Shim Farm

February Blues

2012-02-06T21:43:00.000-05:00

Invariably, February hits and suddenly, winter's started to get long. There's no denying we're in the doldrums of the season.

I trekked out to the field beside the barn and emptied out the ash pail in my favorite spot, Cooper at my side.

We stopped to check out the coyote tracks:

All these exciting smells to take in!

We've had lots of freezing rain this season, and there's a nice thick, icy crust on the snow that makes walking difficult. It's thick enough to support my weight, but every so often, I break through, giving my 40-odd year-old hips an unpleasant jolt. Cross-country skiing or walking along the hedgerow is impossible. Every year I keep threatening to buy snow shoes, but I'm not convinced it would be any easier in these conditions.

The saving grace of February is that the days are getting longer:

At this time of the year, the house casts a shadow on the side of the barn. For some strange reason, this never ceases to amaze me. I am also pleased to report the sun is setting past 5 PM now, and coupled with the fact February is our shortest month, the end of Winter is in sight.

Our Old Hag Schatzie isn't doing so well, and we've had too many discussions about just how numbered her days are. Calling the shots where a nearly 27 year-old cat is concerned is hard - she has good days and bad days. If I had the slightest inkling she was in pain, I'd call the vet to the house, but she's still an affectionate little velcro-cat who demands her food and continues to clean her snout on my right elbow as she settles in on the couch for another protracted nap. Litter box accidents are now more of a rule than an exception, and it's not enough for me to justify ending her existence. In the interim, I pet her little head, rub her under her chin, and her gratitude fills me. She's the only living link we have with the past, and the last remaining vestige of Mr. Lefebure, and putting an end to her days would be premature, I think.

I've even kept the Christmas lights up (as I am wont to do), and still light them from time to time:

They'll probably (probably!) come down during our next big thaw - whenever that is - and when the opportunity to wash the windows presents itself again.

So, despite the snow, and freezing rain, and cold temperatures, we have longer days, clear skies and our little menagerie sitting by the fire, vying for the best spot.

The Barn

2012-01-26T21:30:00.000-05:00

Our barn took a bit of a beating during our most recent windstorm. Considering the severity of the storm we had, we were surprised to even find it standing the next morning.

It looks like we added a bit of unintentional ventilation, didn't we? The metal roof that's stored in the fore-front of the photo above is destined for the south side of the barn, after we tear down the dairy addition that was probably added at the turn of the century. The half-wall is the original outside wall. When we tear down the addition that runs the length of the barn, this will be the outside wall once again.

Here's how things looked on the north side of the barn in spring 2007. That's the year we had this side of the roof re-done:

There's nothing like a good patch-job, is there? I'll never understand half-done jobs, but this is not a philosophical discussion, I'm just voicing my opinion. (That doesn't explain why today, five years later, just half of our roof is done, but at least it's the whole half!)

Moving right along...ahem.

When we re-did the roof of the house (remind me to tell you how that went someday!), we were encouraged to buy the roof for the barn at the same time, because metal prices were set to jump 30%. We knew what needed to be done, and although we didn't have a clue who would do the work, based on the gong-show of workers we had for the house, we went ahead and ordered the metal roof.

Entire sections of the roof needed to be replaced before the metal went up. Working with our local wood-pusher, we kept the sawmill humming with lots of custom orders. The white pine used to make the repairs was cut on order and delivered as needed. It's experiences like this that make you realize you've got friends in your suppliers, because I don't know anyone who would turn around and deliver wood the next day like our sawmill does. Our wood-pusher is rooting for us, of this much we know. The fact I ply him with home-canned goods might have something to do with it, too.

The roofers we found were methodical, thorough, and got the job done in a timely manner. I think it took about a week to re-do this side. We were happy with the roofers' work and professionalism. You'll notice Cooper in the above photo, too. He made many new friends, and shared many a lunch. It was win/win all around.

The north side of the barn is looking good. It's re-done, it's solid, and now we really need to concentrate on the demolition of the lean-to on the south side of the barn, and bring the barn back to it's original state.

Here's a view of the inside of the dairy addition after this latest storm:

We've got a bit of a cave-in happening here. (Notice my optimism - a "bit of a cave-in" is like saying, "a bit pregnant", perhaps). Let's face facts here. If we don't do something - soon - we'll be shoveling sawdust before long.

I can't tell you how many builders we've had look at the barn in the past 10 years.

They all say the same thing: "We'll call you". And then they peel out of the driveway, kicking up gravel, and looking in their rear-view mirror as they shake their head in a combination of sympathy and despair.

That is why I see myself with my hard-hat, a harness around my middle, dangling from the roof as I take my tin-snips to the metal in a feeble attempt at destruction. Eric's read about 20 books on timber-frame construction, and the wood for the repairs is already stored in the barn. We're this close to doing the work ourselves.

Stay tuned for yet another saga in our lives at Shim Farm.

Uh oh, BobCat's Helping Knit again...

2012-01-22T08:45:00.002-05:00

...and he's got his partner in crime he's trying to teach the ropes to:

Tessie is more interested in the camouflage aspect of my new Saga. Yes, that's right, my new Saga. I've knit another one, but this one is less "saga" than the first one. Let's just say I still had a bit of momentum on from the last one. This is the neutral version, and I'm in looooove.

I need just a day or so more to finish it, but it's coming along, and I won't stop until it's finished.

My knitting resolution for 2012 is going to stick, I hope!

Windy Enough for You?

2012-01-18T01:34:00.000-05:00

Winds are currently 84 km/h gusting to 100 km/h at Montreal-Trudeau Airport.

And it's well past 1:00 AM, and yes, I really should be in bed. Remember the scene in "The Exorcist", where Linda Blair's bed was shaking violently? Well, I'm not in need of an exorcism, so I don't know why the entire upstairs is quaking like it is. It's like a 3.5 on the Richter scale, with the house is creaking from every corner in this wind. The noise and vibration are keeping me awake. The front door is rattling on its hinges, and even little Schatzie woke up with a start from her deaf slumber and moved to a leeward sofa.

THAT'S how bad the wind is.

Wow. We've felt wind before, but never like this.

From time to time, the sky is filled with the bright blue light of yet another transformer blowing. That we still have power in our rural area is nothing short of a miracle.

The night is still young. Wish us luck.

Yet More Sunset

2012-01-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

Here is today's:

It's -20C outside right now, and we probably have a ways to go before we reach our low for tonight. The revised Environment Canada forecast gives us a guesstimate of -24C for tonight, which is hideously cold. The thermometer will tell us the truth tomorrow morning, but if I had to bet, I'm putting my money down on -28C.

Tonight's sunset was incredible. I fumbled the camera with bare hands, and within seconds, my fingers were numb. The things I won't do to get a half-decent picture. The colours were spectacular, and every pastel shade was somewhere to be found. The snow squealed beneath my feet as I turned on my heels to high-tail it inside, and even Cooper was on 2 paws by the time I opened the door. I was outside for all of 30 seconds, so that should tell you something.

Considering we've had a mild winter thus far, I won't complain, and with +7C and rain in the forecast for next Tuesday, I can realistically say there's light at the end of this proverbial tunnel. This cold snap shall pass before long.

Our upstairs is toasty-warm. It's 21.5C in the spare bedroom, and that's without the heat on. Just the heat from the wood stove working its way upstairs is enough to keep things more than comfortable now that the renovations are mostly complete. I am so thankful that the other half of our house is liveable, and that we can safely leave paint cans upstairs without fear of them freezing.

Besides, when it's registering +27C beside the wood stove, and I have 3 cats surrounding me like bookends, (albeit Cooper's watching me with disgust because the cats seem to be getting all the attention these days), what's there to complain about? There's a steady flow of wonderful hardwood - mostly ash these days - sort of high-octane wood stove fodder - to keep us warm. Throw some nice knitting on the needles, a good book within reach, and another day to sleep in, and all is right with the world.

Two Sunsets

2012-01-09T21:33:00.001-05:00

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Here's January 5, 2012:

And January 8, 2012:

To say that I'm pleased about our relative lack of snow is an understatement.

Spring. It's right around the corner, isn't it?

I said: isn't it?

BobCat

2012-01-04T20:51:00.000-05:00

BobCat's a riot. This feline lush came to us as a feral stray. We'd see him hanging around from time to time, and I guess the pickings at our place must've been good, because he'd started to make our house a regular part of his rounds. We'd see him all over our neighbourhood - his territory was easily one square kilometer - and sometimes weeks went by where we didn't see him at all.

We had a cat already. Her name was Amelia, the petite female version of Bob. Where Melia was a delicate little orange and white kitty, BobCat was her perfect opposite. The only thing they had in common was their colour. I've always had a soft spot for orange and white kitties. Two of my childhood cats were orange and white, and for sentimental reasons, I still maintain they're the best.

We found Amelia at the side of the road one fall night. We'd spotted a dirty-looking white cat several times driving into town, and were in the habit of leaving a bowl of food at the side of the road for him or her. One evening, Amelia jumped out of the bullrushes, nearly clawed herself into my pant leg, mewed piteously, and it was pretty obvious that we'd just been adopted by a new cat. Amelia settled down on my lap on the car ride home, and acted like long-lost family.

Amelia had previously had a litter of kittens. She was still very young, probably under a year by our vet's best guess. She weighed just 3 pounds, and was terribly emaciated. Once we got her home, she settled down on a hutch in the corner of the kitchen and didn't move for 2 days. I felt terrible that someone would abandon such a wonderful creature, and Amelia quickly found her way into my heart. We all have pets that we bond more with, and Amelia was one of those cats.

She was quite the card - very docile, very playful, and very diva-esque in her own special way. She thrived on a strict schedule, and one of her most endearing qualities was her verbosity. She had different meows for different things, and the most remarkable thing she would meow came out sounding like this: ming wing. I kid you not. Ming wing. It meant she was sitting in the tub, waiting for her daily Q-tip to bat around.

One early May day, I found Amelia's lifeless body in the middle of the road. It was one of the saddest days of my life.

The next day, BobCat showed up on the doorstep. But this day, he came in through the front door, walked straight into the house, something he had never done, walked up to Amelia's scratching post, dug his claws in, and then settled down on an Ikea chair in the living room and had a day-long nap.

It looks like we had a new cat.

BobCat cheated on us in the beginning. BobCat's a schmoozer, and must have wormed his way into many a home and heart, because he went missing for days on end.

In the beginning, he'd stay away over night and normally be waiting on the stoop the next morning. After two nights AWOL, I'd go on a recon mission. Driving up and down the street at night-fall, the headlights of my car would catch his eyes at the side of the road. I'd pop open a tin of his favorite cat food, and he'd come bounding over to me. We'd drive home together, and he'd settle in for a few more days. Once, I found him at a stable a kilometre from our house. When I called him, he jumped out of a box-stall window and came bounding over to me. You could practically hear the music from "Lassie Come Home" playing in the background.

One day, he came home after a week's bender wearing a flea collar and smelling of cigarette smoke and laundry softener. I promptly put a new collar on him with a note that his name was Bob and that he had a phone number, but I never got a call from his other "adoptive" family. As it was, I'm the one who had him neutered (you should see our vet bills - I should have a payment plan, or just straight-out give our vet a BMW or Mercedes), but with some patience, BobCat became "our" cat.

We're going onto 8 years of Bob's presence. He doesn't go far these days, mainly down to our barn and back, and spends his nights sleeping with yours truly. Yep. He's even pushed Cooper off the bed at night. This winter he's really staked his claim. He doesn't bother me at night any more, for which I am truly appreciative. I can do without his 5AM wake-up call.

Plus he's spent nearly 15 minutes spilling out of the double-decker wicker-wonder cat bed, so I love him all the more.

Welcome 2012

2012-01-02T19:11:00.003-05:00

After a great night's sleep into 2012, I woke up with a migraine on January 1. Happy 2012! It's what happens when a rapidly-advancing cold front with a 20C differential combines with female hormones. It's a cruel, cruel world.

All that to say, January 1 was pretty much a write-off. Eric's still working (he left on Christmas Day), so we haven't really been doing a lot of socializing this season. While Eric returns tonight at midnight if all goes as planned, I return to work tomorrow morning. Things didn't quite work out for us, schedule-wise, this holiday season. We did spend a lot of time on the phone though, planning next year's strategy.

When the throes of a migraine have me in firm clasp, there's pretty much nothing that will help to make me feel better. I wasn't at the point of slapping an ice-pack on the back of my head yet and retching and/or whimpering silently into a pillow while curled into the fetal position in a darkened room, so I tackled one of those household chores many people either 1) ignore, or 2) have on their Top 5 Hate-to-do-List.

It's cleaning the shower stall.

Maybe because I still have a bit of a headache left as a reminder of yesterday, and a hard vein in my right temple I can take my pulse from, that I'm taking the opportunity to bitch a bit here. Yes, I understand, it's the dawning of a new year and all, but let me gripe for a moment.

That effin' shower stall. We have a big corner shower, one of those molded-fibreglass units with clear glass doors that open and shiny metal tracks that accumulate soap scum like it's going out of style.

I've been bitching about those shower stall doors for years. It got so bad a few years ago, our plumbing store actually replaced them for us - I can't recall what the problem was, I think the finish was peeling off the rails - and for a decent replacement fee, we got new, easier-to-clean doors.

And despite doing the eco thing by squeegee-ing the stall and doors down after each use (we actually fight about who gets to go in the shower first - meee - nooo - meeee - nooooo - I squeeged last time!) - all that to say we have developed a certain disdain for the shower.

Trying to be ecologically-conscious, I clean pretty much every surface of the house with either Dr. Bronner's soap, or vinegar and baking soda, or just plain old Sunlight dish-washing soap, but when I noticed a 2-for-1 coupon for Scrubbing Bubbles Extend-a-Clean Mega Shower Foamer, my curiosity was piqued.

So yesterday morning I grabbed a pail of hot sudsy water, a toothbrush to extricate the grossness from the rails and around the fixtures. Then I braced myself and liberally sprayed the shower stall with noxious, toxic, environmentally unfriendly Scrubbing Bubbles. I waited three minutes (pass the gas-mask, this stuff stinks), and rinsed.

Well, if Oprah had been in my living room with a camera crew, I'd have declared it an Oscar-worthy "A-ha" moment of housekeeping. I'd also have been stark-nekkid, save for a carbon-filter mask on my head, a worn-down tooth brush in one hand, a chammy in the other and an incredulous grin on my face, but again, I digress.

I still needed to clean the nooks and crannies with my dedicated shower toothbrush, and wipe everything down with my chamois, but man, was it clean. 2012 is starting off with a new-looking shower stall, and I'm warming up to chemicals in pressurized containers...once again, Yin is fighting with Yang.

Of all the rooms in the house, Eric and I have major design issues with the bathroom. We dislike the tiles, the sinks, the shower stall, and I particularly dislike the corner tub, which I physically need to climb into to clean. I used to be a bath person until I moved here. But the bath is so big and takes so long to fill, I feel I'm practically hot-tubbing it when I'm in it. I now take, like one celebratory bath a year, and the rest of the time, I take my shower and try and ignore the scumminess that forms on the doors.

Because Eric needed to finish the bathroom in a mega-hurry when he moved here, attention was given more to the placement of plumbing than to actual fixtures. Eventually, we'll replace the tile, change the 2 pedestal sinks (I mean, who does that? 2 PEDESTAL SINKS?) for a one-sink vanity with actual shelves and drawers and space for toilet paper and related accoutrements. We need all the storage space we can lay our hands on, and a nice vanity would fit my bill perfectly.

But those things can wait for a while. For now, me and my trusty can of Scrubbing Bubbles will eek a few more years' use out of the shower-stall and truth be told, I can live with the rest of it.

It ain't perfection, but what is?

So on that note, with one day of vacation left, I'm off to polish my stainless cook-top to a mirror shine I can see myself in...and then I'll hunker down and knit, or read, unless something else comes up.

And then, with those 2 most-disliked chores struck from my cleaning list, let the games that are 2012 begin.

Have a good year. Keep smiling. It ain't that bad.

And remember, like Momma always says, nothing's eaten as hot as it's cooked.

2011 in Review

2011-12-31T21:04:00.007-05:00

Going through my photos for 2011, I have come across a few that I have either neglected and/or forgotten to post, so I am liberating these from my hard-drive and plastering them here for posterity.

In no particular order, and with no particular theme, here are a few images of 2011:

The new super-deluxe, double-decker, twice-the-fun cat bed. With 3 cats, do you think any one of them would have adopted this as their favorite resting place? I even put it in front of the wood stove, with limited success:

Ohhh. I have a taker - it's little Schatzie. For about all of 5 minutes.

January sunset over the cut corn-fields. This is the view out of the living room window, facing west. (I don't know why I state that - it should be obvious).

Awwww. We lost our Popina in 2011. That made me very sad. Here she is sitting in the kitchen window, AKA my wide-screen TV, sniffing the wilting blooms of my Christmas cactus.

I waged a (hopefully) winning battle against anything that had thorns or spines in the garden. This thistle would have grown to 6 feet tall had I not eradicated it:

And in a stark contrast to the spiky thistle, here's some mullein, also know as bunny's ear or flannel leaf. This plant was spared:

My favorite Elm tree survived another year. It's a favorite perch for crows and hawks:

Two of the four barn doors on the front of our barn. One day we're going to have to pull the Elderberry bush out. But every year, it gives us so many berries, it's a hard call. Eventually...

Awww. More Weenie Popeenie photos! Popina was always on the prowl. I have never seen a cat with such a huge prey-drive in my life. She was unreal:

Moss on the side of the barn. Under the same category as the Elderberry bush, one day we'll have to clean all of this up. Until then, we'll enjoy the verdant fuzziness:

Another glorious sunset:

And yet another front moving in. It's so nice when the corn starts to grow, and things get green again. At this point during the season, we've had enough of cold weather and dormancy - give us green and give us growth!

I was going to post about these horseflies. For the first time in years, we've had huge (no, let me repeat: HUGE) horseflies. These rip out a piece of flesh. These are more common in the higher north, but this year,we had 'em. For scale, the orange flasher in the photo is about 1.5" high. Who needs a fly swatter? Give me a sledge-hammer:

Little Tessie is enjoying the new cat basket. Again, for all of 15 minutes:

Another glorious sunset. Why do I spend so much time staring out of the window? Well...the same reason you spend so much time staring at a TV set probably. Just the stuff I watch is probably prettier, and isn't interrupted by commercials.

Another big, fat gratuitous cat photo. BobCat's such a motivator:

And again on Channel 4, another glorious sunset scheduled for exactly 6:17PM, sponsored by Mother Earth:

The construction of Highway 30. This huge overpass is going to link Highway 20 to Highway 30 and Highway 540. Those cranes were enormous.

As the metal girders for the overpass were trucked in, they caused massive traffic jams around the Montreal area. They must have been about 150' long, and were hauled on these gigantic dollies with tons of pilot and police cars. You couldn't miss them, and they were impressive to watch rolling down the highway:

The nightly news on Channel 4, brought to you by Shim Farm Central:

Oh my dog. We finished the floor in Eric's office/atelier. It's been months now, and it still exciting:

If the floor weren't enough, Eric finished the window frame and molding. Gorgeous, just gorgeous, I tell you! A Hallmark Moment of Home Renovation. This room is officially DONE!

I wanted to show you how I machine-steek my Lopi sweaters. I made yet another one. Actually, I made two, but who's counting? Here I hand-basted my sewing line beforehand. Had I not done this extra little step, I would not have been able to tell where to sew. Unfortunately, my machine-sewing tutorial stops here. You'll just have to wing the rest. I did.

Freezing rain. Beautiful in just the right quantity. Photo credit goes to Eric:

Time to haul out the Christmas lights. Unfortunately, I keep these lit until, what...maybe March? My winter sanity depends on these lights.

Finally! I found a use for my frogged Malabrigo! Behold, the GAP-tastic cowl. This wonderful pattern, using 2 strands knitted together, nicely mitigates the wild variation in colour of this hand-dyed yarn. Brilliant! And wearable? You have no clue. It's like wearing a hug. Cast-on 131 stitches on an 8mm needle and knit in a K1P1 pattern for 15 inches. Cast off and fall in loooove!

Yeah. So I'm obsessed with the window frame. I want you to stare at it as much as I stare at it. Stare away. It's finished. I can hardly believe my eyes.

And it's not just nice, it's gorgeous. Eric swore a lot finishing it. He should have his mouth washed out with Varsol. Once again, Eric nearly met his paint-finish Waterloo. But lookit that shine, baby!

And just because it actually snowed before Christmas, here's another photo of the fields across the street. Note the snow on the road. When the tractors leave tread-marks like this, the roads are cold. I think it was -18C (about 0F) the day I took this photo. Unless you're used to driving in these conditions, take heed. We don't call them greasy roads for nothing. And since our road was just repaved and the ditches were dug out and they're even deeper, you'll go in further if you drive off the road. This combined with the fact our newly paved road doesn't have a shoulder anymore should make for some interesting extrications this winter season:

I have been so good bashing away on my Lopi haul. I'm about ready to place another order...but wait! Isn't one of my resolutions for 2012 to use up my stash first? Maybe Lopi isn't considered as stash wool anymore, but a staple, something like a major food group in my knitting world? Can't we make an exception for Lopi? Since it's my resolution, I'm making a new rule. No new wool until stashed wool has been used. Except for Lopi. And if buying new wool to combine with stash wool is allowed...well...let's just play my knitting resolutions for 2012 by ear, shall we?

This "Ranga" pattern from Lopi book 29 is gorgeous, if I may say so myself! I also just realized I wanted to re-sew one of those little claps that's a bit off-kilter and forgot to! Another ridiculously quick knit, save for the yoke. Somehow, all those purls in the yoke combined with the steek purls threw me off a bit. Stitch marker or no stitch marker, I had a mental block when it came to following the chart. If you're a knitter and your eyes aren't glazing over yet, go back up to my photo of this sweater being machine steeked. See what I mean? It's like a forest in there!

And here's a photo that proves that those crazy Icelanders love their floats, and with good reason! Lopi is super-wool, remember? No need to twist those long floats, just let them float! It has nothing to do with lack of craftsmanship, or laziness, but more with practicality and time-saving. Those floats will felt with wear, and make an almost double-lined fabric with time. Warm? You think? Super-freakin' warm is more like it.

