it's almost april - GO AWAY SNOW!!!!

it's another beautiful, sunny, clear and crisp day outside. hopefully soon we'll see the ground!

it's been a busy week/weekend - jam's been working several hours a day from home. he went onsite on friday and he's back there today. i've been feeding him oriental inspired food for suppers - here's a few:

that's a korean dish called japchae. the noodles are called invisible noodles. they are made from sweet potatoe starch but all i could find around here were sweet potaoe starch vermicelli noodles. still delicious. there's carrot, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and spinach all cooked in a ginger, garlic, rice wine vinegar, soya-sauce. the egg garnish is called jidan and it is made with two eggs, yolks separated from the whites. then a bit of salt and pepper added to the whisked eggs. and some pickled ginger on the side. this dish can be eaten hot or cold...but we prefer it cold.

next up is some stirfry. i just use whatever vegetables are on hand and make a stronger soya sauce-based ginger/garlic/rice wine vinegar sauce to cook the sauteed veg in.

saturday was our matriarch's 85th birthday party. we went down on friday evening to help our brother G and sister C set up and decorate. sister C was worried that there wouldn't be enough food??? let me just say that that would be impossible - she has been baking and making sandwiches for the past month. we had fun setting up and decorating and then went upstairs to make the last of the sandwiches. we made an assembly line at the table - jam had the bread and would put a scoop of tuna or salmon salad on the bread, pass it to brother G and me - we were the spreaders- and then we would pass it to sister C who sliced the sandwiches into little triangles. we whipped off 3 loaves of bread in about 15 mins. it was fun and silly. we enjoyed ourselves!

then on saturday when we had the party the tables were overloaded with food. we had a nice group of people show up and they really enjoyed themselves. they all said that all of the food and sweets were delicious! our matriarch had a good time and sister C gave me and jam a special friendship card and thanked us for our help. it is nice to feel appreciated and even nicer to get to spend time with our dear brother and sister. brother G gave me a very special gift that i will treasure.

jam is back at work today and may have to go in a few days this week. crab fishing season starts on april 1st but i am not sure if the boats will be able to get out because of the ice-flows in the harbour. i hope the boats and fishermen will be able to get out soon.

our besties in fourchu, C&B, invited us to Easter supper this Friday afternoon. their kids (who are adults but i still call them kids!), who we love, S&D, will be there along with D's girlfriend. i am sure many other people will drop in and out. it will be nice to go and have supper with them and then head down to chase the ace after supper.

i have been sorting seeds and planning the garden but we are definitely off to a late start this year. i get the feeling that when spring really hits we are going to go from winter to spring in less than an hour. come on spring!

i hope you all have a great week!

a beautiful spring-ish kind of day

it's a beautiful spring day out there today - beautiful, blue and still tons of white!

but no matter. we can hear the snow melting and a few more days like today and that white stuff will be gone. and none too soon.

it's 1C(34F) outside but on the porch it's a gorgeous summer day of 28C(82F) - let's just say there's been lots of nekkid suntanning on the porch, then grabbing our robes, running out the backdoor and jumping in the hottub!

we have successfully overwintered 14 of our pepper plants by bringing them indoors. this little cayenne plant produced a flower in january and that little flower produced this little baby!

we'll be eating that little guy in some kind of thai-coconut milk-chili dish in the next day or so and keeping all of his seeds for planting this year. as does everyone who saves seeds, i always save seeds from my strongest, earliest producer.  this overwintered monet pepper plant just put out a blossom - woohoo!

here's some rather plain homemade meat spagetti. lots of herbs and fresh garlic in both the meat and the sauce. i usually like to fancy it up a little more with mushrooms and whatnot but didn't really have anything on hand. still it was delicious and filling!

jam likes sauces on his meat when he can't bust out the BBQ so i made him some delicious garlic, ginger, honey pork chops with stir fried cabbage, carrot and bean sprouts and some pickled ginger.

last up - the remainder of our teas that i dried from a variety of wild and domestic plants that grow on our land or that we grew.

from left to right, top to bottom - catnip, lemon balm, comfrey, chamomile, sage, and mixed flower (st. john's wort, evening of primrose, rose petals, anise, dandelion and fennel fower). when i dry leaves or flowers i do so on trays and set them out in the sun making my friend Dani, who is completely off the grid, very proud (teehee). all of these teas were dried without using anything more than pure fresh sunshine!

i start each type of tea in a quart jar and as each tea gets used up, i then move the tea to a pint jar. as you can see it's time to move the chamomile to a pint jar. and the reason why there is only a tiny jar of sage? you guessed it! we loooooove sage tea! it sounded crazy when i first heard about sage tea while on my korean language course - who knew that in the far east, middle east and near eastern countries that sage tea is considered very posh?!?!?!? i certainly didn't know! and my first thought about drinking sage tea was "do i really want to drink a tea that certainly must taste like poultry?" i assumed that because sage is so commonly used in poultry dishes that the tea would be nasty and strange! needless to say - i tried it - loved it! jam tried it - loved it! and guess what???it is incredibly soothing and refreshing at the same time. if you have a sage plant - tear up a few sage leaves, put them in a cup and pour boiling water over them. cover the cup, let it steep 10 mins and then sip your soothing, delicious tea. do the same thing for dried leaves. the health benefits of sage tea are numerous and if you are interested just look it up!

