Little Day Lost

 This was sort of a lost day. I have a recurring appointment each month to get my aged and horrible toenails cut by a nurse at our local Community Health Centre. She is just great, and I now have an appointment in 2024, because the holiday is causing a bit of a stretch. Yikes. But it is coming. The, shudder, Holiday Season is bearing down on us like a runaway freight train. Already the Christmas catalogues are out and I received my first envelope of cheap and ugly Christmas (and Season’s Greetings, of course) cards, tucked in with a request for money. They could have kept and used the money it cost to send it, IMHO.

And the mouse is there because there was a dead one in the hall when the inspectors came through. The new and extremely hard-working crew, who have tried everything to eradicate the little monsters, are not happy. I am dreaming of a resident Hall cat. Except that, cats being cats, it would probably gift the next inspector with a fine and very dead specimen of same, plus a hairball.

A short while ago JG discovered a bag of iced Christmas cookies in the downstairs freezer. They are now upstairs, thawed and stored in a cookie tin. What is left of them, that is. The good thing about the Holiday Season (Note my Use of Capitals, Nance) is that the YD will be home and make more of them. A lot more, if it is anything like last year. JG did find a whole bag of flour that she did not use in her mad cookie production, and he is finding it useful in his search for the Perfect chocolate chip cookie. I am glad to help with this search by testing each product. 

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. I am thinking about my parents, who were both hit hard by WWII, but that will make a post for tomorrow, I guess, to be sure of marking the day appropriately. I am not sure how to mark today, other than to note that I have done five days of gratitude, but should probably do 365. 

When I read the newspaper or online news, between two wars (actually, three, when I think about it), the sickening saga of Mr. Trump, the horror, again, in parts of Africa, and the absolutely disgusting incivility at Concordia, my gratitude is all about my country, my neighbourhood, my family and all the little things that make life worth living. Even if we did have a neighbour who went and got a Trump campaign sign and posted it on a Hydro pole. I never did find out why. He has since moved away. Phew.

And, to carry the theme on (thank you Jane, neighbour extraordinaire), I am grateful to you, for being you, among other things. And to your daughters, who keep me in the loop.

Gratitude. Day 5

Yesterday was supposed to be Day 4, and I was grateful for good, waterproof winter clothes. Only I didn’t tag it. I got involved in writing it out and finding a photo and forgot to do that. So, please note that yesterday I was grateful. 

I am grateful every day, in fact. For many, many things. Among these things are: a sixty-year and counting marriage; parents and grandparents who loved me and supported me and had me taught and allowed me to learn; teachers who cared and knew what they were doing; a city to live in that was clean, well-ordered and prosperous, mostly; good health and dental care that we could always afford; friends; a library close by; the time and money to travel. All of that.

But I am almost overwhelmed when I think how lucky, how blessed I am, in our two amazing children. They were and are intelligent, curious, hard-working, funny and generous. They have good health and outstanding careers. Okay, they were occasionally a royal pain as teenagers, not to mention teething, braces and the odd bad choice of boyfriends. Whose children missed those landmarks? But I have always been able to be proud of them.

I have always been able to talk with them, even if some conversations were pretty stressful. They bring me butter tarts and Belgian chocolate. They run their father’s errands and do his heavy lifting. They know how to work iPhones and can fix my (and his) problems. They even clean my kitchen. Although they have tasked me to look after both the grandkid and the granddog, child and animal were well-behaved and came with written instructions as needed. (And both the kid and the dog took pills without trauma.)  They have taken me on trips and vacations.

They even seem to like me. How unusual is that?

I suspect that every mother feels, in her secret heart, that her children are the absolute models of what offspring should be. Even if, sometimes, they really aren’t. But mine, mine, really are! And, oh my, am I grateful.

Snow Pants

It is shortly past 7:00 am as I write this and there is a two inch or so layer of nice new, wet snow showing in the early morning light. I will have to go and dig out my snow boots. I did not do this for the first snowfall because I knew it would melt, but this one is here for a while. And, this morning, I am grateful for … synthetics.

I grew up, you see, wearing wool winter clothes. And when they got wet, as you played outside, they stayed wet. Your mother had to hang them by a heat source to dry them and so you got one chance a day to skate or make snowmen or whatever. I got my first waterproof jacket sometime in, as I recall, university. And after I was married and my husband decided we would be snowmobilers, I got my first synthetic snowsuit. Bib pants with zippers, a matching jacket, and boots with an outer waterproof layer and felt liners. For the first time ever I was warm outside in the winter and it was wonderful. A revelation.

