Summer's Here!

 Yes, summer is finally here and with that comes hornet's nests.  We found this the other night - right next to where I grow veggies so they managed to build this over 1.5 days.  It was large, over a foot high.  Hubby waited until dark to evict them.  Fortunately no sign of them trying to rebuild anywhere on the house.

We have a vision in our heads of what our back yard will look like next year.  Over a cocktail in Mexico on one of our last days of our January trip we decided we want a Mexican Oasis back there.  To help with that vision I have been on the look out for strawberry planters all spring (new or used) but couldn't find any ones made of clay.  These were extremely dirty with years of grime/winter rain scum (left) but hubby managed to scrub them up pretty good with a soak in vinegar, a scrub and then sprayed them off with the power washer.  They still have some aged patina and I love them, managed to buy them both on the bidding site for $33 and beat out six others bidding for them as I managed to place a bid in the last 5 seconds.  I am planting flowers in them versus strawberries though.  A tall reed/plant in the middle with petunias around then succulents in each of the pockets - or something like that.  Our current patio is not quite large enough to do it this year so I will store them until the patio is expanded.

My friend texted me to come pick some berries because they are ripening faster than she can pick them.  We ate some, gave some to Mom and I froze a few.  In the next week or two I will make a batch of raspberry blackberry jam.  I still have a lot of blackberries in the freezer so after that will donate the rest of the blackberries to the animal rescue as the birds often have a diet that includes blackberries and they have freezers full of them.

The raspberry patch - she was gifted these raspberry canes from a neighbor 3 years ago. They are doing very well.

Hubby has determined we must grow sugar snap peas every single year now - and 2 or 3 times more than we grew this year.  We have been enjoying them in salads and snacking on them regularly.  I am hoping they continue to flower a little while as it isn't too hot here currently, May was hotter than June has been.  

I continue to find cute pieces of Mexican pottery - this jar was found for $4.80 at a local thrift store.  There was a cute note taped to the bottom as it had been a gift at a Mexican wedding in the 1980s.  I will give it a good home now.

Mom and I went to a couple garage sales yesterday but I bought exactly one thing, this cute clay pot for $1.  My friend loves buying plants but wants some for her patio and doesn't have any cute containers so I am scouting them for her.  She was very happy with this one as it is fairly good sized.

Meet Otis, he is a little screech owl who I visited with on my last volunteer session at the animal rescue.  He was part of a failed breeding program and could not be returned to the wild several years ago so he was given to our organization to live out his years.  He was sleepy, almost nothing cuter than a sleepy owl.  Except sleepy dogs....

I made dinner for six last night for $40 - we invited friends over plus my Mom and had a lovely BBQ of skinless boneless chicken thighs, potato salad, caesar salad, corn on the cob and my friend's homemade apple cheesecake which was to die for.  It was a lot of fun.  I never used to entertain anyone but family in Alberta but we seem to get together with friends a lot more here.

In other news after taking some friends to their float plane flight to Vancouver I noticed two errors on the floatplane company's website and emailed them.  They emailed back a thank you and a $10 gift card to Starbucks - completely surprised me - what a nice gesture!

I am currently saving money in our "fun fund" (also where the funds for fishing come from) for us to take a float plane trip next summer somewhere.  It's not cheap but on my bucket list so I am making it happen.  That fund is pretty healthy with $250 more in there right now than our $600 July fishing trip (half day for four people including licenses) costs so we are off to a good start!  All monies from reselling/selling our own old junk/saving change/returned deposit money on bottles/ebates money is put into the fun fund.  Hubby says I am like a squirrel tucking that money away but he sure doesn't complain when we go fishing or do something fun with it.

Anyway, that's what is shaking at the little island pad.  Have a great week everyone!