I'm pink and a little fried, but still smell good.

Some lovely and some fried pics of pink and fragrant Oleander flowers. Shots taken one or two seasons ago from our personal pots. I was a little late on taking their pics at the time. Maybe I was lazy that day or just really busy. Still couldn't resist taking pics of them even if they were in an imperfect state.

The lovely Gourds

 Just some lovely gourds growing beautifully in the garden, taken a season or two ago. Its still winter here after all. One of my dad's hobby projects I guess. I had taken some lovely shots years ago of some similar gourds growing the garden too that featured Meetso also. The were some of the most beautiful pics of him sitting on his favorite perch surrounded by the grapes and of course those gourds. Unfortunately somehow I miss placed or totally deleted the pics. A real shame. I guess I had thought I already had saved them to CD or something. This time, not taking chances. Too late for Meetso though.......💔

 

 

 

Alternate grape protection.

 I know its not even spring yet and yet I'm already thinking of the growing season yet to come. Nothing wrong with that. Really! I wonder if I should at least plant a tomato seed in a small pot and at least have one plant a head of schedule? Normally I don't have to do that since for what ever reason the seedlings usually come out on their own during the winter months in the pots I have stored little spider plants planted in little pots with compost soil. This time around there was none. Hence the thought. 

Anyways A few seasons ago I took a few pics of how I managed to protect our green/yellow seedless grapes. We used to place a net on the whole vine but as you know that's a bit labor intensive and when you sometimes remove the net, it knocks over some of the grapes. Plus for some of the birds, the net is no problem to circumvent. Looking at you starlings!  So I came up with some solutions using and recycling used water bottles, old, used and sometimes fragments of cheaply packaged aluminum foil. Yes that annoying stuff from some dollar store or the no name house brand where and when you get close to the end of the roll they annoyingly don't tear properly and leave you with useless slivers of what's suppose to be sheets to wrap things with. But you really have no choice these days with everything so expensive. Plus I had an old collection of discarded CD's to use too. In case you're thinking it, no I am not a hoarder. I have a junk box for those odds and ends. I at least try to be tidy and use things creatively instead of throwing things away and it ends up in some land fill.  So yeah, here we go. Some pics of how I use those things to selectively protect the best bunches of grapes or at least hopefully deter squirrels long enough for us to at least enjoy fully ripe grapes. Yeah apparently squirrels love eating grapes too. 😒 And apparently so do the local insect population. sigh.... You can also use cheep dollar store panty hose or some small netting that comes with your produce to cover up the bottom of the bottle so they can't get in. But the day I took the pics I never bothered to. Oh yeah I guess I also used pie plates as well. More squirrel deterrents.

 

 Here we have some pics of how my bottle protectors look like covering and protecting the selected bunches of grapes. Its a pretty long vine that stretches from our very small garden near the shed that wraps around the garage, the side of the house where a fire place chimney is and around our outdoor doves cages. Since then, some of the vine has died back because of its age. We had to clip it severely and hopefully it might possibly come back to its former glory? 

I cut just the bottom of the bottle. I use to cut it much shorter but I found that if you keep its original length, it makes it more harder for birds to reach into the bottle and eat the grapes. I then cut a line all the way down the length of the bottle so I can envelope and place the bunch in there. At the mouth of the bottle I make sure I cut a "V" on the lips so  that I can really open up those bottles and let the bunch be enveloped so that it doesn't cut the stem at the top. I find that if you damage the stem even with just a scratch, this can make the bunch go bad fast and the bunch will not have a chance to ripen.

 Notice I don't need to cover up all the grapes. Just the ones you really like. Let the animals be distracted with the inferior bunches.

Here's a close up of one of the bottles. You can see I cut the bottom off and cut length wise on the side so that the bunch can sit inside but still be able to hang off the bunch. I also placed some foil and a pie plate to make it annoying and distracting for squirrels. I also placed some foil on the vines that lead to the saved bunches for the same reason. To keep the squirrels from biting the vines that hold the bunches in order for them to get to the bunches. You can see where you can place a small fine netting material to keep out the bugs. Again I was too lazy that day to do so. 

 More pics of protected grapes. You can also use this technique for protecting selected fruit on fruit trees such as peaches, nectarines, apricots if you have a small tree and probably pears too if you have them. I don't so I wouldn't know. You just have to place the bottles on carefully for obvious reasons so that you don't accidentally knock the fruit off.

Close up of how I place the aluminum foil and the pie plates on the stem. Again, make sure you don't scratch or cut though the stem for obvious reasons. 

