Blue Sky

It was a great day out in the field and stretch!

Green and Red

Beautiful contrast!

                                                                 

Dog Friends

My friends and I took our dogs to the trail this afternoon. It was a long walk (about 2 hrs), but I'm sure our Snoop dog loved it! He will sleep very well tonight.

I took this shot of the dogs before the walk.
Coco (Black Cocker Spaniel, Age 9)
Hunter (Grey Yorkie Mix, Age 3)
Goro (Brown Terrier Mix, 6 months)
And our Snoop boy, Age 7

They are good friends!

Bran Muffins

Hi Mom A,

Here is the recipe for the Bran Muffins! Today, we used raisins and dried cranberries.

We went through the fridge this morning after everyone left and realized we are out of basic items including bread. So I made the muffins again. Quick, easy, and they are good for you :)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2C wheat bran
• 1C plain yogurt
• 1/3 C butter (softened)
• 1 egg
• 2/3 C brown sugar
• 1/2tsp vanilla extract
• 1C all purpose flour
• 1tsp baking soda
• 1tsp baking power
• 1/2 tsp salt (if you use salted butter, you don't need to add salt)
• 1C fruits (raisins, blueberries, strawberries, dried cranberries, etc...)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease muffin cups.
2. Mix together wheat bran and plain yogurt; let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Beat together softened butter, egg, brown sugar and vanilla and add to yogurt/bran mixture. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir flour mixture into yogurt mixture, until just blended. Fold in fruits and spoon batter into prepared muffin tins.
4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.  

Just the three of us again...

Well the big family reunion is over! And it was a huge success!

We had Tom's parents, big sister & husband and their two girls, and Tom's little sister and her husband, all came to our town on the Vancouver Island.

We had such great weather all the time they were here, not a single rain drop was reported. In fact, it was so hot some of the nights, we had trouble eating in the back yard.

With two active girls around, we were all busy trying to keep up with them. They sure enjoyed swimming in the lake, ocean and the pool. We ate well, played a lot and had a wonderful time together.

Snoop was, of course, a big hit for the girls. He was very patient and was a good boy even when the kids were a bit loud and screaming!

When I came back from dropping off my in-laws at the airport, he welcomed me home as usual, but kept looking behind me waiting for someone else to come in. And he gave me a look... "so, where is everyone?"

Snoop, we are back to our normal life style, just the three of us again. Too quiet?

Green Cone

I have been digging a hole, a big hole about 1 meter deep, for a few days... that's not fun... :-(  It's all for our new ECO product we are installing in the backyard.

Here is the Green Cone, the solar powered food digester! We have been thinking about getting a regular composter for a while, but we learned we don't have very much yard waste to put in. We only have evergreen trees, 25+cedars and a tamarac. We don't even have green yard waste, only a bit during the summer from the veggie garden. We have more food waste than anything else, so we decided to go with this Green Cone.

So, it's not a composter. It doesn't create even a handful of the composter in the end. Instead, it will be absorbed as water and carbon dioxide by the soil. Using solar heat in combination with macro-bacterial activity. It breaks the waste down aerobically into nutrient rich water that is absorbed into the soil. (from https://www.greencone.ca)

We will start trying it today and see how it works.We will let you know its progress later (minus photos of inside!). Oh, did I tell you our city had a composter promotion in June and July, and we get $50 rebate in the mail! Yay :)

Project #...?

So, I started another new project today. What is this green plastic cone shaped thing?
I will let you know in a few days...

I'm back

After a month of absence, I'm back.

I came back from Japan with my parents at the end of June, and we travelled to Victoria, Seattle, Vancouver and to the Rockies in a month. My parents really enjoyed everywhere we travelled, specially Victoria, but their favourite place was our backyard, just sitting on the chairs, relaxing, looking at the trees around and playing with Snoop. They enjoyed the trip very much and said they want to come back next summer again. I'm sure they will come back.

So, in one month, our vegetable garden has over grown, everything is getting so much bigger, including the zucchini plants. We had our first early tomatoes harvest a few days ago and they were actually really good. We have been eating salad everyday from the garden and we can't keep up with the amount of lettuce leaves coming out.

Snoop has been a bit stressed out for a while as I was away many days. But I think he is also back to normal and happy to have me around again.

Green Tea Parfait

Another typhoon brought us heavy rain and wind Friday morning. It was much smaller than we expected and it cleared up by noon. 

I was busy going from place to place shopping to buy things we cant get in Canada including a few boxes of Sake for my husband, food, books, clothes...

While I was shopping, I stopped to have something sweet. I ordered a "Green Tea Parfait". It was layered with Green Tea flavoured ice cream, Vanilla ice cream, corn flakes, red bean paste, rice cakes (mochi) and whipped cream and green tea sauce!

Yum :)

I don't think this scares off my in-laws in Canada?

Stamina lunch

A big typhoon hit Japan yesterday afternoon and overnight. It caused some big damage including one death, 400 flight cancellations, evacuation orders for 15,000 people and more. Next typhoon is supposed to reach Japan this Friday...

After the typhoon, the temperature rose high everywhere in Japan and it marked the hottest day of the year.  31C in Tokyo with high humidity is really hard for everyone and I... I am so used to cool Canadian weather now.

So my lunch today was a special one that is supposed to help me gain stamina from the hot summer heat. Unagi, freshwater Japanese eel. Unagi is rich in protein, calcium, vitamin A and E. They are usually steamed and grilled, then served over a bed of white rice.
The traditional accompaniment to this dish is a small bowl of kimosui, eel liver soup! (Yikes to most of you guys!)