Look what my mother gave me for an 'open early' present.

When I was a kid in the late 50's and 60's...it seemed every house had these at Christmas. 

It is called a bottle brush wreath. I cannot believe my mom found this. Both my sister and I have been keeping our eyes open for them. My mom has a gift...that gift is finding things at thrift shops that us mere mortals never find. Thank you Mom. 

Making the cranberry sauce tonight.

 

Measuring cranberries, OJ, cane sugar and Grand Marnier.

 

 

Heating OJ and sugar.

 

 

Add cranberries and cook.

 

 

It smelled just like jam making in the kitchen tonight.

 

 

Buzz it up real good!!

 

 

Cooling in the fridge. Yummmmm.

 

A VERY cool thrift shop find!

Sidney, where I live, is a thrift shop town. I don't even know how many there are. Anyway, there is one that I like and go into now and again to peruse. Today I spotted this casserole dish(?) soufflé dish in the window. I loved the stripes. I thought it would look really cool with buns in it!!

I flipped it over and almost fell over. T.G. Green. IT'S T.G. GREEN. Remember my beloved Gripstand Bowl story....no?....here's a link. And that is why I was so excited to find it. My sister said it looked like a farmhouse dish. Thank you Jess!!

Silver polishing can be therapeutic...and has nothing to do with gardening

Of course at this time of year there is no gardening going on here. So, just to keep things interesting for you, I may do some totally random posts during garden downtime. Tonight I made soy tealights for the store but last night I polished silver. Hadn't done it for years. It felt really good to be polishing off black tarnish and seeing it shine. I found it very relaxing. Enjoy.

This little dish and silverware set belong to my son Noel. He is 33 now so it was especially nostalgic to be polishing his little baby sized pieces. I had completely forgotten that I had his initials engraved into the end of each. If you look close you can see the NG. We had a wonderful silver company in Victoria called Jefferies. They did it for me. 

The evil squirrel is back

I have no idea why it is so hard to photograph a hole dug in wood chips and manure. I got up today to see the full side of my strawberry bed dug down about eight inches deep. Little bugger.

Hole under the plum.

Another angle of the trough dug by the strawberries. Can't see it in this picture either. Oh well, I tried. 

I have taken down the bird feeder and will be moving it up to the house. He will no doubt figure it out eventually...but until then. Mwa ha ha ha.