celebrating Framboise Manor 2015 potatoe planting day!

oh what a glorious day! it started with some yogurt for breakfast.

moby-moe really enjoyed his - bahahahah!!! that's jambaloney's yogurt container - he turned his back for 5 minutes - and you know the saying - ya snooze, ya lose! and he lost! moby had a good breakfast tho!

this pic is especially for my dear friend Pioneer Preppy - he loves potatoes almost as much as he loves tires!

ALL 200 POTATOES PLANTED - WOOHOO!

this next pic is also for my friend Pioneer Preppy who mentioned in a comment that he didn't realize that our land was high above our brook (not our river, our river is in the backyard). our level land, our front yard and house are about 100ft above the brook.

hope the picture helps PP.

here's today's dinner - lettuce wraps filled with - you guessed it - lobster and tabouleh salad.

i planted more pepper and tomatoe seeds while jam continued taking apart the pea bed. then we did some other odd jobs before downing tools for a bit of reading in the sun. jam buzzed the hottub to make sure it was ready for all of this evening's dips.

supper this evening was lebanese-style herbed rice with a cucumber, pomegranate seed, grapefruit chunks and honey salad - deelish!

another fantastic spring day and another one to look forward to tomorrow! (if any of you are wondering about these regular-almost-daily posts, it's because jambaloney does his computer contract work for LobstersRUs in the evenings and mornings. and i like to keep him company! he works all day on our little homestead, and then all evening on his contract. he's a very hard worker!)

PO-DAY-DEEZ!!!

another beautiful day! thank heavens as i was getting really scared that we would never see spring!

see how the water sparkles in the sun? it's so beautiful and so calming to look at. the brook is much higher and deeper this year due to all of the snow...and it is growing into a small lake at the bottom of it due to a family of beavers taking up residence. but that is how new bodies of water are formed. and we are quite glad to have canada's national symbol living so near us!

breakfast this morning - plain 'ol cape breton lobster rolls!



allright kids - are you sitting down? make sure not to have anything in your mouth! this next picture is the most beautiful thing in the world!

SUNTANNING PO-DAY-DEEZ! woohoo! the potatoe tires are all ready to go and tomorrow is potatoe planting day! i can't wait!

after getting the tires ready - we are planting 40 tires with 5 potatoe plants each for a total of 200 potatoe plants of 4 varieties (red chieftain, russets, canada gold and irish cobblers), and sorting out the potatoe seeds (4th generation potaoes from our garden), it was time for dinner.

that's a tabouleh salad made with quinoa and lobster salad on the side. with grapes - yummeh!

we spent some time today organizing some additional preps, and of course, many hottub dips!

i really know it's spring when jam brings me home new flip-flops - woohoo!

we had a full day outside doing a variety of chores and jam dug up our pea bed as we are getting ready to build our outdoor kitchen where the pea bed was. it is going to be awesome and will give us a place to wash big dishes out in the sun, clean our harvest, can our harvest and just give us some additional room. i can't wait - we'll be starting it soon. it will just be the 2 of us but the man built that giant, honking greenhouse out of windows pretty much by himself - i think he, with my help, can whip up a kicking outdoor kitchen together!

supper tonight - a grilled chicken burger with mushrooms, jalapeno cheese, dressing, lettuce and tomatoe. it was wicked good! next to it - a honking hamburger (i make all of our hamburger patties) with the works - mustard, relish, onion, pepperocinis, lettuce, tomatoe, jalapeno cheese and mushrooms. we were crying after eating and i only ate half of each of mine - we'll be snacking on the rest for the rest of the eve.

well, that's today's update. jam is working (on the computer for LobstersRUs) and i am going to go and catch up on some blogs! hope you all had a fantastic day, too!

(p.s. - Sweet Sandy, we have you all in our prayers! much love to you Gurl! xoxo)

a beautiful day, my mans be at work and lobster!

what a gorgeous day!

my jambaloney is on-site working at LobstersRUs...an amazing company that employs many of our friends. jambaloney is developing an application for them to take them from paper to computer - he is one of the smartest application developers i have ever met! i have worked throughout my career on developing applications from the analyst side, and trust me, his applications are both practical and beautiful. and he is working soo hard because it is important to him to make this company thrive. he makes me proud...soo proud!

one of the perks of the job?

those one and a half pound lobsters weren't free...he had to pay for them. but arthur, who works at the store selling them, cooks them to perfection. most people over-cook lobster but not our buddy arthur. he's been cooking lobster for 50some years and he knows what he is doing!

that's what we had for supper last night and they may very well have been the very first 2 caught-lobsters since the season started! they were full of salt-water...so salty that it made your eyes tear up! and full of delicious paste (most people don't eat the paste but the paste is soooo delicious!). it has taken years but i have finally taught jambaloney how to properly eat a lobster - every time you break off a body part - you slurp the salt-water juice out of it.

