Photos from a morning walk

Another warm humid day. Stepping outside was like stepping into a shower, but without water. These are the portulaca that are growing around our post light. They are doing well in the warm dry weather we have been having.

Freda was enjoying walk, although not the deer flies that were buzzing around.

The lake looked so pretty this morning too.

I have seen a chickadee around every now and then, but they are such quick birds that I usually am unable to take a photo of them. I managed to grab two photos this morning, and this is the best one... (And it's not very good!)

Tomatoes are doing well

All the warmth and sun means the tomato plants are doing well. Although we have to give them a good drink every day since they are in pots. There are two different kinds of tomatoes, a cherry tomato and beefsteak kind of tomato. Can you tell which is which?

All the hot weather lead to extreme weather warning. First we saw dark clouds around us. We could hear thunder and saw rain falling to the north and west.


And then we got some quite severe winds. The red lines indicates the normal line where this little maple tree usually stands. It was almost bent over.

The elm tree in the front yard was really blowing all over - we thought that perhaps some branches might break off. The sign was blowing past horizontal - as indicated by the blue line.

We got a little bit of rain, but not enough. The lawn is looking parched as you can see. I put the hose on for the elm and the service berry tree on Thursday.

Summer Berry Clafoutis

We had a few raspberries left from making the jam, and we saw this delicious looking recipe for Summer Berry Clafoutis in a magazine. It looked so good that I decided to try to make it. The instructions said it was easy to make, so that was a real bonus (especially for me!).

So I prepared the ingredients: egg, milk, flour, vanilla, salt, sugar, and butter.

I put the raspberries and blueberries in a buttered pan. I thought I would cook up a bit of rhubarb and add it, but I overdid the rhubarb and it is just sort of gloppy (as you can tell).

The pan is a bit too full because I used more fruit than the recipe called for in it. We had about 3 cups of raspberries left so I put them all in, even though the recipe only called for 2c of raspberries. Because of the added fruit, I added a bit extra sugar (actually, Splenda).

I poured the mixture over the berries and put it into the oven.


Taz was watchfully eyeing me with studied disinterest... I think he was hoping I was preparing something with meat in it. No such luck, buddy!

Because I had put too many berries in the pan, it took quite a bit longer for the dough mixture to cook through. And also it spilled over in the oven. :(

After it cooled off somewhat, we enjoyed a some of it with some whipped cream.

Overall evaluation: the recipe was easy to make, and absolutely was delicious!! I will definitely make it again but I won't add extra berries.

One of our neighbours gave us some rhubarb, so I decided to make Strawberry Rhubarb Compote. From what I can tell by looking at the recipes, compote is basically a fifty dollar word to say "stewed"...

I cut up the rhubarb and sprinkled it with some sugar and let it sit in the pot, so the juices would come out. I let it sit for a couple of hours. Then I put it on the stove to bring it to a boil and then simmered it for 10-15 minutes. Since strawberries are softer than rhubarb, and I wanted the strawberries to have a bit of texture to them, I cut up some strawberries and added it to the rhubarb mixture after it had been simmering for about 10 minutes. After it cooled for a while, I put the compote into a container and put it into the fridge overnight.

The clafoutis recipe said it was also delicious for breakfast, so Freda and I decided that we would have it for breakfast, along with some of the strawberry rhubarb compote. I added a dab of whipped cream because it sets off the deep reds and purple of the fruit. YUMMMY!!!!

July 7 - Hot!!!

Nothing likes the hot humid weather. Even the birds are quiet until dusk. Although, the portulaca likes the hot dry weather. This is the lone portulaca in the front rose garden.

The roses are recovering from their traumatic insect attacks.

8am and 27C. We sat on the porch and enjoyed some coffee. And then we went inside to the air conditioned comfort!

This pano shows the haze from the humidity. Although 27C isn't too comfortable at 8am, I still prefer it to -27C... :) That time will come soon enough, unfortunately!

It's HOT!!!!

HOT HOT HOT!!!!

34C in the shade. No wind. HOT!!!!

Leaving the nest

The baby robins have left the nest!!

