Tulips, Dafodils, Crocus, Oh My!

Amazingly my daughter agreed to help me plant bulbs. In the time she was outside, with her whiny cat, she planted 45 purple tulips and 12 mixed daffodils. Mostly in the back. Hopefully it will naturalize and spread.

I planted 60 crocus, mostly near the front path leading to the balcony, along with 10 dafs. I planted 2 friterella's. Those bulbs smell like skunk, but squirrels HATE them.. Anything squirrels hate has to be good. I also planted 3 blue and 3 white Camassia's. I've never planted those before. Wonder how they will come up.

Near the west wall I planted some 22 black tulips. 10 of them were positioned in a star design with 5 dafs in the same pattern. I wonder how it will come out when they bloom in spring...
I also planted 8 early tulips, called "Quebec". These are shorter smaller tulips, then the traditional ones...

Well all is said and done, between my daughter and I we planted 170 bulbs today. I had planted 157 last Sunday. That was 133 crocus, in a spiral design at the end of the lawn in the tip of the property, 10 variated garlic, 8 allums, and 6 hyacinths all in the flowerbed where the roses are. I am hoping the garlic and allums will be a deterrent for the sawflies.

One it got dark around 4:45, I started to pick all the fallen apples from the tree. I managed to fill 3 plastic grocery bags, which I put to compost. One year I should actually try to make some apple sauce and see how good [or bad] these apples are. I have no idea if it's a crab apple or an actual apple. The other thing is, I have no idea with what tree in the neighborhood this tree is being polinated by....

To bulb or not to bulb....

I wasn't planning on getting up early today to go shopping, but the day turned out that way. At midnight when my youngest came home, on crutches no less, she asked me if I could drive her to work in the morning. Of course that meant drive me to work for 7:45. Thankfully she does not work so far away from home.

Why is it though, that despite her crutches she can manage to go out on Friday night, but needs a lift to work Saturday morning? Things that make mothers go HMMMMMM.

I ended up waking up for the first time at 4am, then at 5:30 and again at 7am. Which is when I finally got up. After driving daughter to work, I cleaned my car windows cause I was getting glare at night. Then again it's never too much to wash my car windows. I'm not one of those people who think about washing my car. So it gets washed once a year - if that. It rains enough in Montreal to keep it acceptable.

I went to Carrefour Laval to shop. Mostly I wanted a pair of black full length winter boots and black jeans. I lucked out, they were having this huge blow-out sale at FX-Lasalle and got some really nice, normally $150 winter boots for $118 all taxes included. Warm sexy boots that are waterproof, saltproof and lined in wool for maximum warmth. I hesitated between that pair and another pair, that was $10 more and looked more like mocassins. It was a tough decision. I took the one with a bit of heel. It's still a relatively flat heal with an anti slippery sole, to handle those days with snow and ice. If I had listened to myself I could have bought half the Mall. I was good. Other then the jeans and boots, everything else I bought was seriously reduced. I also got myself 2 pairs of mittens and 1 pair of gloves. Dunno how I manage to destroy my mittens each year. And I have to wear mittens/gloves from the minute it gets cold in November otherwise the cold completely destroys the skin of my hands.

Now I am hesitating.. Should I go outside and finish planting my bulbs? It's all of 2 C today and cloudy. Dunno if my back can handle it. As well, my eldest offered to help be plant bulbs this week-end. But watch she will have some tournament on one of her games and she will blow me off. But I need to plant the remainder of my bulbs this weekend. Otherwise I'm going to lose them all sadly. I dunno if my back can handle planting some today and tomorrow.

Pakora's anyone?

I attempted to make pakora's today. I dunno why I started mid afternoon having a hankering for pakora's, but I did. This is weird because I really haven't been feeling well all week. I'm fighting something and my back is reminding me that I'm not 20 anymore. Sometimes though when I'm fighting something I find myself constantly starving. Which has been the case this week.

So my pakora's turned out delicious. They feel more like veggies fried in batter, except it's a chick pea batter. I had too much veggies for my batter. The batter should have been thicker and once cooked should be the same color as falafel. However.. the fried pakora wanna be's were pretty damn good. I'm stuffed. I used onions, red and yellow pepper, green hot pepper, cilantro, carrots, parsnips, zucchini, turnip, potatoes and yams. So that's quite a nice selection of veggies, in chick pea batter or not. I can't believe that despite me putting a full teaspoon of cayenne pepper, I did not find the veggies hot at all. Dunno what it is with me, but ever since my trip to Dubai back in February, I can't get enough of hot peppers and hot food.

Speaking of Dubai, I will be back there in 21 days. I'm leaving Montreal the 29th of November and coming back on the 2nd of January. From December 17th to 27th I'll be in Beirut. Though how wise it is to travel to either location? There was a bridge that collapsed today near where my husband is living, at the Dubai marina. And well I don't need to say much about Beirut and relative safety. I should ask my Lebanese coworkers which ones have decided to buy plane tickets for Christmas...

I can't wait to spend time with my husband. We left one another about 5 months ago at the airport in Beirut and it feels like it has been forever...

I really haven't feel much like blogging the past few months, but I made an effort today at the request of my mother-in-law, who is probably one of the few people who actually reads my blog. [Me waves excitedly at Sonia!!!!]

I'm glad October is over though. I find it hard between mom who died on October 11th, [1999] and dad that died on October 5th [2003]. I feel sorry for my youngest daughter who's birthday is October 7th, and who gets a mom in a mood around her birthday.

At least I will be spending my 45th birthday with my sweetie, at least it will be nice I'm sure he's going to spoil me in some way.. I hope I will be alive enough on his birthday. I arrive in Dubai on the 30th.. so I will be there for his entire birthday... It's funny I can remember last year holding secret conversations with his friend in Abu Dhabi about me showing up for his birthday as a surprise. But I could not pull it off last year. I did not have passport. And it took until the 15th to receive it, though it was issued the 11th of December and expires in 2011 [For Samer who likes 11's and 15's... ] This year it won't be a surprise per say since I planned it probably 7 or 8 months ago... but it will be nice.. we will spend our respective birthdays together for the first time. Create new traditions and new bonds. :) Maybe I will be less pissy on my birthday now :P