This, that, *and* the other thing!

This = yummy food that helps deal with the overload of late summer zucchini & tomatoes:

Want the recipe? It’s super easy and it looks kind of impressive. It’s also vegetarian! Yay!

That = I’ve actually been getting some knitting done. Case in point, one Dancette shawl in Plucky Knitter Primo.

Holly Carp is this stuff nice to knit with! Dancette is also a lovely pattern. I didn’t change a single thing when I was knitting it. Not my normal modus operandi.

The other thing? Hmm, well…oh, okay. I’m back to being a part-time student again. So that’s exciting. Sociology this semester. Need to see which theory I side with, sociological or psychological explanations for criminal and deviant behaviour. I have a feeling it’s both, but don’t ruin the surprise! I had a little study date with myself last Friday night. First off, over to have some sketchy pho in downtown Whalley. Mmmmm, Bun Cha. ZOMG, amazing.

Insanely good. Then, walk over to the lovely new library. Wait, what’s this? Hmmm, graffiti or something deeper?

I like to think it has a deeper meaning than a binner trying to keep track of which manhole covers he has investigated under. I’m probably wrong though. Then, once all settled in the library what should my wandering eye espy outside?

Why yes, that is four locals smoking crack beside the rec centre. Sigh. Then I went back to my books.

This Friday? Lather, rinse, repeat. Hopefully there won’t be anyone smoking crack outside the library this time, but I’m willing to take the chance.

How do you feel about pictures?

Excellent, ’cause I got a tonne of them for you today. Let’s get this party started, yeah?

First up, I don’t wanna freak you out but I saw these this morning on the way to work.

RED LEAVES!!!!!!

Interbenchion was up early this morning to make a little something for the back to school transit commuters.

The Bench, alone in a crowd

Seriously, where else can you see a caged bus stop bench being forced to confront some of its deepest darkest inner fears?

The sun was so bright and white today it made the sky seem to glow blue. Even the underside of Skytrain looked nice.

But, best of all today. The new Whalley branch of the Surrey Library opened. Squee! It’s gorgeous! I’ve been walking and riding the train past them building it for so long I was just so excited to be able to go inside. It’s really lovely and a terrific start to the new city centre concept starting to happen here in Surrey. Wanna see it? Sure you do!

Weird squishy seating?? thing

Cool green pod seats

And check this out, I’m 42 and I finally got a boy to carry my books!

Now, the sad part. Here is the back of the old library. Poor little thing, having to just sit there and watch everyone go inside its shiny new HUGE replacement. That’s gotta hurt, right?

This is where I got my first library card and where I took out my first books. It was magic! All those books and you could just read them for free.

Oh, and I realize that I didn’t take any pictures of books, just of architecture & stuff. There are tonnes of new books in the branch. TONNES. Matter of fact, I’m going to go get a glass of iced tea and have a look at the two I brought home today.

Oh, wait! One more thing. Stella would like you to know that there is nothing better in life than a nice chewy hockey ball.

Gardening notes for 2012

I’m going to put this in writing, for posterity as it were. Next year, when I’m getting ready to plant my vegetable garden, if someone could just point me back here, I’d really appreciate it. I seem to have a very short memory.

For a household of two human beings:

• 18 bean vines – yield about 10 pounds of beans a week
• 4 zucchini plants – about 8 zukes a week
• 4 patty pan plants – about 18 – 20 patty pans a week
• 2 cucumber plants – about 4 cukes a week
• 4 tire planters of herbs – enough for most of Tuscany to season their dishes for at least a month
• I’m not even going to discuss how much food one gets from 8 rows each of beets, carrots, rutabagas, and kohlrabi.

We also won’t discuss the issues that are going to be very apparent in a couple weeks when:

• 8 HUGE tomato plants all come ripe at once

About three weeks after that when:

• 96 white onions are ready for harvest
• 96 red onions are ready for harvest
• 48 heads of garlic are ready for harvest

Actually, the garlic could be fun. I think I’m going to try that whole braiding & hanging thing. Food + arts & crafts = fun!

Now, I’m off to process the 10 or 12 pounds of beans that I picked this morning. Turn on the tunes & French/blanch/freeze those little lovelies.

 

 

So easily amused

It’s year three with this little unit and I have to say, the blush is not yet off the rose for me. I truly, madly, deeply love my bean Frencher.

‘Cause hey, when your bean plants are producing about 10 pounds of beans a week, any little toy that makes them fun is greatly appreciated.

I ‘Frenched’ (now that’s an awkward verbing if ever I saw one) about two pounds of green beans for dinner tonight. What? That’s totally a normal amount for two people. Right? At least they are good for us.

Another fun thing today? When I walked into the train station the lady who gives me the free daily papers gave me this:

Betcha can’t guess!

Tape flags to make all the things you love in the new Ikea catalogue. Apparently it’s out. I am verklempt with excitement. I know, I know. They have some vaguely not nice business practices. Like being a registered charity and never paying much tax even though they make a butt load of money.

It blows, I agree, but all of our kitchen and most of our living room is outfitted from them. I’m prolly going to hell. I bet it will be in a Billy book case!

