Last days of autumn

This is my 15th autumn in Canada (wow... it felt weird writing that, AS IF it's been that long already!), and think this was by far the best fall weather I've experienced here. I figured it wouldn't last long, so we might as well enjoy it a little. Armed with my favourite possession, my camera, we headed just a short drive away to Gatineau Park a few weeks ago.

The colours on the hills and in the valley were breathtaking! We took a ski lift up & down (well, actually we thought of hiking down, but only mountain bikers could get off the lift at the top). Here are some photos for your enjoyment!

View from the ski lift

Quick update

My poor forgotten blog... well, not exactly forgotten, since I have been thinking of several things to share with you, but as usual, life got in the way!

(*** also, if you're wondering why the number of posts on my blog decreased, that's because I've decided to clean up a little and also to remove some photos of my little miss)

A few good "keeper" recipes ARE coming your way, I promise! But for now... Here are a few photos of this year's harvest :) We're definitely enjoying all of the yummy tomatoes; the biggest one we picked this year weighed in at an impressive 703 grams!

Mini stay-cation

Last weekend we were camping at Ivy Lea Campground at a Thousand Islands. What a beautiful place it is (not necessarily the campground itself, but rather the area it is in)! On our second day there we decided to be tourists for a day and go on one of those day cruises (well, 5.5 hours actually) and visit the Boldt Castle as well. What I didn’t realize, of course, is that this castle is located in the state of New York! Thankfully, I thought ahead and brought our Canadian passports as everyone getting off the boat at the island is required to go through passport control.

Let me tell you a little bit about our trip…

Yet another 5K run

Remember my post on My post-baby 5K run challenge last year? Yes, I did it again this year! :)

The course was the same (which was nice), but the amount of people was even larger! Imagine this - 42,000 participated in this year's two-day event, with about 8,000 runners/walkers doing the 5K race.

It's crazy to think that people finished this distance in 15:38.9, while I crawled to the finish line in 2345th place overall with a time of 32:17.2. I guess it's not bad considering that I was 135th among 588 females between the ages of 25 and 29 AND I placed 940th out of 4,907 women. :)))

Aside from being proud of myself and all of your encouraging comments, here's the real reason I do this - apart from the obvious health benefits of running, of course ;) - MY FINISHER'S MEDAL!

Oh and props to all of those men and women well into their golden ages who managed to not only participate, but to run and some finishing in less that 40 minutes! You are the real inspiration!!!

Cheers,

Harvest Update

This year's garden is as generous to us as it was last year. Just yesterday, I picked 20, that's right 20 cucumbers. Plus, another of hot peppers and tomatoes :) Zucchinis, as usual, have been overlooked... So they, naturally, overgrew! The biggest one was almost 5 lbs and 38 cm long.
Check out what we've enjoyed so far :)

Mmm... I love yellow cherry tomatoes!

Our overgrown zucchinis

One evening of picking

Our largest tomato so far :)

The goodness of romaine...

Finally, the time has come to start tasting the "fruits" of our labour! Of course, this first harvest isn't anything special, it's only lettuce... Nonetheless, it's always great to know where your food comes from, how it's been grown, where it's organic.

So first up is Romaine Lettuce, which turned out great!

As fresh as it gets!

 Last year we didn't plant any, but rather went with other lettuce varieties (still have them this year). However, we wanted to have MORE! (Plus, I forgot that lettuce is usually a one-time thing - once it's ready you gotta pull the whole thing out, roots and everything, and then re-seed.) Of course, Romaine is considered to be a dark-green leafy "green" and apparently is REALLY good for you.

Why? Well, it's a great source of Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Thiamin, Folate, Iron, Potassium and Manganese. And obviously, it's low in all the bad stuff such as saturated fats, sodium and cholesterol. Finally, as with other dark leafy greens, the antioxidants contained within romaine lettuce are believed to help prevent cancer.

All I have to say is that it's tasting GREAT in my salad right now :)))
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In other news, our garden is slowly progressing:

~ tomatoes (cherry) are ready to start reddening

 ~ cucumbers are poking through

~ and so are the zucchinis

~ and finally, our hot peppers are almost ready to be picked

Should be a good harvesting season. Stay tunned!

My post-baby 5K Run Challenge

This past weekend was the National Race Weekend. For those that don't know - it's an annual event that attracts thousands of visitors to Ottawa to cheer and participate in either a marathon (42 km), half-marathon (21 km), a 10K, 5K or 2K runs. Here's a little history about this event:

"When 146 runners lined up under sunny skies at Carleton University for the first Ottawa Marathon on May 25, 1975, organizers believed they were staging a one-time affair. Few would have thought that almost 30 years later, organizers would be celebrating one of Canada's oldest major marathons boasting not hundreds, but thousands of competitors. Braving cold temperatures (-8°C in 1996) or hot weather (28°C in 1993), the marathon has grown in size and popularity." Read more

The crowd cheering on the runners!

