an awesome birthday!

what an excellent birthday i had! of course there was birthday tempura!

but then our friend j who is a mechanic and just finished getting our atv running tip-top for the winter and is also re-inforcing our plow for shovelling the driveway, also let us know that he could take our truck to weld some plates on the frame. so we called our besty c to see if she could drive jambaloney back home after he dropped off the truck.

woohoo! our besty c came over on my birthday and we had a blast with her. she stayed for 4 hours and we chatted and enjoyed ourselves all 3 of us. when i call her "our" besty - i really mean that she is "our" besty. the same with her husband. we are all friends as 2 couples but we are also all friends with each other as individuals. we have never had friends like that and it is wonderful!

do any of you have friends where you both get along as couples but then you each have a completely separate and distinct relationship with each of the people in the couple? it's rather lovely if i do say so. we love c and b. and we love their kids.

today we planted 60 garlic and then laid comfrey leaves down for extra nutrients. when jambaloney harvested this bed, he added seaweed, compost and comfrey. that was about a month ago. adding another layer of fast-decomposing comfrey will add more additional nutrients to the soil. right before our snow comes he will add another layer of seaweed. that bed will be full of nutrients and up and running in the spring! and full of delicious garlic!

it was such a beautiful day that we took a walk to the river.

and the maniac took his last dip of 2015.

he's made of nails and concrete he is.

and here are the birthday gifts that i received from jambaloney's mom and dad when they visited in september.

lovely things for my new faery garden and a tile that i am going to hang in the kitchen. the wood and wire thing that you see in the middle is a perch to hang near our hummingbird feeders.

here is a close-up of the cute tile. jambaloney's mom knows that i love bumble bees.

after we came back from the river, i made my faery garden using things that i had and using things that jambaloney's parents gave to me.

i think it's beautiful! the ball in the middle soaks up the sun during the day and glows at night. cool huh? the blue tarp with the rocks around it is a little pond for the fish that's in it, it's also for the frog and the faeries and bumble bees can drink from it, too!

it was a surprisingly lovely birthday and day after. 45 is feeling mighty good. thanks to everyone for your birthday wishes.

as i have explained before - we don't really celebrate our birthdays. but we always get something "for the house" for our birthdays (jambaloney's birthday is next monday - he'll be 50) - so we ordered ourselves an i-RULU Walknbook 10 tablet with keyboard cover. we'll be able to share it and read our scribd books. if you haven't heard of scribd - check them out. they have millions of books on all types of subjects and they are pretty cheap with a monthly subscription.

we are sending our best to all of you!