Garlic Scape Pesto

Hullo... this post is... again... several weeks old. Sigh. I am having so many adventures it is hard to keep up! We are out to harvest some stuff in the garden.

But first, I wanted to show you our fuschia... this was the one that we had last year, cut back to nothing and overwintered in the shed.

It's doing pretty good I think!

Righto... here are the peas. There are a few left (we picked most of them a couple of weeks ago).

The beans are coming along (actually, they are all harvested now!).

And here we have the garlic scapes!

There sure are a lot of them.

You know... it's awfully hot out... and this involves a knife...

So, I'll just sit in the shade of the kale and supervise, OK?

Garlic scapes are pretty cheeky!

Alright... that is quite the pile of scapes...

Quality control... were any missed???

Ah-hah!!! Yup, here's one... good thing I'm here to supervise. (I must learn to do up an invoice like Little Fox does).

Now... we have a pile of scapes and, I have to admit they were a bit earlier this year than last year.

So a few scape thingies are already trying to become flowers. We picked those out.

Chopped up all the scape thingies... Oh, by the way, we are making garlic scape pesto!

Got out the food processor... (most handy kitchen tool EVER!)

Put in the blade thingie...

And then remembered we need to add more than just scapes.

 Let's see... we need some lemon juice, some olive oil... we're not doing parmesan this time - can add that later.

And some walnuts. Hmm... seem to be running low on those.

Then you whip it around the food processor for a while...

And add the olive oil until you get a good consistency.

And then pop it into jars and into the freezer! Leave a bit of room in the jars otherwise the pesto will crack the jars. Voila!

Quadra Island - Rain Day

Hullo... today is looking a bit cloudy but we are game for more adventures... We explored some of the more distant parts of the island... First we drove by Rebecca Spit - cute!

And then ended up on a gravel road... which was beary dusty...

Are we there yet? ***cough-cough***

Oh... look at that - red salmon berries. We saw a BC Hydro guy up in the bucket of his truck crane picking them. We all tasted them and agreed they were "not bad" but had a weird taste.

 Another beach and another huge pile of driftwood!

Oh... look at that one!!!

It's perfect!!! I'll take it...

There were even a few busted sand dollars...

After our beach visit, the rain came in earnest so we went to look at the local First Nations museum - no cameras allowed inside...

But they had some interesting totems out front...

And a seaside pavillion with a few more.

That's a thunderbird (eagle) on top... and I think a person down below... maybe a bear.

 I think the canoe needs to be bailed out.

They also had some petroglyph boulders that had been rescued from the beach - so that the waves don't erode them anymore.

They are much harder to see in the rain without any sun shadows...

Die-hard beachcombers that we are... another visit to a beach was in order. Apparently a pod of whales hangs out around here... but we didn't see any.

But did find somebody's lunch site... those are pretty oyster shells.

We also visited the local lighthouse... (just so Hammie can see that we have some as well!)

It has a pretty Hammie-red top.

Looks like the lighthouse keepers have a nice garden as well. Most of our lighthouses were automated about 10 years ago but a few key ones still have keepers.

And finally... this island is full of foxgloves!!! Growing everywhere along the road sides...

So pretty... and we only have one in our yard... so we rescued a few baby foxgloves - they only bloom in their second year so this way we'll have some that will bloom next year!

Ahhhh... sigh.... what a great holiday. Although I think we could have picked up a bit more driftwood...

Quadra Island - Petroglyphs

Good morning! My goodness, look at the view out our lodge window! I totally missed that last night in my exhaustion.

This is nice!!

Let's have a look around here this morning.

Hmmm... the lodge says that there are petroglyphs down on the beach on some granite boulders... Optimum viewing is 10:30 am (combination of sun and tides). (And yes... this adventure is getting posted weeks after we were there!)

Wow... what a grand hall!

Alright... let's go find some petroglyphs...

I think they are this way...

Cool... not a petroglyph but interesting...

Ohhh... these are interesting... they are apparently part of the petroglyphs but just indentations in the stone that someone carved 1000s of years ago...

It's a good thing Mama knows her rocks otherwise I think I'd be looking at all the volcanic boulders as well.

Hmmm... maybe I can see some from up here...

Ummm... help?! Stuck!!!

OH!!!! I found one!!! Do you see it??

It's a face of someone...

Carved into the stone...

And here's another one!!! Some of those round indentations and a face...

I think this one looks like an angry sasquatch...

And another one!

This one looks angry too...

Apparently there are more than 50 petroglyph boulders... we found 4 which is pretty good I think...

There's an eagle up in that tree! Do you see it? Mama, can you get a better picture?

Ah... OK... much better picture!