Waiting for my garden

I shovelled way the last chunky pile of snow that was lurking in a dark corner. The ground still freezes, my grass is brown and my gardens are filled with scruffy dead plants. If I didn’t have pictures of my beautiful flowers from last summer I am not sure that I would believe that they ever existed.

I moved into this house last June. Believe it or not that is early spring. We don’t plant things outdoors until the last weekend in May or the first weekend in June. I planted some snapdragons and nicotinas in large green pots by the front door.

As the days and weeks passed I noticed some small green spears poking up through the earth in my garden. I was shocked when these spears can into full bloom of rich and beautiful tiger lilies.

A few weeks ago I bought some seeds and soil and those little peat cups and plastic trays. I bought nasturtiums, salvia, thunbergia vine (black eyed Susan), purple morning glories, heavenly blue morning glories, cosmos (lady birds) and coreopsis. This weekend I am going get them started and plant them in the ground outside in six weeks.

Cruise and Wait and Cruise and Rise

Easter has never really had any religious meaning to me. As a kid it was all about the Easter bunny scattering a trail of chocolate through out the house for my brother, sister and I to gorge ourselves on sometimes resulting, in my case, in vomiting from over consumption. Since moving out on my own he or she (I suspect the Easter bunny is a she – who else would distribute that much chocolate?) seems to have lost my address.

The other major indicator of Easter is the plethora of delicious homemade hot crossed buns from a recipe has been handed down from generation to generation on my mom’s side of the family. The last few years (since moving to the other side of the country from my parents and not being able to raid their hot crossed bun supply) I have joined in on the tradition and have baked my own. Now I am a vegan so I had to tweak the recipe a bit but when I follow the directions correctly (I have a habit of messing up the wet to dry ratio creating barely edible hot crossed pucks) I make a pretty darn good bun. I question the integrity of those small strange candied fruits and choose to replace them with dried cranberries and blueberries.

(the dough pre-rolling pin)
I don’t have a rolling pin but have found in past years that wine bottles work great! We drank all the wine the other night and actually took all the empties to the bottle depot. I was worried that I would have nothing to roll the dough out with but in the dark recesses of the back of the fridge I found one of those skinny bottles of dessert wine. It is a homemade dessert wine and I am afraid of the hangover potential lurking inside the bottle waiting spew on me from morning to night so I have not tasted it yet. I imagine one day when a bunch of friends are over and we have drank the liquor cabinet dry we will break into this bottle. Until then I think it is a handy little rolling pin.

I think I will head out on my cruiser while I am waiting fo the dough to rise.

The Finished Product!!! I think this is my best turn out yet. The only problem is...i ate too many!

Hazelton Hounds

This is Chip. He is great. He is like a little dog stuck inside of a big dog’s body. I don’t mean that he is yappy or snappy or annoying but that he leaps and jumps and plays like a puppy and has no idea just how big he is. He knocks over beer, bumps into furniture and steps on your feet but is so nice and so cute and so sweet and has a pretty groovy owner too. And Mia is Chip’s partner in crime. She is funny and sweet and silly and loves her Papa so much. She likes to play and has some really stinky farts (unless it was Mike trying to cover up his own stinky butt). I mean look at that wiggly little tail. How can you not love her?

What a great ski!!!

I had a great day. I got to go skiing with 5 dogs and 5 people. It was so great.

Then we ran into Heather on the lake with her three dogs and the chaos erupted. It was so great.

Toby Misses Mom

Toby suffers from separation anxiety. She is my roommate’s dog and Leah, my roommate, is in Vancouver for a week and a half visiting her sisters. Toby is upset. When Toby is upset she likes to chew things. Yesterday while I was at work she decided to take her anxieties out on my bras. She chewed up every single one of them except for the one I was wearing.
Although I am very upset with this little dog I also understand where she is coming from. Life can be really upsetting sometimes which causes some of us to be destructive. I myself tend to get self-destructive when I am really upset.

A Sad Story

Yael Wand is a wonderful musician. She recently put out her second album and has been touring the province of British Columbia with amazing cellist, Christina Zaenker. Yael’s husband Jason flew down south to Vancouver to join the tour and accompany Yael on the epic drive back up north to Smithers. While they are both away I am taking care of their dog Story. Story has recently had a bout of bad luck. She fell out of the back of a truck and broke her back left leg. A metal plate was implanted to hold the bone together but it pulled away and made everything more uncomfortable. Now she has some strange sort of contraption on the outside of her skin making her look like a crazy cyber-dog. She has finally settled and is laying down and sleeping a lot but earlier she was pacing and panting and standing and staring at the floor. She keeps trying to worm her way behind furniture but she cannot turn around and she keeps getting the metal contraption caught on things. I will hear a shuffling, scuffling sound and find her stuck behind the couch. I have to go and move the furniture so that she can get out and then try to move it back in a way that she cannot get behind it. Poor Story. Yael and Jason should get home some time today.