Did Granny New Year find you?

Happy New Year All,

Did Granny New Year find you?

I’m hoping everyone’s New Year will be off to a great start.

There is always promise, hope and of course, new year's resolution to be had. I don’t usually go for this sort of thing because I know it’s just a huge letdown when I break my promises to myself. Which is why I mostly don't announce them to the world.

Anyway, this year I’ve decided to post a few.

1. Have the mortgage paid off by the end of this year.
2. Find a forever fur friend pet. Yup the witch has been looking for a small dog or fun loving cat or even a bunny who needs a good home.
3. Lose some weight and eat even more healthier than we do. Sorry Hubby I’ve found lots of great tasting veggie recipes with kale. Plus walking a dog will help, right!!!
4. Buy a set of snow shoes so we can enjoy the outdoors more in the Winter.
5. Paint the upstairs bathroom and add a new mirror and shelf. Oh Hubby I have some plans for you. Don’t worry this will be easy compared to the Gazebo you built us.
6. Finally buy a generator.
7. Host a murder mystery party
8. New lamps for computer room and down stairs.
9. Try to do acts of kindness more often so I can watch the recipient's reactions. I find they cheer me up more just giving them anonymously .
10. The last one I won’t be sharing with anyone but myself because it is the hardest and most personal decision I will be making. I don’t need the added pressure of having printed it out if I fail.

So there you have it the goals and challenges for 2014.

Thanks for all who still hung around during my absence. That’s what great blogger friends do. (Canadian Saver, I miss you!)

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of my beautiful Amaryllis

My Vegetable Garden

So, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? What’s been going on? Well not much to tell the truth. We’ve been busy with life and I guess I’ve been ignoring The Witch’s Island a bit too much. Thanks to those of you have kept in touch anyway.

The vegetable garden in August 2012, just before the harvest started.

It was a fantastic season for the vegetable garden this year. Lots of sunshine and heat, the plants loved it. Everything produced very well and we had so much that we couldn’t use it all and ended up setting up a table at the end of the driveway to give away the excess. The neighbours seemed to appreciate the gesture and we even received a nice thank-you note from one of them.

The onions were huge this year.

In my last post I mentioned that I had bought most of my seeds from Heritage Harvest Seed. Well their stuff worked great. We planted some of everything I listed except the Steeve’s Caseknife and Jacob’s Cattle beans. There just wasn’t enough room to get those in so they will have to wait until next year. Just about every single seed from Heritage germinated and grew into healthy plants. I always plant more than I intend to grow because there are usually some plants that die but these ones beat the odds. I had so many starters that I was begging my friends to take some. I still ended up putting some healthy little plants on the compost heap. What a shame, but I’ll know not to start so many next spring!

That's one BIG Tomato!

Just about every single seed from Heritage germinated and grew into healthy plants. I always plant more than I intend to grow because there are usually some plants that die but these ones beat the odds. I had so many starters that I was begging my friends to take some. I still ended up putting some healthy little plants on the compost heap. What a shame, but I’ll know not to start so many next spring!

Another thing I learned was that four rows of tomatoes are way too many tomato rows! Even in a poor year it would have been too many and it prevented me from putting in some other things like more beans. Next year I’m going to keep it down to just 2 rows.

Even the ceramic owl seems surprised that that
 tomato weighs almost a kilogram!

I taste-tested all the tomatoes as they ripened but I never did really manage to find a favourite variety. There was obvious differences in size and shape but they all tasted great. I guess if I had to pick I would choose the Bonny Best, Uncle Joe and Sylvan Guame varieties but they were all fantastic!

We used as many of the tomatoes as we could. I made mustard pickles, hot dog relish and even some home-made spaghetti sauce and I ate a lot of cheese and tomato sandwiches this year! I'm going to miss them this winter when all I can get are hot-house tomatoes from the grocery store.

The rest of the garden turned out great as well. It looked pretty, too. Everything was so lush and full that it was hard to get down the rows to do the weeding. I guess that's a good problem to have!

