Ocean to Prairie

I am happy to announce that not only am I growing viable weeds and rogue grass in my garden, but also yummy vegetables! woohoo! Currently we have rows of crisp lettuce, radishes (very potent!), carrots, and green onion (grunion). The radishes have been ready for a while now, and boy is the flavour strong! Well, some radishes are strong flavoured, others not so much. So, when make a salad its like tastebud Russian Roulette when taking a bite. Will it be tart, or will it be sweet?! Ack! Its a tart one! The carrots smell so good. I happened to pull a few this evening to see how they were coming along. I good sacrifice I'd say. I don't expect the carrots to be grocery store sized, but what we have now is looking great! As I said before, the smell is amaaaaazing. Who doesn't love the smell of fresh carrot? Who?! Spending all this time in the garden has been a little taxing on my knees. Did I mention I was 80?  Knowing this, Bear gifted me this evening with a set of foamy kne

I love mowing the lawn. Crap, I shouldn't say that out loud or Bear will definitely expect it from me all the time. Oh well . We have a sweet 'Zero Turn' lawnmower. It goes like stink (read: fast), and it makes mowing 2 acres of grass quite easy... which is why I like it so much. eaaasy . I was mowing two nights ago,  so proud because Bear is off galavanting on his motorcycle in Montana,  and I let my mind wander when I'm out cutting the multitude of grass (and weeds). I was going around the perimeter of the 'front' lawn when I realized I was making all left turns. I then realized mowing my lawn is like... slower, grassier, solo-driver Nascar. Lefffft... lefffft... lefffffft...  I was quite entertained with myself and thought of a hilarious blog post that I would soon post after mowing the lawn. Sorry, the hilarious blog post was soon forgotten because I started to mow down alongside the driveway. Typically, mowing along one's driveway does not allow som

Those who know me personally know I talk about Shutterfly -- a lot. I love it! Shutterfly is a website that you load your pictures onto, and do pretty much whatever with them! Their printing costs are low, they make great photobooks and they have a lot of other photo gift products too. Now, the secret with Shutterfly is that they send you coupons every couple of days. Some coupons are for 20% off, some 50% off, and my favourite... the FREE coupons. I've been using Shutterfly for a few years now and I don't think I've paid full price for anything. Even when you sign up you get 50 free prints! (You'd think they're paying me to endorse their company. They're not!) A few weeks ago I received a coupon for a free photobook.  Sweeet!  Just what I was waiting for! I wanted to put our Ireland trip in a book to send to my Gramma in Victoria. There are two options for photobooks, you can create your own from templates and place the photos and embellishments as you like

We have hard water. Blast. It sure makes cleaning tough, and it makes our brand new dishwasher look like a chump. Rinse aid does squat. I have yet to find a great cleaning product that takes away the calcium deposits (aside from CLR, cause I gotta do counters and the like) for surfaces foods and face products will come in contact with. But, I have found that soaking my utensils in a bit of water and vinegar takes the white gunge away! Hooray! I was afraid the white film would be permanent. I have also learned that there is a product called "Lemon Shine" that'll help with the dishwasher. Oh, yes, we do have a water softener... its just not hooked up right now. Soon.

RR #5: Grass on highway meridians are free-game for farmers to cut for hay. Thanks guvmit for the free hay! RR #6: Weeds will always return... with vengeance. RR#7: A prairie sunset is always a beautiful sunset. I am compelled to take photos every night! An oldie, but a goodie. Winter 2010.

Warning: this is a bit of a touchy-feely post. This past weekend Bear and I went to a 'Cousins Campout', where I got to meet a lot of Bear's extended family. It was a short, but great weekend. He's got a pretty awesome family. One of the reasons for gathering was Bear's grandpa's 90th birthday. His GPa is looking pretty good for 90. After a few surgeries this past year, he's still going strong. While chatting with GPa and GMa, I thought how wonderful it would be to make it to 90. To see the world change around you. To see your children grow up, and for your children's children to grow. In the last 90 years there have been devastating wars, huge developments in technology and science,  and an evolution of music from jazz and swing to pop-rock and dubstep (what is  dubstep anyway?). That made me wonder what will happen in the next  65 years until I am 90: will we reach Mars? Will I see a world war? Will music get better? I guess I'll find out. An