I've also used a similar technique for protecting sunflowers from squirrels. I place a pie plate shield on the underside of the flower. I then place the same type of cut bottle onto the stem leading up to the flower followed up with foil. Usually this does the trick of protection unless the plant is too close to another plant or thing that the squirrel can use as a jumping point. Make sure there are none of those and you get to have seeds for eating and sharing with your wild bird friends. But fyI only place those just before the plant goes to seed or the bees and butterflies won't have a chance to enjoy them. They really don't like shiny things such as pie plates and plastic bottles. Also plus, if you still wanna share with squirrels, you can always plant a few extra plants just for them and let the little greedy buggers go to town. Believe me they will go to town and actually steal the whole head from plants thus ruining them for other animals. But its up to you.

Till next time......

A metapod was spotted.....

Like something out of a Pokemon show or game, I spotted this little guy in our bean poll patch located in our garden one summer day. So I caught it with my camera. No poke-ball required. Its supposedly the cocoon of a swallow tailed butterfly. Sadly I wasn't around to actually see the little guy emerge out of his little temporary home. But I did manage to collect the empty container of its former home for my reference collection.

 

 If you're wondering, all the kitties are doing fine. Not seeing them as much these days except for Felix since its cold. He usually tucked away in his cat box outside. I have been encouraging Felix to come indoors. The rest of my family has been encouraging him too. But sadly he still has a mistrust of humans no matter how nice our house hold is. Still not giving up thought. 

Hope you enjoy my latest pics. Bugs after all are not every one's cup of tea.😊

The invasion of the tomato snatchers.

Behold, the creepy squishy and oh so big green tomato caterpillar. Creepy for some. Not really for me. Found the little buggers crawling all over our tomatoes naturally over the summer, turning our plants and the fruit into Swiss cheese. Since then, I found alternatives for them to munch on instead of our tomatoes. Not to mention I like to live and let live if you know what I mean? Of course at the time I let them munch on some extra leaves and stems of our tomato plants to their hearts content. Till they of course turned into moths. I guess not all caterpillars turn into beautiful butterflies.  Surprising the tomato cuttings started to grow into their own plants. Something I didn't know earlier but interesting to know none the less. Another name for the little pests is Tobacco worm. But I prefer the latter.  I found out that they also enjoy our night shade weeds so since then I've been feeding that to them. They're welcome to them any day cause you know, they're weeds. 

In the pics it looks like they're munching on our geraniums. But because the tomato plants were so long in the half cut water bottles and I kept them close to the flowers, it made them look like they were enjoying them too.  Not true. Its the tomato plans they were after. None the less they really look pretty among the geraniums even if they're not eating them.

Anyways an update on the mama cat. Our timing was finally right and we caught her a few weeks ago. Surprisingly, its much easier to catch a stray cat then it is to catch a person. Afterwords I tried to contact our local humane society. I couldn't even get a person on a phone as to the regards of our kitty catch. Yeah our HS sucks! But I guess it might have to do with our many institutions that are grossly underfunded. Shame! I guess its another sign of the times. So for plan B I made contact with our former vet that I used for our late kitty Meetso. Thomasina got all "fixed" up and no more potential kitten explosion. Which is a good thing since we have a lot of bad neighbours that would love to do something vile to those poor kittens not to mention all those poor cats. That's not how we treat life. We respect it. All life deserves to have a life and not just dogs. Even the vilest such as some of my neighbours. Anyways yeah we had to keep her in the cage/trap for another 24 hours after her surgery and she was free to go. Before her surgery she had to be in there for a day and night till her appointment. Couldn't have been pleasant being in her own mess all night. Luckily she just peed a little and it was easy to clean up. At least the closet downstairs  where we kept her was pleasantly warm despite it being in the basement. I guess she saved the pooping for later. 😵😁 After she was freed, she did come back a few days later but has a bit of a long road for things to be back to normal. It was after all traumatizing. But soon enough she'll be back to her old self maybe even closer to our little family. 

Hope you enjoyed the latest offering of pics. Hoped you enjoyed the story too. Later!.......

Scary Garden Buddies

Alright a little late but still appropriate I guess.  A pic or two of what happened to the sunflower at night. Posted in the previous postings.