The Red Peanut beans ripened very early and we put them into the potting shed to dry and then shell. we had about 12 or 15 plants (half a row) and they produced a total of about three pounds of dried beans.I haven't eaten any of them yet but we will be baking them this winter. Mmmm...

All the tomatoes from Heritage Harvest Seeds did very well and were
heavy producers.

This was the first time I tried planting Asparagus Peas from Vesey's. The description sounded intriguing:  

"Tasty and attractive addition to your garden. Small winged pods taste similar to asparagus when steamed and topped with butter Red blooms make this plant attractive as well. Low growing and spreading. Continues to produce pods throughout the season. Can be started indoors or planted outside once all chance of frost has passed" 

The plants were very attractive and they were still producing blossoms and fruit right up until the end of October when we cleaned out the garden. They were unusual to eat and were best when they were very young. I will probably put them in again next year just because they looked so nice.

The Asparagus Peas were still blooming late into the year.

So besides the garden, what was I doing this summer? With all the beautiful weather I spent as much time at the beach as I could. The new beach tent worked great and went up and down easily and quickly. It made it so much more comfortable the the old umbrella could have.

I also started geo-caching again and even hid one of my own for the first time. It's a fun hobby and it gets us out of the house and exploring in out of way back roads.

Hubby put the final touches on the gazebo. He added power outlets and a couple of strands of rope lights and then panelled the privacy walls with some nice pine boards. It's a beautiful place now to sit in the evening and watch the world go by.

I guess that that's enough news for now. I'll save the rest for the next time, hopefully it won't be six more months before I write again, but, just in case, Merry Christmas! Haha!

Here are a few more pictures, enjoy!

These are the edible portion of the Asparagus Peas. They look like green
beans with wings and they do taste like asparagus if you cook them right.

We dried the pods in the potting shed and then shelled the beans. They do
indeed look like red peanuts!

We stripped off most of the foliage late in the summer to encourage
all the stragglers to ripen.

The Sylvan Guames were not only huge but they were also very meaty
and had very few seeds.

Here are five more varieties. There were definitely differences in texture,
size, shape and the number of seeds. 

These are Uncle Joes. We used this variety while they were green to
make Vera's Mustard Pickles. 

Forme-de-Coeurs were nicely heart shaped as suggested by their name.

The Forme-de-Coeurs were beautiful inside as well.

The Bisons were a good size for sandwiches.

Harbingers produced early and had lots of fruit.

The Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes had very distinct foliage on the plants.
The tomatoes were very tasty, too!

 These are Black Hungarian peppers. They produced very well.

The Matchbox peppers were very hardy. They were one of the last things
to come out of the garden this fall.

The Red Peanut beans were harvested when the pods turned bright red.

The Banana Spiders were back this year. They seem to be around whenever
the weather gets very hot and dry.

The gazebo was FINALLY finished this year! It got some
 interior panelling, electricity outlets and lights.

Witch Gazebo is Done? Well Mine of Course!

It's DONE!

It started with a couple of drawings and a few photos.

We made a template and installed the footings.

We added landscape cloth and river stones to control the grass and weeds.

We built a platform sturdy enough to constuct a ten story building on.

We added the corner posts to get it up into the air.

Getting the structure of the roof to the top of the posts was a bit of a challenge.

Along the way there were some heavy calculations done along with a lot of head scratching.

The upper roof was added but was quickly deemed to be too small in scale. We lengthened each rafter by a foot or so and came up with a much better diameter.

Eventually, the entire roof structure was completed.

We added some spindles to the upper air vents to provide a little style.

Shingling the roof was a difficult exercise but eventually it got done.

The inside of the roof is a sight to behold. There are a ton of man-hours hidden up there somewhere.

We closed in the two back walls to provide some privacy from the road and we filled the bottom of the other walls with plywood. This is about as far as we got in 2010, the only other thing we did was to cover the privacy walls with cedar shingles.

The first task of the new year was to install the floor. It was so nice to be able to take the chairs inside and sit down that we started using it right away.

