September 13th, 2010

Just some pretty pictures....

Not much to post about tonight, but despite the showery weather and cloudy skies here are some nice pictures of the sky, the garden, the hills...and some gorgeous Nectarines that Sid, our #3 son, brought up the hill for us to enjoy.  We had some at dinner and they were yummy......I am thinking pie! As I pass by them on my way to the kitchen the peachy fragrance is beautiful and mouth watering!

The sky tonight was quite interesting - talking to us about showery weather tomorrow, probably.

 

Not nearly as spectacular as the two lovely rainbows that have sprung from dark skies to show us where the pot of gold lies on the Cawston Bench.

Wednesday evening's rainbow, which I have already posted to my new blog 'Similkameen Skies' (see sidebar)

And another vivid shaft on Sunday evening.

Sunday morning at breakfast we spotted what we first thought were mountain goats on the toe of K mountain, but with the spy glass turned out to be three large bouquets of helium balloons tied with scarlet ribbon, escaped from some gay celebration and floating to and fro amongst the rocks and trees and meadow.  Unfortunately I was not successful in getting a clear picture, but here is where they were frolicking....

The little white blobs are really the balloons.  We left them partying and went to church.

By the time we got home none of them were as exuberant as they had been,

and they wafted lower and lower, some of them eventually

ending up entwined around the power lines. 

 I am sure they did have a story to tell.

In the garden a few summer flowers mix with the asters and yellow daisies. 

but the peony leaves are showing their fall colours along with the scarlet maple.

Welcome to Autumn.

September Ramblings

September 10th - a third of the way through this most favoured of months, and this morning the sun is shining and from where I sit I can see the autumn breeze is blowing gently through the tops of the trees.

I have just finished playing the morning Scott Joplin concert that accompanies Charles as he gets ready to go out and start the morning's activities, - this morning he is painting the door frame I watched him prepare yesterday on the new table saw.  Am I any help watching?  Well, I can go-fer things and pick up dropped objects, and I say the occasional prayer when it is important for things to go 'just right'.  And I'm company....company now and then is important!

Yesterday afternoon I picked up two friends and we went for tea, - well it turned out to be coffee and spring rolls as we went to the Thai Restaurant which is lovely and clean and quiet, but they don't serve a traditional tea and biscuit kind of thing.

Both of my friends have family at night, but during the day they are more or less alone, and neither is driving any more.  Listening to them talk I realized what a blessing the companionship of an extended marriage bestows on us...

Ah, I see the painter at the window,  paint brush in hand, - I am off to lend my expertise and what little advice the go-fer is permitted to offer.

Later, - do not think, fair reader, that this togetherness is always sunshine, light and merry cooperation.  Charles came early to leadership with his Lancaster crew - it has been a talent that has stood him in good stead in everything he has been involved with, and not one that he relinquishes easily.  I, being a first born, am not always fit for my role as apprentice, even though half the time I am not sure just what is going on! On the whole we usually survive the work at hand, still speaking.....

September gathers itself up into a shawl of treasures and spills out, one by one, new beginnings, new enthusiasms, a return to well loved activities, - and so this morning Charles went off to the singing group that provides for him not just the music that he loves but the companionship that he missed during the summer months when Wednesdays mornings held no promise beyond the little list of things to be accomplished....

And I?  What do I do with the two or three hours when I am alone with my own little list?  Oh, I indulge myself shamelessly.   Always to music.   There are things to be accomplished, things to be enjoyed, things that are especially set aside for Wednesday mornings....even when they are household chores they are things that I would not usually tackle without uninterrupted time.  A shelf of books to go through, some time spent in the garden, some mending, or if I'm really indulging myself an hour at the loom.

This morning I was tidying the music cupboard and  came across a taped Bell Concert; a Memorial for a former director of our choir which we performed in 1994.  After I had put together an apple crisp and popped it into the oven I sat down with my knitting, slid the tape into the player and enjoyed an hour watching and listening to old familiar pieces, some of which are still in our repertoire, but some that we no longer have enough ringers to play.  We played ensemble with another choir from Kelowna, and I was amazed at how profession it all sounded as we rang with great energy and aplomb "The Heavens are Telling" - a long and joyously complicated piece with a wonderful piano accompaniment. I sighed when it was all over, for times past and for lost energies.

But then I picked up a book of quotes and found this excerpt by an unknown author....

Eternal God, I thank you that I am growing old. 

 It is a privilege that many have been denied....  

Spare us the self-pity that shrivels the soul....

and grant us daily some moments living on tiptoe,

 lured by the eternal city... 

and I felt pretty lucky to have had this experience and

the chance to relive it.....

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is H

H is for HINKY PINKY and this choice for the letter H takes me away back to when our family was young and word games were fun and challenging.

In case you haven't ever had a passion for Hinky Pinky a word of explanation.  A hinky pinky is a clue, definition or riddle, the answer to which is a pair of rhyming words.

