Happy Anniversary #49

This week John and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.  We were married 49 years ago which to me is impossible.  My grandparents were the ones to have been married a long time, not us.  That number is for old people.  Well, frankly, I guess we are old now but neither of us feels it.  Inside my head I am still that young girl who fell in love with a handsome dark haired man and set off on an adventure that, so far, has brought us to a 49th wedding anniversary.  I laughed because someone wished us 49 more and while that is not likely, I think I would be 118 years old which would be a bit of a stretch.  I am a big fan of Blue Zones but even there people don’t usually make it to 118 but they do make it to 100+.  We didn’t do much, John went off to play golf at 7:00am and I took a big walk with the dogs and then went and served tea at The Grace Village which is a senior’s home near here.  We did, however, go out for a lovely dinner at Manoir Hovey a wonderful hotel and restaurant near us on the lake.  We ate outside but it was rather chilly so we didn’t linger too long.  We enjoyed a bottle of red wine and asparagus soup along with a perfect beef tenderloin and we shared a dessert.  Simple, elegant and delicious.  A lot better than the shoe leather my wonderful aunt had left for us 49 years ago on our honeymoon!!!

Picking Up the Pace

It’s been a great week for walking.  The temperatures have been absolutely perfect.  In the 70’s during the day and in the 50’s at night.  The dogs and I have been ramping things up.  We had a slow start because we went down to New Hampshire on Tuesday into Wednesday for maintenance.  His and hers maintenance.  John needed a hair cut and I needed a manicure and pedicure.  Plus we got to see our daughter and grand daughter.  I think we were rained out one of the days too but by Thursday we were raring to go.  The dogs went with me Thursday for 4.45 miles, then on Friday I did 4 miles on my own and then added a short one for the pups to total 5.26 and then on Saturday we did 4.73 miles and took along some friends.  My brother is back again and has his daughter’s dog, Sunny, who is now Little Bean’s new love, really.  Then just to add a little more excitement we added Wyke’s girlfriend, Millie.  Millie is the same breed and size as Wyke so when they wrestle you better get out of the way or you will be knocked right off your feet.  They are the same age and neither one gives in to the other.  They absolutely adore each other.  The humans in this group enjoy chatting with each other too.

We polished off the week with Katie joining me along with the pups for a 7 mile hill walk.  We are a little confused by the mileage as we both use Runkeeper and hers came out with a different distance than mine.  Katie’s said 7.74 miles while mine said 6.83.  Bean decided she didn’t want to walk up that last hill so I generously carried her until she indicated that she wanted to get down.  It was wonderful to get back out there on my favorite walk and for the first time ever we ran into other people up there.  Not just any people but actually people we knew.  One of them continued to walk with us for part of our walk along with her huskie, Eska, who is simply sweet.  She loved Wyke (well who doesn’t?) and was just fine with Bean but not really interested in her.  The big dogs had a really good romp with each other and then settled down for the remainder of our joint walk.  We passed another friend who was walking her two yellow labs and had a quick chat with her and then as we were coming up the final hill we were startled to see a big, blond dog running faster than I thought most dogs could run straight down the road ahead of us but heading towards us.  At first we thought it was a deer but it obviously wasn’t.  As it turns out we knew who the dog belonged to and were able to convince it to turn around and head away from us.  It did shake us up a bit so we cut through the woods to avoid running into the dog and its canine sibling further along the road.  I don’t mind dogs being loose but I do mind dogs that are more than a 1/4 mile ahead of their owner running towards me in what I perceived as a challenging way.  The owner did not have any control over the dog as she was nowhere in sight.  Other folks we passed had their dogs on a leash or they leashed the dog before passing us, as did I.  Pet Etiquette!

Goodbye Cedars

Our house in Canada is surrounded by cedar trees as well as others but the cedars are the most impressive.  Almost oppressive actually.  Coming down the steps to the house the stairs were covered by the overhanging branches of  an extremely large cluster of cedars as well as two singles.  The cluster had three trunks, one of which died a couple of years ago.  When we got here we noticed that the other two were dead or dying so we made a call to our friendly tree guy to confirm.  Since one of the trunk was leaning towards the house and the other to the garage it seemed prudent to take them down and do it fairly quickly.  The two singles were also taken down because they added nothing to the landscape with only part of them having any green on them.  This brightened up the stairway wonderfully and has brought sunlight into what was a very damp and shady garden.  Now I might even get some flowers to grow in there.  The stump that was left behind from the three trunk is enormous and my Little Bean thinks it was made for her to dig in.  Must say she smells good when she is done and no moths are attracted to her!  Can you see two dogs in this photo.  This is post activity.

A Recipe to Enjoy

I am always looking for easy ways to add beans into my diet as they are part of  the G-BOMBS we should eat every day to keep us healthy.  I came across a recipe for Sweet and Salty Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans) and then I started looking up other recipes.  So far this is the one I like best.  Found it in a magazine.  Simple ingredients and addictive to eat.  Give it a try.

Ingredients

2 (14 oz) cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas) or 3 cups cooked garbanzo beans
1/2 Tbsp canola or olive oil (not extra-virgin, just regular olive oil)
2 Tbsp raw honey or pure maple syrup
1/4 tsp sea salt

How to make it

Drain and rinse the chickpeas, removing the loose skins. Lay them out on a towel to dry out for about 20 minutes while oven heats to 400 degrees. Toss dried chickpeas with oil and half the (1 Tbsp) honey in a bowl.
Pour the chickpeas out on a large foil lined baking pan to create a single layer. Bake for 20 minutes, shaking the pan after 10 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove from oven and toss in 1 Tbsp honey and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 15 more minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely to crisp.