Good-Bye November

 We had a nice walk at Willband this morning.  At one point literally hundreds of Canada Geese took off from the lake and flew overhead. What an experience! We saw about 20 swans as well.

Sheila had a lovely birthday tea here with  Eldest and Youngest joining us.  .
She's on holidays and her partner took the day off so they could celebrate. In the evening they went somewhere ( I forget where) and she posted these pictures. They go to the most interesting places which we could also except that we don't like driving at night any more. Since "night" begins around 4 PM that limits us.

 

 

Today is our 61st anniversary and tomorrow the family will come to help us celebrate.  I'm baking a couple of cakes and I actually bought a cheesecake when we did our shopping. Usually I make one but I thought we'd try a bought one. I'll let you know how we liked it.

I needed a box of Jello instant pudding for a certain recipe. I don't usually buy such,  preferring to make a homemade cooked pudding but the recipe called for it..... I was horrified to read the list of ingredients. 
INGREDIENTS:  sugar, modified corn starch,cocoa, disodium phosphates, tetrasodium phosphate, artificial and natural flavors, corn starch, salt, modified palm oil, modified  vegetable oil,  tanium doxide, mono- and diglycerides, ,allura red, tartazine, brilliant blue FCF.
Needless to say that I won't be buying this product again.

So we say Good-bye to November and move right into December and Advent. Have a lovely Sunday.

Thanks for visiting

Mom's old Singer Sewing machine

 

This and That

 I put away the Autumn cushions and took out the Christmas ones as well as the throw. Then nestled 3 of the Teddy bears  among them.

Flowers for the table

 
Tomorrow is Sheila's birthday and she's coming for tea. I made her favourite Whipped Shortbread cookies.  As usual some are slightly wonky but I've tried one and they taste just like every other year💗

Tomorrow is our regular grocery shopping day. I've looked at the flyers on-line and made my list.  Almost all the big sale items are still electronics, not groceries.  

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American followers.  

 

Thanks for visiting

 

 

Bleak November

 These pictures that I took a few years ago show just how bleak things look now at the end of November.  The days are mostly cloudy and we lost an hour and 17 minutes of daylight this month. Sunrise today was at 7:33 and the sun will set at 4:19.

 

The paths at Willband were dry enough so we could walk there again yesterday. We only saw one dead goose. We stayed far away from it.   Avian flu is once again causing havoc for wild birds as well as domestic.  The impact on farmers whose flocks have been culled is enormous. There's even a case in our local hospital of a teenager that has been diagnosed with that strain of the flu although it was believed that it could not be transmitted to humans.

When the trail was partly under water.

I can't end my post on such a depressing note.  Here's a picture of my Amaryllis in bloom. I can't take credit for it's amazing flowers because it had all the buds when I bought it at the grocery store! 

 

Thanks for visiting

 

 

 

A Mini Rant, a Swag and a Poinsettia Garden

 I'm so disgusted with our local grocery stores for featuring all kinds of great deals on electronics and not only not lowering any prices on grocery items, they had the audacity to claim they had lowered prices when I know for a fact that the prices were exactly the same as they were last week. Which was NOT any lower than the week before.

Okay. My little rant is over.

Eldest came by and brought a pine swag for the front door.

She also brought a "poinsettia garden" ( that's what the tag calls it) consisting of a cordyline(?), a variegated ivy ( just barely visible) and what might be a small weeping fig. And the Poinsettia, of course.  I don't have much luck keeping Poinsettias alive but if it dies I still have the other plants.
 

 Thank you for the comments on the Advent calendars. Connie ( Far Side) explained the jigsaw puzzle one. Apparently the puzzle pieces are in 24 small boxes and so part of the puzzle is done every day.
Isn't that a neat idea?

Just have to ask if anyone else had trouble with today's Wordle.  I was down to my very last guess when I finally got it. It was a tough one.  Worse than last week when the word was uvula. Anyone get that one? I sure didn't.

That's it for today. Have a lovely weekend.

Advent calendars

 We had a big storm pass through during the night. Apparently 90,000 homes were without power.
We slept through it all and  didn't notice a thing.

It's a quiet day. Not much to blog about so let's talk about Advent calendars . I keep seeing them on
FB Marketplace and I see there are many. This first one caught my eye and I meant to go back and read more about it but it disappeared so quickly that I didn't get the chance. All I do remember about it is that it is lighted (lit?) and cost over a hundred dollars. Someone didn't mind the price because it got snapped up pretty quickly.

