Moving, Pain and Beautiful Views.

I've been sitting on the couch for most of the day, leg elevated, periodically freezing it with a bag of peas and yes, today we were loading the trailer up yet again with boxes to take over to the new house. Actually, let me correct that last bit, I was helping load the trailer until I missed the last three steps as we brought down a mattress from the guest room. The only injury was my ankle, my teeth and my face are intact and no broken bones. Just my ankle and my composure suffered. So here I am, laid up and in the midst of a big move that Don and I were very nicely managing on our own. We've already brought over most of the outside stuff and now it's time for house things and then this! But I iced and elevated it immediately and I think that even as soon as tomorrow it will be much better and I will be able to get involved again.

As for our new house, it is fabulous. Frustrating as we found the process of choosing fixtures and so on, it has all turned out really well. And the light, oh my gosh! the light is lovely in there. Even on a gloomy day it is bright and we love it and we're looking forward to living there so much. Once things have settled down, I'll post some more photos. The one this is included with this post is the view from our living room window. It is not a very large pond, but it is currently home to a pair of mallards and in a couple months will have both pink and yellow water lilies adding to the prettiness. So whether it is winter or spring or summer or fall, it will be gorgeous.

Our contractor Darrell was also wonderful to work with. We've all heard contractor horror stories, but this is not one of those. He's been great, totally capable, efficient, is willing to work with us on 'ideas' and on time. The worst part of this whole process has been the difficulty that Don and I had in choosing things. But we're almost done and then the work of prettying up our new place begins. Such fun!!!!

Picking a Site for Raspberries

Gardening season is looming and we are all champing at the bit I'm sure. And while the evenings and even the days for that matter are far too cold yet to actually put stuff out even if you are living on the west coast of Canada it is a good time to make some plans and come up with ideas. The gardening magazines are beginning to appear at the checkout in supermarkets and they are a great source for ideas and products. I used to buy those all the time because the photos were so darn appealing. Made you want to run out and dig something up and move it. Don used to joke that my plants, including trees, should be on wheels because I moved things so often.


Last year, I became aware of an issue in my own garden, something that I was going to change in the spring. And if I'd stayed here, where we are living now, I would be making the necessary adjustments, but we're moving in a month and when I do a new garden this is definitely going to be factored in. When we first moved here, I dug up an area of meadow behind the house and this was my garden. And on the one end of it, I included a row of raspberries. The first year they were slow and only setting in roots. What I didn't realize is that raspberries spread by underground runners and in their second year, I was finding raspberries all over the row next to theirs. I'm sure that if they are left there, they will spread even further and it will become an ongoing nuisance. Raspberries growing in the asparagus bed and the carrots and everywhere else. If I were staying here, I'd be taking them out and resettling them.


At this point, here's my take on raspberries in the home garden. Take up the sod in a long row and make it 18 to 24 inches wide. I would use landscape ties or something like that to edge the bed, or perhaps that plastic lawn edging stuff that keeps the grass from growing into your raspberry planting. Add enough soil that the surface is once again level with whatever you've edged it with. At each end of your row set in a couple of posts and in the middle too if the row is long enough to need additional support there for the wires that you will attach your canes to as the plants grow. I would set my plants in at whatever distance apart the package tells you too, and then cover the top of the soil with sawdust or some kind of mulch to keep the soil moist underneath. Once your new or recently moved plants have had time to settle in again, they will do what comes naturally which is to send suckers out all over the place. The only difference now is that when you mow your lawn up and down the sides of your row, you will trim them off and they won't be going where you don't want them. This effectively restricts them to their own place. A lot easier than spending the summer trying to dig the silly things out of the other veggies without causing havoc and mayhem in the rest of the garden.


Hope this helps as you plot and plan and good luck with the weather, the only thing we have no control over.

THE Most Delicious, Ugly Mushroom Sauce,

This is not a company dish. Let me start off by giving that opinion. Dark green spinach leaves in a salad are ok, or even in a little steamed heap, green lettuce is ok, but for some reason, the appearance of this delicious pasta sauce is just a little off-putting. And really, I think that deleting the offending ingredient so that the sauce is more appetizing to look at, would also lessen the taste appeal. So what can you do? You mix it up and learn to like the sight of a bright green pasta sauce.

