yay - what a beautiful day!!!

after 5 solid days of non-stop grey, rainy, misty, foggy, rainy, windy, rainy, heavy clouds - all of which the garden loved - we finally are looking at a few really nice, summer days - woohoo!

we spent those rainy days doing odd jobs and such in the house with both of us stopping every 5 minutes to say "hey - do you think it's just drizzling?". you see, if it's just drizzling, we can get in the hottub. but when it's full-on raining it's a no-go. last evening, it was only drizzling. so i tried to capture the rain drops landing in the hottub.

and then the sun set and we did the Framboise Manor Happy Dance! check out this sky:

a red sunset always means a beautiful, sunny day is coming and that beautiful, sunny day came - woohoo!

we were up early, jam fed cats and birds, we had our shake, played our morning cards and had delicious hash (mashed potatoes, carrots and turnip) with poached eggs, mango and some quinoa salad.

we knew we were in for a long day so that breakfast would keep us going a good few hours. we finished the strawberry bed.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE HUGE ROCKS JAMBALONEY WENT DOWN OUR ROAD TO OUR RIVER WITH THE ATV AND TRAILER AND LOADED THEM INTO THE TRAILER. THEN HE UNLOADED THEM AROUND OUR STRAWBERRY BED. if you think that is not a lot of work - you have never watched a man do that!

i then re-mulched the strawberry bed while jambaloney washed 8 million pots from 2 days worth of cooking. when you cook everything from scratch - you dirty a lot of pots. we have our outdoor sink area and 3 hoses that heat up in the sun pretty quickly so he gets the hot water from the hoses and washes all of the pots. i think he does it for me to show me he loves me. he never reads my posts so he'll never know that i figured this out. teehee. i love him so much.

ok - enough mush. here's our little patch of wild blackberries - you never saw blackberries as big as these produce. and in our forested area we have tons of wild blackberries and wild raspberries - Framboise IS the french word for raspberry, you know.

ignore the finger and focus on 36 tomatoes all staked, enclosed with concrete 4X8 reinforcing wire to support them and plastic to help with the wind.

we have another 20 tomatoes at different stages of growth in the greenhouse.

ok...time for dinner. how about baked potatoes some with goat yoghurt, dill, garlic sauce, some with goat yoghurt and homemade hot sauce, and some with just goat yoghurt. all were smothered in butter of course!

and served with mashed carrot and turnip with mint and nutmeg - yummeh!


while jambaloney was getting rocks, moving rocks, setting rocks up, i went and picked rose petals, chamomile flowers and some heal-all for teas and salves.

the heal-all is just coming out so i only took a bit. i follow the herbalists ancient rule of 1/3 for yourself, 1/3 for the insects and 1/3 for Mother Nature.

here's edgar...also known as edgar the begger and rat-cat...mostly rat-cat....hiding in a bush trying to catch a squirrel that drives him nuts.

it finally feels like the other cats are accepting him, mostly because the King of Framboise Manor tolerates rat-cat a little....here is the King in all of his glory!

tried to get pics of the other 2 cats for my buddy W (he is always asking about the cats) but they've spent the day slinking from one shady spot to another.

here's a pic of a beautiful self-planted wild rose bush - so pretty!

check out the beautiful colour of the pink and purple lupins!

my favourite 2 flowers - daisies and clover.

woohoo - grape flowers! we've never seen them this early!

and have you ever seen a sage flower?

i know that i haven't and i have been growing sage for years!!!!

and beautiful thyme flowers - soooo tiny!

we cheated this afternoon after all of our hard work and jumped on the atv to take us down to the river for a quick dip. 2 dips each in freezing cold water woke us up from any sun stroke we might have felt. it was super cold and super refreshing!

well, like usual, if i am at the computer, it means jambaloney is working on his contract. we put in a hard days work in the garden and we are feeling very satisfied.

i'll be heading down in a few minutes to make hamburgers - some with a bunch of spices sort of like koftas, and some with goat feta mixed in the hamburger and spices - then it's grilling time - woohoo!

hoping you all had a wonderful day, too. oh and the best thing - tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer. say it with me kids - "RIVER DAY!!! WOOHOO!!!"