More Tomatoes in the Tomato Series

These little cherry tomatoes are called, 'Black Pearl Hybrid'.  I bought the plant because the photo on the tag showed a very dark burgundy, almost black cherry tomato.  But they have not lived up to their colour promise.  Although they are darker than other cherry tomatoes, they are not as dark as I would have liked them to be.  They are more burgundy at the top.

But what they lack in colour, they make up in flavour.  These are so sweet!  I love them in salads.  They are not as prolific as the tag promised.  Unless we get some nice cool, sunny weather, this plant is just about finished.

This is my smallest tomato plant.  Even though they we supposed to grow to into large sprawling plants, bearing lots of fruit in large clusters, this is what I actually have ended up with.  But if it sounds like I am complaining, I am not.  I love these little tomatoes.  They are the sweetest cherry tomatoes I have ever tasted.  And I love them.

It seems that my resident squirrels also like them.  Here is evidence that someone was snacking on one.  Those squirrels are so cheeky.  And notice, they didn't want to eat the skins.

Mimi is looking very mangy lately.  She does not want to clean herself and she hates me to brush her.  But I still love my baby.

Future Salsa

More tomatoes in my 'Tomato Series'.  These are ordinary red tomatoes - like the kind you find in the stores.  They are a variety called 'Early Girl'.  I always plant one of these because they produce ripe fruit about 2-3 weeks earlier than other varieties.  But this year it has been hot, so everything matured at about the same time.  And many of my Early Girls got cracks in them.  They are good-tasting tomatoes - don't get me wrong, but with all the other varieties, I just can't eat them all.  So these are going into a pot later today, to be made into Salsa.

Another variety that I have lots of is called 'Sweet 100'.  I love these for snacking and salads.  Another way I like to serve them is grilled with a bit of olive oil.  I put them on pasta, rice and salads or mix them with some garlic, basil and little mozzarella cheese cubes and make them into Bruschetta.  Yum!  This photo shows only a fraction of these little tomatoes that I have.  The vines are still loaded with them.  I think I will add them to my Salsa, just to use them up.

The only thing I am out of to make my salsa is some coriander and a hot pepper or two.  I am not sure when I can get out to buy some.  You see, it is raining here today.  Yes!  I said rain!  I took a photo out the front door because I had forgotten what a day of soft rain looks like.  It is cooler too!  My grass is very nice and green again.  And my Black-Eyed-Susans.  Aren't they nice and bright on this dark day?

Well, I think I am off to my sewing room.  I want to work on some UFOs.  But first I have to clean up in there.  You see, I can't find my sewing machine!

Scrappy Star Blocks for August

I completed 2 Scrappy Star Blocks for August.  This quilt along is so easy.  Go on over to Terry's blog and take a look.   You may want to join in.  I'm not kidding.  There is still lots of time.  It only takes 2 blocks per month to stay on top of things.  But I warn you.  They are addictive.

To continue with my 'tomato series', I planted some pear-shaped tomatoes this year.  I thought they were going to be regular sized tomatoes, but they are more like cherry tomatoes - maybe a bit bigger.  The plant I have is very prolific!  I have been snacking on these little, golden delicacies nonstop since they started to ripen and I still have lots, both in a bowl and on the vine.  Last night I grilled them as a side dish to have with our rice and salmon fillets.  Delicious!

I think I will have these in a salad for lunch.

It's Wednesday!

Hard to believe it is already Wednesday.  We had a holiday on Monday (Simcoe Day) so the week seems to have gotten away from me.  Here is the only flower I made this week.  There were just too many other things to do.

I also made a few white hexies for the background, but I still have about a hundred to do, so I will not bore you with those.

Instead I will bore you with my 'tomato series'.  I will be posting the different tomatoes I am growing this year as the summer goes on.  This one is a large, beefsteak type called 'Brandy Wine" and is an heirloom variety and is a pinkish colour. One slice was enough to cover my entire piece of toast.  I love this kind of tomato - lots of meat with only a few seeds.  They are also very sweet.

And from what I heard on Breakfast Television this morning, it's National Cat Day.  So Mimi, here's to you!

A Day in Minden

The Haliburton Quilt Guild held a quilt show in Minden on Friday and Saturday.  Since my mother is in a nursing home in Minden, we decided to go up and make it a dual day, with a visit to Mom and a trip to the quilt show.

