Enjoying our gardens and a space to create

A strawberry patch this time of year is a thing of delicious beauty however a patch of weed strawberry not so much.  

Today I tackled the wild strawberry growing among our lavender.

Wild strawberry along the roadsides produce tiny flavourful berries that explode with strawberry goodness, our wild strawberry again not so much.

Gardening gave me a reason to say hello to neighbours, and the mailman who acknowledges me by name with a cheerful hello and “… sorry only bills today” having taken notice of the Happy Mail I receive from time to time.

In pulling the weeds it was necessary to cut some of the lavender which I carefully set aside to scent the house with.

Around 1:00 I came in and made myself a quick lunch of hummus and crackers.  

 I ate while I tea dyed paper to use in journals.

The process of dying paper is messy and enjoyable.  I love how that paper goes into the oven soft and comes out crunchy. 

Call me mad, I also enjoy ironing the paper smooth the result is an aged paper that it enjoyable to write on. 

I also brought in the lavender and some roses to create a spray of beauty on my desk.

4:00 saw me at Yin Yang yoga and tonight as I write I have very sore muscles, am looking forward to a long soak in some Epsom salts before going to bed.

After yoga I worked on the junk journal that I am making for a swap.

Thank you for coming along

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls

Cool evenings have returned

Needed an extra blanket last night, the fresh evening air was a welcome change and created good sleeping weather.

This morning started with no coffee and a dash out the door to get the Van to the garage for 8:30 am. 

Yep I slept in!   

We are getting the brakes looked at in preparation for our next trip.   I enjoyed my time at the garage as there were antique cars on display as they prepare for a garage tour this coming weekend. 

Back home I headed out into our garden and continued weeding.  

Just as laundry must be done on a predictable basis so it goes for weeding and with the hot weather the weeds have once again gotten ahead of me. 

While I was weeding a monarch butterfly landed on the orange butterfly weed and by the time I came out with my good camera, well the butterfly was gone. 

I want to explain the reason that the blog looks different. 

I am experimenting  with different publishing apps for both text and images so that I can post my blog directly from my iPhone when we are travelling.  

If you blog and post from your Iphone or Ipad please let me know the apps you are using

My goal is to not have to take my laptop on trips, well we will have to see how it goes.

Here is what mother Robin is guarding. 

Thank you for coming along today.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls

The world becomes lighter with a drop in humidity

While some parts of Southern Ontario received rain last night and with it cooler temperatures not in our part of Bruce/Grey County the house was 29 C this morning at 4:00 am and the humidity did not drop until after 3:00 pm.

Hiding  in the house this morning, hunger eventually drove us out on the streets and into the heat.

And we always have breakfast out on Saturday mornings. The only consideration as to where we would eat was, they had to have air conditioning.

After having a lovely breakfast in cool temperatures, I was relaxed enough to walk back home and spend an hour or so in the garden. 

Paul went back to work on the Rpod Struts and completed the task.

Then I sent myself to my craft room to prepare the packages of paper for my fellow junk journaler’s tomorrow.  I am a treasure hunter by heart and my new art form means I am collecting again.  Sharing from my treasures helps me to destash and engage in a random act of kindness.

Our lupper was a lovely cold plate of homemade tuna salad and summer squash with hummus.  

I had an interesting exchange with my son-in-love where he used texting and pictures to walk me how to use my scanner.  He is such a patient man.  The end result is a paper product I can use in my Junk Journals instead of cutting up these beautiful old needle points , I’m very happy. 

The day began to cool around 4:00 with the drop in humidity and Paul moved outside to finish weeding the garden while I raced around the house opening windows.  

Don’t you hate when the inside of your home is warmer then the outside air on hot summer evenings when you need to sleep.

Once the windows were opened, I went back to the craft room where I packed up all of my supplies for tomorrow and made a YouTube Video.

Thank you for coming along. 

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls

Canada Day and S'more Chocolate Chip Cookies

Canada Day fishing, gardening, great cookies and supper with our daughter.

Up at 6:00 am as Paul got himself ready to go fishing with Rob.  They had a great time catching  fish, and  practicing catch and release.  

I think that a great car show where they were fishing also helped make their day. 

Yep I went back to bed getting up 8:00 am just because I could. 

 I enjoyed a quiet morning journaling, and gardening

Our three tomato plants have started to bloom.

This garden is terribly over run and is past the point where we can weed it.  We will leave it until September, pull out all the plants and plant grass.

Some parts of our back garden are beautiful wild and these we will leave and enjoy.

I worked in the front garden pulling the weeds in our Iris bed.

Our red current bush is starting to ripen.

I worked until our granddaughter arrived to bake with Grandma.  She did not know what she wanted to make until she found a recipe for Chocolate chip cookies stuffed with S’mores.

We altered the recipe as we had to find our ingredients at local Variety Stores.

Ingredients:

Your favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe

Marshmallows cut in ½

**Milk chocolate bars (at least 3 bars)

**Graham Wafers

**We used wafer cookies topped with milk chocolate

Directions:  Place the graham wafer on a cookie sheet, top with 2 squares of milk chocolate,  ½ a marshmallow and cover with cookie dough sealing the dough around the wafer.  Bake the cookies as per the chocolate chip cookie recipe adding an extra 5 minutes or until the cookies are browned.

They were too good and very rich.

This evening we had supper with our daughter and her family and this rounded out an amazing Canada Day.

Thank you for coming along today.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls

Gone is the wild dill.

Wow we have gone from wet cold weather to full on heat almost over night.

No air conditioning for this Grandma and Grandpa so warm hot nights, we do not look forward too.

Seeking both cooler seating and a good cup of coffee we set out on our morning walk.  

There has been a great deal of moister and with the heat the flowering bushes have burst into bloom.  

Sorry I have no idea the name of these bushes and if you do please share in the comment section below.

We stand in the shade of trees on our walk to sip water and stretch muscles.  

We are so lucky to have so many beautiful maples on our walk and the play of sunlight through the leaves is wonderful.

We are finding our new walking sticks helpful in keep our balance, and in stopping the walkers shuffle.

It was a beautiful bright day for walking.

Once home I decided to tackle the wild dill and weeds that have taken over our pumpkin/squash garden.

After 90 minutes I was done uncovering the pumpkin/squash plants and only ½ way through the garden – it will have to wait as it is too hot and lunch needs to be made.

Yoga from 4 to 5 where the heat almost drove me from class, made it through with lots of water and the knowledge that we would be going for ice cream.

Ice cream is the best way to end a summer day.

Strawberry for Grandma and Black Cherry for Grandpa.

We hope you enjoyed today’s post and thank you from coming along.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls