yellow everywhere...

During this week, I took some pictures of our sunflowers and went on a couple of healthy bike rides with my youngest son - we saw lots of goldenrod growing in the neighborhood (even he recognized this plant!). We are trying to get a few more rides in before his yellow schoolbus shows up at the door - speaking of yellow, I made the pizza recipe in Barbara Kingsolver's book 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' and decorated the pizza with an interesting combination of pepperoni, pineapple, yellow peppers, and herbs - yum!

It's been a green week!

You could call me crazy, but I just felt like knitting again - I am only a beginner knitter, but I decided to knit myself a nice cozy wrap in 35C (hot!) weather in a beautiful leaf green colour.

Speaking of green, I harvested some green beans for dinner and freezer. If you look closely at the photo with my green beans, you will also see some gorgeous swiss chard, which I will start using in future green smoothies - here is a photo of my very first green smoothie made with mango and baby spinach - it was quite tasty!

...a kitchen filled with herbs and folk remedies...

...she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an Acadian midwife with a gift for healing and a kitchen filled with herbs and folk remedies...

What an opening of an interesting novel by Ami McKay - the title of this novel is "The Birth House" with details regarding the Halifax Explosion, the midwifery tradition, knitting socks for soldiers during World War I, and - to me, the most fascinating - stories of herbal medicine and women's wisdom!

After hours of weeding in my vegie garden, I was rewarded with a first harvest of green beans! I made a delicious spicy potato & green bean salad from recipe in book 'ExtraVeganZa' by Laura Matthias. Then in the evening when I went for a stroll just in the back of our property, I found some beautiful pink-purple flowered plants with purple stems - used my trusty library Peterson Field Guide copy to find out it was sweet Joe-Pye-Weed.

Treasures to be found in your back yard...

Our roof is going on the workshop - Mike and our 'big guy' came down this steep roof with very achy calf muscles...

From green to pink to ...lift-off!!

Thought I would update my readers that out of those beautiful 3 robin's eggs, 3 pink darlings came out, and then sadly Mike found one baby on the cement floor one morning... The two babies grew quickly, and then luckily one night, I climbed up on the ladder just in time to take photo of the only bird left - ready for take-off the following day!

City of Art

We saw Art Galleries and artists working or selling their works on the street - from lithographs, coloured photographs to miniature paintings. The architecture was impressive with the height of the doors at the Court House and the numerous churches, especially the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal. What an amazing city to share with family and friends!

Fabulous French friends

My wonderful friend Linda from Quebec played 'tour guide' for mom and I - she drove us to Montreal where we saw amazing homes with curvy staircases, pots of plants and bicycles everywhere...my mom said she thought she was in Amsterdam (both my mom and I are born there).

Above is a photo of a restaurant in Old Montreal - what a wonderful idea to present your pots!