I know I have photos of myself encased in wool; I just have not got the time or patience to find them. But I did easily pull this one of myself in, I think, my second snowsuit; this one less bulky, as when you are working in the sugarbush, you get quite warm.

Note the mukluks. They were leather, useful with snowshoes, and were waterproofed by being rubbed with a wax product called, as I recall, 'Dubbin'. It came in a can and you got a fingerful of it and rubbed it in. Worked. Sort of.

 We had purchased, as recreational land, a hundred-acre plot that had been farmed once. Then it was probably logged over several times and it had grown back as ‘bush’ – many younger trees with trails through them. We used the snowmobiles to explore this land and surrounding trails and later to facilitate making maple syrup. The children travelled with us in a sleigh pulled behind my machine, and later, riding behind us. And they had synthetic snowsuits that could be wiped down, shaken off and dried quickly. I could put their soggy felt boot liners close to a heat source and back on their feet quite quickly. We got snowshoes and, later, cross-country skis. Winter was fun; for them and for me.

When my parents moved from Windsor to eastern Ontario, a colder and wetter climate, I persuaded my mother into snow pants. She loved them. My father bought a snowblower for the driveway and garments to go with it. He also discovered lined mittens. They both had quite a bit to say about the winter weather, but they managed it.

Just in closing, in the hall closet sits a pair of mukluks, belongings of the daughter presently living in Europe. She left them here last winter and I keep meaning to put a coat of waterproofing on them. Before she comes home this winter. I guess what goes around, comes around. After I dig out my boots, I will probably dig out the Dubbin.

By the Yard

 There was a lot of noise in our yard yesterday morning. The ‘Tree Guys’ that took down our two old and dangerous maples at the laneway exit were back. This time JG had identified seven big trees that, if they fell, would hit the house or the hydro wires or the cabin. There were two very tall basswoods, a maple and pine right beside the screen porch, a maple at the cabin and several others. So, there were three men, with chainsaws, a huge chipper, a 'cherry picker' and a fantastic and fun little jitney of a machine that picked up large, almost tree-sized branches, and deposited them at the splitter.

They had big chainsaws, small chainsaws and something that appeared to fit into a holster, all making roaring noises, in varying tones. At once. It was impressive, for sure.

I am not sure what took the most skill and sheer strength. One guy climbed the tallest basswood with foot spikes and a waist belt, limbing (cutting off the branches) as he went. Then he bounced back down, cutting off large chunks of the main trunk as he descended. He took off his jacket halfway up and dropped it. It stuck in a pine beside the tree he was working on. The next time I saw it, it was close to the ground. The next time after that, he had it on again.

The big limbs were being pulled by the guy who was running the bug, since the bug has a clamp on the front of it with which the operator can pick up big piles at once. And at speed. They all went full out, with two very short pauses between about 8:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. The guy with the rake? There was hardly a small branch or twig left where he had cleaned up. And it all went into the chipper.

So, what we have left are … chips.

I was too fascinated by the climber to get photos, but JG says he has some on his phone. 

Coffee!!!

 The Gratitude Challenge. The rules are that you post for five days listing three things each day that make you grateful, then pass the challenge on. A friend and I did this a few years ago and agreed that it is time to run it again. All contributors are more than welcome.

Day 2

I staggered out to the kitchen this morning, turned on my coffee maker, plopped a pod into it and hit the brew button. A short time later, I was slurping down my drink and life was starting to look livable. When I thought about this day’s Gratitude Challenge, the coffee maker was top of mind.

But, hey. Some clever man or woman designed it and others manufactured it. And it runs on electricity, as does the hot water tank that dispenses all the steaming water we need for showers, dishes and the like. As does the thermostat that controls the climate condition inside our house so that at the push of a lever, we can be warmer or cooler. As does the nest of wires supplying power to lights, chargers and, not least, this computer. So, the gratitude spreads out over a lot of designers, inventors and, not least, to the intrepid Hydro One crews that are called in when the supply is interrupted, at whatever hour they are needed, to climb poles, wield chainsaws and do finicky things in February temperatures with ungloved fingers. I try, daily, to be grateful for all I have that is supplied to me by so many dedicated people.

