Sunday, August 18, 2013

Apple Harvest 2013

This year was a bountiful apple crop for both apple trees in our yard.  The Norland has produced a nice crop of sweet red apples almost every year.  It's apples are the shape of red delicious apples and the largest we had this year were the size of small red delicious apples.  Most of them were pretty small though.  They are great for eating and smoothies.  We bought our Norland at Westview Co-op about 9 years ago for about $40.
Norland apple tree
Our green apple tree, a Heyer 12 cultivar, finally had a nice crop of apples three years after being transplanted to make way for a blue spruce.  It was planted on Canada Day about 9 years ago too.  We bought it at Superstore for about $20. I think it's roots have finally recovered.  It had only a handful of apples last year.  Its fruit is quite sour, but it's great for cooking.
Heyer 12 apple tree

Heyer 12 apples
We made some apple crisp with the Heyer 12 apples tonight:


We didn't grow any snow peas this year, but the tallest Russian mammoth sunflower in the front is over 5 feet tall now.  Hopefully, the recent hot weather will mean we will have a harvest of sunflower seeds again this year.  The two sunflowers I planted in a pot in the back patio last year was a popular spot for a red wing blackbird this past spring - the two flowers were picked pretty clean.  The birds got most of our Saskatoon berries this year despite covering them with netting, so it's nice to have the Heyer 12 apples this year.
Russian Mammoth Sunflower
This geranium has been saved over the winter at Aden Bowman the last two winters and is blooming nicely.


Friday, August 9, 2013

Summer Music Festivals!


On our first day (July 28) in the Laurentians, my brother found a concert with the Gryphon Trio.  We went up to Mont Tremblant village and listened to the trio peform Mozart, Debussy and Ravel.  Afterwards, Alexandre Da Costa signed his latest CD for us.  James Parker and Alexandre Da Costa also took a photo with my two kids.  A nice concert from Festival Classiques des Hautes-Laurentides.


On August 8, we went to Stratford Summer Music to listen to 17 year old Jan Lisiecki.  He also gave us a photo op and signed our CDs for us!  He played a selection of Chopin Preludes and the Beethoven 3rd Piano Concerto with a string quintet (Annex String Quartet).  A very nice young man indeed.  He has grown musically and technically since I heard him in Saskatoon (fall 2011).