For instance, the clue is 'a Norseman on wheels' and the answer could be 'biking Viking'.

The phrase 'hinky pinky' is part of the clue and indicates that the words in the answer will contain two syllables.

The words in a HINK PINK contain only one syllable, and the words in a HINKETY PINKETY contain three syllables, so that if you say to someone, "I have a hinkety pinkety for an evil clergyman, the answer could be a 'sinister minister'.

Or, this is a hink pink for an apian patellae, and after considerable thought you might answer 'bee's knees'
A hinky pinky that describes a moody person from the East could be a 'tempermental oriental' and if the definition is Zeus's wrath, what better answer than 'frightening lightening'.

A great word game for children to increase their vocabularies and stir their imaginations, and an entertaining way for adults to while away the time when doing dishes or standing in a queue or waiting for a bus, or during a boring lecture or sermon or any other dismal litany....

Can you come up with a hink pink for contents of an air conditioned Fort Knox (easy, easy...)

Or what is a hinky pinky for a simple machine that is very smart?  Or a hink pink for a married rodent?

What is a hinkety pinkety for a head made out of radioactive elements?

For more entertaining H's visit ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her team of helpers.

A birthday party, old friends and happy hunting grounds....

A golden dawning of the day and Charles was up early to catch a gorgeous sunrise, while I lazed in bed.

We had plans for the day.  Another friend had reached the venerable age of eighty five and her children had made arrangements for a birthday luncheon, to which we had been invited.

A beautiful morning, and Charles and I set off to pick up two very dear friends with whom we have shared a lifetime of experiences.

We were all young together, planting orchards on a dusty sagebrush benchland under a Veteran's Land Project in 1951, - having families, tending vegetables until the orchards came into production., all of us facing the same predicaments economically, but full of enthusiasm and a tremendous feeling of companionship.  Lovely parties in half finished houses, so many evenings of bridge, dances in the Community Hall and each of us part of a wonderful spirit in that decade after the war.

Now, alas, there are few of the veterans left, and their wives cling together as we all grow older and we lunch and reminisce.  Charles is only one of a very few who are left from all those wonderful, brave young men who planted the Cawston Bench, and we share him and cherish him and he is kind and charming to us all.  And I hope we give him some comfort in a loneliness he feels, having lost all the friends who have gone before him....

We dined al fresco on wonderful seafood quiches and salads and Barefoot bubbly wine, and when, in mid afternoon, we had talked ourselves out,  happy and replete we took the long way home along the roads of memory.  The Veteran's project, which was named Fairview Heights, is now farmed mainly by East Indians, but as we passed the very modern orchards with mini trees and sophisticated sprinkler systems,  in our minds' eyes we saw the Benchland as it was when we transformed it from hot sageland to cooling orchards, and we heard the voices of our children as they roamed the hills and rode the trails on bicycles and horses, were little trojans in the orchards and grew up in the most wonderful country way.

Do you remember?  Do you remember?  What a lovely drive it was through shrouds of tangled memory as we drove from one end to the other, and beyond into the lower valley.

Many Happy Returns of a lovely Day Glenys

Skywatch Friday

September 3rd, 2010

Smokey days in the Similkameen

and fabulous clouds as the sun slid down below the western horizon

For more wonderful worldly skies visit here at Skywatch Friday.

" September;  it was the most beautiful of words, he'd always felt, evoking orange flowers, swallows and regret.  Alexander Therous, 1981

Migrating Swallows - Carl Brender

I love September.

I always have.

It causes me to make lists, to dream dreams

The cool crisp air touches my heart

and stirs my spirit.

after the languid summer 

I am suddenly full of enthusiasm and energy

and I long to make beautiful things.....

to plunge into the midst of  a creative life.

If I could I would be a small child, off to school, with the whole world

opening, - so much to learn, so much to experience.

But now that I am ancient I am grateful for time and awareness

and for all the wonderful senses that allow me to enjoy the small and miraculous.

I love the great exuberance of the 'orange' flowers, - the small birds that rise and fly 

from the midst of the little grove of sunflowers when they are disturbed.

I love the warm sun on my back and the cool breeze that stirs the leaves

as I work in the garden and move the great daylilies to a

spot where they can spread their lovely blooms and leave room for

their erstwhile neighbours to do the same.

"Lord, it is time.  The summer was very big.  Lay thy shadow on the sundials,

and on the meadows let the winds go loose.

Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another

two more southerly days, press them on to fulfilment and drive

the last sweetness into the heavenly wine."

Rainer Maria Rilke

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is G

G is for Gingerbread Men

And here are the hefty little fellows doing The Haka, a Maori War Dance seemingly associated these days with Rugby Games and Hairy Warriors.



For more interesting G's visit here at ABC Wednesday with thanks to those who maintain this popular meme and those who participate in it.

