Caturday, FurFamily, & Wine

I know I have been 'few and far between the last few weeks - but I think this week that will change.  The house has been a lot more quiet without Suzie and I still think it's all a bad dream.  Paco's next appointment will be Wednesday afternoon.  I hope we see some progress with him.  I want to thank you all again for all of the kind words...they mean a lot!

This past week or so I have taken a lot of photos and will share them with you the next several posts.  First up will mostly be a fur-friend post with a few other happenings as of late. 

In this first photo you will see Jeter, Charlie, and Bernie.  Charlie is our cat and Jeter and Bernie are my parents.  Charlie is our feral cat and we've had him since BEFORE Dale and I were even engaged.  He seems to be doing well even without his tail.  Some of you may remember that he had to have it amputated earlier this year.

Bernie and Jeter are brother and sister - eventho they don't look like it.  One is Calico and the other is Orange.  One is long hair and the other medium.  They are about 12 or 13 years old.  We think Bernie is having arthritis issues.

I mentioned Paco will have his next appointment on Wednesday.  I think the medication he's taking for his skin issues is working or at least starting to.

Wednesday we are hoping for progress on the skin issues as well as to see the white blood cells NOT adhering to the Platelets. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again...ITP SUCKS!  He's our fighter, tho, strong lil guy!  He's gained a few pounds because his main med is a steroid but I'd rather have a chunky-chi than no chi...you know what I mean?

Riley is doing ok...he misses his sister Suzie that is for sure!  He's doing a bit better than I thought he would, tho.

He's a lot more quiet...then again...Suzie was the loud one...she was the leader of the pack and the instigator. 

As you can see they LOVE the blankets and we have several of them around the house.

I have a lot of food related posts but I figured I would save those for separate and stand alone posts - I will start catching up on those starting tomorrow.

Saturday - my mom, dad, sister, and I had a table at 21 Brix Winery in Portland, NY.

Everyone was really nice.  The weather wasn't bad.  The sales weren't crazy-awesome but we did ok.  Our last customer did much of her Christmas Shopping with us which was awesome and made the whole day worth it.  We had a great chat with her as well.

The winery made a warm cider wine out of their Cherry flavored wine and spices.  It smelled amazing!  The winery was decorated nicely, too!  It was a FUN time!

Yesterday - my sister and I helped bottle wine at mom and dad's house.  They are getting ready to give the home made wine as Holiday Gifts to friends and co-workers.

It was fun and we were able to spend some Father/Daughter time.

We bottled a dry red wine as well as a semi-dry white.  I preferred the white over the red for a change...but both were good!

I'm glad I was able to spend time with my sister multiple times over the last week, too!

Over The Weekend...

This past weekend my Mom, Dad, Sister, and I were in Forrestville, NY, at Merritt Winery for their Strawberry Festival.  We were vendors with our Wildtree Products.  This is our 2nd year doing this event and it's our BEST event by far - to date.  It was so much fun!  Saturday was a little cooler - weather wise - but the company and the music was FUN regardless!  Each year they choose a charity to support and this year it benefited the Carol M. Baldwin Foundation.  Carol was the mother of Alec, Daniel, and Billy Baldwin.  On Saturday Daniel Baldwin was there for the festivities.  He was VERY nice!  Here is a photo of my sister and I with him.  My sister told him he had very pretty eyes.  He seemed to be 'tickled' by the compliment.

There were a few good bands there throughout the weekend but the one that everyone really seemed to like was Hootn'Anges.

Here's a photo of my sister, my mom, and I with the band.  They played all sorts of music - not just country music.  They did a great take on "Me & My Bobby McGee" as well as "Cotton Eyed Joe" and "Love Is (What I Got).

I'm told they were recently signed by a label.  I also heard they will be back in the area for the Fall Fest.  They were a FUN band to watch!

Here's a photo of our set-up.  I have LOTS more to post in the coming days...including a wonderfully FUN announcement that I hinted at last week!  I'm so excited!  I will official announce that tomorrow, most likely!

How was your weekend?  How was the weather?  Did you do anything fun or out of the ordinary?

Cards, Wine Making, & Vegan Wildtree Recipes

Here's a card I created earlier this week.  It's a bit different from the others I have done because I folded each layer over top and on to the back...usually I use design the front of them.  I really like the way this turned out!  I also used some gems, an adhesive embellishment, die-cut with "Remember" on it as well as an acrylic stamp for the I YOU U part.  I think it's FINALLY feeling right...me getting back into my crafting!  YAY!

