Garden Spikes ...

June 10, 2017

Fresh garden greens from the garden ...

Love the garden spike watering system ... 

to start out my plants in the spring ...

 

 

Finished With The Garden ...

November 12, 2016

One last visit to the garden for this year ...

All the beets were pulled out of the ground ...

cleaned ... cooked and peeled ...

The beets were ready to be cut up into pieces ...

and put into the jars to be processed ...

These are the last of the tomatoes to be preserved ...

Today the tomatoes were going to be diced ...

using my handy ... dandy ... dicer ...

The diced tomatoes were put into a pot and cooked for a few minutes ...

then ladled into hot jars ... and placed in a water bath this time ...

for processing ...

While working in the garden earlier ...

the green and purple Kale ... was also picked ...

brought in ... washed and torn into pieces ...

then placed on the trays for the dehydrator ...

It only took a few hours for the Kale to dry ...

Finished canned diced tomatoes ...

perfect for soups and sauces ...

The dried vegetables in the canning jars ... were also vacuumed sealed ...

using the FoodSaver attachment for canning jars ...

All these canned goods ...

were ready to be taken down to the cold room ...

and put on the pantry shelves ...

 

Well ... I do believe I am finished with processing the produce ...

from my garden ...

Just in time to start my ...

Christmas baking ... !!!

 

 

Done with the Firewood ...

November 10, 2016

Half of this large head of cabbage was going to be dehydrated ...

the other half is for Oma ...

It didn't take long to cut up the cabbage and spread it out on the trays ...

to be dehydrated ...

This was going to be our last afternoon ... cutting and splitting wood ...

down at Oma's wood pile ...

These logs were extremely heavy ... solid ... hard wood ...

 

Grateful for the tractor and the log pick ...

to move them to and on the tractor ...

The tractor was then driven to the truck ... where the logs were rolled off to stack ...

We drove back up to our woodshed ... and proceeded to split them there ...

This was the last of working on the firewood for this year ...

The woodshed was full enough ...

 

 

Early evening ... with the sun still on the mountains ...

Mike and I decided that it would be a good idea ...

to go for a soak in the hot tub tonight ...

to ease our aches from wrestling with the old wood pieces ...

 

 

Inside and Outside Activities ...

November 8, 2016

Another busy early morning in the kitchen ...
working with onions ...
grateful for my new dicer ...
It sure prevented a lot of tears ... just cut them up to fit in the dicer ...
and one push on the lid ... chop ... they were done ...
The chopped onions were spread onto the dehydrator trays ...
and put outside until all the trays were filled ...
preventing the onions vapours from taking over the kitchen ...

The next batch of onions ... were sliced in the food processor ...

then spread onto the dehydrator trays...

The chopped onion trays were brought in ...

and stacked onto the dryer ...

The dehydrator was placed in the basement ... as the fumes were still strong ...

Mike and I decided to get another load of firewood ...
down on Oma's property ...
this pile of logs had been there for many years ...
We wanted to salvage what we could ... and the rest would be put onto the slash pile ...
to hopefully be burned to clean it up soon ...

The onions had finished drying ... around 10:00 pm ...

They were left to cool ...

and then poured into large mason jars ... for storage ...

 

 

Dehydrator Madness ...

November 5, 2016

From fresh to dried ...

After our fishing trip ... checking the carrots in the dehydrator ...

the drying process was completed ...

 

 

November 6, 2016

There were still lots of ripened tomatoes ...

and no room in the freezer or on the pantry shelves ...

the next best is dehydrating them ...

I was given variety of hot peppers ... from the neighbour up the hill ...

and decided to dehydrate them as well ...

 

November 7, 2016

 

Here are the tomatoes and hot peppers ...

The peppers were combined and crushed up into flakes ...

Some will also be ground up into a powder ...

The sliced tomatoes will put into a jar ... and sealed ...

 

 

All The Carrots ...

November 4, 2016

Another beautiful fall day ...

heading down to the garden to finish pulling all the carrots ... out of the ground ...

and clean up the garden beds ...

With this bunch of carrots ... I decided to shred some ...

 and place them in a three of the dehydrator trays ...

