Fresh Strawberries

Costco had a big 'clamshell' of strawberries for $5 or $6, so I bought some. We ate some fresh, put some on Rowan's cake, used them on Mother's Day crepes (thanks, honey!). Yesterday I finished them off in a strawberry-Rhubarb pie. My grandma Joan has had a rhubarb plant for as long as I can remember and every year my sister and/or I have made a pie or two with it. When we were kids my grandparents used to cut us off a stalk and shred some of the outer 'peel' off and give us a cup of sugar to dip it in and eat. If you haven't had it before, it is incredibly sour, or tart, I guess. I invited my parents and Valentina ( my sis-in-law) to come have some with us even though it was very hard to share. I like to make mine with a crumb topping, which is basically brown sugar, cinammon and butter. It has to be one of the most delicious pies, in my opinion. We went over to my grandma's house to make the pie and she had me make hers with straight rhubarb. wooeeee! that's gotta be tart! I'd love to try it sometime.
Saturday night we took the kids 'fishing'. Aisling finally convinced her dad to buy her that Barbie fishing pole she's been wanting for at least two years. Well, we went over to Settler's Park where they have a small fishing hole. It was a cold night, just before sunset but we had a great time because there was a beautiful heron hanging around. He was waiting for us to leave, it seemed. He had to have been around 4 feet tall. Then everyone few minutes we would see a bright red flash as a fish (koi) would jump out of the pond. There were also a few geese that would fly in and land and the sweetest thing of all was the mother duck sitting on her ducklings. She was so well camouflaged we nearly walked right on top of her. She eventually got up and the ducklings came out. Precious little fluff balls seemed to be floating on the water. So cute! There were 5 of them. The worst part was that this pond is right by the street, Meridian Road which is a semi-busy road at that point and you know all ducks for some strange reason feel the need to take their ducklings across the road at some point. It is a sad time around here when the ducklings are orphaned or the babies get squished. Sorry about that depressing thought.
We don't have any gas lines out here in the country, so we are hooked up to propane. We have a huge 500 gallon tank to heat our water (which is how we heat the house). Since we had such a miserable winter freezing our tushies while paying a mint to do so, we decided to try to get ourselves 'un-dependent' of propane. We bought two huge heaters this winter that run off electricity, we had our Uncle John come and install a 220 to change out the dryer to run off electric and we have been planning to put in an electric tankless water heater. We had hoped to do that this weekend, but left my dad out of the loop. He's the one who needs to get it for us.
Anyway, since we were hoping to get that put in, we were thinking we wouldn't need to refill the tank. The last time it was filled was over $1200 and the price has gone up since then. So now we are nearly empty and don't know when they will come deliver some propane, so in the meantime we can't use any hot water. No laundry, no dishes, no showers. I hope they come today!! things are gonna get stinky real quick!
Abram took Aisling to work with him today. She loves it! And sadly, so do I. It is so much more calm around here. She is, how shall I say, SuperCharged. She is running 1 million miles an hour and very loud too. The only way to calm her down is use of the plug-in-drug, TV, which all good mothers regret to use, but do fall back on at times :) It is good for her to get that one-on-one attention she needs. We do miss her while she's gone, but enjoy the peace!
Remember what I said about going straight from winter to summer? Well, it has been a bit nippy around here, but it's supposed to be in the nineties by Saturday. Where is the justice? All I want is a little spring weather, like 70F for a week or two.