So here's the recipe and I'm almost positive (99.5%) that you will love this as much as I did. Here I don't post for ages and suddenly twice in one day! Go figure. Anyway, I'm going to write down the recipe for you here and it gives me a chance to write it down before I forget what I did to get this yumminess. So enjoy the sauce folks:


Mushroom Parsley Sauce

(could be served over pasta or any vegetable dish)

1/2 cup fresh parsley
1/2 cup water
1/2 vegetable soup cube (or to taste)
2 cups chopped mushrooms
1/4 tsp Herb de Provence
1 tbsp Nutritional Yeast
1/4 cup coconut cream

Take note here: If you don't have coconut cream, then sub the water for coconut milk and you could add a few more mushrooms just to make sure you get enough of their thickening power in the sauce.

Chop up the mushrooms and saute til tender
Put all ingredients, including the sauteed mushrooms
Blend til creamy.
Return to pan, cover and warm til needed.


So there you are, and yes it is bright green, but it's good for you and (maybe even a learning experience). So if you try it and like it, let me know---or not---and enjoy the day. There's gotta be something good about it; maybe a new and easy recipe!






I just want to say that I borrowed these beautiful photos from another site and I couldn't see anywhere that said they had to be purchased, so I thought you might enjoy seeing someones wonderful talent.

A Semi-Clean Break

I was just looking at the date of my last post and it's been a long time! My gosh time flies when you're having fun doesn't it? But in that time, I've made changes, started some things and finished others. One of the things that I decided to do was change the focus of my blog and to that end, just to make it a 'semi-clean' break, I have actually started a new blog. You can find it here, http://quarkspiritualstuf.blogspot.com/2011/04/its-all-just-opinion-isnt-it.html The blog you are looking at now will be maintained (and I do promise to try and keep it up better than of late)and will be more along the lines of what is going on in our day to day life for the benefit of family, and the new one will focus on my philosophies and viewpoints as regards the environment, the economy, spiritual stuff and so on. And in the spirit of my developing outlook on life, you may enjoy the new blog, or you may not, but it's all ok with me, because after all, we are all welcome to our differing perspectives. Besides, those various viewpoints all lend themselves to creation of a fascinating world right?

Latest art....

A few pictures of a recent art project. Polymer clay over an armature and painted to finish.

Beginning the Cycle Again!

So one more time, we begin the cycle of packing, moving, unpacking. Will it never end!!! At this point, I've given up saying never again. There must be something about living in a state of anxiety/anticipation that we find titillating. So there, we're moving again. Mind you it won't be until May but there's much to do before we get to that moment. We're planning our own little house, nothing elaborate, but keeping a few things in mind. Things like, almost no windows on the North Side which is also protected by a windbreak of 30 feet worth of trees, and the other side of the house, situated directly south facing will have windows the full length of it. Extra insulation in the ceiling, insulating foam on the exterior and an on demand hot water system. Little things like that will make the house a little bit environmentally worthy. So lots to think about and plan we'll keep you posted.

And PS: it's snowing today and I was planning on going into town today, but I think I'll wait. Sure is pretty to look at and not even really cold, only about 0 degrees.

Liam the photographer

And just so sweet Liam doesn't feel left out, here are some recent ones that I took the day that Pappa came to pick me up. He had brought his camera so that he could take pictures of Elsa and Liam was just obsessed with it. That little fellow is so quick with electronics! I tried to put a movie on for him and he had to come and show me which buttons to press to get it going. So anyway, Don's camera was all he wanted to play with. And because he is so cute and so insistent, it wasn't long before he had Pappa showing him how to take a picture. Look at how intent he is and he looks through the right hole and presses the right button. We kept telling him to take a picture of our face because it seemed that the camera was always pointing down. Then Kim figured out that he didn't know what a face was, he knows eyes, nose, mouth but he didn't know that collectively they made up a face. Once we straightened him out on that detail, then he pointed the camera up high enough and managed to get a couple shots that weren't all that bad (for a three year old). It was so much fun. Anyway, here they are, student and teacher, for you to enjoy.