Games Night is Always Lots of Fun.

A new Easter flag to welcome our friends to Games Night!

Well, Games Night has come and gone for another year and I think it was a great success despite the fact that I was suffering with a miserable cold. Luckily, I had made most of the preparations and gathered all the games and prizes the previous week so all that was left to do was clean the house and prepare the meal. This being Easter weekend there were bunnies everywhere.Everything was done nice and early, and because it was such a beautiful day outside, Hubby washed Black Beauty (again!) so that he could show it off to our friends. It does look great when it is clean and the sun is shining on it.

Every one arrived shortly after 3:00 and Hubby took the guys out for a spin around the block in the new truck (so much for it being clean, sigh). When they got back we put out some snacks and got everyone a drink and the we got right into the games!

It was a beautiful day so Hubby decided to
wash Black Beauty, (AGAIN!).

It is a pretty truck, especially when it's
gleaming in the sunlight!

The first game was the Elimination Game. Last week I mailed each of the four guests ten playing cards and I gave Hubby his own set of ten right before the game. There were two cards left over in case anyone wanted to trade. I had a matching set of cards in a bag and, one by one, I pulled out each card and the corresponding card was eliminated. After each group of ten cards there was a small consolation prize and the person with the final card got to select a prize from the Prize Basket. All the prizes were wrapped so that nobody knew what they were getting but these guys have all been here before so the knew to go right for the packages that felt like boxes of chocolates! Everyone loves chocolates, right? The other prizes included shower gel, packs of Kleenex, a novel, a puzzle book, lottery tickets, etc. There wasn't anything really expensive, it was all just for a laugh. The winner of the Elimination game, not surprisingly, managed to find the biggest box of chocolates!

The Easter Bunny Girls.

The dining room / games table is all
set for a night of fun!

A close-up of my beautiful birthday orchid.

Home-made butter tarts were just part of the dessert menu.

Here are the games and the prize basket.

The Elimination game is under way!

The winner of the Elimination game gets to select the
first prize from the basket.

The next game was trivia contest. I found a great and timely quiz on the CBC website about the recent demise of the penny. The quiz is just below and I'll put the answers at the end of this post if you want to play.

PENNY TRIVIA
1. Four of the five designs that have appeared on the reverse side of the penny have included maple leaves. What was the fifth design?
A portrait of a rock dove
A rendering of the Atlantic puffin
A view of the St. Lawrence River
A sketch of the Canadian Rockies

2. About 35 billion pennies have been minted since 1908. If they were stacked on top of each other, this would be the equivalent height of this many CN Towers:
100
1,000
100,000
1,000,000

3.The federal government announced plans to withdraw the penny, owing to production costs. How much did it cost to make one penny?
1.6 cents
2 cents
3.1 cents
5 cents

4. The net cost of redeeming the six billion pennies expected to be turned in over the next six years will cost the federal government:
$10,500
$125,000
$3,000,000
$38,300,000

5.How many pennies can you cram into a four-litre pickle jar?
344 pennies, or $3.44
4,992 pennies or $49.92
12,280 pennies or $122.80
175,333 pennies or $1,753.33

6.This country has also eliminated the single-unit coin from circulation:
New Zealand
France
Spain
All of the above

7.The last penny was produced in May 4, 2012 in which city?
London, England
Ottawa, Ont.
Winnipeg, Man.
Calgary, Alta.

8.A rare Canadian penny sold for $402,500 US at auction in January 2010. The penny, one of three ever made, bears this unique feature:
A misspelling of the word "Canada"
A small dot below the year
Renderings of both King George V and Edward VII
A hexagon shape

9.The letters KG appear on the penny below the maple leaf. This stands for:
King George, in honour of the monarch who preceded Queen Elizabeth
Kingston and Gatineau, to mark Canada's bilingual tradition
George Edward Kruger Gray, the artist who designed the maple leaf twig design for the penny
Kilogram, a reference to the metric unit of measurement standard in Canada

10.Pennies produced from 1982 to 1996 were unique in this respect:
They were made of copper-plated zinc
They were no longer round but rather had 12 sides
They didn't have "Canada" printed on them
They were extra lucky

After that we tried playing a game called "Don't Fall" but Larry got a perfect score of eleven on his first try so we stopped there and moved on to the Memory Test. This proved to be a lot harder. Everyone got to study a plate that held 13 items for 30 seconds and then the plate was taken away. The most anyone could remember was 11 of the 13. More surprisingly, when we we repeated the test later in the evening with the same items, most people did even worse!

Larry played this winning entry in the "Don't Fall" game
in his first try!

