ADDENDUM: SHAME ON ME

Image by CelebMuscle via Flickr

After repeatedly hearing how I let you all down by not taking pictures I am going to take the easy way out and ask Joanne @ Joanne Moving Forward- half speed to do so on her way home from work as she would be very close to where this road crew was working.
Now Joanne you have a long weekend here to try and find this crew. They look a lot like this. You will know them when you see them. Call me for back up when you find them.
I suggest you start on St. Johns Street. Drive safely.

FOODIE FRIDAY GARLIC - IS THERE EVER ENOUGH?

Foodie Friday is hosted @ Designs by Gollum as usual. You will really enjoy this theme. It will make your mouth water and your tummies rumble. Make sure you visit the other sites too.



When it comes to cooking the only thing I use as much as olive oil is garlic. Even my sons add garlic to almost everything they cook. We roast it, we chop it, we smash it, we grate it. When I buy garlic in the summer I buy several different types. Russian Red, Racy (my favorite, hot, hot, hot) Rocambole, Purple Stripe. It is not cheap. I buy mine at the Back Porch antique shop that I wrote about for Three or More Tuesday this week. Here is some of their garlic drying under cover.

Image by CarbonNYC via Flickr

A good garlic press comes in handy but I usually just use my sharp Santoku knife.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Image by mollyali via Flickr

SHAME ON ME

I have a confession to make. It may shock you and make you turn away from my blog forever. I will be sorry to lose you but I can't help it. Are you ready for this confession?

I am a dirty old woman.
There I said it out loud. I am hanging my head in shame.

While driving through a nearby city today traffic slowed to a crawl due to road construction. At least I thought that was why but I soon saw what was really slowing everyone down.

Image via Wikipedia

Some of the work crew were working without their shirts on and I thought I would drive off the road. These 20 something young men were so incredibly muscular and tanned I thought there might be cameras around doing a photo shoot.
They were shoveling and flexing, pushing asphalt and flexing,
climbing onto equipment and flexing.
It was only sheer luck that stopped me from rear ending the vehicle in front of me.
At this point I should mention that I will be away from my blog for a while because I am going on the road to follow the crew. I will try to get pictures as they work their way through the summer construction. Do you think the city would give me a copy of the work orders so I can get a good parking spot in the vicinity?

DISCLAIMER: IF YOU HAVE A HOT, MUSCULAR SON IN THE CONSTRUCTION FIELD PLEASE ACCEPT MY APOLOGIES.

OUTDOOR WEDNESDAY

Susan @ A Southern Daydreamer is our host for Outdoor Wedneday. Stop in to see her and the other participants in the mix. You will see some fabulous posts.


Well if you haven't heard me whining about it yet let me tell you how hot it is here in the Vancouver area. Good grief we are not used to this degree of heat and humidity here. It is a good 20-30 degrees hotter than what we usually get and the plants are starting to suffer. Good thing I took pictures because if I forget to water one time they will all be gone.

Happy looking Black Eyed Susans (for our hostess) to start with.

Here is my old "flower bed". I had hoped to get the box painted black but haven't gotten around to it. The petunias were supposed to completely fill in the whole bed but not yet.

Some of you have seen my Victorian planter before. It is getting pretty full but dries out so fast. Especially the top basket. This is on my top deck outside the french doors of the dining room.

Two types of daylilies that have been in my garden for about 15 years. That is white phlox in the bed. There is also a pink Japanese anemone too but the pink doesn't show up very well. It is a big kidney shaped bed in the middle of my front yard.

The Liatris spreads and spreads.

I love black flowers and grow many deep purple/black ones.

This is a black Hollyhock.

Thanks for stopping by.

KNOWN BLOGGER ISSUE

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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

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I'M MELTING

Image via Wikipedia

Oh I know we are just wimps here, I know. But dang it is hot. Those of us on the southern west coast of British Columbia are not used to the temperature being in the 90's.UPDATE: WE ARE NOW AT 102 DEGREES WITH THE HUMIDEX RATING SAYING IT WILL FEEL THE EQUIVALENT OF 112 DEGREES. Most of us don't even have air conditioning in our homes. We have never needed it before. Oh maybe we would have a day or so of really hot weather but not for days on end. A more comfortable temperature of about 75-80 degrees is what we like.

When you are not used to it the heat can be almost unbearable. Even my basement isn't cool anymore. It is bad enough during the day but the nights are not cooling down either. That is a whole new set of issues here. We have a ceiling fan in the bedroom. I am 5 feet tall and can't reach the chains. I have to climb into the middle of the bed and reach up to turn the light part on or off. It is even hotter the higher up you go so my head at that point feels like I have stuck it into the oven. The wall switch controls the power to it but you still have to choose what parts are running. The fan, the lights, the fan and the lights, reverse the fan direction.

Once I have the light off but the fan spinning it is time for phase two... the window fan. Just a small one but really powerful. Trouble is my windows were all retro fitted some time ago with double paned windows so I really have very little window sill left. Out comes two cans of smoked oysters which when stacked together are the perfect height to hold up the front of the fan keeping it on the sill. Note to my guests...don't eat the smoked oysters at my house, they have been sitting in the sun for days.