My brother did the driving.  He picked me up at 8:00am and we drove to Pickering to pick my DD and DS. Then we headed to highway 12 and started our trip up north.  It took us about 3 1/2 hours to get there because we stopped for a bathroom break. some coffee and a bit of sightseeing.

On our way we drove through Kirkfield.  It's a little town with a restaurant, a few stores and a lift lock, just to the north.  It is part of the Trent Waterway.  Since only my brother had ever seen it, we went up and discovered a very interesting part of our waterway past.  I took a few photos, but it is difficult to really get the feeling of this gigantic hydraulic lift.

This shows the south 'bathtub'.  The boats come from the higher lake and enter the locks (bathtub).  Three large boats went in at the same time.  Then a boat entered the lower bathtub from the west, lower lake.   When everything was in position.  They lowered the south holding tank and raised the north one.  Here you can see one of the boats heading out into the west lake.  The metal structure at the top of the photo is where the lower tank was and is now at the upper lake.  DD and DS are standing by the railing.

The boats started their engines and proceeded on their journeys.  It was good to have seen this lift lock because I had never seen one like it before.

Then we were off to the quilt show.  I didn't take my wheelchair, which was kind of a aggressive, but unthinking thing to do.  I had to walk around the show on my own steam.  I was held in the town's curling centre.  I did not realize it was going to be so big!  There were quilts displayed down the centre and vendors and instructors all around the perimeter of the rink.  I sat down a few times, but I was exhausted.  It was very hot and humid yesterday, even in Minden.  I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked, but I did take one that I thought would make a terrific scrap quilt.

And I took a couple of wall hangings depicting the Haliburton Highlands, a place in Ontario that is dear to my heart because we always went camping there and even had a cottage business at one time.

 I plan to make myself a quilt of this type.  These are inspirations for me.

The final quilt I want to show you was done in Japanese stitches.  I have always loves this type of quilt and would love to do one of my own.

Those Haliburton quilters are very talented.  I bought a few fat quarters of light background fabrics and really enjoyed myself.  My son, daughter and brother enjoyed the show too.  For my brother and son it was the first quilt show they had been to.

We then stopped for a delicious lunch at a restaurant called 'The Grill on the Gull'.  Minden has the Gull River flowing through it.  We could have sat outside on the patio, but it was too hot, so we just stayed inside where it was air conditioned.  From there it was off to see my mother.  She looked a bit sleepy when we got there and she didn't really get any more animated as the afternoon went on.  I think she only said a couple of words, but she did love the hugs and kisses we gave her and she was totally enamored with her grandson!  She couldn't stop smiling or take her eyes off him.

We left the nursing home when they started to serve dinner.  Then a quick trip to the ice cream shop for the largest 'small' ice cream cone I have ever had.  It was so hot, most of it dripped down my hands and arms.  I needed a quick 'shower' before my brother would let me back into his truck for the drive home.

We took it easy, enjoying the sights of Haliburton on our way home.  A gorgeous sky greeted us as we got to Pickering.

It was a great day!  Thank you to my brother for doing all of the driving.  And thank you to my kids for making the trip so enjoyable.  This is a long weekend for us.  It is supposed to rain this afternoon and evening.  Bring it on, I say.  My plants are literally dying for a drink.

Scrappy Star Sew Along

OMG!  I love this block!  Terry from Terry's Treasures is hosting this Sew Along.  I have joined because I love anything scrappy and I love, love, love stars!  Isn't this block amazing?  And we only have to do two per month.  That's doable even for me.  This is my first block.  I am going to be able to use up all sorts of scraps.  Thank you Terry!

Wednesday's Flowers

I have a couple of hexie blocks to show you today.  I am still working on the white background hexagons.  Will show you soon.

I took this photo with the blocks on the perennial hibiscus.  I thought I had killed this plant last winter.  It looked dead for many weeks in the spring, but finally a few tiny green buds appeared and it started to grow. I have a lot of buds on it now, so it will bloom very soon.

Want more flowers?  Here are my Black-Eyed-Susans  (Rudbeckia).  These are the perennial ones.  The flowers you see in the above photo with my hexagons are annual Black-Eyed-Susans.

I have been busy and we had torrential rains yesterday, so I was not able to go out in my garden.  This morning, upon inspection, I noticed that I have a lot of tomatoes, especially some big, yellow ones.  These are really tasty.

A Summer Weekend and Beyond

I didn't get any sewing done this weekend.  But I did have a lot of fun.  On Saturday afternoon we went to my aunt's house for a sort of family reunion.  It was very pleasant.  Saw lots of cousins I haven't seen in a long time.  The bags I had made were very well received.  I was glad I finished them and gave them to their new owners.

