Let's Get Dirty!

For some reason my post are getting farther and farther apart.  But whenever I do get on here, a lot has happened to catch you up on!  The last time I posted, my bathroom ceiling was torn out and the contractors (or restoration company) had started the process of drying out the bathroom.  They treat the situation as any "flood" issue.  While I knew it would take time, I didn't expect it to drag on for nearly a month unresolved....:-(.

This went from this......

To this huge, loud dehumidifier....

 To an added industrial fan....notice the sink is now missing and the wall taped off..  you know what that means right?.....The good thing is that there is no cost to us since the problem is with the structure itself.  We were told that the pipes in the wall were like swiss cheese.  Now, our bathroom is literally split between the office and the kitchen.  It's been interesting to say the least.

  oh well.... Might was well have breakfast! ha

Let me just say that this was NOT my idea....haha...  It was a "gift" of sorts......
Google came in handy on this one, let me tell ya!  I have NEVER had bear meat before...

sizzle, sizzle.......

And now for the taste test......(Drum roll, please).......
Ok.  I was good until I got to the last bite.  Then I thought about Yogi and Boo Boo!  Yikes!!!

Now, I need some air!!  haha
Let's go get dirty!....The Strata gave us an allotment to use for gardening along with the little area outside of our condo.  The plot is a 6 1/2 by 6 1/2 area.  They provided the dirt  (such as it was) and we amended it to use for raising our own veggies for the first time.  And believe me, it needed a lot of amending!  Nothing quite like the smell of .......well, you know.  Anyway, the first thing to go into the ground was seed potatoes. We read that you have to "hill them up".  So, that is the hill on the left side of the photo.  The "taters" are at the bottom of the hill in a row waiting to spring up in a couple of months......:-)  Hopefully, they don't rot in the ground first....

We had the idea of planting some of these....

after amending the soil, we got it ready for planting.  The second thing to go into the ground was three different varieties of pepper plants.....The buckets contained carrots (from seed) on the far side and two "test" seed potatoes on the near end of the photo.

But you know, a sister's gotta have a "back up" plan....  So, just in case my green thumb had thoughts of turning brown.....I bought some starter plants and used some of the seeds to put in pots.

Here is some Sage, Basil and Rosemary.

Then I decided to try some lettuce ( a mixed package).

Spinach.....which by the way hasn't done a thing!.....:-(.  And I couldn't fine any decent starter plants...

Some Pole Beans.....

And Cherry Tomato plants.  Two went into the ground.

Bok Choi and Buttercrunch lettuce.  The Bok Choi had to be divided into two more pots as it was growing quite quickly and we ate some raw too.  It turned out to be a good move since the buttercrunch lettuce needed more room as well.

Buttercrunch....with more room to grow....:-).  It was bigger, but I keep nibbling on them....:-)

Red Sails lettuce.....

Mint- for when I cook Lamb.....:-)

Mojito Mint- just because I liked the name...haha

And Peppermint...for after I eat the Lamb! 

Scootard was tired after all of the turning of the soil, stringing the lines and putting stuff where I wanted it...

Yes, I helped! ha.  By the way, this picture was taken about a week later after Mother's Day weekend.  the Pole beans are on the far left and have begun to sprout.  Next to that are radishes and cauliflower, corn, two tomato plants, broccolli,  and the pepper plants.  In the near front are the potatoes... 

Somebody looks very pleased with their work......:-).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.......the humming birds are sipping around and visiting us again this year....
We call this one "Sadie"

Since we had permission to plant outside our windows, we chose Hibiscus bushes.  Four of them didn't thrive and we took them back and replaced them with Rhododendron.  Which also seem to be struggling with "petal blight"....:-(.  Sigh....

This one seems to be ok, though.

It was starting to get warm enough to take Maj and Miss Vickey out of storage and get her cleaned up.

I told her that I was thinking of trading her in or selling her.  She didn't say anything.....ha

We'll see what else I can find.  So, far I have not been able to find a suitable replacement for myself.  So, for now, it's me and Miss Vickey....:-)

See ya next time!

Ostrich, Leaks and Cocoons

If you have been following our blogs very long, you have probably figured out that Chris and I are "foodies".  That's right...."foodies".  I never thought I would hear myself say that, but since I have about 3 years of pictures with food in them; I would say we qualify! ha

Now, after our spontaneous date night out of town, we came home from a well recommended Greek restaurant with an enormous amount of leftovers.  Not because we ordered so much, but because the orders were so large.  I didn't mind at all because if saved me from trying to figure out dinner the next day....

Here is a fast forward to dinner...

  
Now, back to the excitement of the day.  There is nothing more perplexing than being in the bathroom and having the distinct feeling of getting "sprinkled" on from above.  Drip....drip...drip....???  And there it was. Water coming through the ceiling and the person above us no where to be found!  After putting in a call to the Strata, the sent a guy over to check out the situation.

Once he verified..."yep, it's a leak"..someone else had to be sent to take samples of the ceiling to have it tested for asbestos.  WHAT!?  Now, we are wondering if we are going to have to vacate and live in a hotel for several days.  Anyway, test must have been cleared as another guy came the next day and started to tear out the ceiling......

and the whole seemed to be getting bigger once the wall were checked for dampness.

This is going to be a while.  The bad part was that we were just upon Resurrection Sunday and nothing else was going to be done until the following week.....drip, drip.....drip.

 Might as well fix breakfast. I picked this up from the grocery store and had no idea of how to prepare it.  So, I did a bit of research.  This is NOT for the faint of heart! ha

Ostrich.....

