I think this pretty much sums it up for me – brrrrr. I am officially sick of the cold. Really sick of the cold. And sick.
It’s still winter and I’m okay with that but . . . where’s the snow? I would take feet of snow over the cold and wind. In fact I’m still hoping for that whopping blizzard.
In the mean time I just want to snuggle under a nice wool blanket with a cup of coffee and a good book. Maybe with a little dog in my lap.
Yup, it’s cold. It’s January folks, and to the best of my knowledge it’s cold and snowy in January – at least where I come from. We have had some wintry weather for the past couple of weeks but if you watch the news you would think this was apocalyptic. You would think that no one had ever dealt with frozen pipes and huge heating bills. DEAR GOD and what about all those potholes! The leading story I heard on the news this morning was that Justin Bieber was arrested overnight for DUI and drag racing a Lamborghini. Seriously?
I have friends in Thailand that keep me up to date on their current fight to overthrow their corrupt government. They share information so I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of what is going on. The only news source that I have heard even a few seconds of news about this is Al Jazeera America.
Did you know that there are deadly protests going on in Ukraine? There’s a severe drought going on out west that will probably cause food prices to soar in the next few weeks (although the good news in that was people are starting to become more aware of eating organics). How about the fact that tar sands oil started flowing through that pipeline yesterday? Hmmm, now the terrorist threats to the Sochi Olympics are getting a little traction but are we hearing anything about the discontinuation of unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of people? That happened a couple of weeks ago. Watch the markets take off when the new unemployment numbers come out showing that we are at the lowest unemployment rate in years. You know why? They only count the people who are collecting. Yup, you won’t hear about that.
The news has become nothing but a distraction. It tells us nothing. It’s gossip at best, fear mongering at its worst. It amazes me that people buy into it. Predict a snowstorm that never materializes and business drops off to nothing (unless you own a grocery store). I may be showing my age but when I was going to school the six years that I rode on a bus (an hour trip one way) through the hilltowns of the Berkshires we had school cancelled very few days. I do remember taking a couple of very scary rides.
What I see happening is the news is causing so many people to live their lives in fear. They stay in their homes and worry about the killer that’s going to break into their house. They stock up on bread and milk at the hint of a storm. I’m all for being prepared but the last thing I will be doing is spending a crazy hour shopping for things I should already have in my kitchen.
I will continue to get my news from sources other than the main stream media and I will look at the weather maps available and make my own forecasts. I could do with a lot less hype in my life. For me it builds my anxiety level and I’d like to keep my blood pressure down. I think I’ll go take walk in the bracing cold in a quiet field with my dogs.
For some reason Sophie thinks the shower is just about as much fun as playing in the snow. If she hears the word shower she will run into the nearest bathroom and wait for you – in the shower. Doesn’t matter if it’s a walk in shower or a tub combo, when you turn the water on she will be waiting to get wet. She’s a weirdo. Judging from the way she looks in this photo she probably really wants a shower, she certainly needs one.
This is what I do on a snowy, winter day – bake cookies.
I put out a call for requests and this was one. Not having made these for many years I reached for my King Arthur Flour cookbook but knew instantly it wasn’t the right recipe. The one in my memory called for cream of tartar so I dug out the 1950’s version of the Betty Crocker and there it was.
The ingredients –
The shortening, butter, eggs and sugar are creamed together, then add the dry ingredients until incorporated (except the additional sugar and cinnamon). Couldn’t be simpler.
I use a tablespoon cookie scoop and place the dough ready for rolling on parchment paper. It looks like scoops of vanilla ice cream doesn’t it?
Mix the 1/4 cup of sugar with the cinnamon, roll the dough into balls and then coat with the mixture and set on the pan about 2 inches apart.
I line my baking sheets with parchment as well. Have I told you about my love affair with parchment? It changed my life a few years ago when I discovered I didn’t have to grease and wash my cookie sheets when I was done baking. (Ever notice how those pans never fit in a dishwasher or the sink?) This is the one time-saving device I would have a hard time giving up – that and the cookie scoop due to my ocds about size and shape but that’s a whole different blog.
