We went to the Napanee Fair again this year and although it seemed a little smaller this year (fewer sheep!, fewer entries in the photo contest and home goods area, etc), it was still a lot of fun.

Well its Canada Day, and a beautiful morning indeed. Remember those men and women who have passed on in all our wars on far away soils, they fought for our and others freedom. Remember those who passed away at . Beaumont Hammel We got to celebrate Canada Day and participate in the memorial service in St. John’s and it was a wonderful experience.

Today, we will be with friends for a BBQ and Fireworks, but first an update on the gardens.

On Tuesday, we noticed in the parsnip that is going to seed, the parsnip caterpillar, which was cocooning and eating all the seeds devastating the plant. They were quickly taken care of.

Potato bugs are still showing up on the potatoes, and on the tomatoes. The cucumbers, squash are growing nicely. The carrots, onions, peas, beans, peppers, radishes growing nicely. The lettuce, radish, mesulix, beets, cabbage, spinach are going to seed, everything on course.

Today, we put more dirt into the potatoes in order to give them a covering hill, and weed the gardens.

On Monday and Wednesday we were doing weed pulling, and picking potato bugs at the Food Bank Garden in Napanee. They have the space, and have 5 ft clearance between rows, very nice.

Sometime you get the parking space and sometimes the parking space gets you. This is in “downtown” Yarker on Sunday afternoon where this vehicle ended up stuck on the waterfalls a few days earlier.
It will be interesting to see how it comes out and when.

We were at the Kingston Airport on Friday May 20th and noticed the Canadian Forces Snowbirds Demostration Team parked on the tarmac. Just after the local commuter Dash8 came in from Toronto, two military helicopters also came in for a landing. Who would have thought Kingston Airport would be so busy?

Get a breath of Spring air at Greenhouse Open House

Kingstonians anxious for spring can get a taste of it at the City’s greenhouse which will open on a number of upcoming Sunday afternoons.

The greenhouse, located at 111 Norman Rogers Dr. (across from Centennial Public School), will be open to the public from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Feb. 13, 20 and 27 and March 6 and 13.

Spring bulbs and tropical plants are on display, including daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths. Greenhouse staff will be on hand to answer questions.

Our transport recently had a collision with a deer and was eventually written off as too expensive to repair. She was a great van with very little wrong otherwise… a real not-a-lemon.
10 days later enough of the bureaucratic process moved through that we were able to purchase another transport, several years newer, a lot less kilometerage and what seems to be a male persona – so we named it the BluesMobile, or Jake, depending on the mood at the time.
Still getting used to it but vastly prefer it over the rental, a Mazda6.

Our week and a half use of the Mazda has convinced us never to even look at Mazdas in the future.

Who needs a speedometer that goes to 260kph? With the scale, you can not reliably gauge your own speed +-20kph, not to mention that the steering wheel (adjustable) blocks the view of that gauge. If you move the wheel, it shows the gauge but then blocks your high beam and turn signal indicators, amongst others.
Bad design bad design!

Prince Edward County wines have beckoned us back for our annual winery tour and sampling.
This year we headed out on a saturday afternoon and stopped off at

Hillier Creek Estates (46 Stapleton Road – Hillier) – (new for 2010)

We saw a nice grape harvester sitting in the parking lot.
Very much combine like.
The best chardonnay we came across on the trip. Barrel aged chardonnay 2008 $25

Saturday August 7th we did a roadtrip to Toronto, parked, caught the bus and the subway and arrived at the Taste of the Danforth Greek food celebration around 11am. Things did not seem to get going until noon so we took a little snack break and by noon the crowds had arrived.
We were surprised to see Jack Layton, Head politico of the federal NDP there. Someone said that this was in his riding. Ever since we saw him on The Rick Mercer report (a couple of times now), our respect for him has gone way up!
Back to the food: The best freshest greatest tasting food ever! This chicken-on-a-stick was great!
.None of the vendors on the street tried to price gouge you either! This souvlaki was $3.
Gabby’s had ribs and they were apparently great ribs! They had spent the last two weeks cooking up over ten thousand pounds of ribs and would sell out later that day. Not surprising with an estimated 1.3 million people attending the event over 3 days.

Some of the firepits were amazing. You could see the smoke billowing from the far end of what we thought was 2 km of closed off street.

Thursday July 8th and we were pretty well done. Too bad we still had over 1000km to go. We blew through Fredericton into Edmunston and looked around for the Botanical Gardens, found them, and then waited until they opened. It was a nice garden and it took us two hours to walk through it and the butterfly aviary.
After that it was drive drive drive.
We got to Riviere du Loop and it wasn’t too bad temperature wise. We came up to Quebec City and the heatwave hit. By the time we went through stop and go traffic in Montreal, it was 38 degrees.
It was so nice to get out of that mess as it went on and on and on.
We made it back home that evening and left the unpacking for the next day.
A long trip but a good one. We got to see and experience many of the places we had wanted to for a long time.