Zucchini Time

We harvested a zucchini!  Last year our zucchinis were all eaten by animals, so we are quite pleased that we get to enjoy them this year.  Plus there are three more on the way!  I'm so proud and super happy because Zucchini is a definite favourite!

Looking Good!

Top View.

Way to go, Zucchini!! :)

Previous Garden 2010 Blog Posts:

Garden 2010 - Midsummer Update
Garden 2010 - Six Weeks Later
Garden 2010 - Day 12
Plants in the Ground, Plants in the Ground
How Does Your Garden Grow?

Life's a Beach

This is the public beach that is a simple bike ride away from my house.  Feeling exploratory yesterday, I took a tour down to the beach to see how far away it actually was and see if it was plausible that I could ride there, swim, and ride back.  I discovered that not only is it super quick to get there (15 min) the ride there is mostly downhill. Beautiful.  Which begs the question, how have I not done this before now?

Recently I have gained a tremendous amount of confidence in my bike riding.  I used to think places were much farther away then they actually are, and I also underestimated my energy/ability to get to and from a destination.  For whatever reason I believed that my body was going to give out or break or something equally awful that would leave me stranded wherever I set out to be.  Anxiety is really stupid, isn’t it?  All my positive bike rides this summer have allowed me to let go of most of these fears and gain the confidence to go anywhere I want to on my bike.  I am not trained to do a Tour de France or anything, but within safe distance it is pretty much a sure bet that I can get there and back on my own energy.

I wasn’t just fighting anxiety on this one, I was also suffering from a case of not remembering where I am.  Because I live here, I often forget that I live in cottage country.  Near a lake.  People struggle through horrendous traffic on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons to enjoy this, and I often ignore it.  Shameful.  To my credit, the past few summers have been rainy and about eight months of the year is cold or snowy, so it has been relatively easy to forget.  Also, the beach has become more and more privatized over the past few years, so there are only a handful of public access points and even less parking spaces.  There is an increase in ticket-happy by-law officers who have no problem writing $60 tickets for anyone parked in the wrong spot.  We luckily have a parking pass, but it is still a gamble whether there will be a free spot and we only have one pass, so if there are more people who want to swim than seat belts, it is an added complication.  So how happy am I that I figured out that I could ride my bike to beach and not worry about parking?

I did my test ride to beach last night and if the sun keeps shining l might take myself of a trip to the beach this afternoon.  Very excited. :)

Public access point to the beach.

One of the "Township-owned beach areas"

The trail to the beach with my happy bike.

 Art shot of my bike at the beach.  The kick stand just sunk into the sand,
so I had to hold it up.  Hence the close up.

Vote For Elmvale!

From noon today until noon tomorrow you can vote for Elmvale, Ontario to win a $25,000 grant from Kraft Canada to spruce up their community centre.  It is part of the Kraft Celebration Tour where they have communities battle it out for your votes during a 24 period.  Elmvale, Ontario is up against Brighton, Ontario - but anyone can vote, and you can vote as often as you like!  I have already voted about twenty times since noon!  And I will definitely be voting more over the next 24 hours.

The best part is that you don't have to sign up for anything - just keep voting!  Click here to cast your vote!  And keep voting all day! :)

Big thanks to Lori for letting me know about this!

UPDATE: Brighton, Ontario got the most votes and was the winner.  It is too bad for Elmvale, but I am sure Brighton needs the cash just the same.  Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote!  You Rock!

Garden 2010 - Midsummer Update

I fought through a swarm of mosquitoes this morning in order to give my garden a good weeding.  With all the rain we had overnight there were plenty of weeds to remove and I am sure I got thirty new mosquito bites for my effort.  Such is life when you live near a marsh in the summer! :)

The Garden is coming along nicely.  We have already eaten a few peas, beans, and made some salads from the romaine and spinach.  Everything is tasting great so far!

 

Our herbs. The cilantro (front) has gone to flower, so we need to get some more of them started.   The lavender and oregano (middle) are coming along and the basil (back) is looking great!

A pile of beans.  The Buddha is hanging out in the garden too.

Peas in the pod!  I don't like peas as a rule, but right out of the pod they taste amazing!

Carrots and Onions.

Pepper plants soaking up the sun.

Romaine.  We have been picking off leaves and making awesome salads.

Row of Romaine.  Soon to be salad. Yum.

Spinach.  We weren't really paying attention and planted something called Long Standing Bloomsdale spinach.  It tastes like normal spinach but it is growing really tall.  I hope it puffs out and we have lots of spinach to eat.

Tomatoes!

Our Zucchinis are big!  Zucchini is my favourite so I can't wait to harvest these!

We even have a Zucchini on it's way.  Note to rabbits: please don't eat this!

We have some corn that is about five feet tall.  Last year our corn got eaten by animals before we had a chance to try it.  I hope we get a chance to sample it this year.

Our cucumbers all died, but I noticed this little guy this morning.  Maybe he is going to make it after all. 
Here is hoping! :)

Previous Garden 2010 Blog Posts:

Garden 2010 - Six Weeks Later
Garden 2010 - Day 12
Plants in the Ground, Plants in the Ground
How Does Your Garden Grow?

Double Rainbow

There was an amazing double rainbow on our ride back from town tonight.  It wasn't as intense as the one this guy saw, but it was pretty none the less.  I unfortunately didn't have my camera with me so I missed out on some pretty amazing shots.  :(

I've always loved rainbows.  When we were kids, rainbows were exciting.  Dad would hop in the car and drive to wherever he could get the best shot of the rainbow.  We could go with him too, if we were fast enough.  Even if we weren't, his rainbow pictures were always beautiful.

Tonight's rainbow was still going strong when I got home, but the batteries in my camera were dead (of course!).  Note to self: keep batteries charged and take camera along with you when you go places.

Here are some photos of a double rainbow we saw last year, though:

 
Also, if you haven't watched the Double Rainbow Guy Video or the reaction Double Rainbow Song Video - they are all kinds of funny.