When we first bought the property the edge of the forest was a wall of leaves.
The lower branches of the trees have been trimmed to allow for air flow, breezes help to keep the mosquitoes in check. The late afternoon light was more beautiful than I could capture with a camera.
Another quiet day at Mist Cottage.
The weekend will be busy, what with canning pickled peppers, and most likely coleslaw.
This year for Thanksgiving we have a turkey! We will really enjoy our feast. It will include mashed potato and kohlrabi, turkey dressing, vegetables, turkey gravy, and cranberry sauce. The meal will begin with a fresh salad, and end with pumpkin pie and mincemeat squares.
Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends!
As I write Ginger is attempting to get my attention. He is agitated, and has thrown up, he wants me to know. Ginger has long, ginger coloured fur. He ingests some of that hair. It doesn’t agree with him. He throws up from time to time, sometimes hair balls, sometimes food and water. His favourite places to throw up are either at the foot of my chair, just so I won’t miss it, or on the carpet in the hall, again, a traffic area, we are sure not to miss it, unless of course we step in it, we have learned to be cautious in the hallway.
Lately I’ve been giving him a tablespoon of pureed squash every day. He loves it. It seems to settle his stomach. He has grown accustomed to receiving his treat in a bowl in the living room. When he feels the desire to eat the treat, he summons me. I seldom respond to cat commands, he is a very demanding cat, and I would be running after his whims a great deal of the time… belly rubs, life is all about belly rubs in Ginger’s universe, and a little bit squash. When I do bring his squash he is instantly delighted.
We are just coming out of a short heat wave, thankfully. And it has been raining today, with a cloudy promise of more to come. The temperature is falling, a high of 20C today, which is comfortable enough, even with the humidity.
This morning I baked bread. It was an experimental bread baking day. For my regular sandwich bread recipe I use two cups of home milled whole wheat flour, and one cup of white bread flour, it makes for an easy to slice loaf with an excellent crumb for sandwich making. However, I had run out of white bread flour. We purchased pizza flour from the local grocery store, a 25 pound bag, intending to replace the white bread flour in my regular sandwich loaf recipe. Today the first loaf was baked using the pizza flour. I haven’t sliced it yet, but it smelled delicious, and the rise was excellent. We will know tomorrow if it meets with expectations, as the tomatoes are finally ripening in the garden, and our lunch will be bacon and tomato sandwiches. I am looking forward to that!
Our zucchini did not do well in the garden this year. A few were harvested, less than a dozen, and Attila brought in the very last little zucchini last night.
Today I grated the zucchini for chocolate zucchini muffins. A few errors were made and I ended up making a double batch as a result. So the muffins are now chocolate zucchini carrot muffins.
My mistake came when fiddling around with molasses. I was finishing off a cardboard carton of fancy molasses, and used a larger than normal measuring cup to set the carton on, to let the last of the molasses drain from the carton. Not to worry, I knew I had blackstrap molasses in the pantry, so I opened that up and poured too much into the oil in the measuring cup. There was no putting the molasses back into the jug, so I topped up the molasses for a double batch of muffins and carried on from there.
I am not sure how I feel about the flavour that the blackstrap molasses imparts in the muffins. It does have a bit of a bitter taste to it, and although the container does not indicate that it is sulphured, I suspect that it is. The muffins are good, but the molasses makes itself known. I am not sure about the taste, however, without thinking I’ve consumed two of the muffins already, so I think in the long run this molasses will work out fine.
Every day I attempt a catch up project. I’ve noticed lately that the tub drains very slowly. Oh dear. So today I removed the drain plug, and got to work removing the accumulated hair from the drain. There was a great deal of hair in there, matted horrid stuff. I was so impressed by it I took a picture to show Attila, but I won’t post it here for your sake. I removed all of it, placed it in a plastic bag and threw it in the garbage. Then I poured a cup of vinegar down the drain and let it sit there for about thirty minutes. When I turned on the water, the drain flowed freely.
Every day now I try to throw something out, or to find a place to store an item that sits on one of the few flat surfaces in the house. Today I attended to the flower vases, three of them, with mostly spent flowers. I replaced the water in one of the vases, and moved all of the still surviving flowers to it. Focused on plants, I then watered the snake plants, the Christmas cactus, and the Hoya. The poor plants had been a bit neglected through the peak of the canning season, they seemed quite relieved at my attentions.
And so the day goes, all these satisfying little nothings that I do that make a happy life.
Worldly
Weather
Updated on Fri, Oct 6 at 1:45 PM
19°C
FEELS LIKE 20
Partly cloudy
Wind 20 SW km/h
Humidity 86 %
Visibility 16 km
Sunrise 7:10 AM
Wind gust 30 km/h
Pressure 101.2 kPa
Ceiling 9100 m Sunset
6:40 PM
Quote
“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.”
Sir Francis Bacon
1561 – 1626
I think a little of both in all of us!
Learned something new…never even knew there was such a thing as pizza flour! What is it with cats and throwing up in the worse places possible? I have no rugs or carpeting in my house except for a mat by the kitchen door. Yep, that is where one of my cats will puke. Traffic areas, as you have said, are also favorite places and what fun to step into a pile of kitty regurgitation. LOL Give Ginger a hug from me.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, Maggie and Attila! We’re currently making a pecan pie trifle for tomorrow’s dessert. DH is currently making the coconut pudding that he remembers from his childhood to put in the trifle. The layers are: pecan pie, a sprinkle of brandy, coconut pudding, chopped pecans, and whipped cream. Add a second layer. And maybe finish off with some pecan sandie crumbs.
Funny you should mention responding to cat commands. Recently, I’ve been watching videos on YouTube about cats and dogs communicating with their people via buttons with recorded words on them. Having a degree in psychology, this fascinates me. In university I was always trying to convince a behaviorist professor of mine that my dog knew the difference between going UP the stairs and DOWN the stairs. And now here I am watching cats and dogs talking about everything from what toy to play with to why “morning” is recently starting in the dark (with the sun rising later).
I’ve thought about getting some of those buttons to talk to our two dogs and have them talk to us, bu!t like you with Ginger, I have concerns about being run by the dogs making demands. I have noted that, with having the buttons to communiate, the owners do seem to be playing with pet toys a lot more than what you might normally see. These owners seem to have become entertainment by way of increased ability to communicate, because they want to reward the pet for communicating via the buttons.
The pizza flour we bought is a high protein flour, and is close the same protein content of the hard white bread flour we had been purchasing. The loaf turned out very well, which is a relief because this product is available at the grocery store, at least for now.
Cats just know!! LOL Giving Ginger that hug!
Happy Thanksgiving Teri and DH! Your pecan pie trifle sounds sinfully wonderful!
I think animals, pets in particular, have a great awareness of the politics of existence. Dogs are so expressive, even without words, their faces tell so much. Not so much with cats, but Ginger has her ways. Cats lack the musculature for most facial expressions, I guess they aren’t needed for them to communicate with each other. Ginger gets quite creative with letting us know what he wants. I think one of the reasons the woman who gifted him to us was willing to let him go is that he is very demanding, and persistent, and does not amuse himself with toys. For Ginger the only worthwhile amusements are belly rubs from a human, brushing from a human, and food, and sleep if you can count that as an amusement.