Setbacks

8:20 a.m.

It is still early, but I’ve already tackled multiple mini-setbacks in my morning projects. We have been up for hours, it is 8:20 a.m. Attila is out in the driveway shoveling us out. Yesterday evening and last night we received a lot of snow, not a lot compared to upper state New York, Buffalo, Watertown, those areas are received incredible amounts of snow. But for us, the six or seven inches we received seems like a lot. The winter I lived here alone I shoveled a lot of snow, it was a snowy winter. But shoveling snow is behind me now, with my aneurysm I will not be doing anything like that again, unless of course the medical world miraculously cures me. I am not holding my breath on a miracle cure though, that would be unhealthy for me on so many levels.

The bread baking was started early. The first small barrier to completion was running out of ground flax seed. It did not take long to grind more for the bread, but another issue arose in I used all the whole flax seed. That necessitated digging through the freezer in the basement in search of another bag of flax seed, which was located, and now sits thawing in the living room. I always wait until packages of dry goods are completely thawed before opening them, to avoid condensation adding unwanted moisture to the product. Which leads to the second small barrier to completion.

There was not enough gluten flour to bake a loaf of bread. Down to the freezer once more to find the bag of gluten flour we purchased on our supply run in August, or was it September, it all blends together when dates aren’t important. Now the bag of gluten flour sits thawing, beside the bag of whole flax seed.

And the bread baking has ground to a temporary halt.

The next challenge came as a result of measuring out all but the last 1/4 cup of white bread flour for the loaf of bread in progress. The contents of the almost empty bucket needed to be dumped into the almost full bucket. While doing this, with Attila’s assistance, flour was spilled on my black down vest, and on the floor. This created another wee challenge to clean the vest. The empty bucket now sits on the kitchen floor waiting to be cleaned, and dried, as it will be used to store popcorn, which has been removed from the freezer in the basement as well, and is thawing down there on a piece of cardboard on the floor.

So presently I am not baking my bread!

I do not eat candy, but Attila does. On our trip out for supplies at the grocery store there were bags of caramels on sale, leftover from Halloween, at a very reasonable price. We bought a lot of them. Attila will eat some, he likes a few pieces of candy for his drive home from work, the long drive after the long day, just to keep his energy levels up and to keep alert while driving. Some will be used in baking. I plan on making Apple Muffins today, and placing one caramel in each muffin before popping them into the oven. We will see how that goes. I will eat one of these muffins to assess the recipe, and the rest will be packaged and frozen for Attila’s workday lunches.

2:10 p.m.

The gluten flour eventually thawed, and the bread baking project continued. It was a 2 kg bag of gluten flour. A 1 1/2 quart canning jar was filled for immediate use, but the rest need to go back into the freezer. I decided to vacuum seal it, which enhances shelf life.

While I had the vacuum sealer out to deal with the gluten flour, we decided to finish processing our sausage patties, which were made and frozen yesterday. We made 57 sausage patties, three dozen were vacuum sealed, and went into the freezer in the basement. The remaining patties were packaged two to a bag, some went into the freezer in the basement, and some went into the refrigerator freezer in the kitchen.

While I have been busy in the kitchen, Attila is busy removing a copper fuel line from a previous oil tank (long ago, before the oil tank we had was installed). This copper line is partially embedded in the concrete floor, and has to be chipped out. After than is done, the floor will have to be mended.

We buy a few things we need at local auctions. Usually what we want is in a “lot” of many items, so our purchases leave us with items we do not want. Some of these we take to Value Village, and to receive a small discount on a purchase made there. Other items are sitting in a box waiting for our next visit to Value Village. Sometimes there are items we didn’t exactly want but could possibly use, and this was true of the last purchase, which included some older Corelle dishes. Older Corelle dishes can have dangerous levels of lead and other metals. After checking online about the specific pattern of the dishes we got, it was a pleasant surprise that it was considered safe after having been tested. So we are incorporating these Corelle dishes into our collection for daily use.

My favourite Corelle dishes are the large serving bowls. We had one from my original 1980s set, and it was so handy we bought four more. My favourite of these bowls though are the two my sister-the-middle-girl gave us for Christmas one year, plain white with a line of colour along the edge. Attila makes sure I get these bowls when we use them, as he knows how much I love them. We use them for serving soup, casseroles, just about everything, preferring them to plates, as we seldom eat meals that require a knife and fork, needing a plate.

4:00 p.m.

We went for a short walk, the wind was brisk and brittle and cold, it took our breath away. We persevered and were grateful to return home and step in the door to the warmth of Mist Cottage. The muffins just went into the oven. The bread is cooling on the rack, soon to be sliced, placed in a bag, and stored in the bread box. Attila is peeling celeriac, which he is using to create our dinner, using a new recipe that he is already tweaking. Ginger is sleeping on the stool by my side. The sun is seeping through the living room window, softening at the end of the day, it will soon be dark. Another day is winding down.

Worldly

Weather

Updated on Sun, Nov 20, 2:15 PM
-5°C
FEELS LIKE -12
Partly cloudy
Wind 21 W km/h
Humidity 62 %
Visibility 17 km
Sunrise 7:09 AM
Wind gust 31 km/h
Pressure 101.8 kPa
Ceiling 9100 m
Sunset 4:36 PM

Quote

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
‘A Christmas Carol’
Charles Dickens
1812 – 1870