Hello Blog Friends!
It has been crazy hot around here this week with temperatures over 30ºC for the past few days. We really need rain as the grass is turning brown and the flowers are already wilting, which is unheard of this early in the summer.
Of course the more like summer it seems the more I am fixating on the continued need to find more host communities for Day Camps. This week, friends suggested several people to contact in Alberta and BC so I sent off another flurry of emails. Two people actually had the courtesy to answer, which was very nice although neither was interested in a Day Camp, offering instead the usual “maybe next year” response. Sigh.
Tuesday and Wednesday I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time trying to reset the network on CTM’s wireless printer. The printer had not been used for several weeks, during which time, as noted in a previous post, the WiFi network has been upgraded and thus has a new name. After watching countless supposedly helpful YouTube tutorials I finally bailed out and called upon Wentworth, our former Communications Director, to ask him for advice. He offered to drop by on Thursday evening and so I gave up my attempt to print copies of the Police Records Check form and went on with other work.
The agenda for the next Day Camp committee meeting had to be sent out as did a reminder about the upcoming Kick Off Event for DC Coordinators since both of these meetings will be happening in the coming week..Another round of badgering for the July Team Gathering was also in order and it produced one more name to add to the current list of participants. It would perhaps have been prudent, when sending these reminders, to tack on a copy of the Day Camp promo document but I expect some of the recipients will start to get a bit grumpy if they receive any more badgering on that topic, it’s hard to give up when in badger mode.
Outside of the CTM world, the week began with the celebratory “6th anniversary” dinner for Jessica and Tyler. Thomason was more than a bit excited to see Uncle Tyler as he is a very special friend to Mr. T, having been the person who drove me down to the kennel the day my puppy came home. Due to the advanced level of excitement it did prove necessary to tie Thomason to the newel post in the hall while we ate dinner but afterwards we were able to release him from bondage and by the end of the evening he was lying asleep on his bed beside us as we chatted.
The dinner was much appreciated as were both the anniversary gift and Jessica’s birthday gift, which she immediately put on and wore for the rest of the evening.
There were no other visitors this week for meals, although I did provide tea and cookies for Wentworth as he laboured over the printer J and Jessica popped in for a very quick glass of kombucha in order to bring me a much needed new outdoor broom that she had managed to procure at the hardware store in Westmount since they were out of stock in the store near my house. As the “maple keys” season is still in full swing a decent outdoor broom is vital and my previous one was worn down to a mere stump 😊.
Most of my extra time has indeed been spent battling the maple keys, although I did manage to cast off the autumn pullover and to begin knitting a sweet little one for former Day Camp team alumnus Natalie’s baby, Eloise, born in April. I also sewed a matching headband that will be part of the ensemble I’m putting together for this little person 😊.
Today much time is being devoted to the war on maple keys since I also need to mow the lawns and cannot do so when they are covered with the keys. This means I need to sweep off a section, quickly mow it before more keys fall, and move on to the next section. Mowing the lawns usually take about 2 hours and, with the additional sweeping, the process takes 3 hours. Sigh.
With that task behind me, I’m now turning to a few hours of baking. It was exciting to find a bunch of rhubarb in this week’s fruit panier so I decided to make an old favourite- Rhubarb Crunch, which will provide some enjoyable breakfasts in the week to come. My list also includes 2 GF loaves, a batch of ciabatta rolls and pear muffins.
One night this week I put together a tasty salad and as we now are entering the season of cold dinner entrées, it seems like a good choice to share here.You can just have a big bowl of it as a main course or serve as a side with meat of fish.
Wild Rice Salad
- 1/3 cup wild rice
- 2/3 cup short grain brown rice
- ½ a small onion, chopped
- 1 red pepper, diced
- ½ and English cucumber, sliced
- 4 oz. Feta, crumbled
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp. Herbes de Provence
- salt & pepper to taste
Place the 2 types of rice in a medium saucepan, add 2 cups of cold water, bring to a boil then cover and simmer gently for 35-40 minutes, until just tender. Meanwhile, place the olive oil, vinegar and Herbes de Provence in a small screw topped jar, shake vigorously and set aside. Remove cooked rice from the heat from the heat and stir in the chopped onion and the dressing. Recover and set aside to cool to room temperature. Transfer the salad to a serving bowl and fold in the vegetables. Sprinkle the crumbled Feta over the top. Serves 3-4