And, not least, I find myself grateful for the wonderful little inventions and adaptations that make it possible to do most things with eighty-one plus fingers, ears and eyes. Glasses and a magnifying lens, hearing aids, wide-handled peelers, all of those. You don’t think about them until you need them, and then they are extremely useful. A cane, walking poles, wide shoes with elastic laces. A magnifying mirror in which I can see my earlobes to insert stud earrings. And a coffee mug with a wide, easily graspable handle.

Inner (Dinner?) Gratitude.

 The Gratitude Challenge. The rules are that you post for five days listing three things each day that make you grateful, then pass the challenge on. We did this a few years ago and agreed that it is time to run it again. All contributors more than welcome. 

Day 1

I was at a dinner tonight at our local community hall, the @Watson's Corners Community Hall. The kitchen and serving areas were swarming with volunteers, cooking, carrying, pouring, cleaning, organizing, helping out. It was a fine, fine outpouring of neighbourly spirit and generosity. And, it was fun.

Besides that, the food was amazing. Way to go, Mike. No detail was too small to have been planned for and set up. Way to go, Chris.

I love where I live. I am grateful, so grateful, to be a part of this.

ps This is yesterday's post, just so you know I am trying.

Maple Cream Pie

Edited to add this photo of some of the pies donated to the hall's dinner. One of mine is second from the right in the first full row. We had a good turnout, although numbers were down from pre-COVID events. And the food was just excellent; 

Tomorrow the local community hall where I work is holding a fundraising dinner. It is a popular one, or has been in pre-Covid years. We get three hundred people or more fed inside two hours plus a bit. To do this we need vast quantities of food, including sixty pies. One of our members is tasked with phoning the baking list and collecting these. My order is for three; and I have, for many years, made maple cream pies.

At present, the filling is in the shells and cooling. Tomorrow morning I will whip up the whites of nine eggs with sugar and spread the resulting meringue over the filling, shove the pies into a 400°F oven to brown it, let it cool and transport, with some care, the pies to the hall. We are asked to bring the pies into the hall in the morning; the dinner starts at 4:00 pm – that is 5:00 stomach time since we go back to Standard Time tonight.

Which reminds me that I have to reset a whole whack of clocks before I go to bed. We have two that set themselves as does, thank goodness, the clock in my car. But there is the microwave, my alarm clock, the one in the laundry room… you know the drill, I am sure.

So, given that the very thought of Maple Cream probably makes you hungry, here is the recipe for this pie. Easy, as long as you have a source of, preferably, dark maple syrup.

1. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a heavy pan
2. Stir in 1/2 cup flour
3. Add 1 1/2 cups maple syrup and 1 1/2 cups boiling water.
4. Stir until thick and add three egg yolks. Cook over low heat for five minutes. Pour into baked pie shell and cover with a meringue made from three egg whites and 3 tablespoons white sugar. Bake in 400°F oven until lightly browned.

This recipe came to me from a very good friend who was an amazing cook. It is easy and never fails. Plus, if you use a small pie plate, there is enough left over in the pan to scrape out and eat off a spoon before you wash the pan.

I will add photos to this, perhaps, after I deal with the clocks.

The whole DAY has been like this.

 I am on hold, the second caller in the queue.

I wrote that this morning.  The problem was eventually identified and fixed by a very, very clever young man who noticed that someone had spelled our name wrong and that was the spoiler. We are an ÈourÈé, not an 'ore'.

 Oh, drat and other expletives. My keyboard has shifted to French. Again.

Back later. Or, perhaps, Encore un fois. Whatever.

Hah! "our".

I went to get my hair cut this afternoon. My wonderful stylist, who has been cutting my hair for twenty years, disappeared from the salon just as I arrived. Family problem. I have done the same thing myself and so I do not fault her. But a lovely young colleague of hers gave me quite a different cut. 

And there is no Quick Blending flour in either of the grocery stores in my shopping town.

And it is 11:05. I have just turned into a pumpkin - the kind that has just had its brains scooped out with a spoon.

Tomorrow I have to go and work at the hall in the morning, my daughter and partner are coming for lunch, so they will make it. Then I have to make the filling for three pies.

On Sunday I will put the meringue (Where is an accent when I want one?) on the pies, schlep them to the hall, perhaps clean and fill twenty odd pair of salt and pepper shakers, come home for a break and go back to work on the door for the hall dinner.

