Hurricane Irene

'Our beach' at Magadavic lake!
My very simple wedding cupcakes

Well summer is ending and with it comes the nights starting to draw in and the weather cooling, the leaves on some trees are turning too. This weekend hurricane Irene paid us a visit. Thankfully by the time it passed by us it had been downgraded to a tropical storm which basically meant lots and lots of rain followed by the wind which brought down trees and power lines but none of it affected us this time except for a couple of little flickers of our lights. Our garden is well flooded as is our basement which has a pump fitted for heavy rain anyway so that was no surprise.

David and Sarah went home just over 2 weeks ago now and our next visitors Doug and Hilary arrive on Saturday. We love having visitors so please come and see us, we've no more booked in till next July time!

I had 2 more fantastic weeks on my stall then had to move back to my old stall again which isn't as good. I did my first wedding order this week. A lady said she wanted 36 cupcakes for the following week for her friends wedding- it was so simple, if only all my orders we so easy! We've found that weddings over here are so much more laid back, some still have all the frills and spend a fortune but you can get married anywhere so I've heard of 1 in the local park followed by a BBQ and one at a campsite!

Our snake paid us a visit again this time it was me who nearly stepped right on it, I think my screams frightened it off (hopefully forever) It was about 18" long and 1" wide and was probably what's called a garden snake which is completely harmless!

We've started to harvest the apples in our garden, we have so many trees we're concentrating on 1 main one. The wind brought down hundreds of windfalls which are being turned into cider, stewed apples, crumble, apple crisp, apple and cinnamon scones, pies etc. The ones we're picking are lovely to eat too and hopefully will keep well if we can find the right conditions. My neighbor showed me the fruit trees in my hedgerow so I made chokes cherry jelly and have frozen the remainder of my raspberries, zucchini and the blueberries I buy from the market.

The kids go back to school next Tuesday, Monday is Labor day so we have a long weekend to look forward to.

David and the boys are busy building a deluxe hen hut as our chickens are ready to go out. The ones we hatched and gave to Rich & Jen started laying eggs last week, ours won't start till October, but I can't wait as I go through dozens of eggs a week. We are getting 6 turkeys on Thursday and 4 piglets in about 5 weeks time so soon my freezer will be bursting with yummy meats.

The big news in Fredericton is that Costco opened a couple of weeks ago! We really do live near a very small city when this is the highlight. It is great for me buying flour, sugar etc in bulk but it's one of those places you pop in for 1 thing and come out with a huge trolley full so I have to limit my visits.