Now I don't sleep with a closed door. I am kinda claustrophobic not to mention I am trying to get an air flow happening here. We still have a son at home. Do you think he will need a retina transplant after walking down the hall to his room pass my open door with me sprawled across the middle of the bed pretty much starkers? Will that sight be permanently etched into his brain and psyche? Is this the push needed to have him move out?

Now I have been sticking my head under the shower spray to cool down. Eating watermelon icy cold from the fridge. None of it works for more that 5 minutes. How do you southerners do it? Besides the A.C. how do you stay cool? Help me here. My husband is at the cabin and they go into the river and lower their body temperatures in the cool, cool water. What about me? What should I do?

I have a full bucket of margaritas in the freezer but I think the alcohol will just make me warmer won't it? I may have to test that theory out tonight. My son is too old to call CPS.

Image via Wikipedia

THREE OR MORE TUESDAY BACK PORCH ANTIQUES

Three or More Tuesday is hosted by Tam @ The Gypsy's Corner. If you would like to join in you can go there and add your post to the list.

My 3 or more is a continuation of one of my road trips. The day we went to Krause Berry Farm, The Farm House Cheese shop and to Limbert Mountain Farms we also ended at a place called The Back Porch. Now this place has many different things going on.
They sell antiques, the have an antique coffee roaster which they use regularly, they sell pottery pieces made on site and they have some of the best garlic you will find anywhere.

I chose to show 3 of their outbuildings. This one here houses more antiques inside.

This one is a greenhouse.

This one is storage.

I can't leave you with only this so here are some more pictures from this place.

Image by miss604 via Flickr

Image by miss604 via Flickr

Image by miss604 via Flickr

Image by miss604 via Flickr

Image by miss604 via Flickr

Image by new_sox via Flickr

COMMENT TROUBLES OR NOT

Image by tracy the astonishing via Flickr

If you try to leave a comment and you can't please email me and let me know. If you could describe the issue that would help. My email button is on the right sidebar.
Thanks for your help in this.

MOSAIC MONDAY

It is definitely Monday so it must be time for Mosaic Monday @ the Little Red House with Mary.
Stop and visit the participants. They are amazing.

HEY WHY NOT ENTER TO HAVE YOUR MOSAIC BLOWN UP INTO AN 18X24 INCH POSTER BY CLICKING HERE.

I have gone retro this week and taken some rather poor quality pics from my past.

These photos include my mother , my sisters, myself, my brother, an uncle who died before I was born and of course Santa.
I am the youngest, and also the cutest one.

Remember to enter the contest for the poster.

WINE TASTING

Sunday Favorites is hosted by Chari @ Happy To Design. Stop in to see her and the others. What is so great about this meme is that you get to see an older post of our that you may never have come across before.
Plus we can lounge around more on the Sunday. Enjoy.




This post was originaly from April of this year. If you can find this wine in your area I think you will really enjoy it. Perfect for summer time evenings on the deck. Just call, I'll be there and I will even bring some tapas.
As I said earlier today I forgot my camera in my excitement of going to the wine tasting. Luckily for me there is a press kit for this particular wine. So thank you to the Cousino-Macul winery in Chile for the use of the photo.

My first thought upon seeing the label was that it was a new blend to me. I was wrong. It is not a blend at all but an actual grape variety that originated in the Bordeaux region. It has existed for well over 100 years but nobody told me. It yielded a small crop so it wasn't replanted after it had been hit with phylloxera (an insect) until the 1980's. It is a certified variety, #917 if that means anything to you.

The Cousino family has been growing this variety since the mid 1800's in Chile. They used to blend it with the other varieties in the vineyard. In the 1980's they decided to isolate the different varieties and confirm their "lineage".

I for one am glad they did. The cooling night air coming down from the Andes Mountains creates a crisp, well balanced wine. I liked the way it felt in my mouth, silky smooth. The 2007 harvest apparently ripened early. They had a drop in yields in almost all the varieties that year but they got excellent results from the harvest. It was buttery textured with a grapefruit flavour. I really would like to have more of this one. All the wines that evening were under $20 Canadian.

FOODIE FRIDAY - BLUEBARB JAM

Designs by Gollum is the place to be for Foodie Friday.

Stop in to see all the goodies. Visit as many as you can and leave a comment. We all love to hear from you.

My BB guy brought some rhubarb back from the cabin last week so I had to find something to do with it. The rhubarb here has been over for weeks but the cabin is in a different zone.
I had blueberries on hand from my road trip to the berry farm last weekend so the obvious thing to do was to make Bluebarb Jam.

The first thing to do is to wash your jars and lids to get all the spiders out. You will need to sterilize the jars by boiling in water for 10 minutes.

I doubled the recipe so here is 7 cups of chopped rhubarb. Add 1 cup of water and bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 5 minutes stirring often. Now you add in the rest of the ingredients and bring it back to a boil. Boil for 1 minute stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and ladle into the sterilized jars. Clean the edges of the jars of any spills. You will want to have the lids and the seals in very hot water. This will soften the sealant. Place on jars and just tighten the screw lids slightly. Too tight and you may squish the sealant out of place. Place in the boiling water and when the water comes back to a boil process them for 5 minutes counting from the time the water is boiling again. There should be about 2 inches of water above the jars.

I had a little extra so I just put it into some cups when it had cooled slightly. These will be put into the fridge and consumed first.

This is also linked to Friday Feasts @ Momtrends