On Saturday evening we went over to my DD's place for dinner.  The Japanese students she has staying with her cooked us a delicious meal.  It was fantastic.  And there even was a bit of chicken left over so Schroeder, my DD's cat had an enjoyable treat also.

Then on Sunday morning we drove to the beach on Lake Simcoe.  The weather was fantastic.  We sat on the beach and built sand castles, ate a picnic lunch and went into the lake for a swim and some ball playing.  (Yes, even I went in.)  It was very busy on the beach, but it always is on weekends when the weather is perfect.  Here are some fellow sun-seekers.

Playing ball in the water.

Floating on an air mattress.

Exhausted and getting ready to go home, but no one wanted to leave.

Then for dinner we went to our fishing club.  Ate too much, but it was delicious.  We watched the sun go down and drove home along with all the other weekend traffic.

Today I am doing laundry. Lots of beach towels!  And I have a whole fruit bowl full of ripe bananas, so I think there will be a banana bread somewhere in my day.

I was over at Erin's blog, kniterly.  She has been knitting some cute little dolls for a special project in Africa.  I have made several of these dolls in the mid seventies, when my kids were young.  I think I will make a few more to send to the Duduza Doll project.  Go here if you want to read all about it and get the pattern.

Bags!

I made a couple of bags.  They are gifts, but I don't think the people they are for will read my blog anytime  today.  Here is the first one.  This is made from a horse panel fabric.  I think this was supposed to be made into pillows, but I think the panels look great on the back and front of a bag.  It is my own pattern,  I lined it with some cat fabric.

The next one is an Oak Park Bag.  I still love this pattern.  I used mostly flowery fabrics and a few scraps that someone gave me.  I used a black and white rose fabric on the inside.  I hope the person who is receiving this one will like it.

Wednesday's Flowers

It's Wednesday again and I have some hexie flowers to show you.  I love working on these when it is hot.  And it has been hot!  The fan on our air conditioner stopped working and we were without AC for the entire weekend.  Luckily the guy came to fix it on Monday so by bedtime the house was cool again.  This first shot is of some of the sections that will go around the outside of my latest hexagon quilt.

And here are some of the flowers sewn together.  They will be in a basket made of brown hexies.  I have come to realize that hexies can be sewn together to represent anything you wish to display.

I now have to go and get some things ready for dinner.  My DD is coming over for dinner and bringing a couple of Japanese students that she is hosting his week.  I am in the middle of making potato salad.   I will serve them hamburgers and corn-on-the-cob also.  I even baked a zucchini loaf, not especially for my company but because I have so many zucchinis in my garden that I have to do something with them.

Doesn't it look delicious?

And here is a picture of Felix, trying to keep cool.  He is sitting on the register taking in all the cool air.  What a smart pussy cat.

A Garden Post

My aunt asked me if my garden is really as beautiful as it seems from the photos on my blog.  It really is.  Right now it is a riot of colour.  In every direction I look there are flowers in bloom.  Here is my east raised bed.  This one has vegetables in it too.  You can see the pole beans growing up the stakes.

And here is my west raised bed.  This one has mostly perennial flowers in it.  I love this flower bed.  I have lots of lilies and delphiniums.

And here is a shot of the west flower bed.  It is not a raised bed.  That makes it more difficult for me to work in.   But next year I will move some of the plants that are getting crowded out.  I will leave some of the plants that need less work.  There is a peach tree in there too.  It had two peaches on it this year.  Our spring was too early and the blossoms came out when it was still too cold for the wasps and bees to be out.   If I had thought of it, I could have pollinated some of the blossoms by hand.

More Great Grannies

I made a few more blocks in the Great Granny Along.  These have not been trimmed yet.  I am working on block number 6.

But is too nice outside and I have to go out and do some gardening before it gets too hot.  The quilt blocks will have to wait.

The Great Granny Along

Have you seen the Great Granny Along blocks that are out there in quilt land?  Terry of Terry's Treasures has been making them and I think I am in love.  I decided to make one block, just to see how difficult they are and how much of my time they would take up.  They are not difficult and they take very little time and best of all, they use up scraps.  But I couldn't stop at just one block.  I had to make another.

I am having to use different background fabrics for each block because I do not have enough of any one fabric.  But I like the scrappy look, so I will continue.  Oh, did I say 'continue'?  I guess that means there are more of these fabulous blocks in my future.

