one year

So it's now about a year since I started doing this blog thing. Normally I'd get all retrospective, but I just don't feel like it today. So the blog is lacking (or spared, depending upon your opinion of retrospectives).

Yesterday was a dreary day, made fun in the afternoon by a visit from Serendipity, RSH, and the gaffer for a bit of old-fashioned fun. Three sleds were hooked up in a chain to the back of their car, and our long driveway made itself useful as the car made a bunch of trips up and down, pulling the laughing kids along. We topped out at 25km/h, though from the sleds it felt much faster. It was so good to watch the kids' faces from my vantage point in the back hatch of the car, where I was both spotter and photographer. RSH's attempts to stand on the toboggan and surf his way down the lane was cause for much hilarity.

All was followed with a meal of Indian food - curry and Basmati rice. Yummy, and just the right thing to warm us all up.

Also, I got to see some of the latest bits of Seren's book. It will be cause for much delight when whatever publisher is wise enough and lucky enough to get it gets this printed. I am amazed at the creativity of this woman and glad I get to edit the book, thereby having a teensy bit of input into the process.

Today is more dreariness, though good news that Dad & Mom are arrived safe and sound in Orlando. Here in Ottawa there's a flash freeze warning. Oh, goody.

School continues well, with the girls very keen on history. The book series (Story of the World, by Susan Wise Bauer) reads aloud well and gives a great overview. It's by no means a comprehensive history of any one culture; rather it goes chronologically and covers the whole world. So far this term we've gone from the fall of Rome, to Byzantium, to the origins of Islam, to England and Beowulf, to China and Japan and Korea, to the Maori in New Zealand. And all before 800AD. Our time line is getting lots of dates added and they are very much looking forward to the promised Medieval Feast we plan for when we cover the knights-and-castles era. I'll have to find recipes for that, but I draw the line at roasting a pig on a spit.

nothing much, really

Reflecting today on the effect of the books one read on one's own writing. Am currently reading a book of collected diary entries, and so find myself writing and even thinking in partial sentences. For example, each sentence starts with a verb rather than "I" or "We". A funny little coincidence, though the partial sentence compositions in my head are getting annoying.

The book I'm reading is Michael Palin's diaries from 1969-1979. I've always liked his acting in the Monty Python shows and movies (Dennis the Constitutional Peasant, the father at Swamp Castle, etc, etc), but didn't realize until reading this huge volume just what a good writer he is. The insights are written in a very readable style, and as he writes about the creation and eventual demise of Python, you also hear about the moon landings, Watergate, the IRA bombings of the mid-70s, and his own family life, including his father's decline through Parkinson's disease. It's funny and touching and interesting.

winter life

I'm not planning on doing much outside today; make that I plan to do as little as possible outside today and in fact would like little more than to plant myself by a roaring fire and read. But such is not life.

It's -21C and going up to a balmy -12C this afternoon.

A few warmish days last week (-8C) did encourage me to do some walking around the buildings. I do this on occasion through the winter, partly to ensure that nothing has exploded or collapsed or turned into a secret military base while we weren't looking, but also just to see what's going on in the quiet parts of the farm. While the house is as busy as ever and the two-storey frame barn will be a busy place next Saturday (work day on some bins the church uses to transport our sound equipment each week. Some guys will be working and I, in true farm wife form, will be feeding the menfolk), in the colder months the barns are left to themselves.

But they really are not empty, and when there is a new bit of snow on the ground I like to go and see who's been visiting. That's a definite advantage of winter over summer: the nocturnal visits of unseen critters are exposed. Raccoon tracks confirm that they have not vacated the old barn. A fox trotted across the farmyard, straight along the front of the main barn but not, I was glad to see, spending any time circling and casing the chicken coop. A mouse scurried along for a bit before burrowing under the snow cover.

A walk down to the creek (ostensibly to see the levels, but really to enjoy a bit of communion with the creek as it slipped its way along, still deep and fast but not rushing as before) afforded a rare sighting. As I stood on a huge slab of ice, five inches thick and as big as our kitchen table, left there as the water receded last week, I watched the creek and listened to the odd sound of the bits of ice brushing up against the frozen edges of the water. I was at first looking for an animal rustling through the bushes before realizing the true source of the sound. Then I saw a little head swimming upstream. Quietly, just the head showing, like a beaver's but smaller. I think a muskrat lives in that part of the creek, having seen its head quietly cutting through the water before. I watched him (her? who knows? Him/her, I guess) swim along, not twenty feet from where I stood, and then it slid under the skim of ice and was gone.

And me without my camera. Drat.

chicken photo op

You're joking, right? There's no way we're going out there.

... at least, that's what I think they were saying. Much of the snow was gone but they were not to be convinced. It was warm, so we opened the door but all they did was peek out. They pretty well spend winter inside their little hen house and seem happy to do so.

confessions of a foodie

I love the Food Network. I love watching them create stuff and getting inspired to try things myself.

I made, for the first time last night, risotto. You don't cook the stuff, you have a relationship with it. It's not technically difficult to make, but you need to stay by it, watching over and stirring, adding more stock when it's ready for it. Bit by bit. Made it simple, with homemade chicken stock and green peas. A hit with all family members, and a springboard for more. Seafood, R suggested. I'm thinking roasted red peppers or asparagus would fit in well too.

Tonight is sirloin tip roast and other lovely nummies. I'm thinking of making a strawberry tart or somesuch for dessert.

My kitchen is downright puny and I will confess to getting much satisfaction out of producing good meals in a room smaller than the master bathroom (make that the walk-in closet) of our previous home. The counter is about the size of that in our first one-bedroom apartment. When I do my canning in the summer I have to pull another table over so I can get the work done. So it becomes a sort of contest, to see what I can do in such a space.

Dishwasher? What's that? Oh, right, it's us. No room for one.

I would love to take a cooking course, learn how the real chefs do it. Time and money being key issues here. I want to take a course on sauces, on seasonings. A weekend getaway with cooking courses would be, for me, the equivalent of a spa weekend for many women. Forget the seaweed wraps and massages, give me a state-of-the-art kitchen and teach me stuff.

I watched Ratatouille with the kids and ogled the cooking scenes. The girls and I are going to try making a real ratatouille some time soon.

I love that the girls enjoy cooking with me.

I love how goaliemom and serendipity understand everything I've just said.