Next Week’s Menu

Ack!  It is June already! Cold, rainy May is finally behind us and now we can concentrate on summer F-U-N that is just around the corner.  I love the month of June, boasting the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the arrival of Strawberry Season.

Nothing tastes as good as fresh, homegrown Ontario strawberries after our self-imposed fast from last summer.  I head to the local PYO (pick-your-own) farm a few miles from the Homestead and come back laden with hefty baskets filled with luscious, red, ripe fruit.  Some are made into muffins and desserts, others … Read more...

How To Deer Proof A Raised Garden Bed

I am limited for actual garden space at the Homestead, short of renting a large-scale construction excavator to clear trees and shrubs for a new garden area, the next best thing to do was to build a raised garden bed.  Way cheaper too as I hear those big machines rent for around $500/hr.

Instead, for the price of lumber and materials, sweat (hubby’s) and fair number of cases of beer (again…for hubby) I now have a raised garden bed made out of cedar that it is perched atop the Great Canadian Shield like a monument to Mother Nature.  She is … Read more...

Skinny Girl Chilaquiles

Oxymoron Title?  You bet….pretty much anything full of cheese and deep fried tortillas isn’t good for the waist line of any ‘mujer’…but I love Mexican food.  Mexican food is flavourful, spicy, exotic, tasty….and well, sometimes fattening.

One of my favourite items when I head to Mexico to escape the frigid Canadian winters is Chilaquiles con pollo y salsa verde (oh, you don’t understand Spanish? Translation: Chilaquiles with chicken and green salsa…See? sounds way sexier in Spanish).  It is one of those local, hearty dishes where everyone’s ‘abuela’ has a way of making it their own way.  It is the kind … Read more...

Jail House…Planters

If you are like me and have nary a nook or cranny to exploit for gardening, you turn your attention to another method of gardening – Container Gardening.

For several years, due to lack of physical in-ground space, I plant flowers, herbs and veggies in planter containers of various sizes and shapes.  They function extremely well if devised to hold enough water in between watering periods.

My Self-Watering Planters that hubby made for me last year were simply awesome.  This year one has peas planted in it and the other has 2 cherry tomato plants.  I also have 5 long … Read more...

Caption This….

Back in 2005, hubby and I took our very first (and so far last) cruise.  We sailed on Holland America out of Fort Lauderdale with destinations of St. Maarten, Tortola (BVI) and Nassau.

We chose Holland America mainly because it is known for catering to an *older* population and the ships are smaller (i.e. we hate crowds and kids).  If you are the type wanting to stay up late and party with the 30 set or have a yen for being around 5000 screaming children on a Disney cruise, then Holland America isn’t for you.

DCF 1.0Our ship was the MS … Read more...

Next Weeks Menu

I am so excited I can’t contain myself.  This weekend I will be solo at the Homestead as hubby has to work a special project.  Why am I so excited you ask? Aside from the obvious hogging of the whole bed every night?

It is Mexican fiesta weekend, that’s why!  It is also a time to enjoy a vegetarian meal or two without having to make something else for hubby who prefers meat to be included in his dinners.

I am trying out 2 new recipes this weekend, Chilaquiles con Pollo y Salsa Verde (this from an episode of Triple … Read more...

Mini Vacay Time

I am not really going on vacation, I am just so very busy this week with my job as well as garden stuff that I am simply brain dead and do not have enough time to come up with some really great blog posts that you all deserve to read.  Sometimes you need to switch things totally off to get a really good recharge, like letting your cell phone battery run down to zip.

Except for this Friday’s “Next Weeks Menu” post, I will be taking the remainder of the week off (you may have noticed that there was no … Read more...

Happy Birthday Queen Victoria

She is looking pretty good for 194 years old….. Born May 24, 1819, she reigned over The United Kingdom until her death in 1901.  64 Years is a heck of a long time, and the current Monarch, Elizabeth II is right behind her with 60 years of holding the throne.

Queen Victoria

We celebrate more than Queen Victoria’s birthday though.  It is our ‘Un-Official’ start to the summer and we Canuck’s love any excuse to party on a long weekend.

So thanks Queen Victoria, we appreciate you allowing us to use your birthday as an excuse to relax and party.

Happy Birthday!… Read more...

Next Week’s Menu

Woot! Our first ‘Official’ long weekend of the summer is upon us!  Even though summer doesn’t arrive for another month, we Canadian’s take full advantage of any temperatures warmer than -10C and add it to our short summer season.

Holiday Monday marks Queen Victoria’s birthday.  Sure, she’s been long gone for a while, but we still like to honour her birthday with a day off, family BBQ’s, fireworks and of course, plenty of cold beverages and lounging in the sun.  She is also nice enough to let us continue with our time honoured tradition we affectionately call ‘The May Two-Four … Read more...

To Mulch…Or Not To Mulch…

Have I told you how much I love to garden? Ok, maybe a thousand times over the past year or so, but its true.  I love to dig, plant, tend to and finally reap the hard earned rewards of a vegetable garden, and one of the most important things you can do for your garden is to mulch it.  Mulch is a funny word, I bet if you went back to the Byzantine Era, you wouldn’t find it in their vocabulary.  I think the word was more recently invented, like Bubble Gum or Snickerdoodles…

What IS Mulching though?

Mulching is … Read more...