Day 150

Ryan and Alex braved the frigid water today and had a splashing contest in the pool.

One of the perks of having pork chops for dinner is that you can fry up the trimmed fat and it tastes pretty much like bacon. A little salt, a little pepper, and you've got bacony goodness in your tummy.

Day 149

More garage sales today. I love that even Ryan has started to enjoy the garage sale hunt. His comments from the back seat are hilarious when we scope out a sale.."That's just old people stuff...", "It's all baby stuff, no big boy toys, keep driving!"

I picked up this vintage Spirograph for $2. Though it has been used, everything is still inside. I priced it online and it's worth about $40. Score!

I also got this train set out of a free pile. The styrofoam part inside was put in backwards so all you could see in the windows were tracks. I didn't think it was complete, and figured I'd just let the kids use the tracks for their trains at home. To my surprise, when I opened it up at home, it was totally complete and unused. The trains were heavy too, not plastic junk, so I packed it up properly and put it in the closet out of reach of little hands, and there it will stay, until December, when I will set it up under our Christmas tree. :)

Day 148

The boys and I cruised around town today looking for some garage sales. Nearby there was a community yard sale where they had some bouncy castles set up for the kids. The kids however were more interested in the fire truck they had there. They were checking it out when a fireman offered to let them sit in the drivers seat. Ryan got to turn on the sirens and blow the alarm horns. Alex was excited, but also a bit nervous.

I found some toys and books for the boys, and for myself, I found this silver bracelet. It was a steal for only $1

For dinner tonight, Dutch croquettes with an Asparagus and Emmental Cheese Tart

Day 147

I usually don't spit my gum out the window, but I had cleaned out my car the day before and forgot to put in another garbage bag. My gum was getting horribly stale, and my jaw was getting sore from chewing it, so I rolled down my window and *ptoui!* Only I could make a shot like this. I had to drive home with it like this until I could get a kleenex and dispose of it.

Dinner tonight was a chicken, bacon and pasta casserole

and for dessert, a strawberry tart a la mode

Day 146

Alex has figured out how to get into our drawers, and how to open the lock on our oven. We didn't figure this out until I was pre-heating the oven and came back into the kitchen to find smoke pouring out of it. This is all that is left of my spatula...thanks Alex.

Day 145

Ya, I know, it's another kitten picture...but it was either this or a picture of a dead deer on the side of the road. I think I chose wisely.

Day 144

"Hey Alex, I hate to tell you this, but, the Habs lost last night..."

Tonights supper was chicken alfredo with roasted veggies.

Day 143

I can't help it, I'm falling in love with Julian. The one thing I hate about helping and rescuing cats, is getting attached to them. How could you not fall in love with this face?

Day 142

Wally and I bored out of our minds on day 2 of our garage sale. We made a measly $27 today. No more garage sales for us.

Day 141

Today was the big garage sale day, and it was a bust :(  The minute 9am rolled around, the skies opened up and started raining on us. We had to scramble to cover up all our stuff, all my tags got smudged, and of course it kept the people away. At one point my parents came by and they let me know that our big sign by the main highway road was down. This was the sign I was counting on bringing in most of the people, so I had to hop in the car and try to pound it back into the ground. By the time my parents left and got back home, they had let me know that the sign was back down again. I had to make up a huge contraption held down by a big patio slab. Another highlight was seeing a skunk run across the yard, and ending up sun burnt again even though I was under an umbrella almost the whole time.

Look at all this crap we're trying to get rid of! LOL

Day 140

This morning I brought the little kitten over to my friends house to see if her cat would adopt him and the momma took to him right away, let him suckle with her gang, and gave him a bath. Phew!

What I think happened is that the kittens here are pretty much 80% weaned and Ennie doesn't stay with them that much anymore because they are pretty much almost ready to be off on their own. The kittens with my friend are only 4 weeks old, so the mom is still with them a lot and feeding them more often.

Here he is with his new brothers and sisters

Look how much tinier her is. Awwww...

I left the boys with my friend and hit the surrounding neighbourhoods to hang up my garage sale signs. These horses came over to the edge of their pasture to see what I was up to.

Day 139

Somebody dropped a little kitten off at Wally's store. The little guy was really young and he wouldn't take any food or water, so Wally mentioned that we have a lactating cat, and he brought him home hoping that our cat Ennie would adopt him as her own.

