A walk with the man I love...

Yesterday it was lovely and hot here. 26 or 27 I think. Lloyd and I sat on the porch for much of the afternoon. We'd been out in the morning with the children and we relaxed on the porch - Lloyd with Cairo asleep on his lap. We watched hummingbirds on the feeders and the Chickadees were getting at the nuts....Davidson was pottering about. The children were playing in the sand and with the hoses and then when they got too hot they'd go inside to do a bit more of their crafts or play with the playdough a bit more. It was just a lovely relaxing afternoon.

After a while we left the children playing and Lloyd and I went for a walk - one of the wonderful things about having so much land, is being able to go for a lovely walk without leaving home!! Normally our walks are with either the children or the dogs - or both, but yesterday we decided to go alone for a quite stroll :)

Lloyd spotted a, now empty, little bird nest amongst a Wild rosebush. We saw what we believe to be Common Fireweed growing in our back field - VERY EXCITING!!!!! This makes the most DELICIOUS honey and I would LOVE to grow more of this! I hope it spreads next year.

We also spent some time down by the pond looking at how low the water level is this year....I hope the frogs are doing ok.

More feathered fledglings...

Lloyd and I sat on the porch this afternoon and enjoyed more feathered visitors. A hummingbird baby!!! Visiting the feeder to fatten up before it's vast journey south in a couple of weeks! It's amazing how fast they grow - they HAVE to grow from the tiny pea sized egg to the bird that has to fly so far by mid August. A female (unless the young don't have the ruby throat straight away).

The only way we could really tell it was a baby was by it's behaviour rather than it's size - it just seems so much more 'skittish' than the adults that were flying around us at the feeders. None of them care about us sitting so close on the porch - they mind the children who are noisy of course, but they don't mind us sitting just a metre away - or even closer at times. Neither do the chickadees who come to the feeders we have by the chairs.

It was lovely sitting there with various birds coming and going. I can't wait to have the wraparound porch finished with all kinds of feeders hung all the way around. We have plans for deer feeders in places too - from a plan we saw on another blog. Filled with corn to attract deer to watch. All winter long. Today we were looking at Spruce trees to buy so we can attract squirrels and Nuthatches and other types of birds that deciduous trees don't attract.

It's wonderful seeing all this wildlife and watching it come back each year - seeing the 'families' grow and return :)

Fun at Fort Edmonton

We had a wonderful day at Fort Edmonton yesterday

www.fortedmontonpark.ca/pages/FortEdmonton/default.aspx

it's such a nice place to spend a day :) The weather started off cool but soon warmed up and by the end of the day we were all hot - turns out it's going to be a gorgeous week which is good :) Luckily the gloomy start to the day meant the crowds stayed away so the park was lovely and quiet.

We bought an annual pass so we're heading back in September - Lloyd has a week off at the beginning of September so we'll go back then and see what they have going on for Fall...and the pass will still be valid when Lloyds parents are here next Summer. For $80 it means you only have to go twice and it's already paid for itself!

Best of all, I got to try Bannock for the very first time - I have heard all abut it so many times before - Susie has always loved it and Val has always told me how her children LOVE it and so FINALLY I got to try some and find out why people rave about it :)

And yes - I LOVE it too :) MMmmmmmmm it was yummy - had raisins in it and a little icing sugar on it I think....and I think it had wholewheat flour in it? Anyway it was a kind of a bread but slightly sweet.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bannock_(food)

A mini album for Grayson

This is the mini album I have been working on since yesterday. I had some chipboard that came in a calendar so I cut it up and used that as the base for this mini album as I had the rings already. Lloyd cut them exact for me as I am useless at that :)

I like how it turned out - I love using the ink and how it adds to the edge of the pages - its a messy job though :) fun though :) Sometimes its fun to get messy like a kid :)

I still need to add the journaling which I plan to do in white ink :)

Goldfinch babies...

Lloyd and I were out by the vegetable garden this evening and we noticed the young American Goldfinches were taking their fledgling flights around the backyard :) We didn't even realise our Goldfinches had had babies in our woods this year! We knew they had nestes here and were feeding at our feeders every morning, but we hadn't seen their babies at all - but tonight we saw four or five babies flying by the garden shed and on the workshop roof. a mix of male and femal babies :)

Very cute! I wonder if I will be able to get pictures before they leave for the winter?

And I wonder if any of them will return next year?

Last couple of days...

