Day 119

Tonights supper. Cheesy potatoes dauphinoise, glazed asparagus, and maple pepper pork chops.

Day 118

Today the boys met some new kids :) These little ones, a boy and a girl, are 2 weeks old, but they still don't have names.

The boys loved them, but the goats were still a bit too shy to aproach my 2 rambunctious lads.

Here is Ryan with Juanita, the Mamma goat who loves having her cheeks scratched.

We loved learning more about the goats and watching the little ones hopping and jumping around like popcorn. Someday soon we hope to get a goat of our own :)

Day 117

Wally's mom stopped by for a visit today. The boys don't see their Nanny too often, so whenever she comes, she brings lots of gifts. It always looks like Christmas in here after she leaves, wrapping paper and toys everywhere.

One of my favourite summer birds, the male purple finch, has also started making an appearance at the feeders today.

I made Wally some cheesy garlic and pepper shrimp pasta for his lunch tomorrow. I'm having a great time cooking and improvising recipes lately.

Day 116

A little hello from Edward

The minute Ryan got home from school today, he hit the backyard with Wally to build snowmen. All winter we had crappy non-sticking snow, so we couldn't build any snowmen this year. Ryan was thrilled to get sticky snow, even though it's almost MAY!

The snowman family: Mom, Dad, and Doggy

Day 115

Because Alex wore his Habs hockey shirt today, the Canadians won the game :P

Day 114

At the park with the giant rock. Alex is big enough this year to crawl to the top (with a little help from Dad)

Pretty flowers I spotted in the woods. I might dig some up and transplant them in my garden.

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Ryan doing a chicken imitation. Buck buck buck!

Day 113

This is the first roast chicken I have ever made. Whole chickens were on sale at the grocery store for $5 each. How could I pass that up? So I rinsed it, patted it dry, rubbed it down with butter, made a paste with olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika, oregano, basil, and onion powder, and slathered that all over it. I chopped up some garlic and green onions, salt and peppered that, and drizzled some lemon juice over it, and shoved it all in the cavity. I popped it a 350 oven for an hour and 15 minutes and it turned out so delicious! The skin was so yummy and the meat was juicy and tender. I'm quite impressed with myself!

Day 112

The kittens finally have their eyes fully open. They are now 17 days old. I didn't want to name them because I thought it would make it easier to not get attached to them, but out of the blue Ryan announced that he had named them. I thought he would come up with silly names like Spiderman, or Bumblebee, which is what he seemed to name everything in the past, but he actually impressed me with the names he came up with.

So I introduce you to...

Bobby

Julian

Edward

Day 111

Wally had to go to some kind of conference thing for work really early in the morning, so it was the first time ever that he missed the morning bus with Ryan. Ryan work up early so he could have a few minutes with him, and then the poor little guy cried when Dad had to leave.

Day 110

Ryan got some kind of decoder in a cereal box and we thought it was cooler to use as a viewer to see how the world would look if it were red. I got the idea to put it up to my camera lens and took a few pictures with it. Everything looks pretty funky through a red lens. :)

Day 109

I had a hippopotamus for lunch!

No, actually it was for supper because when I went to clean and cut up my chicken, it looked like this:

It didn't smell bad, but those brown parts were a real appetite suppressant and I wasn't in the mood to risk food poisoning.

I also spent 3 hours grooming Murphy today. This dog has the thickest fur ever and she has tonnes of it. By the time I was done, it had looked like a dog had exploded in the kitchen.

I think the end result looks good though, and she really seems to like the way it feels...She keeps running around the yard like a maniac. I guess the breeze feels nice.

Day 108

Wally just couldn't get the chainsaw through this tree. The further the blade went down, the more the tree pressed together squeezing the blade. At one point he was so frustrated, he came in and grabbed a hammer and chisel. Finally the damn thing gave and the yard is now safe for the kids again.

I also found the first visitor to my new pond today. I think he liked the new digs :)

Day 107

I spent 2.5 hours giving Maggie a haircut today, and ended up finding a gross tick on her ear. Thankfully it hadn't bitten her yet, so I grabbed the thing with the tweezers, stuffed it in a ziplock bag and threw it in the freezer to kill it.

This was the view on the way to pick up a pizza for dinner. Out in the country with flat fields you can see what kind of weather is coming. Sure enough, half an hour later when we got back home, it started raining.

Day 106

Yes it's another picture of the dog. What can I say, I'm still sick, and the dog is half deaf, so it's easy to sneak up on him.

Day 105

We're doggy sitting my parent's dog Barkley while they are in Toronto visiting my brother's family. This morning he was so kind as to pee and poop all over my living room floor.