So much for posting every day with any coherence or plan.

 I rolled off to Book Club today, with my three typed pages of text about Follett’s Cathedral series. And when I handed it out, most of the other members remembered reading the The Pillars of the Earth tome. They seemed interested in reading the newest sequel, as reported. I did warn about the possibility of lack of sleep thereby. And then the rest of the group reported, historical fiction being our genre for this meeting. And each of the other choices was a book based on a real event or happening. And each of them was Meaningful; indigenous people’s suffering, Japanese-Canadian internment during WWII, the pogrom of Jewish people in Poland, ditto. And more. To be honest, I felt a bit of a fraud with my cheerful epics of what never was.

It is November 2^nd, and the calendar page has been turned. Our daughter contemplating the pond has been displaced by three candid snaps of the step-grandsons. Lovely to have this piece on the kitchen wall to admire, although we keep our data on a less exotic piece of paper on a clipboard. And in calendar booklets, pocket and purse sized. We do not use our iPhone apps; for one thing, we are not sure we know how and for another, we are used to our twentieth-century tools. JG’s brother used to be on at us about this, but we ignored him.

Tomorrow I am finally going to get the haircut I have needed for the last month. Also, while I am in town, I am going to buy the pie crusts I will need to make three pies on Saturday afternoon after I finish working at our community hall on Saturday morning to get the potatoes peeled for the dinner we are putting on on Sunday as a fundraiser. Thus, also, the pies. I think I have written about this event and the pie cooking before; the event is called the Hunters’ Dinner and we run it (Covid years excepted) on the Sunday before deer hunting season starts in this location. We have a neighbour who sights in rifles, and so the loud bangs have already started. The YD’s dog always hated these bangs and would need her paw held for some time after she heard one. Sadly, she is no longer around to hear them.

Nor is the YD around, as she is resident in Brussels for the next couple of years. Today her father wanted to show a photo of her swimming in a very cold-looking bit of water, but when I tried to find the photo on his phone, I phoned her by accident. Three times, I think. Three overseas calls. Thank goodness it was not a charged call series. I have a book on how to use an iPhone, and should perhaps be reading it in preference to Follett’s addictive fiction.

But reading is my delight, as well as my fortress. And evening is the time to indulge, yes?

Signing off. There is a novel waiting patiently beside the computer. (Note that Grammarly made me add those hyphens, but also wanted me to correct ‘sights’, not recognizing the usage. And corrected a spelling error.)

Ken Follett's Cathedral series

So, if I am going to post every day, some leeway should surely be allowed? This is what I will be presenting tomorrow at Book Club. I have just edited out about 90% of what my poor book club buds will have to look at. But, opinions are eagerly requested on this version!

"Follett surprised his readers with his first non-spy thriller, The Pillars of the Earth (1989), a novel about building a cathedral in a small English village during the Anarchy in the 12th century. The novel was highly successful, received positive reviews and was on The New York Times Best Seller list for eighteen weeks. It topped best-seller lists in Canada, Britain and Italy, and was on the German best-seller list for six years. It has sold 26 million copies so far. (written in 2017, I think.)

Its much-later sequel, World Without End (2007), returns to Kingsbridge 157 years later and features the descendants of the characters in Pillars. The next novel in the series, A Column of Fire, was published in September 2017. Beginning in 1558, the story follows the romance between Ned Willard and Margery Fitzgerald over half a century. It commences at a time when Europe turns against Elizabethan England, and the queen finds herself beset by plots to dethrone her. A fourth novel, The Evening and the Morning (2020), is a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth. Set in the decade around 1000 AD – in the so-called Dark Ages – the story "concerns the gradual creation of the town of Kingsbridge and of the many people – priests, nobles, peasants, the enslaved – who played significant roles". 

A fifth novel, The Armour of Light, was released in September 2023".

The information above is “cut and paste” from Wikipedia. There is a very extensive biography and discussion there; worth looking through.

I read The Pillars of the Earth many years ago and enjoyed it immensely. Well written, it has a marvellous storyline and is a bit of a learning experience about cathedral construction.  When I saw that there was a series stemming from it, and a new book out, I picked it for the club. And ended up rereading Pillars and chugging through the whole series.

