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Monday, March 30, 2009

Still skiing

Posted by Melanie at 21:28 0 comments Tomatoes

The grow op in the basement is doing well although I think I have been a little too enthusiastic. The plants are growing too fast for the weather. Even though April is upon us the snow outside my house is still four feet deep and shows no sign of melting.

I'm going to have to plant the seedlings into bigger pots, because it looks like they will be sunning themselves in the basement until June. I still have to build a greenhouse for them to be transplanted into as soon as the snow melts.

It's going to take a prolonged heat wave to melt all that snow. I'm not sure if the climate up here is capable of that before next winter, next ski season, begins.

Spring Inside

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Sunday, March 29, 2009

Finished Knitting

Posted by Melanie at 11:21 2 comments

I made my deadline, the end of March. I haven't blocked it yet I don't know if I will.

This is the Tweedy Aran Cardigan designed by Norah Gaughan Originally published in the Winter 2001/02 Edition of Interweave knits. For a short time it was available as a free download from Knitting daily.

Warm and Cosy

It took a lot of concentration to make this. Once I got the pattern down it was easier because I could see what stitch I was supposed to knit next. However, when my mind wandered I still found myself ripping back.

Finished Knitting

As always I kept track of every row so after putting it down there was no guesswork as to where I was. It's time consuming to do this but well worth the effort.

Soft

I can't wait to wear it

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Thursday, March 26, 2009

Wot Cabbage and What Penumbras!

Posted by Melanie at 10:51 0 comments

This morning the outside temperature was minus ten. The inside temperature was not much better. I cranked the heat and opened the fridge. I wanted something hot for breakfast, something colourful, something to offset the cold white stuff that is still hanging around outside my house.

I took a half head of cabbage, which I had been saving for such a moment, out of the fridge and chopped it into thin strips. Meanwhile I heated some canola oil in the wok. When a drop of water thrown on top of the oil sizzled I threw in the cabbage, stirring it until it became wilted and slightly brown around the edges. I threw in a heaping teaspoon of sambal oelek and a sprinkling of soy sauce.

This recipe, via Orangette, has become my new favourite way to eat cabbage. I will admit right here that I do not follow her recipe to the letter, although the intent remains the same. I have been known to add onions even red and orange sweet peppers to this basic recipe. The amount of sambal oelek and soy sauce is open to how spicy hot I want it to be or how heavy my hand is when I shake the bottle of soy sauce over the wok.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Vivaldi's Spring

Posted by Melanie at 20:29 0 comments

When I was out for a run today I noticed the snow had been scraped down and thus was nearly melted off the road. The frost was beginning to come out of the ground and it was muddy. As I ran I heard the chickadees calling to each other above the sound of the podcast on my ipod. I yelled at the neighbours vicious dog to get the hell out of my driveway. The dog ran away and I splashed unwittingly through a puddle getting my socks wet. It was sweet, having wet socks and my shirt pulled up to my elbows.

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Columbus Burning

Posted by Melanie at 20:11 0 comments

The CBC literary award winners were announced last month. Sarah de Leeuw, from Prince George, BC, won first prize for her creative nonficion story Columbus Burning.

Sparked by the burning of the downtown Columbus Hotel last August. Her writing is a poignant snapshot of Prince George. de Leeuw tells a story of loss and despair suffered daily by the old, the mentally challenged and the natives, all forgotten street people common in any city. Except, de Leeuws street people have faces they make the headlines of our daily news. Prince George may be a city with an excess of 90,000 people but it is still small enough that I know the families of some of the people portrayed in her story.

Despite the writing, which is excellent and the recognizable Prince George landmarks it's the closeness I feel with some of her characters which make this story, for me anyway, unforgettable..

Enroute magazine is publishing a different winning story in each issue. de Leeuw’s story is in the latest issue. You can read it here

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Sunday, March 22, 2009

Spring Skiing

Posted by Melanie at 20:24 0 comments

My shins are killing me, It's from snowplowing and side hilling down off Sugarbowl late this afternoon. I caught the sun a bit on my face. It was a fabulous day. This was our second attempt at trying to find the big glade we skied last year. We wanted to find it from the road so we could spend all day skiing it. We wanted to avoid the steep arduous trail and the trek along the ridge.

This morning we hiked 1 killometre up the trail then headed East. We crossed a lot of gullies, they all look the same, we were sure we had missed it so we started hiking upward. Somehow we managed to stumble onto the bottom of the glade and into the sun.

We spent the rest of the day hiking up to base of the cliffs, no further, because one of us forgot their avalanche beacon, and skiing down. The snow was surprisingly decent. The sun was warm It was a very nice early spring day.

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Friday, March 20, 2009

I'm a Winner

Posted by Melanie at 07:07 0 comments

The other day I received this email

You have won a book on the CBC show All Points West. Congratulations!! Please send me a mailing address so I can send it to you. Or if you are in Victoria you can come pick it up in person. Let me know

I never win anything, I mean never. The book I won is this years Canada Reads winner

Winning book

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Red Mountain Five

Posted by Melanie at 21:08 1 comments

The interesting thing about these trips is the dynamics between people. Three guys and two women living in a cabin 15x15 feet negotiating where to ski, sharing meals, and breathing space for five days is a bit like how I imagine the atmosphere to be like in the house of commons on a good day.

