This day

The day dawned pink and hopeful.  By 8, the sun was nowhere to be seen, and in her place, around 9, came rain. 

As a result, the house has a dreary cast to it today, but I'm cheerful anyways.  How could I not be with these beauties on the table!  They are my new favourite flower ~ Heirloom Crego Asters (seed purchased here).  The bees positively LOVE them so we are fighting over the blooms right now.  I head out to cut flowers for the house but this proves difficult because the bees are feasting in each and every bloom!  I have to wait until the bee is finished before I can cut any one bloom.  That's ok ~ I can wait ~ we need our bees!

The cat took the day off from mousing and decided to spend it in the most luxurious of ways (nestled in the down quilt among clean line dried clothes and books).  Excuse the mess but Miss Paige has since cleaned her room and made her bed.  *Ahem*

The dog took one look out the window, saw the rain and declared a public holiday.  He's "on vacation" today, too.  OH MY GOODNESS, what a character!

Meanwhile, I checked on my first ever batch of fermented pickles.  Homegrown cucumbers, dill and garlic (when combined with a salt water brine) make incredible pickles with just a hint of tangy *something* (is it a fizz?).  Such is the way of fermented foods...  I am a total beginner with lots to learn but as the cucumbers are coming in from the garden in droves right now, I've got lots of opportunity to climb that learning ladder :)

Although they look less vibrant in colour on day 7 (below), they are quite tasty now that they've chilled in the fridge.  I do believe I'll keep trying to make more.

Today was the perfect day to put linens away.  I ran the mangle for an hour last week and this long neglected chore netted me a huge stack of crisply ironed napkins and other linens to put away (which I promptly neglected to do).   I'm a sucker for vintage linens and I snap them up when I find them.   We use them because I love them - no saving for "best" here.  Every day is "best", right?

I'm also making a (literal) cauldron of applesauce today.   Our neighbours gave us a massive bin full of apples last week and those darn things have been taunting me for days...  I just didn't have the time to get to them until today.  We've been busy all week with our new front verandah build ~ it's coming along.  Here's a few pictures of the installed cedar deck boards, all sanded and ready to be stained.  I still am pinching myself - we have STAIRS!  Four years is a long time to not have front steps :)

As you can see, we still have a post to cap in cedar, but some of the delivered wood was rotten and the lumberyard is replacing those boards... until then, we wait.

This weekend, we managed to get 2 coast of stain on the boards (whew!).  So glad that's done.   

I like how the stained cedar brings out the colour in the rock wall.

There's still a railing to install and a few other finishing details to take care of, but soon, this massive project will be done!

I'll leave you with this darling shot of our Grand-daughter, Penny.  She was thrilled after supper here last night ~ Grandma gave her the beaters which were loaded with whipped cream!   Mmmmmnnnnn..... YUMMY baby & YUMMY whipped cream!