the cry of the auctioneer, the smell of the burning hamburgers, the feel of sun beating on my face, aaah a day at the auction. four boxes of who knows what for $2.00, two boxes at 5.oo each and $400.00 for a year old 8 hp snowblower. who'da thunk it.

mmmm, petunia flowers, pansies, johnny jump ups, spinach, onion and tomatoes, with three cheese ranch dressing,mmmm. yummy fiddleheads sauted in onion, garlic butter very tasty indeed.

well, we went vegetarian tonight. cream of dandelion flower soup as an appetizer, (hard to say if it was good or not, as I over did the celery seed and that was a very overpowering error, so will have to try again when there are more dandelions) spinach and grilled portobello mushroom salad with balsamic vinegar/oil dressing, butternut squash and crimini mushroom lasagna with ricotta, mozeralla and parmesian cheese (oooh, that was good!!) and mushroom pate with cream cheese for later. Complemented by crabapple wine. well perhaps complemented is not the best choice of words. I should have saved some dandelion flowers for the pancakes tommorrow morning, hmmmm where or where can I find a dandelion.

mmmmm, dandelions. We have now had cooked dandelion flowers. lightly floured and fried in butter, mmmm, taste like cooked mushroommms. Warning don't eat dandelions from lawns with dogs. lol

ahh the elusive bedtime, bedtime is 8:00 but when it is daylight out side it is hard to believe it is bedtime and not playtime.

potatoes, potatoes, potatoes and more potatoes. Over 400 potatoe hills, I wonder how many potatoes that could actually mutliply out to be and just how many sacks of potatoes we will need to keep all those potatoes. Anyone who comes to visit this year will be hilling potatoes, checking potatoes, weeding potatoes, pulling potatoes, picking potatoes and maybe even eating some of them.

truly refreshing to be in the city again yesterday, to see the expanse of plants available in the greenhouse, to eat at a more than just burgers and fries restaurant with real service and clean tables. Rural Saskatchewan is full of boundless tourism opportunities, unfortunately full of business owners who refuse to believe that the behaviour of their staff and the first impression of the facility have any relation to the success of their business. Often business in rural saskatchewan behaves as though customers are their right and not a result of good service or food as the case may be. A pet peeve of mine that we would continue to promote ouselves as an incredible tourism experience and not place the highest importance on the return of thoses tourists after we have managed to lure them in the first time. Clean tables are nice, waitresses who are interested in their customers are nice, clean cultery and cups are good, food that looks appealing rather than questionable is also good. Bright inviting atmosphere should be a given. Perhaps rather than a five star rating system a new system based on levels of yuckiness would be more appropriate. I can see it now, pulling up to a restuarant in rural saskatchewan, checking out the front window or door for the yuckiness level sticker. perhaps the owner would get the point.

Mother's day, an apple tree, some paper roses and a decorated jar(pencil holder). Will have to check out the green house in saskatoon to find the apple tree. As there were none left in nipawin.

Life is wasted if not lived as an adventure. Indeed, the adventure into farming, herbs and spices, organics, ethical wildcrafting, herbology and natural health food and supplements, certainly will be an adventure.

Stopped at the greenhouse on the way home today, hard to make decisions in the green house, fortunately I only had $15.00 cash to spend. I now own a martha washington geranium, a double begonia and some oregano. The fuschias, double impatiens and other flowers were very appealing and the choices were tough, but I perserviered and only spent $11.00 of my original $15.00.

Well we finally took the plunge, the stinging nettle plunge that is . Cooked stinging nettle looks some what like spinach, tastes somewhat like spinach but not really, sort of hard to discribe actually. Next time we will have to try the dandelions. One word of advice, next time I pick stining nettles I will remember to where gloves. The ends of two of my fingers have a couple of pricky reminders of our supper.