PLAYING WITH A SHOVEL & HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIEL

Someone asked me how much snow did we had. It's hard to say. We've had storms after storms like lots of you and high winds that moved the snow where it wanted.

At the farm, the snow bank is up to the roof of one of the barns and on my back deck I measured the snow at being 33 inches deep.

Call me crazy but I love to shovel snow as long as I'm not cold.  This new shovel works like a charm as long as I put the the elbow grease in.   The snow was perfect for shovelling. It needed to be done as we couldn't open the door to the rear entrance anymore.

I shovelled a path to the bird feeders. It was the only way I was able to fill their feeders. I had to shovel down two sets of steps. It was deep there too but I removed some snow on top so the path didn't feel like a tunnel.

Here the snow is very deep. The compost bin sits on the ground and see how high the snow is around it. It had to be dug out so we could use it....
It took me about two hours of shovelling in all  and I loved every minute of it. I didn't rushed.

  Here is the amount of snow on the roof of the back entrance. It needs to be removed.

Before I left Ottawa, we celebrated Daniel's 2nd birthday in advance and Christine made him a train cake.  She had a minor mishap and it leaned a bit but it looked very cute anyway.  Look at Daniel  smiling as we all sang happy Birthday. Notice the Valentine heart on the back.

In the blink of an eye, Daniel grabbed a jellied worm and sucked it in and then grabbed the candle.

Mama retrieved the worm candy and helped him blow the candle. The worm candy was cut in small manageable pieces. Somehow I have no picture of him eating cake.

Thanks for visiting. Prayers for friends who have to deal with serious illness and traumas and hardships in their lives.  My thoughts and prayers are with you.
JB

PLAYING MY VACATION AWAY

I better report on my trip to Ottawa.

This is what my back deck looked like when I left Fredericton. And another major storm is on the way for this Sunday.  If you live in California, you can come and play to your heart content  but leave your bikini at home...


The flight was noisy but smoother than expected and so was the landing although the plane was a little late arriving because of flying against the wind. I didn't freeze to death in a crash and I was very happy for that, although I was freezing in the plane before take off.  It took a while to deice the plane and we were on our way.

I passed the time playing Free Cell on my laptop and it made the flight go quickly. My brother in law picked me up at the airport and drove me to my daughter Christine.

I went to watch Christine curl with her team at the curling club and they won two games that day.

After the games we went to the club and had a drink and I massaged some tight muscles on some of the girls.  The ice was different at this other rink and the girls lost the last game but they had a good time anyway.

The next morning James and Daniel kept me busy playing. I'm still in my PJ's and I'm glad you can't see my bedhead. The static in the tent doesn't make me look my best.

There was me, James, Mama and Daniel in the bear tent. You can only see Daniel's red slipper coming out. You can see how crowded the tent was...Oh and I forgot, Snoopy was in there also.

I got stuck in the green tunnel and James think I need some cars in there.

 I think I found a way out of the tunnel but I look like a witch who's flying without her broom. hahaha.

 We've been also playing at the kid gym and day care and having a lot of fun. This is Christine and Daniel coming down the tall slide.

James is big enough to come down by himself. He runs all the time, climbing way up there.

Now it's my turn to come down with Daniel. Can you tell we're having so much fun. That slide was fast for a old lady.

This tunnel slide is super fast and Christine came down looking like a pro but I know she's getting a good work out just running after the boys. There are lots of fun places to climb and crawl and the kids gets there lot faster than we both can. It's a full time job keeping up with them.

Oh my gosh, I had no idea how fast that tunnel slide was.  lol. Christine captured my surprise quite
well. I'm hanging on to Daniel for dear life...

After the workout I got it was nice letting Daniel playing in  toddler play area while I watched and caught my breath.

Daniel love running up the steps in the back of the small slide.

Chasing after kids is more tiresome than chasing after calves.

We all returned home for a nice hot supper and that evening the kids were so tired of running, they quickly fell asleep after their mom read books to them. I must say, I slept well too.

A couple of days later we went to a larger kid gym in another part of the city and had more fun all over again. Ottawa has all sorts of family oriented play and recreation areas, day care centres. There are skating rinks and lots of parks and playgrounds, etc... A great place to raise a family.

Thanks for visiting and leaving your comments and HAPPY VALENTINE DAY everyone.
JB

WHERE'S THAT RECIPE? A 2015 PROJECT

One of my project that I have decided to tackle this year is ORGANIZING MY RECIPES.

If you're like me, you probably have  lots of cookbooks and also have gotten some tasty recipes from friends, magazine and other sources that you either copied and put in a drawer hoping to type it neatly in your recipe files.

I did that for a while and then my recipe box got too full. I started putting my clippings and copies in a little plastic bag but soon I needed another bag and then another.

My daughter Christine copies all her recipes on the computer.  I started doing that but gave up. I'm a bit slow at typing when I copy because I don't rest my fingers on the appropriate keys and I got busy with more pressing projects and that project went poof...

I have some favorite recipes clippings and when the urge hits, I go into a frenzy looking for them. I'm always in a bit of a rush and if I can't find it in a few minutes, I go online or prepare something  that is quick....

I took the recipes out of the bags and organized them into categories and spread them on a unmade king size bed in the spare bedroom. Organizing my recipes took priority over making the spare bed.

There were lots of categories and I started to make little piles and I soon ran out of room on the bed  and I used every spare space available.

I'm lucky to have a small kitchen table to work from in the next room.  This is really my hooking room now.  You can see the little pile of wool worms in the left upper corner...

 I got some plastic sleeves and a binder and some computer paper, some matt Scotch tape and I went to work.  It's a slow process just keeping them organized for a start so here is what it looked like.

 I started with Soup  and Chowder recipes because it was so cold that day. I felt chilled to the bones.
I'm on the second binder already and I'm not finished.

I saw a picture of a Lemon pie in my recipes and I remembered that I had pie crusts in the freezer so I took  one out to thaw and in no time I had a lemon pie. No need for a recipe for this though but  I have some  awesome scratch recipes for lemon pies... Remember, I'm always in a friggin rush.

I also found my daughter Jackie's recipe for her Stupendous Chilli and I used what I had available to make a tasty pot of Chilli for supper so when I came home from the barn in the evening, it was ready and delicious.

It's still cold  and we had 3 snow storm in 7 days and I'm having quiche for supper this evening. The pie crust is thawing on the counter as I type. The sun is shining and I'm happy until I have to go back to the cold.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. They really warms the heart. Have a great day and stay warm and happy. Spring is really not that far away.

JB