Tuesday, August 29th - a busy birthday month!

They say time flies when you're having fun. I must be having a blast cause I can't believe it's the end of August already. Where has the summer gone?

When we get to the kids birthdays I know that fall is just around the corner.

A belated Happy Birthday to Meghan, who turned 15 on Sunday

Cavendish Beach Music Festival - July 2010

and an early Happy Birthday to Tristen who will be 12 on Friday!  Where has the time gone?

 First bonfire of the season - April 2011

And where has the summer gone?  But we usually get some pretty nice weather in September and often into October as well. The nice part of it is there aren't quite so many bugs as in July and August.

We made a decision on Friday to participate in a fall flavours event : "Farm Day in the City". It's an opportunity for farmers and the like to showcase their products. There are also craft people as well as folks selling all manner of items and products. We've ordered a large banner with our Wee Bee name and logo on it to hang in front of our table. It's really just to get some exposure. We'll have business cards, a slide show running with food and event photos (not that we have that many) as well as some samples and a few items for purchase. It's really more just to get our name out there and this is an excellent way to do that. Especially if it's a nice day, there are throngs of folks who pack the streets downtown for this event. It it rains, not so much. Let's hope Mother Nature cooperates and brings us sunshine.

I've been working on a list of things I need to make before, to be prepared. I spent Saturday morning up the road picking what turned out to be the last of the raspberries at Coffins. I hadn't planned to make any jam this year but this was a good motivation. It took quite a while to pick them as they were few and far between but at least I got some. Then it was off to our friends back field to pick blueberries. Last night was spent out in the "Wee Kitchen" making a double batch of raspberry blueberry jam.

Summer 2011

 Every time I make it, I'm reminded of one of James' visits a few years ago. (as you can see, he's grown a bit since then) We'd gone to Alan's and picked raspberries on our way home from somewhere. I was looking through my Small Batch Preserving Cookbook to find a recipe and there was one for Raspberry Blueberry Jam. James thought that sounded good, just too bad we didn't have any blueberries. I told him if he took a walk down the back lane he'd find some in the fields back there. So off he went, and I have to say, he's the best blueberry picker I've ever met. There was not a single stem or leaf in that bowl. He did an excellent job of picking but I doubt he'll ever pick them again. It took him quite a long time but that's because he was so meticulous.  So this jam will forever remind me of one of his visits to the island.

Farm Day is the 1st of October so we should have a bit of honey by then as well. I'm going to bake a few varieties of cookies so folks can sample them as well as a couple of other things to try. We'll be pretty limited in what we can serve so I have to give it a bit of thought.

We have a tent for shelter to keep out the elements, on three sides at least, and a couple of tables so we should be all set.  It will be an interesting experience as even though we will have a little bit of product for sale, it's primarily the service that we're promoting. Hopefully it will be successful.

Sunday was spent baking cookies for Cavendish. We took 36 dozen packages to them last Tuesday and by Saturday there was 4 left. But this will likely be our last order. Now that school is starting soon, there won't be many tourists in the Cavendish area so the store shuts down usually in mid-September.   I imagine we will likely get the same contract again next year. They seemed happy with what we did this year.

Other than that, not a lot going on right now. Lloyd is getting ready for his bike trip to Newfoundland. Lots of little details to work out before heading  on an adventure such as this. Part of the challenge is the time of year, and the part of the country. September isn't included in the 2 weeks of summer that is typical of Newfoundland!  Better dig out those long johns while you're packing.

And finally another little piece of our trip this summer - James was SUCH a good sport!

"I want to hold your hand...."

Tuesday, August 22nd - I really must check the calendar at least once each day!

Just finished watching the news and realized it's Tuesday and I forgot to post a blog today.
Not a lot going on right now. Saturday we had a catering event so most of the few days prior were busy getting ready for that. Unfortunately the weather was a little less than cooperative, bringing some drizzle initially, and then rain after that. We managed to get most people fed and moved to a neighbouring cottage before it got too bad.

Our food was well received and I tried a couple of new things that I will keep on the menu. One was some steak skewers that were marinated overnight and then cooked briefly on the grill. They were a huge hit. The other was a new recipe for ribs that was also quite successful. So far, so good.

