28 January 2011

We woke up round 7, got ready to head into town and hit up the farmer’s market and grocery store. We didn’t need much, but somehow ended up spending $100 on cranberry juice, box wine, 18 pack of beer, cider vinegar, brown rice, a loaf of bread, coffee, tea, cottage cheese, sour cream, tea light candles, mustard, rice crackers, garlic, onions and a few other things I can’t remember. Everything is so expensive! At the farmer’s market we picked up another bag of tomatoes and 5 avocados; we would have got more, but not many people were selling cause it was rainy and some roads were flooded. We also went to the little dollar store type place and picked up some fabric for curtains, thread and sewing needles, which will be nice to keep the sun out when it is really hot. We stopped at the garden center on the way back for some more compost and some peat moss for the composting toilet. I looked around for the rose section, which was one table and only had 1 English rose on it, Grace. She was gorgeous, yellow-apricot with pointed petals; very cute and a beautiful fragrance. The woman working, Jan was quite the chatterbox, but nice. She and Dave talked about native trees for a while and then I asked her about roses in this area. She told me that no one grows roses in the Northland, and that I should consider doing it. My idea exactly!!! We’ll see what happens, but I am definitely going to work on a Gardening CV and drop it by next Saturday on the way back from the market. It would be pretty cool to work there and learn about all the Native flora and fauna.

We came back, unloaded the van, loaded our recycling and brought it by the dump. The dump was cool, in that you had to separate all you glass, plastics, etc. yourself and the guy working there was happy as a fly on shit. Why are garbage men so happy?! Seriously though, the guy was awesome.

We came back to the house, cleaned up a bit from the night before, I cut up some watermelon while Dave made potatoes and eggs, which we ate with the salsa I made the other day. Yum, so delicious! Then, I got a little banjo lesson. Yaaaaaayyyy!!! Dave has been giving me little guitar lessons also where I will strum chords for rhythm guitar and he will do lead. It has been pretty sweet. I love the banjo though, so that was really fun. I finger picked with 2 fingers, but had a cut on my thumb so it was a bit tricky. It was great though and when I was doing good, Dave would smile huge and tell me I was doing a great job, and then I would always mess up. Oh well.

Dave started working in cutting some wood for a screen door to the caravan and I started weeding and pruning the cucumbers. The bottom leaves had a bit of powdery mildew from being buried for so long. Now that they are on a trellis, they will be much happier. Dave finished cutting the wood and came down to help me since some of the tools he needed were at the woodshop. He weeded the bed while I continued pruning. Around this time, I realized that it was time to call my family, so I grabbed my computer in case we could Skype and headed up to the house. I got them on the phone while they logged onto Skype and we got to see each other for the first time in 2 weeks. It was awesome!!! I think my Saturday afternoon and their Friday night is the best time to talk cause they’re all buzzed and it gives me an excuse to have a drink in the afternoon with them. Not like I need an excuse, I’m a grown damn woman. Anyhow, we talked for almost and hour and a half and Dave joined in after a bit. It was hilarious. My Dad and Bro kept slamming their beers, just to show off I think and make my mouth water. It worked. I sent Dave down to the fridge to get us a couple beers and we all had a great time catching up. Love them a ton. :)

Then, we hopped on our bikes and rode to the beach to take a dip in the ocean. It was a great ride and the dog didn’t run after us, so that was a relief. Once we got to the beach, clouds had rolled in so I was the only one to take a quick dip, but it was fun. We headed over to the Superet (little corner store), for an ice cream then he home to make dinner. I was craving rice and beans, so I used up our bastard tomoatoes, (the ones that are 1/2 ripe from the beetles sucking on them and the green ones that have fallen off), and turned them into a delicious salsa, just like Mom makes. I burnt the hell outta the tomatoes, garlic, onion, and hot peppers and blended it all together with some cilantro and salt, (I have been using too many of the fam’s lemons, and they’re too expensive at the market so I left the citrus out and it still was delicious). Made some brown rice and lentils with onions, garlic and cumin. Also cubed up some cheese, 1 avocado and 1 tomato to put on top. It was yummy! After we ate, Dave played his guitar for a bit and we went to sleep.

Beach photo!!!