I see broccoli! I see broccoli!

First sign of broccoli flower.  Very exciting.  I hope it will continue to grow well and produce a few beautiful broccoli for me.

I waited 5 years!

5 years ago, I bought a peony plant from a community plant sale somewhere.  The previous owner was an old lady who passed away.  Not sure why his family decided to dig this plant up.  In any case I thought it would be nice to get this plant which had some history with it.  I would like to imagine that this peony plant was loved and cared for by the lady and I wanted to adopt it into my home.  So I bought it, not knowing what the flower looked like.

I carefully selected a location in the backyard and planted the peony.  Watered it, fed it, looking at it, and talked to it.  There was plenty of leafs, but no sign of flower.  Same thing repeated year after year for 5 years!  Not a single flower.

Just as I started to give up on it, a couple of flower buds showed up this spring.  I was hopeful, but didn't want to raise the hope too high, because sometimes flower buds could dry up and just fall off.

Today, my peony bloomed!  The flower was just gorgeous, both colour and shape.  It was indeed a special moment for me and I couldn't contain my excitement.

CHEERS!  To my first peony flower.

What's going on in my garden

We just stepped into June and there already seems to be a lot of activities in the garden.

Arugula, mustard green, and kale are attacked by the flea Beatles.  There doesn't seem to be a good natural way to control this annoying bug.  I'm contemplating in creating a net to cover these veggies.

The swiss chard and broccoli are doing fine...so far.

The continuous rain these days is not so good for my flowers, but they still manage to be beautiful.

Dark purple Iris peeking through the Beauty Plant.  (Yes, beauty plant is its name.)

The lighter coloured Iris is falling all over the place, crushing the poor green onions.  I had to stake them.  Though the flowers already got mud all over.

My pepper field.  I found which can be the very first pepper of the year!

And I may very well have my first (and only) peony flower after 5 years.

Clematis bloomed.  I bought the wrong type.  I don't think this one climbs higher than 3 feet.  I need to get one that climbs  at least 6 or 7 feet.

Snowball is covered with flowers this year.  With the rain, the branches are so top heavy.  I'm worried that it may break.

Bleeding heart is also growing big.  Looking great and matches the white bell flower from Solomon Seal.

Lastly, but definitely not the least, my gorgeous sieboldii magnolia.

Even my weeds are edible!

Look!  Weeds are growing in the driveway crack again.

Oh wait!  Let's look again.

It's DILL!!!!!!

Sundaylicious

The day started with these awesome pancakes.  MG gave me the recipe.  It was easy to make and the BEST pancake EVER!  I did make a couple of mistakes with the ingredients, for example, I put in lemon juice for a whole lemon instead of just 1 table spoon, but the wonderful recipe was very forgiving and the pancakes still turned out to be delicious.

After the fulfilling breakfast, Kendrick and I drove downtown to the Distillery District.  Our original plan was just to restock our sake supply.  The Distillery District was so alive with the Christmas Market and there was the infamous chocolate dipped bacon!  Well, of course we'd have to try it, even though the idea didn't sound too appetizing and the price didn't sound so appetizing.  $3 for 1 slice of bacon!

I didn't like it.  It tasted exactly like....Bacon + crappy chocolate.  Yuk!
Kendrick was so brave and finished the whole thing.

In the evening, we learned that there was a few Ramen restaurant recently opened in the downtown area.  It was like a new trend.  Well, we picked the one around Yonge and Dundas, Santouka.  Small restaurant, probably seats a maximum of 35-40 people, with a crazy line up!  We waited in the line for probably an hour if not more.  The food was very good, but I'm not sure if I would line up the 2nd time.

For the first time I tried Asahi Black.  I liked it.  Unfortunately LCBO doesn't carry it.

Before the end of the world

So many social media out there. Less people are using blogs now and more people opted for Facebook. Less writing. More friends in the circle. More mindless babble.

I haven't posted any blog for a very long time. No one is reading it.  All my friends are on Facebook.  Even the parents and inlaws wanted me to add them.  Of course I didn't.  =D

Now seems like a good time to write a blog.  End of the year, and before the end of the world. Who knows. This may be the last one!

2012 was a good year. Had 2 unforgettable trip, hiking in the White Mountain range and traveling the fabulous France.  I am ashamed to say that I've been so lazy and have not yet done anything to my photos.  I plan to use the Christmas season to go through them.  Hopefully to post them before the end.

I was quite pround of myself that I made 棕子 (zong zi) for the first time for dragon boat festival.  Definitely going to try it again if there is next year.

My garden had a wonderful season.  I had quite a variety.  Tomato is still my favorite.  Also loved eggplant and celery.  Had an awesome harvest of peppers.  Oh I am going to miss all these in the winter.

Though I did freeze 2 bags of tomatoes and made chilli sauce.  Should last me till next spring.

My own hot sauce.  I have to think of a good brand name for this.  Something spicy.  =D

We also had a fun fun Halloween.  330 kids visited us and we actually had enough candies this year!

The weather was cooperating and stopped raining just for the Halloween.

Kids were facinated by the skeleton man outside of my house.  Last year we put out a fake person.  So this year a lot of them were expecting it to be fake still.  Oh, little did they knew.  Hehehe.

Coming next will be Christmas.  I'm just looking forward to a few quiet days at home.  Kendrick is too lazy to put Christmas lights on.   So we will just enjoy our neighbours' lights.

I am, however, planning to try sowing seed in winter following Winter-Sowing-101. 

Wish me luck.  If anything come out of these seeds, that means the world is still here!