Beautiful Chamomile

The chamomile is growing freely and it smells absolutely wonderful... 

I've been gathering and drying bunches for tea. This year I started earlier because I didn't gather enough last year. Izabella is making sure that I don't pick flowers that have been run over by cars or slept on (or worse)  by dogs. It's so funny. "Don't pick those, dogs walk here!" I wonder where she learns it. 

Have nice weekend!

Tortalitza the Tortoise

Tortalitza  out of hibernation.

The weather is getting warmer and signs of spring are abundant. Almond trees are blossoming and my daffodils have bloomed. Another sign that it's getting warmer is that we can now find our tortoise "Tortalitza" roaming around the garden. She's come out of hibernation and is now ready to eat my lettuces once again. Whenever I plant any variety of lettuce she prefers it to the other green plants or weeds that I'm not growing to eat.  Izabella is so happy spending time with her tortoise and by now it seems the tortoise is happy to see her. Foti has a tortoise named "Skorouli" but he's a little more evasive and difficult to find. Maybe he's still hibernating, hopefully we'll find him soon because the property needs to be tilled. 

Izabella took her to visit the neighbors & she peeks from her temporary confines. I do think she's adorable. 

Tortalitza is a Spur-thighed/Greek tortoise. You can find tortoises wandering the countryside and often stopping traffic. We don't take special care of her since we let her live in a natural environment in our garden. Although, we do make sure that there's always water available and that she's locked safely in her portion of the garden. If she wanders away from her enclosed space, Tarzan gets a hold of her and chews on her shell as well as tosses her around like a ball. We found Tarzan with her last year and he seriously damaged her shell. You can see the damage that he incurred in the first photo. She's healed well and again, we need to keep her out of his reach. 

Izabellae enjoys Tortalitza's company

Our weather forecast for the weekend is fantastic (15 C/59 F) and we're planning to spend most of our time outside and Izabella will most definitely be enjoying the company of her tortoise. There's a lot to look forward to. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Related Posts:

"Tortalitza" the tortoise

Snowy Saturday Morning

View from Foti's room

All week we anticipated snow on Saturday. The children were excited and kept reminding us that it might possibly snow today. It's exciting because snow isn't typical for the area that we live in. In fact, the last snow that we experienced was two winters ago, our first winter in Greece. So, this morning I wasn't able to sleep in  like I'd hoped but instead, I had to get up and dress everyone to enjoy the snow. I didn't mind. The kids were ecstatic. So we got dressed and went outside to play in the snow. Well, the kids played. I took photos. Enjoy...

Izabella and Alexandra happy in the snow. They were so happy to pose in the snow. But, we had some difficulty taking photos because...

Tarzan kept jumping in and around the shots.

 Some of my lemons covered with snow.

My foot in the snow. Not the best choice of footwear given the little holes in the shoes. They're usually great for running outside or doing chores, but not in snow! My feet did get a little wet.

Foti posing in the snow. At first I was going to crop out the dogs but decided to keep them in so you could see how chaotic it was. They were having a blast running around and playing and again...

getting in the shots.

A branch from my daphne/ laurel tree covered in snow.

Gigi, looking out for Tarzan.

Tarzan took a moment from playing to lick snow off of a bench. I understand, I love eating snow too!

A calendula flower covered in snow.

After a while, I found Gigi waiting in front of the door. She had enough-time to go in where it was warm and cozy.

Inside, the kids were treated to hot chocolate and tsoureki to warm them up. Most of the snow has started to melt now, I'm glad that they were able to enjoy a snowy Saturday morning.

Church at Sunset

Taking a walk at sunset one evening I took a few photos of a church. This is one of my favorites.

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Greek Coffee

Greek coffee

I love weekends because it's always nice to slow down and take time for coffee. I snapped this photo last Sunday morning as we enjoyed coffee with our neighbors. We always make sure to have coffee with our neighbors on weekends regardless of how busy we may be. Good conversation is so therapeutic.

Octopus weekend

Summer is over and I realized that I haven't shared our adventures in octopus spearing...and eating. I know that many of my readers love that our kids are learning the skills of fishing and spearing octopus and what they love more is to see photos of our kids with the octopuses. Honestly, octopus is our their favorite choice whenever we go to a taverna, so it's always great when Kosta can spear a few for us to enjoy at home. One weekend in early August , Kosta speared four of them...two on Saturday in beautiful Halkidiki and the second two on Sunday at a beach just outside of Thessaloniki. Here are some photos from our weekend...

Saturday

Yia Yia and Foti were swimming in the area that Kosta was hunting octopus so, naturally, when he speared one he handed off to Yia Yia so that we could start to prepare it for our dinner.

Before we slam the octopus on the rock to tenderize it, the kids usually get time to examine it closely. They're always captivated.

Izabella loves when the octopus still has suction and sticks to her.

Here's Foti working on tenderizing the octopus. Izabella & I did the hard work as we took turns slamming the octopus against a rock.

Enjoying the fruits of our labor. Can you see the octopus next to the wine? It's the same one that we caught a few hours earlier.

Octopus was a perfect addition to the fish that we grilled.

Sunday

This octopus that was speared on Sunday was a bit smaller.

Although Alexandra loves to eat octopus, she had never handled one until this day. She was completely enamoured by it and examined it closely for a while.

This weekend our forecast looks promising and hopefully, we'll have time to go to the beach. And, I really hope that Kosta will have great luck and spear a few more octopuses!!

Have a great weekend!!

Related links:

Octopus anyone?

Octopus pics

1st Octopus of the Season

Friday evening at the beach

Octopus (Wikipedia)

Gorgeous Halkidiki