A shot of the trial run at our place of the new BBQ spit a couple of weeks ago

Sunday was kind of a quiet day. Wash up and put away stuff from Saturday and then just relaxed for the rest of the day. We took a little drive into town in the afternoon and the weather that had started out cloudy and cool on Sunday morning transformed into a beautiful sunny and warm afternoon.

We still have cookies at Cavendish Tourist Mart. Lloyd called them on Sunday and they only had 2 packages left from last weeks 36 so it was back into cookie production on Monday.

Cavendish cookies, waiting to be labeled and delivered...

The last couple of days have been very warm and I was grateful to Brenda who arrived at my door around 4:00 to announce she was going to the beach - was I interested? Seriously? Of course I was. We were only there for about an hour but it was just perfect to cool off and chill out.

Now that our last scheduled catering event is past, I can focus on reorganizing my kitchen and getting my craft room back in order. Before we built the kitchen, we piled all kinds of kitchen stuff up in my craft room. It's now time for it to go - anywhere but on my craft table, thank you very much!

Lloyd is heading out to Newfoundland on his new-to-him motorcycle on September first. Some folks reading this will be getting a sense of deja vu.  It's not so many years ago he headed to Newfoundland on his bike with our friend Walt. That trip did not have a happy ending - let's hope this one is more successful. He's going to visit his sister Norma, who has recently had surgery. When he was telling Bernie about all the places he hopes to visit, it sparked the travel bug in Mr. VanGaal again. He's only just returned from biking all the way out to Edmonton, but he's ready and willing to take off again!  Can't say I'm sorry that Lloyd will have company. It's always scary for them to travel distances alone. You just never know what might happen.

Remember back a couple of months ago when I tried planting a garden in some used pallets?
By the time I returned from Britain, the entire thing was one mass of 3 foot tall weeds. I finally got around to looking at it this morning and I couldn't believe what I found. The bulk of the weeds were in the pathways between the pallets. The pallets themselves contained mostly my plants, with maybe a few weeds here and there. I found beans and peas, that admittedly, were past their best before date, but still usable and masses of tomatoes. I found 4 small ones that were ripe and ready to be picked. Another pallet revealed parsley and basil. The lettuce and spinach were no longer usable but the Swiss chard I planted is still good to go. So it seems my little experiment may have worked after all. I'll try it again next year and see if I have the same results.

This was the state of my 'garden' when I returned from vacation

Somewhere in there I know there are tomato plants

Voila, and there they are!

And finally, can it really be over a month since this was me?

Tuesday, August 15th - well hello strangers!

It's only been two weeks but I'm feeling like I'm a little out of touch with the whole world right now.

It's been a very busy time, especially last week. We had a pre-wedding BBQ to cater and it was our biggest challenge yet. After many long weeks of cutting, welding and lots and lots of research, our big BBQ was finally ready for it's first try out.

We had a few people over a week or so before, so he could test it out. We BBQ'd about 20 lbs of pork and a whole turkey. By all accounts it turned out well. Now the big test. A 70 pound pig was picked up and dropped into our bathtub full of ice to keep cool till the next morning. It was a challenge the night before the BBQ to get the pig loaded onto the spit and attached with various clamps, etc. Once it was suitably secured, it was covered in a flavourful rub and then wrapped in plastic. Did I mention that it weighed 70 pounds?  It took all our strength to get it wrapped and then put back into the tub till morning.

2:45 am the alarm went off on Wednesday morning. Time for a quick coffee and then load said pig onto the back of the truck. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Lloyd was barely able to walk by this time. He'd woken up on Monday with a left leg that would not bend and a very painful knee. We got him into the car and off to the doctors office, where it was decided he had bursitis. Meds were prescribed but we had no idea how long it would take for them to kick in. It was a little better by Wednesday but still not great. Once again the VanGaals to our rescue. Bernie was still away so we were able to borrow his truck which is an automatic. No way he was able to drive a standard.

So, load the pig onto the back of the truck and he was off.

Brenda was helping (thankfully) and we headed up to Wheatley River with the rest of the meal around 11:00. They had tables all set up outside and beautifully decorated. There was a huge tent set up for the wedding, which was the next day. Fortunately for us there was a smaller tent attached where the food was going to be prepared on Thursday. It was the perfect spot for us to set up and prep everything. Things went smoothly, but it's always a learning experience and I did learn a couple of things that I would have done differently but all in all it went very well. The best part was the pig. After spinning around slowly for 9 hours it was golden brown, juicy and delicious. It was absolutely perfect.

(I don't have any photos, but some will be coming to us from the hosts)

A lot of the guests present were from Holland and had never seen such a thing so they were quite intrigued. Needless to say, the pig was an important part of the day's entertainment.

All in all, I would say the day was a success, as did the hosts. Again, many, many thanks to the VanGaals for Brenda's help and the use of Bernie's truck. We could not have done it without you guys.

Speaking of Bernie, he returned on Sunday from his very long trip to Edmonton.  While out there he also managed to visit Alaska! Needless to say, he put a lot of kms. on his bike this summer. He arrived back on the island on Sunday afternoon. Lloyd drove over to New Brunswick and met up with him in Salisbury. Brenda, Meghan, Ethan, Will and Amanda all rode over to Borden to meet them when they came across the bridge.  Well done Bernie!

We have another pre-wedding BBQ this Saturday but it's quite a bit smaller and doesn't involve a whole pig, so it will be much easier!

Our guys have all been very busy. James had Maxville highland games right after he got back from our trip. He hadn't played in over two weeks but still managed to place 4th out of 19 in one of his pieces, and 6th out of 13 in his more complicated tune.  Well done. 

This year in Maxville, they also held junior heavyweight events:  discus, shot put,  caber toss, sheaf toss, and tug of war There were 170 kids in the events. He got 3rd place in the caber toss in the 9-12 year old division. Well done, T.

Meghan spent the past two weeks at Diabetic Summer Camp. There's no contact with the kids while they are there but judging by the photos that are posted online, it looks like she had a great time again this year.

And finally a couple of photos to share from my 65th birthday. Besides getting to walk across the Abby Road Crosswalk with James, we also had dinner at Jamie Oliver's restaurant in London called 15.   It was a nice evening with both Patti and James and I was thrilled that my friend Petra, who lived in London, was also able to join us.

Thanks again guys, for making my birthday so very special!

Wednesday, August 1st - back home again

Good morning everyone!

I had tried to send a small post from Scotland, but now that I'm back in Canada, I realize that my previous post didn't actually go out. Here it is in its entirety:

So, just thought I should post a little something. Internet hasn't always been the greatest and typing on the iPad is not that much fun, to be perfectly honest. It's officially 7 full days since James and I left Toronto. 

I think we're having a great time. If he disagrees he hasn't said anything to me. Tonight we are in Loch Ness, and here for two nights. What an absolutely gorgeous place and we're not even anywhere near the loch. That will be tomorrow when we go on a boat cruise of the loch. James has a lengthy hike planned for tomorrow morning. Sure glad I'm not going. The hills around are massive. 

Liverpool was all I'd hoped and more. I have to admit that there were a couple of times I was almost teary at the realization that I finally made it here.

That made all the castles and museums worth it. But in reality I've managed to skip some and go off and tour on my own. Win/win all round!

I'm going to close off for now, but just wanted to check in 

 So now for the rest of the story:

All in all, we had a really great trip. Saw lots of sights that we both wanted to see. Fortunately James is old enough to go off exploring on his own.

After Loch Ness we took the train to Glasgow. A totally different city than Edinburgh. We were meant to just stay for one night and then head to Cardiff, Wales, but it was a longer train journey than we thought so we stayed a second night in Glasgow.  We went to the National Piping Centre and I asked the right question of the right fellow and managed to get James a piping lesson while he was there. I think he really enjoyed that opportunity.

Then before we knew it our trip was drawing to a close. We headed to London and met up with Patti who was just there for 24 hours. The three of us enjoyed touring around a bit and doing some shopping. Patti and I went for dinner while James attended a cricket match across from the hotel at The Lords Cricket Grounds. Quite a unique opportunity for him.

Patti left early on Friday morning so James and I were on our own. We did some touring around, Buckingham Palace and a couple of museums he was keen to visit. Then I went and spent a lovely time in Green Park while he visited the Churchill War Rooms.

When I arrived in London I saw that there was a stage play entitled Bat out of Hell - the musical. Sounded like it was right up my alley, so I got myself a ticket. I went there on Friday night, and it was absolutely brilliantly done, while James explored the city on his own.

On Saturday, we toured the Tower of London, and strolled along the Thames. In the afternoon we met up with my friend Petra, who lives in London. I stayed with her and had dinner and James left to go on a ghost walking tour of the city.