Put the cookies in a 400 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes, they will just barely be getting brown. This is another cookie that I drop the pan on the floor (see Soft Molasses Cookies).
Saturday we had the most amazing snowstorm. I have been whining lately about our January thaw. Mud season is my least favorite time of the year and I felt like we were in it last week. Everything was brown and ugly, not what I want to look at out my windows. Walking was a difficult slog.
This storm started suddenly. It was fairly warm out and the snow came down hard with huge flakes. Bill and I spent most of the day outdoors just enjoying its exquisite beauty. There is nothing the dogs like more than us being outdoors in the snow. Snow makes everything a whole new game.
The light this morning was beautiful when I took the dogs out for their morning constitutional. There was some fog diffusing the sun long enough to keep the frost on the grass and flowers gone by in the garden. I think I look forward to these moments but the reality is I don’t realize what I’ve got until I’m in the midst of it. Once outdoors I knew I needed a camera of some sort so I abandoned the dogs to run in the house. Much to my delight they were where I left them when I returned (they have a habit of “wandering”).
As I walked around the garden I was struck by what a lonely process creativity can be. Sure, I share my images but I do not take them unless I am by myself (or in the company of dogs). I need to concentrate, to really see what it is I’m looking at. If someone had been in the yard with me I never would have noticed how beautiful the light was. It takes solitude for me to see. Interesting.
I read grumblings about people not paying attention to their lives when they have their cameras (of whatever kind) in theirs hands. Speaking for myself I can say that when I have a camera in my hand I pay special attention to everything around me, looking for that one thing that perhaps others would never notice. I capture it for myself but once seen I share. If I didn’t have a camera available to me all the time just think of how much we’d miss!
Some thoughts from the front lines of the chemical spill in WV.
My dad, a lifelong firefighter, used to teach Hazardous Materials Response and Safety classes to first responders. The first informational point he covered at the beginning of the course was how to read the classification marks on transportation tankers—the little diamond-shaped signs, usually mounted on the back of the tank, that announce via numerical code what kinds of chemicals are stored in those transport vehicles, and what levels and types of health risks would be associated with a spill in the case of a wreck. The first homework assignment he gave was for the firefighters to go home and stand on the main cross street in their neighborhoods and home towns for about an hour, and write down the numbers on every tag they saw pass through that intersection, then go look up the numbers. Dad said that the next week, when those students came back for class, invariably there’d…
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Do you ever want to run away to another time and place? That’s where I am right now and this is where I want to be. July, early morning, shore of Bear Island as the sun comes up. Warm, quiet, surrounded by water, birds singing and nothing else. Mmmmmm.
I had grand plans over the holiday break to weave some towels as gifts for family and friends. As often happens the best laid plans . . .
This is the first project I have put on the new/used loom I purchased in November. The photo above is the second towel in progress. I had some issues with the first one but wove it until the desired length anyway. It was supposed to be about 27 ppi (this is the number of weft threads per inch – it has to do with the density of the weave) but I think I was only getting about 15 ppi. I didn’t want to stop halfway through the towel so I just kept weaving. I have a thing about things being uniform and even.
Once the towel was finished I got out some tools and tightened up every nut, bolt and screw on the loom (something I should have done to begin with). I started the next towel and was relieved that the whole process was much, much better on a much more solid loom. In my excitement to use the new loom I forgot the most fundamental thing – make sure your loom is solid.
These are the first striped towels I’ve done and the colors are fantastic. The towels are a nice size too – 23″ x 36″. They are done in an M and W twill pattern. I had a difficult time getting into the swing of the treddling initially because it wasn’t making sense to me but I finally got into a rhythm and it went along fine. This is also a little different to weave because the weft threads are counted to make the design instead of measuring the piece as you weave. It’s very precise and as you know that is something I love.
Once this towel is finished I will weave the original towel again – it’s an advancing twill treddling pattern. I’m sure this one will look completely different than the first attempt. That will teach me not to lose sight of the most basic rules just to get a project going.
Fort Pelham Farm 