October Already

I can hardly believe it's October already - it's scary how quickly this year has flown past.

Yesterday it had been a year since I was granted my Green Card, hard to believe it had been a year already, but in some ways it was also hard to believe it had ONLY been a year... a lot has happened in the past year.

To celebrate we made a 'full English breakfast' meal for dinner, and I made a Red Velvet Cake for desert - since it's our green card birthday, we had to have cake... right?

Oh my word, that cake was so good... now I'm not saying that to blow my own trumpet, especially since I got the recipe from a blog I read all the time, but I'm saying it because it was... the ganache topping was so chocolaty and so rich that it was perfect... I hate to imagine the amount of calories in the tiny sliver of cake I ate.

Since it was so rich and there was so much of it we figured there was no way we'd get it finished while it was still in it's prime, so we cut two large chunks and brought them to our neighbours.

Hello & Canning so far

Well, it's been a while since I've written on here... Not too sure why, probably just since I haven't had much to say... so I'll keep this post short so as to not bore you to death.

Last weekend we picked berries, and we picked a LOT! It's craziness how many blackberry bushes there are at the farm. It seems like with the weather this year everything is late producing fruit, the blackberries are no different. There was plenty of ripe and juicy berries for us to pick but I'd say about 75% of the fruit weren't ready yet. We picked several gallons of berries and will probably wait a couple weeks before another mammoth picking session.

So, I made jam for the first time ever! It was quite a process but so much fun, AND the jam tastes yummers too, so that's a bonus. I made two batches, one just straight blackberry and the second is blackberry, blueberry & strawberry mix. I also made a batch of blackberry pie filling and canned that, but all the recipes called for a product called 'ClearJel' that I couldn't find in any of the stores close by so I subbed with cornstarch. I don't know if it turned out ok, it seems a little runny to me, but I guess the only way to know for sure is to make a pie and see... so I guess I'll be doing that next week sometime too.

I'm still holding out for apples... I have an awesome recipe for canned apple pie filling and I'd love to have that stashed away for the winter.

Few pics and quick hello

Not much to report from us, except that we have been working on our rental house this weekend and we are sore... and when I say sore, I mean really sore. I could hardly walk yesterday and when I did it was definitely more than a waddle accompanied with "ouch, owie, ugh...." etc type moans with every step. Not so attractive!
Yesterday was our second, first wedding anniversary. Yep, you heard it right, our second, first wedding anniversary. We had two wedding's right....?!?!?!? Therefore two wedding anniversaries! ;)

We had a fun day, went out to lunch at GVB after church which was really nice, and after that we went up to Tualatin to Erik & Krista's place to say a quick hello to them and Cory's parents since it was also Father's day.

Anyway, here's a few photos from around the Fast household recently... yes, a random collection!
Over & out!The Grosbeaks seem to have left us now, which is kind of sad since I'd gotten used to them and their feeding habits, oh, and not to forget their noise... But here's one of the last pics I took of them. I love how the two far birds have 'locked beaks'!
Our daffodil bulb 'crop'. We sat digging and dividing daffodils out of our yard so we can move them around next spring. There was so many - we left at least the same amount in the ground!

We had two pair of black headed grosbeaks feeding at our house towards the end. This is one of the males. I love how orange their colour is - they are really pretty. The females look different too. They were fun to watch!

Our niece (step-niece if you want to get technical) received an award at school, it was the 'Love one another' award. So I went with her Mom and brother to watch her receive it. Isn't she adorable?!?!

So, I did say it was a random selection of pics, right?!?!

Well, I love the lillies we have in our garden and I am so happy that we have so many too. We spent a lot of time this spring moving and separating out the tubers, but I was impressed that we still got so many with super large flowers.
Yes, Cory's hands are dirty - comes with being a farmer I guess ;)
River walk, Salem OR
"The Mountain's Out"