The Chair

The Bag Lady has been really busy the past few days! She had a project to finish, and it was haying time, and her garden is producing all kinds of things that need to be dealt with, and she and the Rancher actually took a couple of days off and went camping on the spur of the moment!

She pickled some carrots and will write up a little tutorial for you, if you're interested. In the meantime, here is a picture of her almost completed project. She would like to add a pillow or two, but hasn't had time yet:

The Bag Lady is a firm believer in rescuing used furniture. She rescued this chair from the landfill a few years ago. It was natural colour (she thought she took a "before" picture, but can't seem to find it!), and had no cushions. She finally got around to painting it and had some foam leftovers from a previous project, so she made some cushions and set the chair on her deck. She knew the fabric was waterproof, which was a good thing because the weather broke while she and the Rancher were away on their little camping trip and the chair got rained on. The water just pooled on the fabric and she was able to pour it off!
She will try now to get caught up with what everyone was doing while she was away!

Return of the Pluots

The Bag Lady went to town yesterday and ran some errands. Banking, bill paying, all the fun necessities of life. Then she did some shopping - milk, dog food, toilet paper.... you know the drill.

She hit her stride at Costco, though. Followed her usual routine - hit the bookshelves first, then headed for the bakery (whole wheat bread), the meat dept. (chicken and ribs) cruised through the deli section and slowed long enough to check out one of the freebies - a smoothie-type thing made with ruby red grapefruit juice, blackberries and yogurt. YUM! She only needed a few things (in fact, her list consisted of bread and coffee!) but when she reached the fruit aisle, she almost jumped for joy!

The Pluots are back, the Pluots are back!

Some of you may recall that she bought a flat of Pluots last year and was worried that she and the Rancher weren't eating them fast enough, so decided to make jam. The. Absolute. Best. Damned. Jam. EVER! The Rancher liked it so well, the Bag Lady had to hide a couple of jars in the back of the pantry so it would last the winter!

She was so happy to see them, she almost bought two flats. Until she looked at the price. Sanity returned, and she only bought one flat (15 pluots). She also bought a few veggies, then made her escape from town. She had almost reached the city limits when she saw the fruit truck sign.... screeched to a halt and pulled in to buy some fresh B.C. cherries. He also had pluots at his fruit stand (in fact, the cherries were the only fruit he had that was actually grown in Canada - everything else was from California) and his pluots were even more expensive than the ones at Costco!
His cherries weren't all that cheap, either, but he threw in a nectarine out of the goodness of his heart.

So the Bag Lady will be making jam, as soon as the pluots have ripened a bit more. And she will be freezing homegrown peas pretty soon, too, because they are producing like crazy (apparently the Bounce dryer sheets are working, because she hasn't seen any sign of deer in her garden, knock on wood.) The Rancher discovered the cherries, and the Bag Lady had some, too, so there aren't enough left to do anything with, except eat them!

She has carrots to deal with (pickled carrots with dill - yummy!) and should probably make some beet pickles, too. Let the games pickling and preserving begin!

This is a long weekend in Canada, and she and the Rancher may do something wild and crazy. Canning? Pickling? Camping? Drinking? It's all up in the air!! And the temperature is supposed to be up, too... forecast high for today is 29C (85F) and tomorrow will be hotter.

It's summertime, eh?

Babble Post

The Bag Lady is off to town today to do some shopping and bill paying.

There is rain in the forecast for today, which is fine with her. Her garden could use a drink.
The Rancher, with the help of his brother, finished baling the little bit of hay that there was (perhaps an eighth of last year's yield), so let it rain! The pasture could use a drink, too.

This has been a strange summer. Cold and dry to start, then about 5 inches of rain in roughly a two-week stretch, then hot and dry. It has really affected the growing season. The hayfields suffered greatly, as did the pasture and garden. The rain that came was almost too late, but did save the garden and the pasture. Unfortunately, the hayfield has already blossomed, so the rain didn't help. Between the lack of moisture and the huge numbers of grasshoppers, well, if the Rancher and the Bag Lady hadn't down-sized their herd, they would be in serious trouble! As it is, they aren't sure they will have enough feed to get them through the winter. And they are not alone in this. There are ranchers in the central and southern portions of the province who have had to resort to buying hay to feed their animals because their pastures have dried up and died.

