Molasses and Sunshine; Wordless Wednesday with cookies!

One of the nicest things about being self employed and working from home is when things really start to get stressful, you're totally allowed to stop everything and make a batch of cookies.  These were both delicious and a little therapeutic.  The recipe for these amazing Molasses Drops can be found over at our good friend Martha's.  Please go make a batch right now.

Wordless Wednesday: Hard Apple Cider Pressing Time Lapse Video

Here's a fun time lapse video showing all the apples and our process from yesterday's apple cider pressing post.  Hope you like it!

Wordless Wednesday: Wonder Who she Gets That From?

hmm, seems someone has started photographing things before she eats them.  Wonder what that's about.

Wordless Wednesday: What the Heck is This Tomato?

 These lovely tomatoes grew in a friend's garden...

 and nobody knows what they are.

 Here's one ripened up.

Here it is for scale.

Here's the inside, about to go on a burger. Lots of seeds, quite strong skin, perfectly symmetrical from the middle line. Delicious too.  Any idea what it could be? 

Wordless Wednesday: Gorgeous Zapotec Pleated Tomatoes

Zapotec Pleated Tomatoes are pretty much the best looking tomatoes ever. 

Wordless Wednesday: BBQ Pizza for Rosa

Grow your own tomatoes and BBQ your pizza! You'll never look back.  Instructions for grilling pizza can be found here, in one of our very first posts.

Wordless Wednesday: Dandelion Seed Pack

Can you believe you used to be able to buy dandelion seeds? This was in my mix of seed pack labels from Simply French Vintage.  I'm framing it.

Wordless Wednesday: Red Russian Kale

Red Russian Kale in Sarah's garden.  Gorgeous stuff.

Wordless Wednesday: Vintage Tomato Seed Pack

Wordless Wednesday: Little Gardener

Wordless Wednesday: Mason Bees Make an Appearance

We have two new bee houses in the garden this year.  Neither seem to be inhabited yet but today we had our first sighting of one of these important solitary pollinators this afternoon.  I think its an orchard mason bee but I'm not 100% sure.  Hope to be seeing many more this season though.

Wordless Wednesday: Spring visits to Riverdale Farm

Riverdale Farm is my favourite place in the whole city of Toronto.  


A little farm located within a city park on the old zoo grounds provides a great destination when you just need an hour out in the sun with some cows. These photos are from two recent visits. They'll probably be more in the next few weeks.  It really is a little bit of heaven.

Just off River Street.

A sure sign of spring: A robin outside the Simpson House.

Sheep! They seem to have three types this year.

It is important to dress right for a farm visit.

Goats!

Everyone who goes to the farm takes this picture.

Second type of sheep including a little teenage black sheep.

Third type of sheep, the cutest I think.

Rebecca's favourite animal was a farm cat.

The chase is on. 

Where are you kitty?

Sneaky.

I

Red Pigs with perfect snorting and curly tails.

Friends on the Streetcar.

Rebecca in the Francy Barn. 

Penny in the Francy Barn.

Exploring.

Sticks and stones.

Handmade mittens make Penny very happy today.

(Not Quite) Wordless Wednesday: Ditch/skip the sippy cup

Recently over on Twitter, Amy from Hearts into Home was asking about skipping the sippy cup.  So I thought I'd share a few photos of Becca and her mad cup skills. 


You can google why you'd want to skip one as I don't really feel like hosting another round of the great sippy debate here.  I'd just want to share this to demonstrate that it is totally possible to move straight from breast or bottle to a cup.  Feel free to add your experience to the comments.


We have used one here and there, mainly when we're at someone's house where spilling will equal screaming but generally Rebecca has used a cup.  We sometimes use a straw for fun and have some unbreakable silicone ones, but what she likes best is this little vintage juice glass with cherries.  
A shot glass works well too and its helpful to just start with a bit at a time and have them help mop up any spills with a dish cloth.

Homemade pickles and local apple cider

Lots of dipping 

She's saying mmmm...

Wordless Wednesday: So many Seeds

January is one of our busiest  seed selling months with February actually being the busiest.  We're neck deep in seed packing right now, so although I have about a dozen half written posts the blog is going to be slightly neglected for the next month.

Here are some gorgeous Rouge Vif D'Etampes Pumpkin Seeds about to be counted out. We make and pack every packet by hand, which sometimes feels a little overwhelming, but it really does ensure the seed is perfect.

Come and check out #seedchat on twitter tonight.  I'm hosting a La Leche League Meeting so I'll likely only be there for the end, but we'll be giving out 2 prize packs of seeds to participants.  Check out www.seedchat.com for details.

Wordless Wednesday: The Quilt is Finished

I finished Rebecca's Christmas present on Christmas Eve.  It's my very first quilt, and although its a little wonky in places we're all quite pleased with it.  It's just the right size to sleep under or drag around the house.

Its a three braid quilt, the red one is for Rebecca, The green one is mine, and the blue is Ryan.  The fabrics are all nice prints of bees, flowers, birds, trees, acorns, leaves.  There are pieces of her 1st birthday dress, scraps from my childhood dresses,  and I dyed some of the fabric because I wasn't finding the right hues.  The solid purple is from Simply Solid Fabric over on Etsy.  I'll be ordering from them again.

I'm thinking about making a bigger one for her bed that uses all the reds, pinks and purples from this one. 

I love how these pictures demonstrate the floor bed in action.  Everybody loves it!