on Saturday my neighbours gave me a bagful of tomatoes;-)…
since then I’ve used them sliced and in a tomato, cucumber, bocconcini, cilantro and balsamic salad…
then there was a delicious toasted tomato sandwich which reminded me of the wonderful ones that my beloved made… it took me the longest time to figure out one of the reasons they were so delicious was the huge amount of miracle whip he put on them;-)…
today I finished them up with a day-long tomato sauce with spaghetti and a chicken leg and thigh…
recently I spent a good portion of the day in the computer room tidying…
I’ve been dumping empty boxes in there for months and there were about 10 boxes of books that were packed up before the pandemic but hadn’t made it to the fire station…
when I am on my Skype calls with my BS buddies I keep losing video of them, so I thought I’d try a call from the main computer which is hooked up directly to the internet… hope that helps…
so, I had to clean the room up so when I was on the call I wouldn’t be horribly embarrassed, lol…
this morning I carried all but one of the boxes of books out to the garage and put them on the newly emptied shelves… they weigh a lot… the last one is way too heavy for me…
for tonight’s call, one person wasn’t available, one person couldn’t get her camera working and in the middle of the call, my computer decided it was going to upgrade, so I was off the call for ten minutes or so…
yesterday and today I spent a good portion of the afternoon in the garage…
I haven’t done anything with it since my beloved died… and that was eight years ago, sigh…
I still don’t know where stuff is or even what stuff is in there…
last month I had the roof reshingled and now I’ve decided to make cleaning and sorting it out my fall project…
it is going to take a lot of time, but for now my plan is to fill the garbage can each week with junk and set aside things I want and things I can give away…
this picture might look like a before, but it is actually the after of yesterday’s effort…
three shelving units were cleared off, the garbage can was filled, the next door neighbour took some firewood and the neighbour behind took the fancy woodworking wood that I discovered…
boxes were set up and put on the shelves for gardening, pumps, plants, bubble makers and fish supplies… and I found a couple of things I can use… brought one item in for another little project, and gathered scrap metal for my son-in-law…
today my middle grandson finished emptying the final few shelves, loaded up boxes with bits of wood to take home for their fire pit, washed down all the shelves, put the items back on the shelves and mowed the grass…
the oldest moved the ladders, picked up items at various stores, trimmed the Virginia creeper and loaded the wood into the car…
it is kind of exciting to really know where some stuff is…
months ago I ran out of my favourite tea – Twinning Blackcurrant… I was very sad… I went online to see if I could order it direct from the company, but they no longer carried it…
about a month ago my Ottawa son-in-law came across a site in Europe that appeared to have it… I went online and ordered one package as the photo looked slightly different and I didn’t want to get a ton of tea I might not like…
Tuesday a very sad package arrived in the mail in a ginormous plastic bag…
the big plastic bag was an apology from Canada Post regarding the state of the parcel…
thankfully the plastic covering the box of tea was still intact and the tea bags were fine…
I made a pot of tea and it is the right kind;-)…
so happy… I then went back online and ordered 12 boxes… yay…
in preparation for the colder weather I’ve now brought in the three plants that live in the house…
last week the Japanese maple came in and settled back in beside the living room window… the leaf colours had already started to change…
a few days back, the mandevilla came in… I added fresh earth and sprayed it with insecticide to remove any creepy crawlers that might have wanted to take a trip…
it had been hanging outside and really wanted to lean forward… eventually three elastics helped make it stand up straight… hope it doesn’t decide to fall over in the dining room…
yesterday I brought the hibiscusinside…. excited to see it has buds on it;-)…
might also bring in a couple of others to see if they can survive the winter in the house…
and tonight I’ve covered the dahlias… the temperature is likely going to -4 Celsius… four of them have buds and I’m hoping they get to open… for two of them, it will be the first time they bloom and I am interested to see how they look…
my grandson came by to get the fish tank ready for the goldfish to come into their condo…
the pump had stopped working in the spring and we hadn’t dealt with it over the summer… he ran it over to the fish store and they discovered the problem and it is fine now…
the tank had lots of dirty water in it and we tried various disgusting methods to empty it… after a number of ideas failed, we brought in the wet-vac and it worked great…
it is now empty and all of the bits and pieces have been scrubbed and are waiting to go back in… next week he will bring some new purple gravel and we will get it set up…
likely around Thanksgiving we will bring the fish in;-)…
spent a good portion of the afternoon in the garden… I was particularly watching the birds as I thought I’d spotted a rose-breasted grosbeak at the feeder from inside the house…
it was a lovely time… lots of bird and fish watching…
one of the things I’ve noticed is that the waterfall sounds different depending on how clear the line is…
when there is no debris in it it is quiet…
when there is algae and the odd stick in it, the sound is much louder…
I usually have a large skewer behind it that I use to clean the waterfall mechanism, but it appears to be gone… wondering if a crow came by and took it, lol… today I used a twig that had come down from the elm tree next door…
received a chocolate tasting package from my daughter months ago…
we finally got together via Google Duo and did the tasting together… the last time I participated in one was over Christmas in her dining room… it was set up beautifully…
this one was certainly different… I didn’t think to put them on a pretty plate, but did have them lined up and with the note pages… in the end I felt very happy and enjoyed what I had learned… she really helped me discover the different notes of the five pieces of chocolate;-)…