eventually I did get them inside. Good thing there's not too many of them. Last night it was raining quite heavily when I got home from work and I was pleased to see that the door was closed and they were safely locked inside. Sliding around in the mud chasing chickens was not how I would have enjoyed ending my day.

Wednesday, April 23rd - Back to our usual routine

Our spring like weather is continuing at least for another day. It was fairly mild the past couple of days and today should reach 13' later before it cools off again tomorrow. It's 7' this morning - and it's that time of year when it's not really cold enough to need a fire going  but it's just chilly enough that when you climb out of bed in the morning, you wish you had built one before going to sleep.

James and I were up early yesterday morning (4:00) to put him on the 6:00 am flight. Fortunately there was room and he made it to Toronto just as his mom was flying in from Halifax. It's great when a plan works out.

The house is pretty quiet with him gone. He certainly adds a lot of energy to the place when he's here, and he left with a new book of magic tricks, to drive the rest of his family crazy. It was too bad that there wasn't more things to do this visit, although he did seem to enjoy taking my bicycle out for a run everyday. He especially enjoyed the hill that runs down to the river. Not too many like that in his neighbourhood at home.

Brenda and I had our first dance class in three weeks last night and we didn't forget nearly as many steps as I feared we might. It was a pretty good workout.  Then it was off to Mavor's for their burger love offering:

The M-2
6oz Island Beef Patty, Jalapeno Red Onion Relish, Maple Peppered Bacon, Spinach, and Cows Applewood Smoked Cheddar Cheese Sauce on a Grilled and Buttered Brioche Bun topped with Homemade Worcestershire Potato Chips 

We both agreed that perhaps this is our new favorite. It was really delicious with just the right balance of heat and sweet.Only one more week of sampling before it all comes to an end for another year.