Brush fire and His's and Her's

Bushes and Trees are trimmed and many roots are pulled out already. It starts to look like something. I had to search a lot to find some photo that show how it looked like before. It was so bad that hardly any photo was taken from this area.

A gree wilderness of brambles and wild rasbberries, invading slowly but surely the lawn

There are actually nice bushes and trees there

Brush fire

Yesterday we burned of a lot brambles and bur-seeds.
Better get rid of this stuff.

And the priming job is done. Now starts the wait for a longer warm weather period to get the final coat of colour on. That will not be before next weekend since the weather forecast predicts rain from Sunday to Thursday coming week. I hope so, it is very dry and we need the moisture.
With all these projects around house and garden there is not much time for sophisticated cooking. Today I just made a mashed-sweet potato-com-veggie.
We like this kind of simple food. J.P. got some sausages added.

His'

Her's

Die Büsche und Bäume sind beschnitten, und viele der Wurzel wurden schon ausgerissen. Nun sieht es schon halbwegs ordentlich aus. Gestern haben wir Brombeerranken und Klettengesträuch verbrannt. Besser gleich weg damit! ....mehr ("read more" anklicken)

Time out for informational reading

No post yesterday because I was reading the complete notes of the Norwegian Court for Thursday. That took me a full two hours!
There is no doubt that he is guilty, but I wanted to know "why" he did what he did. Unsettling to read what that guy is coming up with.
Since I lived in Norway for near 20 years I am still interested in what is going on "over there".

The raspberries are loosing territory!

The whole morning was occupied with cutting more raspberry plants down to the ground and, extract small tree roots with help of our little jeep. 

The open space revealed to us six concrete blocks and, we assume that they must have been foundation for a small barn way down in the past. When hubby tried to get these out of the ground it showed they were rooted deeper than anticipated.

Luckily a contractor was working on the neighbouring property and, he came over to offer us help. With his equipment it took about halve an hour to remove all concrete blocks. He was friendly enough to also remove several boulders he found in the ground. The clearing is now ready to be shaped into something.

And there was that part of the wall that we failed to finish up last fall, and since the weather was right I started on the priming process. 
              

As to the question why I didn't complete the task, I will tell you that there was only a certain amount of paint in my can. I figured that I would have to start supper by the time it was used up. (Which was not a big affair today, just leftovers.)

Die Himbeeren sind im Moment auf der Verliererseite. 
Den ganzen Morgen haben wir damit verbracht weiter Himbeerbüsche zu entfernen, Steine zu sammeln und kleine Baumwurzeln wurden mit Hilfe unseres Jeeps aus dem Boden zu reißen. (Weiterlesen : siehe "read more")

Gardening and Danish Waffles

2nd part of Thirsday's events:
After a foggy start of the morning the day turned out as a cloudy day, a good work weather. Many wheelbarrows with soil were prepared and filled into my little garden bed. 

Thin layers of peat-moss and some compost were added. 

Our compost bin yielded 2 wheel-barrels full of black soil!  Not bad at alle.

I used a plastic crate to separate the rocks and the roots. 

Which worked pretty well.

I guess I need another day of work before the top layer of gardening soil (vermiculite) gets added. 

There are negative sides of living on this island. One is that we are NOT allowed to import any soil, plants or bulbs from the US. Not even when bought in Canada and just transferred through the US. It is not like go shopping at the nearest garden centre whenever you feel for it.

Nay - we have to wait until the ferry starts going again. Then we can go direct to mainland Canada and get  the necessary gardening stuff. But that will be in the end of June, way too late for my garden project.

Many gardeners buy their supplies in the fall, store it and get an early start in May, but I didn't plan that far and now I have to make do with what I can get. 

There are some leftover soil bags at the local grocery, so there is hope. 

For coffee I baked some thin Danish Waffles. I was lucky and found an old fashioned waffle iron on the flee-marked. 

Ingredients for waffles baked with WATER. (We like them crisp)

1 cup       butter

1 cup sugar

   

3   eggs

2 2/3      cup flour       
1/2 tsp   baking powder
1 tsp  vanilla essence
1 cup       cold water (better: club soda)

Beat butter and sugar. Add one egg at a time. Blend baking powder and flour. Mix vanilla and water. Add flour one cup at a time to the egg batter. Add water. Ladle onto waffle iron and bake ca 2 minutes or until brown.
Cool on a rack. Serve sprinkled with icing sugar.

