It is Thursday already! Attila is beginning to set aside items for his trip back to the country house.
Attila began working on the wiring in the kitchen early yesterday morning, and most of the counter space has been covered with tools and electrical hardware since then. Since he worked on the project again today, the counter has been in the same condition. I will be very glad indeed, to have my kitchen counter back! When he finishes we will have a new light switch, electrical outlet, and a light fixture, all up to code.
Our new neighbours appear to be a young couple with a toddler. We included them on our Christmas card list for the neighbourhood. Every year we have been personally delivering Christmas cards to our neighbours. Already this year we have received a card from our neighbour across the street; her teenage son dropped it off, it was nice to meet him at last.
It snowed yesterday, and last night. About three inches fell, and this was considered a storm here, but at the country house it would have been relatively insignificant. The roads were a little slippery, and Attila did shovel out the driveway, but by late this afternoon the roads were clear, as were the sidewalks and driveways. Most of the snow melted today, and probably the rest will melt tomorrow. I did have fun clearing the snow off Tank though! I can’t reach most of the windshield, so the adjustable-pole snow brush, that Attila gave me as a gift years ago, is just the right tool.
It has been a quiet day here at the little house in the city. The skies are steely grey, everything else is black and white.
Tonight though, the Christmas lights will be twinkling, all up and down the street, and in our living room. The neighbours put up modest displays, which I favour. My favourite so far is the five foot high fir tree just down the street. It is decorated with blue Christmas lights, just the lights, which are a perfect combination with the green boughs dusted with snow.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
-3°C
Date: 3:00 PM EST Thursday 11 December 2014
Condition: Cloudy
Pressure: 100.7 kPa
Tendency: rising
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: -2.8°C
Dewpoint: -6.5°C
Humidity: 76%
Wind: WNW 9 km/h
Wind Chill: -6
Quote
“The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is.”
Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536)
Oh I love plain blue lights on a tree. I have some blue, green and white on my tiny tree in the living room, I just didn’t have enough for all one color.
I love the way Desiderius up there just assumes all “persons” are males… (smile)
Oh Desiderius, him… he is one of the authentic and really, really old, old boys! 🙂
Bex, we have a tiny tree too, it came with white lights. I didn’t choose it, it chose me, it was $5.00 so it had my name on it. We have multicolours on the windows, with sparkly gold balls hanging there as well. I like it too, probably because as a kid we had the multicolour strings of lights for the tree.
Hope your kitchen is now back in one piece and is well-lit. 😉
My favorite Christmas lights on a house are the smaller white lights. To me they look like small stars.
We only had about an inch of snow, here. And the wind whipped around so in the end there were a few mounds and mostly bare ground. It’s already gone.
I’m not sure what to hope for from winter. I’d like to see some snow but definitely not the 3-4 feet we had about 7 years ago. And not the 2-3 feet that stayed for 4+ months that we had last year, either. Guess I’ll just have to wait and take what comes. LOL! 😉
My Christmas Lamp and a few decorations give my home a festive appearance. Just the right amount this year.
As soon as I post this comment, I’m going to write a couple of Christmas cards. I don’t send many.
Shhhhhh, Christmas Eve I’ll be on the road. David arrives at Nashville’s BNA at 8pm and all shuttles will be retired for the evening. I can’t wait to see him – there will be no room for anxiety. 🙂
It is back together now Teri, and it looks great! The old electrical was original, 1940s black ribbed bakelite switch plates, all new and white now. Attila replaced the light, the light switch, then worked on replacing an electrical outlet, and finally added an electrical outlet to the bathroom, which finished the bathroom wiring completely. He enjoyed it, because he could tackle the project at his leisure.
It will be interesting to see what this winter throws at us, in the way of snow and storms! It has snowed a lot at our country house, so that Attila will not be able to drive into the driveway when he arrives home. He will have to park on the road, and shovel out the snow bank left by the plough. Then he will be busy for a few days charging the masonry heater, as it will be stone cold when he gets home.
“Me”, she said sweetly, “I will be sitting here at the little house in the city, looking at clear roads, and letting the thermostat bring heat magically into the house.”
Reenie, I saw your Christmas in one of the family photos you posted, it is wonderful! What whimsy and delight it brings to the room.