This is the Memory Test Game. The best anyone
could do was 11 of 13 items.

We stopped for supper at that point. We had Cabernet Beef Stew and Home-made Cheese Biscuits for the meal and pumpkin pie with whipped cream, key lime tarts and butter tarts (all home-made as well) for dessert. Nobody went away hungry!

Freddy was the King of backgammon and,
 of course, crokinole!

The only game I won all night was Blockus!

After supper we went back to the games. We had a game of Yahtzee with everyone and then we broke up into  a couple of groups and played crokinole and Blockus. Blockus was the only game I won all night but by then all the prizes had been given out. Oh, well. It probably wouldn't have looked good if I awarded myself a prize! We had great fun even though I didn't feel well and I'm looking forward to the next time we have Games Night, maybe it should be a semi-annual event!

(answers to the penny quiz - (1) A portrait of a rock dove, (2) 100,000, (3) 1.6 cents, (4) $38,300,000, (5) 4,992 pennies or $49.92, (6) All of the above, (7) Winnipeg, Man., (8) A small dot below the year, (9) George Edward Kruger Gray, the artist who designed the maple leaf twig design for the penny, (10) They were no longer round but rather had 12 sides)

Spring Sure Is A Busy Time!

Well, it’s been over a month since I sat down to write a post and, while I have been feeling guilty, I just couldn’t seem to find the time required. So while my cakes are in the oven and because the rain is pouring down outside this afternoon and the wind is pounding the house I guess that my outside chores will have to wait. Let’s catch up.

In my last post I was looking forward to the imminent arrival of spring but winter was still hanging around. We took a drive to the beach to go for a walk and passed this fox out doing the same thing. Well, the walking part that is, a fox would look silly driving don’t you think? We saw him coming towards us as we drove up the road so we pulled off to the side and grabbed the camera. The fox came right over and sat down 10 feet from the car and let us shoot as many pictures as we wanted. After a few minutes he got bored and walked away but we had a nice visit until then.

This red fox walked over to see if we had any interesting snacks to eat.

He came right over to the middle of the road. I’m glad there was no other traffic.

Here, get my good profile!

Well, if you haven’t got anything to eat I’m not even going to look at you.

And then he was gone.

After the fox left we continued on to the beach but it was very cold and windy. Too cold really to enjoy ourselves so after watching the waves crash onto the shore for a couple of minutes we turned around and went back to the car. The only beach-combing find was this happy looking ball I discovered rolling along the dune. It cheered me right up!

My new happy sunflower beach ball.

A couple of weeks ago we finally held the twice-deferred Games Night and it was a big success. It took me a few days to get the food and the treats ready but it was worth the effort in the end. We had lasagna and Caesar salad for dinner and butter tarts for dessert. We played crokinole, Uno and cribbage and of course I had my trivia/brain teaser contest. The winner of each game got to select a gift package from the “Basket of Goodies”. Some of the prizes were boxes of chocolates, tubes of body wash, a small flashlight, packs of Kleenex, first-aid kits and home-made pickles and relish. They were inexpensive, small items but they were unexpected and a big hit. Surprisingly, the winners were evenly distributed and everybody went home with goodies. I think everyone had a good time, I know I did!

The day of Games Night was spent baking up a storm. We had the butter tarts for dessert.

Only the best is good enough for our guests. Crown Royal and butter tarts, mmm…

Game boards, check. Basket of Goodies, check. Let’s play!

After Games Night came my birthday. Yes, the Witch is another year older and closer to retirement, yahoo! I took the day off work as a present to myself (it was Friday so I got a long weekend) and Hubby surprised me by doing the same thing. We went down to the big city where he took me out to a fancy restaurant for wine and dinner. We both had great meals and then we went home for cake and presents. The best ones were a pair of ceramic toad houses shaped like mushrooms from Hubby and a pair of cowboy boots from my Mom.

Don’t you just love that moment before you rip into a big pile of presents?

Toadstool-shaped toad houses.

My new boots. All I need now are the spurs!

The weather has been improving by leaps and bounds this past couple of weeks and we have been getting outside to do the yard cleanup in the areas where the snow has melted. It really went down much quicker than I expected and now there are only a few places under the trees where any remains. It left behind the usual mess in the yard. Mouse tracks in the grass, flattened pumpkins in the garden, driveway stones thrown out by the snow blower, leaves, branches and cones from the trees, even the eyes and buttons from our snowman. It all needed to be picked up. Luckily Hubby was able to collect most of it with the tractor and the lawn sweeper but it took 4 hours to do it.

