Sprng has sprung article

Spring has Sprung!

After all the years of saying in spring “we have to burn off our mound” before the grass starts growing again, we finally got it done this spring on a cool overcast day. Mama was happy! After a little bit of revamping of our back yard, our garden is about ready for planting. I had envisioned a nice board walk from our lovely garden shed to the house, and that was the project for last Friday. It is beautiful! There is still way too much JUNK in the back yard, but what can I say – we are both “collectors”. And then there’s our son’s tent trailer back there as well… We’ll have to work at it a little bit at a time.

One of the things we have been enjoying tremendously since we returned home this spring is the home-made crabapple juice which we made last summer. We had tasted some our sister-in-law in Neuanlage had made when we visited there, and she asked if we wanted some crabapples, as they had more than they needed. I initially declined, saying we had made apple juice when we lived in B.C. and it was too much trouble to bother with. When she described how she made her delicious apple juice, it wasn’t anything like the process we used! All you do is wash and cut the crab apples in half. As she used to be a painter, she has access to paint straining bags and uses them instead of a cheesecloth bag. You put the strainer bag into a big crock or pail and fill it with the cut crab apples. Then you pour boiling water over them to the top of the apples and leave them sit. After 2 days, you pull the bag with apples out, allowing the juice to drain. For every 10 cups of juice you bring to a boil in a pot, you add one cup of sugar, and then put the boiling juice in hot sealable jars or bottles. For that little bit of work and only crabapples and sugar, the juice is every bit as good as bought apple juice, and better.

Last December, for John’s birthday, he had only one request for a birthday present: a Ken Davis CD. While we were down south, we had the occasion to watch one of our friend’s CD’s of this Christian comedian doing his thing. He is absolutely hilarious, without being strictly religious or off-color. It is just plain good comedy. I was able to order the “Under the Influence” CD for his birthday, and even after the half dozen times we have watched the CD with friends, the tears are just rolling down John’s eyes! The content is mostly family oriented and Ken has a great talent for expressions and telling a story. Although he lives in Tennessee, we learned that he has been on tour in Saskatchewan; that would have been before we knew he was someone we would travel miles to see if he was in the area. We recently saw a commercial on the Gaither program that Ken Davis was on the list of entertainment for one of their Caribbean cruises. Hey, that might be a good point in favour of going on a cruise!!

With Dancing with the Stars winding down, it is amazing to see how Kirstie Allie is hanging in there, and how much slimmer she looks compared to when she started! She has sure given the other much younger ladies with hour glass figures a run for their money… The pro dancers on the show are so very talented with the choreography they have to come up with every week!