Sunday morning,(aka happy birthday to me!) our last full day in London. We got up and packed up our stuff as we were transferring to Patti's hotel. She got back to the city again that morning. Once again the three of us headed off. We wanted to visit Westminster Abbey but unfortunately we didn't realize it was closed on Sundays. Guess we'll just have to go again another time.  We toured around a bit, visited Abbey Road studios, did some last minute shopping, then headed back to the hotel to get changed for dinner.

We had reservations at Jamie Oliver's restaurant 15.  I had invited Petra to join us. She was already there when we arrived. We all enjoyed a lovely dinner and before we knew it, the time had come to depart. We said goodbye to Petra at the tube station and made our way back to Patti's hotel.

Early Monday morning we were on the crew bus headed to the airport. James made his flight and was put into first class. Not to be outdone, I had the same good luck. So both our flights home were very comfortable indeed.

Took two tries to get from Halifax to Charlottetown but fortunately I arrived home that same day I started out - always a great thing when traveling standby.

All in all, a really great trip, a once in a lifetime experience, and really fab way to spend my 65th birthday!

I have a ton of pictures so I'm going to have to start working on a new scrapbook. 

Tuesday, July 11/17 - Britain, here we come...

It was a nice break after our very busy catering weekend. Only had to bake 36 dozen cookies last Tuesday, no really, nothing too taxing at all! Another 36 dozen this week before I head off on holidays as well as another potential customer in the works. No rest for the wicked but it's all good!

This week I'm trying to clear up some last minute things before I leave for Toronto bright and early on Saturday morning. After spending the weekend in Guelph, James and I will be off to Manchester, England on Sunday evening.



 We'll arrive there on Sunday morning and have 4 days to tour around Liverpool area before heading up to Scotland.

James is ever such a good sport to be willing to indulge me all that time to revel in the past. But it will be his turn when we're touring ruins in the Scottish highlands and he enjoys reveling in their past. 

Posts the next two weeks will likely just be text as all I'll have with me will be my Ipad, but I'll do what I can to keep you up to date on our whereabouts. 

Some sort of sad news this week. Lloyd has made the decision to sell the goats and chickens. The amount of time required for their care each day is significant as well as the cost of keeping them. We enjoy the milk from them and the resulting cheese making but we aren't permitted to sell any of it so it's really an exercise in futility. Now that we're busy with our Wee kitchen it just makes sense. Besides, we're not getting any younger either. He really wanted to have goats when he moved here but now he's had that experience and he feels it's time to move on to explore other options.

There are numerous Amish families that have moved here from Ontario over the past couple of years.

Lloyd's gotten to know one of the farmers and they have goats already. They've made a deal with Lloyd to take all 9 of them. They will be leaving later today. I'm sad to see them go, especially Eddie and certainly little Barney. But I know they will be well looked after. Besides one branch of the family has 14 kids, so I suspect Barney may be quite the pet for them. 

The chickens have been gone now for a couple of weeks. We could have sold 100 chickens if we'd had them. Lots of folks looking for healthy laying hens. The two hours per day we spend now on animal care and milk and egg processing, will free up time for other pursuits.  I might actually get my yard cleaned up and into some kind of order. That would be really nice.

I know at least one reader who will miss the goat photos,( sorry about that Mike.)
We'll have to come up with something else to peak his interest from time to time.


Remember back a few weeks ago when I was going to try planting a garden in wooden pallets? One of the challenges has been keeping on top of the weeds between the pallets. No time lately to get to that so this week I just took the trimmer and cut down everything in between the pallets. As for the plants inside the pallets, they are doing not too badly. We badly need some rain and I haven't been very diligent about getting out there and watering (okay, I haven't gotten out there at all). But in spite of my apparent neglect, I still have a few things growing - lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, radishes, carrots, one tiny green tomato on one of the tomato plants...  but if we get rain over the next little while, it should be in great shape. It will be interesting to see it in two weeks when I get back.

Tuesday, July 4th - what a whirlwind...

The past week has been absolutely crazy. In essence we did 7 events over the course of 4 days. But I have to say right off the top that it would not have been possible without the help of Patti, Brenda and Tristen.

Brenda was here several nights till quite late cutting,chopping etc, whatever needed to be done. All in spite of the fact that she was expecting visitors of her own.

