The Good Day All Thread

Good Sunday morning all. Currently 0°C and sunny. I heard that will change and we will get a snow storm starting later today into Tuesday. A good excuse to stay inside and get some deep cleaning done.
Yesterday and Friday we were at a skating competition. This was DD's 1st of the year and she did well, but not as well as in practice. Nerves are a terrible thing! She also had a test day on Thursday and earned her Gold Dance! So its been a busy skating week, with not a lot of time spent at home. Today will be spent at home.
Have a great day all

 

Good Monday morning all. Currently 1°C and overcast. I'm still waiting for the snow storm to begin, however I'm hoping the forecast has changed.
This morning I am expecting some special visitors... my oldest grandson called last night (he is 5) and asked if he could come over today. I'm excited to see them!
Then off to the rink tonight.
Have a great day all

 

I'm doing some much needed catching up on this thread today. Before I make some Christmas presents and paint my daughter's signs.

Netty - congrats to your daughter! And congrats to you for your grandson visit. That make my heart warm. I'm currently blessed with two grand bunnies and two grand dwarf rabbits. I hope one day to have a little person to love as well. I hope you get the freeze dryer....and tell me all about it. I've been reading about them for some time now. My cousin has one and doesn't use it now that she has moved to an apartment, so I poked her if she ever wants to sell it.

Sjoerd - That was very interesting about the elections. I shared that post with Hubby. What a list! Does it deter some voters? Voting is voluntary here, and the turnout miserable. An acquaintance in Australia told me that it is law that everyone must vote, and if they cannot they must write a letter either explaining why or ask for permission not to, otherwise it was great fines. Was they outcome what you were hoping for? That is a beautiful building.

Daniel - those are wonderful photos of you and the leaves. That is a proud hat. I like it very much. You and Rufus are very photogenic. Unlike the rest of my family, I am not. I always have one eye that squints almost shut compared to the other when I smile...makes my face wonky hahaha Hence, I take the photos.

I picked my cedar boughs a couple days ago. Once feeling a bit better from my vaccine, I made the boughs for the home. Today I'm working on finishing a wreath for my neighbour. Then one will be mailed to my oldest daughter when it is finished. Her new condo doesn't allow live trees, and she is homesick. A wreath with cedar, pine, spruce, and fir should fill her condo with love and smells of home.

These are the boughs so far.






It's strange not having snow.

 

Today I had to make a sojourn to the ophthalmologist to see if the retina is still in place. That was the retina surgery last April. It was fine.

@Melody Mc. the barn scene is beautiful . I hope you get snow soon, for normality's sake.

Also those boughs are quite lovely. I bet the fragrance is very nice.

Glad you got the vaccine.

We were looking a miniature cows today. I don't think we will actually buy one. Everything else is still a lot of effort.

Here's a website - I can't vouch for it.

https://www.midnightminicattleco.com/?lightbox=dataItem-leeh9cwu2

 

Good Tuesday morning all. Currently -4°C and overcast with snow. I've walked the dog and now we are relaxing by the fire.
I've got some bookwork to do today, and then I might make a stew or chili. It just seems like that kind of day.
@Melody Mc. What a gorgeous photo of your homestead! It looks like a place I would never want to leave!
Have a great day all

 

OHHHH My Heart! Those are adorable!

 

Mel— Yeah, the election here. The Bride thought it might be interesting to show how many parties and candidates we have here for our national elections. It is so different than other places.
That church is a very lovely building, the voting area was only a small corner. There was a reasonable turnout of voters—70-something percent. I like it that there are no long queues like we see in other countries. Some locations were double capacity. That is to say that there were two voting facilities right next to each other. No one here like to wait apparently.

Very nice greenery you showed there.

We took still more leaves to the lottie bins.


You can see that this compost bin is almost full. The famous Norwegian binliners are hanging off the side.
Daniel— They are large and very tough. Plus, they have handles! They last a long time, we just keep using them one time after the other.

 

@Sjoerd those bin liners will help a lot! I'm so happy to see that you are collecting tree leaves again.

@Melody Mc. those miniature cattle are too cute for words. If I was 10 years younger.... but Im not.

We finally got to the public library and re-registered our library cards. Now I can check out real books again, yay! and also download library ebooks and audiobooks on the "Libby" app. What a treat! The first book was Lee Reich's "Weedless Gardening". Goodness knows I need that, LOL. He's my favorite garden author. His books about fruit trees and pruning have shaped my gardening thoughts. As for "Weedless Gardening", the take-home lesson I got is... (drum roll.....) collect lots of leaves and mulch with them! . He has lots of other things to say too, like we shouldn't be turning over the soil so much, or tilling, which depletes organic matter and brings weed seeds to the surface where they germinate and take over.

I also checked out the Moosewood cookbook and promptly made their mushroom walnut paté.

I was concerned we would run out of British mysteries on BBC. We found Van Der Valk. The first episode as bit graphic for my taste. That's why I won't watch Luther. Even though it's BBC, the setting is Amsterdam.