Buying (expensive!) hay to feed in the summer is disastrous. There are a lot of ranchers who have suffered too many losses over the past few years to keep going. When the last of the independent ranchers go out of business, the entire country will suffer. Once the packing plants own all the feedlots and cattle, they will be able to control the market (even more so than they do already!) and charge whatever they want.

The Bag Lady watched a program on TV the other night about yet another threat to the world's food supply. Honeybees are disappearing at an alarming rate. This poses a threat to our entire food chain. Honeybees don't just produce honey - they pollinate an enormous number of plants such as fruit trees, forage crops, etc. and without them, a lot of the fruits and vegetables we see in our grocery stores will disappear, along with dairy and meat products!

The Bag Lady doesn't want to sound like an alarmist, but she does worry about this in those moments between worrying about paying the bills and worrying about whether her hair is falling out or the sun is going to come out tomorrow!

What kinds of things do you worry about?

Flowers

Here are some pictures from the Bag Lady's flower garden (please ignore the weeds....)

Lilies with some Mallows visible behind them:

Blue and Pink Delphiniums:

The Bag Lady's flower garden is not up to standard this year. It was too dry and cold early in the season, and the Bag Lady has been terribly lazy about weeding....

Sizzle

The Bag Lady's area has been sweltering under a bit of a heat wave for the last while (she is not complaining, don't ever think she would, because she knows that in 6 months or so it could be -40! She just hopes that this doesn't mean the cold weather will conversely last as long as the heat wave has...)

The Bag Lady decided yesterday that she simply had to mow her lawn. She uses a ride-on mower, and was sensible enough to wear a hat. But she had to wait until the dew burned off the grass, and what with one thing and another, it was the hottest part of the day before she got started. It takes her a solid 3 hours to mow her lawn (sometimes more), and by the time she finished, she was definitely warm. She stopped once to rescue a toad, and once more to fill her machine with gas. She took advantage of that stop to get a drink of water.

She is very glad that she decided to wear the hat (except for when the grasshopper that somehow managed to get under it was trying to jump out - that is definitely a unique feeling!) because even with the hat, she thinks she may have gotten a touch of heat stroke. She ended up with a skull-crushing headache last night that prevented her from even thinking, let alone trying to come up with a blog post!

Between her headache and the heat, she had a terrible time sleeping last night and so, apparently, did the Princess, because she woke the Bag Lady at 5 am, demanding to be let out. Sigh.

The Bag Lady apologizes for this rather lame post and hopes she'll have something better for you tomorrow.

Cuteness!

Here is the newest addition to the ranch. He was a little camera-shy, unfortunately, and far more interested in getting a drink of milk than he was in posing for a picture!

His mama is a sweet-natured cow, but she wasn't interested in the photo-shoot either, so the Bag Lady left them alone.


Here is a sight the Bag Lady sees quite frequently; one that has a tendency to startle her guests and make them laugh:

When the cat wants in, he suddenly pops up, standing on the table outside the kitchen window and peering in the window, yowling!
Clever cat.

Meanwhile, Back on the (R-rated) Ranch

(Warning.... this post may contain images that are not suitable for all viewers... or any viewers!)

It was a lovely, hot day on the ranch yesterday. The Rancher decided he would cut some hay. The air conditioner in the tractor does not work (remember that, because it will be relevant later in this post!)

He went to the hayfield and the Bag Lady did some book work, then some housework (washed her floors in the boiling heat....whew!) The Rancher finished up in the hayfield and arrived home just before supper time. (and they had a beer) The Bag Lady had thawed out some pork chops for supper, and the Rancher decided that it was his turn to cook, so he fired up the barbeque. (and had a beer.)

The Bag Lady set the table and settled back to enjoy this unexpected night off from kitchen duty: (and they had a beer)



The Rancher and the Bag Lady enjoyed a little liquid refreshment while their supper was cooking. The evening was balmy, the beer was cold, and everything was good in their world.

Eventually they sat down to a lovely meal:



The Rancher was hot (no air-conditioning in the tractor, remember?) and this:


looked very inviting.

Before the Bag Lady could say "what the heck...?", the Rancher had shed his clothes and...

And then....

And then....

And the Bag Lady will keep the rest of the pictures to herself because..... what happens on the ranch, stays on the ranch!

Have a good weekend!