I think he misses his Mommy

Day 104

The kids got sick on Sunday night, and their germs have infiltrated me. This half-assed pic is all I could muster today.

Day 103

Last night when I went to bed, I removed my earrings and found I was only wearing one. These earrings were very special to me, my grandmother had given them to me when I was around 5 years old. I even wore them in my kindergarten picture. 

I had been working all day around the yard fixing up the pond, but I had also hopped the fence looking for mossy rocks in the woods for the garden. I knew if I lost it there, I would never find it again, but if I lost it around the yard, I might be able to find it with my metal detector.

So first thing in the morning, I grabbed the detector, but I couldn't find it. I searched the house and couldn't find it in there either. I tried outside once again and retraced all my steps but still couldn't find it. Just as I was about to give up, I decided to go around the pond one more time and I finally got a signal. There under some brown scraggly dead grass was my earring.

I still can't believe I found it, the odds were so against me.

Day 102

Well my pond is totally destroyed. We had to start taking the waterfall apart to try to find the source of the leak. The more we took it apart, the more I knew it was going to be impossible to put back together. I told Wally that if we were going to start taking things apart, we're gonna go all the way. So the whole thing is coming out. Were going to dig out the garden, we have had pond liners in the barn for a long time and they're finally going to get used. I can't wait for a nice big pond with some good sized fish in it!

In the meantime, my gold fish needed a place to stay. We have had an old pond in the front yard for over 10 years, it's never run, so we just kept it filled for the frogs. So I got in there and cleaned it out. There was at least a foot of crud on the bottom, and it stunk so bad. We removed all the rocks around the edges, and re-did them. I put in a plastic waterfall mold and then tried to camouflage the grey plastic parts with rocks, stones, and moss. I think it turned out pretty good. It's nice to hear the running water out there now.

Now to slowly transplant all the perennials from the other garden, and hopefully we'll have a beautiful garden this summer. :)

What my old pond looks like now

The goldfish's new home

The waterfall

Day 101

 I spotted on old dump site in the woods on an old back road on the way to the grocery store today. When we were heading back home, I had Wally stop so I could walk in and take a look. It's one of the bigger dump sites I have seen around here, there were bottles every where, old appliances, shoes, etc.. I'm guessing the stuff was from around the 40's or 50's. I have to get back there one day soon (possibly tomorrow) with some good boots, gloves and a digging tool. I got honked at by Wally after about 10 minutes so I grabbed these bottles and headed back to the car.

Day 100!

I had noticed lately that my pond wasn't looking as deep as I thought it was, and that after I turned off my waterfall I was losing over an inch of water a day. Wally and I decided to give it a thorough cleaning to see if there was a leak in the liner or something. Well we ended up spending hours pulling up bucket fulls of gravel, rocks that Ryan has thrown in over the years, and nasty goop. I have an awesome pair of pond gloves that go up to my armpits that made the job a lot easier. After adjusting a few rocks on the falls and turning down the water flow, we got it all running again only to find out a few hours later that the water line was still going down. This might mean that I have to disassemble my whole waterfall, which is going to be a huge job that I'm not looking forward to.

We then took another hike in the woods where I came across these gorgeous little flowers, one are of the woods was covered in them.

When it was time to head home Alex had a spaz and didn't want to leave. We kept walking and said "Ok, bye Alex!" Hoping he would come running when he saw we were serious, but he wouldn't budge. So I kept walking and said "Ok Alex, we'll leave you here in the woods and maybe a wolf or bear will want to raise you" Then Ryan stopped and said "Oh no, my poor baby brother is going to be all alone in the woods!" So he runs over to him, gives him a hug and says..."Bye, I'll miss you." LOL!

Day 99

Did you know that if you took an empty water bottle, cut the bottom off and slipped a sock over it, you would have an awesome bubble blower? It's true, just dip it in some soapy water and blow, you'll be amazed how many bubbles come out. My kids are totally loving this.

Day 98

As I stopped at an intersection, I looked to my left for any on coming traffic, and I saw this guy crossing the road. I opened my window, got out my camera, and I swear he posed for me. When I finished taking the pic, I put my camera back in my purse for a split second, and when I looked up again, he was gone.

Day 97

I cleaned out all the muck from the pond and finally got my waterfall back up and running. The water is nice and crystal clear now, much to the chagrin of the fish who have nowhere to really hide until the plants start growing in.

Day 96

Ennie had her babies today! 3 little ones and they are all boys!

Day 95

Todays supper: Jamaican jerk salmon, herbed parmesan basmati rice, and asparagus with wine and lemon butter sauce.