Sunday, November 25, 2012

frost, cranberries and gravel

jambaloney here... first off, sky pic for helga - this am was a stunner!



5 days ago i was on a mission to get some cranberries and gravel/stones at the beach, the cranberries were for thanksgiving dinner, the stones were to line the trench before i laid the sewer pipes...

when i got up, it was foooooossstttyyyyy!!!



but beautiful!!


the extra wet air from the ocean breeze covers everything in white!


sun's starting to come up!!


it will thaw all this soon..


good thing because i need these - lol!


hey, is that a new plastic roof on the porch? why yes it is! more on that in another post..


we are off to the beach on crooked lake road!


passing by crooked lake..


there is the ocean up ahead..


stunning late morning on the atlantic ocean - i have to climb the top of that cliff to the right for the cranberries, so i am told..


LOOK at these beauties........


BURN!!!! they are rose hips, they are everywhere but not a cranberry to be seen!

(^&()&*()_&&*%$%^#$%#$%^#*#@&^# !!!!!!

 i stopped at several places on the way home, not one!!! i have been told the coyotes eat them, no kidding!!

might as well enjoy the view - you can see Portugal on the horizon!


to my right - nice cliffs!!


to my left, morrison's beach, the arrow is where the framboise river empties into the ocean, locally referred to as the framboise gut..



time to walk down the trail.. hey, is that truckdura?


why yes, yeas it is in all his glory!


this is my quarry... at the quarry, no, at the beach, wait, i'm confused ??!!??


no matter, toss some in the back of the truck - heavy stuff to shovel this!


on the way home now, this is a country road..


avoid the sinkholes marked by friendly strangers!!!


pass by another small lake on the road called MacKinnon's lake - lots of cottages on this one - it is pretty!


back home and later greeted with a fine sunset, helga approved!


home you enjoyed a little trip - cheers all!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

happy after thanksgiving day post!

i hope that all of you who celebrated Thanksgiving this week/weekend had a fabulous celebration! we sure did but then we love Thanksgiving!

the day started off in a glorious manner - have a look:




Helga - for the love of gawd, pull your pants up - we got a turkey to cook! (bahahahahaha! that's an inside joke!)

want a tip for making especially tastey drippings for your gravy? line the bottom of your roaster with the usual suspects: onion, celery and carrot. ya, you all already knew that. the trick: fry your veggies in some olive oil and butter first. let your onions caramelize and brown and soften your carrots and celery. it really adds flavour to your gravy!



yum - stuffing! just waiting to go into the bird!



i know a few of you will gag over this but we love our giblet soup! we have it for breakfast while waiting for the bird! so good for you!



here's our little spread - nothing fancy. we are purists when it comes to Thanksgiving. turkey, stuffing, smashed potatoes, brussel sprouts and carrot/turnip mash. and of course - gray-vaaaay!

 

 here's our little table - we decided to have our supper at the kitchen table versus the living room/dining table because it was such a beautiful evening.



yummy in your tummy. we have been eating the leftovers three times a day since - bahahahahahah!


 we had a wonderful American Thanksgiving day together. we spent the day being thankful for all of the wonderful things in our lives. and there is much.
 

what a beautiful ending to a beautiful day!

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Happy American Thanksgiving!

i know that American Thanksgiving isn't until tomorrow...and that some people will be celebrating on the weekend...but we decided to do our American Thanksgiving today. (we did 3 Canadian Thanksgiving Dinners in a row in October - but who could ever have enough Thanksgivings????)


and isn't it a beautiful day to celebrate?!?!?? absolutely gorgeous out there today!

so why are celebrating American Thanksgiving today? because tomorrow, friday, saturday we are expecting super gorgeous weather and will not want to be heating up the house with cooking. plus, with the turkey and all the fixins being ready today - it means we can eat leftovers for the next few days and truly enjoy the last gorgeous days of autumn!

i already made the giblet soup - my favourite part of turkey dinner - except for gravy - i looooove gravy! but i love my giblet soup, too! after we made the giblet soup and had a delicious bowl each....then it was on to the stuffing. then we stuffed the bird. and put the bird in the oven. in about 4 hours we are going to be gorging on turkey and all the fixins - yummeh - i can barely wait!

so far this is not looking like a "SciFiChick kind of Thanksgiving". fingers crossed. but this morning when i was checking my email for an email from my sister Helga - i noticed that in our bloglist that SciFiChick had a post up about her messing up their Thanksgiving meal last year. and as i had also messed up our Thanksgiving last year - that's why i called last year's dinner a "SciFiChick kind of Thanksgiving".

jeesh, Sci, i sure do hope you didn't jinx me with your latest post - bahahahahahaha!

anyway - so far it's looking like a pretty awesome day. we will get in the hottub, take many walks, read some awesome books that my sister Helga sent us, prep the carrots, turnip, brussel sprouts, smashed potatoes, and of course, gravy - and then we will be stuffing our faces for the rest of the day!

and saying Grace and giving thanks. we have so much to be thankful for. not the least of which is all of our wonderful friends that we have made here on this dumb little blog.

we will be thinking of you all. and stuffing our faces - teehee.

Happy American Thanksgiving to everyone!


Monday, November 19, 2012

door doctor


jambaloney here! i had this post ready a few days ago, but our internet connection  has been bonkers the past few days - but it's working now!!

hey helga, here is what it looks like when the mist clears in the AM:



you might recall that in march of this year i shattered a pane on our tempered glass door out front while weed whacking - it was a freak accident, i was 40 feet away! as it was a double paned insert, only the outside pane broke, i taped it for the summer:



later on in the spring while garbage picking, i found a door in someone's garbage with the exact same glass and one broken pane, it is the second door in this pic:



 i took the good pane out and put it in a safe place...


as fall rolled around, it was getting time to fix the door..


you can see the broken glass in the frame here:


i had to remove the frame on one side... ALWAYS put the stray pieces in a plastic something with a lid... you will need those later!!!


the frame is glued on so i had to be careful prying it off...


here is the frame out and the still-sticky glue..



to get rid of the broken glass, i had to peel all the glue out...


and then put on some gloves and put a new blade in the stanley knife. there are all kinds of utility knives these days, but nothing beats the old standard... the metal stanley knife!! this was a time consuming job!!


 here is the door with all the broken glass and crud removed..


here is the replacement, still glued to the metal divider...


gotta love the stanley knife!! careful cutting to get the glass off the divider without breaking it - another time consuming job!!!


voila - a new pane of glass!!!


it took me a long time to find the scraper i was looking for, hardware stores don't seem to stock them anymore.. yep, made by stanley!!


i scraped the glass as clean as i could ...


got some silicone caulking....


glued the new pane of glass to the divider in door and weighed it down..


it's a bit messy looking, but here is the finished product... double pane tempered glass door!!


and here it is all nice and painted - ready to keep us warm and bright!!



here is another sky pic for Helga...she loves the sky pics!


i know all theses "fixer-upper" posts are boring, but it's what i am doing these days -  there IS fun stuff coming, i promise!

cheers!