Snow!
The snow we had had in mid October was long gone, the fault of the +8 C temps we were cursed with the latter part of the month. But then early November greeted us with nice temperatures dropping as cold as -10, giving the ground a chance to get a decent freeze. However, with the lack of snow, the world was looking pretty dark and dismal--grass doesn't hold its green after freezing. Therefore I was delighted to see snowfall this weekend--the world is, once again, looking bright and beautiful with its thin white coat. There still isn't much snow, but it makes such a difference. My phone tells me that this weekend's warm temperatures (high of +2) will go away and we should have decent sub-zero temperatures for the rest of the week. With luck the snow will survive till the cold returns.
I think last winter's pathetic showing may have scared me for life--before last winter it never would have occurred to me to worry about snow being able to last--of course snow stays on the ground all winter and it never rains. But now I worry and look at the forecast--will it stay nice and cold, or will we have another winter of not nice rains destroying the good snow cover?
In other news, we had a great band practice on Thursday--we are ready to perform at the SCA event on the weekend. And last night's choir party was fun. Despite having gotten a slow start to the semester, with a shortage of boys for a while, we still managed to have a total of 10 of us here for the party, and it was five of each gender. I baked two loafs of cardamon bread for it--one with plenty of milk and butter in it, and the other, much smaller loaf with no dairy at all since one of the girls is allergic to milk. I also baked some more pears. I had done a small batch of pears for band night, and it was so good they asked me to do it again for the party. I used fairly large pears, one scant tablespoon of brown sugar for every two pears, and lots of butter--first a thick coating of butter to grease the glass baking pan, and then I used a cheese slicer to make thin slices of butter to cover the top of the pears. I also sifted in a hint of gluten free oat flour (one of the band members can't eat gluten) into the pan to help thicken the sauce, and sprinkled on a bit of water to keep it from drying up before the liquid started cooking out of the pears. I baked them at 150 C, and, once they warmed up and started forming sauce I stirred them occasionally to keep the top layer from drying out or browning. Everyone else brought enough food to the party that there are some pears left over, which is a good thing, because I am getting hungry for them just typing this up.
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lord_kjar has been hard at work making some nice chests that are exactly small enough to fit into the trunk of the car so that packing for events will be easier. The first one is done and the second is coming along nicely. I wish I could be helping with the project, but while he does that I have been working on the edits to my paper for publication, gathering info for a class on the History of the SCA. I also want to put together something in the way of a hand-out for a hand sewing class. In my imagination I make small hand-sewn samplers of all of the stitch types hrj has accumulated on her web page on Archaeological Sewing. However, the class is next weekend, so that is probably not going to happen, even if it would be totally cool.
I think last winter's pathetic showing may have scared me for life--before last winter it never would have occurred to me to worry about snow being able to last--of course snow stays on the ground all winter and it never rains. But now I worry and look at the forecast--will it stay nice and cold, or will we have another winter of not nice rains destroying the good snow cover?
In other news, we had a great band practice on Thursday--we are ready to perform at the SCA event on the weekend. And last night's choir party was fun. Despite having gotten a slow start to the semester, with a shortage of boys for a while, we still managed to have a total of 10 of us here for the party, and it was five of each gender. I baked two loafs of cardamon bread for it--one with plenty of milk and butter in it, and the other, much smaller loaf with no dairy at all since one of the girls is allergic to milk. I also baked some more pears. I had done a small batch of pears for band night, and it was so good they asked me to do it again for the party. I used fairly large pears, one scant tablespoon of brown sugar for every two pears, and lots of butter--first a thick coating of butter to grease the glass baking pan, and then I used a cheese slicer to make thin slices of butter to cover the top of the pears. I also sifted in a hint of gluten free oat flour (one of the band members can't eat gluten) into the pan to help thicken the sauce, and sprinkled on a bit of water to keep it from drying up before the liquid started cooking out of the pears. I baked them at 150 C, and, once they warmed up and started forming sauce I stirred them occasionally to keep the top layer from drying out or browning. Everyone else brought enough food to the party that there are some pears left over, which is a good thing, because I am getting hungry for them just typing this up.
lord_kjar has been hard at work making some nice chests that are exactly small enough to fit into the trunk of the car so that packing for events will be easier. The first one is done and the second is coming along nicely. I wish I could be helping with the project, but while he does that I have been working on the edits to my paper for publication, gathering info for a class on the History of the SCA. I also want to put together something in the way of a hand-out for a hand sewing class. In my imagination I make small hand-sewn samplers of all of the stitch types hrj has accumulated on her web page on Archaeological Sewing. However, the class is next weekend, so that is probably not going to happen, even if it would be totally cool.