At first it looked like things were going well, she sniffed him up and started licking him. He started to nuzzle with her, when she got distracted by a noise in the kitchen and she took off. When she came back, she started making this weird panting noise and then started to growl at him when ever he got close. I kept sneaking him onto her whenever she let the other kittens on her so he did get a few meals into him.

Tomorrow I'm taking him to my kid's daycare provider as she also has a cat with kittens, and we'll try him out there.

Meeting Ennie

Tonight's supper was plain old sheppard's pie. Simple, easy and yummy!

Day 138

More garage sale work. I went through 5 garbage bags and 3 huge rubbermaid bins of kids clothes. How did I amass so many clothing items for my kids? They're only 3 and 6 and they probably have had more clothes than I have had in my entire life LOL. I took the pic below when I was only half way through. I spent all day out in the sun and only around 1pm did it dawn on me that I wasn't wearing sunscreen. I slathered it on, but it was too late, I'm currently feeling the burn on my back and shoulders. Ug.

While putting out a bag of recycling, I noticed this little guy hopping away. I grabbed the camera and took pics of him to show Ryan when he got home from school. Isn't he adorable?

Day 137

Alex spent the day at the sitter's while I made more signs for our garage sale. While I was making super he pretty much ran around the yard and amused himself. He managed to get the top half of the umbrella we use for shade on the kids sandbox, and he looked hilarious carrying it around the yard.

Day 136

Work continues getting ready for the garage sale. I went to the local newspaper office to day and placed an ad. Wally made a sandwich board type sign for on the road, and I painted on the lettering. Just one more closet to go through, then we hit the kitchen, the living room, and if we can squeeze in Wally's workshop, then we will be done. After that we have to start pricing... I swear it never ends.

The wild garlic leaves are dying off and looking pale, so I picked off the best looking ones and made a pesto out of them.

Supper was Cheesy Boursin Noodles and Chicken, Battered and Fried Beans, and Toasted French Bread with Wild Garlic Pesto.

Day 135

We went to a place not far from here where a bunch of model train enthusiasts have these big trains you can ride on. They open up to the public the first and third Sunday of every month and give people free rides around their track. Today we took the boys who absolutely had a great time watching all the trains and getting a ride.

Alex and I riding on a train (picture by Wally)

After 2 rides around the track, we had a big derailment and operations for the day had to stop.

Back at home we enjoyed the rest of the day outside with the kids. Ryan caught his first frog by himself and the mosquitos stayed away enough that we were able to enjoy dinner outside.

Dinner was pork saté with spicy peanut sauce, stir fried peppers, and noodles

Day 134

Today, a series of kitten pictures...

Bobby and Julien hang out in the dogs' toy basket

Edward decides to join them

Oh so sleepy...Zzzzzz

Awwwww!

Day 133

I wanted to take a nice close-up picture of a dandilion, but when I uploaded it, it came out a little dark. I put it through the auto adjust function of my photo program, I got this. I love the funky blue background, so I saved it this way :)

I planted my wild garlic garden today and surrounded it by 2 big ostrich ferns. Not much longer until the leaves die off of the garlic plants and the flowers bloom, only then will I know for sure if it has taken to it's new home.

I also dug up 2 of these gorgeous flowers I found in the woods. I thought they were pitcher plants at first, but it turns out they are called Jack in the Pulpits, and you can eat the root bulbs. Apparently they taste like turnips, which doesn't appeal to me, and I couldn't destroy this beautiful plant just for a taste of it's tiny bulb.

For supper I made bacon carbonara with fiddleheads and some of the wild garlic, and for dessert, a lemon poppy seed loaf.

Day 132

After finishing our garage sale cleaning and sorting in the barn today, we took a nice walk in the woods. We took another old over grown horse trail that nobody has been on in over 10 years. We went off the beaten path and found this little lake. It ran down into a creek that was filled with minnows and tadpoles. Must go back with a bucket and a net :)

On the way back towards the house we went straight through the deep woods and came across a large patch of wild garlic, or as some people call them, ramps. I picked a leaf and tore it in half taking a sniff, and was instantly hit with that garlic-y smell. I have been looking for some of this stuff in the woods for years, I can't believe I finally found some. :)

For dinner we had planned on making hamburgers, so we chopped up some wild garlic bulb into the meat, chopped some of the leaves into the rice, and I sautéed some smaller bulbs and leaves up with tomato in olive oil with salt, pepper and rosemary for Wally.