It was excellent spring skiing. The only thing missing was the sun. My dreams of stripping down to a t-shirt and sun block were never realized.

That’s us waiting for the train to take us home. See more photos here

Hurry take the photo the train is nearly here  
Friday, March 13, 2009

baby I was born to run

Posted by Melanie at 19:11 0 comments

I'm really enjoying running, I love the way it makes me feel. I just wish I could do it more. Either the weathers too freezing, there is a blizzard blowing or I have to go away.

I'm leaving again tomorrow for a ski trip. We're taking the train to Penny, a two hour ride, then skinning up into the Red Mountain cabin. There is lots of good terrain, the snow should be good, I'm looking forward to it. We ski back out and catch the evening train back home on Wednesday.

ski tracks

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

True North Strong and Free

Posted by Melanie at 18:51 1 comments

The Lonely Planet’s book, Best in Travel 2009, 850 Trends, Destinations, Journeys & Experiences for the Year Ahead, has got me itching to travel again. The last time I left Canada was for a month long trip to Portugal, with my family, back in September October 2001.

Despite breathtaking photographs and descriptions of little known out of the way corners of the globe, a hallmark of Lonely Planet travel guides,it’s what they have to say about Canada that reminds me what a diverse, fascinating, inspiring, awesome country I live in.

Canada

In the book, Canada is listed as being one of the top ten countries.

Some random facts they come up with are: Canada is the world’s coldest country with an average temperature of - 5.6, brr. The entire population of Canada is less than that of Tokyo and its suburbs except Canada gets 9,970,610 sq km to sprawl out in while Tokyo only has 13,500 sq km. Fifty three aboriginal languages are spoken in Canada. Fifteen percent of the worlds diamonds come from Canada. Canada takes in the world’s largest per capita immigration numbers each year, making for wonderfully multicultural cities.

The fabled Northwest Passage, traced by Roald Amundsen in 1906, finally became open in 2007 because of melting ice. This might be good news if you are a shipping company but it’s bad news if you are a polar bear.

Climate change is nowhere more evident than in Arctic Canada. Warmer temperatures are melting the permafrost, destroying ice bridges and the hunting grounds that the native Inuit have depended on for centuries.

The Pacific Northwest, Washington and British Columbia, is home to our favourite, big, hairy, bipedal, primate, Bigfoot. This famous cryptid is called Sasquatch, a Coast Salish word meaning 'wild man'. Stories about Sasquatch sightings are frequent in Westcoast lore however no one, to date, has been able to capture the hairy beast on film. Other cryptids include the serpent like Ogopogo, said to live in the Okanagan lake and folkloric Thunderbirds who alight on the shores of Canada’s Westcoast.

The spectacular inside passage along British Columbia’s island flanked and glacier fed coast is best viewed from the deck of a ferry. Catch the ferry in Bellingham Washington and get off in Juneau Alaska. You may see a Spirit Bear, Orca Whale or Bald Eagle. As a child I sailed part of the inside passage when my family and I took the BC ferry overnight trip from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert.

The Yukon river is ranked 20th among the worlds greatest. Kayak along it from Whitehorse to Dawson City like a gold rush pioneer.

Apparently everyone’s heard of Toronto, it’s like a major US city without the crime, 49% of the population was born outside Canada making it the most diverse city on the planet. Ironically, back in 1857, when the capital was chosen, Toronto was deemed to be too English for the Francophones to bother with so Ottawa was chosen instead.

Montreal’s comedy festival, staged every July since 1983, is supposedly the worlds funniest festival making Montreal one of the happiest places on earth.

Despite all the rain Vancouver is consistently voted one of the worlds most livable cities. When I think I once skied all day on Grouse mountain, then went home, changed, and sailed on my parents boat to Jonathans seafood restaurant, for dinner on the patio, I can see why.

It’s good Canada is featured so prominently in this book because in February 2010 Canada will host the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler

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Sunday, March 8, 2009

Slip slipping away...

Posted by Melanie at 17:57 0 comments

It’s March eighth already, Happy International Women’s Day.

This morning, before it was light, I felt my way downstairs to make a cup of tea in the kitchen and sit on the couch with my laptop. The computer screen has enough light for me to see. The first thing I noticed was the time. 7:30 AM? waaa? why wasn’t it light? Then I remembered, the people in charge had found it necessary, once again, to mess with time, blasphemy. Whatever, they should just pick a time, DST or ST and stick to it.

I went down into the bowels of the house to ferret out some long ago frozen applesauce. I put it in to the oven to defrost. I planned to mix it with cinnamon and serve it with pancakes for breakfast. I made the pancakes by mixing baking powder, wholewheat flour, old fashioned oats, not the fast cook kind or the instant kind, ugh, together with a beaten egg and milk. I stirred it up into a medium thick batter. Stupidly I had forgotten to put sugar in the recipe so we compensated by using more maple syrup than usual. It was delicious.

