poplar road

While they were out in the yard I started preparing dinner – Allyson requested sushi as she's recently become an addict while living in Vancouver the past six months. We made gomae, California rolls, Dynamite rolls, and seafood and veggie tempura. Allyson e-mailed me a few of her photos today. That began a weekend of decadent eating that I haven't yet recovered from.

After a morning in the garden (see tonight's photos), Richard ran to the grocery store and hardware store on Saturday afternoon, installed my new dishwasher, and eagerly began fixing dinner. Which was, of course, barbecued rib-eye steaks with sauteed mushrooms and caesar salad, a staple in our house that we have missed for a while since our old BBQ fell apart. For dessert, new pastry chef Allyson made a simple but decadent crème brulée, and started dough for Easter Sunday breakfast: croissants. I've never had croissants like that before, amazing! (Well worth the nasty wheat reaction…).

On Sunday night we had several of the neighbours over for dinner; with Allyson, Richard, and I, there were 10 people around the table. Luckily Bud and Maxine were able to bring extra chairs. Richard made ham, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams and squash with brown sugar, brussel sprouts, "garbage peas", cauliflower with cheese sauce, and gravy. Mmmm. When we couldn't stuff ourselves any more, Allyson brought out the gorgeous lemon and blueberry trifle she'd made that afternoon, and we happily finished that off too. When the turkey kicked in Allyson said goodnight and went off to bed, as she and Richard had to leave at 4am to get her to the airport on time for her flight home to Ottawa. The neighbours had kids to get to bed too, so they left by 8 and Richard was in bed shortly thereafter. At that point I meant to update my blog, but dinner for 10 had left the kitchen a mess, and I was high enough on sugar that I figured I might as well clean up. Using the new dishwasher, which can hold 10 place settings no problem, half the dishes were done in no time, and for the remaining 2 hours it took to clean the pots and pans and the rest of the kitchen I was doing the yippy skippy dance, let me tell you! I'll never hand-wash another fork again!!

Richard was very happy to see the kitchen and dining room clean when he got up to take Allyson to the airport, and it meant when he left for work later that morning, I headed straight outside with my gardening tools without having to slave away in the kitchen first. I worked out there all afternoon despite a blustery wind, and when he got home I took a bunch of photos which I will post tonight.

Tuesday was a long work day for both of us, and the sixth day in which I couldn't maintain my Internet connection for more than 5 minutes at a time, so I spent a while on the phone with Telus to find out it was their problem, not mine. (Thank goodness it's fixed today, finally! Otherwise I couldn't update my blog, or work!) Then it seemed I had housework to do again, because Chad and Maria were coming back for a longer visit on their way home Wednesday afernoon.

Maria and Chad arrived around noon, just as Richard got home from work, driving the Mog so Chad could get a look at it. I left my growing pile of grapevine shoots at the base of the back deck and we wandered around the house for a more in-depth explanation of our plans for the master bedroom and the basement. Then the llamas appeared out back so we took the last bag of carrots out and fed them. Supper has a tick or something so Jonathan shaved his head, neck, and down his spine. Perhaps that's why he was being a bit skittish, not really interested in food; but Cam is very used to us now and was gobbling up carrots as fast as we could hand them to her. At one point all 5 llamas had Richard surrounded, although the brown "wild" llamas were still not interested in the carrots, they just wanted to see what was going on. Maria was a little skittish herself when she and I brought over a bucket of alfalfa cubes and Supper, Smoky, and Cam had us pinned side by side against the fence. But I was thrilled – Smoky obviously likes alfalfa because for the first time she ate from my hand. None of them will allow us to pat them yet, but they come over whenever we show up.

Chad and Maria had to get home that night, but we convinced them to stay long enough to have dinner… because Richard was dying to try a roast on the BBQ's rotisserie attachment. It was amazing, we all ate way too much (again). Then the phone rang, Jonathan calling to say that one of the goats just had her first kid. It was getting late but we went down to take a look, and Maria took a lot of photos of the new goat as well as the puppies and baby rabbits. The kid was 10 pounds and much cuter and livelier than the newborn lambs were. I will try to get some of Maria's photos to post, or take some of my own this weekend. After that Chad and Maria had to leave, and we were asleep on our feet pretty soon after.

Next up, another day of work, more painting, and more visitors! Richard's mom arrives tomorrow night for her first visit. Everyone who has visited so far has said how different the house looks in reality compared to the picture they get of it from my blog, so it is always interesting to show people around. With Richard's trade show and travel schedule, though, Bev will be the last visitor we have for a while. It's been very busy around here the past few weeks – it's going to seem awfully quiet, and no major reno projects either. But there's one more new arrival I'm waiting for… spring flowers! It was snowing this morning, and although a lot of the flowers are well out of the ground, neither daffodils nor tulips nor fruit trees are blooming just yet. I can't wait! I'll get those pictures of the garden up tonight and you'll see what we have to look forward to. Let's hope the spring sunshine comes back in time for Bev's visit… and maybe a blossom or two!