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.

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! 

 

 

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. 😃😁

 

Spring for a few silver dollars.

 Took these two years ago in the early spring, of course. 😛Those were slightly more cheerier times cause that's when I had my little sunshine Meetso. 😞

Well anyways these are some lovely silver dollar blossoms before they get their distinctive silver dollar looking seed pods? Or are the called something else? But they're definitely silver dollar flowers. Didn't get as many this year though. Just as well. 

Happy yellow snap dragons.

 Some lovely yellow snap dragons that grew in our container of strawberry plants last summer. Some how the seeds from a small pot I placed near by, fell into the containers I guess. They were pretty showy so I snapped a few pics. The plants survived long into January if you can believe it. Very unusual for where I live. But I don't think they'll make it to spring since we're heading for an extreme deep freeze this weekend. Bummer! That would have been so cool! I was really rooting for those buttery popcorn looking blossomy plants. They also remind me of scrambled eggs in which I'm making alot of lately. 

 

 Its amazing to me that you can still find beauty in the chaos of our "dumpy" back yard.

Not a crop circle but a crap circle?

Lots of weird things happening. Like where did these wheels come from but just as disturbing or curious, where did my newspaper clippings go in my previous post? Was my blog edited with out my knowledge? No free speech? Wait a minute I thought this was a free country and not communism? What ever happened to emailing me first? How rude! 😡I had every right to show off the activity of my neighbourhood. Yup just another slap in my face via human society. What else it new. I mean its just a newspaper clipping from an already paid for newspaper. Its not like I was making money from this. I would never claim to have written that article. Just sharing people! Yeshhhhh! This is really starting to get old. What ever happened to manners? 😒 Rant over! 

Anyways there were these large wheels that suddenly appeared in the park across the street, some time two years ago cause that's when I took these pics. It was early in the spring when the leaves were just starting to come out. Hopefully I can show them here and you can see them with out the commies somehow taking them away. I mean what is this place run by the Chinese now? Yeshhh!  And yet people are free to harass us via email spam for phishing or any other country full of phishers. Would be nice if those people responsible for all those phishing attempts would be arrested and put a stop to. But Oh yeah punish the person who doesn't cause trouble or want it. Yeah! nice society! Yup we live in a opposite land. Punish the innocent but let the guilty run free. Second rant over! 😒

So yeah we had these particular wheels here, not sure what they were used for but they did make for some interesting objects in the park. Such as photo ops and this one guy would use them as make shift exercise equipment. But then who knows maybe aliens decided to mix it up a bit instead of the usual crop circles.  Humans after all are too boring "thinks inside the box all the time" to come up with anything exciting as crop circles and or something intricate. But we do have an opportunity to still learn how to be advanced or evolve, just might take awhile. Hopefully before we make ourselves extinct. 😉 Meh! 😝

 

Not sugar plum coated.

This was actually taken in the early spring earlier in the year but its still perfect for this time of year I guess. That is if you really like the cold. I don't. I would rather be seeing palm trees then this out of my bedroom window. But speaking of bedroom windows this was simply snapped via ancient old digital camera. I think its one of my best so far using this simple tool. You have to be at the right place and the right time for this type of shot. It would definitely make a nice window dressing for your computer, that is if you like that sort of thing. 

Welcome to the mushroom forest.

Found this interesting little forest of mushrooms last season growing all around a former beloved old peach tree we had to cut down a few years ago. As always, a little behind on things such as this "show and tell" thing. 
Oh well, enjoy. 😊

Sorry the quality couldn't be any better but I can only do so much with this old digital camera.
 

Big Poofy Garlic Flowers

Here we have some more of those last years summer pics for your eye's enjoyment. 
Not normally considered pleasant smelling whether the flowers or the flavouring bulbs, but some nice big poofy garlic flowers over looking the junk in our little back yard. But then beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all. Normally these flowers are even more showier if you plant them in a non domestic way. Meaning if you just bury them in some obscure wild patch of your yard, they will grow some lovely purple-ish colour on the poofy blossoms. Down side they will be a little more puny. Must be the wild stuff in the soil. I would imagine that eating the bulbs later on would naturally be healthier for you then being domesticated. Maybe I'm wrong. None the less these are pretty cool looking. 