 The next one looks fairly simple. It had little drawers that you can put small items into and reuse it from year to year.

 I'm not sure how this jigsaw puzzle becomes an Advent calendar.

I like this one with its little drawers. The scene in the middle lights up. It was priced at $30.

I remember how my children enjoyed Playmobil way back when. No doubt they would have liked this calendar which was never even opened and is now for sale for $20.

I hope your week is going along nicely. Those who are gearing up for Thanksgiving are probably very busy.

Thanks for visiting.

 

Monday Chit Chat

Monday again.  The temperature was just 4* above freezing when we walked at 7 o'clock but now at noon it is 6C and the sun is trying to shine making it pleasantly bright outside.

On Saturday when we walked we found one of those fanny pack bags on the ground near the path. We picked it up and found that in it were 2 bottles of prescription antibiotics. Both bottles were full, in fact they had been bought just the day before. The man's name was on a pay slip in the bag but we felt it would be better just to return the drugs, bag and all, to the pharmacy that  issued them. Which we did. I have to wonder how a person could be so careless though.

 These cookies are like the ones we bought at the craft fair last week.  I have made them in the past but not for years.  I've copied a brief description from a recipe site.

 Pfeffernüsse are traditional small German Christmas cookies spiced with black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon cloves, ground ginger, and nutmeg.

Here are some of the cookies my talented DIL has made for Christmas. 

GD Kate works in an office but she used to work as a hairdresser.  She comes to play Dominoes
( Mexican train) almost every Sunday afternoon and when anyone in the family needs a haircut she brings her "stuff" and does a great job too. I asked her to cut an inch or 2 off my hair this time.
DH and Middle son also got their hair cut.

That's enough chit chat. Time to get the laundry folded and put away. 

Thanks for coming by

Craft Fair

 It's the time of the year when craft sales flourish. Our two daughters and our granddaughter asked if we wanted to come too. It was here in town and in a lovely venue so we went and had a great time browsing. That's GD Kate on the left, me, Eldest Daughter Shannon ( she's Kate's Mom) and Himself. Otherwise identified as DH..

 

 Shannon, Daughter Sheila and Kate

 I took pictures and as usual they're not very good ones but they give you an idea of  some of the crafts.

 

 

 Seems that mushrooms are the thing now.  They're cute but not for me.

The girls bought a number of things. DH was seduced by the food items and bought Butter Tarts (they were amazing) and also Pfeffernussen cookies ( I know I'm probably not spelling it right but I'll take a picture and show you them next time).

 

 Eldest and Youngest were over and since they're always ready to give me a hand they brought in our artificial Christmas tree and set it in the sunroom.  Just 2 weeks until Advent 💗💓💓

Thanks for visiting and leaving lovely comments

 

 

Baking and Autumn Leaves

 I was browsing on Pinterest and I saw this picture of a loaf of fruit bread.  It reminded me that I hadn't baked any for ages so I did just that.  My recipe made 2 loaves and they didn't look as pretty as the one on Pinterest but it tastes just fine. Sure makes nice toast for breakfast.

 
This is all that is left from that first loaf I made.  The picture is wonky but I dare not mess with it. I've been having "issues" with my computer lately :(

I used some of the last of my bag of pears to make these muffins.

The next door neighbour's Red Maple ( I think that's what it is) dropped almost all its leaves overnight and left this beautiful red carpet.  

And that's about it for today. Thank you for the sweet comments on my Bunny in my last post.  She has a nice 2 room hutch that DH made for her and it stands in a very sheltered spot out of the wind and rain.  She grows a thick winter coat and has made it through 7 winters so far.  Son and DIL have a bunny in a cage in their livingroom and it is allowed out supervised. That works for them but neither DH nor I wanted to have ours in the house.  GM

Books, Dead Fish, and a Rabbit

 It's a wet holiday Monday.  A good thing I have books to read once laundry is done. I picked up 4 books at the thrift store last time I went to drop off some boxes. My last library choices were duds so I was happy to find these.
 

 

Yesterday we couldn't walk at Willband Creek because the person responsible for opening the gate ( to the parking lot) didn't show up so we walked a different trail. Stony Creek Trail where the water was flowing very swiftly. This creek has salmon that swim upstream around this time of the year and we saw several that were having a real struggle to succeed. We also saw many that had succeeded and of course died, as salmon do once they have spawned.  Dead fish littered the banks where the water was shallow.