Summer in the city

I won’t say hot time, summer in the city, since yesterday was the first actual hot day we’ve had t his summer. It’s been super mild and everything in the garden is so far behind. I was finally able to pick some tomatoes yesterday. They were tasty but I don’t think our yield is going to be that great this year. You can already smell fall in the air when the sun goes down and I’m back to wearing a hoodie when walking to the bus in the morning. Winter is coming! Thank you Eddard Stark.

So far this summer has been all about:

Gardening

More gardening

Fun with the spoils of the garden

Decorated bus stops by interbenchion.blogspot.com

Stella discovered the joys of the frisbee

New glasses were acquired

Silly faces were necessary to ease the pain of having to get progressives.

Sock Summit was attended. Learned so much and spent *so* much!

I miss you Sock Summit!

Oh Powell's Books. I could live in you forever!

Mmmmm, food trucks!

Except for this one. That is the worst name ever for a food truck. Blargh!

While sniffing for free wifi this was my favourite network name.

Irony? Going to Sock Summit and buying a metric tonne of sock yarn then casting on a shawl. Nicely done!

This is Dancette in Plucky Knitter Primo. Really nice yarn, REALLY nice. So, how’s your summer been so far?

Oy vey

What with hockey playoffs =  we lost, riots = everyone lost, gardening and the continuing insistence of cold spring and lack of summer = pretty small plants, I have not been happening around these parts so much. Sorry ’bout that. But hey, look at some pretty picis! What? Politicians always use distraction as a valid debate technique!

Poppies!

Teeny, tiny starter zucchini. Imma gonna eat you!

Equally teeny, tiny pattipan. Imma gonna eat you too!

The irises are very happy with the cool and the wet.

Wee little dianthus.

So, you see, I’ve just been very busy with nature. Yeah sure, right.

Three weeks to summer and it still feels like March

It’s been wicked chilly and wet around here. Yesterday I was considering the purchase of a nice rowboat. Or, perhaps a set of pontoons for the new wee garden shed. Because of said wetness & coolness all the garden is in delay mode. What would normally be done and gone is just now starting to bloom:

Obligatory annual shots of my tree peonies.

Ditto

And those things that should be in full bloom (rhondendrons) or feeding us (radishes & salad greens) are just starting to get their grow on. A very odd and loooonngggg spring. The tee tiny perennial geraniums are blooming though.

So twee and cute

So pretty and sweet. Now, come on sunshine!

The best offence is a good defence…

Right? Let’s hope so. What am I hoping to be offensive towards? Slugs & snails who keep chomping on my little seedlings. I don’t want to use any nasty chemicals like slug bait in the garden. I don’t want it anywhere near my food and I just know that special dog would eat it if she found it. Soooo, I had to find a better way of keeping my plants safe.

Turns out, slugs & snails do not like copper. Won’t cross it no matter how tasty the radish greens on the other side are. Thought about putting copper pipe along the tops of the raised flower beds but that would cost a fortune. Copper = wicked expensive. Who knew? Then I spotted this stuff at Lee Valley Tools. Genius! It’s basically a roll of the stuff they make copper scrubbers out of.

Added bonus, when you put it on the raised beds, it looks so pretty and sparkly. Like the beds are all wearing pretty jewellery. Yep, that was ridiculously girly.

Added, added bonus, I got to play with the industrial stapler. So fun!

Okay slugs & snails. Bring it on. I think I got you beat.

Keeping on with keeping on

Wee shed is coming along. Yesterday, a door was added:

And today some flashing and paint were added:

A little bit more finishing work, a ramp, and then a lick o’ paint on the inside and she’ll be rocking. It’s going to be a great place for all our gardeny type things. Tools, wheel barrow, lawnmower, etc. We’re also going to put our earthquake/emergency kit in it. ‘Cause let’s face it, in the event of a biggish earthquake, we’ll probably end up living in that shed for a while.

We also picked up our tomato, cucumber, and herb plants this afternoon. Not that it’s warm enough for the poor little things to be outside yet, but hope springs eternal. I have this sneaky feeling that it’s just all of a sudden going to get really, really hot and shock/kill/destroy/immolate all my little plants.

Here’s hoping the gardening gods are kind and don’t do any of those things to my little baby plants.

When your husband says he has plans for you for the weekend,

make sure you get details. If you don’t, you could end up doing something crazy over 8 hours on a Sunday.

Hmmmm, wood and landscape fabric...

More wood, odd.

More wood. Big flat stuff this time. I'm a heck of a stainer though, yeah?

There sure is a lot of wood happening.

Then, I got exhausted and forgot to take any photographs. Suffice it to say, I was given a cordless drill, three boxes of screws, cut lengths of wood, and some of that plywood I was staining earlier. I made walls and screwed down floors with help of yarnpiggy. When all was said and done, it looked like this, (note very happy man for scale):

Note the use of our old pickup canopy as roof? Reduce, reuse, recycle!

What's got two thumbs and a brand new shed? This guy!

Of course the wee dog had to leap into it and check it all out. It did survive it’s first rainstorm last night though.

Rainy day & wee shed.

That’s it tucked into the back of the garden. Oh, and we also almost doubled the size of the veggie garden by running it right to the back of the property. Gonna be a lot of veggies.

Next weekend, wee barn style doors and a ramp will be added. I’m also checking to see if he has any ‘other’ plans that I need to have him outline for me. ‘Cause my arms & legs are still sore from this 8 hour extravaganza. LOL