RAIN RAIN, GO AWAY - DON'T COME BACK FOR MANY A DAY!

What a day we had yesterday!  It all started at 5am with a bolt of lightening and a crack of thunder so loud it had us out of bed hitting the floor running - literally!  The lightening was so close we could smell it!

I am terrified of lightening on any given stormy day, so that killed my chances for any more sleep. Next came the torrential rains, and that had Gary running down to the basement to check everything down there.  As Gary said, he trusted our old house in Winnipeg, we had many bad storms while we lived there and not once did we have water anywhere.  This house is new territory as far as heavy rains are concerned, so we are still on edge every time it rains heavily.

We lost power, and out here when you loose power, you also loose your water, so our morning was off to a sketchy start!  This first storm lasted just about two hours,  leaving me a wreck from the lightening strikes over and over again, and according to the rain gage, leaving us with two inches of rain - and it wasn't even 8 am yet!

This was to be the pattern of the entire day.  The skies would clear, then it would turn black and severe storms would hit, repeat, repeat, repeat...

We were lucky, there were no Tornado's, although areas around here did have Tornado warnings and the storm chasers were spotted just south of here.  A friend posted this picture he took last evening of Storm Chasers sitting in a Tim Horton's parking lot in Brandon.  Here's me thinking - I thought those funny looking vehicles were only in movies - apparently not!

I took this next picture as the clouds were clearing on what I hoped would be the last storm... as it happens my prayers were answered.  We were forecast to have storms through the night, but they were done well before dark.

The nice thing about storms is that when they leave you don't have to wait long to see improvement.  within minutes light and colour had returned and things began to look better...

 

much better...

We are pretty soggy here - we were before all this happened.  My vegetable garden is looking drowned and a lot of perennials are lying on the ground, but hopefully with some sun and air they will pop back up.

What I do know is that we don't need any more rain.  We had over 50mm last week, and some the week before that.  However more is predicted for Sunday - maybe we will be lucky this time and it will go elsewhere.

I haven't checked the rain gage as yet - on some level I don't even want to know the final total for rainfall yesterday.    It doesn't make any difference now anyway - except if one is heading downtown for a chat with the locals... then that information would be extremely useful.

Here's to many days of Sunny Skies!

A REALLY GOOD DAY AWAY!

Yesterday we took a drive and went into the city for the day.  We had some shopping to do, and I still desperately needed that haircut, so we got up early (6am), and pulled away from home around 7:30am.

It was the perfect day for a drive - no wind (our biggest pet peve when getting out on the highway) bright sunny skies and a nice moderate temperature.

I drove on the way in and we were there in under 2.5 hrs.

First stop - Hair salon - there was no one waiting, so in I went and my hairdresser chopped all the long curly hair off to a short bob.  Perfect for summer, and I was pleasantly surprised that I still have a little curl left from my perm - so actually - it is perfect!

Then we met up with one of our friends (one my girlfriends on my friends quilt), for lunch.  What a delight! It was so great to  see her and catch up - and yes we did talk about the third friend on the quilt.  She lives in Alberta, so we were missing her - but she is always in our conversations.

Then it was on to our son's home.  He was at work, and I am still not all that comfortable being in his house, even tho just 11 months ago it was my house, so we headed next door to see our very much loved and missed ex-neighbour - and of course her two cats( my adopted kitties) Katy and Minty.

Katy ran to me the moment she heard my voice, and of course before I even had a chance to say hi to Elaine, Katy and I were cuddling and smooching just like I had never moved away and left her behind.  I was always the cat-sitter when Elaine and her husband went away - sometimes for long periods of times, so both cats know me as their "other Mom".

Elaine is from New Zealand and of British descent.  She makes scones of every description that are out of this world.  I could smell them when I walked in, but I didn't say anything.  Truth to tell -I was kind of hoping she might make some for our visit... I have been going through scone withdrawal!

We had a lot of catching up to do here too., so we sat down and started to visit.  After awhile she announced that she had made us a treat - "your favourite" she smiles and says.... OH MY GOSH - CHEESE SCONES!  She only make those for special occasions - we were overjoyed!

We visited for a couple of hours, but here is the thing... Poor Gary is very allergic to cats.  When we lived next door he never stayed in the house with the cats overlong.  He visited often - just not long!

I could tell by his voice that he was starting to have problems, but he didn't want to leave, he was enjoying seeing Elaine just as much as I was.

By the time we left, I knew he was really out of sorts.