Speaking of hobbies...my Dad is getting into one recently...WINE MAKING!  I'm so proud of him!  My father is a great guy...fun and goofy, too!  His mother's family came over from Ireland.  So he's half Irish and darn proud to be!  He's tinkering with the name Leapin' Leprechaun Wine.  He's already bottled his first red wine.  I think he's going to enter it into a contest in April.  He has judged it in the past but if he enters his wine in the contest he can't be a judge (obviously).  But I think it would be great if he placed in some way!  I'm trying to help him with the wine names.  It's fun!  Next he's going to do a semi-sweet white, I think.  This is the first version on his label that a friend of his created.  They are already working on the 2nd revision, tho.  They are going to change the graphic a bit as well as the slogan.  That's my Dad's face in the Leprechaun!  He's so funny!

This week I made this Avocado Lime Dressing and it was fabulous. 

Here's what's in this Dressing...

1 Avocado
1/4-1/2 C Water
2-3 T Lime Juice
1 tea Wildtree Adobo Seasoning
2 tea Minced Garlic

Also earlier this week I made Chana Punjabi.  It turned out really tasty!
Here's what was in this dish!

2 C Chickpeas
1 Onion
2 Tomatoes
2 tea Minced Garlic
1/4 tea Turmeric
1/2 - 1 tea Wildtree's Garam Marsala Blend

What have you been up to this week!?

Art & Vino Venue, Salads, Smoothies, and Creamy Vegan Savory Spinach & Cilantro Dressing

 This past weekend we took our Wildtree stuff to an Art & Vino Event in Youngsville, PA.  This is the 2nd year we have done this event and it was even better than last year!  This is a photo of our table - I'm taking the picture and you can see my sister, mom, and dad here!  My sister Megan is talking to one of our customers.  We were set up beside Allegheny Cellars Winery.  They are some 'friends' of ours that we've known for a few years and done several events with.  There were 3 others wineries there as well!  Burch Farms/Winery, Flickerwood Wine Cellars, and Courtyard Wineries. I've been to 3 out of the 4 wineries and have sampled a little bit of Courtyard's before as well.  It was a lovely event.  Thankfully it was INdoors because we got a bit of snow on Saturday and it was quite cold...like around 30...that after it was 80 degrees on Thursday!  Oye!  Regardless we did GREAT at this event!

Towards the end of last week I did some Smoothies in my Ninja!  Here is the first one!  It contains Mangoes - about a cup, 4 Clementines, and 2 C of a blend of Strawberries, Papaya, Pineapple, as well as about 1 C of Coconut Milk.  It was pretty good!

I mentioned a while ago that I got some new SuperFoods and Powders I would be playing with.  One of them is Boku Organics and I tried their SUPER FOOD last week in a similar Smoothie!  I added a nice level scoop of their greens powder and came up with this...

I loved how GREEN it was!  Next time I would probably omit the Papaya in this, tho, That was the only thing that stuck out and didn't quite jive right with the other flavors.  Perhaps there was just too much Papaya in this attempt, not sure, but the rest was lovely. 


I even had enough to take to work the next day!  I put it in my Blender Bottle.

Remember last week when I was telling you about the Butternut Squash I did with Grapeseed Oil and the Wildtree Savory Spinach?  Well...I had left overs and decided to add it to a last Salad for Friday Night's Dinner!  I ended up finishing the Vegan Lemon & Chive Store Bought Salad Dressing I had on hand, too!  I do like that dressing!  I was tempted to buy more of it at Wegman's yesterday but didn't - I'm making more and more of my own these days!

Which brings me to my next tidbit!  The Dressing I made!  I posted this immediately after making it last night and have had people on Instagram ask me for the recipe so here it is!

Creamy Vegan Savory Spinach & Cilantro Dressing

1 small bunch of Cilantro
8 to 10 ounces of Vegan Sour Cream
1 T Lemon Juice
2 T Wildtree Savory Spinach Blend
pinch of Wildtree Lemon Pepper
1 T Minced Garlic
About 4 ounces of Water
A Squirt of Agave Nectar - I used Wholesome Sweeteners Raw Blue Agave

This was tasty as-is but I wanted to see what else I could do with it in addition to putting it on Leafy Green Salads!  So I decided to make a Mini Cucumber & Grape Tomato Salad.