the best way to eat them is to cover your table in garbage bags, take off all of your clothes (if you happen to be wearing any)...and slurp all of that delicious atlantic ocean salt water out of them before you start eating.

we stock up on these beautiful babies during season and then break them up, get the meat out of them, vaccuum-seal them and have them all year long. but the first and freshest caught lobster of the season are divine. absolutely divine!

teehee. he's bringing two more home tonight. we'll gorge on fresh-cooked arthur lobster until we're sick of them and then break them down to freeze and have delicious lobster all winter.

the seafood here is to die for. and plentiful. we love living here. especially on beautiful days like today when my man is at work doing a fantastic job, the people that we love are employed and we know that when he gets home - we have a long weekend of gorgeous planting days! he will be back to work on monday but between now and then there will be lots of planting, lots of fun, we're definitely going fishing for trout, lots of laughing, lots of suntanning and lots of giving thanks for being where we are in our lives. it's important to give thanks...very important.

oh i forgot - there will be lots of lobster - woohoo!

rocks (not ducks!) and finally a fantastic, sun-filled spring weekend! (oh and rocks!)

finally kids, we had a weekend of pure sun, pure blue, nekkid suntanning, a whole pile of planting and rocks!

more about all of that later. here's frankie blue-eyes in a basket on the dishwasher.

he is a cat in the pure sense of the word in that he gets into all kinds of things that he doesn't fit into. we have no idea how he gets himself in this little basket considering he weighs about 65 lbs now!

oh and before anyone thinks he's drugged out of his mind - or that i gave him more than the recommended daily dose of catnip - he hasn't had any catnip in those pictures...he kind of always looks like a stoner! our friend W calls him "scrutty". W will be happy to know that frankie is living up to his nickname. i've never seen a more beautiful cat who was sooooo scrutty ALL OF THE TIME. he is one of our 3 "saved-babies"....more on the other 2 in a bit!

kids - you've spent the day hauling rocks from all around your yard. you had a healthy breakfast and dinner and it's a few hours 'til supper but all of the rock hauling has you wanting a nice afternoon snack. share it with your baby - i did!

a gorgeously-ripe avocado, scored and then lime squeezed over top. tons of sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. oh yes!

after hauling all of those rocks all day, you need a substantial supper! how about some beautiful liver, mushroom and onions with smashed potatoes and butter and lightly fried cauliflower and broccoli sprinkled with some aged cheddar? oh yes!

hang on to your pants everybody as it's our first weekend of being pantless - woohoo! we were hauling and placing rocks without pants all weekend! it was awesome! more about rocks and pantlessness later.

here's moby-moe sleeping on the table.

6 trillion and five times a day i remove the little towels from the table, scrub the table, prepare food and then replace the little towels. all of our cats love sleeping on the table but only if the little towels are on it. and that glass of water? that's moby's glass of water. all 3 cats have their own water glasses, they will ONLY drink from glasses and not bowls. jeesh! and they want to be fed 3,000 times a day!

this is the little country man, nudie-noo sleeping on his little pillows.

he is the Project Supervisor on everything and our friend Pioneer Preppy knows a lot about having cat supervisors on jobs. (Pioneer Preppy also has a pile of cats that are rescues/saves. he's good like that!)

i know! i know! you are all wondering about the rocks but have a seat and enjoy some spring with me! this is our FIRST (did you hear me? i said FIRST!) weekend of spring and it has been a long, gray winter!

our first flowers every year are coltsfoot - these are the first flowers that the bumble, honey, solitary and mason bees have access to! i love how bright they are!

here's the pond looking kind of dank and smelly. i don't care! i love my pond! it is a natural-occuring sinkhole! and don't miss our beautiful bench, the top of which was given to us by our step-dad! we love that bench!

here's some brassicas that were moved out the house and into the greenhouse and will hopefully go in the ground this week.

here's some pots of other planted stuff. we spent the weekend planting and hauling rocks. i''l get to the rocks soon kids. just want to show you some more stuff!

here's a variety of perrenials that we overwintered.

here's some more pots of various planted stuff - we planted A LOT this weekend!

more pots of planted stuff and green onions that we overwintered!

ok. you are all crazy to hear about the rocks. well, first up - my favourite rock! it weighs about 3 million pounds and will always live here out on our berm!

here's standing by that rock and looking down to the river which finally seems to be melting!

here's our little table out on the porch and some cards (we're playing gin rummy 13 with a bunch of crazy made-up rules!)