I send Christmas ecards to family, they are posted on Christmas Day. We usually chat on the phone as well, which is wonderful. Our actual Christmas Day will be just the two of us, as Terra is working shift work, and in her absence Lares will be visiting his Grandmother. We will see our girls and their families next weekend, at Terra’s house.
Reenie, you are going on the road Christmas Eve! How wonderful is that! David arriving, well, that is just perfect!
Maggie, Sounds like everything is restored in the kitchen. Atilla seems to work quickly. Glad you are well lit now.
Personally delivering Christmas cards. What a nice, gentle touch. I have never done it.
Snow…I miss it. I do hope it snows here this year. I find it exciting the first snow. It brings me to life! It’s the time of year that I will drink a small glass of port. It’s traditional. The first snow = port.
The fir tree at the end of the street sounds like it looks picture post card perfect.
In Ca. one year we had folks across the way who over decorated and used flashing lights. Oh, good Lord, we had to pull the drapes every night.
Reens, Is David driving you to VA. for Christmas?
What an interesting first snow traditions Nora. Port, you must like port. I don’t think I have ever had port. It is wine based, so off limits due to my allergy. My allergy was acquired when I was much younger, and I hadn’t had a chance to try all the things I wanted to try when it entered my life. I would have tried port I think. I hope you get your glass of port for Christmas!
Flashing lights, lol, too much! The animated Christmas decorations are on my “no thanks” list too, like the Santa’s who talk or play carols.
P.S. I was able to look at your FB page before I bowed out of FB. The article you posted about why wheat is so toxic blew me away! I took note. Very few baked goods will be coming into this house. I will make everything I can. I will also be careful of barley, sugar, rice, seeds, dried beans, peas, sweet potatoes, and sugar beets. They must be organic. Some of these we already buy organic. But there is also the fine print. We’ll do the best I can.I remember when shopping was so much easier. It’s time consuming and a chore now. I hope the organic codes are strict!
Hubby and I think it was Round-Up that killed his mother. She was an avid gardener and never protected herself with gloves or a mask. We could not talk sense into her. She got cancer and she died.
I have been ill for a year and a half and my intuition screams poisoning of some type. That may be why I am so difficult to diagnose.
I’ve been neurotically paying attention to my diet. It seems though the more you know the more you are apt go crazy. I know just enough to make myself ill. I really got an earful when I read Hulda Clark’s “The Cure For All Diseases”. She has a number of books out. The AMA has no room for her. I found her work (though stressful) liberating and empowering. You can learn a lot!
Well, I had to go and look at the article that Nora was talking about. Since I live in a large wheat production area and had never seen anything like this I did a quick bit of research, and all the red flags went up when I saw commentary on snopes.com. Snopes is pretty much the pre-eminent source for discussion of “urban legends”. So here is the link to the article on the RoundUp and wheat issue.
And, Maggie, a heads up for you with something you cited on FB. I’ve known mercola.com for more than a dozen years. It really is a very poor resource. Some of the things I’ve seen that man put on his boards… Well, you’d be wondering about his sanity. Always research anything said on mercola.com and look for another, more trustworthy, source.
Tops, I hope this is true. It would be very comforting. I have trouble believing our government and have read Snopes can be very biased. But I want to believe that it is not practiced because it is so much less stressful. Though I put nothing past anyone these days. The GMO take over in this country is very scary to me. x0x0x0x Thank you for posting.
Nora, the article about wheat is very disturbing. I found it particularly interesting because of my recent observations in the countryside. We travel through agricultural areas with great frequency, and usually I am looking out the window. In recent years I have begun to observe “dead” fields in the autumn, just after harvest time. I knew of no reason for this. One thought I had was that the farmers had planted GMO crops and wanted to kill them off and begin afresh in the spring with non-GMO seeds. When I began to read about the use of desiccants as a part of the harvesting process, I was totally appalled. That is when I found a lot of very reliable information regarding this practise.
Just before reading about this practise, I baked some quick breads at home, using a bag of all purpose flour from the grocery store. For the first time in my life, I felt ill from eating my own baking. I tried eating the bread again the next day, ill again. I ate other bread products, baked with other flour, and felt no ill effects. There was something about the flour from the grocery store that wasn’t right. I do not have a lab, so I do not know what wasn’t right about it, I only know it wasn’t right.