If you look closely you can see the remains of the snowman laying on the grass.

This is all that is left of last year’s pumpkins.

We’ve also started working in the gardens. Hubby took the rotiller out of the shed to see if it would start and it fired on the second attempt. While it was running he took it over to the veggie patch to see how dry the soil was and he found that it was in good shape so he gave it a little rip. It sure looks better with the ground freshly turned but now I’m getting anxious to get my starters planted. Yesterday we went to Vesey's and spent over $50 on seeds and starter trays. We bought way more than we need but if you’re a gardener and you see what they have on offer you would probably buy extra, too.

This year the rotiller started right up and ran strongly.

The garden soil looks so rich when it is freshly turned.

We went seed shopping on Saturday!

We got:
• Rutabaga; York
• Cucumber; Raider
• Tomato; Tomande, ApplauseTiny Tim and Bobcat
• Swiss Chard; Burpee’s Rhubarb
• Radish; Cherry Belle
• Carrots; Neptune
• Thyme; German Winter Thyme
• Beets; First Crop, Rodina and Detroit Dark Red
• Beans; Lewis, Gold Rush and Royal Burgandy
• And Moonflowers!

I think we may need to expand the garden again this year!

Anyway that’s what we have been doing lately. So consider yourself all caught up. Here’s a few more pictures including some busy bees happily pollinating the first flowers to show up in the front garden. Enjoy.

The gazebo survived its first winter in good shape. Maybe we’ll get it finished this year.

The front garden is finally out from underneath the snow and the perennials are starting to regrow.

My new toadhouses are outside and ready for tenants.

This bee was busy working on an early arrival in the front garden.

This little patch of flowers was just swarming with bees and flies.

When Life Gives You Lemons, Build Yourself A Snowman!

Well the weather is just not co-operating in the least this winter. Games Nite got cancelled again last night because of an incoming snow storm. We had planned on having it last month but sad circumstances meant that it would have to be delayed. Last night was supposed to be our backup date and I spent a lot of time getting everything ready, food, house-cleaning and surprises but we could tell from early in the morning that the snow was going to interfere. The last thing that we want is for our friends to have an accident on their way home from a dinner party. So when the snow had still not relented by late afternoon we postponed the event for another week. Maybe, just maybe, we will get a break although snow is forecast for just about every day next week.

Look at that guy. Don’t you want to give him a hug?

The games were all lined up and ready to go.

Two ounces for gentlemen, three ounces for pigs, four ounces for jackasses. Who’s going to measure anyway?

So, what do you do when life gives you lemons? Well if your lemons come in the form of endless snow you build a snowman! Doing all the housework yesterday meant that we would have the whole day to do what we wanted to for a change. What a great break! The snow was perfect, too. It was nice and damp because the temperature is just about at the freezing point so it didn’t take long to roll up three big sections. This is the first snowman we have made here at the new place. Hopefully nobody is going to come along and trash him like the last one we made. Maybe the hooligans won’t notice us out here in the country!

We have all kinds of building material for snowman construction!

The snowman turned out great! I would say that he is our best effort in years but, well, he’s our only effort in years. Doesn’t he look happy? What a great way to lighten up a dreary winter day!

All snowmen should be just this happy!

Looking at the gazebo it’s hard to believe that spring is only a month away.

New Desk Top Picture, & Earth Hour Rocked

Hope you like my new desk top picture for this week. It was shot out on our front walkway. We had had a light dusting of snow over the weekend but these crocus' didn't care. They pushed their way through to spread their joy. Hopefully March will go out the the proverbial lamb in the next few days and that this is the last of winter.



Earth Hour was very quiet around here. We just had some candles for light as Hubby and I played cribbage. I won three games out of three and luckily for him it was then time to turn on the lights and watch T.V. I guess he wasn't up to anymore that night anyway, (can't imagine why) what with me singing "We Are The Champions" in the background. I don't usually win so I guess I went a bit overboard with the singing and all but I was still in birthday mode so maybe that's how I got away with it. It was a great day.

Games Night Was A Great Success

Saturday night was Games Night here at the Witch's Island and, by all apppearances, it was a roaring success. Our guests arrived around 4:30 which gave us all a chance to chat a bit and have a drink (okay, maybe more than one) before sitting down for dinner. We had some Dr. Dimento's chili over rotini pasta, a nice fresh garden salad and some hot biscuits right out of the oven. Mmmm... very tasty! For dessert we had the butter tarts that you can see in the picture below. Then it was on to the games!