Yeah long time no see. I was really busy during the spring and summer season.Not to mention was going though loads of emotional stress via my stupid and cruel neighbors. Plus other emotional stresses I won't bore you with. Anyways they have no empathy towards living things other then dogs, their over zealous owners and the people who fight battles for them, all is game to whom they despise. Cowards! Can't even fight their own battles. They butt kiss and make nice but battle all by them selves, too much of a coward.😝Met up with "evil Curious George"  one time after church at the local dollar store. I was with my mom and the little douche nearly jumped out of his shoes seeing the two of us there in the isles. He quickly scurried away like the little roach he is. I guess two old ladies were too much of a fight on his own. 😛😀😆😒

Then there was the the big kitten fiasco that happened in September. Ugh.. Luckily no one got rabies after catching them and bringing the to the humane society. 😉 Also very lucky, after the two week quarantine they got to know good humans of the world a little better and I'm assuming they went to good homes. After all, I think I spotted their cute little mugs in the adoption section of the website. Good luck kitties! Now all I have to do is catch their stray mom whom I call Thomasina. Not an easy task when even the humane society is hard to deal with. Catching her in a trap not as hard. Or at least I think. She has gotten use to the fact that she now has to get her free meal at the risk of getting caught. Trade off worth dealing with when you're desperately hungry and dealing with the cold. 😉 Don't worry, I'm only trying to catch her to get her fixed so that we don't have another kitten explosion. 

Anyways enjoy the pics! 

 

 

Garden Buddies

This time around we have these two lovely garden buddies for feature presentation. Of course my latest sunflower plants have yet to get to maturity so in case you guessed, these are from two years ago. Thought the pics of my sunflower and its buddy the pea plant looked pretty cool. The lighting that day was really dramatic so I took several pics at different angles. Plus it kind of makes you feel like a little busy bee from that close up view. Over all I was inspired by the folk tale of "the three sisters". So, every year I plant my version in my share of the garden pots. In the pots I first plant a sunflower seed, then I put in a small amount of carrot and dill weed. Evenly distributing them in the pot so that the carrots will grow big and not piddly. Last but not least I plant a couple of pea seeds when the sunflower is at least 5 inches tall or maybe taller, but sometimes only one comes out. By the end of the year, in Sept or Oct I'll have these lovely colourful and sweet crunchy carrots to enjoy and share not featured here. YUM!😋

 

 

 

No Choke

 This time around I'm featuring these lovely but maybe boring bunch of choke cherries I came across on a walk in the park. But they still make a nice subject for picture reference. I wonder why they call these choke cherries anyways? Its not like domestic cherry pits don't make you wanna choke when you accidentally swallow them. 

Anyways sometimes this life makes you really wanna choke with all the hate that goes around especially from my neighbors. Wish they would take a chill pill or better yet how about a joint? Normally I don't approve of drugs but in this case marijuana would be most beneficial to those neighbors of mine. So sick of the hate and uptight behavior. Sigh..... Oh and hay look there's a place on every block here.  Go and smoke up uptight neighbors and you won't be so hell bent on disrespecting all lifeforms except dogs, your filthy squirrel pee infested carpeted porch and your clown car of a family. Someday someone will shove you or stomp you out of the way and see how you like it. Better make a change or face your own stupidity. Choke on this!

 

 

 

A face in the park

 Many, many peeing dogs over the years on an old tree bark has produced this artwork of a very creepy face. And no I don't think looks like Jesus. After all this face is bald on top.  A friend seems to think it looks a lot like Shakespeare. I wonder if nature is making a poetic statement that life just gets more and more scarier every day ? Or is it really a ghost of the Victorian times past, crying out for some reason? Who knows? Maybe its just a face? Or maybe not? None the less, what a cool find. 

 

A butterfly in the park.

 And we're back. This time featuring this lovely butterfly in the park. Hence the animal I referred to in the last post.  Its some type of swallow tail. You can look it up. 😁

Found this little beauty in the park one day on a walk. Luckily I just happen to have my camera.

Beautiful but a real pest during its caterpillar time. They just love dill weed, parsley and other related plants.

I took the pic close to a church yard of the park, some time two years ago? 

 Would have loved to have gotten closer but with limitations of a old camera, you do what you can. 

Next time a very unusual scene in the park. Maybe a bit creepy!.........👀

Random Pics

 This time from my pics collections we have some random pics I took two years ago now that I recently got a chance to prepare. 😛

I forgot to include some of these the last time I shared my jam making process which is probably a few blog posts down. Here's a link to my jam post in case any one is curious. There are probably some older posts as well but you can search for them if you like. 

Anyways here are of some Ontario strawberries I got and prepared for making jam.  So yummy and sweet. Not like those plastic things you get off season. Actually jam making season for this year is coming this June. But not sure how much they're going to cost. Hopefully not too expensive? Yeah, I know, wishful thinking. Hoping I can afford the expense. 

Usually we purchase about 4 plastic containers. 

I so wish I had my old strawberry patch I had growing up. I would never need store purchased strawberries.  They were the absolute best, juiciest and sweetest you could ever have. They also left a deep red colour too.