Okay, this isn't a baby robin, it's not even a robin. It is Tawny, as you already know, but I thought it was kind of neat because it shows a deer fly just above her eye on the left, you can even see the fly's shadow there too!

The baby robins are getting big! This was taken yesterday - July 4th.

Freda said she couldn't see the baby robins, so I grabbed the camera and took this photo.

I took this photo a couple of seconds later (sorry it's a bit blurry), and then the baby robin at the left of the photo leaped off the edge. Then the other baby followed suit! We didn't see them on the ground, so the babies must be able to fly, at least a little bit!

Critters - July 4th

A bunny just outside the fence. I don't think this is the one that Taz chased around our yard a few weeks ago, as it seems smaller than that one.

I set the camera to take a sequence of 30 photos at 40 fps. Then I selected 8 of them for this collage.

A flying bug with big long legggggs. Such a delicate pattern on the wings.

This is one of a pair of hawks that was flying around. I was trying to get a photo of them soaring with wings outstretched, but this is the best photo that I have.

Rasberry Jam - yumm!!!!

We went to some friends for Canada Day - it's sort of a Regina Refugee tradition. When we were there, Freda went over to get Wilma, who lives across the street. Wilma was in her back yard picking raspberries and invited Freda to go and pick some. So we did and we picked a large bowl full of plump juicy raspberries! Freda made two pies (need 4 cups each) and we had about the same amount again of fresh berries.

Wilma invited us to go and pick berries again, because they were so ripe they were just falling off the bushes, so we took Colleen (one of our neighbours) and did just that on July 3rd. Freda made another pie and I made jam - 3 batches in total.

This is a photo of the 2nd batch. I decided to do a double batch this time.

Stopped stirring for a second so I could take a photo. This is just before adding the sugar.

Here are the hot jars of jam, cooling off. It was nice hearing the click of the lids as they sealed. Only one jar didn't take, and that was the tall skinny jar at the back left row in this photo. It's in the fridge now and we will have that first.

The label for the raspberry jam: Picked and prepared on July 3, 2010.

Bear attack!!!

We woke up to a glorious day on July 2nd. Then we noticed that the bird feeder that I put sesame seeds in had been knocked down and was actually outside the fence. I brought it inside the fence and didn't think anything of it at the time.

Then I started to think -- what could have done that? A raccoon? But it would have to be a very large and strong raccoon. A bear? No, couldn't possibly be.

When I was picking up the bird feeder, I noticed that the top of the fence was all dirty, and some of the fence was bent down. Wow! I don't think a raccoon would do that. This is making me think it was a bear...

So I went and looked at the bird feeder and the fence again... This was a big scratch on the top of the bird feeder. The feeder is made of soft pine, but that is a large span for all the claw marks. There is a lighter claw mark to the right of the very visible scratch. Hmmm, so 5 claw marks.

This is at one end of the feeder. Some claw scratches and a tooth mark! Now that is definitely not a raccoon!

Hmm, more impressions - is this from teeth or claws?

So I refilled the bird feeder and hung it up. The ^^ characters indicated where the biggest gouges on the feeder are. The other side of the top of the feeder is hinged for refilling, in case you are wondering.

A neighbour who knows more about these things was over and he said it was a bear. He asked if there was any hair around, and I said I didn't see any. He said a bear will often leave hair around, which is how you can know it was a bear.

UPDATE: July 4th

We woke up this morning and saw the bird feeder like this. So it looked like the bear had tried to get the bird food again. It was obviously a fairly good size bear to be able to stand up and swat the feeder off the hooks, but not quite big enough to be able to grab it and pull it off...

I went out to see if there was any hair, and sure enough - there was hair this time. I decided it would be more prudent to take the bird feeder down, as there is lots of food around for the birds in the summer.

Happy Canada Day!

July 1st is Canada Day - so Happy Canada Day everyone!!

Freda and I saw this wild turkey wandering around behind our fence this morning. It went back and forth for several minutes. We kept the dogs inside until the turkey disappeared into the bush.

I thought this photo was neat because it shows so many birds in flight at the same time.

The baby robins are getting bigger. We think there are three of them in the nest.

Mama comes to feed her babies... Isn't it amazing how these babies can stretch their necks way up high and open their beaks so wide!! FEED ME!!!