Happy Easter weekend!

I did have a pretty fine weekend, all things considering COVID…and my injury, ugh.

We had our dressage lesson on Thursday, then on Friday it was Oaty’s day off, so my husband and I went on a hike to a local area (Cowichan) and got snacks at Tim Hortons after.

Cowichan River Trail

Saturday I rode, and it was….eh. I was really hoping to recreate the nice canter I had on Thursday in my lesson. WRONG. It was crummy, ha. Fortunately, the next day was another opportunity and I let things go by then.

Hiking with Gidget

Since we’re not allowed to visit family or friends, or eat indoor at restaurants, our entertainment options these years remain very limited. Sooooo we decorated our Easter gingerbread house, and dyed fake eggs that my husband picked up at the buck store. Fun! The eggs were kind of lame though and barely dyed, taking on a barely-there pastel effort, compared with the very vibrant dyes. Oh well!

Tucker as the Easter bunny with my loot!

Sunday we did our egg hunt and my husband hid 40 foil eggs! Yes! I missed a few hahah but in the end got them all. It was finally a pretty nice day for riding, and we worked on some calm lateral work at the walk, and a nice contact in the trot, and called it a day walking around the outdoor. In the afternoon we took a couple of beers to the beach and listened to music, which was pretty chill and nice.

The eggs could have dyed better…

Monday I had off but my husband didn’t, so off to the barn it is! I worked on some similar things to Sunday, remembering to keep my expectations in check- and Oats was pretty good! Left the shitty canter alone, ha. I headed to the beach after riding with my dog and we enjoyed the chilly sunshine that day too.

Then it was back to work, and a jump lesson, and then a truly horrible ride (yesterday) where Oats lost his brains again and had shit fits at every single corner of the indoor….I guess forgetting that absolutely nothing had changed in the less than 24 hours since we had our jump lesson the evening previously? I really got on his case for that. He is WAY too old for his BS shenanigans?! Plus the temperature had dropped quite dramatically and it was COLD at the barn, and a lot of the horses went crazy. I guess it was too tempting?? He was fidgety and nutty in the crossties, so I kind of figured he was reacting to the weather or something yesterday…HORSES! God. Let’s hope today is much, much better.

Getting creative when there’s nothing else to do

And of course, now that we can’t really travel or do things we are used to: Visiting with friends, happy hour, running races or in groups, horse shows, going to a movie, swimming, etc etc etc…

My watercolour attempt! 

Ian and I have had to get much more creative- literally! We have done a few fun projects, from an Easter gingerbread house to making Sculpey animals, to watercolour paintings. It’s been pretty fun, and I guess, a fun distraction from the things we can’t normally enjoy.

My Easter house- isn’t it fun? I bought like 5 gingerbread houses from Thrifty’s because they were a dollar each, so I used one this year for Easter. My friend even bought me some amazing flavored Peeps from the USA!

Of course, we can get take-out meals, drinks, have a picnic and have done many of these activities throughout the past 3 months as well!

Our sculpey projects- I want to get some magnets and do up the backs of these, they are too cute not to share! 

You are who you are: Easter

Ah, Easter long weekend and boy did it go FAST! I rode (lots!!) to Oats’ chagrin, haha. Did a lot of running (with a friend and a trail run with Ian), enjoyed a lovely Easter dinner with my in-laws and generally just enjoyed myself, my company, my animals and the weather.

Hoppy Easter from Tucker Bunny! 

I also ate a LOT of chocolate…Yum. No regrets!

And I did a traditional Easter photo-shoot with Gidget and Tucker. They were absolute chaos to wrangle, hahah.

Two friends.

And struggled greatly with terrible allergies. My sinuses felt like they were being drilled from the inside-out. UGHHHH wtf is with these allergies??? I am suffering! Plus this week is very busy, with double riding lessons, work is busy, horse show on Saturday and the TC 10k on Sunday. Busy busy busy!