The next bunch of carrots were sliced ... 

and once again filling up three dehydrator trays ...

 Processing these carrots ... to have on hand at all times ... 

dehydrated veggies are great for soups ... stews ... etc ... when you do not have any fresh ones ...

The dried carrots will be put jars ... and stored ...

Some of the jars will be put into the travel trailer next spring ... 

for our camping adventures ...

The last bunch of fresh carrots were put into bags and will be stored ... 

Garden ... Kitchen ... Firewood ...

November 1, 2016

It's hard to believe that I am still gardening in November ...

The spinach was picked ... brought in ... washed ... and vacuum sealed in to bags ...

to be used in our morning smoothies ...

 

More carrots were picked ... washed ... cut and put into jars ...

to be processed ...

 

More jars of carrots for my pantry ...

Soon it will be full ... and well stocked for the season ...

 

November 2, 2016

Normally the garlic is usually planted in October ...

The ground was still warm in the raised beds ... there shouldn't be an issue ...

with planting them this day ...

It was a warm ... sunny day ... lovely day ... !!!

 

Mike and I decided to get another load of firewood ...

We were going to finish cutting the last of the pine wood ...

I won this pile of firewood four years ...

When we started to split some of the logs ...

the ones that had been laying on the ground for all those years ...

were infested with ants ...

Mike did spray the ants ... and then we hauled the logs down to the firebox ...

and burnt them right away ...

Ants are not what we want close to our log home ...

 

Love our new splitter and the log pick ...

the pick makes it easier to lift and maneuver the large pieces ...

to get them to the splitter ...

Oh my we are so close to getting done ...

it seems like we are just replacing the ones we are burning now to heat the house ...

If we had worked on it earlier in the year ...

it would have been full ...

 

 

In The Paper ...

October 11, 2016

What a difference from yesterday ... waking up to snow ...

it was a beautiful day here in the valley ...

Perfect day to dig up more potatoes ... and also sweet potatoes ...

 

 

October 12, 2016

Another beautiful day to get firewood ...

Our new splitter is wonderful to work with ...

If the logs are too large in diameter to lift up onto the splitter ...

we can unlock it and stand it up ...

so that the sledge will come down on the log ... in a vertical manner ...

 

 

Oma and her friends ...

made it in the local newspaper ...

from their Scooter Race event for the Alzheimer Fund Raiser ...

Oma and I were going to the theatre ...

to watch the live production of ...

"Les Ballets Jass Du Montreal"

It was a spectacular ... amazing show ... !!!

(I had acquired these tickets from the Silent Auction from the Alzheimer event)

 

 

Picking The Tomatoes ...

 

October 3, 2016

 

Thought with the cooler weather upon us ... I better gather in the tomatoes ...

even though they had been undercover ...

It would have been a shame too loose them now ...

There is plenty of room in the basement to lay them out to ripen ...

The sweet potatoe barrel was also checked ...

I was surprised that they had actually grown ...

Only a few were dug up ...

they would still be all right to be left out for another couple of weeks ...

 

My main focus for today ...

was gathering tomatoes and cleaning up the raised bed ...

 

 

 

Back To The Garden ...

September 23, 2016

Nearing the end of September ...

the garden is still flourishing ... there is lot's of produce to take care of ...

to be processed ... or stored in our cold room ...

We also had the roofing crew come out ...

to install the snow rakes on the shop ... the last of the restoration jobs ...

 

 

Nathan had brought the travel trailer back home ...

we were planning to head out to the mountains for a few weekends ...

After inspecting the travel trailer ... Mike felt the brackets ...

that are to protect the back end from hitting the ground ...

needed some reinforcement ...

We also decided to put on new tires ... that were rated for the backcountry roads ...

 

We travelled about 36 km back off the paved road ... up the mountain ...

to a special little meadow ... where a few families were already set up ...

It didn't take us long to get organized ...

We enjoyed a lovely pasta dinner by the campfire ...

Oh yes ... and since it was the baseball World Series ... it was crucial for the guys to have the satellite ...

set up for the games ...

After the Blue Jays won ... it was time to celebrate by the fire ...

A beautiful fall day ...

stopping by the creek ... to take a few pictures ...

as we made our way home ...