Fern from "Thoughts From Frank and Fern " recently did a great post about comfrey! make sure to check out this post by her.

anyway, jam is hard at work sitting next to me. he says he will get to your comments on his previous posts once he is finished. i hope that you are all having a great day!

snow bs!!

jambaloney here!

sorry it has been a while - i have been busy working on an IT project for a local company - AND clearing snow - here is tuesday after the storm

atv outta the shed - it helped a bit, but the snow was pretty packed...

here is the bend in the driveway...

and there is the road plus snowplow deposits - took 2 hours to shovel that out!!

hey ho - blizzard next day - truckdura (moved closer to the road) on wednesday!!!

 atv helped some...

the rest was done by hand...

as far as  i got...

back of the house...

front of the house....

dishwasher still in the basement - those bins  are full of dirty dishes..

which get carried through this door!!! not optimal - we have a cunning plan for next winter!!!

 i did more driveway yesterday and woke up today to finish the job - we are getting rain followed by a freeze - it HAS to be finished!!! truckdura

yesterday's handiwork!!!!

and what is left  - see BIG new snowplow pile - the alps!!!

i tried using the atv yesterday but the snow is too deep and packed - i have to cut out one chunk at a time... i fell last sat and bruised my rib which didn't help - lift with the legs buddy, with the legs!!!

first pass - to the mountains then stopped for awesome kymber-lunch of everything salad!!!!

now tackling the mountains!!!

i thought it was 100 feet but started to suspect more.... so i got a 200 foot tape measure..

yep 166 feet to the truck from the bottom of the driveway!!!

 almost done...

and done!! all with a crappy shovel -  the rain will come pouring down there!!

 and onto this road - i have to go to work monday and after the rain it will freeze so i trotted down to the low spot at the right...

and made a helping trench at the side so that the water won't pool and make a frozen  lake!!

a couple of weeks back there was a new bird in the tree....

there is a BIG fat ruffed grouse eating the buds off the apple tree - been quite the winter!

hopefully the rain will clear the driveway and get rid of some snow - we are going to have seasonal temps soon - that will be a blessing!

happy spring everyone!!!

YAY! spring is finally here!!!

well kids - it seems that spring is finally here:



yep - it's our first week of spring! sigh. we're tougher than the canadians pictured above - we were actually nekkid in the hottub!



see the size of that snowdrift? sigh.

here's our robe stand buried in a drift. sigh.



after some dips in the hottub to loosen up poor jam's stiff muscles, i fed him a filling tuna, apple, wasabi and mayonnaise macaroni salad.

here is the man shoveling truckdura out of a big drift (that awesome jacket he is wearing is a pioneer storm master that our dear friend P gave to him. he takes that jacket whenever he goes in the truck to town or work, and he uses it around the yard all winter long!)



anyway then he had to shovel his way to the snowplow AGAIN.
 
i made him some sweet and sour chicken legs for supper.

here is the sunset from last night. sorry for the weird blue dot.

today he will be out finishing the snowplowing of the driveway. no more snow is called for in the next 2 weeks (thank goodness!) but we do have a rain warning for sunday. sigh.

this is the most snow we have ever had since moving here. i will be happy to see the ground again even though it will probably be thoroughly soaked mud for a month.

but spring is definitely in the air! i hope that you are all enjoying this first week of spring!!!!

getting belted with snow!

here's a pretty sunset a few days back before getting belted with a pile more snow!



i fed the man some good steak, parley salad with lemon and oil and some homemade hot peppers.

we knew he would be out snowplowing and shovelling after we got dumped with a foot of snow on sunday/monday just passed.

i fed him soft boiled eggs and soldiers to give him some strength and then off he went.

he had to dig his way to the snowplow!



he shoveled and snowplowed.  i knew he needed an iron filled supper - kidney and mushrooms, smashed potatoes, peas and sauerkraut.

the next day he finished the shovelling. for breakfast leftover smashed potatoes fried up like hash, 2 poached eggs and some apple.

after clearing out the foot of snow that the snowplow left at the bottom of the driveway, i fed him teriyaki chicken legs with extra sauce for dipping and for the rice, roasted veg (at the back of the pic, you can barely see them!) and some kiwi slices.

we aren't big dessert people - we always have a snack at night be it popcorn, cheese and crackers or fruit.

and after all of the shovelling and snowblowing that he did - this is what we woke up to this morning.

i took that pic from the window. there was no way in heck i was going outside. it's snowing, it's blowing, it's windy and it doesn't look to be letting up.

jam was supposed to go in to town for work tomorrow but that isn't happening. he will go in at the beginning of next week.

here's a delicious and nutrient filled dinner - homemade broth with kidney, brussel sprouts and celery. yum! i wanted to add doughboys but jam didn't want them. next time, i'm not listening to him. he agreed that doughboys would have gone really well in this soup.

i think i have solved the problems with our blogroll and i think i finally have everyone listed. make sure to leave a comment if you find that you aren't listed and should be.

we're settling in for a blizzardy afternoon/evening and we'll see what greets us when we awake tomorrow. we know spring is in the air...and we are anxiously awaiting it.