Better buckle down, me!

My review: Speculoos Cookie & Cocoa Swirl and bonus an opinion!

Thank you to my colleague for the tasty treat. I very carefully practiced willpower when you gave it to me last week, and that lasted until I got home with it unopened, and then I immediately dove into it and ate a few spoonfuls while proclaiming that it ‘needed something’ like pretzels or whatever to add to the flavour.

And just like that, the top half of the jar was gone. Ian said it was surprising I was saying it needed something while also shoveling it into my mouth via large spoon. At the time the only option I had cracker-wise was Ryvita and just…no.

Anyways, I did end up spreading it on a toaster waffle and while it is pretty good solo, it was GREAT with the waffle. The stripes of cookie butter blend well with cocoa, adding a bit of textural interest and granularity. I am someone who likes crunchy peanut butter so your mileage may vary on that account. One quibble-the cocoa stripes tend to dominate and take over the spread. It becomes more of a ‘cocoa with cookie butter’ spread rather than the other way around. So die-hard cookie butter lovers (there could be some, I don’t judge as a peanut butter fiend personally) may not love this as much as I do.

So yeah a week in there is like half a jar left, yikes. I have added it to homemade waffles as well (and marshmallows, crackers, etc) and it is a true delight! At the risk of sounding like a monster, I have also *gasp* added peanut butter to the cookie butter for waffles. I know eh, where does it end???

Also here is my opinion: The Reese’s Eggs are not as good as the flat Reese’s Eggs. Do they find this as confusing as I do?

The best! 

 

Merely ‘good’

Happy Easter~

Ah what an awesome long weekend. I started it by having a great jump lesson on Thursday- Oats was slow and sticky, but we worked through it and ended up having a very successful ride!

Friday we went and I did a super looong run around Elk/Beaver Lake. Hours! Certainly taught me the importance of fueling appropriately yikes. A good day though all around.

Saturday I got up early-ish for a dressage lesson with Oats with my normal jump trainer. It was very interesting and showed to us a few holes in Oats’ education, namely encountering some resistance through transitions. Hm….

And then we were up Island and off to the farm! We had a HUGE great turkey dinner at the farm, and enjoyed some games, hot-tubbing and hiking.

Sunday we were back home and I had another dressage lesson, this time with my regular dressage trainer. More insight- Oats moves crooked at the canter, and it’s because, gasp, I am HELPING HIM be crooked. Wha? It was a strangely difficult ride!

Monday I was back at the barn! Did a fairly casual ride on Oats because as it turns out, I was tired, haha. My allergies have been out.of.control these days and man, they are sooo horrible. I came home after some unsuccessful swimsuit shopping (styles are SO UGLY right now. No WAY am I wearing a high-waisted granny panty swimsuit) and made myself some sangria and sat on the deck to enjoy some sunshine.

With me was Gidget and Tucker, who do not get along. At all. HA.

A great long weekend and much-needed.

My review: Reese’s chocolate rabbit! Just in time for Easter

So the picture below may not actually be the one I ate. I devoured it so fast I didn’t take a picture, and also now I can’t quite remember but I don’t think there was foil covering it…Anyways, without further ado- the BEST Easter candy of the season!

Reese’s Chocolate Rabbit! Maybe even the best candy I have had all year??? Tough call. But a fair one.

It is a fairly hefty sized rabbit, not quite the 1lb pound gargantua that I saw when I googled ‘Reese’s Chocolate Rabbit’ but given the fact that I wolfed this down in one sitting (for lunch, I’m not some sort of monster), I’m glad it wasn’t a full 1lb! I did kind of feel sick after and wanted vegetables so I can even recommend eating this whole in one sitting to encourage you to eat healthier after. Kind of like aversion therapy maybe.

It’s DELICIOUS!!!