 

 

Some cherries I picked from our tree. I guess I was picking these for my mom. Usually if I end up picking all of the cherries, I normally get a big bucket full and usually one pot full as well. These must have been a sampler. 

 

 

 That white stuff in the back of the fridge behind in the jar, is bacon fat or the fat collected from pork cracklings. Nasty to most but still great for cooking stuff. Just wouldn't use it too often. 😬Also when the stuff has been sitting the fridge for some time, it starts to taste like some kind of wall paper paste. Not so good for flavouring your cooking. 

The pork cracklings really are tasty but like its relative, consume/cook with sparingly. 

PS I hate it when my dad makes his famous cabbage rolls and he adds some of it to his dish. I occasionally find blobs of it in the broth. 😝  Otherwise his CR are really tasty! For him the extra fat is alright since he's old and skin and bones. But not for the rest of us. 😣

BTW the link I provided is very similar to the rolls we or my dad makes, visually. Not sure how this one tastes, but I'm sure its really great. This one does not contain whole tomato sauce. But we do add a bit of tomato paste to the salty broth. 

 

Some mulberries from our tree and probably from the park. I usually add them to my strawberry jam in small amounts. Good for a bit of sweetness and colour.  

 

 

A random bowl (colander) of carrots. One of them has eyes!

Yikes! 🙃

 For the next blog post, some kind of animal in the park. 😃😁

 

Let's say it together PEROGIES!!

 Presenting my pics of perogies.  Just sharing what I made....... a couple of years ago. LOL  I'm that behind with my pics. 😄😛

 Alright I didn't take pics of every stage of prep but you get the picture. 

 

 This is a bowl is of some dough I made for the perogies. For the most part I followed the recipe but at the time since I had some whole wheat available, I put in some of that.  After I kneaded the dough together, I portioned the dough into neat little balls for several batches of perogie skins. 

 

 

 

 I took a ball of dough and rolled it out on the board. I rolled it out to a certain thickness and then cut out skins. I used a drinking cup that was the perfect size for the skins. 

 

 

 Here's some filling I made. Not nearly as full to the top of the bowl as earlier pics since I didn't take pics when I first started making them in this session. It was filled to the brim with filling. To be exact 3 days worth of making the dumplings. 🤪 It consisted of bacon fat, some "farmer's cheese ( actually it was cottage cheese just blended to be smooth) or I could have used ricotta. There was also a bit of cheddar cheese and I think I had 3 large russet potatoes. That is if I remember correctly.  There might have been a few other ingredients but it has been a few years.

 

 

 Filling the perogie skins. I used about a table spoon full of the filling. 

 

 

 Folding over the perogie skins with filling. Then I carefully shaped them closed and crimping the edges closed. I also used water to glue them shut. Before I closed them of course. 

 

 

 Then I carefully dropped each one in boiling water, cooking them until they rose to the surface. 

 

 

 I then placed them on every dry surface I could find and let them dry a bit. 

 

 

 I placed them on a tray before I place some of them in the freezer. I did this so they won't stick together in the storage bag that goes back into a freezer. 

 

 

 Sorry I didn't bother to make a pic of a finished dish on plate. But then everyone has a favorite way of having them for dinner. For the most part we like to have them smothered in sauteed onions, bacon and topped off with some sour cream. But I have eaten them with chill, cheese, tomatoes and sour cream.

Now go and make your own. If you don't have a favorite recipe, there are plenty online for you to try. Or just buy some frozen ones from a factory. I won't tell. 😋🙊😊

Enjoy!

Sweet pink miscellaneous blossomes.

 Got some more pics of spring flowers. Taken from 2 season ago and now maybe 3 years ago. I'm behind as usual. Sigh..... But still, a sweet, sweet taste of the coming spring isn't so bad in the dead of winter, whether bad or mild. Winter still bites after all!

Not sure what this bush is called but every year we get these really showy flowers that attract all kind of bees on them. Mainly bumble bees. I would imagine some humming birds too. After all, they have a nice trumpet shaped flower that might be attractive to them. These are from a bush near my pond taken about late June. I have another bush in the front. This year they probably won't be as showy as I did a thorough trimming of all the bushes and most of the trees on our property. Not sure what to do with our, out of control ceder trees. They have now pretty much taken over the back yard. I believe they are contributing to the deterioration of all those brick and masonry fence posts that my previous cat use to enjoy. Quite frankly its beginning to look a lot like the secret garden despite my maintenance. If only I had people to help me out. Sigh......

None the less please enjoy my showy blossoms.