We Have Company! Cheese, Garden and Knitting Updates! (YOP Week 13)

FIVE dogs in the house! With our three, we have added Stella and dear Pavlov! Our friend in Montreal had to fly back overseas, poor guy, his father passed away. So yesterday at 4:30pm, he called and asked if we could babysit his dogs for 2-3 weeks because his flight was in 6 hours! Omg...at 7pm, we were back in Montreal (oh the horror on a Saturday night), picking up his dogs. We babysat Pavlov for 6 weeks when our friend was trying to find a place to live back in June and July. Now we have him and his mom Stella. I think the next few weeks will be INSANE. Including the cats, there are eight pets in the house! 

Before the whirlwind craziness began yesterday, I did manage to knit something! I found a cute pattern for an engraved-style Pumpkin Dishcloth or place mat. It's the first time I followed a pattern like this, it was easy, just knits and purls, but it required focus! I'm going to make at least one more for place mats for Halloween I think. I saw a few others that I might try as well. (Visit the group on Ravelry for more updates!)

Speaking of knitting, I got my yarn order! These are two of the colours I chose for socks. First time sock-making imminent...since I can't handle double-pointed needles too well, I did some research and found these teensy tiny little circular sock needles. Oh my gosh, they are so small! This will be a learning curve for me!!! I hope I can do a lot of "porch knitting" this week. It's going to be hot and sunny until Thursday. The dogs will dictate my projects for the next little while I think! :)

The tomatoes are ripening and we're getting LOTS of little cherry tomatoes every other day! I'm still waiting to see if my pumpkins will turn orange!

On the cheese front: My Cams are still forming bloomy white mold all over (more on Rainy Day Cheese Making). It may be hard to see, but the raised white areas are the mold. This is all very exciting!! I can't wait to try all these amazing cheeses! I wanted to try making another poutine cheese this weekend, but with the dogs, it might not happen.

I made a baked spaghetti in our new (used) Corningware dishes. Of course, I used my homemade Mozzarella and look how wonderfully it melted! We have one ball of Mozza left so I have to find some time this week to make another batch for aging. I love making my own cheese! :)

And just for fun, I wanted to share these photos I took with my Canon camera. I admit I've been lazy with the photography lately because isn't it just so easy to pull out your cell phone?? But I've been up so early these days, at 5am for some reason, so Friday morning I decided to try to take photos of the sunrise. I had the mode on "burst" - which means it takes hundreds of photos one after the other when you just keep the shutter button pressed. But I kept moving around and look what happened.

Aren't they kind of neat? I love the tree photo, they look so wispy. They give me ideas for paintings too. It just goes to show that you don't always need to take still photography for interesting results! I used to really enjoy photography and that's one thing I've really let slide, but I'm going to make sure I keep it up from now on because it's a great way to be creative; and also in my case, bond with nature!

I hope you all have a lovely week my friends! I still hope I can do some painting this week...canine rules though! :) Wish us luck!!

Jack's Birthday...Smoked Cheddar and Apple Fondue...YOP (Week 12)

Hi Everyone :)

Here is my Year of Projects update! I knitted another hat. You Ravelry people have created a monster !! :) I even did some more work on my Beach/Fall Cover Up. The weather is so nice I've enjoyed porch-knitting every day! :) I also found a Canadian based online yarn company and am happily waiting for an order of yarn and needles!! I can't seem to stop now! :) I want to make some socks and I have some fall decorative knitting in mind too! And I might make another hat...one colour for each of my moods, lol!!! :) 

All of my other projects have slowed down for now. No cheese making because I was waiting on an order, which I received on Friday! These are my Camembert molds.

And my Camembert moulds. :) This is my next cheese and if I have time this week, I'll make a few. Alex and I have some errands in the "big city" this week, gah....we hate driving to Montreal...but we'll grin and bear it. Heck, we'll even sneak in an authentic poutine while we're there to soften the blow lol! 

It was Jack's birthday yesterday!! Our little fella is eleven years old. We don't know his real birthday so we celebrate on the anniversary of the day we adopted him!

I made the Spoiled Dog Cake again and we cut a little piece for each dog after dinner. We have to cut Jack's up in small pieces or he'll swallow it whole!

The dogs wait patiently as Alex says "take your place"...they are ready to pounce as soon as he says "okay!"...the cake was gone in less than 7 seconds...I counted! :)

Alex and I celebrated four and a half years together last week too. :) I try to make a fondue once a month on our special day. This one was AMAZING...and perfect for fall. Smoked Cheddar and Apple Fondue. Wow...we had an apple cider with it, so nice! We had to go for a long walk after dinner to help us digest! One thing about Quebec...they do apples right. There are so many orchards here and a few spots that make ciders, apple ice wines and apple liqueurs.