Follett writes, in my opinion, stories that you cannot leave, even when it is far past bedtime. His research is really very good, insofar as my knowledge goes, and he writes good, clean prose. Again, in my opinion, the books are uneven. The prequel is almost what I categorize as a potboiler. It does not have the drama of the others, possibly because the characters are mostly not as well drawn. 

The newest book has a weak ending, for me, as he manages to move through the Battle of Waterloo in a very few pages, leaving me thinking he had either quit researching or had decided the book was too long. He has the set up - his characters are gunners. But the battle on the heights is almost ignored. However, the majority of the book is a lot of fun to read and instuctive on the cusp between home spinning and weaving and industrial methods. The medieval centre book is good, but the setting is not as well done as in the first and last, and he tries, almost, to cram in too much again. The Elizabethan one is the best structured, but not as compelling a read. 

I usually read books twice, once for the plot and once for the language and nuance. I will certainly read The Armour of Light again. I got it as an ebook on my Kindle, but am thinking that it is a book I would like to have as a real book. And Christmas is coming, right, YD?

Ghosties and ghoulies, (and lizards)

 And from things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.

I learned to sew on a machine at age eight and did hand sewing before that. Doll clothes, as I recall, and simple embroidery. My mother and grandmother both did a lot of sewing; my mother could tailor, even, and made my father’s sports jackets. I remember wearing blouses cut down from old shirts of my father’s, for one thing. Because not only did they sew, they were, politely, frugal. And I learned that too.

It is Hallowe’en, and on this day, many years ago, I had costumes for my daughters, and later for my granddaughter that I made to order. Or ordered them to wear what I made, depending. I looked up a few photographs for this post as illustrations, and am amused all over again at the first one I found. The ED (elder daughter) was a clown 

in a costume made from old curtains. There were a lot of costumes like that – I regularly rummaged the ends and scraps bins in the local fabric store and received, joyfully, donations of clothing not needed that could be adapted, either for regular wear or costumes.  

I wish this photo were colour – the dragon is a pale spring green with a red ridge. Later the granddaughter got a much more elaborate dragon costume as I was rummaging in a more high-end store – her deep green and golden scaled fabric had a shiny gold ridge. 

But the best ever costume required both father and me – first the ED and then, because she saw the photo of her mother’s wings, the granddaughter, got to be a monarch butterfly.

Father bent the wires into shape and I sewed old sheets onto the wire. I then painted the fabric, using a reference book to get the markings positioned correctly. One set of wings was donated to the school; the second was used by the ED and partner at an adult party as shown.

Sewing costumes was a lot of fun as they did not require finishing the way a proper garment did. No buttonholes, hemstitch or binding required. Measure, cut and sew. Once, when I did not measure carefully enough, the costume just barely fit. Luckily it was worn on a warm for October night. Tonight bids fare to be much colder. A prepared parent makes the costume big enough that lots of sweaters can be stuffed underneath. However, I did make ‘real’ clothes. For myself, and for the daughters until they rebelled and wanted clothes like their peer group; i.e., jeans with a label. For her last costume with me, the granddaughter sewed it herself under supervision. As shown; a long dress with a collar, puff sleeves and a yoke made from fabric she chose herself.

And I mended, our increasing affluence having allowed me to purchase a brand new sewing machine with a ‘drop arm’. This fine invention allowed me to patch a leg without unpicking the whole [censored] seam to get to the worn spot. And thereby hangs a tale. I wish my aunt, a marvellous raconteur, were here to tell it, but you will have to put up with me. This aunt, my mother’s youngest sister, lived near us and was actually closer in age to me than to my mother. Her children, two boys, were only a few years older than my girls. And my aunt and I did a good few things together. At one point, soon after I got this marvellous sewing machine, she arrived with three or four pairs of her son’s jeans, all with considerable worn patches, rips, and wear. She was, she said, tired of the boy (he was in his early teens) looking like a tramp and could I mend the jeans. I could. I sacrificed one pair to make patches and I reseamed, invisibly patched and trimmed the others into respectability. Son, receiving these garments, was devastated. The fashion in his high school was that the jeans be ripped and worn to pieces. My mends had wrecked his sartorial splendour and, in fact, he was now a laughing stock. His mother was most amused.

I am now on my third sewing machine, this one an all-singing all-dancing Scandinavian monster. On which I mend. And do not, alas, make costumes any more. However, there is a bowl of chocolate bars at the ready, should a costumed child appear out here this evening. And I hope for the full spooky moon.