The Saturday Weekend Review #26- Canada Day around the mulberry tree

Happy-Canada-Day-2013-Cana-lily

A Day To Celebrate Canada 

It’s Canada Day on Monday July 1, 2013 which is also a statutory holiday in Canada. We will be celebrating what will be 146 years of beauty in this land we call home on that day. Last year I wrote a blog post about Canada Day where I talked about wanting to explore more of this country but sadly we haven’t had the time. Maybe it’s more about not making the time because we keep letting everything else get in the way.

With me finishing up school we thought we could plan a few days away but we’ve only managed to take some day trips to explore surrounding cities. One of my favourite trips so far was a trip to Niagara Falls and Niagara on the lake. There was something familiar about staring down the main drag down-town at Niagara on the Lake that reminded me of the UK. The small shops, narrow streets and flowers in bloom no matter what direction I would look was a bit nostalgic for me.

Niagara Falls was, how shall I say, amazing. I know many of you that grew up in Canada may think, ah it’s only Niagara Falls big deal, but it is a big deal. Niagara was named one of seven wonders in Canada and we should all be proud of the beauty each city has to offer including, the Falls.

My favourite parts of Niagara was the Maid of the Mist, the walk under the falls and the butterfly conservatory which was out of this world. Walking around down-town and checking out all the little shops was fun especially when the town is painted in bright colours and the night-time air is filled with music and laughter. You can’t go wrong if even for a frugal romantic getaway for a few days with your loved one.

Although there are things I miss about the UK there is plenty I enjoy about Canada. Even though there are pros and cons living in Canada in comparison to the UK there are always going to be differences no matter where anyone lives. Home is where the heart is and I have two homes now, and I will always hold true to both.

This Canada Day we are celebrating with the family which means I’m on vacation, so just in case you think I am MIA I’m probably hanging out by the water enjoying a few beers and backyard BBQ. I imagine we may take in the Canada Day parade followed by good eats and fun around the city as Canada Day submerges the community where we will be.

What are your plans for Canada Day?

What is open on Canada Day?

There are stores open on Canada Day but not many so you might have to do an online search or make a phone call. Since Canada Day is a stat holiday most stores and government agencies will be closed. That also means the LCBO will be closed so get your booze this weekend if you want some “liquid courage” as my friend John calls it. You may find smaller corner stores open, gas stations and of course Tim Hortons will be open Canada Day. There are some groceries stores that are open on Canada Day.

Check the list for 2013 Canada Day Stores open for Food Basics and  Home Depot Canada Day 2013 Hours. All RONA stores will be closed and Wal-Mart will be closed from what I read online. Is Canadian Tire is open on Canada Day? Good question but the website is vague in answering and only states, Holiday hours may vary, please call ahead to confirm, so call.

What would be great is if all the stores would have a holiday hours tab for the customers to simply click on. That would eliminate phones calls to the stores and taking up time of the employee who could be doing something else for in-store customers waiting for customer service.

Let us know in the comments what stores you find open on Canada Day!

Gardening and Landscaping

Fresh Basil Weekly Growth Comparison

If you missed my Saturday weekend review post last week where I showed you photos of our garden and how much growth it has had since the beginning, it has done even better this week. The rhubarb is massive as are the raspberry plants which are just as tall if not taller than I am at 6 feet. The tomatoes and peppers are coming along but as always they take their time but give us plenty of vegetables in and around August or September.

The basil, what can I say except it’s out of this world awesome and we can’t wait to make our basil cubes. Just look at the photo above just one week since I took the previous photo and the plant has gone bananas. Not literally, I’m not doing any funky scientific gardening but I’m happy to say the garden is moving along nicely.

Our mallow is getting bigger and we should start to see beautiful pink and white blooms in the next month or two, which are absolutely gorgeous. The lime tree is now in the barrel and seems to be loving it although I keep a watchful eye on it behind the scenes just to make sure it survives my wife and her newbie green thumb. (love you darling)

Canada Day around the mulberry tree

Mulberry-tree-wm

I won’t be spending Canada Day around the mulberry tree but I’m betting with the amount of berries on our tree this year I could spend all day picking them. Our mulberry tree is enormous, and like you might have guessed we have what seems like millions if not billions of berries on the tree. The birds just can’t get enough of them nor can the wife who keeps picking them and eating them on the spot.

I was told to lay some sheets down and shake the tree as they would easily drop to the ground. It sounds like a smart way to harvest these purple berries with a sweet red juice that stains your hands (and my path) but seems to be worth it with all the health benefits of mulberries. We do try to pick the berries but there are so many and it’s a bit awkward to pick them under the canopy, so I might try the, shake the tree route.

Mulberries-on-the-ground-2

What are the health benefits of mulberries?