The fondue called for Apple Butter so I decided to make some. I made it very bland since I didn't want any spices in it. It's just 8 apples (peeled, cored and sliced), tossed into the crockpot for 8 hours with a sprinkling of brown sugar and a pinch of salt. I blended it after and it made about 2 cups. Delicious! Since apples and pears are in season now, we're going to try to load up when we go out so we can store some...and so we can try making some apple and pear liqueurs!

The weather is PERFECT!! Each morning it's cool, around 10 degrees Celcius...when I walk the dogs up the mountain, it's been foggy every morning. I love it! Then the afternoons are hot and humid so I can sit on the porch and enjoy what's left of summer. I always take a photo of the lake to show you the view...

...and here is a photo from behind me. This is the top of the "Green Peak" where I live. It's nice that there are some benches there but unfortunately I often see cigarette butts and empty beer bottles. At least when I go early in the morning, there is nobody around.

September promises to be "Indian Summer" here in the Laurentians and I couldn't be more thrilled! My tomatoes are ripening on the vine finally! :)

Cheese Cave Is Filling Up! Winter Garden and Year of Projects Update (Yop Week 11)

Hello Everyone!

I hope you've all had a nice week and a lovely weekend! Things have slowed down a bit here. I didn't make ANY cheese this week - GASP! Actually as I type this, I have some curd cheese ripening for tonight's poutine! :) I ordered a bunch of new cultures to make new cheeses, I can't wait to try them out! My next attempt will probably be a Camembert! I can't wait! But I wanted to show you my cheese cave...aka the old bar fridge. I have SEVEN cheeses aging!! How exciting! (I posted a more detailed update on Rainy Day Cheese Making).

I did have eight cheeses aging, but we decided to try the Mozzarella on Pizza Night! My little aging experiment really turned out well. I aged this Mozza just for a week but it really changed the texture into a cheese that was easily grate-able. It melted perfectly on the pizza and tasted wonderful!

The two Cheddars were finally dry enough to seal. The one on the left will be aged for a year and the Newcastle Cheddar on the right...well, we'll try to wait until Christmas!! :)

Garden Update: I spent a few days in the garden this last week. I had to move my Morning Glories...they just haven't even bloomed yet, oh well. The tops look healthy but the bottom of the plant is very dry and brittle. Not sure what happened there but I do hope I get some flowers before winter!

One of my projects for the year is to plant a winter garden. I'd been doing lots of reading up on what crops can handle cold climates.  So I got to work on a very muggy but warm afternoon!

The two spots I have planned for the winter garden are on either side of the porch. These are the best areas because they are protected from the North wind plus they are on the South side of the house so they should get lots of sunshine and warmth! I planted carrots, Brussels sprouts, beets, turnips and green onions on one side. Then I planted Miners Lettuce, Corn Salad (Mâche), Leeks, Mustard Greens and Spinach on the other side. This is yet another first for me, so I'm hoping with lots of mothering, my winter garden will give me some freshness throughout our cold snowy winter. They are currently protected each night under poly-tarp until I can manage to build two cold frames. I didn't plant too much since it's my first winter garden. If things work out, I'll plant more next year.

I ordered some garlic bulbs to plant as well as a bunch of seed packs for the spring. I'll be planting the garlic at the beginning of October for next year's harvest. I also plan on planting some of my favourite lettuce too...but somehow grow it indoors without grow lights...more to come on that! :)

Knitting Knews: :)  I had to make an extension to the neck band for Jack's sweater. It started to stretch a little and fall down to his shoulders. I'm hoping this will keep it all up and comfy for him!

Enjoying the fall weather with his "twin" Marlene - joined at the hip!

Here is another non-planned knitting project: I finished the "Man Hat" as suggested by Farmgirl Sam, who is a great inspiration to me! It's a nice pattern, very easy! I'm going to knit another one for myself because it's just a wee bit loose on me. I know I'll get a slap on the wrist for this, but I NEVER check my gauge (and you can't make me!)...but it does make for adjustments and sizing surprises now and then! Still, I'm really proud of myself, despite the double-pointed-needle-stress at the end lol! I'm very happy I joined the Ravelry group. It's really got me knitting again! 

Bargain Hunting!!!  Alex and I spent last Thursday hitting the thrift stores, what a haul we got! I've always wanted a Raclette machine, but they are a bit expensive. We got this one for $6 and we tested it, it works! I can't wait to melt some cheese on stuff...lol...another way to add melted cheese to my life, go figure.

I also scored on cookbooks. It's not easy to find English books in this area, but I guess some Anglophone was generous lately with the thrift stores and I snatched them all up!

