Category Archive: Life

The vegetables that I put on the dehydrator now look like this and will keep until needed this winter.

Umm good.   Raspberries are starting to ripen as  well as the tomatoes.

We spent some of today looking for a place to move that will have more of the property in pasture and less that has to be maintained.   This place has also become more house than we really need.

I also updated the July project list.

It has been a gloomy day outside.  What better way to cheer up than working with pretty prints.

So, I pulled these off the board in order of sewing, trying to carefully arrange them so that the pieces would all end up right side facing up (that didn’t happen and yes, the seam ripper came in handy).    So now I have sets of three. which I sewed together to make 9 patches.   I carefully cut those in half each way. Then turned 3 of the quarters around until this pattern emerged.   Now I will sew them into rows to make the quilt that I am aiming for.

A great program today started with some darling 18″ doll outfits.  All of these are Liberty Jane Patterns.

Then she showed us these cute hanging baskets out of the book “Cut it, sew it, stow it” that  can be made most any size and hung wherever you might have a need

There were different bag patterns by Pink Sand  and one of  the women there had a bag she had just made from another of their patterns.    She said the instructions were super easy to follow.

There were some clothes patterns offered as well.

And look as this little beauty was in the “show and tell” section.   It was about 18″ across.  That’s a lot of tiny work.       It was a good infomercial this month.

Something exciting and new here this morning.  I put 5 cups of water with 3 cups of washed whole grain rice in a dutch oven with lid, then 2 cups of washed dry red beans with about 3″ of water in another pan with a lid in the oven at 350 for an hour.  ( I did have to add more water when I checked the beans).  I also needed to add half an hour to that.  I was happy with the results of both.   How convenient not to have to soak the beans or worry about them running over and since both could be cooked at the same time, I saved oven energy.  Next time I will up the temperature to 375 and see if that cuts the time a bit.

As soon as the vet office was open we made an  appointment for Lacey. who was supposedly due in two weeks.  She has not eaten for the last 3 days.   So off we went with her.   No, she is not pregnant AGAIN.   I’m guessing she knows I have homes for some puppies. (LOL)  But she did have a fever, so we left her there for blood tests and will find out more when the results come back.

I found these interesting small – 3″ diameter – tortillas at the store last week and we were out of chips.   I toasted these for about 3.5 minutes and they formed little pockets.   That was unexpected and very interesting.   Since I made a Costa Rican dish, Gallo Pinto, we put it in the pockets and ate it that way – very delicious!   We did top it with tomato salsa when we ate it .  In Costa Rico, Gallo Pinto is served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.   If you haven’t tried it, you’ll be surprised how delicious a simple dish can be.  All you’ll need to add is a salad.    It freezes well also.   So I like to have it on hand for a quick meal.

Gallo Pinto.

1/2 sautéed red onion

1 cup rice cooked

1 cup beans cooked

Add Lizano salsa while cooking to your taste

Salt if you wish.

mix and heat throughout.   Serve.

Google has Lizano salsa which we have not found in local stores  It’s ingredients include: water, sugar, salt, onions, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, spices, pepper, mustard, and turmeric.

Leaving Washington State, USA, and entering British Columbia, Canada through the Peace Arch entrance.

Entering Chinatown, Vancouver. which is the largest Chinatown in Canada.

This clock and the replicated gas lights are in the original downtown Vancouver.   Also notice the beautiful hanging baskets.

Here Casey is beside a tour bus with lots of “people” painted on the side.

Casey really wanted to visit this store near the large market and then she was done.   And it was time to head home.