hopefully not the last swim of 2014....and some other stuff

we went down to the river and had a river day on october 6. we even took several dips! the water was blood-curdling freezing and horribly cold - but it didn't matter! the sun was warm enough when we got out and we try to stretch out how long before "the last swim" happens. this was probably the last swim...but we've still got some nice days coming so hopefully we can get a few more dips in. i hope.

i always try to get this exact pic to put in our posts. the reason? it's for my friend C who lives in new york but grew up in a little house right across our river and in that bay.

as you can see, we are surrounded mostly by evergreens so there aren't a lot of trees in our area and on our land that change colour. that's why autumn shocks me so much each year - i look out into the front and backyard and all of the trees are still green and we don't see any reds, yellows or golds. so i still think it's summer. my friend Rob sent me a picture of his gorgeous grandbaby playing in all of the fallen leaves. and that's when i realized that, although i love to still see green trees when there is snow all around, i do kind of miss all of the fallen leaves.

the only things that turn gold, brown and red are the ferns. they are very pretty.

this was our river lunch - some mixed bean salad with different-coloured peppers, our own cucumber and tomatoes.

lots of people think that we live in the middle of the arctic, but the fact is that we live in a very temperate climate - i am still collecting tomatoes and have a whole 'nuther whack of them coming in. want proof? ok then...



that's my harvesting basket and underneath Frankie Blue Eyes is the tomatoes that i harvested yesterday - arghghghghgh! you can't put a bowl or a basket down for 5 seconds and no matter where he is - he will get into it! thank goodness he got out when i shook the "snackedy-moe" bag and didn't do too much damage to the tomatoes! (we call the little yellow bag of snacks "snackedy-moes" - don't ask me where we come up with our names for things. jam and i have actually established our own language!)

here's one of our favourite salads - shrimp, vermicelli, cucumber, tomatoes, green onion, and mint, cilantro and basil. with our fave lime-chili-garlic dressing!

here's some home-made tomatoe/basil soup made with tomatoes fresh off the vine, basil fresh off the...vine? and using home-made bone/veg broth. add a little parmesan and a ton of black pepper - deevine!

here's a beautiful shot of the sun just starting to go down. i love that sky!

and here's one of our favourite suppers - spaghettini cooked in a mushroom, bacon, garlic cream sauce - yummeh! with little cherry tomatoes fresh off the vine.

this weekend coming is a very exciting one and i will share it all with you then. until then, we have our vfd meeting tonight and plan to spend this afternoon re-arranging the greenhouse. our hungarian wax peppers are doing awesome and it is time to take them into the house to overwinter them. we thought we had lost them to the aphids but a bunch of our pepper plants bounced back - thank goodness. ok - that's it for now. off to check up on my blogroll and see what you all have been up to.