I discovered Orangette, a cooking blog, about a month ago. Molly’s recipes are simple, delicious and earthy. Wanting something different I made her celery root soup last night for supper. I chopped some of my fresh garlic/shallot shoots on top as a garnish. They added just the right amount of zip to the thick, creamy, flavourful soup. We ate it with my homemade, buttery croissants and brie.

What I like about Molly's style is her anecdotes about the main ingredient or how the recipe came into being. Hers is the sort of writing I like, personal, irreverent and informative.

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Friday, March 6, 2009

Cold comfort for change?

Posted by Melanie at 15:24 0 comments

So, Canada Reads bought down the verdict today, picking The book Of Negroes to be the book that Canada will be reading. They even have an online book club complete with author Lawrence Hill in attendance.

I’m rushing out to buy Brian Francis book, Fruit. It's the book which came in second to last. I think it will be fun, and an easy read for the evenings during my ski trip to Red Mountain cabin, during Spring Break.

Dianthus

My perennial flower seeds sprouted. These are Dianthus, scented cheddar pinks. I also have Oriental poppies and Rudbeckia except the Rudbeckia didn’t sprout yet. Last night, in a fit of angst, I planted more seeds on top of the ones already planted in the hopes that they better come up. If they don’t you bet I will be buying Rudbeckia plants at some nursery this spring. Although I want these particular plants, Goldstrum they are called, not some nurseries random idea of Rudbeckia.

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Thursday, March 5, 2009

ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

Posted by Melanie at 08:16 0 comments

via unplggd

You are a Mac fan from waaay back. You have a lot of time on your hands, so much so, that you think it would be cool to find a way to run Mac OS 7 on your shiny iphone G3.

Once the bugs have been worked out they will release the code so everyone can be retro computing. Read more at the MacOS iphone project.

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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Needles and Wool

Posted by Melanie at 16:48 0 comments

I’ve finished knitting the back of the tweedy aran cardi and I’m about 2/3 done on the front. I ‘m really hoping to finish it by the end of the month before it’s too hot too wear it. That’ll be the day.

knitting the front

I went to the independent sewing supplies store on 5th Avenue to buy buttons for it. The ones I really wanted were also made of metal but in the shape of flowers, they were also half the price of these ones. I didn’t get them because they only had four I need six. The women in the store, noticing my disappointment, decided to make my day by letting me have all three cards of these buttons (six) for the price of two cards (four). Yay

For the new Cardi

In other knitting related news Christa Giles podcast, Christa Knits, is back. I was surprised to see a new episode in itunes this AM, when I loaded up my ipod before going to work.

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Monday, March 2, 2009

Another phone company I love to hate

Posted by Melanie at 19:37 0 comments

Almost 2 years ago I signed up with Webcall Navigata internet phone service, VOIP. Almost 2 months ago they told everyone they were canceling services because they weren’t making enough money. I’m sad to see them fold. This Sasktel branch was small, friendly and staffed by real people who did their best to help you, and it was cheap, I paid $15.99 a month for their basic plan, including long distance.

For various reasons I do not have a landline installed in my new house and neither am I interested in owning an expensive cell phone.

I phoned up lots of other Canadian VOIP providers. None of them except Vonage would let me transfer my phone number, changing phone numbers is a pain, so I signed up with Vonage. What a nightmare.

I jumped though all their hoops and gave them my money on February 12. My phone number has still not been transferred. To make matters worse they gave me a temporary phone number to use while they undertook the immensely complicated, backbreaking process of transferring my telephone number over to their servicer. WTF?

Every time I try to talk to Vonage to discover what the delay is I get a horrible crackling connection or a worker with such heavily accented English it is difficult for me to understand them.

Frustrated beyond reason I decided I didn’t care anymore if I couldn’t keep my phone number. I phoned up all those other VOIP providers only to have them tell me they couldn't give me a local Prince George number. The only numbers they had were for Victoria or the lower mainland.

It seems I’m stuck with Vonage. As far as I’m concerned the only advantage they have above Telus, is they are cheaper.

If anyone knows of any other cheap phone service let me know.

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Sunday, March 1, 2009

The Elusive Glade

Posted by Melanie at 19:42 0 comments

I finally got out today on a ski trip although we didn’t do any turns. Instead of climbing the usual route up Sugarbowl ridge we hiked eastward along the creek. The intent was to find a glade, a really good place for turns, we discovered last year on our way back out from a trip up the usual way.

Today we hiked too far east before turning up through the trees and instead coming out into a massive open area. It would have been a great place to ski except the slope was too steep for the conditions, slabby snow.

Snowball

After much discussion we decided to head west in the hopes of stumbling across the glade. By this time the air temperature had warnmed up above zero and the snow was like porridge. I fell down numerous times trying to not kill myself, dodging trees, as we slid down the wet slope. We had given up on the glade. It was nice to finally burst out of the trees and see the truck waiting for us on the highway.

The best part of the whole trip was being outside in the fresh air with friends. We're going back next weekend to continue our hunt for the glade.

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