Never again will I make a surprise sweater for Eric. NEVAR, did you hear me? (That's more of a mental note for yours truly). Moving right along. Okay. So I knit this Fugl (code name: Birdie) for Eric in like, 5 days. Super-easy. Just super-not-the-right-size. My Dad's getting this one instead. Eric's got biceps that could fix your clock. Next one's going to be an XXL modified for Eric's arms. I also used his old sweaters his Mom knit as a template. Guess what? All the arms are too long. That'll teach me.

So, remember the part of my new year's resolution to use my wool stash before buying more new wool? Part of that therapy involves spreading wooly goodness all over the floor in the living room whilst one's spouse is away and can't observe hoarding tendencies the likes of which are shamefully displayed above. The good news that I consolidated 5 Rubbermaid containers into 3, and expropriated one for Victoria's guts, which were somehow unceremoniously spread around under the staircase. It also soothed my nerves a bit, and organizing my stash made me realize that I had blown things out of proportion. I think.

All my sock wool in one happy container. See the P-touch label maker? Everything is labelled now too! No more opening lids in search of what again? Sock Wool. I better get cranking again, and soon. Maybe tomorrow. Another plan for 2012. Even more socks. This stuff was bought in July when I went to Germany.

So there you have it. 2011 in photo review. A Good Year, all told. Next year will be even better, I always say.

With time comes experience, the more you know, the better you do.

Wisdom is the saving grace of aging.

Happy 2012. Health. Happiness. All that is good.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T11:34:00.000-05:00

Just in time for Christmas...snow!

Despite Environment Canada's dire "green Christmas" prediction, it snowed! And now with temperatures hovering near -15C, we'll have a white Christmas after all. No chance of the snow melting over the next few days with temperatures like that.

I think we've had one of the mildest falls in recent history. No amount of accumulation until December 23! That's very rare for our area where I think we can count maybe one or two green Christmases in maybe the past 50 years.

On December 21, we had a bit of freezing rain, and the next day, when the sun came out, it was glorious!

On the home front, the turkey dressing is made, and I've probably eaten about a third already, hoovering it right out of the Pyrex dish. It's irresistible, dressing. I can barely wait for turkey dinner tonight. Eric is working on the 25th and 26th, so we've moved the turkey dinner up to accommodate him. We've learned to roll with the punches around here, where Eric's work schedule is concerned.

My knitting needles have been bashing furiously away, one "One Skein - A Stole" knit out of Noro Kureyon sock yarn for my co-worker, blocked just under the gun, and a pair of Lopi "Duffers" for another knit-worthy friend. I even managed to find a use for my frogged Malabrigo merino, but that will be a post unto its own! Eric's getting a Lopi sweater for Christmas that needs to have just the zipper sewn in. In my defense, it's already basted, and I need probably 2 hours or so to finish it properly, but that will have to wait until tomorrow, unfortunately! Oh well. The best intentions die fast as I always say! It's hard to finish a sweater when the recipient is nearby. As it was, I knit this sweater in secret, throwing it into the dryer (the one place I knew Eric would never look...) when I heard his footsteps coming down the stairs.

Besides Christmas baking and cooking, shopping and wrapping, knitting and working, Christmas Day will come whether we're ready or not! You might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.

So to all our virtual friends near and far, from our house to yours, I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Skor Shortbread

2011-12-02T19:01:00.005-05:00

Shortbread cookies didn't appeal to me until very recently. During summer and winter school breaks, I used to work in a commercial kitchen. One December, I had to bake an even thousand of Granny Knight's shortbread cookies for Christmas receptions. That year, the chef decided that Crème de menthe parfaits topped with Granny's shortbread was the de rigeur Christmas dessert. With a maraschino cherry on top, it looked like a yuletide train-wreck. Still today, the smell of crème de menthe makes my gag reflex kick in. Just looking at a bottle of day-glo green de Kuyper in a liquor store is enough to make me avert my gaze and shuffle along quickly. After that holiday season was over, it was only normal that simply thinking about shortbread was a form of self-inflicted torture.

Despite the fact that everyone raved about my baking skills and the light, tender, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread I managed to create, the beauty of shortbread was lost on me. I simply used to throw about 5 pounds of butter in the huge, industrial Hobart mixer and put it on BEAT and walk away for about 10 minutes. When the mixer started to sound like the space shuttle about to take off, it was my cue to add flour and cornstarch and icing sugar, finishing the dough before the old gray Hobart launched itself into orbit. To say I used to abuse the dough was an understatement. I put so much disdain into making those cookies, that when people commented, "I can just taste the love that went into these", it was all I could do to stop my 18 year-old eyes from rolling back into my head. If only you knew - was what I'd think. Thankfully, the edit and pause buttons in my brain were still functioning in those days. I'd smile gracefully and nod my head.

To this day, I attribute beating the hell out of the butter to my shortbread success. That and Granny Knight's recipe - which I have duly repressed.

Last winter, I came across this recipe that would change my mind about shortbread forever.

Skor Shortbread. I mean - think about it - a Skor bar in any form is amazing, and baked up in this shortbread, it's nothing short of divine. You cannot go wrong.

These make great gifts. And they're easy - just mix, pat, bake and cut. No fancy shaping, no chilling and rolling out, no icing, just straight-up mix, pat, bake and cut. Easy-peasy. Go out and buy yourself some cute Christmas cookie tins, make a few batches, and you'll be set for those last-minute OMG-I-have-to-bring-something-along gifts.

Skor Shortbread

2 - 39g Skor Chocolate Bars
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sifted icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1-1/4 cup flour

Preheat oven to 300F.

Crush one Skor bar into rough, 1/4" pieces. Set aside remaining chocolate bar.

Beat butter until smooth. Gradually beat in sugar until mixture is light and fluffy.

Mix in vanilla and salt.

Using a mixing spoon, mix in 1 cup of flour until just mixed. Add chopped Skor bar along with remaining 1/4 cup flour.

Pat into an ungreased 8" square baking dish, and using floured fingers, pat into an even thickness. Pierce with a fork every 1".

Finely chop remaining chocolate bar, and sprinkle on top.

Bake on bottom rack of 300F preheated oven, about 35 to 40 minutes, until edges are golden brown and middle is pale golden. Immediately cut into squares. Cool completely in pan.

My Notes:

Buy the 4-pack of Skor bars at the grocery store. You can thank me when you make your second batch and don't have to run out for more.

If you have Skor baking bits, by all means, use them. I also add in a small handful of chocolate chips when substituting them and use my trusty Braun blender to chop everything finer than 1/4" pieces...I'm all about consistency like that. Your cookie - your choice.

I line my metal baking pan with parchment paper, this helps the unmolding.

The original recipe calls to cut 16 squares - I cut them in half again on the diagonal, so I end up with 32 triangles. It's your preference. The more the merrier in my books.

The Lock on Door Number Four

2011-11-27T09:05:00.002-05:00

Part 3 - The Prize Behind Door Number Four

Ah, yes. Finally a reference to door number four. My story does have a point, after all.

If you were paying attention, you'll know that all of our outbuildings have numbers. We have no clue what lead to this curious organizational feature - I keep saying that there was probably a sale on numbers at Canadian Tire, why else would someone number the sheds so methodically? Why not call the chicken coop the chicken coop, instead of labeling it with the number 6?

The prize behind door number four is fire wood. And come to think of it, the numbers must be wearing off on us, because instead of calling out, "I'm going for firewood!", we actually do say, "I'm going for the prize behind door number four!" But back to our firewood - our precious, precious firewood. This is Canada after all, and heat is an integral part of our winter, providing we want to stay alive, that is.

Now, Bozo's the type of guy who - unless something's nailed down - concedes it's free for the taking. The multitude of stop signs, speed bumps, traffic cones and other municipal and commercial paraphernalia that litter his property are evidence of this. One week, he's having a fire-sale on Labatt Blue umbrellas at the road side, and the next week, it's awnings from a real-estate franchise. I think you get the picture.

Last year, we took a week-long vacation during the depths of winter in the hopes of repairing our sanity. We had one of our honest neighbours check in on our cats twice a day. No need to tie anyone down to a schedule - we just asked that the cats be checked morning and night, or noon or afternoon, whichever suited their schedule on that particular day.

I suppose our nimble-fingered neighbour was confused by this lack of consistency, which is why our honest neighbour caught him, walking down our driveway, loaded up with our hard-earned, hard-split hardwood. The path he'd worn down to the wood shed and the prize behind door number four was quite obvious, and no amount of hemming and hawing could extricate him from the big pile he just stepped in.

Our good, reliable and honest neighbour happens to be a lawyer (no, honest lawyer is not an oxymoron, at least not in our case), and it didn't take a lot of cross-examination to figure out what was going on. He's also a third-generation diary farmer, and doesn't need book-smarts to know who deserves a swift kick in the arse with a big pair of Sorels.

Although it might be sadistic to needlessly make someone squirm, I think our lawyer friend had a bit of fun that day, watching a weasel loaded down with firewood writhe.

"Eric said I could", was the first line of defense.

"My propane ran out", was offered as the second.

"I, I, I...was cold", was stammered as the third, with a trembling lip and puppy-dog eyes.

I can just picture our lawyer friend, sadly shaking his head, making a little mound of snow with his boots as he surveyed the situation. Some people need a good, old-fashioned can of whoop-ass opened on them, and I'm sure it would have pleased him to deliver it. Alas, he told him to get the hell off our property, and to make sure he didn't return.

We came back from our little vacation renewed with vigor, and with batteries recharged to see us through the rest of the winter. When our neighbour told us about Bozo's haul, it took the wind right out of our sails.

It's not as though he doesn't have the means, because he does, and this is probably what irritates us the most. Bozo is on the path of least resistance, and our woodshed happens to be one of his stops on the way. To say we weren't happy to hear of Bozo's thievery is an understatement. This week - firewood, next week - who knows? We've resorted to locking up everything, which is most annoying, especially on cold winter mornings. Fumbling with a frozen lock while wearing mitts causes one to mutter many expletives. Or finding oneself standing in front of door number four with a windchill of -30 without a key causes one to mutter many, many more. How many times have we trudged back to the house to get the key? Truthfully, I've lost count. We're at the point the little Master key is on virtually every key chain we own so we're not caught without it.

We took a mental inventory afterwards. What ever happened to that pair of pruners, or that shovel that went missing? What about the two house jacks that disappeared, coincidentally just as Bozo's renovations started? We've had kids vandalize things in the barn, break windows in our little garden shed, and break into our already-broken down sailboat. But those are isolated incidents - just kids being dorky kids with too much time on their hands. Who knows how long Bozo's been lurking in the shadows, pilfering odd things here and there...

Some things are sacred, and firewood - especially in the country - falls under that heading. Not only do we pay for it, we unload it from the trailer with the forks on our tractor, we pile it into a big pile, whereupon Eric gets to laboriously cut it with a chainsaw, putting his skin on the line. Once it's cut, we stack it, season it, split it, and when winter comes, we're ready, so bring on the cold weather. Firewood isn't a hobby, it's a necessity. It's not a luxury, it's a staple, so it's only normal that we feel somewhat...slighted...when someone helps themselves to our firewood when our backs are turned.

Now, I know what you're thinking: it's just firewood - get over yourself, woman. But that's not the point here. This is the country, and we're all inextricably tied to one another, whether we want to admit it or not. There is always an element of give-and-take where neighbours are concerned. What's more is neighbours talk, and to find one's self under the persona non grata column means the strikes are going to pile up against you exponentially. During the next big snowstorm, Eric will happily take our tractor out and shovel out anyone who needs help - except our neighbour - of course. I'm sure it would tempt Eric to add even more snow to the end of Bozo's driveway, but we do have a bit of decorum, some little standards, by which we live.

(Come to think of it, that might be a fun thing to do during the next big snowstorm).

I am sure that somewhere, Mr. Lefebure is keeping watch and tallying points. And I am also sure that one day, a "For Sale" sign will pop up on Bozo's front lawn. I'm sure he'll move back to the suburbs and regale his new neighbours with hard-luck tales of living in the country, of the unfriendly, unaccommodating neighbours and all the hard, hard work that went along with living there.

The Lock on Door Number Four

2011-11-21T19:42:00.005-05:00

Part II - The Bozo

We'd gotten off to a bad start, Bozo and I.

Mr. Lefebure left behind 2 barn cats. They were essentially feral, and although I had been going over to feed them daily since Mr. Lefebure's passing, I was hoping they could live out their days in the environment to which they were accustomed. Mama Gray, the mother cat, was 20, and her son, Baby Gray, was about 18. We already had a cat at this point, and I didn't really want to take on another two, but when Bozo said he was taking them to the SPCA, I shrugged my shoulders and went next door and brought their little carpets over. I don't know what kind of a clueless moron would take two ancient cats to the SPCA, so the strikes against Bozo were already piling up.

We settled the cats into the barn closest to our house, and they quickly understood this was their new home. Slowly, they warmed up to us, but it was years before Baby Gray could be touched, let alone be brushed. Mama Gray, now named Schatzie, decided she wanted to become an indoor cat. She was about 22 or so at at that time, and we thought it would only be fair. She moved in and never looked back. She's been out of the house just a handful of times since coming inside. I joke that she lives in a triangle comprised of the sofa, her food dish, and the litter box. I'm not far off. Schatzie is now nearing 27, and when I ran into Mr. Lefebure's brother a few months ago, he inquired about the cats. When I told him that mama cat was still alive, he couldn't believe it. We last saw Baby Gray on Christmas Eve two years ago. We never found a trace of him, and the hope that he curled up somewhere and died in his sleep is something I cling to.

I don't have a lot of time and patience for people who don't treat animals with respect. In the past 6 years since Bozo's been our neighbour I have lost track of the multitude of cats that have gone through the revolving door that is next door. When the pack of near-feral cats becomes to large to handle, he puts them in his van, takes them to a remote location, and throws them out to fend for themselves. I could never fathom what kind of a moron would do such a thing, but I'm starting to understand.

After these episodes, welcoming and tolerance turned into civil head-nodding when we recognized the family tree Bozo fell from had no branches. As time wore on, the smiles and waves as we'd cross paths in the street have turned into blank stares ahead, with no regard given to acknowledging the other party. We're not at the avoidance stage of the game, but we're gaining ground.

You might be wondering how this cold war transpired?

Well then, pull up a chair and let me count the ways.

At first, I noticed that our junk mail was duplicated in our mail box. I chalked this up to an overly-eager postie, and then I realized that Bozo was using our mailbox as his own personal recycling bin. At first, I put the offending flyers back in his mailbox, only to end up with even more the next day. Fine - I cried uncle - it's no skin off my posterior to recycle one or two flyers, but it gives an insight into the attitude - or lack thereof - we're dealing with here. It's time to take a new approach. What the little bastard doesn't know is that occasionally, he misses a few of his letters in his haste to fill our mailbox. You don't have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to figure out where these letters end up. Yes, I walk back toward the house with a spring in my step, a big smile on my face, and throw them in the recycling bin with an extra-jaunty flip o' the wrist. I've been recycling his junk mail for years now, and this is how I exact revenge. If he's oblivious that he's throwing his mail in our mailbox, then I'll be just as oblivious, too.

Normally, you'll have to trust me when I say I am a moderate, a live-and-let-live pacifist who swerves for frogs and acknowledges that we can all be different, vive la différence, after all. At the end of the day, we share the same planet and the same fence-line, and we need to get along on a multitude of micro- and macro-levels.   I believe in loving-kindness in the truest sense of the world. Hell, I was even voted "most likely to end up working at the UN" for my mediating skills in high-school. I'd officiate any fight. Finding common ground is what I do, dammit, and I'm good at it.

I'm not looking for kinship here, nor friendship, not even remote civility. I'm just looking for a little bit of respect, and it's time to admit it's simply not happening.

That's beside the fireworks (illegal), the car alarm the kids play with day and night (charming) and a plethora of unfixed male cats who mark our trees, cars, tractor and pretty much every surface at cat-ass height. Did I mention the camp fires - the smokier the better - that are lit primarily when the wind is aimed in our direction? I need to mention the moat the kids have worn around the house, as they incessantly race their tiny, noisy little 4X4s around the house ad nauseum.

Last summer, Bozo thought he'd try his hand at animal husbandry, since his foray with cats and dogs was obviously a smashing success. At 3:30 one morning, I thought I'd heard a rooster crow. The next morning, Mr. Rooster, now more settled in, made his presence known again, however, he must have been more acclimated as his morning rendition didn't end. This damn bird crowed, and crowed, and crowed and crowed.   For hours. It was incessant. It was put-a-pillow-on-your-head-and-scream-into-your-mattress incessant. Visions of chicken à la king, of chicken fricassée, of fried chicken, and chicken étoufée crossed my mind. Coq au vin - white wine, red wine - it didn't matter. I felt like I was in a Forrest Gump movie, rattling off cooking methods for shrimp, but with a rooster at centre stage.

I called the town hall to complain. There are noise ordinances, and he's not technically a farm. In fact, his property is carved in an acre lot out of the far (yet not far enough) corner of our property. When I spoke to the clerk to file my complaint, I was assured there was already a registered letter underway addressing this issue.   I don't need to tell you this letter fell on deaf ears. It was time to try an new approach.

I made a point of casually meeting up with him in front of our mail boxes. I started our conversation by holding out my open hand and asking for his junk mail, I mean, why break precedence? Let's start this conversation off on the right foot. I complimented his rooster - using the french word coq - smiling because I can't resist a devious linguistic double-entendre that was obviously far beyond his comprehension.   I said with his proud crowing, you could just tell he was potent and virile. Bozo puffed up at the description, as if the rooster were a reflection of the man. Maybe I was laying it on thick, but it was working. He smiled and said he was as gentle as a dog. I made a mental note that this would facilitate Plan B, should the need arise to dispatch said coq into my stock pot.

But this was Plan A.

I asked him why he needed a rooster?

He said, "Well, I have chickens, how do you think I'm gonna get eggs without a rooster?"

I told him, (shaking my head in stupor), that chickens lay eggs, rooster or no rooster. They just do. They're ovulating, I told him.

I let the news sink in. I could see his wheels slowly turning as he digested my news, and when his eyes got wide, I threw my verbal sucker-punch.

"You know that everyone of those eggs is fertilized?", I asked.

It was working. I watched his eyes grow bigger and bigger as his neural connections fired, one by one.

"Every time you crack open one of those eggs, there's a little baby chick in there, even if you can't see it. One day, you're going to have beaks and feathers in your omelette. Beaks and feathers".

I don't need to tell you that was the last day I heard the rooster crow.

The apex, however, is how the lock on door number four came about.

The Lock on Door Number Four

2011-11-16T19:45:00.001-05:00

Part One - Mr. Lefebure

Mr. Lefebure, our former neighbour, was all you could ask for in a good neighbour, and then some. He grew up in our house, and we felt a strong connection to him because of this. Mr. Lefebure was in his seventies, a confirmed bachelor who loved puttering around in his impressive vegetable garden. He possessed a cabinet-making workshop that proved helpful on more than one occasion. He viewed Eric with a skewed stance at first, but once he realized we were here to stay, and that our objective was to restore our house with a nod to old-style craftsmanship, he warmed up to us. We'd call him when we saw the light on in his workshop late at night to ensure everything was fine, and we'd trade lilac-for-lettuce over the fence line. We'd buy him flannel shirts and thick wool socks at Christmas, and throw in a box of chocolates for good measure that would invariably last him until February.

Mr. Lefebure was the voice of reason, a man of few words, but big on action. Everything he did was deliberate. A cabinet-maker by trade, at age 77, Mr. Lefebure only took on contracts that pleased him. He wasn't about to retire, but he wasn't about to take crap from anyone, no matter how much they paid.

From time to time, we'd visit him in his workshop where we'd admire a piece of furniture, or where Eric would help him handle larger pieces of wood to cut and plane. He was a thorough man, made of character, and steady and predictable in his ways.

He had just traded-in his mini-van for a new 4-door sports edition sedan. He remarked it was now time to treat himself to a more sporty ride. Besides, when the seats were put down, he could still fit in a sheet of plywood and some 2x4's, appeasing his practical side.

We told him to call us if he ever needed anything.

That he ended up driving himself to the hospital in his new car surprised neither of us. We just knew that was what he'd do. What surprised us was the phone call that came early one Friday morning, telling us that he had passed away.

We all have moments in life, where time goes into slow motion, and nearly stands still. This was one of those moments.

I remember the funeral in early May. It was a bitterly cold day, and I recall standing grave-side with Eric as the fiercest wind blew. It took me days to get warm.

During the estate sale held to liquidate Mr. Lefebure's worldly possessions, I spied his tool case amongst the bric-a-brac. It was built like a little cabinet, with hinged doors that folded open to expose little drawers that held his tools and spare hardware. This case followed him pretty much everywhere he went, and I can clearly picture the many times he'd walk up the driveway, tool case at his side, to help Eric fine-tune something or the other in our house.

If there was anything I wanted to remember Mr. Lefebure by, it was this. Looking through it is like going back in time, and occasionally, we'll spy it among the more modern tool cases upstairs, and sit down and open the little drawers and reminisce.

I recalled him staining wood paneling ox-blood red for a custom games room, and we were laughing as he distressed the wood with a hammer and old chains, remarking the owner, a stereotypical decorating magazine aficionado, had requested clear pine at an exorbitant cost, and here he was distressing it. I can still hear his laughter over the chains as they struck the wood. "Take that!", he'd guffaw, as the chain hit the wood, again and again.

I remembered looking after his dog for seemed like the longest week of my life. Patch, a collie mix, refused to eat a morsel of food during his entire absence. I also remember Patch as he bolted out the door and down the street, running hard towards oblivion. Patch had a thing for bunnies and skunks, and the results were always in Patch's favour.

Mr. Lefebure never married and never had kids. He picked up his girlfriend every Sunday like clock-work. He lead a quiet, unassuming life and never asked for a thing. He was hard-working, tenacious, and we thought he'd last forever.

We wished he'd last forever.

I think Mr. Lefebure would turn in his grave at the twit, (hereafter referred to as Bozo to protect the guilty), who ended up buying the home where he had spent nearly his entire life.

To say that we currently have a study in contrasts on our hands is an understatement of the greatest order.

How Many Work Gloves Does it Take?

2011-11-14T20:20:00.006-05:00

Curious minds want to know...

Exactly how many gloves does it take to fix an old house, operate a tractor, and otherwise protect hands from potential harm?

I did a little clean-up in the glove basket the other day, and found the following.

The answer is fourteen. I have it on good authority:

I know exactly what Eric would say about the matter:

The first pair is my favorite pair. They're like slippers, but for my hands. I promise to love, honour and protect these...wait, those were my wedding vows. (These have duct-tape repairs. They might be on their way out. Eric might mourn their loss - for about a day).

