Author: Adventure For Two

I am from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada and I'm back from traveling with my husband on an expat assignment to foreign lands. 2011-2012 we were in Shenyang, China. Spring 2012- Spring 2013 we were in Resende,RJ Brazil then back to Shenyang, China in July 2013 until the end of July 2014. Expat life WAS amazing! Adventure abounds no matter where we travel to. We really enjoyed the amazing opportunity to live and experience culture and tradition in these places. BUT now we are finished and adjusting to life in our small town in Canada. Our days of travel and adventure are not over.

Green side Up!

Today the sod came for the backyard project! This is the the very best way to grow a lawn. It’s a lot of work to get it ready BUT once that is done, you just call the people at Tasbow Sod Farm in the Valley, tell them how much you need, and they deliver (right to your door) fresh, healthy green sod.

It’s more work to lay it but then you just water and let it do it’s thing. And….Voila! Beautiful green lawn.

Gotta get at it, there’s lots of new green ready to lay.

‘Twas the night before sod arrived…

Laying sod…

Ahhh…mostly done. Just a few pieces to cover some stumps and to fix the gardens up. It was a great day!!!

Stump Sawin’

Haha, these pesky stumps! What do ya do with them?

We have a few since we cut some trees around in our yard 2 Falls ago…I wanted to keep a couple, you know for a bird bath and a fairy house…projects that will get done sometime.

David has been itching to get rid off them! Andrew and his saw to the rescue. We had a stump sawin’ time this afternoon. Boys having a little fun, but Oak stumps are the hard ones! It’s MORE like work than play.

Oh but wouldn’t that make a nice table? Hmmm… 😀

Here today…gone tomorrow…just passing through

It’s the season for Tall Ships. Actually next year 2017 will be the year that many of the Tall ships make their return. ( Last time was 2009)

For the past week, the beautiful Tall Ship,‘Cuauhtémoc’ from Mexico has been docked on the Halifax Waterfront. What a beauty of a ship!! What a ship to photograph! And many people have.

I am a little sad I didn’t get in to the waterfront myself…

Here are just a couple of my favourites that local photographers captured!

Photo by: Kimberley Burke

Photo by: John Tenfold ( Photomaster Studios)

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Photos by: Shaun Lowe Photographic

These ones are so beautiful!!Shaun Lowe Photographic does AMAZING work!!! Based out of Halifax Check out their other work.

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Ok…and just one MORE!!

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The Tall Ship Cuauhtémoc is a sail training vessel of the Mexican Navy, named for the last Mexica Huey Tlatoani The collection of tall ships scheduled to visit Nova Scotia’s ports next year will be part of Nova Scotia’s Canada 150 celebrations. who was captured and executed in 1525. She is the last of the four sister ships built by the Naval Shipyards in Bilbao, Spain in 1982.

Goodbye Cuauhtémoc, thanks for visiting!

This is just a small taste of a Tall Ship.

Nova Scotia has officially been deemed a Rendez-vous 2017 Tall Ships Regatta venue and will serve as the start of the final leg of the tall ships race next year.

“Plans are also being made that these ships will stop in communities all along our coast, allowing Nova Scotians from communities across our province to see these ships closer to home” said Premier Stephen McNeil. The collection of tall ships scheduled to visit Nova Scotia’s ports next year will be part of Nova Scotia’s Canada 150 celebrations. Mark your calendars for the summer of 2017. Yay!! How exciting…the Tall ships are coming!

A Bowl Full of Cherries

Many say “Life is like a Bowl Full of Cherries…”

I say A bowl full of cherries makes a delicious treat and spring snack!

So sweet, so good!

It’s the start of a new week, a little bit chilly here on the South Shore of NS. Even some hail this morning.

It’s supposed to warm up this week…let’s hope so! May long weekend is just ahead…

Wishing you a great week, I hope it’s sweet!

First Taste of Spring

It’s a little early yet but I have been getting so anxious for the taste of rhubarb, ESPECIALLY since this is the first year I have my own plants.

I have two of them and they are growing quite well, but not quite ready yet SO I went to Mom’s and took just a bit…enough for 2 cups so I could try a NEW recipe.