A few weekends back a friend of mine came out to visit from Edmonton. She too is a "Ocean to Prairie" gal and we've known each other since we were wee. Since we were 10 years old, I think. I wanted to show my friend, K, the sweet new digs Bear and I had, so, we took Bear's truck out for a bit of a spin around the property. Bear jokingly warned us to not get stuck. ha! who get's stuck in their own field? All was going pretty well as we bombed through the grassy fields until we hit a patch of thick grass (that I thought was just... thicker grass) and our momentum came to a standstill. Crap.  I looked at K, and she at me. Crap.  K climbed out of the cab to see what we were stuck in. Mud. Double Crap.  K offered to push the truck while I tried to rev out of the rut. She pushed from the tailgate of the truck, and I pushed the petal down. Rrrrrrrrrrr. Nothing. Rrrrrrrrrr. Nothing. Okay, this time with feeeeeeeling.  Rrrrrrrrr. Nothing.  Crap. Crap. Crap! After a f

Western Skunk Cabbage. Rural Realization #1: Skunk Cabbage of the West Coast actually smells like skunks. I now get a little homesick and wish for the coast when I smell or see a skunk. Way to go stinky creatures. RR #2: One cannot possibly be upset when near a canola field in bloom. Honestly. Something that sunshiney yellow is infectiously happy. RR #3: Cabs of tractors are intended for one person. Yes, two people can fit, but seating is optimal for one. Also, air conditioning is intended to cool one person only. RR #4: Invest in OFF. Layer up. Protect the booty. Not sure about anyone else, but the mosquitos love this girl's tushie. A few bites on my legs, one or two on my arms, 50 on my butt. Yes, I'm wearing pants when I'm outside. Maybe they're drawn to the largest mass? ... s'all for now. I'll continue with my Rural Realizations throughout!

Best booty shake in the garden! Yeh-huh I work out... side!

Alright, so I am already diverging from my "country bumpkin" posts. But this post is still somewhat related. That's what I'm telling myself and who cares? It's my blog! In May Bear and I went to Ireland to see our good friends get married. The bride was from Co. Waterford, Ireland, and the groom from Saskatchewan. What a freaking awesome time! We first landed in London to visit my good friend Tanya for a few days. With Tanya we saw Buckingham Palace, walked the Thames, said 'ello to Big Ben, among many other things. Our time in London was fantastic. One of the most memorable expeditions was our trip to the British Museum and to Abbey Road Studios. An anthropologist and Beatles fan's dream! Woah!  Foyer to the Museum The foyer to the Museum is breathtaking on its own. But once we got into the Ancient Mesopotamia exhibit, I just about died. A few years ago I took a first year Art History course. It was pretty much archaeology of art in Mesopotamia.

I've always liked the idea of being self-sustaining. Being able to grow my own food. Well,  this is where the self-sustaining dream gets a little tough for me. I have no experience. I first moved out of my parent's home at the age of 19 and into an apartment with a friend. At Christmastime, I got a little poinsettia. Two days later, it died. So then I got a little cactus. Yes, I also killed a cactus. From here, I became a tad scared of keeping green living things around. I should have realized the apartment was far too dark for anything to live in happily. The next place we lived in was much  brighter, but by then I was far too engrossed with school that I did not find the time to play with plants. Out here in SK, Bear's and my first place was a rental so we started small in the plant world. Throughout the winter, I managed not to kill a corn plant and some lucky bamboo. Along with these plants, my confidence grew (oh my, I'm hilarious).  Now that we are in a place of

Ah! The inaugural post to my blog. I've been toying with the idea of making this blog for quite some time. The inspiration came to be shortly beforea trip to London and Ireland in May. I pondered on what I would write while trying to fall asleep in a smelly hostel room. Did I manage to write it all down? No. I was not that prepared. A bit about myself: I grew up on the mainland of BC and have always been surrounded by farm country, but never was an active member. I moved to Vancouver Island at 10 and there I fell in love with the Pacific. Her deep blue colour, the roar of her waves and the sealife she holds is just amazing. Yes, I have personified the ocean... just like a pirate, D'arr. Since the big move at the age of 10 I've always been around the ocean, until now. In my fourth year of university I fell in love with a boy, let's call him Bear, who came out from Saskatchewan to visit his brother, whom I was friends with. The courtship continued for two years by long