The second pair is just as important, but they're lined with Thinsulate. The real stuff. The label proves it. These are used for tractor driving.

The third pair - OK, impulse purchase from the feed store. Where else can you find suede mitts with removable liners? These visit the wood shed a lot during winter months.

The fourth pair - spanking new. Don't touch. If gloves were like cars, these are Ferraris. These are Special Occasion gloves. Could be worn with a tuxedo to the next Classic Tractor Pull at Pebble Beach.

The fifth and sixth pair - identical but with varying degrees of wear. Lined for winter. Thoughtful wife found these at Costco. (Thoughtful wife even bought a new package recently, and then took above inventory. Don't need to tell you those gloves have now been hidden from view).

The seventh pair - they have urethane foam all over them. These are for outside insulating projects.

The eighth, ninth and tenth pairs - plain old ordinary working gloves with varying degrees of wear. Some lined, some unlined. Depends on the temp outside and the messiness of the job.

The eleventh pair has little rubber nubs on them. They were cheap (so they obviously don't count) and someone needed them to change out the windows. (Note: Wife also got a pair. Husband also thoughtful).

The twelfth pair - lump with 8, 9 and 10. These normally live in the car and take trips to the lumber yard. And then they end up in the house...and then someone forgets to put them back in the car...and then someone buys an extra pair at the lumberyard during the next trip....and thus the cycle perpetuates and gloves procreate as if by magic.

The thirteenth pair - don't mess with these. These are special chainsaw gloves. Not to be mistaken for wood-splitting gloves. They're probably some sort of Kevlar/Nomex hybrid.

Last but not least, the fourteenth pair - the last remaining pair from a five-pack. One finger worn. RIP - they're on their way out.

So we have gloves for chopping wood, gloves for changing oil, gloves for filling the tractor...gloves for fall and winter and spring and summer.

Now that things have degraded to a Dr. Seuss level, I'm outta here.

I've got some boots to inventory.

The Pine Floor - The Finale

2011-11-11T21:14:00.002-05:00

When I mention there's always an obstacle, I'm not kidding.

We had problems with the Benjamin Moore Porch and Floor paint we used in Eric's office.

First, it smells like h-e-double hockey sticks. (That's a Canadian-ism, work it out!) We're well aware it's oil-based, but really, this stuff stinks. For a long, long time. It still reeks, and it's been something like 4 weeks since we've put down both coats. It was so bad we duct-taped the door shut.

Needless to say we will NOT be painting the rest of the upstairs floor until next summer, at the earliest. Or maybe we'll go on a protracted vacation, and pay someone to paint it for us...now that would be a fine idea.

Second, the Benjamin Moore paint is supposed to be high gloss. It ain't. It's high-freakin'-gloss where it dried on the side of the can, but on the floor - no! - it's dried to a satin finish. We followed the instructions to a T - the first coat looked great, the second coat looked great - and the following day, it had dried to a satin finish. Huh. Go figure. The challenge will now be to replicate this effect when we paint the rest of the floor upstairs.

That's not what we wanted, but we'll have to live with it...probably the third coat would be a charm, which, as discussed above, is not an option right now.

The satin finish will probably end up being infinitely more practical, since we won't be wearing down a high-gloss finish, but it's troubling when things don't turn out as expected. We're waiting for the Benjamin Moore rep to call us back, but they're not as customer-service oriented as Sico was, unfortunately.

The overall look of the floor (and room!) is amazing, though. Friends come in and say it looks like a Swedish country house, which is nice considering that's exactly the look we were aiming for.

Here's a look at this room during the renovation:

Nice. I say that with only a touch of sarcasm. We've worked hard and come a long way. I'm patting us on the back for our unwavering dedication.

And my favorite photo:

One of those boards had manure caked on it. Precious. I cannot fathom what possessed anyone to built like this.

We went to Ikea to buy the furniture to turn this into Eric's office/atelier. It took us FOUR, yes FOUR visits to get what we wanted, and we'll take a fifth to return what we ended up not needing. We also nearly ended up in divorce court during first visit, but really, that was entirely our fault for trying to go to Ikea near a full moon. What were we thinking? I swore I'd never go back to Ikea with Eric ever again, but the next evening, there I was, back for more punishment. The good news is all candles were 50% off, so we stocked up. We now have enough candles to last us the next 5 years.

And then...no more oscilloscope in the living room? No more soldering station on the dining table? No more capacitors and resistors and varistors and MOSFETS and JFETS on the living room table? And then - the pièce de résistance - Eric has promised me that the drill press will be moved upstairs. (I was aiming more toward the direction of the front door, but again, I digress).

So stay tuned to see what we come up with next.

A Fall Walk with Cooper and Bob

2011-11-07T21:36:00.001-05:00

The corn got cut on Saturday night. The corn train, as I like to call the tractor with its 2 trailers, came and went and came and went as I put a pillow on my head and tried to sleep. These days, the drone of the combine can be heard nearly 24 hours a day, as field by field in our area gets cut. Happily, it ended up being a good year considering the late start we had.

Sunday dawned bright and early according to the clock, since we put our clocks back during the night. Time to wash and wax the car before winter comes. When that job was done, I took a walk in the freshly-cut fields and inspected our windbreak.

As always, Cooper's in charge. He's our foreman:

Cooper's so in his element here, just happy to have his fields back again. I don't know who's happier, the dog or me.

We've been adding trees to our windbreak since 2007. So far we've planted about 200 trees - spruce, ash and oak. All trees are well-established and growing, however weeds still present a concern to the spruce trees. We didn't have access to the fields until now, and one of the tasks on the long chore list is to take the Bush Hog out and clean around the trees. When you have half a kilometre to do, you want to break out the big equipment. There's a time and a place for a whipper-snipper, but it's not here. We've got lots of phragmite (Phragmites australis) growing, a highly invasive plant introduced at the turn of the century. It's propagated by seeds and rhizomes and is almost impossible to eradicate. Apparently, burning works just fine, but we'll hold off on that thought. For now, it's the Bush Hog or bust.

Bob decided he wanted to tag along during our walk. At some point, he sits down and waits patiently for our return. He's no fool, this boy. We were about a 1/2 kilometre from the house when he decided he'd had enough. Buh-bye Bob, see you on the way back:

Under one of the older pines in the hedgerow, we found four LARGE piles of pine cones.

Each one of them purposefully broken off:

Pardon my fingers. I took advantage of walking to the field to empty the ash bucket, ergo my hands look a bit...gnarly. I guess a squirrel must be stock-piling the pine cones for winter. I'll have to check back and see if the piles grow or diminish. It seems weird that they'd just leave them here. Some research attributes this to the hard-working American red squirrel who I have seen in the hedgerow. Our common gray squirrel is not so common here - generally, when I see a squirrel, it's a red squirrel, at least on our property.

I had hoped to make it all the way to the construction of highway 30. I wanted to see if there were any trees cut down or other damage at the end of our property, (because there shouldn't be), but I wanted to make sure.

That's part of the huge infrastructure project off in the distance...

...and another one zoomed in. This is going to be part of an overpass of highway 30. We walked to the back of our field, hoping to make it all the way to the end of the property, but I gave up at the tree line - I had just 300 feet left to go through the forest, but my body was not going to cooperate. Between washing and waxing my car and walking a few kilometers, my rubber-booted feet had had it. So had my arms, knees, elbows and back.

I know, I know, the look of elegance. Rubber boots and polar fleece fighting for top billing.

The walk back to the house was like seeing a mirage in the desert - when oh when would I make it back? Damn the long-lot property division system. Everything's so near - yet so far.

The only reason I took this photo was that it afforded me the opportunity to kneel down. Fact was, at this point, I wanted to throw myself on the corn husks and have a nap, but that just scares the dog...and looking at our neglected barn, well, that scares me. We're still holding out on finding workers, but that's another tome for another day.

Just remind me not to make this trek in rubber boots again, will you?

Duffers

2011-11-06T21:36:00.001-05:00

This is a quick 'n dirty knitting pattern: the Duffers AKA the 19-Row Felted Slippers, designed by Mindie Tallack:

Well, considering my obsession with Lopi, it was just natural that I should churn out a pair in my beloved Lopi. These are knit with the "regular" Lopi - not the light version. One skein made one pair of slippers. They are infinitely squishable, so I tote them around in my various knitting bags when I take my knitting on the road. What's a knitter worth without warm feet?

These were finished in one evening of easy knitting. I chucked them in the laundry hamper with the intention of felting them with a load of jeans. That took a while, since they were in the bottom of the hamper with Eric's wool work socks, which I let accumulate until there's a decent (albeit small) load's worth. Finally, I zipped them in a laundry bag (to mitigate the loose fluff they create in the washer), threw them in the wash and forgot to check them during the wash cycle. Thankfully, they felted perfectly, and fit me to a T.

I'll be making more, that's for sure.

A Plethora of Lopi

2011-11-05T09:24:00.002-04:00

After my success with the Saga, I contacted Istex in Iceland to see if I could order Lopi directly from their factory store.

They sent me a price list by email. The prices were so reasonable, I ran to my purse, grabbed my MasterCard, and sent them a whopping order.

Holy Schmoly.

That's a big, whopping box. We're going to have to build an extension onto the house for my wool stash. Eric's gonna love that thought! Either that, or I had better get out the needles and start bashing away on a few sweaters.

Tessie's looking at Bob with admiration in her eyes. Yes - her eyes. Turns out I'm not so good with gender identification in cats. With the kittens, it was easy, I knew Popina was a girl since she was a calico, and from there it was easy to tell the rest were males. I just assumed Tesla was a boy. But BobCat, even though he's a fixed male, is incredibly attentive to her. They sleep together, and BobCat licks her head all the time, and I started having this nasty suspicion- she's got to be female - and it would be awful if we'd end up with another litter of kittens, so she was dispatched to the vets to be sterilized. She's no longer my Little Dude, she's now my Little Dudette. And Tesla became Tessie, and all's OK in my world knowing one more stray cat has found a home and is sterilized. So Bob's taken her under his wing:

But getting back to my beloved Lopi. It knits up so quickly, I went from this:

To this in just 10 days:

Rather than make a mental note, I'll throw this nugget out for future posterity. I knit size 38 (which is a Lopi medium) of this sweater, designed by my hero Védis Jónsdóttir and named "Aftur" from Lopi's book 25, and it's big on me. Good thing I had the fortitude of mind to add some waist shaping:

For the knitters who are Ravelry members, shaping instructions can be found on my project details. My profile is MoutonNoir, and the project name is Aftur.

Next time, I'm making a size smaller. Lopi grows with wearing, and stretches out quite a bit, so what appears to be too tight at first wearing will probably grow a size or so after a season.

This is a lovely sweater. Perfect for this time of year, and further reinforces my belief that Lopi is a miracle product.

So, I've got a bit of knitting to do this fall and winter. Pardon me while I get the needles out.

More Photos in No Sensible Order

2011-11-04T20:20:00.003-04:00

We've been having the most beautiful weather. The US North East and our Canadian Atlantic provinces took a beating Halloween weekend with a mega-storm, but we were spared and had unbelievably beautiful - and unseasonable - weather.

The corn is drying in the fields, and will be harvested in the next week or so. The next few days' forecast has highs of 14C, somewhat uncommon for November. Let's hope winter is as gentle with us.

The fields are beautiful. When the sun hits the corn at the right angle, and the wind is blowing just right, it glistens like waves on a lake. I love this time of year, if only it didn't go by so fast.

Practically every night presents us with a spectacular sunset. It's a shame sundown starts earlier and earlier. I do find this time of the year a bit perturbing for its short days. There's still so much to do outside.

We had a spectacular sunrise the other morning. It's unfortunate the camera can't capture its true beauty, so you'll have to pretend a little. I took a few photos out of the Velux skylight in the bedroom. Tessie thought that this would be a great way to access the great out-of-doors and promptly jumped up on the window frame and started to slide down the roof, much to her surprise. It's a good thing cats have tails to reel them in with...and it's a good thing my reaction time is sharp. (That said, Howard once fell out of the second story window, and he did it so masterfully, using the side wall of the house like Spiderman to break his fall, that when he landed in the grass, he walked away like nothing even happened. All in a cat's day.)

Speaking of the Velux skylight in the bedroom, this is what greeted me when I drew up the blinds this morning:

WOW, just WOW. The most spectacular frost I have ever seen! It was breath-taking! I stood and stared for a long, long time. I don't recall seeing anything like this before. It was perfect in every way.

Spectacular, indeed. I wish there was a way I could have saved the window for posterity. A few pictures will have to do as a reminder of another beautiful morning. I also probably don't need to tell you it was a pretty heavy frost last night.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Heat

2011-10-13T22:32:00.003-04:00

It's that time of year again, where thoughts turn to heat. This is Canada, after all, where -20C isn't a curiosity but a reality. Although we're reveling in beautiful weather these days, the advent of colder days is inevitable.

Eric just started a three-week vacation, and one of his main goals during that time is to cut and split a trailer's worth of logs, some of them over 20' in length. The going rate for a cord of split hardwood in our area is anywhere from $75 to $95 delivered. We're paying about half of that, and Eric gets his exercise as an added bonus. We heat primarily with wood, and we can easily go through 4 cords of wood per season, which lasts from about October to May.

Our wood stove is an EPA2 certified slow combustion stove. Our model is the Esprit, made in Austria by Austroflamm for Rika. Curiously, we bought this at a local wood stove dealer. It was the only one they had in stock, and so different from the more traditional Vermont Castings-style wood stoves common on the market-place, that we were immediately sold on it. It has a much more modern look, and is SOLID. Seriously, this is one well-made wood stove. We call him Wilfred. I'm in love with Wilfie. Wilfie is my BFF.

We built the wall behind Wilfie out of copper, when copper prices were still reasonable. I'm sure if we were to price up a similar project today, we'd be in Yea Olde Poore Hause. Our home insurance required we built a fire-proof wall with an air barrier behind it because of space constraints. Copper was the one product we found that was not only esthetic, but easy to install and light. Eric designed rails that are mounted vertically onto the bare wall, onto which he hung specially designed clips that holds each interlocking panel into place. Everything was cut and bent at a local coppersmiths, all we needed to do was supply our idea, some cursory drawings, and give exact dimensions. Eric and I installed everything in a quick afternoon. Child's play. And our insurance agent was over the moon. Nothing dissipates heat like copper.

At some point in time, we're going to have to break down and polish the copper wall. I kind of like the patina it's developed over the years, but the fingerprints from people going, "ooooohhhh, is that copper?" as they smudge their greasy digits on the metal drove Eric nuts for many years. I kind of find it funny - it's like people mark their territory without meaning to. And it's a house, after all, things are going to get pinged, dented, smudged, scratched and tarnished. Or maybe Eric has an unhealthy obsession with the copper wall - I don't know - but I do know he ordered special polishing pads for our new Fein Multitool specifically to clean it. I plan on popping a batch of popcorn and sitting back and watching as Eric polishes the copper wall. I will revel in every last second of watching Eric clean. That was part of the deal when we installed it - ain't no way I was going to add "polishing of copper wall" to the already long list of menial home chores.

We don't count on our wood stove to heat the entire house, though. When we rebuilt the upstairs, we decided we wouldn't skimp on heating. We had had enough of paint cans freezing because it was so cold upstairs. Eric slept with a tuque on for the first few years (no, I'm not kidding!), and used a feather mattress TOPPER as a duvet. I'm a bit happier, because I enjoy sleeping in a freezing room, but still, there's the problem of my pillow freezing to the outside walls when it gets to -20C. There's got to be a happy medium.

Years ago, at a home show, we fell in love with Calorigen's Flex radiant heaters when we were looking at solutions for upstairs heating. Radiant heat is different from the heat of regular electric baseboards that most people have in Quebec. Radiant heat warms the objects in a room, and not the air, so it's not nearly as drying as regular baseboards. While doing the renovations upstairs, we wired everything in to accommodate Calorigen's heaters, and when we were ready to make the purchase, we came up empty. Calorigen was nowhere to be found. We called around - I mean - the company was there one month - and next month - poof! they were gone. Eric dug a bit deeper, and found a distributor that was liquidating Calorigen's stock. Cash 'n carry - at a substantial rebate. They even threw in extra temperature control probes for good measure, so we're good for the next 40 years, give or take. Calorigen is still in production, but they moved their manufacturing facility, hence the fire sale. Sometimes, taking time to make a purchase pays off.

Since I'm the chief cleaning-woman in our house, I appreciate the fact I don't need to dust the tops of the baseboards upstairs. They always collect so much dog and cat hair, which is not the case with the Calorigens. Regular baseboards also make this somewhat annoying tick-tick-tick sound as they heat-up. It's not prohibitive, but it is a bit annoying. The Calorigens don't do that - they're totally quiet. The are also slim and unobtrusive, unlike standard baseboards. They're also not the same price, in case you're wondering. They're way, way, way more expensive.

One day, we'll get around to making the window frames. Eric's in charge of that. For now, you'll have to be satisfied with the vapour barrier and a Glad garbage bag curtain that is happily out of sight in the photo. Our house probably looks like a grow-op from the outside with curtains as natty as that.

In case you need reminding, this is the blight we had in this room before:

Oh how precious! This was taken after I took the baseboard heater off the wall and marveled at the dust, dirt, sawdust and general lack of craftsmanship that ruled upstairs. I never did figure out what those brown streaks on the heater were; it must have been baked-on Varathane. I sure hope so, because no amount of scouring made them disappear. I should have tried acetone in retrospect. When I finally cut the wire to that baseboard, I didn't even bring it downstairs. I threw it right out the window, into a snow bank. It landed with a satisfying thud. Hasta la vista, baby!

So, with our renovations completed upstairs (give or take a bit of trim), R44 insulation tucked into every nook and cranny, Wilfie going full-bore downstairs, you think we need nice radiant heaters upstairs? We barely need to turn them on. I guess we did a better job insulating than we anticipated.

The Meeting Street Mittens

2011-10-10T18:19:00.010-04:00

I'm having the best time sick with this infernal cold. I've decided to make lemonade out of the lemons I've been handed, and get caught up with a variety of tasks I've procrastinated about for several months now. If I were still on the mend, I'd probably spend next week writing Christmas cards, I'm that up-to-date.

I hemmed a pair of pants I bought in July. The sewing machine's been set up on the dining room table since August. Excuses were running out. That thorn out of my side, I grabbed my shameful UFO knitting basket.

These mittens were inside, missing only the thumbs:

The Meeting Street Mittens, or MSM's as they've been dubbed in knitting-ese. As the observant among you can tell, they're no longer missing requisite thumbs! With my stuffy head, believe it or not, it took me the better part of a day to finish knitting up the thumbs, and weaving in all those pesky ends. I might be slow with this cold, but I am steady.

It's not obvious, but the Berroco sock wool these mittens are knit with have a small Lurex thread in them. They add just a touch of glamour, and element sorely lacking in my life. If I ever write an autobiography, I'm calling it "Rubber Boots are My Life". I need all the glitter I can lay my hands on.

I love pretty much everything about these mittens. The colours are stunning, and the fact they're stranded will make them extra-warm during winter, plus I made them long enough to cover my boney little wrists. As an added bonus, I've even got plenty of wool left to make another pair!

Also in the UFO basket is that infernal black kid-silk shawl (appropriately given the acronym BMF - B stands for Black, and the rest is up to your sordid imagination) that does not seem to want to go away.

I spent last weekend at a resort, courtesy of my company, and thought this would be the ideal opportunity to complete said shawl. I packed it in my over-night bag, and started knitting while waiting for my co-workers to arrive. The resort we were at features a HUGE, MASSIVE six-sided fire place in a dark, rustic environment, so I plunked myself down beside the best light I could find and started bashing away on the BMF.

To prove my point, here's a picture I took years ago, during the Christmas holidays. This being Canada, it's not decorated with garlands yet, we're still reveling in fall at this point. It's just to set the stage:

At some point, I spotted my boss at the other end of the lobby, so I picked up my knitting (or at least part of my knitting) and made my way around said HUGE, MASSIVE fireplace. (I think every knitter's done this already, and if you knit, you can probably see where this is heading). I managed to drop the super-light ball of precious kid-silk, and worked my way through throngs of weekend guests, trailing the delicate, fuzzy black yarn behind me. It's like an unintentional and completely inconvenient yarn-bombing in the most inappropriate of locations. Of course my mistake only dawned upon me as I made it clear across the lobby.

So this is how I came to find myself winding my ball frantically, weaving my way (literally), through L.L. Bean-clad tourists intent on making the best of our fall colours, eyeing me suspiciously as I followed my barely imperceptible black thread through the lobby, around furniture, and around the great stone fireplace in some sort of pantomime.

It's a good thing I am a constant source of amusement to myself, because it would have caused most knitters to wither in shame. And to add insult to injury, it was at this moment, rewinding my skein furiously, that I started to have an inkling that I would not have enough yarn to finish the infernal BMF.

I showed it a lot of tough love that weekend, to the point that I have 4 rows left to knit, and so close to the finish line, I ran out of yarn. That's pretty much how this entire ordeal has been - a slog-fest all the way. One of my knitting friends is kindly donating a rest of one of her skeins so I can put this baby to bed without wasting any more money on it.

The sigh of relief I will breathe (if my cold permits) will be heard around the world. Or at least around the fire place.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

2011-10-08T21:43:00.005-04:00

It's Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, and I can't remember having finer weather than we have right now. Bright sun, warm 24C days, and crisp starry nights that start far too early, but it's that time of year. The forecast calls for at least 4 or 5 more days of the same, which is a welcome change to the dreary cold and wet days we've experienced in the past week.

Through some strange twist of fate, I've been laid up with the cold to end all colds - and somehow Eric has managed to strand himself in Italy - so I'm on my own this holiday weekend, which is kind of fitting considering all I really want to do is pull the duvet over my head anyhow. Earlier, when I called Eric's hotel in Rome, the girl at the front desk said, "Yes, sir, I'll connect you". My voice - I don't know what to say (literally and figuratively) - it's non-existant, and the few words that I manage to croak out have obviously skewed my gender significantly.   (And somehow...I just knew... when I bought a dozen boxes of Kleenex last week, that it was a dark omen and a harbinger of mucus to come. Some sales are irresistible, and Kleenex on sale is my weakness). I've obviously brought this on to myself.