The Bay of Naples, home of fabulous pastries and desserts

Elegant Neapolitans or The Soda Cracker Dessert

.....the dessert de celebre in this pastoral valley half a world away from Naples where Neapolitans were first concocted by the Little Nuns of the convento Trentatre on the Via Pisanelli.

Via Pisenalli

Is there to be a wedding?

A fancy tea?

An evening dessert party?

Nothing deters the ladies who cater for charity in the Similkameen from providing this exquisite dessert that never palls and is always welcomed.

Sometimes making the Soda Cracker dessert is a group effort, but Thursday morning in my humble kitchen and with humble ingredients I set about making a nine by thirteen glass* (important) pan of this delicious concoction for a Saturday wedding reception.

I assembled the soda crackers, the quart of milk, two large packages of instant pudding mix and a large tub of Cool Whip.

I put on a pot of homemade soup to warm while Charles hung for fifteen minutes before lunch (this is another story altogether only mentioned here in reference to time!!)

Here we go!

I combined the quart of milk and the two large packages of vanilla instant pudding, whisking them together for two minutes until the mixture is of pudding like consistency.

I gave the container of Cool Whip a little stir to add some air and fluffiness.

Then I began the assembly, covering the bottom of the glass* pan with rows of unsalted soda crackers.

I eyed the pudding mix, dividing it in three and spread one third of it over the crackers, followed by one third of the tub of Cool Whip.  The I started again with soda crackers, pudding and cool whip, three times in all.

I covered the pan with Saran Wrap and slid it into the fridge where it has been sitting for forty-eight hours and magically morphing into the most delectable Neapolitan dessert - all ready to be cut into squares, topped with a fruit sauce and served on fine china with sterling silver dessert forks or paper plates and plastic spoons - depending upon the occasion.

It goes without saying that this dessert has unending possibilities.

Would you like lemon with a raspberry sauce, chocolate with blackberries or cherries, vanilla with an almond peach sauce, or a lovely apricot?

Soda crackers have magical qualities, - they get sweeter as you chew them and over a two day period in the fridge  become a fine Italian pastry - amazing!

I finished my magic-making just as Charles came for lunch - speedy alchemy....

Skywatch Friday

August 27th, 2010

August skies in the Similkameen

For more exciting skies from all around the world visit Skywatch and enjoy the efforts of the people who maintain this wonderful meme and those who take part in it.

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is F

F is for Figs, Fig trees and Fig Newtons, among other amazing things

A large Fig tree at Moreton Bay near Brisbane

and the figs that grow on it

Fig Newtons are more ancient than you might think.  It was probably the early Egyptians 'who invented the fig roll in its early form as a confection of preserved figs wrapped in a flour-based dough' and traded by traveling sailors and explorers.

Fig rolls were the ideal answer for early physicians who believed that most illnesses were related to digestion problems and recommended a daily intake of biscuits and fruit.

Charles M. Roser was the modern cookie maker who boosted the Fig Newton to its place of glory.

James Henry Mitchell invented a machine in 1891 that worked like a funnel within a funnel;  the inside funnel supplied jam, while the outside funnel pumped out the dough, producing an endless length of filled cookie that was then cut into smaller pieces.

Eventually Nabisco came into the picture and the fig rolls were trademarked as "Fig Newtons"

If you yearn to make your own Fig Newtons here is a handy recipe!

Make the dough by combining 3 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 tsp of salt. 3/4 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon with 1 1/2 sticks of butter cut into pieces.  Whisk together 3 eggs and add to the dough.
Refrigerate for a couple of hours while you make the filling.  Well, it won't take you a couple of hours to make the filling, but fit it in sometime while the dough is resting.....

Combine in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until all the liquid is absorbed and the mixture is thick, stirring occasionally while cooking..... 2 cups of chopped figs, 1 cup of orange juice, 1 cup of apple juice, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 4 tbsp of sugar and 1 tsp of orange peal.  Let the filling cool slightly then puree until smooth, and refrigerate.

Now, when you are ready to bake, heat the oven to 375F and make an egg wash by whisking an egg with 2 tsp of water.

Divide the dough into 3 equal parts and on a lightly floured surface roll out each portion into a rectangle about 1/8 inch thick (one piece at a time)  Cut the dough lengthwise into strips about 2 1/2 inches wide.  Paint around the edges of each strip with egg wash and spoon the fig filling down the centre of the strip, then fold the dough over to enclose the filling.  Place the tubes, seam side down on a greased cookie sheet - or on parchment paper (much easier) and press down lightly to flatten.

Brush the newtons with the egg wash and bake until light golden brown (about 15 minutes).  When they are cool cut with a sharp knife into appropriate lengths, depending upon whether they are destined for the lunch box or a fancy tea.....

If you want to learn more about the letter F click here to go to ABC Wednesday, with thanks to those who maintain this informative and entertaining meme.