All of the things I had in mind to do in the way of a marinade was what I found in my research.

After setting in the marinade for a few hours, I wrapped it in bacon and pan grilled it.  It is very much like steak in color and texture although it is a bird, but you cannot cook it nearly as long. It has a unique taste.  Don't expect steak or chicken if you decide to try it for yourselves.

I found it to be a bit rare for me and I had to throw it back into the pan for a minute, but afterward it was pretty good.  Not sure I would have it more than once in a while though.

hahaha....I guess he liked it....haha

Meanwhile, the guy in the bathroom finished his work for the day and cleaned up his mess.  We were left with a "stripped" bathroom for the next several days until the work resumes after the Easter Holidays.
drip...drip...drip....There is something about the sound of your neighbors toilet flushing over your head in an open ceiling that is a bit unnerving.

Here is the view from the "throne"......

After two days of wondering if the guy over us was going to actually fall through to us and pay us a visit, I asked Chris to cut me some flowers from my garden....  you know, as a consolation for my calamities....

I'm feeling better already......:-).  Aren't they beautiful!  And the smell good too....:-).

Might as well do something a little less stressful than wondering if the guy upstairs was going to land in your lap while sitting on the throne!  We had harvested our vermicompost the week prior, but still had one more step to take in that process. Final "sifting had to be done in order to remove any babies or cocoons from the compost and put them back in their bin.

Somebody was up for the task....ha

While sifting through the compost, I started finding what I was looking for......there were literally hundreds of them.....here are a few.  Tiny as the head of a straight pin and shaped like lemon seeds.

In order to get a close up picture, I had to shoot this shot through my jeweler's loop to get it to magnify.  My camera could not do it clearly.

Whatever did not fit through the fine screen along with the cocoons with into this container to be put back into the bin.

After that, it was time to watch our visitor from Mexico.  We named her "Sweet Pea".  It seems that she is friends with "Sadie" and brought a new friend with her that we named "Thumbelina".....

Now, time for some Jasmine tea and a bit of relaxation for the rest of the day.....

Thanks for sharing my week with me!

Lunch and Flowers and Worms! Oh My!

It's amazing to me how much work it takes just to make a small area look decent.  But since Spring has indeed sprung and I want to like what I see when I look out the front window, somebody had to do it!  But first, lunch with an out of town friend....:-).

We made plans to have lunch with our friend Bob who we had not seen in almost two years because of traveling.  We decided to try a restaurant in our town that Chris and I had not been to before.

Somebody is very happy about the idea...haha

Bob came in right behind us.  We had spent a few minutes outside looking for one of his motorcycles, but learned that he had driven instead.

Bob ordered some tacos.  They looked good, but I'm not sure that they were.

Chris ordered a "slider trio" and a very strange salad which happen to be my favorite part of his lunch...:-).

I ordered a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and mac and cheese.  I shouldn't have....really.  I was NOT good at all.....:-(. I have never heard of a pulled pork sandwich which did not have barbeque sauce on it.  And I don't like cheese sauce that is gritty and graining as though it was not cooked long enough.  Yuck.  I only had a couple of bites and was done with all of it.

It didn't take long before we decided to leave and get some coffee.  We went to this other cafe that we had never been too.  I know, daring aren't we..ha

It's nicely done on the outside and I love to have coffee at a bistro.

 Here is Bob and Chris, chillin...

I snapped this picture of the inside of the cafe.  We later found out that it doubles as a church on Sundays.  Cool......:-)

We had to make another trip to Vancouver after searching high and low for more of the Hibiscus that we had purchased a couple of days earlier.  So, we had to beat feet after lunch and head out again.  We made a short stop and then hit the highway.  We managed to find two more plants and headed straight back to our little town.  Unfortunately, we were not able to get everything we wanted from the one store, so we had to stop at another to pick up two more winter heather.

these are they.....

We got the last two trees in and the heather and was very glad that the rest will be done once the bulbs die back in the flower pots.

The landscapers are supposed to come some time this month and lay some sod.  I think things will be beautiful once everything is done.  We knew from seeing them along the highway to plant them on a slope.

 Afterward, we decided that we needed to harvest some vermicompost for our plants and make more bedding for our worms....:-).  You might remember when we set up the first system in Lawton last year.  We now have one here in Canada too that we have been maintaining for the past 5 months.

It works perfectly for smaller spaces.....

The temperature was perfect for the little guys.....:-)

I could almost hear the little guys cheering because they were about to have a bit more space and fresh bedding.  whoo hoo...ha

The system is called the Worm Factory 360 because the tray constantly rotate and get emptied when it is time for harvest.  Once you are ready to take your compost out for "curing" it needs to be separated from the little guys that are living in it.  We do it by putting the material in small piles and waiting a few minutes for the worms to work their way down to the bottom.  They do not like the light.

You gently pull the compost off of the top of the piles until you reach the bottom of them combining them into less piles as you go.  We then sift out any thing that had not yet been processed and put it back into the system with the worms.

After the separation took place, we were left with 1 1/2 gallons of pure castings for our plants and garden....
It should be rich, range in color from dark brown to almost black, smell like fresh soil and be very slightly moist....:-). By the way, the little tiny white specks are pulverized egg shell that I added early in the process for the purpose of ph level control.

Composting worms like it neutral or the composting food scraps will will burn their delicate skin.  Egg shells is a great way to do that...:-).  It also helps to feed tomato plants, roses and other plants that like calcium.  Not recommended if you want to use it on acid loving plants as the calcium neutralizes the acid.

ahhhhhh, perfect!  Thanks, guys!  Back to work now....:-).
.

see ya soon!