Summer/Fall 2015

So... we had a fairly busy summer doing not much at all but it took up all of our time somehow.  We only made it camping twice, which made it seem like I just got the thing loaded and turned around to pack it all up and store again.  Oh well - NEXT year!

The garden did well this year, even weathered a hard frost in June which killed everything I had planted.  Remarkably much of those things actually re-grew from dead looking yellowed stems and I ended up with too many tomatoes and lots of volunteers from last year.  People are always happy to take produce so nothing went to waste.

We used a lot of leeks which I planted again this year, in pallets.  We gave a lot away and yesterday (Oct27) I pulled the remainder, washed and sliced and flash froze them.  Though I am not a fan of anything that is frozen, I hate ot waste leeks as they are pricey.  I have 10 cups of lovely, washed, sliced organic leeks now in my freezer and can toss a handful in any soup or stew.  I also roasted the remained of the beets, skinned and froze them but in the process discovered that Trip REALLY liked beets. She is generally not a fan of any veggies beyond pumpkin and sweet potatoes, although she will eat any veggie cooked in broth.  Kira eats anything and we have not found a fruit or veggie she won't eat.  Long story short, the dogs ended up sitting at my feet as I peeled beets and I saved a couple baggies out for them. AT least I know that eventually if I don't use the beets in the freezer, the dogs will be happy to have them.

 

Last year when I was starting sweet potato plants in the house, I stuck a little one in dirt and just set it on the patio.  It never got a lot of top but it was kind of pretty all the same.  imagine my surprise when the plant froze the other day and I emptied the pot!  Two nice little sweet potatoes!  Going to probably start them in water shortly and then plant them in the garden in the spring and see what happens!

 

This summer Dar did a lot of work in the yard.  The lawn is amazing and he reclaimed a lot of overgrown areas which added to his mowing time, but sure looks a lot nicer. he pulled some old fence posts, put a new window in teh garage and siding up so I could paint and is working on solar heaters for the garage. 

I painted the kitchen cabinets as they will just have to do for a while and also painted the garage.  looks a lot better but I forgot to get  an after pic. When you see the before pic, you know that it could only get better, no matter what we did to improve it haha

 

Before

 

This past weekend it was warm enough to enjoy a fire outside, and sit and make plans about the projects for next spring.

 

We did get out camping to one of our favorite lakes, Namekus (Nam EE kuss)  You can recognize pictures of it immediately just because there is nothing like a Namekus sky. Late in teh fall, there were still some wildflowers but not many

 

Playing chase on the beach

 

We took a super long canoe ride, forget how many kilometers, but went half way around the lake and it's a sizable one. We found the creek that feeds into another lake but it was a little narrow and fast running. Would have been great going, but not a lot of fun coming.   maybe next year I will park the truck at the end lake, and then hike back and we can canoe down and then drive back

 

Kira playing hide and chase.

 

This was really cool to me.  The water grasses grow in long straight lines under the water.  They seem to radiate from a mother plant and form starburst kind of patterns .   The picture after this one show what happens when those rhizomes make a break for land

 

In search of brave new territory this water grass heads for higher ground, or more water, I don;t know

 

The mouth of the Ccreek that leads to Trappers lake, but empties from Namekus

 

My beautiful  Namekus sky

More mergansesrs

 

Namekus at the back lake

 

I felt like this mushroom ..  I don't WANT to go home wahhhh

I did not realize how many more pics I had so I will end here and maybe make a late fall one to come shortly. 

Hope everyone had a great summer and fall and let's all hope collectively for a mild winter