Patti and Tristen arrived on Tuesday afternoon and never stopped until Saturday night.

Lloyd and I are truly grateful for their help in getting through our first catering job which proved to be quite a challenge, but was, by all accounts, a great success.

Patti is very organized and has helped out with various events with speedskating and piping. We just referred any questions from anyone to our "project manager". She was always on top of things. Her and Brenda together are quite the dynamic duo in terms of keeping things on track.

Lunch on Wednesday gave us the opportunity to see the venue -a  large tent in Victoria park. It was a bit of a challenging set up but we all made it work.

Thursday lunch was burgers to be followed that night by fresh lobster and BBQ steaks. One of the major sponsors of the event was BIG GREEN EGG. They provided one for us to use as well as someone who was knowledgeable in how to use it. Needless to say, Lloyd is now totally sold on the product. If they weren't so very expensive I'm sure there would be one in our garage as we speak.

Our friend, a local oyster fisherman provided freshly shucked, icy cold oysters. What a treat! Those who love them took great delight in slurping down as many as they could, while a few more timid folks were willing to try their first one. All in all a great addition to the evenings events and a great way to welcome some new faces to the island for the first time.

Because this evenings dinner was all at one time, we were on our way back home before dark.  As we passed the harbour, one of the first tall ships to arrive came into view, just as the sun was going down. What an impressive sight. Sadly there was no time over the course of the weekend to investigate any further.

Friday morning was the start of total controlled chaos. Lunch was to be there for noon, till around 2:00 and them supper back in town at 5:00.  We all went in at supper but as soon as the majority of people had eaten Tristen and I came back home to continue prepping lunch and supper for Saturday. Let's just say there were a lot of very late nights and very early mornings.

Because he was appropriately dressed in his little chef's jacket and pants, everyone fell in love with Tristen. He was most helpful and everyone appreciated his coming by their tables. Because he was there for every meal, by the end of the second day, they all knew his name and were asking if he was coming back next meal.  He made quite the impression.

So much so, that on Saturday at supper, one of the Stihl people interrupted the dinner line to make a presentation to Tristen from the whole crew. The slices they take off logs are called cookies. He was given one with autographs from all the athletes on the front and all the crew on the back. He was just ever so pleased.

Saturday evening was not the best of weather. In order for people to be using axes and chain saws up on stage, it needed to be dry but Mother Nature wasn't being very cooperative. It would rain for a few minutes then clear up. Just as the stage was being dried out and they were ready to proceed, it would start to rain again. Things eventually got underway so we walked over to watch after most of the meals had been served. Some wanted to eat after competing. We were offered a place to sit in the gator tractor that was parked nearby. Nice comfy seats and a great view - VIP seating as Tristen put it.

The show had to be stopped for the fireworks at 10:15 and continued when they were finished.  Tristen's favorite competitor was the final winner so he was pretty pleased about that. It had been a long few days but know it was over made for some pretty happy people. Lloyd had taken a truck load of stuff home and we just had to pack up what was left when everyone had eaten. The stress was now all gone!

Needless to say, we all slept well on Saturday night. In fact I slept in till 10:00, when Brenda and Bernie arrived to have coffee on Sunday morning.

Sunday was a pretty relaxed kind of day. We did a bit of cleaning up and then went for a drive to get ice cream. Tristen and I went in the Miata and Patti followed in her car. We stopped for a quick walk on the beach, which was totally deserted, before getting our ice cream in Morell.

 Back home and supper before Lloyd had to go to bed. The three of us watched a movie on Netflix and then headed off to bed. It had been an exhausting few days.

Monday morning, was also a little lazy. Tristen enjoyed driving around on our old lawn tractor. Since it no longer has a deck on it, he felt like he was four wheeling, albeit at very slow speed.

They hit the road a little after 11:00 a.m. headed for Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick before heading home. Thanks for all your help guys and safe trip back to Ontario.

Tuesday, June 27th - please stay tuned...

It's been a very busy few days and things are about to get really crazy. I'll report back next week once it's all over. Who knew that our first catering job would be 7 seperate jobs all in one!

Patti and Tristen are arriving sometime this afternoon and Lloyd and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary on Sunday. Other than that, you'll just have to come back next week. Gotta run - my oven is beeping and my phone is ringing....