But rather than have a pity party, let's reminisce about Thanksgivings gone by:

My Thanksgiving menu is virtually always the same, and has been for the past 10 years. We start off with a golden carrot soup that features orange juice and zest, pureed with red peppers and onions courtesy of Martha Stewart. We then move on to turkey breast, mashed potato casserole, braised brussels sprouts with maple syrup, pecans and bacon, red cabbage, bread stuffing, and the requisite cranberries and gravy. The potatoes, brussels sprouts and stuffing are made ahead and heated in the oven while the turkey cooks. Red cabbage nukes admirably in its serving dish.

I hate having tons of steaming pots and pans on the stove while entertaining, so anything make-ahead wins votes from me. There's nothing worse than mashing potatoes at the last minute, while watching the gravy boil over and the stuffing spontaneously combust because you've stuck it under the broiler...because you forgot. And then you're dealing with fire alarms and steamy glasses and a sink full of dishes, while your guests shuffle on the other side of the kitchen island, sipping their wine nervously, wondering what they did wrong to be invited to this culinary gong show.

Not that that's ever happened to me...

I've got things down to a fine art and rarely deviate from the fixed menu anymore.   As far as I'm concerned, it's perfect in every way.

A few years ago, I gave up basting the bird for hours in favour of cooking turkey breast. It cooks up faster, there's less mess, and you're practically guaranteed a perfect, moist meat. I'll never go back to making a whole bird again, I think. I've been converted. (And what? You've never defrosted a turkey with a heat-gun? You've never dropped a Rubbermaid tub full of turkey brine on your kitchen floor?) When I say I speak from experience, I speak from experience, double the bold and italics, please. Learn from my mistakes. It's turkey breast all the way, from here on in.

One thing I'll never deviate from - pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.   This is tried, tested and true:

Pumpkin Cheesecake

1 cup crushed gingersnap cookies
3 Tbs melted butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbs brown sugar

2 - 250g (8 oz) packages of cream cheese, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1-1/4 cup pure pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling!)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp mace
1/4 tsp cloves
2 Tbs rum

Preheat oven to 325F.

Grease a 9" spring-form pan.

Mix crushed gingersnaps, melted butter, cinnamon and brown sugar and press into bottom of spring-form pan. Chill.

Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Slowly beat in sugar. Add eggs, one at a time. Gradually beat in flour, spices, pumpkin and rum.

Pour onto crust. Bake for 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 hours.

Refrigerate overnight before serving.

My notes:

Feel free to modify the spices. The quantities are so small, they're subtle. If you don't have mace substitute allspice. Or leave it out all together. It'll be our little secret. My original recipe called for 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice - something I've never been able to find on this side of the border. If you can find pumpkin pie spice, by all means, use it instead.

Please don't use low-fat cream cheese. This is not the time nor the place to skimp on calories. Your diet can start tomorrow. Carpe diem - or carpe cheesecake.

I've never managed to bake a cheesecake that hasn't cracked - apparently you've not supposed to over-mix, which I don't think I do, but you never know. I've tried leaving a pan of water in the oven, and cooling the cheesecake in the oven, all to no avail.   Perfection evades me, okay? But I'm okay with that, because your eyes will be closed anyhow, after your first bite. They might even roll into the back of your head after tasting this cheesecake, so consider yourself forewarned.

Either way, this cheesecake is the epitome of perfection, crack or no crack.

The Final Saga of the Saga

2011-09-26T12:41:00.005-04:00

I cannot believe it's done!

Turns out all I needed was a bit of help:

What BobCat can do with a needle and thread is unreal. The boy's got talent, he really does.

Orange cat = orange racing stripe inside the cardigan. The boy even inspired me.

So here's the synopsis of what I did to lay this project to rest.

Originally, I had wanted to knit an attached i-cord up each steeked side, or crochet on a button band. I was concerned about how I would hide the steeked edge, because I wanted it enclosed in something, as well as accommodate the width of my clasps. I didn't want to end up with a super-fat i-cord, but with something flat instead. All that to say, I knew what I wanted, I just wasn't sure how to go about doing it.

In a stroke of genius, I found inspiration in one of my favorite knitting reference books, the Big Book of Knitting by Katharina Buss. I crocheted a slip-stitch chain up the front of each steek, between 2 rows, picking up one chain for each row of knitting. I ended up with 127 stitches on each side, which is important, because the bands need to meet up at the top and the bottom for symmetry, right? It helps if you pay close attention to where you start and finish. Just sayin'.

Here I am crocheting the slip-stitch chain up the front of each steek using a 4mm crochet hook. It is important to get the tension right, because you don't want to distort the edge - it needs to lay flat without being wavy or pulled together.

The purpose of the crocheted slip-stitch chain was to give me a nice, straight edge from which to pick up the stitches to knit the button band. My sweater was knit with a 5mm needle, but I knit the button band with a 4mm needle, which gave me perfect tension. (Individual results may vary, well, because that's what individual results do).

My first attempt was knit with a 5 mm needle, reasoning that's what I knit the sweater with, but the button band ended up a bit floppy, so I frogged it and started over with a smaller needle. When I went down to a 4mm needle size, the result was right - not too tight, and not too big.

But back to the crocheted slip-stitch chain, where I picked up one knit stitch per crocheted slip-stitch:

Jumping ahead, here's a look at the inside:

Looking at the reverse side, the crocheted chain leaves a nice, obvious stitch onto which I will whip-stitch the button band. Note the double-sewn seam beside the steek. This will get nicely hidden when I fold back the button band and whip-stitch everything closed.

I tailored the width of the button band to the metal clasps I found at Fabricville. They had a huge selection, and I had a hard time choosing the perfect clasp, but I think I got it right:

I am really happy with the end result. The clasps aren't too fussy, and I find they accent the cardigan very well. To accommodate the width of the clasps, I think I knit 6 rows, purled the row where I turned the fabric over, and continued knitting until the edges joined the back of the crocheted slip-stitch row.

Once the button band was cast-off, I tucked the edge over, and whip-stitched it to the reverse of my crocheted chain using blue sock yarn. Sewing up items with Lopi isn't recommended; the more you pull Lopi through a seam, the weaker it gets. I used sock wool and it blended in nicely. Just remember to line everything up perfectly so there isn't any puckering. For the retentive among you, you might even want to baste with waste thread for added ease. For the reverse of every crocheted chain, I had a matching cast-off stitch I sewed in to.

My orange crocheted racing stripe was for looks only; it serves no purpose but to make me and the cat happy.

Here's a look at the whip-stitched edge. The devil is in the details, like most things:

I loved making this sweater. I'm also happy I took it out of hibernation this summer and gave it some lovin'. It turned out much nicer than I had anticipated, which is always a happy bonus when knitting clothing.

Next time, I'm putting BobCat in charge.

The Pine Floor - Part Six

2011-09-25T09:20:00.001-04:00

And we have lift-off!

The first coat of primer is down. I did the cutting around the edges with a brush, and Eric rolled with a 5/8" nap roller. As he rolled, I filled in some of the deeper gaps which he then later stepped in. Oh well. My intentions were good. The whole job didn't take more than 1-1/2 hours, which was welcome, considering how long we took to remove the Varathane, and sand like mad-people.

We're happy with the effect. It's an old floor, and the imperfections are still visible, yet it's a clean, solid surface. It's what we were envisioning, and we're happy.

No, let me take that back. We're ecstatic.

We're not sure when we'll reapply the second coat. Zinsser instructions say 45 minutes between re-coats, but we're waiting longer than that, considering the surface we're covering. I'd hate to have the paint start to wrinkle or worse. We've seen a couple of misadventures in wood finishing, so we're going to err on the side of caution and wait a day or two. We'll see what the humidity is going to do as well. Zinsser says not to apply if the relative humidity is above 85%. Today we're at 86%, and going up to 26C, which is going to feel hotter and more humid as the day wears on.

This product is really thin, yet extremely opaque with a good coverage. I think I'll have this stuff under my fingernails for the balance of the week, it's that tough.

Resurrecting Victoria's Guts

2011-09-25T08:14:00.004-04:00

As far as my CSM's go, Victoria's a fickle little hunk o' metal. The wear on her cams caused me some concern, and my first impression was to grind everything down with the Dremel, put her together again, and not look back.

Remember Vickie's Guts?

I asked Eric for his input, as I am wont to do. Eric's a stickler for perfection, which is why our living room floor is still in plywood (we're waiting for the trees to grow), so sometimes asking him for advice is like shooting one's self in the foot. Being a sucker for punishment, I asked for his advice.

After some consultation, (I think he called a smelter or two, plus we have some doctorate-level metallurgists on speed-dial), he determined that the cams should be brazed and reshaped, and then hardened and tempered in an oil bath. My plan for Dremel-ing everything down was vetoed. No point in wearing metal down any further - it was there for a purpose - after all.

That's how I got to drive around with CSM parts on the passenger seat of my car, silently mocking me for a few months.

Thing is, we used to know a welder who is a master welder in the truest sense of the word; this guy gets flown around the country welding gnarly stuff that's deemed unrepairable. He's not just a welder, he's an artisan. Sadly, we lost touch with him a few years ago, because he was the only person I was willing to trust Vickie's guts to.

Finally, I decided to make the rounds locally. Surely, with the amount of machine shops and tool-makers and welders in our area, there had to be someone capable of brazing some metal onto the cams and leading me one step closer to my goal.

One particular welding shop came highly recommended by several people, so I went and explained my problem to the shop owner, showed him the cams, and asked him to put his best guy on the job - money wasn't an issue, and there were no time constraints - I just wanted it done cleanly and professionally.

When I got the call the next morning saying the parts were ready, I had a strange twinge in the pit of my stomach. I drove back to the machine shop, and my parts were waiting. I inspected them, half expecting to hear the screeches of primates coming from the rear of the shop, because, hell, if I had a MIG welder, I coulda done a better job than the monkey that brazed Vickie's cams.

I swore under my breath, and the shop owner said, "It's not like painting, you know. You don't control where the metal goes". DOH, to quote the great philosopher Homer Simpson. Goes without saying. Then again, my reference is a guy who welds turbine blades, not exactly the same caliber as the Neanderthals at this shop.

Believe it or not, the above photo shows the BEST looking piece. The others were butt-ugly. I swear I'm too embarrassed to show them.

I left pissed. I muttered something about a lack of "pride in one's work", then I cursed Eric silently for his nit-picking attention to detail, and then I kicked myself some more for trusting this welder. And then I flippantly threw the parts on the back seat of the car, and drove home fuming.

When I showed Eric the parts, his diatribe sounded like mine, but more vociferous: Doesn't anyone give a shit anymore? Does anyone really care? What the hell ever happened to pride, or craftsmanship? And where in the hell did Dan the welder go, that we can't find him anymore?

The thing I learned about metal is this: too much is better than not enough, provided you've got time, patience, a good Dremel, plus a bench grinder.

All that to say, Victoria's gut are being painstakingly resurrected. It took me a few months to muster the courage to remove the excess of the excess of the welded bead on the bench grinder, then laboriously grind the remaining excess back down to the cam's original shape with the Dremel, ensuring the integrity of the edges.

In the photo above, I'm not even close to done grinding down the brazed edge. It takes a lot of time with the Dremel, but once I'm down to the original shape, I'll polish all the parts up with some compound and they'll look like new. At least, that's the plan. Maybe if you want to say a prayer or two for Ann and her cams, we'd appreciate that.

Along the way, I've learned a few things, (whether I wanted to or not). The Dremel is my friend, and is not to be feared. I should have been using it with a felt bit and some compound to clean all my other CSM's in retrospect. Original Dremel bits kick ass, copy-cat Canadian Tire Mastercraft jobber bits, not so much.

I bought this kit at Canadian Tire, just 'cause it was 70% off. I think I paid about $25 for it. The wooden box alone is worth that - so I wasn't expecting superb quality - I was mainly going for selection. I started with the orange tips, and if you double-click, you can see how much I've worn down the last orange tip in the top row. It started off the same shape as the other orange bit beside it. The original Dremel bit I bought to replace this one has been used a lot, yet hardly shows wear.

(And the golf balls? Well, apparently our neighbour's property is a red-neck driving range, and that's all Imma gonna say about that).

Pay the extra for the real Dremel bits - it's worth it. Wear your safety glasses when using the Dremel, and no, don't expect your manicure to survive. Read the damn manual, and you'll pick up a few tips. Google is my friend, because I managed to find Dan-Dan the Welder-man again, bless his heart. I trust Eric for his advice. Isn't that what got me into this mess in the first place? But super-heating Victoria's cams until they're glowing red and dropping them into oil? Not on my shift. Well...maybe if Dan says so I will, otherwise, it's a no-go.

So, I hope to have Victoria up and running soon, in better shape than ever. Fingers crossed.

And I can rest peacefully at night, knowing Dan-Dan the Welder-man has been found.

The Pine Floor - Part Cinq

2011-09-23T20:23:00.002-04:00

So, here's what we learned today:

Sandblasting a pine floor is labour-intensive, back-breaking and, as an added bonus, sandy and dusty.

Sort of like everything we're doing these days, come to think of it.

But we discovered something new. While sandblasting is messy, and the interior of our house now feels like a Scirocco wind blew through it, it was effective, just slow. The nozzle we have is a 1"diameter, and it would have taken forever to do the entire room, so we did a small area, and put on our thinking caps.

(In the meantime, I was trying to figure out what I could sandblast, given we had the compressor out and everything set-up. I came up empty - sad really - because often I come across things and wonder, hmmm, wonder if I could sand-blast that? Owning a big-ass compressor just so I can sand-blast stuff at my leisure is one of my dreams).

Again, I digress. Back to the floor:

When we combined the sandblast grit with our 40- and 50-grit sanders, (I got the sissy Fein, Eric got the hefty Porter-Cable 1/2 sheet), we were able to sand the floor without having the sandpaper clog incessantly. That was our epiphany. More good news is that the sandblast grit added the abrasion we needed to remove the sticky Varathane residue much quicker. And even more good news: the paint on the area where we did our scratch test is even harder now. This means that hopefully tomorrow, after we go over the floor one more time with the "house" vacuum (as opposed to the shop vac), and neurotically go over everything one final time with a microfibre cloth, Eric can put down the first of three coats of primer.

Obviously, using sandblast grit means we're both wearing full-face masks, as well as our hearing protectors. It felt funny to have the full-face mask on again. It's been a few months since I wore it, and I didn't miss it one bit. At the end of the day, taking off the hearing protectors and mask felt so good.

I'm thrilled with today's events. I'll be even more thrilled when the first coat of paint is down.

September Morning

2011-09-23T08:49:00.000-04:00

The Pine Floor - Part Quatre

2011-09-22T18:50:00.016-04:00

Things are really coming together in Eric's office:

I really wish that photo wasn't distorted - the knee wall is perfectly straight, but doesn't photograph that way. Trust me when I say - it's straight.

The electrical outlet under the window is for the radiant heater we're putting in this room. It's the Flex model from Calorigen. Since this room is in the north-west corner of the house and although everything is rebuilt and reinsulated, we're not messing around. I'll give a full, sordid review later, since we already installed an 800W Flex heater in the guest room last winter. It doesn't make winter any shorter, but it sure ups the comfort of the house.

Eric used his little hand-held Dewalt circular saw to straighten out the long gouge in the floor, and cut a 1" x 1" square plug to fit the length of the hole. Everything's epoxied into place, and sanded down:

Here's an up-close beauty shot:

That's about as fixed as things can get, without ripping out the floor boards (and idea we did entertain today, though). But more on that below...

With regards to the spaces between the boards, we've decided to paint a few of them with copious amounts of paint and evaluate the look when the paint has dried. Then, we'll decide if we're able to live with the end result or not. If we hate the appearance, well, then we'll remove the crud with the Fein Multimaster tool, and go from there. Truth be told, if anyone dares to get down on hands and knees and inspect the gaps between the boards once the floor's painted, all they're gonna get out of it is a swift kick in the ass.

I should have given myself a swift kick in the ass for even having taken this photo:

5/16" of crud, bay-bee! We're both (officially - yeah!) sick and tired of spending another moment on our hands and knees in this room. To hell with integrity. We're gonna paint over it and move on.

But Houston, we have a problem:

After much reading, we decided to use Zinsser BIN primer as a base coat. It stuck like misery to the world to the knots, as well as the epoxy repairs. But on the original floor itself, it scratches off easily. We're not going to top-coat this three times only to have the primer not adhere properly, so we're at an impasse until we find a solution.

I have to mention that this scratch test was done mere hours after application, so I think Eric's really jumping the gun with his worrying. 24 hours later, it was much, much more resistant. Eric's still skeptical though, but I maintain he's worried about nothing.

The Zinsser BIN is really thin and splatters when applied with a 5/8" nap roller, hence we used blue paper we bought from the auto body-shop down the street to protect the paint job. Thinking outside of the box is our specialty - plus we didn't feel like driving to Home Depot for such a trivial item.

Eric did some more research after his "failed" scratch test and concluded that our original floor finish is probably Flecto Varathane. This would mean sanding off every little bit (did you hear me?: EVERY.LITTLE.BIT.) of remaining residue, and while this room only measures 10' x 12', we will eventually have the entire upstairs to do. We also need to take into consideration that the floor has already been sanded down once, and that about a 1/4" was taken off at that time. This is important because our floor is structural, so taking off any more wood with a commercial sander really isn't an option.

Right now, things are looking like Eric's going to take the floor to task with the belt sander again, much to his chagrin and dismay. But that option sounds better than his earlier idea of overlaying the entire floor with tamarack (our wood-pusher had a deal...), or even worse, ripping out the entire floor and starting fresh.

Of course, these ideas come to Eric like little flashes of lightning, and then promptly get relayed to me at work by telephone, when I'm helpless to grab him by the shoulders, shake him hard, and say, "Get a grip, man!"

But first, we've had another collective "a-ha" moment, so...cue the sand blaster and stay tuned for part five.

Zen and the Art of Steeking

2011-09-21T18:28:00.018-04:00

(Or how not to make a mountain out of a knitted molehill).

The thought of cutting into a perfectly good knitted item to insert a sleeve or zipper strikes fear into most knitter's hearts. Knitting books wax melodramatic about this, describing that you'd need to go lie down in a dark room with a cold compress, or have a glass of wine or three post-steeking. I'm here to tell you it's not that bad.

Have that wine before you steek, and you'll see just how swimmingly it will go. (Actually, we have a saying in our knitting group: friends don't let friends knit drunk. When someone brings that up, we all laugh, raise our glasses in a toast and put down our knitting. Don't tell our husbands, but I think they're on to us already...)

That aside, here's what I learned from my first steeked Lopi project:

You don't need more than 3 steek stitches to work with. I had 4 and all that amounted to was a waste of wool. Next time, I'm using only 3. Purl these 3 steek stitches, which leads me to my next tip:

When you come to your first steek stitch, purl it into the back of the loop. This will twist the stitch and tighten up the previous knit stitch, namely your last knit stitch before the steek. It's not imperative, but it does create a nicer, tighter finish. You'll notice in the photo below, the last knitted stitch before the steek is a bit loose. (In the photo below, I have pulled all my ends to the front of the steek so they wouldn't get caught in the sewing machine foot inadvertently). Next time, I'm purling that first steeked stitch through the back of the loop. No more loosey-goosey edge stitches. I wish I knew that before, but there you have it. Live and learn.

If you're changing colour on the row, it's sufficient to purl the central stitch (i.e. your second steek stitch) using both old and new colours together. My particular Lopi pattern was well-charted, and even told you which colour to make the first and last steek stitch. I just followed the instructions and it became quite clear after a few rows that there is some rhyme and reason to the colour logic. This also meant if you're changing from colour A and B to colour C and D for example, you won't have more ends than necessary to weave in. (As it was, this particular sweater was akin to the End Weaving-in Festival - there weren't a few ends to weave in, there must've been a hundred!)

This weaving needle from my knitting arsenal proved beneficial. It's so easy to thread, it made quick work of all those pesky ends:

I remember buying these at Zeller's, three different sizes to the pack. They are distributed by H. A. Kidd in Toronto, and if you ever come across this item, buy a few packs. They're cheap, and you can dole them out to fellow knitters when they remark what a great idea it is.

Here's a look at the back of the sweater, and the photo that made me realize I should have just knit the whole bloody thing as a pullover and saved myself some agony:

Ain't she purty? I'm really happy with this project, and it's not even finished yet! (Yes, I know I threatened to have it finished by July 21). Deadlines, schmedlines...

Since my Dad has an ancient Lopi cardigan, I thought I'd borrow it and have a gander at how it was finished. (There's nothing like reverse engineering...)

Behold, here are the machine stitches hidden by the crocheted-on border:

See how the wool's been cut close to the machine stitched line? This sewed edge will ensure that all the wool is held together. Lopi's tough wool; it'll hold, and once the crocheted or knitted edge is on, the ends are going nowhere. If you're a sewer, you'll also notice the size of the stitch, as well as the tension. The stitch is relatively large, and the tension is loose; if your sewing is tighter, you'll risk distorting your sewn and cut edge.

Here's a look at the crocheted border on this sweater:

Still, I'm not sure if I'll crochet a border or make a knitted I-cord edge. I have all of fall to think about that, don't I? And yes, Delusional is my middle name, now that you mention it.

Here's a look at the edge, post-sewing, pre-cutting. Instructions said to sew up each edge twice. I follow instructions, ergo, we have 2 rows of stitches on either side of the steek:

I had to sew these from the bottom edge up toward the neck. Somehow, logic dictated I should sew both seams from the neck down, but try doing that on a sewing machine. Ain't gonna happen - I had to feed it from the bottom up.

And yet another, post-cutting showing the nice, straight edge. So far, so good:

So, why isn't the damn sweater finished already, you may be asking? Well, I tried a couple of variations of crocheted edges. None of them were quite up to snuff. I changed wool colours, I changed crochet hook sizes, but I wasn't satisfied with any of the permutations. And then, (how these things happen is a total mystery to me), the two skeins of wool I intended to use were run through the washing machine by accident:

Yarn barf extraordinare, people. That's why the freakin' sweater's not finished yet! I'm blaming the cat, yeah, the cat...

So stay tuned for the never-ending Saga of the Saga. One knitted I-cord edge, coming right up! This one will be in a different colour. Now if only I could remember where I placed that skein for safe keeping, I'd be one step ahead!

Maybe I should go interrogate the cats...

The Pine Floor - Part Trois

2011-09-18T19:38:00.002-04:00

Eric's been busy repairing the pine floor upstairs in his office. I went to the pharmacy and asked to buy a couple of those graduated pill containers they use in hospitals to dole out pills. The pharmacist gave me 10 gratis; he was a nice guy and sympathetic to our cause when I explained why I needed them.

