Look Ma... No Bruises!

Having a strong, high energy blind dog means enduring pain. He gives me his paw with great enthusiasm and, having no depth perception, frequently misses the mark. He might scrape those strong doggies nails (black and really hard to trim) down my leg/thigh, inner arm, stomach, etc. etc. and I'm frequently heard saying, "ouch... that's a bruise."

He's sweet and he tries so hard. I'm actually bruise free at the moment and that's great for the heat wave we're having cause I can actually wear short sleeves and shorts without looking speckled.

Life's good.

I'm a little teapot...

I just adore this little teapot that was hiding in my favorite little antique shop by the ocean. I had to have it. This is the second one that I have purchased from that lovely place... another collection in the works? Heavens!

Summer... a time for

I love summer and those 'lazy, hazy, crazy days' but they seem to have escaped me this year. I've fallen behind on so many things and feel that if I were to do all that needs doing on a daily basis, I would never stop. So, I get some things done but mostly I go in circles, feeling overwhelmed and when that happens, I retreat to my computer and get lost surfing wonderful blogs and such.

I have accomplished a few things, though and our screened 'house' is shaping up quite nicely. I'm in the habit of calling it the screened room but it's a separate structure and 'room' implies that it's part of the main house. Hubby is very sensitive to this so I comply. I think I should come up with a name for this structure... have been asked but my only response is a shrug of the shoulders. I got the bench seat completed, a task that was harder than I thought... measure twice, cut once rule had to be strictly enforced. I had just enough fabric to work with.

New seat covers for these chairs...next year's project or maybe a winter project. These look nice with the chairs but don't suit the other colours and they're getting rather worn now, especially since our gentle dog, Mike likes to curl up in them.

I did manage to do some jams and jellies! Our 1 yr old red currant bush gave us two small jars of jelly. I'm quite thrilled and it's incredibly good. I also managed some wild sour cherry jelly and a nice batch of wild blueberry freezer jam. Hubby took me to a private stash of blueberries that nobody around here seems to be aware of so we're keeping it our little secret. It was discovered when hubby was out in the back field with the dogs and came across a beautiful (and huge) wasp's nest. They didn't seem bothered by our presence so we weren't concerned.

Right beside where we were picking the berries is a huge field of soy bean (edamame - yummmm). Potatoes would be typically grown in these parts and this field has been dormant for as long as we've lived here. I guess soy is a good cash crop and it will add nitrates to the soil. Funny thing, we decided to try and grow our own this year because we've been missing this tasty treat. Temptations abound... I wonder if they'd missing a few or more beans. hmmmm.. Well, we DO have our own and no chemicals. I can certainly live with that.