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Another
winter storm is sweeping into our lives. 25 cm of snow
is expected to fall before tomorrow morning. Already
the
flakes are crowding all surfaces, consuming
all the colour in the world. This is the eighth week of the Eight Weeks of Winter Tour de Force. It is still the dead of winter, for all intents and purposes. Snow cover, snow banks, snow falling, bad roads, poor visibility, snow, snow, snow! Ha! Or should I say Humph! Attila knew it was coming, this storm, so he has stockpiled firewood in the screened in porch, to last us through the next day or so. For some reason I am cold, and wander around in heavy socks, quilted slippers, layers of clothing all topped with my Cowichan sweater; and still I shiver into a ball when I stop moving. I think it just might be the intensity and duration of the winter catching up with me, overtaking my senses completely. It is an odd year, no doubt about that. Easter came early, as early as it will come in my lifetime. Winter is staying late. This means that winter and Easter have overlapped. The Easter Bunny had to come in by dog sled this year. No daffodils, crocuses or green blades of grass; we had sunshine though, something to be grateful for. Terra and Lares made the trek north to visit us on Good Friday. We had a wonderful time, talking, cooking, eating, drinking, playing cards... Terra and I baked our second pie together, an apple pie, and it had to be the best pie ever baked in my kitchen. We make a good team in the kitchen, do Terra and I. Attila and Lares chose the apples, Ida Reds, which were perfect in the pie. Attila prepared a turkey dinner fit for royalty. I even made a loaf of Chocolate Bread for Terra, which turned out very well. Actually, I am still recovering from my over-indulgences last Friday! Today, I am trying to keep myself busy, very busy, so as not to notice the developing storm. I have a loaf of bread baking in the oven, a batch of granola in the Crockpot and have worked my way through two loads of laundry. It smells good in here! The family history book I have been working on is coming along nicely. The more I do, the more I see that I want to do. At some point I will have to pick and choose what to include because it has become clear that one book will not hold the lot. To amuse myself while I work around the kitchen and at the computer, I have downloaded a text version of St Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson from gutenberg.org. The default computer voice, Alex, is reading it to me, out loud. At first it was a bit difficult to get used to the speech patterns, and I had to listen carefully to catch Alex's meaning. However, the more I listen the less effort it takes to listen to the digital voice. I hope that the computerized voices continue to improve in quality, because it is nice to have another voice around speaking words written from the heart. I despise radio voices; to me they sound like the non-interactive tomes of big-brother, droning on, filling the atmosphere with partial truths and agendas. I think I am almost alone in this disdain of the radio (and much of television), as almost everyone I know and like listens with pleasure. It is just that I cannot. |
RECIPES :: Cast Wordly
Distractions
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