Those little pill containers make excellent containers to mix two-part epoxy in. Using those equally non-eco plastic coffee-stirrer sticks, you can mix up a batch of epoxy precisely and without mess. (And if you leave the stir-stick glued in along the side of the container, you can just peel out the remaining epoxy when it's hardened and reuse said container).

To plug the smaller holes, Eric first glued a cork plug into the original (and uneven) hole. This provides a base for the next step: using a 1-1/8" Forstner bit to enlarge the holes and make it possible to fill with a wooden plug. Then, using the corresponding 1-1/8" plug-maker, Eric used the drill press conveniently located in our living room to make said plugs. Again, I got to beat back the sawdust with the vacuum cleaner while Eric drilled. We're a dynamic duo like that.

The plugs are all glued into place now. When the epoxy's good and cured, Eric'll take off the excess (just a bit above the level of the floor) with a chisel and sand down the remaining part.

Filling the two larger holes was a bit of a challenge, since we don't have a band-saw. Why, I have no clue. I think it would look great in the kitchen, right beside the oscilloscope that's taking up valuable real-estate on my kitchen island.

Eric took a rabbet bit and router, and enlarged the holes. I had every intention of taking an AFTER photo, but that didn't happen. You'll just have to use your imagination:

Using a rabbet bit creates a shelf that the plug can sit on. What you're seeing at the bottom of the hole are the floor joists. Eric doubled up a section underneath the hole when he rebuilt the ceiling downstairs. Thinking 50 steps ahead is Eric's specialty.

Eric made a paper template, and from this one of our neighbours kindly cut plugs. Eric remembered to mark the direction of the grain on this template. The other one, no such luck:

This plug's make out of oak because the hole was shallower. Eric didn't see the need in enlarging the hole to the point of compromising the floor even more. Once the floor is painted, you won't be able to tell anyhow.

Filling the valley is going to present a bigger challenge. I plugged the holes at each end with corks, and Eric's going to even out the edges and make a long plug out of pine, and fill the side gaps with with epoxy. I should also note he mixes some super-fine pine sawdust in with the epoxy. He says this makes sanding easier. Considering he's blowing through 50-grit sandpaper on the belt sander like no one's business, I'm not so sure... Eric's nearly used up his crepe sanding block.

Here we've got a fissure filled with some of Eric's sawdust epoxy. We've got a few spots like this on the floor. We also had to screw down a few squeaky floorboards using some 3" Spax screws. Take that, dammit! We're not messing around.

We're at a bit of an impasse with regards to the cracks between the boards. We're on the fence if we should just clean out the crud with our new Fein Multitool, and fill everything before painting, or if we should just look the other way and paint over it, and hopefully never look back. The gaps are anywhere from 1/16" to 1/4", some even larger. We'll have to ruminate on that a bit.

Our reward?

Another stunning sunset. I just wish there was a way to make the daylight hours longer. There's no denying it, but fall is on it's way whether we like it or not. The maples are changing colour with the cooler nights, and we've seen a few flocks of geese heading south for the winter. We've already lit the wood stove a few nights, not so much for heat (although it does cut the humidity nicely), but for ambiance, and because we were convinced Cooper missed lying on the warm tiles in front of the stove.

Stay tuned for part four of my twenty part series!

Colligite Fragmenta Ne Pereant

2011-09-17T09:00:00.006-04:00

We've pretty much ascertained that our house was built around 1850. We don't know much about the history, although Eric has spent some time at the local museum and the land registry office making inquiries. We have a few pieces of the puzzle, but not enough to make a complete picture.

Imagine our surprise this past weekend, when a complete stranger pulled into our driveway and brought us two photos from the late 20's or early 30's. His great-grandmother lived in our house, and sadly passed away on August 21, 1929, having hung herself in one of the out buildings. (I give the date because it happens to be my birthday). Mélina Ménard (née Léger) was just 55 years old and the mother of 10 children, 6 girls and 4 boys. Two of her sons predeceased her, one at the age of two years, and another at the age of 18 months. Her husband Avila died in 1927 at the age of 65. From the land registry information, her son-in-law, Amédée Ménard, who was married to her daughter Emeline Ménard, took possession of the house on January 14, 1930, only to sell it 10 days later.

It must've been a long, hard winter.

Emeline would have been 29 years old at that time, and married for 7 years. Emeline and Amédée were cousins many times removed; they shared the same great, great, great-grandfather, Jean-Baptiste Ménard, who was born in France in 1732. Ahhh, the wonders of on-line genealogy.

Rural legend has it that Mélina was sad that none of her children expressed interest in the farm. Considering her son-in-law and daughter had possession of the farm for only 10 days, this legend might have some credence. We will probably never know the truth, since the cause of her death had remained a mystery to even her family members. Our late neighbour's father purchased our farm in 1933, and I'm sure the rumour mill was still churning at that point.

We had a lot of conversations with Mr. Lefebure about the history of our house, considering his father lived here for a period of 40 years. The land Mr. Lefebure's house stood on was carved out of a corner of our property, and the house that stands there now was moved there from Ile Perrot at an undetermined time, probably some time during the 60's. While it looks old, (and is old), it wasn't originally built on-site. When Mr. Lefebure died in 2002 at the age of 77, he'd spent his entire life in two houses: ours, and the one that was moved onto our property.

I wish I had a better understanding about the subdivisions and different obligations on the land registry certificate. The certificate is hard to follow, considering the old script it's written in, and the fact the original property was subdivided at least 4 times. Also, the house numbers changed as cadastral reforms happened; this just adds to the confusion in trying to back-track the various transactions. We have a friend who is a notary; when he has some spare time, I'll have to get his professional take on things.

This is a view of our barn. Happily, it's still standing, sans windmill and silo, however. We thought that the addition for the cows was added in the 1930's, but this photo refutes that theory. I'd say it was added much earlier. This might also mean the barn was build much earlier. Considering the Ménard family had been farming in the Soulanges parish for 5 generations when this photo was taken, we'll have to dig a bit more.

Photos like this bring a tear to my eye. Not just for the work that still lies ahead of us, nor for the blood, sweat and tears we've already put into this place. When I look at photos like this, I see generations of work, back-breaking, callous-inducing, physical labour of the greatest magnitude. The respect for the people who built this place runs deep through my veins.

Something tells me that somewhere, Mélina approves of us.

Colligite fragmenta ne pereant - it means "collect the fragments so they do not perish".

That pretty much sums things up.

Crabapple Jelly

2011-09-15T19:34:00.002-04:00

The crab apple tree in front of the house is full of fruit this year. I've been kicking the ones that fall off the tree down the slate walk for a couple of weeks already. It was high time I did something with them, because it's been a good year. Some years end up being so-so, but this year we had a bumper crop. It would have been a shame to let them go to waste.

Armed with a ladder, and wearing a pareo (because it was cloyingly hot) and sandals with 3" heels, ('cause those were beside the front door and didn't involve laces), I'm sure I was a sight to behold. Something like "The Housewives of Beverly Hills" meets "Green Acres", starring yours truly. I picked about 3 kg of crab apples. That ended up being a whole lot of crab apples to quarter and stem. Since we don't spray our fruit trees, the crab apples are imperfect, and I tried to be as diligent as possible in cutting out any softened or bug-infested parts. (That's also my way of saying there could have been a worm or two in the pot. I'm sure the heat killed them).

3 kilos is a lot of crab apples:

They're barely bigger than cherries! Here I am, my hands wrinkled from the water, holding three of the largest specimens. I'm nearing the end of my batch, wondering if it will ever end. When I checked for a recipe on-line, my first go-to site for canning is always the Bernardin website. It says 2.5 kg of crab apples are about 56. I don't know if those come from Three Mile Island, but I must have picked closer to 256 to make that amount.

Once quartered, stemmed and with the bloom removed, I added 5 cups of water to the pot. In retrospect, I should have added more:

I let this mixture boil for about 10 minutes, and then simmered it for about 10 minutes more, stirring it frequently to prevent scorching. The apples broke down a lot. Some recipes say to use a potato masher to break down the fruit further, but I didn't find it necessary.

I lined a colander with a clean muslin cloth, and dumped the whole mixture in. I think I ended up with about 4 cups of juice the next morning, because I needed to add about 1 cup of water to make the 5 cups of juice necessary to make the jelly. Another Canadian Living recipe said I could, okay? I added 7 cups of sugar, and one pack of liquid pectin, following the instructions that came in the Certo box. (And can you tell I'm making all of this up as I go along?) Flying by the seat of my pareo is my specialty.

On the CL website, someone commented to use slightly under-ripe apples, as these contained more pectin but less water. This might have accounted for me having to add a bit of water to make up the difference. I did some google-fu and couldn't corroborate this information, but I'm running with it anyhow.

In the end, I made 8 - 250 mL (half pint) jars of pretty pink crab apple jelly:

It's nice to be able to create something with a ~~bit~~ lot of elbow grease and a ~~bit~~ lot of sugar, and some patience and time thrown into the mix.

I'm sure the pareo and heels didn't hurt, either.

August 33

2011-09-02T21:06:00.001-04:00

I refuse to acknowledge the month of September. There might be school buses on the roads again; the days are getting markedly shorter, but I'm keeping August going in my head as long as I can keep up the conversion. That would make today August 33.

Honestly, I have no clue where the summer went. It's the same thing every year, summer just blows by, and before you know it, there's frost on the ground. But it was scorching hot again today which is why I can fake August easily. We measured 30C in the shade, and it was so humid the slightest effort caused me to break out into a sweat.

And what, pray tell, were we up to today? Thinking about heat, that's what:

Our trailer of firewood was delivered today. We've got about 6 cords on here, give or take. Eric puts the forks on the tractor and off-loads everything in one happy pile:

Over the next few weeks, Eric's going to haul out the chainsaw and cut everything into 16" logs. That's the maximum size our wood-stove can take. He splits the wood when he feels like it. During the winter, when the mood strikes him, he'll grab his favorite Gränsfors axe and have a swinging session. This stresses me out to no end. My parents lived in Sweden before moving to Canada, and the woodpile beside the front door represents not only a comfort, but a necessity. I want everything chopped and stacked, and I want it done yesterday, but I'm willing to compromise. Eric likes the exercise, and it gets him out of the house in the middle of winter. Me? I'd rather be beside a hot wood stove with a cat on my lap, a good book within reach, and some knitting by my side, knowing I've got 6 cords split and stacked. C'est la vie!

With it being August 33rd and all, it's hot in the kitchen. I'm busy canning, making another batch of my golden bread and butter pickles. This time, I bought a 10 pound box of seconds. The thought is much less daunting.

Since the last batch was such a success, I'm putting these in the fridge overnight. I should be able to get about 18- 500mL (one pint) jars out of the crate.

Speaking of heat, Robin at Farm Folly blogged about her candied jalapeños. I was in the mood to try something new, and these sounded so delightful I had to try them. Off I went to the grocery store again, for some more canning jars and of course, the requisite jalapeños.

Three pounds of jalapeños is a lot of jalapeños:

Proceeding with caution, I actually used rubber gloves to clean and slice the jalapeños. My hands are so raw from all the slicing and weeding and window washing I've done lately, that I didn't want to risk the burn. It's hot enough as it is. I even managed to restrain myself and not gnaw on the seeds. Last time I made habañero pepper jelly, I was a bit too curious, and bit down on one lonely seed. I felt like taking a paring knife to my tongue to ease the pain, it was so hot. I had tears streaming down my face, and even though these jalapeños don't have as much bite, why risk it?

I had a one 250 mL (1/2 pint) jar of syrup left from canning the jalapeños which I processed in the hot water bath. The remaining syrup is in the fridge, and I'll probably brush it on some BBQ pork tenderloin or chicken. The taste is simply sublime. I had a few teaspoons' worth, and it is fabulous. If those candied jalapeños are only half as good, we're in for a treat.

Little Dude has to be segregated on the other side of the kitchen while BobCat eats. I've got 3 cats, each on their own diet, and meal-times are a bit of a logistical nightmare. To top things off, Schatzie is on antibiotics for a respiratory infection, and just trying to give her a pill, let alone do it 14 times this week, is challenging. Tesla's digestive system was a bit upset also, which is why I don't want him hoovering in BobCat's food dish. I'll save you the sordid details of how many times I cleaned his messes off the kitchen floor the day of tropical strom Irene last weekend. I had my own tropical storm Tesla inside the house. The poor kitty had NO control. If diapers for cats existed, Tesla would have been wearing them that day. He's now on a boiled chicken and rice diet, and he's getting better and friskier every day. He's a very cute little guy with good manners, the kind of cat who rises on his back paws when you go to pet him. All he wants is affection. He slept with me last night, and woke me by licking my fingers. It didn't thrill me that it was 3:30 AM, but what the heck. He's really gentle too, and knows enough not to use his claws when he plays. Slowly, they're growing back in again, as well as his whiskers. The wound on his jaw has healed remarkably well, and when the hair grows back, he'll be good as new. We'll give him a few weeks of recuperation and then we'll have him neutered.

Tomorrow, I have more canning on the agenda. Some crab apple jelly, maybe some mango chutney, and a few more batches of bread and butter pickles. I'll keep you posted of our collective misadventures.

Introducing Tesla

2011-08-29T19:07:00.011-04:00

Strange, how life works. Driving to work last Wednesday morning, I came across a large dog running along the side of the road. Obviously, he'd been dumped out by his owner, and he was literally running scared. I stopped my car beside him, but he gave me a glare, and stood there stiff-legged and stiff-tailed, so I didn't dare approach him. I got out of my car and knelt down in the hopes he would come towards me, but he just circled me from afar. It was clear I wasn't going to make any head-ways with him.

We watched each other for a few moments until I drove off, worrying about his eventual fate. Had he been friendly and up for a ride, I'd have had no problem picking him up and taking him to our local no-kill shelter. Alas, there was no way I would nor could coax an unwilling 80+ pound dog into my car.

Visions of the dog, scared and running, stayed with me all day at work. Pet abandonment is a huge problem in Quebec, more so that other places, because of a lack of legislation and enforcement. To add to the tribulations, backyard breeders and puppy mills are prolific here. I could launch into a political diatribe about what needs to be done, but it would fall onto deaf ears in this province anyhow.

That evening, Eric needed to go out and make a last-minute purchase before the stores closed. I decided to tag along for the ride, and as we were driving home along a long stretch of corn fields, our headlights caught the eyes of what we assumed would be a raccoon. As we drove slowly by, those little eyes were framed by a pair of cat's ears, and Eric and I looked at each other with cocked heads and raised eyebrows. It was either pick him up or let him become coyote fodder. It's not hard to figure out how things turned out.

Well, it looks like we have a new cat:

We think Tesla is about 5 months old. Someone had cut most of his whiskers off and trimmed all of his claws to the quick - he also sports a nice abrasion on his upper lip and lower jaw, and the canine on the same side is broken off, so he might have had a touch of heavy-metal syndrome (read: run-in with a car, or maybe his former owners didn't have the common decency of stopping the car while they threw him out.) His spine and ribs were very evident, and he was obviously hungry by the amount of food and water he consumed. He spent his first night in the kitchen, segregated from the others while I monitored him. I gave him a flea treatment, like my vet said I should do with any stray we should come across and bring into the home. He's a mellow little guy, terrified of loud voices, but the kind of cat you can do pretty much anything with. I've started brushing him regularly, and it's surprising the amount of cuts and abrasions he had. Who knows how long he'd been fending for himself.

The little dude is adapting quickly. Cooper's not too sure what to think, and Tesla's stranded poor Cooper upstairs on more than one occasion by deciding to sleep on the stairs. Cooper's too afraid to go by, but from watching Tesla's reaction, he's more afraid of Cooper than Cooper is of him. Poor Cooper. Down another notch on the totem pole again.

The other morning, BobCat even gave Tesla the same chirp he used to give Popina when he was up to playing with her. That's a good sign.

So Tesla is living proof that nature abhors a vacuum.

Batten Down the Hatches

2011-08-28T09:14:00.002-04:00

...'cause Irene's on her way:

To be fair, Irene's just a tropical depression now, no longer a category 1 hurricane, so let's skip the melodrama that's pervasive in all of the newscasts. Our farm is located within the first circle. We've already got some impressive easterly winds this morning, but nothing we haven't experienced before.

Over the next 24 hours, we're supposed to get up to 80 mm of rain, that's a little over 3", and experience winds gusting up to 90 km/h, which is about 55 mph.

According to the radar loop, the storm is heading due north, so we're going to see the rain start mid-morning or so.

Don't know about you, but I'm happy it's rain and not snow!

...and here we are a few hours later. It has been pouring all day long - thankfully our ground is quite dry, and we haven't heard the sump-pump outside turn on once yet. For sure it will later, though. The wind's been steady throughout the day, and not as gusty as I had expected. The power flickers a bit, but everything's still up and running.

We'll see how things progress as the evening wears on.

Some Sad News

2011-08-27T23:28:00.000-04:00

We don't know what happened to Popina - she disappeared without a trace while I was on vacation. Sick to my stomach, I am. Cried myself to sleep for a week. If Cooper is my right arm, Popina was my left. I can't describe just how much of a void she left.

Today, on what would have been her second birthday, I'm officially giving up hope.

Godspeed my little Poppet. 'Til we meet again.

The Pine Floor - Part Deux

2011-08-21T11:09:00.007-04:00

The paint is finally done in Eric's office. We ended up hybridizing a Benjamin Moore colour called Versailles:

The wonderful Lea at Centre Decor Hudson is a paint PRO. I've heard of Lea through the community grape-vine, but we've never patronized her paint shop until now. Wow, were we impressed! She's a real artisan and managed to capture Eric's wish perfectly. We both love the result. Lea managed to balance the strength of blue and purple so that neither colour was dominant. What's unfortunate is my inability to capture the colour properly with my camera! It's far too blue in the photos further below, but it's all I've got!

Hark! What do we have here? We're about to find out! And once again, this photo drives home the point WHY we're repainting the floor instead of leaving it au naturel. There are so many holes, dents, scratches, pings, patches, etc., that natural beauty is obscured by years of abuse.

Oh well. Gee. A nice groove cut into the floor. For what, we've no clue. Maybe electrical wiring? Maybe some sort of prehistoric plumbing attempt? In our house, from our experience, anything is possible. We've seen it all. Eric is going to clean it out, countersink the nails that broke off, sand it to the level of the rest of the floor, fill everything in with epoxy (Eric's specialty), and once it's painted white, you'll never know it was there.

Note the red lid beside the small crowbar and broom in the photo below. We have no clue what was here once, perhaps a toilet, but it's yet another hole that needs to be repaired. Eric is going to make a plug out of wood for this, and ordered a 1/2" rabbet set from Lee Valley, so I'll be sure to post how he goes about fixing this.

When I removed the shellac in the guest room last January, I used a heat gun because the shellac had a nasty habit of splintering. It was easy enough to get a 1" spackling knife underneath the thick coat of shellac, but unless it was softened by the heat gun, it would splinter into hundreds of shards. Here we are in August, and maybe our hot weather softened up the finish a bit, because it was much easier to work with.

Eric treated himself to a new tool which helped our progress in removing the shellac: the Fein MultiMaster. Now, here's a tool we should have bought AGES ago! We were actually fighting over who got to use it! Once our tug-o'-war over the MultiMaster ended, we attacked the floor, and estimated we had the entire finish removed in about 6 hours or so. This is THE TOOL if you're renovating an old house, its uses are only limited by the imagination. Seriously, we were sitting there using it, saying, hey, if only we had this tool earlier, wow, we could have saved ourselves a lot of blood, sweat and tears. (It's not that tragic, just sayin'.)

We bought model FMM250Q, either the special or limited edition version that is currently being marketed by Fein Canada. The Fein MultiMaster is built in Germany, and it's tough. We looked at the comparable Bosch model, but after some research, we were quickly sold on the Fein. They made it first, and they make it best, as far as we were concerned. We own other Bosch tools (I think a huge drill and a reciprocating saw), but the Fein outshone Bosch in the multi-tool department. We are in love!

The tool was not cheap, I think this edition retails for CAD$349, which when our crazy sales tax is added comes to around $400. That's a LOT of money for a tool, but we feel it's worth it given what we still need to do upstairs, in the barns and with our old boat (a thought I need to repress).

Here's a close-up of the blade we used to remove the shellac which came off in sheets we could actually pick up and throw into the garbage bag. Sweet! Seriously, this was the first time we were shouldering each other out of the way to use a tool: LET ME, NO, NOOOOO, I WANNA USE IT, LEAVE IT, LEMMEEEEEE...we were acting like juveniles.

You need hearing protectors to use the tool, but it's not an aggressive sound that will make others in the room run for cover. I could easily sweep up the room while Eric used the tool with hearing protectors. The only caveat both of us noticed is that it's easy to get carried away and use it for an hour or so non-stop, and only when you pry your hand off the tool do you realize the vibration does affect your fingers and hand. I've been operated for carpal tunnel on my right hand so I'm careful with tools; using the MultiMaster was not the least bit uncomfortable, but I wouldn't go using it for, say, a three-hour grout removing marathon.

So, the next step is repairing the carved groove, filling in the 6" hole, plugging three 1" holes, one 2" hole, and a variety of other pings and dents. There was also a lot of plastic wood we removed between the boards that will need to be epoxied. Nothing really major, just time consuming. But we'll get there eventually.

What I was going to do...

2011-08-18T23:01:00.002-04:00

...was give you a sordid, wurst-by-wurst, wool shop-by-wool shop account of my fabulissimo week in Wiesbaden. Instead, you're getting this:

The Marktkirche in Wiesbaden. The last time I was in Wiesbaden, the church was being restored and was covered in scaffolding. It's nice to see it unencumbered.

The Marktkirche is the centre-piece of Weisbaden's market square, where twice-weekly farmer's markets take place. One year, I want to go to Wiesbaden during the Christmas season and visit the Christmas market that takes place here as well. I spent the better part of one day wandering around the market-stands, eyeing fruits and vegetables, sausage and cheese, fresh herbs and flower bouquets. It was a feast for the eyes.

The Marktstrasse. Wiesbaden's sometimes-confusing pedestrian zone has been mastered by yours truly. I know where every Ditsch pretzel stand is. €0.60 gets you a fresh pretzel - hot out of the oven. Be still my beating heart. I lost count how many I ate. Yet, remarkably, I came back weighing 2 pounds less then when I left - I walked so much I bruised my toe nails. Cobblestones are hard on the feet like that. Next time, I'm bringing better shoes along.