This book was a great find! I love all things Halloweenie...and we got some  board games for fun too...we are building a huge collection of those! The gal on the "Yum" board game seems to be having fun! :)

We got a duo of blankets and barware too. And we only spent a total of $27 so it was a nice treat!

But honestly? Being out in society...it really takes its toll on us. We spent most of the day Friday in bed watching movies and putting our new little liqueur glasses to good use! Living a hermit life is exactly what we love...but when we need to get out into humanity, our bodies and minds are never prepared for it! I don't know that I'll ever be comfortable around people again...but somehow that doesn't really bother me. :)

Two New Cheddars; Leafy Sea Dragon, Jack's Sweater (YOP Week 10) and Potatoes!!!

Hi Everyone :)

How are you all doing? I feel great. Every day the past week was sunny, though very much sweater weather. I don't mind the rain today because it's the weekend and at least the weekender neighbours are stuck indoors lol. The garden is at a stand still. Oh well, I wonder if my tomatoes will ever ripen! I did a lot of my hobbies this last week too. I painted this leafy sea dragon in watercolour which I started sketching with the watercolour pencils - I LOVE those pencils!! It's a funny looking creature, here is an image I found off Google:

Alex is fascinated with sea creatures and asked me to paint one for him. It's now up on the watercolour wall! There is also a "weedy sea dragon" that I'll be painting for him as well. At the suggestion of Tammie Lee from Beauty Flows, I will be joining the Wednesday "Scribble Picnic". It's a group of bloggers who follow a weekly theme to encourage them to create art. So every Wednesday (if I can keep it up!) I should have a new watercolour that I'll be posting! I'm excited, because I love to create, but I also love structure! :) It's open to anyone who would like to join, just follow the link above! :)

My knitted beach cover up is on hold for a while, but now that I have the knitting bug, I had to knit something! I decided on Martha Stewart's dog sweater pattern. This wasn't on my original list of projects for the year. If anyone wishes to check out the Year of Projects group on Ravelry, here is the link. Is it me or are some of these patterns written in an overly complicated way? I love Martha, but she takes 6 lines to write out instructions that I condensed to one easily understandable line! Anyway, this was easy and fun to make, and Jack seems to like it! He's had it on for about an hour after I washed it and it's already full of Marlene's hair - oh my gosh she is shedding badly! We live in a hairy house these days!

I had to wing the size because Jack's rib cage is really outstanding, but his neck is tiny. So it's between a small and medium. If I make this again, I'll have to alter it just a little more to make the underside wider.

Do you ever find things that you forgot you had?? This is a book that I found this morning! It was under a bunch of my old school books in a drawer gathering dust. I'm going to look through it for the next project!

Speaking of projects, I made TWO more Cheddars!! They are both drying out before I start to age them. The one on the left is going to be aged for a year, ready for Labour Day 2018. The one on the right is going to be aged until Christmas or New Year's. I infused it with Newcastle Brown Ale...it smells DIVINE...I'm conjuring up all of my will power to leave it alone without sneaking a bite!

The Colby and the aging Mozzarella are dry enough to be sealed today for aging. I made these a few weeks back; the Colby should be ready to try in 6 weeks, and the Mozza, since it's an experiment...not sure how long it'll age!

I started my cheese making in July. My goals for the entire year were 4 Cheddars, a Pizza Mozzarella, a Cream Cheese, a Camembert and a Blue Cheese. I haven't done too bad at all for the first TWO months lol...I guess Leigh is right, I'm addicted. Not a bad addiction though! :) I highly recommend Leigh's blog by the way 5 Acres and a Dream. It's a wonderful homesteading blog, I love it. I've been following Leigh for many years now and have learned a lot. 

Remember the 40 potatoes that I harvested on Wednesday? Half are gone! :) I made a dish with sausage and potatoes called French Quarter Potatoes. Very comforting! And I used up the green onions I harvested and made a Green Onion and Potato Soup with homemade bread. MUCH better than leek and potato in my opinion! I love that everything for that dinner was either home grown or home made (except the butter!!).

More potatoes! Last night was fish and chip night with some of the Newcastle beer. Check out the fun baskets and basket liners!! Alex and I try our best to shop online as much as possible to avoid going out. Pretty much everything except for groceries gets bought online so when we have an Amazon order, we check out what they call their "add on" items. These are items that are really inexpensive, but you can only get them if you "add them on" to your already $25 purchase. The baskets were 6 for $4.99 and the liners were in a bag of 24 for $3.99. Makes it fun, like being in a diner! :) Mama Pea the baskets and liners would go well on burger night with the milkshakes in those glasses we bought! :)

What's up for your coming week? It's Labour Day weekend, and OMGAWD...the tourists are here in groves, yeegad. It's so loud in the village...we are totally hibernating this weekend. We'll have our quiet back on Tuesday, at least until Thanksgiving!