Tuesday, August 29, 2017

overdue....

jambaloney here!

i have not posted since june 06 - my bad so here is a chronological, but not necessarily logical review of what i have been up to..

aside from work - i have worked a LOT this year and so i have been absent and all of a sudden it is almost sept...

so we have a second greenhouse- here is "lining up the windows"




another view - important for framing..


great to have a 8 food bed which is full - the boards sticking out are 10 footers... last greenhouse i bought regular lumber and painted it- it was a LOT of work for not a lot of savings - this greenhouse is all pt lumber


i have learned to have all the tools ready first - free palette provides a workbench...


whoops - back a bit - tractor was a life saver to pre-level the ground - 2 hours would have taken me 2 days by hand....  whoo hoo!


railway ties courtesy of big bro G and big sis C...


still - final leveling by hand..


whoops!! trout interlude for sweet sandy and pp!!


okay back to the greenhouse area  - pretty much level now - gravity and frost-heave will take care of the rest...


out fishing...


stracchen's brook..


back to work (late june now) - framing...

 more framing...


wild animals...

lumber....


something is standing!!


i kinda broke out the jams at this point so no pics before framing was done..


another angle...


roofing - i use simpson hurricane ties..


roof.. 


back..


 and with osb on the back - no windows there as it is north facing with trees behind - regular osb - it is cheap and will last a while..

there ya go!


poly channel prep on the roof...


the roof for this one is 6 mil plastic which will be replaced at some point - but for whatever reason - the stuff i get here will last 5 years..  roof amounts to about 15 bucks in poly..


more strapping..


more - this is to provide and extra lip   in case of wind - good shot of the hurricane tie!


the morning i did the roof was not so windy so i put the whole roof up - final pic!


1x2 stapping = pre-drilled


no interim pics - here are windows!!


and now boards!


and tomatoes in a trough i built to keep the bottoms moist!


ahhhh - fishing....


pp - tractor time!! expanding the turn around area of the driveway...


digging a new ditch..


more clearing...


and more fishing..



sorry to have been so long in posting - hope you all had a good summer!!!

Sunday, August 27, 2017

just a couple of beautiful things to share with you all!

a beautiful day called for some attention to some of the little things that add beauty to our lives!


like garlic scapes in a beautiful vase as a centrepiece for the kitchen table.


and 5 beautiful trout that jambaloney caught yesterday.


a beautiful sunset from the other night.


the sun going down when jambaloney went fishing.


a chicken carcass boiled in homemade beef broth, homemade chicken broth and homemade veg broth.


we'll strain it this evening and make vietnamese pho and a chicken noodle soup.

homemade hot pickled peppers from our own pepper plants - jambaloney loves them spicy and puts them on everything!


we have a ton of more hot peppers coming up in the greenhouse waiting to be pickled.

check out my small herb garden -


we understand now why bee balm is called "bee balm" - those flowers attract every pollinator and hummingbirds!

kids - if you can't grow it yourself, get it local! some delicious corn and strawberries from the mainland!


they said it couldn't be done - they said "you can't grow corn in cape breton! it's too windy!" well kids, we are growing corn in greenhouse#2!!!


we're not sure if those little things will ever turn into "corn proper" but we started them late and will start them a lot sooner next year!

we finally got some some cucumbers coming in!

there was a third one but we ate him with salt and pepper!


clouds are rolling in and we are expecting some rain. nothing like our friends down south are experiencing from hurricane harvey. we hope all of our friends in his path are prepped and safe! we send love to all of you!

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

vladimir "poutine" celebration day, answering my friend mike yukon's comment...and a river day! you can't get better than that! Edited to add that eclipse 2017 was a no-show!

first off, in response to my friend Mike Yukon's comment from the other day (he writes the blog Living Prepared and if you don't read his blog - you should!)- he mentioned that he could finally see our river! but that is out front of our house and that is called Strachan's Brook and it empties into our river, the Framboise River...which is actually at the back-end of our property.


our river is back there.


Strachan's Brook is about 1/3 of a mile away from us, whereas our river is about 1/4 of a mile away from us. we'll be going down to the river in just a bit - but a gorgeous day makes for celebrating Vladimir "poutine"! back in the city, we had incredible access to the most delicious curds known to man. since coming to the island it's hit and miss so when we find good curds - we jump on them and celebrate a Vladimir "poutine" day. it's an inside joke that i am sure none of you will find funny but i will share it with you all anyway!

when jambaloney and i first started dating 16 years ago - we developed our own way of speaking. i was working at Solgen, he was working at PWGSC and we would send each other 20 million emails a day and then when we got home from work, we would get on the phone and many nights fell asleep on the phone. i worked with some of the best colleagues and bosses in my life and when i would come into work, they would all chirp, like little birds - "kymber's in lerrrrve"!". best job of my life it was. well, anyway, to make a long story longer - jambaloney and i developed this certain way of speaking (it was also at that time that we refused to use capital letters in our emails to each other!) and 2 of my colleagues who i showed the emails to, said that our writing to each other was "twitterbugging". i love that term to this day. but between jambaloney and i - we have invented words that no one else could ever understand and we re-name things for fun.

enter Vladimir "poutine" (pronounced poo-teen). poutine is a canadian national dish made of curds, gravy and fries. we got some local, organic curds and went haywire! we made breakfast using our own potatoes and fresh-made gravy - oh it was an all-out Vladimir "poutine" celebration day!


we made and canned up 11 pints of meat sauce for spaghetti, spaghettini and macaroni!


loaded with meat, garlic and herbs! deelish!


replanted green onions that had been cut down! kids you can just keep replanting these things! you never have to buy another or plant a seed!


i got my new favourite book in the whole world - well besides everything by umberto eco - but this comes pretty close!


cape breton english is screwy to say the least - the french people speak a weird kind of french, the gaelic people speak a weird kind of gaelic, the english people speak so fast it's hard to understand them - and then they mix it all in together - it's crazy! but lots of fun! example: jambaloney works in L'Ardoise - which properly pronounced is "lar-dwoi" - but everyone here - even the french call it "lordways". it's a pretty funny place this island of mine!

our Scoby, Flower 325b gave us another 4 quarts/1 pint of delicious kombucha.


look at the beautiful colour!


i make her with organic green and organic jasmine tea.

now off to the river for those of you who have made it this far! you can't celebrate Vladimir "poutine" day without a walk to the river!!!! this is the back yard where the road to the river starts.


going around the bend.


spiderwebs everywhere.


getting close.


yay! the river, canoe-dura, boat-dura and shed-dura!


my boardwalk! (in case you haven't noticed - it's just a big rock!)


oh - the majestic Framboise River!


and i haven't shared this with any of you yet - but we bought an additional 16.5 acres of swampland!


all of that swamp going around the bay and out to the point is ours.  we did it so that no one could do anything with it. we think it is a good investment!

the nutcase jumped in the freezing cold water - i just stood in up to my knees.


he splashed around - i just splashed some river water on my face several times.


all-in-all - a great Vladimir "poutine" celebration day! oh and we shelled some fresh-picked peas to make home-made chicken noodle soup.


EDITED TO ADD: the eclipse. i couldn't make a bigger yawn. we got nothing. just the same kinda' overcast skies that we have had for a few days. nothing. nada. zilch. eclipse 2017 was a big let down!!! but i am loving other people's experiences and pictures!

off now to check out my fave blogs. we've had several small power bumps, a scheduled power outage (3hrs) and jambaloney is vaccuuming our computers. sorry i haven't been around very much! but i'm sending love to you all! xoxox