Good question and I had to go hunting for the answer because I’m not quite a dietician but I am rather curious about this mulberry tree that we have growing rapidly year after year on our property.

Mulberries are no doubt good for us and for many reasons as they are jam-packed with vitamins and even iron which is unusual for a berry, but this bad boy had it all. The mulberry tree is what they call a silkworm tree belonging to the family called Moraceae also known as Moras berries in Spanish with the scientific name being called Morus Nigra.

Mulberries contain the following benefits listed below, but if I were you and you want to know more about mulberries, check out Nutrition and You. This is where I learned all of my mulberry information you see here today but in greater detail.

  • Iron
  • Vitamin C
  • Vitamin E
  • Vitamin A
  • Lutein, Zea-Xanthin, B-carotene and A-carotene
  • Resveratrol (polyphenol flavonoid antioxidant)
  • Potassium
  • Manganese
  • Magnesium
  • B-Complex vitamins
  • B6, Niacin, Folic Acid (better get the wife out there eating away), riboflavin
  • Vitamin K

Free stuff

Free-stuff-gate-hardware

This is just another great find for free in the trash this week from another neighbour who moved out. Although we don’t need any gate hardware at the moment as I replaced it when we moved in, you never know when it will come in handy. I figure there is about $30-$40 worth of hardware here.

We also picked up another item from the guy that was moving from the same house. The wife noticed the item and went and knocked on his door to ask if he could hang on to it until I came home from work. I get the feeling when you see what it is you will know why she didn’t want to wheel it home. Once we get it all cleaned up and put it back together, I’ll show you what it is.

I also picked up one flat beer can in the middle of the road and the wife found a beer bottle on the boulevard while out for a walk with the dog. If my neighbours or whoever it was wants to throw away their beer cans and bottles, I’ll take them. A dime is a dime to us, it all adds up. (that and it goes towards my beer fund)

What did you find for free this week? 

Weekly blog post review

**NOTE…. you only have a couple of days left (July 1, 2013) before Google Reader is no longer available if you are an RSS reader. I’d miss you if you were gone so please hook up via another reader. You can now follow Canadian Budget Binder via Bloglovin and continue to get my daily post in your new reader.

If you are a regular reader you would have already received these awesome posts  in your email or reader but just in case you missed reading one I’ve put them all together here just for you.

Jen’s garage sale finds

Jens-garage-sale-finds

Jen and her husband have made many improvements to their shopping habits and their budget. You can read all about it in her post, Budgeting With Mr. CBB Got Us Back On Track. Jen shares her weekly garage sale finds with us for the summer to show just how much she can save for her family.

Today’s garage sale finds:

  • Very large storage tote which can be used outdoors $5.00
  • Thermal gloves with grip (Ken uses these at work – they cost about $7-8 at Mark’s) $.25 (brand new)
  • 2 x Fleece once piece PJ’s for Adam $.50 for both
  • New track to fix kitchen drawer $.50
  • Bag clip $.25
  • Pouch for my sunglasses $.25
  • Total $6.75

Making a difference

cents-and-sensibility-blog

Hi, my name is Lindsey and I blog about my journey to becoming debt free over at Canadian Cents & Sensibility. I started my family early and had my daughter at age twenty. At that point, I had started college and her father and I tried to discuss our future. Dazed and confused, we managed to avoid the marriage pitfall and decided that we would be better parents apart, rather than together.

I went both to College and then University. After about seven years of majoring in this and that, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (in Psychology) and a monstrous $45,000 student loan. As it turns out, trying to go to school and raise a child can be an expensive endeavour to undertake – especially when paired together.

Over the years I accrued credit card debt and every other kind of debt for most of my twenties. I used to spend money to distract myself from difficult emotions and stressful situations – I used it like a crutch. It wasn’t until I hit my early thirties that I realized I had a real problem and needed to change my life and my finances.

Success is as much in the trying as it is in the achievement.

I worked hard to learn and grow from my past decisions – both good and bad. I started my blog to share my experiences about learning how to manage my money differently. My goal is to help empower others to take control of their financial futures and understand that it’s okay to try things, mess up, and then try things again. I believe I can learn as much from my readers as they might learn from me.

Blog share 

I really appreciate when other blog owners recognize my hard work here at CanadianBudgetBinder.com and share my posts with their fans.

Carnival glory

What is a blog carnival?

Some fans have asked me just what a blog carnival is so a little explanation is due here for anyone reading for the first time or for my long-time fans. A blog carnival is where a blog or website hosts what we call a carnival of blog posts from around the web.

Most blog carnivals have a theme and certain rules for submitting which must be followed. If you are a blogger and would like to learn what blog carnival directories I submit to each week you can find the information in a previous Saturday Weekend Review post that I wrote.

A big thanks to these pages for accepting my blog posts and sharing them in the following carnivals

Google search terms

web search terms

What are Google keyword search terms?