Another Flowery Wednesday

I made a few more flowers this week.  It is really too hot to do anything else.  Now have to make dozens of white hexies which will go in between the flowers.  It's a boring job, but someone has to do it.

Last spring I bought a bag of three liliy bulbs and planted them in my raised flower bed.  By the next morning the squirrels had promptly dug them up, along with a dozen anemones I had also planted.  The anemone corms were gone, so I assumed the squirrels had found them to be a tasty treat.  I replanted the lilies and covered them with cayenne pepper.  A few days later the squirrels had dug them up again.  I replanted them and put some pieces of a broken clay pot over top of them.  And of course, lots more cayenne pepper.  When they started to come up I removed the clay pot pieces and they started to grow.  Now they look like this.

I am glad I didn't lose patience.  I'd be missing these beauties.

An Appreciated Summer Storm

It has been very hot over the past few weeks.  The humidity has been high too.  So it shouldn't come as a surprise that we had a thunder storm yesterday afternoon.  I looked out and saw that the winds were starting to pick up and that my patio umbrella was leaning to one side.  I could hear the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance.  I dropped everything and ran outside to take the umbrella down.  Then I gathered up some of the plastic chairs and stacked them so they would not become flying missiles.  It was already starting to rain by then.  Large drops hit the pavement and dried up almost instantly because everything is so hot.  I was soaked by the time I went inside.

It rained for about 2 hours.  We got 88mm of the wet stuff during that time.  I danced around in my living room - we needed that rain so badly.  The leaves on my maple had already started to dry up.  Everything got a good soaking.  It was a much appreciated summer storm.  But it did not leave my garden untouched.  Here is a picture of my Feverfew before the storm.

And this is what it looked like this morning.  Everything is flattened to the ground.  

The storm caused all kinds of destruction around us as well.  In Whitby some people were sitting under a huge tent enjoying a Ribfest.  17 of them were taken to hospital when the tent was hit by lightening and they were injured.  There is a huge sink hole in a local park.  A whole hill came sliding down.  I am sure I will hear of other destruction as the day goes on.  There are lots of branches down in my garden   A couple of squirrels' nests were rained to the ground.  Poor squirrels.  They will have to start over, but I am sure they will be able to rebuild before the weather turns cold.

I will have to go out and clean up this mess.  But that may have to wait until another day.  Today will be another hot one and tomorrow our high temperature is forecast to be 37C.  That's body temperature right?  This summer weather is crazy.

A Wednesday Flower or Two

I want to express my deep-felt thanks to all who left a comment on my Oscar post.  Your kind words, cyber hugs and positive thoughts helped me through this past week.  But now I realize that I have to get on with my life.  Quilting waits for no one.  My scraps are calling me and all of my UFOs want me to pick one and get going on it.   But instead I decided to do, what is for me, a mindless activity - making flowers.  They are all I could manage.   Here are my first two.

I think I will do a flower basket hexagon quilt.  I may not finish this one soon, but I just need something to get me going.  Usually I work on some scraps, but it is too hot in my solarium and sewing room, So these will have to do.

We are having a couple of cool days, but by tomorrow the humidity will be back and the temperatures will go up into the 30C range again.

I have to water my garden every day.  We have had very little rain lately.  It would sound like my garden is turning brown, but with the water I have been pouring on it, my garden is actually entirely pink.  That is due to the coneflowers and phlox.  Photos to follow.  Here is a shot I took this morning in the west raised bed.  The coneflowers had Red Admiral Butterflies all over them, but they were busy drinking the nectar and didn't want to open their wings for me.  I did manage to get this pic.

Now I am going to have lunch.  Yesterday my DD came over and made a delicious salad, with mangoes, avocado, sunflower seeds, mixed greens, tomatoes, red and green peppers and some basil from my back yard.  She sprinkled cheese over the top.  It was delicious!  Today I am going to have to make my own lunch.  Think I'll probably have a peanut butter sandwich.

Oscar

2004 - July 3, 2012

Oscar passed away yesterday, suddenly.  One minute he was fine and the next he had a seizure and died.  We are all very sad.  He was a funny cat and always managed to make me laugh.  When I made myself a piece of toast this morning, Oscar was not there to beg for a small morsel.  I had to sleep by myself last night.  Oscar was not there to curl up by my feet.  And when I came home from taking him to the vet's, he was not waiting for me at the top of the stairs, waving me in like  'Hello Kitty'.  I will miss him.

Happy Canada Day

To All of My Canadian Friends!