We went back to our son's house, and by now he was home from work.  We loaded the car with some garden things I had left behind from the move, and then we stood outside and chatted awhile - beside an immensly scented miniature lilac bush in a city planter beside our car.  The longer we talked the worse poor Gary got - so we decided to head home.

We didn't need to have supper - we had had a large lunch and we were full of coffee and cheese scones so we said our goodbyes and headed home.

Gary started the drive home, but he was feeling so rotten, I took over and drove the rest of the way home.

We weren't thinking cat allergies, or pollens, or lilacs before we left - he hadn't prepared himself for those things.  He has been fine out here - he works outside all day long in a yard full of vegetation, including lilacs, and he has been fine.

Next time, we leave home for the day we will think ahead to what we will be doing, and take proper artillery with us!

It was still a good trip - Good to see our son, Good to see our friends ( including cats), Good to see the city and realize how very happy we are that we don't have to live in all that noise and commotion anymore.

And it was really GOOD to get home just as the sun was making it's way behind the mountains.

DURING THE RAINS!

We have had more than a week of rain, except for a day or two that was nice between days of steady pouring down rain.

Like I mentioned in another post - part of me wanted to stay in bed and cover my head with my blankets; another part of me wanted to eat - well you can see where this is going.

So instead of caving to the things I really wanted to do - I did what I sort of wanted to do.

In the end, my days were very productive.  I cleaned the bed off in the nook, that was covered in pieces of fabric I had started to sort about 2 months ago... and I finished some projects - some from quite some time ago.

I am dying to show you the one I spent the most on - but first I will show you the others.

I have had the pattern for this piece for years - I think I got it off a free craft site over 10 yrs ago.  It is designed to be a picture, but I thought it would make a cute book mark, so I changed the arrangement of it from landscape to portrait, and shrunk it down somewhat.  I actually started this about 5 yrs ago, put it aside and then completely forgot about it.  Found it again last year when I unpacked some  cross stitch supplies.

This is going to go by the love seat in the sun room - my favourite reading spot.

And then there this little primitive angel, "Joyful Judy "- I started her before Christmas, and had her almost finished when I set her aside.  I had originally thought I might make some of these for sale, but they take a fair amount of time to complete because they are completely hand stitched - these might be an item I will make for gifts to friends and family tho!

and another mug rug for a birthday gift!

 

What I have been working on the most though is the little quilted hanging of the three friends.  I so love this piece.  I ended up quilting it entirely by hand as it was just too small and too many tiny corners etc to do with my machines.

Here it is finished, and a closer view so you can see some of the detail.

This piece is going to hang in my little yellow spare bedroom on the main floor.  As adorable as this hanging is, I decided to accent the piece by making another small project with a couple of pictures through the years of the real three best friends.  I haven't framed the pictures yet, but here are the three friends in my little quilt.  I am going to feature these two pictures in a large frame, and maybe do a mat with the border material of the quilt.

All in all I think I accomplished quite a lot during the rains.  Now if the sun would only come out I could return back outside in the yard.

Or maybe I'll just keep finishing projects inside...

  

AFTER THE RAINS!

It looks like the rains are over for a day or two.  But the temperatures are quite cool - in fact I had to cover my tomatoes last night as there was a risk of frost in our area.

Now that the rain has quit, I took a few minutes to walk around the yard and have a look at all the gardens.  I was a bit worried that with almost 50mm of rain some things might have been water-logged, but other than my Saskatoon tree almost resting on the ground, everything was fine.


Speaking of Saskatoons - I am very happy to see that my tree is covered with berries in the making,

and the Plum tree as well.

We will have Saskatoon pie, and Plum jam at some later date!

I wish I had my Aunt Pat's recipe for Saskatoon pie - she made the very best Saskatoon pie - ever!  When you went to her house - that was the pie you were served, and it was out of this world!  That was in the day when wild Saskatoons and Chokecherries were plentiful.  I don't know that that is the case any longer.  I will have to ask some of my cousins in the area.

That was always a favourite summer activity - picking Saskatoons and Chokecherries.  My Dad had a thing about berry picking.  As soon as the berries were ready he would be armed with empty pails headed to the bush.  He always harvested enough for my Mom to freeze and make Jams and Jellies that lasted until the next year.  He'd drag us kids along too - but we ate more than we put in the pails - so he did much better when he went on his own!   Now there is something I haven't thought of in a lot of years!

Today looks like it is going to be a beautiful day, if that blue sky behind the plum tree is any indication.  I took the camera out early this morning, so all the pictures except the one of the rain are from less than an hour ago.