Imagine the biggest, best Reese’s cup (like maybe the one with Reese’s pieces shards in it) and times it by three. Bigger, better, more peanut-buttery goodness inside. It is filled all the way to the ears, no cheaping out on the peanut butter. The texture of the peanut butter filling is slightly grainy in the best way possible. Mouthfeel is excellent, the chocolate covering is smooth and slightly greasy but pretty good too. It’s addictive and incredible. Man, I wish I hadn’t eaten the entire rabbit but also can enjoy that memory for all of Easter haha. I think it is even better than the half-pound Reese’s cup they have at Christmas…Which I may have also eaten in one sitting. But that was years ago.

This was purchased for me by the lovely colleague so I can’t comment on cost but I believe it is available at all the regular stores (might look slightly different, I can’t quite remember). Get this one- it is better than all the Mr. Solid/Mr. Crunchy and Mr. Munchy chocolate rabbits combined, maybe even better than all of those combined with Peeps! Also there should be a Peeps/Reese’s mashup. I would buy allllll of it. Get on this, people!

An Easter getaway in Cumberland

Ran out of time apparently last week to do a recap, but this past Easter we rented a small cottage ‘the Crooked Cottage’ in the mining town of Cumberland for a brief getaway. The timing couldn’t have been better- I was fried from the demands of the everyday, my legs were trashed from the half marathon, and needed some time to chillax.

The crooked cottage.

Unfortunately it was FREEZING in Cumberland- like 5 deg and cold the whole time, but we enjoyed our stay anyways. We got there later in the afternoon and hiked around the mountain for a bit, finding some mountain bike trails that were pretty intense if you had to take a bike on them!

Retro

My allergies also went into insane hyperdrive and I felt lousy the whole weekend…Blah! They also made me feel sick last week as well, with hot/cold chills, a sore and swollen throat and body aches. Lovely.

Regardless, I went for a jog in the Cumberland trails on Saturday morning, while my husband picked up doughnuts from the BEST bakery. We got cronuts, and jam-filled, lemon-filled, oh, everything. So hot and fresh. YUMMMM. The trails were great to jog on, the only bummer part was when I got turned around and my run went from an 8k ok run to a 10k slog! Oh well. We were also super close to the brewery (Cumberland Brewery) so we went there a lot too, haha.

The town shuts down early and doesn’t seem to open much at all- most stores were closed on Saturday and Sunday, unfortunately, so that left the bakery on Saturday and the brewery haha.

The bakery, to my ultimate sadness, was closed on Sunday (Easter Sunday). I had to console myself by sneaking onto the Easter egg hunt course by Mine site #5 and stealing an Easter egg. It had bubblegum in it though, grossssssss.

It was a nice weekend, too bad about the lousy weather and terrible allergies, but it felt good to get away, regardless.

An Island getaway- Quadra Island!

We did something a bit unique this year for Easter. You may recall that in past Easter’s, we went to Ucluelet or Tofino for a getaway (and it always RAINED!).

This year, we booked a ‘fancy camping’ cabin on Quadra Island. The island is across from Campbell River, a 10-minute ferry ride and voila! You’re there! Although, it was HAMMERING down rain the entire drive from Victoria (3+ hours) and literally lashing the car on the ferry, it slowly calmed down to a drizzle and then cleared up. It was still cold though, as we’ve had an unusually cold and unpleasant spring so far.

A view from the cabin

The cabin itself was super quaint and rustic. A woodstove, a huge bunk bed, table, chairs and propane stove. There was an outhouse (yeah I know what you’re thinking! That’s why it is still considered camping) no shower, and you washed the dishes outside in buckets. The fridge was also outside. This is rustic, people!

Bunkbeds!

We ate at the Herriot Bay Pub and had the hilarious fortune to encounter the WORST people I have seen in a long time. They took up two tables so they could plug in their laptops separately (rolls eyes here…) and it was busy there! They had two annoying children who pestered the already fairly harried server endlessly about the stupidest things. “What’s in the hamburgers?” The server: “Well, meat?”

