Fun Things to Do – Page 24 – Just An East Coast Girl

I just couldn’t resist!!!

SPONTANEOUS!!!!!!

I really shouldn’t just wander around shops…I see things!

I had to pick up something yesterday at one store and decided to wander in another store. I hadn’t been there for awhile. Well, I was doing ok and ready to leave when I saw it!

Fabric panels of Canadian cities. And…

coordinating fabric.

Ahhhhh…. I had an idea! A little mid week project for yesterday and today.

A lap blanket/picnic table cloth/picnic blanket for our hikes. PERFECT for our 30th Anniversary Across Canada Trip!

It rolls up tiny for in our hiking bag and also folds nice to put in our guest room when not in use.

I even personalized it 😀

Haha, lots of fun! David loves it, but of course, cautions my spontaneity!!

So many places…so little time!

I figured I really need to get planning and an itinerary made for our Across Canada Trip.

We are less than 6 weeks away from beginning this fun adventure and I need to get my research done. The problem is… ok there are a few problems…

So many places to see and so little time ( and money) We only have 3 weeks.

AND…doing all this research at night while I am relaxing , gets me excited and anxious and I can’t turn my “thinker” and ideas off. It takes me forever to fall asleep.

BUT, it’s fun! I absolutely LOVE to research places and plan trips to places we will visit. It’s so interesting, our World is amazing, and Canada…well Canada is an absolutely beautiful country!

3 weeks…first part driving, second part flying and renting a car ( twice), and third part flying back to get our car and driving home.

As I have been researching, I have been saving some pics of places we plan to see…here’s a peak of our proposed itinerary in pictures.

Excited to go on a road trip in our little Volvo 😀

Can you see why I’m so excited? ahhhh….

There are so many beautiful places and neat things to do…many of them we have seen before, some a few times, I just have to fine tune it so we don’t miss the things that are important and so we don’t exhaust ourselves trying to do too much! The more I research the more I see…PLUS I want to leave some room for spontaneity!

Oh to be a travel planner…BUT then I guess the fun comes when you can actually carry through with your plans!

Chaga

What in the world is Chaga? lol

James brought some Chaga home for me to try. His friend (boss) has been collecting it when he’s out on his hikes and introduced James to this interesting…mushroom? I had to google it.

“Rather than soft like a mushroom, chaga is hard, almost as hard as wood. It is unique, nothing like common mushrooms.” In fact, the Siberians call it the “Gift from God” and the “Mushroom of Immortality,” this vibrant growth has been used by humans to support health for thousands of years. The Japanese call it “The Diamond of the Forest,” while the Chinese deem it “King of Plants.” For the Chinese that is saying a lot, since they have an immense history with countless plants.”

Now, you can get the great powerful secret of the Orient in your very own backyard…kinda…if you know what to look for.

Inonotus obliquus, commonly known as chaga mushroom , is actually a fungus, parasitic on birch trees and other trees. The sterile conk is irregularly formed and has the appearance of burnt charcoal. Weird… The name Chaga comes from the Russian word for mushroom.

Chaga is traditionally grated into a fine powder and used to brew a beverage resembling coffee or tea. But you can also leave it in chunks and brew a “chunk” in a pot of water and keep reusing it until all the goodness is out of it. James brought some ground chaga home and then yesterday his friend gave him a bag of chaga chunks. Of course, I HAD to try it!!

It has a mild flavour and really isn’t too bad. It’s mellow.

Guess I better go for a walk and find some Chaga!

Watch Out for Motorcycles 🚲

It’s the kick off to summer! May long weekend and a gorgeous Saturday!

May is also Motorcycle Awareness Month! I am sure there will be a lot of bikes on the road this weekend. I know my sweetie plans to work a bit today and then get out on his!!

Great day to eat outside

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!

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…

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!

Here are a few pics from last night. We are really hoping to get out and do some more geocaching really soon.

Geocaching…I think it’s the perfect activity to get you out exploring!!

Feeling Nostalgic

I had a moment today….

Typical Spring Saturday…Yard Sale time!!! and my parents were having one today so we popped in just to show our support. Also, we had a couple boxes of things left over from our yard sale last year so we thought we would stay a few hours and see if things would sell.

Dad & Mom are feeling the need to declutter and get rid of stuff. Their reason…”Who knows how long we can stay in this big home and look after things… the time will come we have to move to an apartment” Sounds good to me! They’re having fun going through old things and deciding what they want/can keep and getting rid of the rest. A great Spring project for them.

One of the things they are selling is an old 8track player and 8tracks. Do you remember these? I sure do!!! I remember listening to them all the time as a kid. I started looking through a box of 8tracks….that’s when the nostalgia hit!!! It took me right back to 1975 to when we moved from Ontario back to Nova Scotia. I was just a kid. To pass time in the car on that longggggggg drive, Dad would play the 8tracks and we would all sing to the top of our lungs! Some of my favourites…Tammy Wynette and George Jones, Charlie Pride…oh my…and truth be told, I’ll bet if I played them today I would still be able to sing right along with it!!! Haha, good times, great memories!

It was a fun morning and we made a bit of cash and are down to 1 box.

Have a great weekend!