I used my slicer for the mini chukes!  I believe they are actually called Crunches!  Regardless they are wonderful!  I mixed everything together and added some Foods Alive Nutritional Yeast Flakes to the top of it.  I eventually mixed that in as well!  It was very good!  This is something I would make often!

I will be back in a while with another post as this one is already lengthy and I'm trying to squeeze in posts between MADNESS here!  It's been a doo-zee of a week or two and this week is looking like another!

What kind of foods did you eat this past weekend!?  Did you get out and about in your community?  If so - what did you do!?

Some Product Reviews & Near Future Happenings!

I have a few things to share with you today - a few products and such - as well as some things in my near future that I am looking forward to - but I will get to those in a moment.

First I would like to tell you about yet another Raw Revolution flavor that I was luck enough to try a while back!  It was their Cherry Chocolate Chunk and it was marvelous!  The Cherries were awesomely flavorful!  Juicy!  Sweet!  Plump!  It really activated the taste-buds!  The chocolate chunks were HUGE!  Some where even the size of my thumb!  This flavor completely lived up to it's name, that is for sure!  It was VERY Fresh and terrifically chewy!  The cherry flavor lingers with a somewhat creamy and slightly tart finish!  This has been one of my favorite flavors from Raw Revolution YET!

Another product I recently finished was New Earth's Awesome Almonds!  These Almonds are RAW - therefore - a living food!  They've been activated!  Their website explains how and why they do that!  It's quite interesting!  They are crispy and certainly helped curb my hunger!  The best part?  I only needed a small handful of them at a time in order to do this!  So this bag of Almonds DID last me a while!  They have just a pinch of Himalayan Pink Salt - which is GOOD - because I am not much of a salt fan!  The amount they used was perfect for my palate.  These were wonderful! 

Remember my post earlier this week when I used Boku Super Greens in my Fruit Berry Smoothie?  Check out this link!  I really like this product, too!  I'm trying to educate myself MORE about Superfoods and tinkering around with them and the powders and "green" powders more! 

For this specific one - Boku - I do like it because it doesn't have much flavor to it when you blend them in with berries and/or fruit!  I'm going to try this one again, tho, because I have only tried a few teaspoons at a time so far and it says to work your way up to about 4 Tablespoons!  I might take that leap next week!  I think it will be easy to do, actually, based on the successful attempts I have had so far with this product!

This weekend is going to be a nice one...almost a clam before the storm...of busy weekends, that is!  Eventho the weekends of the 20th and 27th are going to be busy I AM looking forward to them VERY much!  Our busy events season is now underway!  Both of those weekends we have Wildtree/Vendor events!  On the 20th we will be at the Youngsville Art & Vino Venue in Youngsville, PA, and the following weekend we will be at Liberty Winery in Sheridan, NY.  I will do my best to take some pics and post them here once they take place!

Last night I went over to my parents house and my mom and I got two shipments in and sorted them.  We had a Wildtree Party last week over at a Salon in Russell, PA, and then we had The Vendor Showcase I blogged about earlier this week in Jamestown, NY.  In addition we submitted another order last night!  We had several people who wanted to order and re-order various Wildtree Products from us.

We also decided to FINALLY do a website last night for our Wildtree Business.  I will add it to the sidebar next week but incase you would like to take a look you can visit it HERE or HERE.  It's the same website but we have 2 different extensions!  If you have any questions about anything with the Wildtree Line let me know!  And/Or feel free to shop 24/7 on the website!

What are your plans for the weekend!?  Have you tried any of these products yet?  I will have more smoothies next week, too!  And more Recipes!  And more Products!  LOTS and LOTS on tap! 

I'm just really itching for Farmers Market Season to get here!  YOU DON"T EVEN KNOW!!!! :)
Have a BLISSful Weekend, everyone!

Bubbly Break

This past weekend I had a small glass of this Moskato Life Rose.  It was given to my father by a Salesman.  I really love the bottle.  I'm not usually one for the color PINK but I loved how the pink and the bubbly looked here so I took a quick pic and posted on my IntaGram.  It has less than half of the alcohol of most wines...at only 6%.  It's a cross between a sweet wine and champagne of sorts.  It's kind of neat and surprisingly tasty!

Participating In:
Shadow Shot Sunday
Straight Out Of The Camera Sunday