 

Fiery red leaves

Thought I mix it up a bit by sharing last season's fall leaves on the trees in our back yard. Then maybe I'll get back to showing spring and summer stuff or maybe something really weird and unusual. You just never know. 😉
Anyways here are some lovely new pics of the burning bush that's located in front of my bed room window. There's also a bush in the back with I think something like a Chinese maple of is that still a Japanese maple? We do have yet another tree closest to the pond that's an official Japanese maple but this one I'm unsure. Maybe next time I'll photo that official one in the fall as well. Its leaves are quite "stringy" looking if you ask me and its one of my pet doves favorite materials to use in there nests besides curly and twisty sticks together with some forked ones in them. Over all I really thought the leaves were so beautiful I decided to collect a few for future projects. Most preserved quite well as dried supply's. 😊

 

Summer Happy sunflowers

Ok so its still winter but here's a little bit of summer to wet your summer whistle. 😜 Besides I already saw Easter cream eggs already being sold during the Christmas holidays and just last month and only a few weeks into January I first heard what I thought were the sound of robins while on my way to pick up some KFC. Not a big KFC fan but the people in this household really seem to love the stuff. But the walk to the franchise is a body of a treat for me. I love a good walk. So yeah anyways the sound of what I thought at first, thought was my imagination and was really the sound of a whirlybird. Those whirling mushroom things on top of roofs that made the strange chirping/squeaking sounds. On my way back my eyes confirmed that I was not hearing things, it was indeed a very early robin. Although there were probably a pair I saw in a tree, I only saw the one. OK but how are they going to get enough food? There really are no worms at the surface this time of year. Only a scattering of small dried fruit still on some trees and bushes and not really the good kind. If someone knows tell us all? 😮
Oh and don't worry, spring is just around the corner. 

These are some lovely pics of last summer's sunflowers. Very successfully grown. But at the beginning a bit slow going with the squirrels stealing the seeds and seedlings and other mishaps. 
In in case you are interested,  I made a little green house for each seedling out of a half cut water bottle with vents cut onto the what is actually the bottom of the plastic bottle and placed them on top of each space. It gave them much needed protection till they can get a start. Then after removing the protection, I surrounded the sprout with small sharp sticks to discourage squirrels digging the plants up. You can also use plastic forks for this as well. Remember to have the pointy bits up.   After that its just a matter of watering them everyday on hot days. Later they provided a great meal to all the birds in our neighborhood. Such as gold finches. Sadly I never got a chance to take pics of them since they're really flighty type birds. Maybe when I have a go-pro cam or critter cam. Oh well.

None the less enjoy.  😊

Sadly that year. I saw no honey bees. Oh and they're still approving "round up" to be used in our municipality. Stupid bone heads!

A house all decked out

A lovely pic of a decorated front lawn in all kinds of Christmas related characters. This guy sure has some excellent airbrushing skills. Not to mention a great eye to produce these wooden cut outs. Could have looked much nicer in Christmas snow but even without, its a really great set up.
Oh and bonus for once I took this shot most recent as in not from 2 years ago. 😜
Their house is very pretty too. 😊

 The conductor guy from The polar express. 🔺

  Scrooge 🔺

 Baby Jesus and family with the Polar express train in the background.  🔺

Winnie the Pooh and friends.  🔺

Home Fries vrs the winter day

Boy for the last days of Dec let alone 2018 it was pretty warm today. You could mistake it for early spring especially seeing some guy walking down the street in shorts. But you know that these kinds of days are usually too good to be true. Tomorrow we are back in reality of this miserable type of weather below 0 celsius. Surprise. 

But there are always home fries. Nice and comforting thing to look at let alone to savor in your mouth. Yum!  Better then looking out the window at the bleak landscape that winter causes. 

BTW I actually made these my self. No store bought crap here. Just some yummy homemade goodness straight out of the oven. These never last long. 😋

Possum picknick

A little late in posting this but better late then never.
Now two late summers ago. Actually it was the same year we had that flood, we had a little visitor at night. I had gone outside to take care of a few things and probably to savoir some of the grapes we have growing all around the yard. My favorite are the grapes growing on the vines hanging on our little shed closest to my birds outdoor aviary/cages. Those are simply the best tasting grapes in my opinion to all the grapes my parents planted around the property. Apparently the animals think so too. Like this possum who I caught with a camera making a pig of him self. You can just see him and his grape filled muzzle going to town on all this fruity green goodness.  

Tail end. 😉😊