Regardless of what “science” and “pseudo-science” have to say about the practise, and its affect on human health, I will be following my own intuition to make personal choices. The universe usually sends me these clustered series of discoveries to keep me aware and assist me in navigating the complicated and unreliable world in which we live.
My personal approach to all this information is that I will buy local food, from the most reliable sources I can comfortably find and afford, whenever I can. I consider that to be doing what I can, when I can. Beyond that I will not be worrying about what is available, because the rest is beyond my control.
The flour that made me feel ill, for whatever reason, was a chain store generic brand, which I will never purchase again. Flour is a tough one, because it is difficult to buy locally grown and milled flour.
I think King Arthur Flour in the USA may be a reliable source of high quality products, but I haven’t researched that in detail because I am in Canada.
We buy our flour from a local mill, but there is no guarantee that they aren’t milling flour harvested with roundup. I wrote to them and inquired, but they have not responded. Often, when I ask these questions the companies are taken by surprise, and after researching the issue they either adopt some kind of policy, or ignore the issue.
There is an excellent source of grains in Ontario, the Oak Manor Farm products are excellent, costly, but excellent. They have stated that their products are not harvested using roundup or any chemical of that nature.
Teri, thanks for the heads up on mercola.com, I included various sources, and that one was included for balance, as representative of “pseudo-scientific” entrepreneurial approach to science and health issues.
Nora, the practise is not universal, but it does exist. I have observed it. The Canadian government, and chemical companies, promote it. As for how widespread it is, and how harmful it is, there are two camps. The government/science camp, influenced by large corporate interests, which claims no ill effect, and the opposing “alternative” crowd, influenced by their own entrepreneurial agendas. At this point in history, science is so dominated by corporate interests that it is difficult to rely on it entirely as a credible source. That leaves us with nothing definitive to rely on, which is why I follow my own intuition when making decisions, after reading what both sides of the great divide have to say. The “alternative” people are not always wrong, the “scientists” are not always right.
The stress of worrying about these things could be as harmful as the products harvested with roundup and the like. I like to assess, come up with plan, follow the plan, and forget about the whole issue until the universe sends me another clustered series of discoveries. Then it will be time to reassess.
Here is a bit about GMO from King Arthur Flour, who ship products ordered on the internet: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/flours/gmo-wheat.html
To alert them to concerns about the use of desiccants during harvest, you could send them an email. I find these companies very responsive for the most part.
Maggie, in the end I look at the logic of an argument: is it logical to spend thousands of dollars to spray an unnecessary chemical on wheat just before harvest? Especially RoundUp. RoundUp is an herbicide used to control thistle and other noxious weeds. It may be sprayed during mid-season (and that’s when it’s recommended use is) but there’s no point in spraying it at the end of the year. Wheat doesn’t have leaves so spraying it won’t cause much effect – which is why it can be used to treat weeds in mid-season but it doesn’t harm the wheat.
Now if we’re talking soy beans, that’s completely different. Yes, many farms spray soy beans with a desiccant at harvest time to make the leaves drop off before harvesting.
I have no idea what you mean by “dead” fields. I see harvested and turned fields all the time in the Fall, both from Mennonite (hand harvested) and non-Mennonite farmers. All the fields become harvest ready within about a week of each other, and I’m sure the Mennonites would not be using chemicals.
Most definitely, except for this year and last year, we had many farms that had fields dying off early due to lack of water. DH and I watched that happen, with even corn being stunted by lack of moisture.
I’ve been buying organic flour and grains for years and will continue to hoping for the best. But we do buy bakery products-hubby has a sweet tooth- and now I will hold back. I used to cook and make so many things from tooth powder (still do) to kitchen cleaner (same). But cooking since I got ill is difficult and I will take the easy way out which is not good. It’s the time I need most to be on top of things. I’m working on getting my groove back and getting well.
I’m suspicious of so much when it comes to the government now. I just do not trust the polices.
Teri, the “dead” fields are fields that have not been turned, ploughed, but have been harvested, and are completely dead, every weed, every bit of organic matter in the field is intact, and brown, and totally dead, while all around the field the organic matter is green, including the weeds. I have never seen this before, anywhere, it is a completely new phenomenon. It looks like the result of “scorched earth” chemical warfare.
Nora, it sounds challenging, getting back your groove! I wish you well, and I am sending good thoughts your way.
Thanks Maggie, truly appreciate this. x0x0x0x