 

It's a frosty -10 this am. Angus likes to lay on the sofa and look out the window during the night. With the full moon he can see a lot. He knows he's not allowed to chase deer, but he sees them crossing from the creek, so he woofs with his mouth closed. This muffled (Mmmfff mmmff) sounds comes out of him, and was my 5 AM alarm this morning. Sheesh. What a Gomer. It's quite a funny thing.

I needed to stoke the fire anyhow, so I stayed up. Now bread is rising, tea is made and I have some time to do some painting. I'm hoping to deliver my friend's wreath to her today, so that will include a nice walk along the lake or river. Her ranch is about half way to the lake.

Thank you for the kind comments about the barn photo. We are reluctant to leave home for sure Netty.

 

Congratulations on the library Daniel!! I will look for this book at my library. They will also bring books in for people from other libraries in the area. I have SO MANY leaves, but they take three years to turn to leaf mold, so I'm trying to repurpose. I couldn't put them on in the fall ( keeps the soil cold in the spring as you mentioned), but I have the real estate to make big piles, cover them, and use them in the spring.

Sjoerd has poked my bear about no tilling for the health of the soil. I had no idea tilling also propagated weeds! Man....I do not need more weeds. Well done friend!

 

Daniel, glad to hear that the retinal check-up was as hoped. That is really good news.
I was glad to get some more leaves to deposit too! I am dependent upon the leaf-sweeper team here in my apt. building. We set up a bagging system for the sweepers to empty into down in the garage. With wind and rain, the leaves do not travel so much as when they are dry.

 

Good Wednesday morning all. Currently -4°C and windy. We have a little snow on the ground and it really feels like winter is here.
Today we are heading over to do a little skating with the grandsons. Their dad has they day off and we are meeting up for parent and tot skate at their local arena. DD will be putting her coaching hat on and giving them some lessons. It's been a few years since I skated and I just hope my sore feet will allow me to skate for a while!
After that its home to make dinner and then head off to our regular rink. I think I'll be making some schnitzel for supper today, we haven't had that for a while.
Have a great day all

 

Happy Wednesday morning. A few little white flakes floating down here but nothing serious yet. Yesterday was windy, and even though the high was -2 it felt so much colder. I took Angus for a walk after stopping in at the neighbours with her wreath. It was on a decommissioned logging road, which it appears is soon going to be recommissioned. I'm not looking forward to that as the proximity is so close that we can hear it in our bedroom at night, and without the leaves the spotlights on the loaded trucks can flash into our living room from time to time which gets old Angus quite excited. No word yet on when they start, but it looks like soon.

I hope to finish cleaning out my daughters bedroom and making it a better -more adult- space for when she comes at Christmas. What a trip down memory lane that has been

I've ordered a new router, and I'm hoping that solves the problem of the internet kicking me off multiple times a day. It sometimes takes two hours to get a post to send by catching it at the right time. Very frustrating. And my USB drive arrived so I can finally access the pictures on the other lap top that no longer connects to the internet. WAY too much technology for my brain, but thank goodness for adult kids that work in Tech.

I have a large buck hanging around, and a lot of does. He must have read the no hunting signs. Even though the rut is almost over, he was still huffing at me from the woods when Angus and I walked this morning. I yelled back and turned around the other way. I was about fourty feet away and he gave one last Huff...almost a "keep walking - I got the last word" huff. Not something to mess with, and we gave him space. I'll pack some bear spray for a little while until he moves on. He's sure a beauty though.

 

Great pics of that buck. The rut here is almost over as well.
Such good fotos and commentary. I can just picture you and your doggie walking about over to the side of those big guys.

 

Thank you Sjoerd. No one huffed at me this morning, so maybe we have an understanding of sharing.

Today is a busy kitchen day. Every fall I sort the pantry, organize dates to the "first in first out" rule, clean out the freezers with the same premise ( bringing everything to the top in one basket to be used first). This begged for a giant pot of chili. It was everyone in the pool this morning....the frozen tomatoes, ground beef and pork, all of the beans that needed to be used up, a sorting of the onion strings to look for volunteers that may not be keepers, the frozen mushrooms, and frozen celery. Everyone is burbling along just fine in my largest pot. This will be for dinner tomorrow, and I will take some to my neighbour and her husband, and freeze the rest.

At the same time I make a list of what needs restocking. After Tuesday we will only be travelling to town one more time before January. I choose to be well stocked rather than feel the need to travel. Today I will also go through the medicine cabinet for expiry dates ( all expired items go to the pharmacy for disposal) and to make a list to be sure we have the basics on hand for injury, ouches, aches and tummy troubles.

We're expecting snow tonight, but the forecasts have been quite off for us. We watch the radar to predict with a little more accuracy. The nearest weather station ( unless I look on the forestry sites which mostly just do current temps and wind speed) is about two and a half hours away, so it is just a guide. We shall see I'll keep an eye on my weather rock.