GAH

I know where they got it from though. The parents were just as bad. They were complaining about ethically-sourced palm oil, asked the server if she was SURE they didn’t serve any salmon? And if there was no salmon, could she not take the cod, of the fish and chips meal, and grill it and serve it as a burger instead? (newsflash: no.).

They banged on about cooking bacon in olive oil on the Greek islands for some disgusting reason, and then ordered a Cesar salad with no croutons and no dressing (so, lettuce and ??).

We left after we finished our meal, but not before these lovely people were up to the front desk complaining about not being able to access the WiFi….

Some people DESERVE to live on an island, because nobody else wants them! These people were from Cortez, which is even further than Quadra. Anyways, the weather cleared up, though was windy as hell, and we walked out to Rebecca Spit, which was quite beautiful and very relaxing.

The next day the weather continued to hold steady, so we hiked up the Chinese Mountains, only doing the North peak. It was rated as ‘moderate’ but we did find it quite strenuous, lots of scrambling over what appeared to be a creek bed that still had water running through it, and lots of loose rocks. I was tired by the end!

Chinese Mtns

We had lunch that we packed, and ate it and had a drink or two on the beach later. A great time to unwind after the hike, and Gidget decided to run around like a psycho and get overtired, haha.

A chilly beach

We heated up the cabin a bit too hot later in the evening, and boy 1-rooms can really swelter! We left the doors open for a bit so we didn’t cook! The next morning, I set out on a jog by myself, which was actually quite invigorating. We packed up and left for the main island, and now I’m back at work and kind of feeling bummed that I’m back in the hurry-scurry of normal life…

Hoppy Easter!

Sadly, back to reality today but I had a really GOOD Easter, complete with going off the grid up-Island and some nice Easter candies courtesy of a lovely friend. Oats got the weekend off, and I did a quickie night-time longe on Sunday PM when we got back from my in-laws dinner (which was delicious, I ate WAY too much) and then I rode him on Monday over some small fences and he was great!

I’m going to do up a separate post for the off-the-grid trip, but in the meantime, Buster and I did his annual Easter photoshoot, so please enjoy! I love Easter, it’s one of my favourite holidays.

Easter Buster

Buster’s Easter haul

Spring has sprung at the farm~

So, not only did I run this weekend up Island, but I had a great opportunity to stay with my in-laws, who have a lovely farm about 45 minutes up Island from us.

They have so many animals, and baby animals right now! Lambs, bunnies, chicks- love it~

Lambs!

So, I rode Oats on Saturday and my husband was able to get some pics and a video  (that showed Oats VERY behind my leg, arghhh) but we did get a very smooth, lovely left-lead two-point canter, and then we packed up the dog and headed to the farm!

Saturday riding

(Oats then had Sunday and Monday off while I recovered from the run, and I rode him last night- cancelled my dressage lesson because I had an inkling it would be very unpleasant on my legs…Smart move, as I was still a bit sore).

And we spent a really nice time at the farm. We had lunch, hot-tubbed, cruised around checking out the lambs, and even picked Bracken fern fiddleheads to cook at dinner. Apparently they are poisonous if you don’t cook them correctly, with oxalates much like rhubarb leaves, so we had to blanch them, them steam them. They taste a lot like asparagus mixed with aniseed. Interesting, but not sure if I will seek them out again.

Bracken fern fiddleheads

We had a really nice time, and the little lamby-kins are so cute! His parents are very generous, treating us to dinner whenever we make the trek up, and dog-sitting for us on a pretty regular basis. Gidget can be a little jerk at the farm though, barking, chasing sheep, getting dirty, and being a VERY restless sleeper (much to our chagrin the night before the run?!! arghh).

Bunnies

Anyways, after a busy weekend it’s good to get on track again. So, I’m riding again tonight, and then we have our jumping lesson on Thursday.

Springtime