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Monday, August 31, 2009

Erg Mountain

Posted by Melanie at 20:20 0 comments

The only thing wrong with yesterday's hike was the smoky haze that blocked our spectacularly awesome views of the surrounding peaks. There must be air currents bringing it up from the fires down south. We hiked almost continuously from 9 Am when we left the vehicles until 7 PM when we got back. The logging road had been deactivated some years ago and the bridge across Ptarmigan creek taken away, the rest of the road was overgrown so it took us a good hour to hike up to the trailhead.

original signs

The trail goes straight up an almost cliff like slope for what seems like forever. I started noticing my hamstring aching. In an effort not to aggravate it further I tried taking smaller steps and moving my legs faster, a technique suggested in the literature I’ve been reading, it didn’t seem to work. Eventually someone offered me a tensor bandage, which I wound around the top of my leg. By the time we got into the alpine my hamstring was beginning to feel better. I think I might do this more often since today my hamstring feels fine although that could be because my quads hurt more.

Despite the lack of views being in the alpine was lovely. It’s my favourite part of any mountain. Most of the plants were dying off, getting ready for winter but the paintbrush and a few other flowers were still in bloom. We hiked along the ridges as far as we could, taking tons of pictures and enjoying the experience immensely.

going back

Peak Pose

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Don't write about knitting

Posted by Melanie at 20:32 1 comments

The other day a friend phoned me. He wanted to know what I was knitting. I said I wasn’t knitting anything but he didn’t hear me and he went on insisting I must be knitting something, something for the baby like one of those jacket, bootie and hat sets. Finally, when he paused for breath, I said I'M NOT KNITTING THE BABY ANYTHING, and I have no plans too.

I’m not doing any knitting at all. I have 2 UFO’s (unfinished objects) knitting projects that are unfinished. One of them is a lace cardi. It makes me shudder thinking about all that stitch counting, concentrating till my eyes roll away and eventual frogging (unpicking) that it will entail to get it done. The other project is a topdown cardi, knit in one piece. I’ve already frogged it twice because I’m not following the pattern and it was too narrow to go around my hips.

My sister still thinks I want to knit so she got me a $30 gift certificate to Urban Yarns, a great knitting shop on West Tenth in Vancouver, for my birthday. In the libray I found a book on knitting with Noro. It is a wonderful hand dyed yarn, made in Japan, that I've always wanted to knit with. I spent a long time looking at the shops website, looking at their collection of Noro yarn and flipping through the book trying to find something that would be fairly mindless to knit and something I would wear.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Friends

Posted by Melanie at 21:23 0 comments

By the time we got back down to the vehicles we were all cold and soaked to the skin. Not because of the annoying rain showers or the uninvited hail but more because the underbrush was sopping wet.

hiking group

It was cold

at the top of the slippery mountain

As far as hiking went there were barely any views. We had to be content with the mountain peaks and green meadows we could glimpse beneath the clouds. If it wasn’t for the company of my friends I might have turned around and gone home. But, being among friends makes everything worthwhile, miraculously turning the most miserable hike into an enjoyable time.

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

In lieu of a real blog post I give you links.

Posted by Melanie at 21:15 1 comments

1) All the comforts of home in a tent.
<http://newsroom.orange.co.uk/2009/06/22/orange-pitches-glastonbury-solar-concept-tent/ >
For the life of me I see no possible use for this.

2) Rules for Navigating the unwired world.
<http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/17-08/by_index>
It's an entertaining, maybe useful, way to spend a few minutes.

3) Fabric made from the leaf stalk of a banana naturally wicks away liquid, no chemical waterproofing required.
<http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/hot-or-not-naturally-water-repellent-fabric-093031>
But, is it breathable?

4) I really love this.
<http://bit.ly/jXiE1>
Although I would like the real thing, not a reproduction, even if there is no place to plug in my ipod.

5) You've got to be kidding.
<http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/dc/inspiration/inspiration-petalpowered-camper-093532>

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Birthday

Posted by Melanie at 20:45 3 comments Fifty years apart, almost

This weekend, August fourteenth, I did something I will never do again. I turned fifty or as my youngest sister kept bugging me, I became half a century old.

In case you’re wondering I feel the same.

My whole family came up to help me celebrate, as well as celebrate the arrival of our youngest member.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009

Baby Photos

Posted by Melanie at 13:45 0 comments

After my children were born I gave both sets of Grandparents those books with the plastic sleeves you can display photos in. Periodically I sent them photos of the babies to update their books. Nowadays I email the photos to family members so they can update their virtual photo books. Since the birth of my grandson I find I’m doing both. After I’ve downloaded the photos to my Mac I immediately send them off to the photolab to be printed, even if it is only a couple.

The photolab doesn’t care if there is only one picture to print and neither do they care if I pay for it with my visa.

I put all these photos of my Grandson on the fridge. The other thing I do is download them to my ipod nano so that every time I plug it into the computer not only do I get the latest podcasts but also the latest photos of my Grandson.

