Had a visit from the local fire department last night. Well, actually we invited them because of the flames leaping joyously out of a hole in thye wall, but unfortunately we couldn’t offer them much entertainment because the fire was out by the time they showed up. They diligently put out the fire in the cookstove so they could check to make sure there was nothing smouldering in the chimney.
It’s going to be cold until we get the chimney sweep out and disassemble and completely clean the stove. Good thing the weather is predicted to be relatively warm for the next few days.
Over the weekend we made a couple of classic dishes aided and abetted by our woodburning cookstove. The simpler one was good old baked beans. Since we like to do things the old-fasioned way, we limited the recipe to stuff we had on hand (or stuff our forebears would have had on hand). The end result was very successful. For the record, here’s the recipe.
Take about 500 g of dried white beans and soak them in plenty of water for about 8 hours, or until they become fully puffed up and wrinkle-free. Drain them and boil them in about 5 cups of water until they’re properly cooked, which is to say they’re starting to break apart and their skins peel back when you blow on a sample spoonful, but no much that they’re turning into mush. About 30 to 40 minutes.
Mince a medium-size onion, throw it in a Dutch over with the dregs from maple syrup jars, preferrably the darker late-season stuff, about a quarter cup but whatever you can find in the back of the fridge will do. Mash two or three hard-neck garlic cloves and toss them in, pour in the beans along with their cooking water, and mix it up. Add a generaous pinch of black pepper. Score a chunk of salt port and nestly it nicely in the beans, cover the Dutch over and put it in the over of the wood stove right before bed.
In the morning, remove the lid and add water if necessary. Stir things around a bit. Get the fire going again, and after about an hour check on the beans. If a nice dark coating (one that isn’t soot) has formed on the top, they’re done.
It’s that simple.
Over the last few decades NASA, the American space agency, has fumbled the ball pretty badly on getting people off the surface of the earth. Rumour has it they’ve lost the plans to the original Saturn V spacecraft used to launch the Apollo missions to the moon and couldn’t build a new one within a decade if their lives depended on it. It took them less than a decade to build the first one from scratch.
Since the original Apoolo program various branches of technology have progressed radically. Materials science and electronic in particular have progressed to the point where the technology used in Apollo looks like stone tools. Can you imagine what could be accomplished in terms of setting up a permanently populated colony on the moon today? The benefits that could be accrued for all of the earth’s population in the solving of the various problems presented?
It’s such a good idea that capitalists are getting involved. What the railroads were to the nineteenth century, space access will be for the twenty-first.
My domain, the one you used to reach what you’re reading right now, had to be reregistered last weekend. Swell, these things happen. My service provider invoiced me, I paid, everything was peachy. then I got a dunning letter fro CIRA threatening me with suspension unless I reregistered. Meh, I thought, I’ve done that, they should get their records straight.
Come Sunday morning at precisely 12:01 AM, my domain registration was suspended and I got a terse email saying, effectively, “I told you so” from CIRA.
It seems the service provider accepted my money but forgot to actually renew the registration. So, for the three days it took to get in touch with the provider, have them figure things out, get in touch with CIRA, and have that propagate through the DNS I was a nobody. I’m just glad I don’t make any money off of this. Hmm, I can’t believe I just said that.
Anyways, for those of you who missed me, I’m back.
I’ve had a heck of a time trying to get this software to work. I’ve now uninstalled and reinstalled everything in hopes that that will allow me to post once again.
Evidently it works because I posted this successfully. Feh.
Coming to work this morning I noticed a couple of sundogs at the heels of Apollo. Fairly typical of this time of year, they’re caused by ice crystals hanging in the air acting as tiny prisms, like the raindrops that cause rainbows.
When I came over the Carp ridge there was a bank of mist hanging over the city. Again, not unusual. Then I turned south on to Moodie Drive to head to the office and there was the most phenomenal sundog just sitting in the field to the left of the road, between the highway and the railroad tracks. It was huge and seemed to take on solid form. I chased it down the road until it ducked into the alley behind Zellers and I had to go into the parkade at work.
Some things are worth getting up for.
Up this morning at an ungodly hour so that number one child could embark on a three-day field trip at some French-only resort town in Quebec. She caught her bus at 5:30 AM as the radio was going on about a horrific tragedy involving a school trip in New Brunswick.
The temperature has gone back below freezing so the cellar is drying out again.
I spent a few hours taking advantage of the lack of snow cover to move a rank of weed from the pile outside into the truncated woodshed. The coldest part of winter is just around the corner. Rapa Nui doesn’t look too pleased.
The recent January thaw has raised the water level of our pond to the point that, when the freeze comes, we’ll be able to skate again this year.
Unfortunately the thaw also raises the level of the water in our cellar, which is not so good because the float valve on the sump pump needs to be fixed. When I finally remembered to climb down and check I found the waters up to the second rung of the ladder, about two feet deep. It took about an hour to pump enough water until the outlet lines cavitated regularly.
If you look at the picture (taken before I started cycling the pump) you can see the high water mark was at about the 30 inch depth, judging from the marks on the support post.
Today the buses were cancelled due to weather conditions. Around my place the roads were perfect: clear, slightly wet. No precipitation. By the time I got into the city the road conditions indicated slight caution and it was snowing pretty heavily, but traffic was crawling somewhere between 5 and 7 km/h all the way from Palladium to Moodie. I’m not sure why it was a snow day, except that it was pizza day and Valerie had baked home made buns and banana bread for wholesome lunches for te kids, which is two good reasons why it was a snow day.
Tody I must focus on clearing a backlog at work, nut my mind has been on what’s gong to go into the gardens this year and what approach I’ll take to the varmints. Maybe put a battery on the electric fence or something.
It’s the usual January thaw right now. Last week at this time we had snowbanks so high you couldn’t see traffic when pulling out of a sideroad. Today I noticed almost all the snow is gone along the highway. The freeway I take on the way in to the office was flooded so bad some trucks had rolled into the median. I always remember having a big thaw in January some time between and including New Year’s Day and my birthday. There have been a few exceptions, but they’re memorable because they’re exceptions rather than the rule.
Of course, the thaw this year is evidence of Global Warming. No so much so for all the previous years when it happened.
The goodest news is that after the long dry summer and fall, which caused our spring-fed pond to almost dry up, the recent heavy snowfall and melt has brought the water level up to where we can skate again this winter. Of course, that will require a couple of weeks of really nasty bitter cold, but that’s what February is for.
Another upside is that the outdoor woodpile, which had been under several feet of snow and ice, is now exposed again. That’s good, we’re going to need it. I really have to get the woodshed repaired this year. Maybe if I take a week off of work I can do it myself. How hard can it be?