Keywords for search engines help me to understand what people are looking for at Canadian Budget Binder. Although I get thousands of  keyword searches from Google users that come in each week I pick out a few that catch my eye and make me smile.

Top pick- “True Leaders Don’t Create Followers, They Create Leaders”- Awesome!

  • House making- I’ve never heard it called this maybe home building.
  • Best Financial Advisor’s in Canada- I’d like to know too!
  • Oreo Brownie with Chocolate icing I think I know what I’m going to make next, thanks for the idea.
  • The Cadillac Budget- It there such a thing?
  • British donuts- If I make them are they considered British then?
  • Sensual Man and Woman On a motorcycle- I guess they weren’t going for the rough and tough look.

That’s all for this weeks edition of the The Saturday Weekend Review. Thanks for stopping by to read and please join me again next week when I do it all over again.

Happy Canada Day!

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7 Comments

  2. Good morning and Happy Canada Day, CBB. I was delighted by the gems in this post – from finding out about your garden to the nutritional wallop that mulberries pack. Wow.

    I, too, have a BA in psychology, and I am happy to say we just paid off that student loan a few years back. CJ’s undergrad and grad loans were just paid off this past year. Good riddance, Sallie Mae.

    Ok, Texas needs to get with the program. I sooo miss getting 5 cents on the cans and bottles. I also worked in a grocery store and it made me so happy to see children bringing the little slip up to my register because I knew Mom or Dad was going to let them keep the money. Win – win.

    You have also convinced me to get to Niagara Falls. It would have been more convenient when I lived in Upstate NY growing up, but we do have family that may want to take a trip up there when we visit one summer.

    I find your writing style so much fun to read. I am so excited CJ pointed me in your direction.

    Reply

  3. Hubby grew up in St Catharines so he isn’t that impressed by the falls, but I enjoyed it the one time we went there. But I grew up in Stratford so I have the same reaction to the swans, actors and such. Have to watch those swans, beautiful….. but they can be mean!!!! don’t even think of getting close the the nest!!!!! We went to Niagara on the Lake years ago with friends….loved it!!!
    The mulberry tree next door is full of fruit right now and dropping all over the sidewalk. It’s a lovely tree but was planted too close the the house and the branches rub on the roof sometimes.
    We pick up empties too, I have a bag in the laundry room to hold them all. The funniest time was back before the kids were born, I worked downtown and had to leave as soon as hubby got in the door from his night shift….. It was winter and the street we lived on had a bend a few doors down. I was walking past that bend and noticed a beer case on the snow bank, took a fast look on the way by and saw bottles and caps. As soon as I got to work I called hubby and told him. He called back 5 minutes later laughing, it was an almost full case of 24!!! His now… We think some kids were drinking on Friday night and the cops tried to pull them over, under age and open booze in the car, they ran and tossed the case into the snow on the way around the bend so they wouldn’t get caught with it????I think only two or three bottles were missing…..
    Jen did pretty good at the garage sales….those bins are pricey!! I’ll have to check out Lindsey’s site, looks interesting!! Have a good weekend with the Mrs!!!!!

    Reply

    1. That’s awesome that he picked up almost a case… wow. I did that once at a local park looking in the bins. They were loaded with cans, bottles and wine bottles after camping season, that and you don’t have to pay to get in once the season is over.

      Reply

  4. I found two free things this week too.

    1.) My neighbor bought a new washer and dryer. My wife and I were over at her house helping to move the old washer and dryer so she could clean out all gunk behind it. As fate would have it, our clothes dryer recently started burning our clothes. (It didn’t actually set them on fire! It just left brown marks on the clothes.)

    So, I asked the neighbor “Can I have your old dryer?”

    She said, “I called Goodwill to pick it up, but they never came. So, it’s yours.”

    2.) Unfortunatley, the spout that blows out the hot air located on the back side of the dryer was in a differenet location from my old one. So I had to find an aluminum tube to attach to it and allow the hot air (mixed with lent) to blow out of the wash room. I made up my mind to buy one at Ace Hardware.

    Before I went to Ace, I was cleaning out my shed, and – viola! – I came across a piece of aluminum tube, that I’d forgotten that I had leftover from another project. It was perfect for my new dryer, so I used it.

    It was my lucky day.

    Reply

    1. That’s awesome Terry! I love getting free stuff. Our washer and dryer was free as well and has been going for over 4 years now without any issues at all. Love free stuff!! Have a great weekend mate!

      Reply

  5. Hey Mr. CBB! Thanks for choosing me for your “make a difference section”. I think sometimes we get busy or distracted and forget why we started our blogs. This weekly section is an important reminder!
    Niagara Fall is on my bucket list of things to do – sometimes I get so focused on wanting to travel to foreign countries that I overlook the beauty in my own backyard!

    Reply

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