A walk in the Woods

My sister came up from New York on the American Thanksgiving weekend. We went for a walk Saturday afternoon. This is actually the cross country ski centre 2 blocks from our house and is now out of bounds for walking now since we have received a major amount of snow in the last 2 days with more to come. Now you can see faces! Emily, (niece), Lynda (sister) and Amanda (friend and dogwalker) are on the trail. The green speck in the woods on the left is Connor.
Here we are at the shelter. Why is everyone looking up?

Because Connor is on the roof. Why? Because it was there. Are you noticing a theme here? This boy has major issues with boundaries.

But underneath all that rebel exterior there is a little angel.

My son, the artist

Connor has learned a very impressive skill from my dad. He makes flowers. This is highly useful in restaurants when you are bored while waiting for your food to arrive. Before attempting this yourself you must be prepared to drink a lot of coffee or have several little ones with you who are willing to drink the milk and cream.

Does anyone need step by step instructions?

Getting caught up

I have been very remiss in my blogging. Now that the yard is blanketed in snow I can get caught up on the last month. To add a little colour to your white world today here is my last garden pictures for 2010.

This year I planted very colourful vegetables. These are Purple Haze carrots

and "blue" potatoes.
I turned this colourful bowl of vegetables and parsley

into lots and lots of freezer salsa.
I also grew little purple eggplants. This one is Hagar.

We went apple picking. Just Kevin and I. It isn't nearly as much fun without a crowd of kids and family. The apples this year were amazing. I have never seen so many giant apples.I made an amazing pumpkin trifle. Mmm!

Newfie Night

A few weeks ago I heard that a local church was having a fundraiser for our new youth centre. The senior pastor and the youth pastor are both from Newfoundland. Since my dad has always loved Newfie music and humour and my parents toured Newfoundland years ago and loved it, I invited them. And I invited Kevin's mom because she wants to go on a bus tour in the spring. They served 125 people last year and turned away 40. This year they rented the RecPlex - big enough for 250 and it was packed.

When we arrived we went to the sample tables and had squid rings (like eating rubber), Fish'n Brewis (not bad), fish cakes (not bad), cod tongues (chewy), cod cheeks (pretty good) and Newfie Steak (fried bologna). The buffet meal was roast beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, turnip and pease pudding and salt beef. Good as well. The dessert was partridge berry pudding with lemon sauce. The skits were good and there was a 15 year old fiddler who step danced later and Highland dancers.

The end of the evening was a "sacred" ceremony called screeching in. This involves drinking screech and kissing a cod. In order to be screeched in people had to cough up $20 to nominate you. My loving family and "friends" did so behind my back and as the ringleader tried to drag me up to the stage, the "cod cops" told her she had been picked as well. Ah - sweet justice - she suffered with me. Since it was run by a church our screech was purity syrup. It was like drinking red sugar water - gross. Then I kissed the cod and became an honorary newfie. My parents were screeched in on their tour. Kevin was screeched in at the mess when we lived in Labrador (using coca-cola since we don't drink). How many of you have had the pleasure of becoming an honorary newfie?

I won a jar of partridgeberry jam as a door prize and also a dining package in the silent auction. And I got to keep the ball cap I was screeched in wearing. We had a great time and hope to go again next year.

What I woke up to

Three or four inches of snow!! We were told to expect some wet snow but this is crazy. We had to shovel and the plows came around!

This is a lilac bush. There was a fair number of broken trees around and you can see why.

And here is a before and after of the corner garden. In the first shot you wouldn't even recognize the standard hydrangea. Two hours later it has emerged from it's snow cocoon. In both shots the spireas and potentillas are flattened by the snow's weight.

Here is a shot of my Bridalwreath spireas that are taller than I am. The branches are just beginning to free themselves. They are coming up one at a time like little catapults.
Not only were we shocked by the snow, there was a town wide power outage from about 7 until 8. Just as everybody was trying to get out the door! There wasn't much I could do in the garden so I didn't meander into work until 10:30. It was actually warm and I enjoyed working in the snow.

What about you? Did you get snow?

Miss me?

I wish I had a great excuse for not blogging - like a tropical vacation - but nothing so exciting. My laptop was out of commission for 3 weeks and I have been very busy at work. This is the most exciting thing I have done lately - the fall activities at Brooks Farms when we went down to my sister's in Newmarket. Can you identify the 3 aliens?

If you guessed Connor, me and Alec you are right! Isn't Connor the cutest little alien pig you have ever seen? I am still confused about the connection between corn, pumpkins and aliens so I can't enlighten you. We were very happy to have Alec home with us for Thanksgiving when he was sent on a last minute course to Kingston. Here's a few more pics of me and the boys.

And my niece exhibiting her amazing zip-line technique!