ok kids. we're on to the rocks. on our property we have access to 10 million rocks - of all shapes, sizes and varieties. we love rocks! and have been wanting a rock garden around our apple trees since we got here. well between planting, nekkid suntanning, eating, playing cards, laughing, having fun, and just enjoying the heck out of our lives - we finally built the rock garden!!!!

we built it ourselves!!! and all with rocks from our property!!! i was the designer deciding which rock went where and jambaloney was the heavy lifter!

we also rock-gardened some bushes that are opposite the apple tree! these bushes have beautiful yellow flowers and we have no idea what the bushes are because neither of us have ever bothered to look them up!

here's some dinner after doing all of the planting and rock-hauling today.



that's some delicious bbq'd sausages and roasted veg with apple! we stuffed our faces after so much hard work.

then downed-tools for some afternoon nekkid suntanning!

more bbq for supper - some gorgeous steak and veggie skewers with pomegranate seeds! woohoo!



it's been an awesome weekend and although nothing has been planted in the ground yet, we still feel accompished! jambaloney is working on his contract right now and soon we will head out to gather some sage and mint for our tea. and then more hottub dips! that hottub has been crucial to our success this weekend!

finally kids - it's spring! for real! wahoooooo!

we hope that you all had an awesome weekend too!

ducks, ducks and a jaeger (not meister)!

remember in january when we had a lone duck in the yard? well - he came back! and he brought his wife!

these are mallards.

the male has a beautiful green head and red legs. they were having a field day munching on grain and bugs out in the yard the day before yesterday.

and then today - woohoo - more ducks!

these are known as american black ducks. they also had a field day eating bugs! i sure hope that one of the sets of ducks decides to make our pond their home. i love ducks! plus, they are great for getting eggs from. and if you are in a real pinch - wild duck is delicious!

this is bird week around here - check out this gorgeous, long-haired jaeger that jambaloney took a pic of at work this week.



he was having a field day mowing down on bait intended for crab traps! this kind of bird is an arctic species and is not afraid of humans at all. especially when the bait tubs are sitting out on the dock getting ready to be loaded into the crab boats. he's one smart little jaeger!

can't do a post without some food right?

that's delicious korean bulgogi, sticky rice, stir-fried veg, pickled ginger and some orange slices - yummeh!

here is our favourite way to eat pasta. i use home-canned tomatoes, some feta, parmesan, green onion and red chili pepper flakes. simple but delicious!

jam is working from home all weekend and i hope to be able to plant some stuff in the greenhouse. it has been gray for the entire month of april and if i don't see some sun soon, i'm gonna lost my mind!!! i hope you all have a great weekend!

finally - a nice spring day!

finally - a nice spring day!

and get ready for it kids - up next is the most beautiful thing on the planet!

the dishwasher is back on the porch! high fives all around!!! i am sooooo happy it is out of the basement and back on the porch - woohoo!

on a nice spring day, you want a good breakfast to get you going! poached eggs and chips made from our own potatoes really fill that bill!!!

we've been eating our own potatoes since august. that's 8 months of eating potatoes from our own land - woohoo! and we have tons of seed potatoes ready to be planted at the end of the month.

this next one ain't pretty but it was delicious!

homemade sushi. we've finally decided after several attempts at making sushi that it's actually easier to just make sushi salad.

here's some teryaki chicken legs with sticky rice and a stirfry.

want a great evening snack? more chips - a whole plate load of them cooked to perfection!

here's a big everything-but-the-kitchen-sink salad that we always like to have on hand. it's filling and great for grazing throughout the day!

4 kinds of peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, olives, feta, apple, pear, quinoa, cucumber, chia seeds and flax seeds. 2 small spoons for me and 4 big spoons for jam mid-afternoon gives you a real punch. and with the natural antibiotic dressing - deevine!

here's some bulgogi marinating for tomorrow's supper!

the stuff smells so good i want to eat it raw! soya sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, honey, toasted sesame seeds, a ton of ginger and garlic and shredded pear - yummeh!

jam pruned our apple trees. they look pretty good!

we're finally at a place where we can finish our rock garden around the trees. we also plan to make walkways and paths all around the yard  using rocks from our land. jam splits the big rocks using the tools below.

he's really good at splitting rocks!

and soon we'll be making the front yard as pretty as can be! here is jam out pulling up sheets of fallen birdseed.

once it's all pulled up and levelled, we'll put down landscape cloth and rocks. it's going to be beautiful!

well i'm off to prep the veg for aloo gobi - it's for tonight's supper and jam loves it! i hope you all are having a fantastic weekend! i'll be popping by your blogs in a bit and later this eve!

oh i forgot to mention - woohoo - the last season of SAMCRO is on netflix starting today! we're having a SAMCRO marathon with popcorn and hottub dips in between each show. we're going for broke and seeing how many shows we can watch in a row! it's gonna be awesome!