Sunday, September 13th, 2020

Our beautiful September day has been overtaken by a horrid layer of smoke making it's way over the Border and up the valley by Cawston.   I can see across the street, but not much further, and I have such sympathy for the folk who live in the vicinity of Washington, from where it is emanating.

We have been so  lucky this year, here in British Columbia - the skies have been smoke-free and the forests safe from fire, but in the United States and down the west coast, through Washington and into California I see frightening pictures of burning forests and the fire running up the trunks of tall trees, candling those beautiful pines and running through the brush, all alit and threatening to the small creatures who call this home.

I am grateful, but it does keep one in the house and is a real deterrent to cutting down those towering Barn Flowers and putting the other plants to bed.  

Never mind, this situation speaks well for kitchen jobs!  I have made some Orange Muffins,  and have four balls of pastry thawing until they reach the rolling-out stage, when I will make some apple pies!!  Two at least, - one for anybody who comes around and the other for the kind person who left a bag of apples on my kitchen counter.

The reason I have four frozen balls of pastry is because one fine day when the baking fairy had overtaken me and filled me with enthusiasm, I had made up a whole pound of lard (or was it Crisco?) and then had run out of energy before I could make all the extra pie shells I had planned on creating.

This is a condition which seems to have overtaken me lately - running out of energy.  I have loads and loads of enthusiasm but not the wisdom yet to keep it in a halter, so it won't run away with me, resulting in a little nap, or an hour or so resting in the chair-that-rests-the-back!! Fortune has been good to me and I have reached this antiqued age, but not in an antiquated condition.  However!!!   Sometimes my enthusiasm overcomes my energy.  Or my lack of energy overcomes my enthusiasm - take it as you will! 

 Anybody else run into this state of affairs?????

Recently, within the last month, a little grey kitten/cat has come to live with Bruce and I. She is not a baby, but a teen-age cat who has boundless energy and can be found investigating anywhere in the house, or running up and down the hallway as if it were a racing track.  Bruce, being elderly for a dog, the same as I am elderly for a human, looks askance at her.  On the whole they get along quite well and share the back of the sofa that looks out on to the street.  They have a different response to any stray cat who might wander through the fence.........Bruce erupts in a most excited manner, - jumping up and down and barking (loudly), but Misty (the little grey cat) is just inquisitive and anxious to get out and say hello!!

Well, I do think i should go and poke my finger into those balls of pastry, to see if it is time to roll them out and fill the shell with apples and sugar and cinnamon and maybe a bit of lemon juice, and make the house smell delicious as they bake.

Would love to share!