Another view of the pedestrian zone at the corner of the Marktstrasse and the Hessicher Landtag, the parliamentary building of Hessen, the federal state Wiesbaden is located in. There is so much history here, and so much architecture to take in. There are some unbelievable art nouveau buildings in Wiesbaden. Some of the best examples on the web are here. When I say it's a stunning city, it's a stunning city.

The Schloss (Palace) Biebrich in Wiesbaden-Biebrich. Backing onto the Rhine, this palace features a nice restaurant. Share the Elsaesser Flammkuchen and have the goat-cheese salad, and raise a glass of riesling.
Or have a glass of Radler - a mix of beer and Sprite or 7-Up. I know, I know, it sounds terrible but goes down in a flash and tastes like more when your first glass is finished.

Life isn't just good, it's superlative. I got so spoiled I didn't want to return home. That's when you know you're having a Good Time.

I flew with one carry-one for ease of travel. This time, I was smart though and packed not one, but two bags inside my suitcase. When I returned, I checked two bags which were stuffed to the brim with chocolate, Haribo gummibears, and woolwoolwool. So much sock wool that my circular sock machines are gonna be humming this winter! I can't wait to show you my stash enhancements!

My first week back home is always frustrating but I'm getting accustomed to it and have learned to go with the flow. We live with one foot on each continent, Eric and I, and I wish there were some way we could combine both worlds into one happy utopia. I vowed I would take advantage of the opportunity to visit Germany more often, at least once a year, even if it's only for a week at a time. It's enough time to decompress and relax, get caught up with old friends and not overstay a welcome.

Germany is my heimat and I love it there. I also find it interesting that wiki defines heimat as having no simple translation - it's patriotism without nationalism. It's hard to put a finger on it, but it's part of my culture, my up-bringing, and my mother tongue. Even though this - Shim Farm - is home and our little corner of paradise, Germany makes my heart pitter-patter.

July 22

2011-08-02T20:47:00.000-04:00

Crossing the runway in FRA.

Ahhh...Fraport, as they call it. I've got chills up my spine, and not because it's 12 C. Going to Frankfurt is like going to my other home across the sea.

Welcome to the land of sausage, malt beer, Riesling and chocolate. In that order.

I'm gonna have me a vay-cay-shun!

This was also the first time I have actually slept in a plane since I-don't-know-when. Hats off to whoever designed those Boeing 777 seats in business class (yeah, business class - I lucked out with an upgrade!) You just press the "ZZZ" button and with a little zoom and a little whoosh, your seat turns into a FLAT BED. Yup. You read that right. So sweet I hugged my pillow extra-hard and promptly fell asleep.

I was off to a good start.

July 21

2011-08-01T20:27:00.001-04:00

My sweater wasn't finished in time. I hung my head in shame.

I had to leave town.

Some Photos in No Sensible Order

2011-07-15T00:01:00.003-04:00

If I took the time to put these photos into order, I'd be here forever.

Pardon the mess.

It's this or a blank page:

Beautiful clouds and beautiful weather. Time to get the mower out...again.

The corn is growing so beautifully this year. The season started off late, but whoa, is it ever growing now. Enough hot temps and enough rain makes for a great corn year.

This is the roof for the south side of our barn. The north side was done about 4 years ago. If you're perceptive, you'll notice it's not ON the roof. We must remedy this. Soon.

Dear Lord. We need help - stat. This is the south side of the barn, and the reason the roof is stored in the barn, and not on the barn. We need to rip this addition down before it comes down on it's own. Getting help to do this project rates high on the frustration scale. I can already see Eric and me doing this work ourselves. Where's my hard-hat again? Pass me the crowbar...I'm going in. We need to tear this section down before the roof can be redone. Hence, we're in a holding pattern. A desperate holding pattern.

Lots of reclaimed BC fir beams we have stored in the barn. These are on a standard, sagging skid. They are HUGE. We have to rotate them from time to time to make sure they don't rot before we can use them.

More BC fir beams in the barn. These babies are about 8" x 16". We bought a truckload when an old factory was destroyed nearby. Old wood is good wood. These are over 100 years old. They are being stored because we've got plans for them. Ignore the mast in the photo, please. It's another project I really don't want to think about, either.

Bloody @#$%*(& horseradish. This bleeping plant can die. I have it all over the place. It's taking over, and I thought I had it under control. Grows like a flipping weed, it does.

Burdock about to bloom. Again, time for napalm.

Where's my machete? This plant is already six feet tall. It's like guerrilla gardening over here. Halp!

Bonus points if you can figure out what these are!

They are burdock, lots and lots of baby burdock plants. It's also why I am standing on a sheet of plywood. I flipped this over onto the burdock, and in 2 weeks' time, no more baby burdock. Muahahahahahaha! I'm winning this war!

Phew. The day lilies are blooming. My sanity might just be restored.

Someone found my blog by googling "something is eating my elecampane". Well if you figure out what's eating your elecampane, can you send some my way so mine can get eaten too, please?

Showing a Manitoba Maple stump some tough love. Just keep breaking those suckers off, and eventually the stump will cry "uncle". It might take a year or three. Just sayin'. The suckers are so soft, no clippers are needed. Just snap 'em off with your fingers.

That's better. The Manitoba maple stump suffers under my hand. All the suckers are broken off. I'll be back in a week to do it all over again. Tenacity wins.

Looks like we'll have a bumper crop of grapes this year. The vines are full and they look good. Nice and hot summer so far, we should be good to go by fall if the raccoons don't get to them first.

I've got plans for this seeder, just as soon as it's pulled out of the muck it's mired in.

How many years do you think it's been in here? I'm putting money down on 30 years. I want to haul this baby out of here, have the wheels rebuilt, and use it as a planter. It would look great with annuals planted in it, standing in front of the barn.

Same thing goes for this sled. I hope to rebuild it one long winter, and put it on display in the garden near the house. I plan on using it to put seasonal decorations on. In winter, I'll put a Christmas tree and one of those tacky lit-up deer on it. In spring, I'll put potted bulbs on it, then in summer I'll switch over to bright, potted annuals, and in fall, I'll decorate with hay bales and a scarecrow and pumpkins and squash. I think you get the idea...my inner Martha is shining through...I should whip her into submission before she gets me into more trouble as it is.

We need to pick a colour for Eric's office. I know just what colour he wants - a colour that we can't find of course. I know exactly what hybrid Eric wants, and what saturation he wants. This colour doesn't exist. We'll have it made - we've done it before, and we'll do it again. I'm praying the result is what Eric envisions.

Schatzie says, "I'd go with this shade already and just get the damn room painted". That cat is the voice of reason, I tell you!

Baby seabuckthorn. They'll be orange by September. Promise.

The Þel

2011-07-08T18:56:00.003-04:00

Did I confuse you there, by throwing around that bit of Icelandic? That's not a typo, but Þ is the thirtieth letter of the Icelandic alphabet, the Þorn, or thorn, as it is pronounced. According to wiki, it's pronounced like the th in thick. That would make the word "thel". I'm still no closer to knowing what it means!

Last year, I ordered an offensive amount of Létt Lopi in the hopes of redeeming myself for what I will covertly call the "Schmapigan" disaster. I am sure I'm not the only person to fall deeply in love with a pattern on-line, order the requisite wool, knit about a mile worth of it, and come up feeling like I've been beaten with the mediocre stick.

Just ordering the pattern alone proved painful. Not only was it expensive, I was charged as much for the shipping as I was for the pattern. In this day and age of PDF files, PayPal accounts and laptops, ordering knitting patterns on-line is normally child's play. You pay, you download, you print. It was a sign that I should have quit while I was ahead.

Pattern finally in hand, I ordered the wool. Joseph Galler's Peruvian Tweed, quite honestly one of the most beautiful wools I have ever knit with. I am in love with my Lopi, but JG's Peruvian Tweed is like eating a steak after a year's worth of hamburger. It's wool, specifically alpaca, but it's different. And oh my, does it knit up beautifully! One day, I hope to come across more of it and make myself something I might actually wear. Each skein weighs a whopping 227g, that's a half a pound, and measures 600 yards. That's a whole lotta wool in one skein.

So I set about knitting the Schmapigan, and again, Pit Bull here doesn't trust her knitting intuition when things feel wrong. Since I paid all this money for the pattern, and all this money for the wool, I certainly wasn't going to quit now. The edges of the Schmapigan feature yards and yards of fringe, and I must have blown an entire skein on this alone. Now, for you non-knitterly types, wool is not lost even if it's knit up. Knitters refer to the act of pulling down knitting as "frogging", a play on words from the expression rip it, rip it. Hence, anything can be frogged, but miles and miles of cut fringe remain...cut fringe. The finished Schmapigan lived on top of the dryer in the laundry room for a while, and when Popina decided to make a nest out of it, I knew its days were numbered. I frogged the entire Schmapigan, removed all the beautiful fringe which now resides in a Ziploc bag, and wound up the rest. I suppose the only thing I will recycle all this beautiful yarn into is a shawl with mile and miles of fringe. I still don't have the heart to look at it, because I had really high hopes for the Schmapigan.

That's the background on how the Þel came to be. Here was a pattern in one of my Lopi books that just might redeem me. I ordered 2 bags of brown Lopi, and got busy knitting. 1600 metres later, the Þel was born. I have to mention my dear friend Elaine in there as well. 'Twas Elaine who got busy sewing the sleeves in, in return for me sewing in 2,716 ends on a precious baby cardigan Elaine had knit, as well as sewing on grosgrain ribbon for the button band, and finishing the buttons. (I like that fiddly stuff - especially if I didn't knit it myself). Knitters are charitable like that. At some point, you just get so involved with a particular project that you just can't deal with it any more. That's when good friends step in and say, "here, let me knit that back for you", when you've made a mistake and don't have the heart to pull back a few rows of lace, for example. Sometimes, emotional detachment is required to successfully finish a particular project. In the end, I handed Elaine both sleeves and the body, and Elaine did the rest. There was a lot riding on the success of the Þel. Again, I folded it, put it on top of the dryer in the laundry room and forgot about it. Popina was happy though, to have a nice, cushy warm place to nap. Lopi's forgiving like that, though. This stuff repels everything - dirt, pet hair, you name it. It's virtually indestructible.

The other day, I thought it would be best to take the Þel to task, and finally wash and block it. I soaked in Eucalan for a bit, squeezed it out until I was satisfied it was clean, rolled the whole thing up and chucked it in the washer for a quick spin-dry. The wool is so magical is came out of the washer practically dry. I slapped it down on the slate patio, straightened it out, and with the warmth of the sun and the slate, it was dry in about an hour. You'd never attempt something like that with normal wool. But Lopi's not normal - it's super-wool. Of course Popina attacked it as it was drying, and it goes without saying Cooper had a nap on it, too.

But it's all good, because in the end, the Þel is everything I hoped it would be, and more:

The "Saga" Saga

2011-07-06T19:05:00.030-04:00

Ahhh yes, the saga of the "Saga". Lopi sure named this sweater design appropriately. And what's a girl to do when it's 90 degrees in the shade?

Why, break an unfinished sweater out of hibernation, that's what! Winter is on it's way, especially if you are as negligent on the knitting front as I have been lately.

The other day, I pulled this baby out of its dedicated Rubbermaid bin and had a quick look-see. It's been a few months since I worked on it, and I have no clue what happened that I put it aside and seemingly forgot about it. (Well...actually what happened is I started a boring black mohair shawl that kept getting more boring with every added row. I was hoping to complete said shawl before a vacation last November that never materialized. Dejected both by the aborted vacation and the boring-ness of the shawl, I fell behind in my knitting. I can't take its blandness any more, but I am still plugging away. It's nearly done, but inspiring it's not. And then I attacked my sock knitting machines early this year, and the rest, as they say, is history).

The colours of the Saga are magnificent, the wool so lofty, the knitted fabric light yet incredibly warm. I am as much in love with Lopi as I was during The Great Slipper Explosion that marked the spring of 2010.

It's been prohibitively hot here for the past few days, as evidenced by the thermometer. We don't have any air-conditioning in the house and the thought of sitting with pure wool touching any part of my body, save for my hands, makes me break out into a sweat. (Really, you don't say? is what you're probably thinking).

Nonetheless, I plunked myself at the kitchen island, put the fan on full-bore mode beside me, and started to bash away at the Saga. It's amazing just how quickly it grew. As far as knitting goes, it's also quite addictive working with a colour chart. You want to keep going just to get to the next colour. There's a lot of motivation involved, and charting your progress is visually measurable as your Post-it note inches its way up.

I had already finished knitting the body up to the yoke. One sleeve was already started, and within one day, I had it finished. Létt-Lopi knits up quickly on 5 mm needles. For every 2 rows, that means you've got about 1 cm of knitting done, for every 5 rows, you've got an inch. It grew quickly.

I am now finished the second sleeve, and this means I have to put my thinking cap on to do the yoke. Basically, you start knitting on the middle front, then knit most of the stitches from the sleeve, (keeping some live stitches from both the body and sleeves on waste yarn that will later be grafted together under the arm), then you knit the back, the next sleeve, and when the yoke is finished, you steek the front.

Steeking involves taking your sharpest pair of scissors and cutting a perfectly good sweater down the front, to sew in a zipper or knit or crochet on a button band. If knitting had an extreme sport division, steeking would be in it. The thought alone sends my stomach into fits, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I still have a way to go before I attempt that operation.

So I will continue to bash away at my colourful little sweater, and have given myself July 21st as a completion date. That's the next time our informal little knitting group meets, and I'd really like to have it done for show-and-tell. Last time I showed up with the black mohair shawl and when everyone asked me if it was finished, I let out a big sigh. Knitting black is boring, painfully so. If you're a knitter, you'll probably understand. The rest of you will just have to trust me. On the other hand, colours are really stimulating. I dream all sorts of colourful dreams full of creative endeavours when I knit on my Saga before going to bed.

It's no wonder I wake up exhausted.

Now that I've made myself accountable, I had better break out the needles and get this baby done, once and for all, hopefully before July 21st, or before the snow starts to fly.

Which ever comes first.

Schatzie's Most Excellent Adventure

2011-07-03T10:44:00.003-04:00

I don't mention our cat Schatzie as often as I do the Bobberizer, The Poppet with the Moppet, and Coopersteen the Foreman, but Schatzie is a common denominator, always underfoot and always pestering me for something during the 30 minutes a day she's awake.

Schatzie and her son, Baby Gray, came to us when our beloved neighbour, Mr. Lefebure, passed away. That it's been six years is hard to believe. At that time, we were told by Mr. Lefebure's brother that Schatzie was already 20 years old. That would put her at 26 today.

We dubbed the two gray cats Mama Gray and Baby Gray when we moved their little carpets from the wood shed on Mr. Lefebure's property to the barn closest to our house. They quickly caught on that this was their new place, and we never saw them return next door again. I guess home is where the food is, if you're a cat.

Both cats spent the better part of their first two years with us living outside. Baby only became approachable towards the end of his life. If Baby Gray had a power supply, it would have been hooked up to 220. This cat was wired, tense and nervous. His eyes were like a deer's caught in the headlights - always open and watching. Towards the end of his life, Baby became a bit more flexible, and even spent a few nights inside the house during cold snaps. He disappeared on Christmas Eve 2 years ago, and I'd like to think he fell asleep and never woke up again. That's my Christmas wish, and I'm sticking to it.

When Mama Gray moved in, we renamed her Schatzie. "Chat" is cat in French, and "Schatz" means dear in German, so I hybridized both words as I am wont to do, and the name stuck. Occasionally, we call her Schitzie, another play on words based on her litter box habits, or lack thereof. Her aim is sometimes a bit off, much to my dismay.

Schatzie spends exactly 23.5 hours a day asleep. When she's not sleeping on Cooper's dog-bed in the kitchen, she's awake and meowing for her food. She's stone-deaf, ergo, she doesn't hear herself meow, and this results in the most ear-drum shattering meow a cat can muster. She's loud and she's determined. The minute I walk in the kitchen and she catches sight of me, it's one long-drawn out, meow-fest that comes out with gargling undertones. If Schatzie has a mission statement, it would be Feed Me. Even my mother jokingly gave me a cat dish for her, and that's what's written on the bowl. Not only do I have to feed her, but she takes 2 bites, looks at me again, and starts to gargle/meow some more. I grab a spoon, shovel her food into a little pile in the center of her bowl, and this food rearrangement process repeats itself ad nauseum until Schatzie finally has enough, or until Popina (the little oinker) edges her out of the way if I'm not watching carefully. If I'm sitting on the sofa when Madame finishes her meal, she promptly sits beside me and cleans her muzzle on my elbow. Thanks, Schatzie, you're a doll!

From time to time, the Old Hag likes to go outside and eat grass, which she then pukes up in the house on some carpeted surface when my back is turned. When she goes out, she never strays far from the front door, and the other day, she greeted me on the walkway as I walked in with full arms. I went back to my car, brought more stuff to the house, and returned to lock it. Now, I should note, the interior of my car is dark gray. You can see where this story is going, can't you? I looked high and low for her, in the garage and barn, under the cars, around the house, and under the hosta she used to sleep under. I sent Cooper out and told him to "go find Schatzie". I don't need to tell you he came up empty, too.

Eric and I went out that evening for a quick bite to eat. As we pulled in the driveway, I looked hopefully for Schatzie's little face, but she was no where to be seen. Fear struck my heart, and I knew I'd have to kick-up the search and rescue effort to high gear. Then I looked over to Eric, who's pointing at my car with a knowing grin. I looked inside, and there's little Schatzie, all 3 and-a-half pounds of the boney hag, sitting on the back seat, on the dry-cleaning no less. I fumbled for my keys, and when the beast was released, she let out a croaky little meow and jumped down in her little stumbling arthritic manner. If Schatzie had only 2 of her 9 lives left, I blew one that day for sure. I could have blown both if it would have been hotter. As it was, it was a cool, overcast day, pretty much typical of our entire month of June. I made a promise that day that I would never leave my car open, and if I did, I'd check back and front seats before locking it up. I never would have imagined that Schatzie, of all cats, was an adventurer.

I joke about high-maintenance Schatzie, her litter box accidents, the fact she needs a special diet, her deafness, and the fact that her grooming habits are nil. I have to brush her regularly to keep her de-matted, and the little bitch thanks me by digging her claws into my hand on occasion.

All that said and done, I love the old girl and hope she makes it another 26 years.

In a Pickled Mess

2011-07-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

I have no clue how I get myself into these messes.

I have many routes to choose from when I drive to work. Last week I took one particular scenic route which takes me past a cucumber farm. The other day, I noticed the owner outside, so I slammed on my brakes, pulled into the driveway, and asked for my standard - a 2 lb bag of "seconds". I got a wink, a smile and the owner said in his thick accent, "For you, today, I make special! Open your trunk, I give you a case!"

I traded cash for cukes and ended up with a 20 pound box of "seconds".

Behold, my lovelies, the venerable Lebanese cucumber:

I was introduced to these about 20 years ago. At the time, I was driving by this same farm with a friend who had recently moved from Beirut to Montreal. As we drove by the farm, he noticed the name on the mail box, and said "STOP!", so it's not the first time I've slammed on my brakes at the cucumber place. (And for those of you concerned about my lack of driving skills, there's actually a stop sign in front of the farm. Just sayin'.)

My Lebanese friend is an agronomist, and launched into a long conversation in Lebanese with the cucumber farmer. Much arm-waving and shoulder-slapping ensued, and we were toured around the green houses. We left with sun-warmed cukes straight off the vine from their pesticide-free greenhouses.

Unless you've gardened, you have no clue just how remarkable a fresh, sun-ripened cuke tastes. Add a sprinkle of salt, and you're transported to a new foodie dimension on a different stellar plane. My Lebanese agronomist friend explained these weren't ordinary cucumbers - they were Lebanese cucumbers - sweet, nearly seedless, with a tender peel you wouldn't even consider peeling. People who say cukes are hard to digest have never had a Lebanese cucumber. I eyed my first cucumber with a note of suspicion and a raised eyebrow. I know cucumbers. But we raised our cucumbers to the sky, toasted them with a quick "sahtain" in Lebanese, and I took my first bite. Ohhh, there was no turning back now. I was forever ruined against the watery, anemic English cucumber, the now-dethroned Queen of the cucumber world. I quickly understood what my friend was trying to explain to me. These are the new gold standard.

That little reminiscence aside, I am now the proud owner of a 20 pound crate of cucumbers. And this is something I need to remedy - stat. As retaliation for the infamous Seville Orange incident that marked February as my longest month this year, I tried to pawn half the crate off on my co-worker. She took a few home, blaming the fact they were leaving on a long-weekend preventing her from taking more. Hmmmph. Remind me not to try this manoeuvre before a holiday, will you?

You know the saying, when the going gets tough, the tough get going? Well, along the same lines, when you have a 20 pound crate of cucumbers, it stands to reason you make bread and butter pickles:

Golden Bread and Butter pickles are the best! I made six 500 mL canning jars with 4 pounds of cukes...so you do the math. It turns out I'm going to be emptying Canadian Tire's canning jar selection again this week.

I had recently purchased a Benriner mandoline. I am a horrible consumer (save for my Finnegan Years), which is why it took me nearly 5 years to spend a gift certificate at one of the largest kitchen-ware stores in Montreal. Every time I walked in with the intention of buying something, I left the store dejected. And every time I left the store, I was guaranteed that their gift certificates don't expire. This just added to my procrastination. Had I known there was an expiry date, it would have lit a fire under my ass. I probably would have ended up with 10 pairs of oven-mitts if push came to shove. Instead, I caved for a Benriner mandoline, since my last Rosti mandoline had been epoxied to outer-space and beyond. It was time to retire the Rosti for something new.

(As it is, I don't really need anything for the kitchen - expect for the KitchenAid ice-cream churn that is still on my wish-list. If Santa was a good boy, I'd own it already, but he's not. I'll leave things at that, Santa.)

And if it's possible for a store to have too much selection, Ares Kitchen Supplies is guilty as charged. The place is mind-numbing. It should be a tourist destination, a Walt Disney for cooks and bakers alike. Walking down the aisles is like riding Space Mountain, you need to hang on or lose control. Screaming is not encouraged, but more than once I've heard someone shout, "I'VE FOUND IT"! Ares is one of those places.

That Benriner mandoline did fast work of those cukes! I'll apologize in advance to the poor recipient of the jar that contains the fingernail from my right index finger. Sorry, I really did try to find it... Next time, I might use the finger-guard and re-read the wonderful Japanese pictogram manual so I don't lose a digit.