It's easier to show friends and family the photos on the nano rather than carrying around a photo album.

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Sunday, August 9, 2009

Don't Mess With Perfection

Posted by Melanie at 19:47 0 comments

Oats and chocolate are two of my favourite things to eat. When I tasted the Oat Fudge Bar a few years ago, sold at Starbucks, I was hooked. There are three Starbucks outlets in Prince George but, they are all a car ride or very long bike ride away. And, I imagine the oat fudge bar to be made of, well, oats, chocolate, sugar and probably unpronounceable things designed to keep it fresh. It’s these things I want to avoid eating AMAP but, my desire for a Starbucks oat fudge bar is unreasonable. In order to satisfy my desire I embarked upon a quest to make Oat Fudge Bars at home. At first, Googling Starbucks oat fudge bar came up with zero hits. I tried combining recipes for brownies and oat squares which, while tasty, did not emulate the real thing. The word fudge should have tipped me off but I’m blind.

Last winter I found this recipe on the internet. I was a little leery of the condensed milk but I bought a can anyway and instead of chocolate chips I used organic dark chocolate, my newest obsession on the road to healthful eating. Dark chocolate contains more flavonoids, the good stuff, and being organic it’s got to be better than the other kind. Oh, and it tastes divine.

Anyhow, the recipe made up into something, which while edible was not perfect.

In the spring my oven blew up and was out of commission. Needing something sweet to keep me centered I decided to make chocolate fudge because it requires no oven, I can get my allowance of flavonoids and it’s ultra sweet.

Some time later, after the oven was fixed and my gastronomic life was back to normal, I was blindsided with the obvious thought I should combine the fudge recipe with the oat part of the Starbucks recipe.

I’m so dumb.

Because, the oat dough needs to be creamier and butterier than the one in the recipe, I tweaked it, reducing the flour by almost a cup and increasing the oats by more than a cup.

Oat Fudge Bar

The result is superb. I ‘ve been known to eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner until it is gone.

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Friday, August 7, 2009

My Clover Lawn Is A Smashing Success or how to be lazy

Posted by Melanie at 18:55 2 comments

Green roofs and walls have been getting a lot of press in the last few years. The new Vancouver trade and Convention center has been planted with one of the largest green roofs on the planet. The whole six-acre roof is home to an indigenous coastal BC meadow. It is watered with treated black water from the building. The point of the roof was: to increase the habitat, downtown, for threatened insects, honeybees and songbirds, its aesthetic attribute and its ability to increase the roof insulation thus saving on heating and cooling costs.

The pitch of my roof is way too steep for an indigenous meadow. I decided to bring the concept closer to the ground and replace my, would be lawn with clover and other indigenous northern BC plants.

sprouting lawn

Last year I planted Trifolium repens, Dutch White clover seed all around my house. By the end of May, with a little help from me in the form of water from the hose, it had all sprouted. As summer started winding down it was getting out of control so I cut it back to about two inches high with my weed whacker. This spring it started growing very slowly and I noticed some of it had died off under the snow. However, even though we have had little rain in the past month it has grown well. A lot of native plants have moved in, Achillea millefolium-Yarrow, Rosa acicularis-roses, Aster conspicuus-Asters, Castilleja miniata-paintbrush and Epilobium angustifolium-Fireweed etc. (I don’t know the Latin names for these plants off hand and I’m too lazy to look them up at the moment) I’m encouraging the ones I like and weeding out the ones I hate, like those classified as noxious weeds.

south Lawn

My reasons for planting a clover lawn are, I’m lazy and have no interest in coddling (fertilizing, mowing and watering) a conventional lawn, not to mention the expense. Self sustainable clover pushes its roots deep into the earth in search of water. It fixes nitrogen from the air, storing it in root nodules so it doesn't need fertilizing. The clover, along with the native plants have attracted a huge array of insect life. This year I have seen dragonflies, from the almost dried up bog on the property next to ours, crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, butterflies and other unnamed bugs I have never seen before.

west lawn

The clover and other assorted plants are soft under my bare feet and I love the fact that apart from cutting it down once this summer to a six – eight inch height I have not done anything else to it.

So, what’s next, honey bee hives?

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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Bummer Bummer Bummer Bummer

Posted by Melanie at 20:24 0 comments

The complete bummer is that I re-ripped my hamstring muscle. I did it while doing the stretching exercises the physiotherapist gave me. I told him, the physio, this yesterday while I lay on the bed and he worked his hands up and down my hamstring expertly finding the very spot, massaging away all the achy horridness. The other bummer is he is not doing this to the rest of my body.

Also, I ran out of doctor prescribed drugs. Ibuprofen doesn’t quite cut it so tomorrow I have an appointment to get more drugs among other things. The fourth bummer is I probably have to forgo my 19k run up Foothills and back on Sunday.

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