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When you’re broken into, everything changes. More than you realize.

Safe As Houses

Daily, Home Sweet Home

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It was a truly productive weekend last weekend. I made two batches of jelly; rosemary jelly (which I’m sharing today) and lemon mint jelly.

Rosemary Jelly

Daily, Jen, Recipe

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One of my favourite treats from the bulk section of the grocery store are apricot logs. These are little tubes of apricot-y goodness rolled in coconut. I like them because they are sweet and flavourful. I’ve become a little addicted to them in a way that’s probably a bit unhealthy. I’m sure the ones I…

Apricot Logs

Jen, Make it Yourself, Recipe

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A while back I mentioned I was struggling with the future of this blog. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to be about, and I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to bother. However, after much thought, I really enjoy this blog. What’s going to shift (a little) is the type of content I…

New Directions

Jen, Picture Tuesday, Site

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Like a richer, buttery-er, heftier version of a pizzelle, lukkens are a traditional Belgian waffle cookie usually made on a lukken press or lukken iron (Lukijyer). These cookies are like the ultimate mashup of two very dear people to me. I first tasted a pizzelle (light, fresh, crispy, Italian wafers) at the same time I learned…

Belgian Waffle Cookies: Lukken

Daily, Jen, Recipe

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This soup comes to me by way of Miss N, the nanny we had working for us two summers ago. She is from the Ukraine or maybe Russia, I’m not totally sure as she said the place where she is from is no longer the same place. In any event, we made it together one…

Mostly Traditional Borscht

Daily, Jen, Recipe

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Kale and I went on an adventure tonight. I wasn’t really in the mood to spend another night at home, so we went for a drive and ended up on Burnaby Mountain to watch the sunset.

Picture Tuesday

Daily, Jen, Kale, Picture Tuesday

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Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind.

Summer Days

Daily, Jen, Picture Tuesday

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Ah, good things.

Picture Tuesday

Daily, Picture Tuesday

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I saw this graphic pop up on Facebook this morning, and thought I’d share it here:   We get asked all the time if it is worth it for us to keep backyard chickens. Noodle and Giblet live the life of the organic egg producers as outlined in the graphic, but their cost per dozen…

Cost of Keeping Chickens

Chickens, Daily

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Mad Men: I’ve been getting really into Mad Men these days. We have Netflix and so I’ve been watching starting from the beginning, and I find when I have spare time I’m likely to watch an episode or two. I’m really enjoying it. I watched a few episodes of Mad Men back in the beginning,…

What I’m Into These Days

Daily, Home Sweet Home, Jen

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We have another broody chicken. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but about a month ago, Noodle became broody. Broody is when they take to sitting in their nest box all day thanks to a biological response to hormones in their system that manifests as voices in their head that tell them to SIT…

Urban Homesteader Problems

Chickens, Home Sweet Home, Jen, Picture Tuesday, pictures