A Lesson in Dog Language

This is what we had for dinner today. 

Asperges, Ham and Mashed Potatoes

But I rather want to tell you about Molly giving me a lesson. I learned some dog language!

This morning she was sitting by the edge of the deck stirring into the rafters above.
Walking over I asked her: " What do you see?  Is there a mouse?" 

(squirrels range under the same word in her language)
She vigorously wagged her tail and stamped her front paws.
I looked around the deck but couldn't see anything. 

"No, Molly there is nothing. It probably has taken off over the roof." 
As I was about to turn away Molly did something she has NEVER done before. She GROWLED! 

Mom! Grrrrr! It's in HERE!

I turned around again. "Where is the mouse? Show me!" And she pointed her nose towards the opening of the down-spout at the corner of the deck.  "Is the mouse in there?" 

Again she growled!
OK. I banged on the plastic pipe and - yes, there was a chattering noise from inside. I banged several times on the pipe and finally the squirrel shot out of the opening! Molly was in a frenzy to get hold of the critter, but of course, it was way faster than the dog. Up in the apple tree it went. 

The squirrel save high up in the apple tree

Molly below the apple tree and keeping an eye on the squirrel. 
(I took this photo last summer, when she was guarding another squirrel.)

Done for the day!

And I learned that my dog actually can "talk" to me.

Molly hat mir heute genau zu verstehen gegeben das sie ein Eichhörnchen gesichtet hatte.

Bleak Sunday - Black Monday

First, I say a warm welcome to Kelly from The Bayfield Bunch and,  Stephen Baird who calls himself "Nikon Sniper".  Both their blogs display lots of gorgeous photos. Thanks for joining my blog. We are not traveling during the spring and summer time, but there is always something else to see and write about.  So just hang in.

Sunday..
I got a bout of writers block. First I tried to get frames around my photos. It should be possible using the HTLM version. Now, I have no clue about this language, so on the net I went and found a webpage where they tutor you how to do things and much more. After a while I got frames around sentences and photos, on their "try-it-yourself pages". Additionally I found out that the HTLM in blogger also uses CSS signs. On I went and tried to learn about this too. By the end it worked fine on the example pages, but when I tried it in the templates, nothing happened.  When I copied the exact version given on a blogger support  page, right into the spot it should go NOTHING changed.
Uggh. Very frustrating and my desire to write about anything that evening was down to zero. The whole night I was doing HTLM in my dreams!

A cool and foggy day today

Monday came..
Another day, another chance. I got some soil into my square frame garden bed. That was the positive thing.
From there on it was just downhill.
J.P. went shopping and came back again with fish. Buying fish on a Monday is never a good thing to do. Definitely not fresh.
Well, he wanted to repeat his fried fish recipe that worked out so well last time. OK. I was doing the veggies and potatoes.
When he started on the batter (flour, baking powder, seasoning and milk) he realized that he forgot to buy the milk.
No problem for his imaginative mind, he substituted milk with sour cream. THAT, he shouldn't have done. When the battered fish hit the heated oil in the pan the whole became ONE BIG MESS!
The batter instantly stuck to the bottom of the pan in a black layer and, when he tried to turn the fish it all came apart. Just mush!
Frustration took over, he muttered and sputtered. "Sh..! Dang! This only good for dog-food", was what I heard among other not mentionable utterings.
The end: started to fry some sausages for himself.
Once i a bad mood my veggies did not please either, "not eatable, too "al dente"!
To patch up  my misdoing I gave up my chocolate pudding to him. Alas, it did not have the effect desired.
Grumbling he grabbed the leash and walked the dog.
While finishing the dishes and cleaning the mess I opened all windows and doors to get rid of the stench.
"Does it still smell?" I asked when he turned into the door.
"No, but it is ice-cold now!" Demonstrative he sunk into his favourite chair wearing a thick fleece jacket.
Well, well. The best is to leave him alone with his laptop and wait until the black clouds have disappeared.
A good sign: he ate the next last bit of the coffee cake and said in my direction: "There is one piece left."
Sorry no pictures. I didn't have the heart to take photos in the kitchen today.  

Gestern war ich wohl zu faul zum Schreiben. Oder besser gesagt frustriert da ich mich den ganzen Tag mit der Komputersprache HTML und CSS rumgeschlagen habe.
Heute war auch kein besonders erfreulicher Tag.