It’s Almost Summer!

Yup, things are ramping up into high gear. Lots of heat, lots of sun…not lots of rain. Our backyard garden is holding its own for the time being. We’ve had to do damage control from the bunny in the backyard by putting up some chicken wire and white mesh fabric. Bunny found my snap peas and had a bit of a feast on the tendrils. He also seemed to find the beet sprouts, so we had to plant more seeds. I covered the lettuce before he could munch on those. So far so good.

Asparagus harvests have started and our soup batch has been made for the season. Rhubarb is up, chopped, and frozen until berry season starts. Much has also been shared with our local bakeries. Berries should be out any time now, I believe many areas have already started. I am patiently waiting for Haskaps to be ripe for picking. Haskap with honey jam anyone? No pectin, no sugar. Sooo good! The recipe for Small Batch Berry with Honey Jam is in my blog from 2021 in Lazy Days…Almost. We tried our jams a couple years ago with honey and haven’t gone back to the sugar and pectin recipe. It might be a bit more expensive, but for small batch canning, the taste is so much better. The only trick is not to buy store bought honey (insert brand name here), not sure what is done to it, but I like the ‘homegrown’ local honey much better. I have recently discovered there is a local apiary just right in my local area literally a few blocks away, Ontario Backwood Apiary. I will be visiting within the next few weeks and provide some pics and updates!

So, back to the no rain thing. We have 3 rain barrels and they are starting to get mighty low. To help water retention in the garden we water in the evening once the sun goes down a bit, but before mosquitos take over. Gotta work quick between this time. I do have a natural bug repellant that I have made up after googling many different recipes and narrowing it down to what I want it to smell like, seems to work well while walking on a trail. I’m not sure that it repels ticks, so for summer I avoid heavily wooded areas. I’ll have to do more research on that one.

It seems ticks are getting more abundant this year. I remember when you never even used to hear much about them, not anymore. They are serious carriers of lyme disease. The blacklegged ticks are carriers of this nasty disease and they need to be attached at least 24 hours in order to transmit the bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi) that causes lyme disease. Not all ticks carry the bacteria, only if they feed on infected animals like deer, birds, rodents (white footed mice or chipmunks). More info can be located on the Government of Canada site below:

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/lyme-disease.html

Welcome To My Studio!

studio photo by Fedora Media

I recently redecorated my studio space and added some new things including a cozy table warmer, new towels, custom homemade refreshing foot powders and creams and new flameless candles. There is also multi-layered audio for your total relaxation treatment. I am so excited to welcome you into this peaceful space that I have created!

Hope to see you soon!

Sandra

photo by Fedora Media