Hubby and I spent some time this week trying out some of the older games just so that we would know how to play them. When was the last time you played "Clue"? I don't remember it being so complicated. Maybe it would have been better when everyone was playing but during our trial run we were playing two hands each and we never did solve the mystery. "Clue" and "Rook" were the only games that we didn't actually play last night. "Uno" was the big hit but the guys had a lot of fun playing crokinole and cribbage. The girls and I had a laugh answering a questionaire I found on Carolee's blog "Musings from Behind the Easel". I'll add my answers at the end of this post.



I think we all had a fun night. The last people left somewhere close to two a.m. so today we're having a very quiet afternoon. Thankfully, house-cleaning was all done yesterday so now we can just sit back with the blinds down and a cool, damp cloth over our eyes!

What Would You Be?

(originally from Lori Anderson's "Pretty Things" blog)

If I were a month I’d be October
If I were a day I’d be Friday
If I were a time of day I’d be midnight
If I were a planet I’d be Saturn

If I were a sea animal I’d be a squid
If I were a direction I’d be forward
If I were a piece of furniture I’d be covered in soft leather
If I were a liquid I’d be French wine

If I were a gem stone I’d be sapphire
If I were a tree I’d be as sugar bush maple

If I were a tool I’d be a hammer
If I were a flower I’d be a lily of the valley

If I were an element of weather I’d be the wind
If I were a musical instrument I’d be a harp
If I were a color I'd be orange

If I were an emotion I’d be joyful

If I were a fruit I’d be a honey crisp apple
If I were a sound I’d be thunder
If I were an element I'd be fire

If I were a car I’d be a Ferrari

If I were a food I’d be cheeseburger
If I were a place I’d be Sable Island
If I were a material I'd be the softest chamois

If I were a taste I’d be sweet

If I were a scent I’d be fruity

If I were a body part I’d be eyes
If I were a facial expression I'd be a smile
If I were a song I’d be uplifting.

If I were a bird I'd be an owl

If I were a gift I'd be a book
If I were a street I'd be a dead end

If I were a city I'd be Quebec
If I were a door I'd be open

If I were a pair of shoes I’d be Prada (just cause I’ll never be able to afford them!)

And what would you be?

2010 Olympics

In just two days Canada is playing host to the greatest sporting event in the world! Yes, even bigger than the Superbowl. You will be able to cheer on our athletes in lots of exciting sports at lots of exciting new venues. I wish that I had a favourite sport to report about but, really, I love them all. I can hardly wait for the opening ceremonies this Friday to see Clara Hughes carry the Canadian flag into the stadium.

We were in BC 5 years ago on a holiday with my father and my sister. I had won a trip from work to anywhere in the country that Air Canada flies and it just so happened that they were going to go out west that year. We tagged along at next to no cost to us and we had a fantastic time. While we were in British Columbia they were gearing up for the Olympics, expanding highways and building hotels and venues. It seemed like it was so far in the future then, but I guess that they really needed the time to get it done. My father was so excited by all this and he was even talking about going back to Vancouver to volunteer. Unfortunately, he passed away two years later so he will not be able to take part. His enthusiasm is still with me though and I'm looking forward to watching these games because of him.

The last time the Olmpics were in Canada I was fortunate enough to be selected to be one of the torch bearers on its trip across the country. I was really into figure skating then. Brian Orser, Kurt Browning, Tracy Wilson, Rob McCall and Elizabeth Manning were the big Canadian stars at the time and we were all expecting big things from them at the games. They didn't disappoint either, coming through with a pair of silver medals, a bronze and an eighth place for Browning. It was a great set of games and I was proud to have been a participant, if merely at the volunteer stage. My name even made it into the book they published about the torch run, you can see it there if you know where to look.

By the way, I have decided that I'm not going to enter the "Biggest Loser" challenge at work. I may have mentioned that they were going to run the contest as a fund-raiser and I was thinking that it would be great motivation to get back into my "skinny" jeans for the summer. Then I tried on the jacket that I wore 22 years ago for the torch run and I decided that maybe I was okay after all. Best not to upset the others who have entered by saying that I need to lose 10 pounds.



Watch the games, folks. Go Canada, Go!

Our Christmas Party

We had a little get together with close friends last night for some finger food, drinks and lots of laughs. We also played a few games, crokinole and chess (the latter is so much fun after a few rummy eggnogs). We always have a great time with this group and I'm planning a games night of some sort for the New Year. I can hardly wait.

I've finished my Christmas shopping and it's all wrapped up. I'm just waiting for Santa to hopefully drop by (I think I've been a good girl). We'll just have to wait and see!