I am never driving in Edmonton AB again.

The day dawned sunny and humid.  The humidity and temperature increased during the day reaching mid 30C by the afternoon.

Being forewarned we went for our walk in the morning and this is where all of the photographs were taken.

Fairy rings Marasmius Oreades are a problem in Edmonton and evident in the lawns along our walk.  The grass turns dark green and the mushroom then being to grow.

It has been a very wet year here and there is an abundance on fungi growing under trees.

After lunch Paul and I decided to drive to a nearby Goodwill and then to a mall.  Well we finally found a Goodwill and our Garmin kept taking us downtown Edmonton and we did not want to go there.  We drove across the river three times each time on a different bridge.

At 2:45 and once again downtown we decided to return our Edmonton home before rush hour traffic.

We made it home and I will not drive in Edmonton again!

It felt like I was driving on the stairs at Hogwarts where everything is in constant motion.  After paper crafting for an hour I calmed down and I will not drive in Edmonton again!

Thank you for coming along today

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls 

Being with family.

As I write the narrative for this blog post we are in Edmonton Alberta visiting now with Paul’s sibling.

The drive from Lipton Saskatchewan to Edmonton Alberta was a 9-hour whorl wind drive as we wanted to drive in daylight.

We left the farm at 6:45 am and drove under ever changing skies and ever-changing point of interest to keep the drive interesting.

The drive was stress free and passed quickly as we listened to yet another Emily Peabody novel.

My last blog post was Friday August 16, 2019.  Saturday was very busy and Sunday the internet was offline at the farm.

Saturday, we went to the local farmers market to find eggplant for Sunday supper.

The children had fun picking out vegetables with their Grandmother.

Our next stop was at the Co-op grocery store where 7 of us formed up in a line and passed Grandma’s purchase down the line to Uncle Paul who was pushing the cart. 

Back at the farm I made Rollkuchen and introduced the children to some of their Russian Mennonite heritage. 

Saturday after supper everyone laughed, and cheated their way through games of Uno.

Sunday was our last day to play with the children and that is what we did.

Time at the park,

finishing up ‘projects’

and going on imaginary trips.

This image is one we have come to understand as the potty-training walk of failure.  She was just having too much fun.

Tonight, before supper with Ron and Susan we all went for a walk.

Thank you for coming along.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls

Rain and no power

We woke at 6:30 am to the sound of rain on the Rpod roof.

Not the type of rain that makes you jump out of bed to ensure everything is ok.  This was the type where you shut the alarm off, and snuggle deeper into the covers and go back to sleep.

With the patio umbrella a little rain does not stop the hot tub enthusiast.

At around 11:00 am the power went out and stayed out for three hours.

It was just a paper crafting type of day and that is what I did.

Thank you for coming along today.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls

Big Skies Beautiful Saskatchewan

Rural Saskatchewan brings to mind big sky vistas and kilometers of open space.  

There are big beautiful skies, farming panoramas for as far as you can see and wonderful people.  

Every day we have walk the grid road we have encounter at least one vehicle, a friendly smile and a wave. 

I have talked about the butterflies in other posts this month, today as I stood and admire the canola, I noticed that the yellow I was seeing was more then canola flowers it was these wonderful pollinators at work.

We spent a wonderful day sitting in the sun, talking, eating and laughing together.

I hope you enjoy the images from today’s walk and thank you for coming along on this journey with us.

Our Saskatchewan home away from home.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls

From Jacksonville to Lipton

2,046 kms/1271 miles, and 3 days of travelling under clear blue skies later we have arrived at the second destination of our vacation Saskatchewan Canada.

I will begin with an apology as there are many pictures of the past three days.

We said goodbye to Great John and left Jacksonville Ill. following another wonderful breakfast and began what was an uneventful three days of travelling.

The temperatures were in the high 30C/80F during the day, so it was not a hardship to be traveling in the air-conditioned van and at night dropped to comfortable temperatures in the low 20C/70F making for excellent sleeping conditions.

The weather further co-operated with our travel plans when it rained at night while we slept.

We took our noon meal in the Rpod and spent time relaxing and stretching our sedentary muscles each day.

We drove past beautiful prairie vistas and enjoyed the adventures of Amelia Peabody Emerson on audible, we completed three of  the Elizabeth Peters novels.

We stayed at KOA campgrounds ensuring showers, and laundry facilities plus easy access on and off the hwy.

If you ever come to Saskatchewan stay off Highway 35 unless to want to feel like you are in an electric mixer!

We arrived at our second stop to the most amazing welcome sign, chocolate chip cookies and a walk.

Paul enjoy the late afternoon walk and took the opportunity to sample fresh peas.

Carla made a wonderful supper, yes that is one thing we will do while we are here is eat well.

Thank you for coming along.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls

Family birthday on a very hot day.

Windows are closed and drapes drawn at 7:00 am against what is already stifling heat.  Last night we caved in  and increased our carbon footprint by bringing up the portable floor AC unit.  We set it at 70 F. and slept well. 

Before the day really started to heat up I when outside and harvested some of our lavender, the plants are doing surprising well this year.   

Then enjoying the AC I wrapped the lavender into small bundles to use in the house and Rpod.  

The activity of making lavender swags was both peaceful and grounding.  This is  something I have always wanted to do and I have no idea why I have never taken the time to do this before.

Yoga was an adventure unto itself today when yoga mats and feet became slippery downward dogs became planks or worse face plants. 

We have started to use therapy balls to release fascia and muscles tight too long.   I hope we do more of this as I get great relief from the use of the therapy balls.

This afternoon we celebrated an 80^th birthday with family at the Pebbles Family Restaurant in Varney Ontario.  The restaurant has been renovated since the last time we were there and the renovations have resulted in better and increased seating,  room to visit and a buffet area that is out of the way of the main flow of traffic.

Always great food the variety of meats is worth the price.

In the late afternoon I finished a knitting project and prepared a package of Happy Mail to go out to our son and daughter-in-love in BC.

I had hoped to do more however even with AC any amount of physical exertion results in sweating, over heating and for me a sense of general exhaustion.  This also included computer work where the heat from the laptop was just too much.

The  sun disappeared behind storm clouds the temperature dropped just enough that I could begin to write this blog post and with that the heavens have opened and the sever thunderstorm predicted descended upon us.

Paul is moving the AC from the living room back to the bedroom as temperatures will remain high tonight, no relief from the storm.

Thank you for coming along today.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2019 twosnydergirls