Here's what I saw in my yard this morning...

Have a great day everyone!

ART AND AUCTIONS!

Do you ever wonder why things happen the way they do?  I had a couple of very interesting things happen to me last week - and they both had to do with art.

I know very little about art, but I do know a remember pieces I have seen in people's homes over the years.

Last weekend there was an auction sale here in town.  It was actually the second sale of the belongings of someone local.  We didn't go to the first auction, and we weren't really intending on going to the second one, but I saw that you could attend a viewing of the articles still available for the second auction the evening before - so we decided to go to that.

It was held in the skating rink, and when we got there everything was laid out on tables and on the floor and you could just wander and look around without anyone bugging you.  There weren't many people there so we took our time.

What was left was mainly household items, kitchen stuff, small tables, Christmas decorations, art, lots and lots of yarn ( which I ignored - pat on the back for Dale!) and some furniture and a few garden items.  I was looking at something on one of the tables, and my foot hit something.  I looked down at the floor to see what I kept running into and  - WHAM..... a powerful punch of nostalgia hit me like a brick house falling down!

There on the floor was a piece of artwork that I grew up with.  It was the identical Vintage Still Art print of a water jug, some fruit and a knife that had hung on my Mother's kitchen wall for as long as I could remember.  I knew it wasn't her piece as my brother now has that picture hanging on his kitchen wall.

Of course I wanted it.

Here's the thing - I know as much about auctions, as I know about art!  I thought that I could return to the auction the next day, bid on the picture and get it - no problem - who would want it anyway?  Someone had painted the frame a dark brown and slopped paint on the glass, so the whole thing kinda looked sad - but I knew I could get it looking good again.

I didn't want to spend the whole day at the auction so I decided to wait a few hours and attend the second half of the auction.  My idea was that no one would probably want the picture anyway, so chances are it would still be there, and I could offer on it.

When we got to the auction, it was to find that 90% of the items were already gone.  What I didn't know, but soon discovered was that items had not been sold individually - but were bundled together with other items - I guess to make a better profit, and to ensure everything would be gone at the end of the day.

The painting was gone....

I was so disappointed, but then I really couldn't blame anyone but myself and my ignorance of art and auctions - could I?

I have spent hours looking through images of such paintings on the Internet, and I haven't come close to finding anything like these two paintings.  The closest I have come is a picture with fruit painted in a similar way - but the jug and knife are missing and the fruit is a bit different.

Chances are the painting is still around here somewhere.  There weren't that many people at the auction.  So maybe it will show up somewhere at a garage sale eventually.  I can hope for that outcome.  But in the meantime I thought I could get a picture of my Mom's painting and post it on the local buy and sell to see if anyone had the other picture and wanted to part with it.  I asked my brother if he could take a picture on the painting and send it to me - but true to form, he's not responding.



In the meantime, a week or so ago I  had posted about the picture I had purchased at the Thrift store a week or so ago.

Then a few days ago I got a email from my sister-in-law in Chicago, saying she had the identical picture as that one.  She had bought it and a winter scene on the East Coast a few years back.

Weird that there should be two identical pictures in my life in a little over a week.

My sister-in laws pictures - hers also had green frames, but she painted them a different colour.  Mine is identical to the one on the left.  Wouldn't it be neat if I could find the winter scene as well!

 

Well that is enough weirdness for me for awhile.  I am determined to hunt down that other picture that I saw at the auction.  If nothing else it will help me pass the time on rainy cool days like this one!

RAINY DAYS AND RHUBARB MUFFINS!

We have been socked in with rain and cool weather for what seems like forever, although I don't think it has even been a full week.  I wanted a break from having to be outside working in the yard everyday - now that I have had it -I crave sun and heat, so I can once again be outside.

I have managed to make good use of my indoor time.  I have cleaned the house - yeah, I know!  What's with that?  Chip was so excited to see and hear the vacuum cleaner ( he has a thing for it) when I finally got around to vacuuming the area rugs on the main floor!  I was appalled at the dirt and dust on everything, guess that's what happens when you have your windows open all the time in the country!  But that has all been rectified, my house, except for the kitchen floor which still needs a good on your knees wash, is clean!

I had picked up 5 library books a couple of weeks ago - those are all read and ready to go back, all the plants in the sun room have gotten a much needed wash, yesterday I baked 2 dozen Rhubarb Muffins and 2 Banana Bread Loaves, so I think I am doing very well.

I don't do dull weather well.  I really need sun to get me going, so I am quite proud that I have not caved to the feeling that I really could just crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head.

Meanwhile, outside the grass is starting to resemble a hay meadow.  Even the areas that we recently seeded are growing and long.  It will be a full day of cutting and trimming when the sun finally does come out.  Gary is fretting because the weed whipper that came with the house is finished.  It was hit and miss last year when we tried to use it, and this year it is dead.  It is one piece of lawn equipment that this yard has to have running.  So tomorrow he is walking down to the fix-it fellow at the end of the street to see if there is anything that can be done with it.  This fellow sometimes has rebuilt ones that he will sell, which we are hoping will be the case, otherwise we will have to take a trip to Dauphin and see what Canadian Tire has.

I noticed yesterday that I have 2 potato plants up, and some of my onions are showing green.  I have already replaced 2 of my bush tomatoes, thanks to cutworms, but it looks like the old trick of adding used coffee grounds and egg shells might have worked, as I have not lost any more tomatoes or marigolds.

My five Rhubarb plants are getting away from me already.  I think I will start cutting some and freezing it, or maybe I will just keep baking.  We have a big freezer so I could do that too.  I tried a new recipe for Rhubarb Muffins and I have to share it with you - it is so good.

I cut back the sugar in the recipe to 1 1/4 cup, and because I didn't want all the extra sugar I didn't make the topping.  The muffin doesn't need the topping at all - it is perfect without it.  I never have buttermilk on hand, I just add a shot of vinegar to the milk I do have.

So give this one a try - I'll be winning to bet it will be added to your favourite muffins after one bite!



RHUBARB MUFFINS.

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup buttermilk

• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups finely chopped rhubarb
• TOPPING:
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

In a large bowl, combine the first five ingredients.  Combine egg, buttermilk, oil and vanilla.  Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.  Fold in the rhubarb.  Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups about half full.  Combine topping ingredients, sprinkle over each muffin.  Bake at 375 degrees for 16-18 minutes or until muffins test done.

IT'S YOUR CHOICE!

Yesterday it was one year since we came out to the country and looked at the property we now own.  We knew nothing about the town and community, going strictly on what we read on the relator's website.

It was a beautiful warm day, and we really had no expectations of buying a rural property.  We had looked at many rural properties over the years, with hopes and dreams of someday moving out to the country, but we had never found a property we liked enough to make the major life change.

A couple of things were different this time.  I had lost my job, for the second time in three years.  I was disillusioned and burned out from working full time all my life, and I was really looking at finding something completely different from working in the health care field.

What I really wanted to do was retire completely, but we still had a mortgage, loans, commitments.

So we came to look at the home and property thinking it would be just another place to look at after a nice drive, and then we could stop and visit with some extended family on our way home - making it an altogether lovely day!

We arrived in town early, so we drove around town and checked out the area.  We were impressed with how nice everything looked.  We found the house, parked the car and introduced ourselves to the realtor who was waiting for us.

There were some family members of the elderly lady who owned the house working in the yard, cutting grass, trimming trees, planting flowers, and it was nice to see that someone was looking after the property.

We walked through the house three times, and spent almost an hour checking everything out.  We saw the positive and the negative, we talked money, and we decided to leave without making an offer.

On the way home we talked about nothing but the property, and by the time we arrived back home  two hours later we had decided to make an offer on the property.

We surprised many people  - no more than we surprised ourselves.  Our son decided to buy our home, so we didn't even have to list that property.  Six weeks later we were in the car moving to the country for good.

When I look back at the whole experience now, I find that the details are not there.  I have always believed that the whole thing was guided by a hand, not our own.  It was meant to be - and so it was.

I am not one to go on blind faith - most everything I have done in my life has required an abundance of thought and even angst, before I have done it.  Not so this time.  This time I let myself be led through an experience that when I think about it now, should have given me many sleepless nights, but in truth it was the easiest and one of the best decisions ever made.

In 6 weeks time we will have lived here a year.  Are we happy?  Definitely!  Was it a good decision?   The best!  Would we recommend doing this to anyone else?  Only if something like this is what you really want - but what I would recommend is that if you have lived all your life doing something and you want or need a change - if you know what it is you want, and you want it with all you are - then do it!  Have the confidence that you CAN do anything you want to do.  Make it happen - you won't regret it.

We look forward to many many years here.  I know that as long as we have each other, our health, and that loving hand guiding us - we will be fine.

The day after we had seen this property - I received a job offer.  I did have a choice.  I turned the offer down - and chose a new life.  I chose right!