Then we added a set of stairs so we didn’t have to crawl in anymore. This was much easier than expected to accomplish.

The window sills and casings were added next.

The trim was all painted and then the walls were covered in tarpaper before the siding was added.

The window screen frames were made and then covered with screen.

The door was installed next. We bought it on sale last year from the hardware store and painted it in the basement over the winter.

The floor was finished off with a coat of Thompson’s Waterseal.

The last task was to apply the water sealer to all the exterior siding. At some time in the near future we may add some electric power and some lights to the gazebo but for now the building is done.

This project did take up a huge amount of time over two summers. It cost a good chunk of money, too. We think it's worth it though and doesn't it looks pretty back here in the yard?

Just a last note on the budget. We planned to spend about $4000 for our gazebo and we came in just about right on target. In 2010 we spent $3940 and in 2011 it has been another $520 for a total of $4460. Of course, that doesn’t include any labour cost. Thankfully Hubby works for love and beer! Want us to come and build one for you? Not a chance!

Summertime Picture Post

So, where has the Witch been for the last month? Well, I’ve been a bit of a beach bum. Yes, you read that right. I purchased a new bathing suit, a bikini no less, and we have been going to the shore every chance we get. Even I, who is deathly afraid of the water (there are CRABS in the water, you know!) have been in for a swim. We have just been in the water, on the beach and under our umbrella while the winds were blowing so hard I literally had to hold on to keep it from blowing away! But it has all been fun and I’m loving it, when we get any sunshine that is. I even had a wardrobe malfunction with the new suit (Hubby was surprised) but sorry there are no details I’m going to share.

Here's me trying to keep my beach umbrella from blowing away again.

Look at my brave Hubby, out there wading amongst the CRABS!

So now you know why the Witch has been derelict in her blog posting. I decided the summer is too short to waste inside on the computer so it’s off to the beach we go. Well, okay, we have also been busy with the gardens, and of course the MOTHER!*//%** gazebo. What’s that Hubby? It’s almost finished? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha… what’s that?.. oh… you were serious… sorry!

Anyway, for now, I’m going to leave you with a collection of pictures which I hope you all enjoy. They are just a random collection from the past month or so.

Also, we are trying out a few changes to the design of the Witch’s Island so please be patient as we gear up some new stuff. Let us know how you like them.

Enjoy your day everyone, I’m heading to the beach again and I’m going to try to keep my swim suit on this time!

These shorebirds were having a field day running back and forth. I don’t know if they were feeding or just playing!

Some black headed gulls on the beach at low tide.

I found this message painted onto a rock while I was hunting for driftwood. They were obviously talented people but who goes to the beach with their paintbox?

The sky has been looking ominous for most of the summer. This particular system was very intense but not the worst we have had this year.

The vegetable garden was doing pretty good back in mid July.

By early August it was doing even better. The carrots, the beets and beans have been on our dinner menu almost every day for the past week.

My gazebo has finally got some stairs so now I don’t need to crawl in. Here are the stairs just minutes after Hubby finished building them (Please don’t tell him that I let it slip that it took him over SIX hours to make them!).

Here are the stairs again the next morning after being treated with the water sealer. We used Thompson’s brand and it did a great job on the cedar.

The final bit of construction prior to adding the siding was the window casing and now that is all done, too.

Okay, Hubby. You did great getting all that finished. Go and get that beer… Hubby? Hubby? All right, now where did he get to?

The flower gardens are doing pretty good, too. The lilies have all come out in bloom at the same time and they are just a riot of colours.

Here’s a close-up of one of the pink ones. They are huge, about 6 inches across and they smell wonderful, too.

The grapes are doing great this year. It’s going to be our best harvest ever as long as we get to them before the birds do.

The farmers have planted a lot of canola this year and when it blooms it turns this intense colour of yellow. So beautiful!

That’s me standing out on the back deck admiring all our hard work.

As another summer storm builds in the evening sky I will say see you later.

One last picture of me staring down the world’s ugliest Llama. That is all.