Yesterday the weather wasn't too warm so we had to change our plans - we were supposed to spend the day swimming at an outdoor pool with Tess and her Son, but it got cancelled, so Chris went into Edmonton instead and Laurie went to the twins for a sleepover. As we were in town anyway, we ran to Safeway and grabbed some picnic foods and then went to Broadmoor Lake and had a picnic at the playground there :) It was nice!

Today Abigail had a class at the library called Geronimo Stilton and other Rodent adventures.....she had great fun there. We ran into Jennifer and her family there too :)

While Abby was at her class we went and bough Susannahs new bag for school, then after the class we went to the food court for drinks and treats before heading to Chapters to get Abigail a Geronimo Stilton book to go with her class! Then we headed home just before Lloyd did :)

Wednesday night was nice - date night with Lloyd - we went to Joeys Med Grill in Sherwood Park - its been ages since we went there but we didn't eve have to wait and I had a strawberry stiff lemonade yummy :)

After that we went to Costco for a book for me and ran in to Lori and Kevin and stood chatting to them for ages which was nice :)

Now its a three day weekend :)

garden progress..

Our garden is doing well - a lot better than I thought it was going to do! Our tomatoes are doing soooo great!!!! The tomatoes are still quite green so they aren't ready yet but when they redden up we will have soooooo many!!! I can't wait :)

We have had so many strawberries now and the kids LOVE them - they don't make it to the house still - we have a tap by the garden and they egt washed there and eaten straight away :) yummy :)

Broccoli is doing great :) Radishes did sooooo great :)

My golden beets are doing well!

Lloyds lettuce are doing well and the carrots are doing great!

Sams peas are doing great! You can see all the little peas in the pods and that is just sooooo cute! I can't wait for Sam to be able to eat them straight from the pod :)

Our pumpkins are doing GREAT!!!!! :)

I have some sunflowers coming up all over the place but not as many as I had hoped so I want to try the clay method next year.

Our raspberries didn't do as well as we had hoped but the children happily enjoy our wild raspberry bushes on the trails through the woods.

Susie gardening....

Susannah picked all the radishes last night...we had a big tub full by the end :) we love them - they are great for runners and athletes by the way as they are great for muscle tears and for helping your muscles recover from exercise in general :) Great for growing teens too! Yummy :)

Kids love growing radishes because they are one of the fastest growing crops - they only take about three weeks to grow and then they are ready to eat and they grow part out of the ground so the kids can see them growing and see when they are ready to be pulled! My kids love eating them because they love hot spicy foods :)

Sam and the BIG beehive!!!!

We told Sam this was my new BIG beehive :) so he was looking for all the bees :) Imagine how many bees I could keep in a hive THIS big!!!! :)

My Grayson.....

When I am on the computer Grayson will often sleep on the desk beside me or curl up on the printer and sleep :) I have to admit that I love it :)

rocket power Space Cadet!

Susannah attended a workshop at the library yesterday called 'Space Cadets' and part of it involved building rockets and firing them using alka seltzer tablets and water, so we got her to show us at home :)

Great job Susie!!! :)

In the evening sun......

Sand cakes

Yummy :)

Samantha

My friend Samantha has spent this Summer travelling across Europe with her two Sons. I got a postcard from her this week that was written on the beach in the South of France just before she headed into Italy :) the corner of the postcard was wet from the Med Sea, there was a bit of sand tucked under the address label and she had drawn the sun on the postcard too :) How cool :)

They've been popping into cyber cafe's and blogging their journey as they backpack through Europe which has been fun to read too :)

Looks like they've been making some wonderful memories before her boys head off to college etc They will soon head back to England to spend some time with their family before flying back to Edmonton.

How wonderful :)

Davidson...and Charlie!!!

Last night we spent the evening out by the firepit as Lloyd wanted to burn a lot of the old fence posts we had piled up by the workshop. While we were out there the piggies were out there 'socialising' with us!

They have been spending more and more time together over the last few days. They still ignore each other for the most part. Davidson is far too energetic for Charlie - Charlie is so lazy and spends much of her time asleep in the sun!

The only time Charlie seems to lose her temper with Davidson is when food is involved and then she shows Davidson who is boss! So we feed Charlie first and make sure she has plenty of food and then all is well!

Davidson is still happy to have all this space and goes off to play and explore in the trees and loves to curl up in the space where the Peony was which is like a little hole of mud so we fill it with water and he cools off in that - and has sadly flattened my sunflowers that were growing in there....sigh...but he is happy :)

I wonder what the workmen thinnk now we have two piggies :)

As you can see, Davidson is a playful little thing whereas Charlie likes to just have her tummy rubbed - anything that can be done that means she doesn't have to get up! Lazy fat pig lol!