{This moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.






A good workout!

It feels like spring, preparing for winter

Slowly but surely I'm tilling the ground of the allotment.







In the ten years I have the allotment, I've never tilled the whole lot before winter. In spring I could notice the vast difference between de beds then, though....



To keep myself motivated, I took a picture every time I've finished my goal for the day. Half a bed is enough to make me feel the tilling in the evening, but I can go back the next day without pain.

{This moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the Soulemama comments for all to find and see.

{This moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

{This moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

*** *** ***

Preserving prunes

There are only so many ways to preserve your garden bounty. The canned prunes from last year are not used up yet, so I had to think of an alternative.



11 kg of prunes in a day - I eat much, but not THAT much.
All neighbours are taken care of, so ....

I made a rich yeast dough:

1,5 kg flour
450 grams suger
200 grams margarine
400 grams butter
zest of 3 lemons
3/8 liter milk
90g fresh yeast
3 eggs

combine as usual, and set to rise for 90 minutes. Install yourself in front of the tv, and half prunes. As much as you can.

sort the prunes onto the rolled out dough....



make the "Streusel" dough.
Roughly combine:
800g flour
400g butter
400g sugar

distribute the crums over all your trays.





bake for about an hour.



Finished!

I pack two pieces into a freezer bag, and I have a treat whenever I want.



Enjoy!

What you can't remember...

You've got to write down.

Yesterday I've "destemmed" a lot of black currants. We treat them like pure gold, as the jam made from them, is our all time favourite.

For the umpteenth time I filled the bowl first, as I'm using it always when processing the pickings from the garden in front of the television. I wish I had a front porch to do that, but I don't, so the living room it is for now.

So...I want to weigh the result of my efforts to decide how to process them further.



I think I have weighed this bowl at least 58 times in the years I've had it, but I'm never able to recall it's weight when I need it.

Soo....



let's hope the marker actually IS waterproof ;-)

Families...

The inside of my shed is a coveted space I've learned this spring.

First signs where the newly build nests..... outside the shed as well as inside it.

first signs - outside


Prime real estate, appearantly.




Then the nest contained 5 eggs, which all came out.

I have renters now.


A family of "White Wagtails"


I have 7 little souls living in the shed now. I try to stay out of their way as much as possible.
Yesterday I needed a few hours though... they stay away as soon as I enter the allotment. Because I've stayed that long yesterday, they started to fly overhead and scream at me. I left ;-)



From the car I could see them re-enter and feed their kids.

According to the wiki, they are territorial. I hope they come back next year.

Overachiever.............

I'm not. It's been a while ........

But my blackberry truely is this year. It was flowering with a fury about a month ago........




It's FULL of berries slowly developing now.



and still flowering. It blows my mind.
You'll sometimes see plants doing this in their last attempt to survive. But my blackberry is preparing for next year at the same time....

"front" - eastside



"back" - westside



Actually, I have the buckets ready to harvest them, I can't wait.

New starts all around....

This spring - as every spring around here, is a time of beginning.

The garden lies clean and ready for a whole season of gardening.



First strawberry is picked and eaten, the blueberries performing this year for the first time, the woodchip mulch makes the ground sour - which helps them tremendously.





The other beginning looks like this:



The first step to prepare for september. I want to have this finished before the course "Opleiding Orthomoleculaire Voedingsleer en Geneeskunde" starts. (Orthomolecular Dietetics and Medicine)
It's the prerequesit basic medical training to get to be registered as therapist.

12 modules before september, the fist I've finished today. One down, eleven to go ;-)

A beautiful Easter weekend

This Easter we went to the west of our little country to see our Grandson and his parents.
He's growing like nobodys business, having outgrown the jacket I'm making for him already !?!
I will have to get creative, because the size chosen - 12 to 18 months - is what he's wearing right now!



Easter monday we've crossed the border to Germany, finding two fleamarkets to peruse.
I've found three amazing pieces - the hunt was all worth it!

A lovely kitchen clock, mounted on a ceramic tile € 5.


My new favourite watch, a swiss made little treasure, which still operates on winding € 5 as well.



and a broche, I liked the minute I layed eyes on it - to hold together my shawls - € 2,50.



Yay for fleamarkets, amazing finds, and our happy and healthy grandson!

{This moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

*** *** ***



soulemama blog

Breakfast smoothie

Finally I'm starting the smoothies belonging to the CLEAN program. We're working our way there, very slowly.
I'm down to 3 cups of coffie a day, when earlier (for the last 25 years actually) I've consumed about 2 cups an hour every waking hour of the day.
I have to say, I feel better for it.

Today it was: Apple, Kiwi, Pecannuts, Prunes (F), Strawberries (F) and Blackberries (F), green leafs from the greenhouse, Pearjuice and Coconutmilk. (F)= frozen from the garden harvest. Thanks, Norma!

Eventful week

This was a very eventful week - no wonder I did not have time to blog about it ;-)

Tuesday started like this:


then this happened:



At the end of the day:



A few hours later I got an amazing gift:



Wednesday's stage was set...


the amazing art of staging a sandwich...



But she is the real star of the day:



Thursday Max came to us for a vacation - he followed a few hours German class as well ;-)



Friday an attempt to help out a few neighbors, In the morning to support a sick neighbor, and in the afternoon the last primer goes on the wall of the room where Poo the bear was exterminated.

Saturday was compost day:

I'm so fortunate to have friends that love boytoys. It saves you a whole day of backbreaking labour.





Not that there was NO labour left, but it was half the effort of last year, and double the result.



And just to keep the record complete, I've hauled a fridge for the snackbar on friday as well ;-)

Now my back and my arms and legs need a rest.......... sunday, first day of summertime.

{This moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

I'm so easily entertained!

I've exterminated Poo the bear today. He was rather surprised.



Some of his friends were braver....


but got distressed later on...




Even Poo was elated by a little thing - the butterfly - which I found all over...



He held on to a log in an effort to stay.....



but the bigger picture was a rather positive one!


Piece by piece Poo and his friends made way for a blank canvas.


Helping out a friend can be very entertaining ;-)