Dinner For Two: 2013-10-06

Friday, 11 October 2013

Corn stalks and tree trimming

What do these two photos have in common?

St. Anne's Anglican Church, built in 1855

and...

... my vegetable garden plot.

The answer: Corn stalks

A photo of my garden plot before I took the corn down.
Today a friend of mine came by to pick the stalks up.

This Sunday Canadians celebrate their "Thanksgiving",
and my humble corn stalks shall help decorate the local church.

Later my friend invited me over to show off how it looked like.
(I will not be able to see it on Sunday as I will be off to work.)

Some stalks adorn the entrance

Beautiful fall leafs brighten up this small church

A few stalks are combined into a nice arrangement

Good Job, Rogette!

After that I started to trim our ancient apple tree.

The tree had grown wild for many years and I decided that a third of the branches had to come down to bring air and light into the crown.
Also, it will be easier to reach up to the apples come next fall.

J.P. took his chain saw to cut the biggest branches into firewood.

All in all a busy day.

The temperatures were up to 66°F (19 °C) in the afternoon. We were able to enjoy lunch and dinner outside on the deck.

Hubby did the dinner job and cooked up a concoction with black beans, tomatoes and BANANAS.

I might write this recipe down one of these days because it was surprisingly good! :))

Gone are the corn stalks. Now are just Cosmos and Calendula to brighten the garden until the frost takes them down as well.

Stay tuned.

Thursday, 10 October 2013

Wrestling with a Leather Leash

The leash is sometimes the most important thing between a dog and its owner. Not that Molly needs a leash, she is well behaved and listens good. But in the Park it is required to have ones dog leashed. So.

The cuprit

Yesterday when Molly suddenly lunged after a squirrel, the leash broke.

Usually the leashes are sewn with a strong thread, like this shown below.

But our particularly one is not. It is only one single long piece of hide.

Nonetheless there is a clip or hook on one end and a loop for the hand on the other. All attached without the use of any thread or rivets.

Why not buy a new one, you could argue?
I am inclined to recycle and the leather is still fairly good higher up. It would be a waste not to give it a try.

I fixed that leash once before, about 7 years ago, but today I had a hard time recalling what I did then. Old age is creeping up on me :))
So this posting about the repair of the leash shall be a reminder "how to".
First I cut off the frazzled end, then I straightened the leather out on both ends.

With a carpet knife and two new incisions were made into the leather at the end where it had broken. The end where the clip is located has 3 incisions close to each other. The end with the handle loop has 2 aligned and one further out.

Now it was just to twist and bend the leather around the hook and itself, and through the holes several times until it looked right. Easy peasy. It is not complicated once you know how.

Well, it took me about an hour to figure it out.

But, I did it!

Molly is 11 years, if the leash holds for another 7....

My guess is that I don't need to buy another one.

Molly dozing off while I was working on the leash.

I hope I didn't tire you out! :))

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Out and about...

As one fellow blogger said: out and about. I was just doing that the last couple of days.
In the beginning of the week a system with heavy wind and rain passed through overnight (Monday/Tuesday). We were lucky - the sun was out again the following morning.
No thoughts of going south yet under such conditions. :))
While I was just about to take a photo of the yellow aspen trees, the sun disappeared behind a cloud and I waited a coupe of minutes until she reappeared. What a difference in colour.