Chop chop!!!

Laurie chopping the second crop of rhubarb yesterday....and then I made a big rhubarb crumble that we all ate last night!!! Mmmmmmm :) It's so nice that within ten minutes from cutting it from the garden it was being chopped and prepped and within half an hour from being cut from the garden, it was in the oven in my crumble!!! :) Laurie's favourite which is why he was more than happy to help :)

The second crop yielded three large freezer bags of rhubarb. I made two large freezer bags of crumble topping to go in the freezer so we have crumble ready to go any night!!! Yum!!! :)

OOoohhh actually you can see my crumble ready to go in the oven on the end of the island behind Laurie!!

My little blossoms...

Bumble bee blossom.....

The bumble bees LOVE this blossom, yet my honey bees won't touch it!!!

So happy washing dishes.....

I swear she was a Disney Princess in a previous life ;) she sings and is happy ALL the time ;) It's FREAKY!!!!!

Susannah is auditioning for her schools talent show next week - she is singing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' and her teacher has offered to play the piano for her. Lloyd has finally agreed to allow her to audition for Vic school for high school too! This is a MAJOR step too as he was dead set against it at first! Of course this is dependent on whether he is still working downtown and can drop her at the school as he will NOT allow her to walk to and from the school the way Chris does. Susannah wants to be a singer. Vic is also an excellent academic school though and has an IB program that Chris is excelling in, so Susannah can fulfill her desire to sing AND study as much as she needs and wants to! It's a great school! Abigail may well end up there too as the arts program is also wonderful there!

Happy mail :)

Chris has no clue what it's for - whether it's for honours in something or whether it's for his editing work or his Arthur Hiller Award work....but we're thrilled he is awarded something and it was nice to get the invitation in the mail :)

Waffles!!!

Waffles with Cinnamon apples and ice cream......Mmmmmmm :)
Yummiest lunch of the week :)

Sams spider...

Sam had fun watching a spider running about on his upturned paddling pool yesterday....

Home from school.....

Walking back up the driveway from the bus...

Home

With the temporary criss-cross covering on the porch (which I think is ugly and I hate). Am trying to add a picture of the house from last year to compare but it won't let me - so I will do that later!!!

Grayson.

Grayson is spending a little more time outside these days but doesn't stray far from the house thankfully.

Jasper has not returned this time. We miss her. We still hope she will come back but the longer she is gone the more we doubt that this time she will come back - but knowing that she has returned in the past after being gone for 8 days or so, we hope that she has another place she goes to and calls 'home' rather than the alternative....maybe someone else is looking after her somewhere....

Bird of prey...

This big guy has been hovering over our place the last few days...not sure if he/ she has been nesting here but it's amazing to see and here - he's HUGE!!!! I haven't got the book out yet to see what it is, OR got my bigger lens out to get a good picture, this is just my normal lens. It's a gorgeous bird though and sooooo loud you can hear it from in the kitchen! Beautiful!

Bread thief!!

I put out all the crusts and crumbs from the children's toast after breakfast, and Charlie came along and STOLE it all! Sigh.....Some of it I put on the bird table, but some of the little birds like to eat off of the ground so some I put on the ground around the base of the trees. I guess I can't do THAT much any more - at least not while Charlie is around ;) She's not stupid, that pig!!!!

Peep on the porch.....

Big Peep is getting braver and starting to visit the feeder that we have on the porch.....

Fighting finches...

We put up a thistle feeder and within two minutes we had three male goldfinches there fighting over it - it was hilarious!!! they soon settled down to share it, but it was quite funny to see them at first! I wonder if they were the babies returned from last year!?! Lloyd says they are probably his favourite birds here.

One of my favourite Summertime songs!!!