Diane asked about my pet rabbit. Cinnamon Bun is her name and I've had her for over 7 years. She was found and rescued by people who couldn't keep her so she came here. She's very sweet and loves to be patted. Among her favourite foods are cilantro, parsley and carrots. Here she's munching on a crust of bread which I rarely give her but I wanted her to hold still so I could get a picture.

I hope everyone's week is off to a good start. Thank you for coming by.

A Fallen Tree, a Cactus and a Curious Rabbit

 The storm we had earlier in the week caused this old Weeping Willow to fall on a fence where Youngest Son had to clean it up. Actually it looked like only half of the great trunk broke off.
The tree had quite a bit of fungus growing on it and apparently that can weaken a tree. I did not know that.

My Thanksgiving Cactus is blooming. The white one is just forming buds now but the yellow/peach one is in full bloom.

I'm quite pleased with my Wordle guess this morning. I got it in 2 tries. That has never happened before! 

I'm sorry I didn't bother to copy and paste the poem yesterday. I think my hope was that you would discover the site for yourself. I find it's worth the visit.

The sun is trying very hard to break through the clouds this morning. It's 9C with no wind. Time to go out and check on my rabbit. Yesterday when I opened the door to her cage she was so anxious to see what I might have brought her as a treat that she actually fell out. It's about a 3' drop but she seemed fine and after a brief hop around she let me pick her up and put her back.

Have a lovely weekend.   GM

A Poem

 Just popping in to share a poem on a blog that I visit ( and, I'm ashamed to admit, don't comment). It is called Beyond the Fields We Know.   Check it out.

Wednesday Chit Chat

 

 

Yesterday's stormy weather brought down branches of all sizes in the park, even a tree that must have been over 30' tall which blocked the path until park workers came and cut it up.  Today all is calm and although the sun isn't shining it's not all that dismal out there. For a November day.

Thank you for all the comments on the fashions of the '40's.  I agree that dresses look lovely and feminine but are not as warm and cozy as jeans and a warm sweater. Then there's the problem of wearing pantihose. Ugh. Tights are fine for chilly weather but.....

Now that Halloween is over the stores are really getting all the Christmas things out on the shelves.  I won't be needing anything in the way of decor; maybe ingredients for those recipes I only make once a year.  I notice that I need to bake far less in the way of cookies now that a) the grown children don't eat like they used to and b) their partners bake or in the case of Middle Son, he's a better baker than I am and really enjoys trying different recipes. 

Something that I noticed in a sale flyer is, of all things, an Advent calendar for dogs. Hand-decorated cookies made with human grade ingredients. 24 beautifully crafted cookies in festive shapes such as snowflakes  and reindeer, each sealed to preserve freshness. I wonder if there's one for cats. In any case Miss Kitty won't be getting one :)

I hope you are having a good week.  Thank you for coming by,  GM

Fashions of the '40's

 

This is a windy and very wet morning.  Nothing much to blog about  ( laundry and housework  are not terribly interesting). How about something different?

What were women wearing in the 1940's?   Dresses had padded shoulders and nipped in waists, A-line skirts came down to the knee.
If a woman was not naturally an hourglass shape, the clothes were designed to help her achieve the look. Being put together, cheerful, and practical was the job of women during WWII.  1940s fashion accessories such as hats, gloves, handbags, and jewelry completed an outfit. Here are some images from the 'net.

 

 

.  Do you wish we'd go back to wearing dresses all the time? 

Thanks for visiting

Time Change and Bird Feeder

 

 It's time change weekend. I find it takes me a while to adjust and like most people I wish we'd quit this twice a year foolishness.
I do notice how the days are drawing in. On the first day of October our day was 11 hours and 41 minutes long. Yesterday, the 31st, our day was 9 hours 57 minutes so the length of the days gets 1 hour and 44 minutes shorter in October.  In November we'll lose another hour and 17 minutes over the course of the month. In December we'll lose a mere 13 minutes only to start the cycle all over in January. 

Last winter we put up an additional bird feeder in the coldest part of winter. Birds hardly ever dared to come and eat because a certain cat would be waiting for them. There's actually a picture with Miss Kitty sitting right in the feeder.

 Dear Husband made another feeder and put it up this week. So far birds have not discovered it.
(Those are tin birds attached to the front edge).

This cute picture is from the internet. 

Thanks for visiting