I have previously participated in this event on three separate occasions - running a 5K race in 2000 (with the time of 27:38.2), a 5K race in 2001 (with the time of 29:48.4), and a more recent 10K race in 2009 (with the time of 1:03:09.9).

This year's race was more challenging for me personally. First, I haven't gone running much after the last race (which I was prepared for), have gone through pregnancy and childbirth and getting back in shape at a slow pace. Also, let's face it, I'm not 18 any more!

This year's race ran on different streets and was quite enjoyable. Overall about 7,500 people participated in running the 5K distance.

Even though there were times during the race when I felt like "Okay, now I'm going to slow down and walk", I just couldn't let myself do that. Hundreds of people running around me, hundreds of people cheering on the sidelines - it's such an awesome boost and there is nothing quite like it!

The fastest people on this race are amazing and most of all inspiring - I mean, who finishes a 5-kilometer run in 15 minutes?! That's just insane!!!

Now moving on to my results:
Finishing time - 31 minutes 44.7 seconds
Overall rank - 2,074th out of 7,437 finishers
Rank among females - 739th out of 4,585 women
Rank in my category (Women of 25-29 years of age) - 109th out of 600!

I'm pretty pleased with myself  :))) And here's a picture of my medal:

Finally, to continue my participation, I'm registered in the CIBC Run for the Cure - another 5K race taking place in October. I am raising the money for breast cancer research, in memory of a dear friend and a mother of my classmate, Zoya Baranova, who passed away from breast cancer at the end of April 2011.

If you would like to support me please donate any amount by clicking "Donate Now" button on top of the page or by clicking here: Help Nadia raise funds (now closed).

Thank you! :)

Veggies Garden: Year 2

Some of you might remember our first attempt at gardening last year: Veggie Garden: Year 1

This year is no different! Of course, we decided to change things up a bit - a bit less tomatoes, different types of cucumbers rather than all "English", no cabbage (it got eaten by slugs last season!).

First, the customary BEFORE photo:

And here's the collage of the AFTER shots:

What did we plant?

• tomatoes (red and yellow, big and small)
• sweet peppers (various colours) 
• hot peppers (lots! and a variety)
• cucumbers 
• eggplant
• green zucchini
• lettuce
• sweet peas
• celery
• apple mint, and
• sweet basil 

~ Sweet basil: looks so yummy, I want to eat it now! ~

Some of the herbs I planted last year came back, yay! - parsley, dill, mint, cat nip, caraway, tarragon, asparagus, and chives (the latter actually didn't grow last year, but popped up now!).

Finally, we planted one carton of watermelon (those little black squares of plants). It's so tiny right now that all the space we alloted for it seems wasted. Here it is as of yesterday:

~ Watermelon space ~

 And up close :)

 

Will we be eating home-grown watermelons this summer? Technically, we could; it's hot enough here and if we don't get a flood of rain this summer, maybe we would...

Stay tuned for our progress!

Veggie Garden: Year 1

Since this past weekend was a logn one thanks to Victoria Day on Monday, my hubby and I decided that it was time to give our veggie garden a GO! We bought a whole lot of plants and black earth and compost to remedy the clay-like earth we've got going on in our backyard.

But, as some of you may know, the weather did not exactly cooperate this weekend. No, it did not rain, BUT the humidex was at an unbearable +38C! What's that about at the end of May?! We worked a bit in the morning: hubby was digging, while I made our flowerbed in the front look decent. In the afternoon, however, while Andre slaved away in the heat, pregnant me stayed inside till about 5 pm.

That's probably why we ran out of time and energy to plant all of the stuff we bought. And as I mentioned previously, we bought quite a bit:

- tomatoes

- peppers

- cabbage

- beans

- lettuce

- cucumbers

- zucchinis

- celery

- parsley

- asparagus

- mint

- basil

- tarragon

- chives

- seeds of radishes, carrots, and beets... I think there might be more?...

For now, this is what the half-finished product looks like:

I'll keep an update on whether we'll actually get to taste the fruits of our labour this summer/fall.

To Kill a Dandelion

Here's how it goes: after a few fruitless attempts to fight the explosion of dandelions on our lawn, my husband went and bought a weed eliminator for $30. I gotta say - it's worth EVERY PENNY!

Although not all of the weeds come out that great, this one here had a root of almost 100 cm (or 39 inches, we measured)! Must be all our good Canadian soil... BUT finally, the dandelions have met their maker, he-he...

{ click on image to enlarge }