A Wee Dent

Well, after 20 or more wheelbarrow loads of compost, I have managed to make a wee dent in the side of the massive compost pile on my lawn. What was I thinking? Three and a half yards of compost could cover every garden on the street! Well, I've now put at least an inch on all my flower beds. I have put an inch on some of the veggie beds and will work them in later this week. Joe has added four or five loads to the former sandbox and this is what remains. Compare and be awed by my hard work (and sore back).

Day 1. Friday. Untouched. 3.5yards.

Day 2. Saturday. 5 hours work. About 14 barrowfuls.

Day 3. Sunday. 4 more hours of hauling. About 10 more wheelbarrows. (And still enough to feed every earthworm in the northern hemisphere and two or three thousand from down under.)

Ok, I admit I stood further back in the street for the last photo. It's not as small as it looks but it is demonstrably dwindling... I just wanted it to look as impressive as my lower back feels.

Here's where some of it went. Remember, this is still April. We've just unthawed from winter although everything is MUCH further ahead this year than normally. A couple of more months and these beds will seem just PACKED with perennials and lettuce and beans and tomatoes.

Main veg patch. That's my horehound under glass to the right. You can't see them but the peas have broken through the surface. And there are some veeeeerrrryyyy tiny cilantro, lettuce and arugula sprouts coming along.

Front flower garden. Only a few tulips and bergenia so far but give me a month...

This is beside the back stairs. Again, tulips, euphorbia (yellow centre top) and two measly daffs. The sign says "beware of cat".

Breakfast for the forsythia.

And the periwinkle.

And the former sandbox, pre-compost, soon to be a bean and herb garden.

Sorry for the lousy pictures. It was getting dark. I also have to figure out how to rotate the darn things. 

Cheers,

C.

Black Gold Mwahahah!

I just arrived home to this beautiful pile of compost that was delivered today by the city. This is what 3.5 yards looks like.

Of course, my immediate thought was "Can I take a personal day for compost redistribution?" I'm pretty sure it's not on the list of acceptable reasons but perhaps it's worth a try? I have been talking about ordering a load of compost for a few years now and I finally did it. The price is probably good but makes me blanch because I can make compost for NOTHING in my backyard. And I do, but  I can't make enough to keep my voracious gardens happy. This year though - ho ho - the veggies will be bountiful, the flowers will be vivacious, my back will be killing me...

And in other gardening news...
The rhubarb is growing like gangbusters - at this rate I may have my first rhubarb cake made in the first week of MAY!

The peas, are sprouting (despite the cement like soil that is dying to be amended by that lovely compost)...

and the first asparagus is tall enough (weird how it grows horizontally here in the northern hemisphere hey?)

 and about to be eaten! (Watch for our deliciosity rating post tomorrow.)

Cheers,
C.

Quick Stolen Post

Another one stolen from my daughter... this is one of those "makes me inexplicably happy" objects. Made by her and photographed by her and posted by her . Weighs a ton but works!

PS. Hello Cambodia and Russia! tee hee.

Soreno!

Ok, I admit that my brain did not un-fart itself - I resorted to re-researching a topic that I had researched before. The picture below is from an e-bay seller but until recently I owned one of each size of these jugs (although a longer story is hiding there to be told another day). This is the same series as C's salt and pepper shakers noted in the previous post.

These ultra groovy glasses from Anchor Hocking were also made in amber, turquoise, and clear, lots of sizes and shapes of glasses plus bowls, vases, jugs, and salt-and-peppers. A similar series called Lido had bigger uneven bubbles, was available in the same colours but also had a big ball-shaped jug that IS perfect for sangria as the lip holds the fruit in the bowl while you pour. Or so I'm told...

This is a picture from an etsy shop of the Lido jug in turquoise (my current one is avocado although I've had a gold one in the past... part of the long story for another day...)

PS I hate when the computer thinks it is smarter than me. Just realized the computer had changed "easy" (damn -there it goes again!) that was ETSY to easy. grrrrrrr!

Oops, the colour up there is actually aquamarine! See... (now I'm really stopping this post no matter what else I find!)

image from rubylane

OK, you know what, the middle jug might be the Milano style - flatter more open bubbles, the lido is more wormy looking and the sore no is the straight worms. (Damn! SORENO not sore no!) bye.

How Do Ya Like Them Apples, Part 2

I DID take a better picture of my friend C's kitchen. Check out that turquoise! And a few more of her treasures:

C has a fantastic collection of painted glassware, a HUGE pile of Kathie Winkles (none that made it to this picture) and I think she has new salt and pepper shakers every time I visit! (pictured here are the tall wooden souvenir ones - florida? bermuda? and the cute clear ones with yellow and red tops, and the green rippled ones that I used to know the name of but since my amygdyla has been acting up I can't access it at the moment!)

(If I can sneak a few more pictures of her house I will post them here. It's such a cute house that it makes me happy every time I visit and I know it will make you happy too).

PS Hello to visitors from The Netherlands, New Zealand, and Germany! Wee!

Drive Your Tractor To School Day!

Best news item I've seen all week.
(go to the article to see all the photos) http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3531052#

How Do Ya Like Them Apples?

Gathered with friends Friday evening for a feast. I brought this Flat Apple Thingy (not likely the actual Martha Stewart name but descriptive). It's got layers of phyllo pastry, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and pecans or walnuts, and a final layer of very thin apple slices covered with yet more melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. Yummy.