Rhubarb Pudding Cake

Yummmmmmm!!!! Just a taste BUT it is soooooo delicious!!!!!

I definitely will be making this again and can’t wait to make Rhubarb Custard Pie, Rhubarb Crisp, and Rhubarb Muffins. It’s soon time…

Just hanging out…

As I was enjoying my coffee this morning thinking about a lot of things, I looked out my window and saw these three hanging out.

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It’s not a real nice day, it’s drizzly, and deciding if it’s gonna rain some more or clear up ( my husband is actually outside doing some more digging in case it rains) Me…I like rainy Saturdays, well ok not really but if it does rain, I stay in my PJ’s a little longer and enjoy an extra cup of coffee…and I like that.

and think or plan… THERE’s Lots on the list. Here’s but a few…

…thankful for the amazing friends in my life. the few very close ones that I can count on when I’m going through a hard time!

….the joy of planning gardens and landscaping this Spring

…the adventure of planning what to do around Nova Scotia this summer for FUN and when family visit.

and the BIG one….planning our 3 week adventure to celebrate our Anniversary in July. I’ve been thinking about that one a lot lately.

So for a little while, and while it is nice and quiet, I’m just hanging out…

I wonder what these three are chatting about as they hang out this morning?

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ENJOY your Saturday ❤

And we’re back at it!

Last Spring it was the front yard. New gardens and new lawn. And we started the backyard. New gardens, new walkway, fire pit, fence by the shed…

And it’s that time of year once again that we NEED to get back at it! This time…new lawn for the backyard…well just some places. So…Part 1 is in process. Scrape all the old weedy sod off, rake and lay a skim of top soil in preparation for sod.

If the weather cooperates we just may be able to get it ready this weekend to order sod next week! Fingers crossed!!!

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Laundry days…

Breezy Spring Days are PERFECT for drying clothes outside. Below are pictures that were either sent to me or that I took.

Who knew that a simple chore like doing laundry could be so beautiful?

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Ahh….the fresh smell of sheets drying on a line

…guarantees a good night sleep, I think!

A Spring nuisance or a medicine for the body?

We have been enjoying beautiful weather this week. I have been trying to get outside and do some gardening. This time of year flowers and green plants are starting to sprout up and it’s exciting!! However, there is one colourful flower that isn’t so welcome, especially on our new lawn that we put in last year.

Dandelions! Hmm? Yep, those pretty yellow (flowers) weeds that pop up overnight on your lawn.

When we were living in China, we ate them! They were actually quite delicious. Ladies would spend hours in the parks gathering dandelion greens. And then cook them up. Maybe like we do fiddleheads here. Or…dandelion tea? It’s supposed to have many health benefits.

But here at home, we collect them…by the bucket full… BUT more because they are a weed invading our lawns.

My husband wants them GONE!!!! So we go outside and pull them out by the root…a little bit everyday. BUT We may have to rethink this a bit… Check out this site.

https://altnature.com/gallery/dandelion.htm

What are your thoughts?

A new kind of fun

Anyone who has been reading my blog for any time knows I love adventure and I love to explore. Unfortunately time & money these days doesn’t allow as much travel as I like so I have been looking at new ways to incorporate some extra fun in our walks and hikes around here.

GEOCACHING

Have you heard of it? What is it?

I have heard about geocaching for a long time and wanted to give it a try. My youngest son had his first go at it 3 weeks ago and since then I have really been wanting to get out and do it. So last night we did. I had my first introduction to geocaching.

…so what is Geocaching? Here is the definition from Wikipedia.

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook (with a pen or pencil). The geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, such as toys or trinkets, usually of more sentimental worth than financial. Geocaching shares many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, letterboxing, and waymarking.

Sounds like fun, right? That’s what I thought and so this summer I want to do more of it as we are out and about.

Last night we loaded the app on our phone and set up a user name. The app shows caches in your aerator wherever. I just have the basic version for now until I learn more. The basic version gives you quite a few spots but also shows the premium ones in grey ( A LOT MORE) You click on the one you want to find, it gives you basic clues and then you walk or hike to find it. We did some easy ones in our neighbourhood last night just to see how it worked. You log in and when you find it, you can add comments and/or a picture and it sets a marker that you found it. Pretty cool!