Let's not waste any more time. Here is the recipe:

Golden Bread and Butter Pickles

12 cups thinly sliced, unpeeled cucumbers (from about 4 pounds of pickles)

2 cups thinly sliced white onion

1 cup thinly sliced yellow pepper

1 cup thinly sliced red pepper

1/4 cup pickling salt

Combine above ingredients in a large bowl, and cover with 3" of ice cubes. Let stand for 4 hours, rinse and drain, and rinse and drain again.

In a large saucepan, combine the following ingredients:

3 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups granulated sugar
4 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp celery seeds
1 tsp turmeric

Bring to a boil, and add drained cucumber mixture. Return just to a boil, stirring often.

Fill into prepared 500 mL canning jars, leaving a 1 cm (1/2") head-space.

Process 10 minutes in boiling water canner.

Yield: Approximately 6 - 500 mL jars.

My Notes:

I used about 4 pounds of pickles to make 12 cups sliced.

I didn't have yellow peppers and didn't want to leave the house, so I doubled up on red. The mix of yellow and red makes it even prettier. No one will notice, I promise, if you only have one or the other. Blue ribbon bonus points awarded if you have both, though.

Along the same lines, I only had yellow onions, so in they went. I'm a rebel like that. No harm done.

Because my time management skillz come from a Cracker Jack box, I stuck the cukes in the fridge over night. I rinsed doubly hard and said an extra prayer to the Canning Gods begging forgiveness.

I think they heard it.

Bienenstich Cake

2011-06-29T19:49:00.022-04:00

I've been eating this cake since I was this high (pointing at my knees). The recipe comes from my mom's Dr. Oetker Schulkochbuch. That's German for "Dr. Oetker's School Cook Book". Apparently, they used to bake and cook at school, in the old days. (Sorry, Mom!) Seriously, this cookbook dates from the late 40's or early 50's, and some of the recipes have "austerity" written all over them. It's also probably why this particular version of Bienenstich doesn't feature a decadent filling, either.

Today, most Bienenstich cakes are filled, either with whipped cream or vanilla pudding. Why anyone would want to mess with perfection is beyond me. This cake disappears, and I mean **poof**, in an afternoon. Keep your cream filling, stuff your whipped cream, but pass me another piece or four of this cake...I'll take the post-WWII version any day.

I realize my photo is a bit minimalist. Austerity cake = austerity photo. What's remarkable is that there was actually a piece - one last piece - to photograph at all. First person up the next morning gets it. (That would be me - sorry Eric!) The early bird gets the cake in our house, so to speak.

I still remember my mom making this cake and giving me the pot to lick clean. To this day, the sugar, butter and almond topping makes my heart skip a beat. While the cake is slowly browning in the oven, I can usually be found, looking wistfully as it bakes, pot in one hand and spatula in the other, cleaning out the pot. Life is very, very good.

Bienenstich means "bee-sting" in German. Apparently bees like it, too:

Bienenstich

Yeast Dough Base:

1 package active-dry yeast (or 2-1/4 teaspoons)
1 tsp sugar
250 mL milk, lukewarm
500 g flour
100 g sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbs oil
bitter almond flavouring (I use Dr. Oetker essence from a local import deli. It's worth hunting down.)

Dissolve 1 tsp sugar in 250 mL warm milk. Add yeast and mix, and let rise 10 minutes.

Mix approximately 300 g of flour with sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl. Set remaining 200 g flour aside to mix in while kneading.

Stir yeast/milk mixture with oil and bitter almond flavouring. (If you have the Dr. Oetker essence, use about 1/2 of the vial. If you're using regular bottled essence, use maybe a 1/4 tsp.)

Add yeast/milk/oil mixture to flour and sugar in mixing bowl.

Gradually add remaining flour until dough comes together and can be kneaded.

Knead for approximately 10 minutes, adding as much flour as is necessary to obtain a smooth dough. Dough should not be sticky. Place in a large greased bowl and cover. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, approximately 1-1/2 hours.

Topping:

100 g butter
200 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs milk
200 g chopped blanched almonds

Blanch almonds if you have only natural almonds with their skin on. I like this tutorial.

Chop almonds, either with a chopping knife, or in a food processor. (Don't make powder; you need little pieces.)

Melt butter and sugar in a pot over low heat on stove-top. Add almonds, vanilla and milk, ensuring sugar has melted. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Lightly grease a 10" x 15" roasting pan with oil or non-stick spray. (I like to use a roasting pan with high sides as opposed to a jelly-roll pan to prevent the topping from overflowing, as the yeast dough will rise to about an 1-1/4" in height.)

Spread topping evenly on yeast dough. (If topping has hardened, put it back on the stove, add a bit of milk, and let it warm slightly).

Bake in a 350F oven for 20-25 minutes, until topping is golden-brown.

My notes:

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, I loosen the sides from the pan with a butter-knife. If you let the cake topping harden, you'll have a hard time getting it out of the pan.

If you only have instant rise yeast, follow the instructions on the yeast package. This generally means warming all liquid ingredients, and adding them to your yeast and flour mixture, adding as much flour as is necessary to knead dough.

I use my KitchenAid mixer for all steps of the dough, but finish kneading by hand. Sweet yeast dough has a different feel than, say, bread dough or pizza dough. It's a bit tougher and kneading it by hand warms the dough and gives me a better idea if I need to add more flour or not.

I hope you'll try this cake, and enjoy it as much as I do. This cake transcends all boundaries, and I've never met someone who could eat just one piece.

Rainbow Scenery

2011-06-25T21:00:00.001-04:00

It's a long weekend here in Quebec. The first statutory holiday of summer - Saint-Jean-Baptiste - is observed on June 24. Our next statutory holiday is next Friday when we observe Canada Day on July 1. A lot of people take the week between the two holidays off, because if you trade-in 4 vacation days, you can pull off 10 consecutive days off. That's a good deal no matter how you look at it.

What's unfortunate is that it's been raining off-and-on for the past 2 days, and is supposed to continue that way for the next week or so. We've known the long-term forecast to lie, though, so there's always hope. It seems the forecast at Environment Canada is updated radically from one hour to the next. The radar is the only thing that doesn't lie, and we're getting good at figuring out just how much time we have until the next downpour.

Our corn, planted in the field behind the barn, likes the rain, but corn also likes hot days. It's 21C today, which can hardly be considered hot. But it's growing, and I guess that's the main thing.

Again, progress outside is touch-and-go. More projects, more lawn mowing, more clean-up. It all depends on the weather.

What doesn't depend on the weather is drywall. Eric's got another room, his office this time, drywalled, spackled and primed. Way to go, bay-bee:

I know that photo doesn't give you much reference. Believe me though, that it used to look like this:

...and like this:

...and if one more, ONE MORE, person asks why we didn't sub the drywall out, I swear on Cooper's head that I will have a screaming fit that will send me to the loony bin for a protracted stay.

Taping and mudding and sanding, (and mudding and sanding, and mudding and sanding) drywall is...how can I put this delicately? It is the least of our worries, when you consider what we've accomplished based on the above.

It's like going to a restaurant, ordering dessert, and when it's put in front of you, you give it to the dude at the next table.

It's dessert!

The Green Clay Update

2011-06-23T21:34:00.000-04:00

I've received a few emails asking about the status of my bobo. I'll post a photo below, so consider yourself forewarned. It's not horrifying or sordid, but if you are squeamish, you can bail out at any time. I'll forgive you for being a sissy.

How I actually managed to have an abrasion turn into a festering, seeping wound is unbelievable to me. I did all the right things: I cleaned it, I protected it, and I used ointment. I was convinced I had some sort of allergic reaction to the Betadine. Seems lots of people are sensitive to iodine, and I should probably use the word "senstive to" as opposed to "allergic to", but at this point, it's like splitting hairs. Things weren't getting better, they were getting worse.

And then, the other day, I looked carefully at the sore as I took off the Telfa pad and tape and something new dawned on me. I think I'm allergic to (or sensitive to...) the latex in the Telfa pad and tape. Where I had the tape, I now had tiny little blisters, itchy as all get-out. The non-stick Telfa pad seemed to cause the same reaction around the wound, because I had a large red welt around the abrasion, and tiny little fluid filled blisters everywhere. And it itched like a bitch, too. (Sorry. Just had to get that rhyme out.) I think that keeping everything moist and covered up proved to be the wrong thing to do, in my case. Had I let it air and light at it, I would have been better off.

In the end, smothering my abrasion in green clay was the best decision I made. Since things look a little less sordid now, here's how the abrasion looks when the green clay comes off. Remember, it's been 23 days since the abrasion:

Believe me when I tell you that it's 100 times better than last week. If you have the gumption to enlarge the photo, there's still some green clay left in the wound. I didn't wash it out completely, since I just slapped another poultice on it minutes ago. Consider my cleaning for illustrative purposes only - I didn't want to leave chunks of green clay on my skin, because you probably would have been really taken aback.

And now, just to make my month of June even better, I've managed to break out in hives. The last time I had hives, it was an allergic reaction to Sulfa, maybe 20 years ago? Since then, nada, not a thing.

Yesterday, I started itching myself for what seemed like no reason. Then the tell-tale welts appeared. Now, I've got sensitive skin and can write my name on my arm like I can on an Etch-a-Sketch, I'm that talented. But hives? You have got to be kidding me! The hay was cut two days ago, and my hives appeared a day later. The wind was blowing in our general direction, and I've never had allergies before, but I guess there is a first time for everything. I've also had a month of the crappiest sleep thanks to our neighbour's new dog, but that's a post unto itself...so stay tuned for that saga. It'll be worth it.

So I'm going to blame the hay plus sleep deprivation for my hives. And it's going to give me the opportunity to drink this tomorrow morning:

Yup people, I've broken down. I'm going in, so to speak.

Maybe I shouldn't have used lime Perrier? It was all I had. When I had a sip earlier, it tasted like a band-aid. Not that I've ever eaten a band-aid, but it's the first thing that came to mind. My mother-in-law does her annual 2-week green clay cure every spring and swears by it. With my hives, I figure, there's no time like the present.

The instructions on the side of the extra-fine green clay (it's a finely-milled powder, unlike the coarser version I used to make my poultice) say to put one to two teaspoons in a glass, then add water and stir. Let the mixture sit overnight, and chug-a-lug the next morning. I am erring on the side of caution, so I just used one teaspoon.

So, with my hives swathed in castor oil, my green clay poultice on my leg, my green clay brew decanting in the kitchen, Little-Miss-Alternative-Health-2011 is off to get some sleep before the beast next door starts howling again.

Wish me luck is all I can muster.

A Finnegan's Saturday

2011-06-22T19:37:00.007-04:00

The weather last Saturday was delightful - blue, blue, skies and white puffy clouds as far as the eye could see. Nice warm temps with a westerly breeze blowing. Nary a skeeter in sight. A perfect day for working in the garden, but hang on a minute here! It wasn't a day for work - no - it was a day to visit Finnegan's with a pit-stop at the endive factory, as I like to call it.

I've had a craving for endives all spring long. (Did you know they grow in the dark?) I've been meaning to make a stop at Connaisseur Endives for months now. I jumped in the car and headed down highway 201. With my 5 pound box of endives happily bouncing around on the back seat, and memories of endives au gratin in the south of France bouncing around in my head, I drove dreamily north along the 201.

If you turn right where the 201 reaches the water and drive a mile or so, you'll reach Finnegan's. Finnegan's is a flea-market located in the picturesque town of Hudson, Quebec. Marvel at the beautiful homes along Main Road, and turn right into the parking lot when you hit the traffic jam. The traffic is a sign you've arrived.

I make a point of visiting Finnegan's once each summer. Since it's an open-air market, you want to pick a nice day. Wear closed shoes, because the walks are gravel and you can thank me later when you don't have grit between your toes.

It's hard to explain what Finnegan's is - it's more of an institution than a flea market. It's the perfect mix of old and new, of kids and dogs, and tons of the neatest stuff you've ever seen thrown in for good measure. If you're into collecting, this is your Olympics. Even if you're not, stop moping, grab a hamburger and a soda and go sit at the picnic table under the willow tree. I'll be with you when I'm done.

You know the adage that you spend the first half of your life accumulating stuff - and the next half of your life trying to give it away? Well, when I was in the first half of my life, Finnegan's was my mecca. I owed a station wagon before it was cool to own a station wagon, just to get my loot back home again. Finnegan's represented Saturday mornings, sunny days, and some of the coolest things I've ever bought.

And then, at some point in your life, as you look over wicker and decoys and teapots and silverware and vintage linens, you give your head a shake and become a minimalist. Enough with the dusting - I've kept only what I really, really adore, and the rest has been passed on to others who hopefully cherish it as much as I did.

Welcome to the land that is Finnegan's:

Quilts, armor, wooden shoes AND a crystal chandelier. As eclectic as it gets!

A blue marlin and a birdhouse? Somehow, it just works!

There's a still-life waiting around each corner.

Ohhhh...silverware. More silverware than I'd ever know what to do with. I think every pattern under the skies was on this table.

Ohhh...a decoy. Must resist!

I love little Holstein dogs. This dude was waiting for a burger.

Finnegan's is a mix of people offering refinishing services, chair caning, wood working, and reproduction furniture, nestled among antique and collectible dealers. If you're looking for home-made soap, dog cookies, kale fresh from the garden, heirloom perennials, maple syrup, fresh baked bread or fine Quebec honey, Finnegan's has something for you. And then some. You won't be disappointed, I promise.

And even if you're not into collecting, there's enough eye-candy to keep most everyone happy.

These lovely mohair scarves were hand-knit in Russia. I love the colours and the fact they were hung from a tree branch.

Vintage table-linens, oh be still my beating heart!

Do like this little guy - wear your sunhat. Don't forget your SPF, and bring along some bottled water, to boot.

There's something about an old barn...

...and old license plates. Seems it was 1978 that we went from being "la belle province" to "je me souviens". I'll stop my discourse on political rhetoric right here.

Nothing like vintage rhinestones in a full spectrum of colour.

If you're into the "shabby chic" look, this vendor has your name written all over it. There's something to be said for giving old furniture new oomph with a coat or three of white paint. That reminds me of a floor I keep meaning to paint...so let's just move along rapidly now.

Everything is so groomed and immaculate, with whimsical little touches thrown in for good measure. You can spend all day wandering, and miss half. Easily.

Even their barn has flower boxes. I hope our barn will have flower boxes one day. Hang on - our barn doesn't have windows! We must remedy that. Soon.

This is my favorite booth - you can click the photo for a close-up, and then click again for even more detail. This guy's been making wind-chimes and jewelry from old silver cutlery, and has been coming to Finnegan's for over 18 years, as I overheard him say. He's a real ingenious craftsman, and one day, I will buy a wind-chime, instead of just obsessing over them.

I'm still on the look-out for an old knitting machine box. I did find one, but it wasn't for sale. C'est la vie!

Really. Cast iron implements that do what? Sometimes, it's best not to ask too many questions...

This is my other favorite booth. If you're getting married and we know you, chances are pretty good you're going to get a wooden chopping board from this guy. Again, it's functional art at its finest. This craftsman's chopping boards are so glorious, words can't describe their beauty. It's the sort of thing you'll pass on to future generations.

And that, dear friends, was my most excellent adventure at Finnegan's.

Next weekend, it's back to yard work...

A Nice Glass of Well Water, Anyone?

2011-06-19T18:46:00.001-04:00

It's really practical having a well. This is Canada after all, land o' plenty when it comes to water resources.

I admit that I used to be pretty lax when it came to water usage. Having spent the first few years here on well water, our motto was "let the water run". The more we used it, the better it got. It's full of iron, sulfur and black sediment.

Can I pour you a glass?

I don't think I need to tell you the glass on the left is "city" water, which we have in the house. The lovely, appetizing glass on the right is from the well, which we still use to water the plants outside, and wash the cars. That we used to cook, drink, shower and do laundry with this water amazes me to this day. The quality of the water then was infinitely clearer, because we ran the well more, but today, as I took the kitty litter boxes outside for a good scrub (just the sort of thing I use well water for...), I was astounded by the quality, or lack thereof.

From time to time, our well water would just run black. It happened in the shower, it happened while doing laundry, it happened while putting on water to cook pasta. We're pretty sure it was just sediment from the holding tank, but nonetheless, it was disconcerting. I'm also aware that what you can't see, E. coli, for instance, is a distinct possibility, considering we're surrounded by dairy farms. We're also surrounded by lots of houses with non-conforming septic tanks, but let's not even go there.   The previous owner was a biologist, and tested the water in his lab on a regular basis. It always came up potable, but still - so did the water in Walkerton up until the tragedy - as Wikipedia so aptly puts it.

The day we finally were hooked up to city water was bittersweet. It was like having an umbilical cord re-attached, a regression of sorts. We could no longer deny the fact the city was encroaching and we're standing there with open arms, welcoming it. Hypocrites!

I remember a bright, sunny day. I can still picture the backhoe in the street, digging down, down, down, to reach the water main. I also remember Eric plumbing the pipe out to the street. It works like this here: the city contractor digs down to the water main and installs a valve. We're responsible for piping from the house to the valve. Eric was in the crawl space, I was outside, and we spent a lot of time that day, shouting to each other through the thick wall of the foundation. We needed to dig under the foundation, and at some point, Eric was excavating with a shovel outside (this pre-dates our John Deere TLB, which I am sure Eric was dreaming of at this precise moment), and suddenly, a few feet down, he hit what sounded like metal. It was like the ghost of the house (and there is one - a good one) had guided Eric's shovel to an old cast-iron drain pipe that went along the house and under the foundation to the ditch. It had sheared at the exit of the foundation, probably with years of frost heave. It served perfectly to thread the water pipe through, once it was cleared from decades of mud and debris.   We've had a few moments of divine intervention, specifically, Madame Ménard intervention, but this was one of those moments where you raise your face to the skies, put on an ear-to-ear grin, and give praise to the powers that are. Merci, Madame Ménard.

There are some things you dread, and the excavation was one of those things. But within a few hours, we had real, clear, sodium hypochlorite-infused water. Gone are the days of treating laundry with Rust-out. The days of scrubbing rust stains out of the toilet and sink - adios!   The days of clearing blocked faucets with CLR - buh-bye! The days of ironing Eric's white uniform shirts, and finding a huge yellow stain on the last panel - auf wiedersehen!

That evening, Eric and I stood beside the toilet and flushed, and flushed, and flushed, marveling at the clarity of the water. We gingerly took apart and cleaned all of our taps with CLR and a toothbrush, ensuring that hard water and iron stains were a thing of the past. We flushed out the hot water tank, adding years to its life. It was a day to remember.

And on a day like today, when I use our well water outside, I'm taken back in time...

...and I'm so grateful we don't have to drink it anymore!

We've obviously changed our water habits. We don't let water run needlessly, we have a low-flush toilet, and only run full loads of laundry and dishes. Overall, we're cognizant of our consumption. And grateful, too - very grateful - for the clear gold that runs from our taps.

The Benefits of Green Clay

2011-06-17T20:27:00.000-04:00

I've been fighting a reaction to a topical Betadine ointment that I put on the wound when I chafed my leg.

Turns out I'm allergic to Betadine - and sadly it's taken me a whole 2 weeks to figure this out - whippersnapper that I am. In the interim, my chafed sore is an infected mess, and I'm busy intermittently kicking myself for not figuring this out earlier, and for not using a green clay poultice sooner.

Eric loves his Betadine, so much so that when he goes to France, he makes a point of picking up a few tubes. It's sort of a cure-all for him, and as it turns out, not so much for me. According to my Google-fu, many people are allergic to Betadine, and sadly most of these people only discover their allergy post-op, as Betadine seems to be an antiseptic of choice during surgery.

Anyhow, I have a point I'm trying to get to: why and how to make a green clay poultice.

Now most of you are wondering what a poultice is, and think it's something you do to a horse. Well, it happens that green clay has incredible healing properties, and hindsight being what it is, I probably should have used this first on my abrasion, rather than the Betadine ointment.

But here I am, lying on the sofa, with a green clay poultice wrapped around my ankle, laptop precariously perched on my knees. And I feel better already.

Eric, as you may know, is french. As in - from France - french. He's been extolling the virtues of green clay to everyone who will listen, and it didn't take me very long to be a convert.

We use green clay imported from France. It's readily available in most pharmacies and health-food stores here in Quebec, and the brand we see most often is Cattier:

This type of green clay is a mix of illite and montmorillonite green clay. Both are renowned for their purifying and healing minerals, and let me tell you this little medical nugget: it works. It works wonders on burns, on cuts, on sprains and on infections. We've used it on Cooper when he had an abscess and my dad's used it on gout. The next day, my dad reported he had a huge water-filled blister and his gout healed much quicker than without the poultice.

As far as I know, Cooper didn't complain either.

I could extoll the virtues of green clay ad nauseum. If this stuff could be patented, you'd see big pharma make big bucks. But there's no appeal here, no money to be made, so unless you hear about it through the proverbial grape-vine, you'd never know green clay existed. One interesting article here touts the benefits of green clay in treating buruli, a flesh-eating bacteria. Interesting, indeed.

So next time you have an infection, and you're open enough to "alternative" healing methods, give a green clay poultice a try. Here's how:

Procure yourself some green clay. Google it, do what you need to do to get this stuff in your medicine cabinet! Maybe your local pharmacy even has it - ours does, but then again, this is Quebec. We're like France's favorite cousin. Buy a 50-pound bag from Amazon.com and share with your friends! I really, really hope you can lay your hands on this stuff, because it's great.

Mix with water (Perrier, anyone?) in a glass bowl and let stand at least 30 minutes. Do not use metal bowls or metal utensils - that's bad juju. Add enough water to make a smooth paste - you don't want a runny, sloppy mess. When you place the green clay on a paper towel, you want it to hold its shape:

Yummm. Looks good enough to eat - and it is! If you're really into the granola lifestyle, you can buy comestible clay. It's finely ground, and you add it to water, let it decant overnight, and chug-a-lug the next morning. If you're the turbo-charged granola type, well, leave it in the sun to "re-energize" and then chug-a-lug. I've never tried it, but I am tempted. I have given it to the cats and dog, though. They like clay, it's in their DNA.

Here's where things get good. Slap this baby onto your bobo, (that's french medical-ese for an owie), and grab a bandage and wrap up the offending body part. Go lie on the sofa and make Eric bring you things like ice cream and your Therapik and your laptop and the phone and let the cat in and out and in and out, while he's up.