The best part of this picture is getting a glimpse of my friend's lovely kitchen. The counter was made by her hubby, and she's painted the cupboards a vibrant turquoise. It really shows off her amazing collection of vintage goo gaws and dishes and paraphernalia. (I took a third picture that showed more of her goodies but it didn't turn out).

Bits of Home

My daughter bought herself a fancy new camera with money she made selling doll clothes through her Etsy shop, MonChatDansLaLune. (You may already know this because you read my rant about the cake photos...grrrr).

I decided to do a little poaching of my own. She's taken about 500 photos in the last two or three weeks, many in my house. I've skipped through them and found some that feature little bits of my home. For your viewing pleasure...


1. pile of old toys - my tin dollhouse from childhood, several windups I've bought my husband over the years, an old upholstered heart-shaped box with antique jacks from a great-aunt, and the prized tardis printed off the internet and folded into shape!

2. Closeup of the spokes of the indoor, winter-bike used in front of the tv for movie catch-up but more importantly a glimpse of the G-R-O-O-V-Y wallpaper circa 1972 in our "rec room".

3. chipped and crazed Winkle teacup and saucer waiting to be planted in the garden. It's sitting on top of my gardening box, which is some sort of old tool box that I bought at an auction for $2 along with some rusty loppers and two funny poles with stripy balls on top

4. Sheer kitchen curtains (salvaged from one of the many custom sets that were covering EVERY window in the house when we moved in) with two sheer aprons for zest.

 5. A glimpse from the kitchen through the "cubby" and into the front hall. On the right you can see the strip of wallpaper that was saved in the Great Kitchen Disaster of 2012 - it has all the kids heights from the day we moved in (boys 2, girl 5) to last month. It got a bit crowded in the middle so we now limit recorded measurements to once a year! The "cubby" is just the top of the basement stairs but has a cupboard and the phone and bulletin board, the so-called "Family Nerve Centre" according to Martha Stewart. There's a good photo of Joe at the barbershop in his 20s (top centre of this picture). Front hall you can't really see anything but maybe you can make out the DUST on the top of the door frame...

C'est tous pour le moment...

WInklepedia Part 3, Plus Other Stuff

A couple of months ago I commented on a post by LibraryGirl over at Living In The Kingdom Of Too Much. It was related to Kathie Winkle obsession and I counted my dishes. The result was not pretty and has just qualified me to be on an episode of "Almost Hoarders" for those who are just pathetic and not pathologic. Anyway, on the weekend I decided to get on with the gardening and plant some early seeds - peas, lettuce, arugula. And when I opened my lovely gardening box, I found (tada!) four or five more Winkle plates, all with cracks or bad crazing or chips. So these are now planted in the garden. Hopefully, they will not produce fruit (egads! there is really NO MORE ROOM!)

surrounding the asparagus patch

and the horehound (can you see the pathetic little thing in the middle? can't get it to grow - I need enough to make candy this year or I'm giving up on it!)

Volunteers
Also, I discovered while cleaning up the beds that arugula seeds had planted themselves from the plants I left in the garden, some in the path and some in the garden. The sprouts are already about an inch high. (:squeal of glee:).

As Pair of Guys
Also, peaking out of their tidy holes already are two asparagii (sp?).

Rhubarb Redux
And the rhubarb has been treated to a dressing of not-quite-finished compost. It is already making a comeback (even the bits that were completely trampled). Yeah!

Peas Support Our Cause

Here is my new pea trellis - the au natural look. (Of course, I expect the peas will grow up and not sideways despite the photo). 

And Finally Rick Mercer
The high school I teach at raised the most money of all schools across Canada in the Spread The Net school challenge (actually we raised 1/5 of the money raised by all the 47 schools in the challenge!) The school that raises the most money gets featured on the Rick Mercer Report. For those of you outside Canada, the RMR is a weekly comedy "newsmagazine" style tv show. It is very political and quite funny. One of the best parts is Rick Mercer's weekly rant on the stupidest things going on in politics at the moment. He featured our local MP, Dean Delmastro, a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, our show is on TONIGHT - he gave our school 7 minutes AND his rant is about the closing of our school. Watch if you can. 8pm tonight on CBC tv in Canada. I'll post the youtube link later if I can.

Cheers.

Music From Librarians

Just found a link to the newly released album from our handsome librarian, Jos. Fortin. (My friends know whom I mean!) It's lovely. Have a listen, maybe download it. Support a bookish fellow.

typewriter

by Jos. Fortin

She Takes The Cake

So I am really MIFFED at my daughter right now. Last weekend my friend brought by a beautiful cake she had made with a fondant ornamental cabbage on top (somehow that doesn't sound as beautiful as it looked, although I was somehow expecting ornamental cauliflower...).

I asked my darling child to take a couple of good pictures with her new camera, which she dutifully did. I urged her to get them downloaded quickly so I could do a nice blog post. Then, a week later, a different friend came for coffee and said, "M's cake was soooo beautiful." When I asked where she had seen M's cake, she said, "C's blog." Gasp! Astonishment! The sneaky blog-post thief! No more watching Robin Hood for her. Stealing from her mother to make her blog look nice. Cheeky bugger!

Ok, so now I will direct you to the post that was supposed to be on MY blog. Without further ado, I give you... the Cabbage Cake.

P.S. Apparently the cabbage is edible but, not delicious. The cake was.