It's a sunny, but cool day...feeling fall-like, actually. We've had torrential rains over the past couple of days so some brightness won't go amiss.
The world is still going crazy with the orange peril being nominated yet again as the Republican presidential candidate. I can't even listen to him any more without getting nauseous. Don't want to think of a future with him leading the country south of the border. So I won't.
Instead, I'd like to take you through the rollercoaster that was my week. First, an update from last time...the kittens (nearly adults because they're turning one this week) are eating again after a five-day hunger strike. We had to get an appetite stimulant called mirtazapine to rev up the juices. I looked it up and it's actually mostly used as an anti-depressant in humans!
Anyhow, it worked, so the wee ones - Fred and Wilma - are back on track. As you can see, they were quite helpful with the onion harvest.
Also on the upside, the dinner party went well. Good times, good food, a good visit and a decent game of bocci with my sister Sandy, her daughter Erin and Erin's boyfriend Nick. Okay, decent in terms of the others - if I was playing euchre, I'd have received the booby prize with a big fat goose egg for a score. Still it was very fun and I was happy to see all the Thorntons in the flesh.
On the downside, as I said, we got walloped on Friday with a humdinger of a thunderstorm. I measured nearly 7.5 centimetres of rain in the gauge. I think that's a record for the eight and a half years we've been here.
It was all fine - we really needed the moisture - until Rob went down to the basement yesterday morning and was greeted by a pond.
Could have floated a decent sized kayak with the amount of water that accumulated in the furnace room. Luckily, Rob had bought a little pump not long ago.
I took the outside while Rob schlepped the inside, and got the hose through the basement window. It was quite the gusher, but we made shortish work of it, and Rob's handiness with the Shop-Vac did the rest. A few hours with the dehumidifier and we were home and dry. Literally.
Once the flooding was tidied up, we went on to do the day's work - making and canning tomato-apple chutney. I got the recipe from my friend Pat and it's gorgeous. The whole house smelled like an Indian restaurant - with the rich essences of tangy apple, onion and tomato mixed with wonderful, sparky spices and lots of brown sugar. We got nine half-pints from the effort. YUM!
So there you have it. I've rambled on a bit long today, but as you can see, it was a fairly eventful week.
The old farmette house sometimes takes a bit of a beating. But it has stood for 155 years, so it's had its fair share of ups and downs. Just as we humans have. We'll all persevere. Until next week.