Just kidding, you can actually do stuff with a poultice on, within limits of course. What I'm obsessed with is how I managed to get my leg up on the kitchen counter, twist my foot at a heretofore inhuman manner, and take a photo. How the hell did I manage that without dislocating a hip? Seriously...? Inquiring minds want to know!

Ah-ha! Here's a better view! I'm not as double-jointed as I knew I wasn't. Or something like that. Grab a lemonade and head for the couch. Act like Cleopatra on her chaise longue and demand bunches of grapes while petting your ancient cat. Trust me, you'll feel better in the morning.

You can keep the green clay on for a few hours, or even overnight. You don't want to let the clay dry on your skin. If it does, use lots of water to soak the poultice off. For dog's sake, don't rip it off, especially if you've put it on an open sore, like I've done. I'll probably wake up at some point tonight and pull it off. What's interesting is that an air bubble will have formed in the shape of the sore - that's so cool. It goes to show that the clay is absorbing something, doing something, healing something, somehow. I wish someone could research this mechanism because it would be cool to find out what exactly is happening.

After you've removed the poultice - toss it. It's not good for anything, anymore. If you have any left unused, simply let it dry and reuse again. It will take longer than a half an hour to soften but it's not a loss.

And another neat thing about the clay - it might be messy, depending on how talented (or not) you are with it. I promise you, this type of green clay will NOT stain anything. It will simply rub off or wash off, depending on the surface, without leaving any stain. I was skeptical at first, but it's true - I have a fetish for white sheets, so I balked at this when Eric told me, but I swear that any dried-on clay can be rubbed off, and then completely washed out.

So I'm off to bed. Green clay poultice and all. See you in the morning.

The Little Powerstation

2011-06-15T22:54:00.004-04:00

One of the most interesting landmarks along the old Soulanges canal in Quebec is the "Petit Pouvoir" hydro power station in Les Cèdres. The building above served to power the lights and locks along the now-decommissioned 23 kilometres (14 miles) of the Soulanges canal. The Soulanges canal became obsolete with the opening of the Saint-Lawrence seaway in 1959.

Designed by engineer Thomas Monro, and built in 1899, the "Petit Pouvoir" produced 528 kilowatts using 2 turbines, and permitted the locks to be operational 24 hours a day. Of 87 hydroelectric plants built before 1900, the Cedars central is only one of 4 buildings still left standing today.

The building is modeled on the "Château" style of architecture, and some famous Canadian Pacific hotels were built in this fashion, such as the Château Frontenac in Quebec City with its iconic turrets.

The old Soulanges canal is no longer open to maritime traffic, as the locks are now non-operational. Various organizations talk about opening the locks to pleasure craft, but considerable investment is required to build bridges, overpasses, and replace rotting infrastructure. In 2008, an estimated 160 million was needed to oversee this project. Needless to say, with government budget cuts, we can't hope for capital investments like this, even if the return on investment would be many-fold. We have a talent of subsidizing a variety of businesses that fail after millions of dollars in government investments, yet we are incapable of vision when it comes to saving our history for future generations. It's all part of the deal, and I stand by my belief that we need to know where we came from to know where we're going.

The shore of the Soulanges canal is now a popular bike and roller-blade path. People fish the canals, and rowing groups use the long, straight stretches between locks for scull-rowing. Like the Rideau canal in Ottawa that attracts millions of skaters each winter, the Soulanges canal could have the same sort of appeal to Montrealers.

With a bit of organization and a lot of vision, I believe that the "Petit Pouvoir" could be used as an arts centre, a community centre or even a hotel or restaurant. Certainly, I don't think the government can be counted on to invest in this historic building. It is going to take a lot of private initiative to save this building before it falls to ruin. Since the above photo was taken, the windows have been boarded up to prevent vandalism, and with each passing year, resurrecting this building to its former glory becomes more and more of a fleeting dream.

Je me souviens. That's our provincial motto. It means, "I remember" in english.

How fitting.

The New Work Shoes

2011-06-14T19:01:00.001-04:00

Have you ever walked around with a stone in your shoe, and just couldn't be bothered to undo laces to rectify the situation? I've been guilty a few times, but did something stupid last week that took the cake.

I have an old pair of work boots that I used to wear to work sites. In days of yore, my job was supervising remediation of hazardous waste sites, one of the many (hard) hats I've worn. It's a wonder these work boots didn't end up in a barrel of miscellaneous clean-up waste to be fed into the bowels of an incinerator, but they've served me well for many, many years. I even wore them for an entire season as winter boots, fashion-plate that I am. They've held up well until recently. The soles finally started to de-laminate, but with enough duct tape, I got a few more miles out of them.

I'm sad to see these boots go. They are a part of history, these Kaufman "Made in Canada" work boots. The Kaufman company declared bankruptcy in 2000 after 91 year in business. I'm not normally sentimental about inanimate objects, but I clung to these work boots. We'd gone places, these boots and I.

Last week I made the mistake of wearing a pair of tennis socks, and in a combined attempt at laziness and stupidity, I put on my work boots and proceeded to cut the lawn. For whatever reason, maybe the heat, or the bugs, or the fact I was wearing my hearing protectors, my senses were dulled. Evidently, my instinct to "forge on" was on over-drive. The outside of my leg was being chafed by the pilled, rough lining of the work boots. I kept chugging along with the proverbial stone in my shoe.

At some point, thirst got the better of me, and with it, the opportunity to take my work boots off presented itself. It was then that I noticed that I had chafed, and I mean deeply chafed, a nice ridge into my right ankle.

!@#$. (That basically means it's going to leave a scar.)

Off I went to Mark's Work Warehouse, known under the "L'Équipeur" moniker here in Quebec. I found a decent pair of women's work shoes. They are infinitely more comfortable, yet have the steel toes and soles that I need. I've put a nail through my foot once, and once was enough.

Years ago, I also learned a lesson when using a spade while wearing rubber boots without steel soles. The plantar fasciitis that resulted after a weekend of digging had me hobbling in pain for nearly 2 years. Just stepping barefoot on a piece of cat kibble in the kitchen caused gales of pain. Now, the first thing I do in the morning is put on a pair of thick tennis socks, and slip my feet into a pair of clogs. Going barefoot is a thing of the past for me, unfortunately. I've become a bit of a sissy where my feet are concerned.

These new work shoes aren't made in Canada, or the US for that matter, and something tells me I'm going to get a lot less mileage out of them than my Kaufmans. But my feet are happy in them, and that's all I am going to worry about.

More Before and After, minus the Before

2011-06-12T17:17:00.003-04:00

In my haste, I neglected to take a "before" picture, but you'll have to trust me when I ask you to imagine a thick, impenetrable wall of weeds filling the frame. I went through here, armed with a pruning saw and clippers, like a whirling dervish on crack. Think of "Taz" the Tasmanian devil from our childhood cartoons, armed with an imaginary Leatherman super-tool complete with gardening implements, and you're on the right track. I had burdock so high in here, with stems so thick, that I needed a saw to cut them down. Both Bobcat and Popina loved to play in here, (note the past tense) because it was like a jungle gym. Popina, being the high maintenance diva she is, would shoot out of here like a furry little rocket covered in burrs. She served as impetus for getting this area cleaned up once and for all.

Picture if you will, two large crates built out of 2x4's that served to transport the metal roof we had installed on the house in 2003. They were slowly rotting away here, again preventing us from running the mower through, or going rogue with the whipper-snipper in a feeble attempt at order. Years ago, when I suggested taking the crates apart, Eric chided me and said the wood was still good and that he needed it for some future project. I don't need to tell you that opportunity never materialized. I should have trusted my instinct and taken the crates apart while the wood was still good for something other than a bonfire.

This is now useable space, and allows us to store our recycling and garbage bins in an accessible, yet out-of-view area. It's not that my prissy, aesthetic sensibilities are coming to the forefront, but a bit of discretion (and organization) never hurts. There's enough crap hanging around that one less eyesore is welcome. I don't care if the out-buildings are ramshackle; the grounds can still be tidy. Some days I feel like I'm slamming my head against a rock, but every bit of improvement helps.

I was actually so excited when this area was cleaned up, I got up early the next morning and tip-toed outside in my bathrobe. It wasn't a mirage - it was really clean!

My motto has become "a place for everything, and everything in it's place". And if I can run the mower through or over it, all the better.

The Firepit

2011-06-10T20:07:00.041-04:00

Part of cleaning up a old farm property involves strategically placed burn piles. (I say "strategic" with the most facetious air possible). They are blights on the landscape, however, in most cases they are necessary evils when trying to clean up over-run grounds. I would give my right arm to own a branch chipper. Well, put like that, I might lose my right arm if I owned a branch chipper, so maybe we're better of with burn piles than machinery.

Invariably, excuses for not burning the piles stack up like the branches and twigs that fill them: it's either too hot, or too cold, too windy, or blowing in the wrong direction, too dry to burn safely, or too wet to bother. Creative Procrastination 101 rules here.

We've got three burn piles, and one of them was so overgrown, there were Manitoba maples growing around the edges that were starting to get a bit out of hand. We took it to task this spring, and although we still have to scrape the remnants of the pile together with the backhoe, it's not out of control any more. We should be able to completely eradicate it with a bit of effort by the end of the summer. I'll breathe a sigh of relief when I see grass growing on this spot instead of weeds.

Believe me when I say nothing good can become of a pile of old bricks, a crisp, starry night and good intentions, all underwritten by wine:

That's how we came to create this lovely fire pit, unfortunately situated right when you turn into our driveway. We strive to make good first impressions! Driven partly by practicality, the fire pit was close enough to the house so we could keep an eye on it, yet far enough away from outbuildings to pose a fire-risk. We always had the hose nearby, and burned only when conditions were right, which was never too often.

We had some old red bricks piled up against the wood shed, and we'd never use them to make a path, for instance, but they served admirably as the border for the fire pit. With time, weeds encroached, and our fire pit became a blight. The other day, I'd had enough. It was time to bring in the front loader:

Surprisingly, I ended up with a front-loader full of bricks that Eric could dump at the municipal dump the next morning. When Eric called me at work to tell me they no longer accept bricks, I wanted to wig-out, big-time. The thought of having to off-load this pile of !@#$ onto a skid for tidy storage makes me cringe. I want to get rid of this junk, not store it! I wish our conscience could let us bury them somewhere on the far reaches of the property, but we can't do that. So many injustices have been done to these grounds over the decades, that something like burying waste material would keep us tossing and turning at night. We've removed tons and tons of buried concrete already, so we don't want to add to the misery.

Because we've burned a lot of old, unpainted wood in this pile, it's full of metal hinges, screws, and Eric's nemesis: the nail. With tractor tires costing the equivalent of a mortgage payment, we like to take the extra time and pick out any nails. An ounce of prevention, (or gram, in our case)...is worth a pound, (or kilo), of cure. (One of those is a better deal, but I'll let you figure it out for yourself).

Using an old mesh screen, I started to sift the well-rotted ashes into the wheelbarrow. Next concern was where to actually dump said wheelbarrow. We've decided to spread it onto a small, newly plowed field on the south side of our barn. I was hoping Eric would return with an empty front-loader, of course, because screening the ashes would be so much easier directly into the front loader, as opposed to the wheelbarrow, but that didn't pan out like we planned, did it now?

So, we've put our feelers out for someone, anyone, who'd like to come pick-up a these lovely, lovely red bricks and find a permanent vocation for them.

And the next time someone accuses us of being a few bricks short of a full load, I can prove them otherwise.

Before and After - The Outdoor Version

2011-06-08T19:00:00.027-04:00

We have so many messes to clean up outside, and this is the year I'm hoping to tackle most of these eyesores. It's hard to appreciate in the above photo, but had I not taken out the thistles and burdock growing in this area, they would have reached the top of the frame by the time July rolled around. This tumble-down 2x4 structure, complete with shredded plastic that flaps crazily in the wind, formed some semblance of chicken coop in times of yore. Overrun with weeds and one impossible-to-kill Manitoba maple, this area was hard to keep clean because of the wooden 2x4 structure that formed the base. You can't even tell it's there, as weeds and grass have already covered it, but it prevented me from being able to run the mower through.

I've been meaning to take my biggest crowbar and tear the structure down, and on Sunday morning I had my chance. The weather was a bit overcast and the temperature was just right. Despite the fact the mosquitoes were out in droves, I armed myself with my trusty Dewalt saw, a hammer, a crowbar, some pliers, and went to town.

We've been using the old chicken coop on the right-hand side as a repository for some "bad" firewood we wanted to segregate from our "good" firewood we keep in the woodshed which stands to the left. This "bad wood" is not really bad; it's just our vernacular for wood that's not the greatest for heating in the dead of winter, but good enough to take the chill off some of the colder evenings we've had this spring. The stump serves as a chopping block, and I'm not sure if Eric still needs to chop more of our bad wood, so I left it there as a courtesy. I really should have rolled it into the chicken coop, but I'll get around to that when I seed this area later.

I couldn't be more excited to have this eye-sore cleaned up. I don't care if it's not super-mega landscaped perfection. My goal isn't to make the cover page of Martha Stewart's Living magazine. It's clean, OK? There are no more man-eating killer weeds in here, and that's what counts.

Believe it or not, it took me the better part of the day to dismantle everything, pry out all the nails, cut everything to wood-stove size, and remove all the weeds. There are 2 big rocks partly buried in here. They're sticking out just far enough to take a chink out of my lawnmower blades, so I've asked Eric to remove them with the backhoe. He's reluctant to do this, because he thinks they're HUGE, but my reasoning is we won't know until we start to dig. Maybe they're puny and a few shovelfuls of earth will fill the remaining hole? Anyhow, we can put it on the bottom of the honey-do list. Same goes for removing the Manitoba maple stump - the dang thing keeps making suckers, and it's going to take a lot of tough-love to discourage its growth without resorting to chemical warfare. I'll keep my clippers handy and stay on top of it this summer. With enough abuse, it'll give up. Later this week, I'll grab my landscaping rake, sow some grass seed, and pray to the sod gods for quick germination and good ground cover. We still need to pull the metal stake out which must've been rammed about 3 feet into the ground. Eric said he'd use a chain and the backhoe to remove it, but I think with one good rain, I'll be able to wiggle it free.

Eventually we'll need to tear down both sheds, but right now each serve their purpose as storage, and each gives us grandfather rights to rebuild them. We're not quite sure which form our new garage/shed will take, but one thing is sure, it won't be small. I've got a laundry list as long as my arm, considering we don't have a basement, attic or attached garage in our house. Our new garage will have room for all of our wood-storage, our cars, maybe even the tractor, and hopefully a little loft. I need to mention room for our drill press, because I'd love to get it out of the living room, and a decent workbench, because what we've kludged in the woodshed is not cutting it right now. This is why we have a lumber-yard in our living room, and I know I'd love to regain control of our living space over the next decade without tripping over tools and projects, wood or otherwise.

I'd love to get some chickens. And some mini goats and a donkey and some alpacas and a pair of draft horses.

And then I want a little green house, and a swimming pool and a water garden. Not necessarily in that order.

Although my wants are long, my needs are little. I've got all I need already.

But daydreaming about these projects while swinging a crowbar is what keeps me sane and motivated. It's one nugget of wisdom I've learned over the years. Doesn't cost anything - this overly active imagination - as my father would say.

That and the fact a drill press can be transformed into a Christmas tree with enough garland and lights. I've learned that, too.

Some Evening Photos

2011-06-06T20:36:00.002-04:00

Before I forget to post them, here are some photos taken on June 1. We had a huge wind-storm that day, with gusts up to 72 km/h observed at Dorval Airport. We went from a high of nearly 30C to a low hovering around 12C that evening, all in the matter of a few hours. With the open fields right beside our house, when it's windy, it's windy. I figured it was a great opportunity to cut the grass, since the strong winds carried the grass away, rather than leaving the clippings in a rotting pile. We're not that sophisticated yet - just getting the lawn cut is a challenge, never mind picking up clippings.

The field across from our farm was plowed and planted that day. Crop rotation is not happening here, and I'll eat my hat if it's something other than corn. It was a good thing the windows were closed that day, or we'd be walking around on sandy floors. I can only imagine how much dust was churned up during the planting with the gusting winds.

Things are starting to get tidier outside. Considering I spent three evenings in a row mowing, they better:

The sky was glorious. The setting sun lit the clouds, and on an evening like this, all is okay in my world.

I've still got a lot of work to do towards the barn. We have a row of apple trees here that get damaged by the huge machinery that drives by during planting and harvest-time. They're not in the best of health, and I'm going to try and root some of the branches using a rooter pot system I bought at Lee Valley years ago, and haven't gotten around to using. This year is the year. I'll be sure to let you know how things go with blow-by-blow details.

My buddy Cooper is never far:

He's my partner-in-crime. Nothing happens unless The Foreman is around to supervise. Honestly, I'm not even sure what the flowering shrubs are. I know the one on the right is a cranberry bush viburnum. We've got a few blooming on the property, and the cedar wax-wings love the berries in the winter. Again, on the to-do list is pruning it back, as it's gotten a bit out of control. Popina loves to hide underneath it, as some of the trailing branches have started to root themselves. It must be like a playground for her!

The high winds pushed the beautiful clouds all over the skies. It was hard to keep track of the scenery because, with each passing minute, the high-lighting changed. We had another glorious sunset, and thankfully, the wind was a harbinger of nice weather.

Fighting Fire with Fire

2011-06-05T21:27:00.005-04:00

With all the heavy rains we've had this spring, many fields are still standing full of water. That's never good omen when it comes to bugs. The wetter the spring, the more mosquitoes we have to deal with all summer long. This spring, we can add black flies to the mix as well. They're even worse than mosquitoes, and I react badly to them. They have the annoying habit of biting your face, especially near the hair line, and if you wear glasses like me, you'll appreciate the fact they like to go under your frames. NOT!

Short of marinating one's self in DEET, there's really no simple way around the bug situation. My theory is simple - they either like you, or they don't. I fall into the unfortunate former category, so I have tried a variety of repellents. Deep Woods Off works, but I'm not sure which I'd prefer, mosquito bites or neurological damage? Methinks I'll go with the bites. I hear those brain cells are hard to replace.

We've used Druide's Citronella spray with mixed results. It slows them down, but it doesn't stop them dead in their tracks, either. I've resigned myself to the fact that mosquito bites are a reality, and if their bites can't be prevented, they can at least be managed.

Meet my arsenal:

First order of the day is the Druide Citronella oil. Unlike DEET, it can't harm, so I spray it on.

Second order, for treating those bites, is Fenistil Gel made by Novartis. This is one of the top-selling OTC products in Germany and Egypt, and one has to wonder why, in a country so rife with stinging insects, we aren't able to procure this item here? Many things leave me shaking my head, but this has got to be one of the great wonders of the industrialized world. This is my miracle cure. I might have to reapply a few times a day, but it stops the itching almost immediately. I used to itch myself until I bled, even unwittingly in my sleep, so this is a dogsend for me. I'd say it cuts healing time in half. I just wish we could get it OTC here in North America.

Third order, despite the infomercial on YouTube that looks like a snake-oil pitch, I stand by my Therapik. The Therapik works on the premise that the venom from certain stinging insects such as mosquitoes is thermolabile. That's a fancy way of saying the venom is broken down by heat. The Therapik delivers just that: heat. Run on a 9V battery, the Therapik heats up your skin, and in about 30 seconds or so, you're good to go. I purchased mine through Lee Valley, so I knew if it didn't work, I could return it with Lee Valley's no-nonsense return policy. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it does work as advertised. Newer models being sold look different than mine, but it appears to be the same thing, just different packaging. I find that I need to use the Therapik several times per bite, but it does work to reduce itching and decrease healing time.

Between the Therapik and the Fenistil, I'm good to go on the mosquito front. I won't leave home without them.

A Sea Buckthorn Primer

2011-06-02T21:46:00.001-04:00

Sea Buckthorn Berries

We have many Sea buckthorn (Hippohae) shrubs growing in the hedgerow that borders our land. Our current windbreak measures about 600m or nearly 2,000 feet for those who haven't been assimilated by the metric system yet. Eventually, our goal is to expand our windbreak to over a kilometre in length, and we work on it, bit by bit, one tree at a time. These photos were taken in the fall, when the berries were ripe for picking, but I thought I'd post them now, lest I let things slide another three years. At least this way, if you want to get a few plants into the ground, now's the time.

Previous owners had planted these Sea buckthorn shrubs in the hedgerow, so we can't take credit for their avant-gardist planting philosophy. These shrubs are commonly used to prevent soil erosion and typically do well in sandy soils, but I'm here to tell you they do very well in our clay soil also.

These shrubs are dioecious, meaning there are male and female shrubs. The male shrubs have copper-coloured flowers, and the female plants produce masses of tart, orange berries that have 15 times more vitamin C than oranges. The berries are also full of essential fatty acids and can be processed into oil and juice. My mother made a syrup from the sea buckthorns last year, and she swears it helps against coughs and flu-like symptoms.

Sea Buckthorn flowers on a male plant

As research is done on the benefits of the sea buckthorn's oil, juice and pulp, the sea buckthorn shrub is enjoying increased visibility. There are orchards popping up in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Quebec. Juice is available commercially in Europe, and the Belgians created a sea buckthorn beer especially for the Finnish market. The world's largest commercial producers are Russia and China. In fact, Russian cosmonauts use sea buckthorn oil for protection from cosmic rays. If this means I can stop wearing the tin foil dome on my head, well then, sign me up! (Just kidding. I want to make sure you're paying attention).

Birds enjoy the sea buckthorn shrubs, and many of them hold a variety of nests. Predators such as raccoons stay away from the sea buckthorn, because, as the name implies, they are full of thorns as evidenced in the photos above.

It is these thorns that make picking the berries in late fall prohibitive. It takes lots of patience to pick a few pounds, and commercial growers actually cut the entire branch off and freeze them, so they can shake the seeds of the branches with ease. I'm not too convinced of the long-term viability of that concept, since you're always pruning back old growth. I suppose time will tell. At any rate, we're not interested in any commercial benefits, just happy to give away the odd plant or four to people who'd like to create a hedge, wind-break or prevent soil erosion along their shoreline. Our shrubs create many suckers which are easily dug up and transplanted. Every plant we have given away has flourished.

If you're interested in more information, some of the best on-line info I found was on the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture's website.

In the meantime, I've been religiously using sea buckthorn body oil from Weleda, and can't say enough good things about it. A little bit goes a long way. And if it can prevent harm from those cosmic rays, all the better.