this week's adventures

Funny story. Last week I needed some potting soil, so I walked down to the hardware store, five blocks away, and bought a few needed items (trowel, gardening gloves, hammer, etc). On the way out I had the guy just put the 40 pound bag of potting soil on my shoulder and I walked home like that. This, I later learned, drew some attention, as everyone in the store stopped to watch me. The customer paying said "I want to marry that gal!"

That and my accent led the staff to think that I was probably Dan's wife, so when he went in a few days later, they gave him an application form if I'm still looking for work...


In other news, I turned 39 last Saturday. The ladies I was working with were talking about some of their former coworkers and one mentioned that so-and-so and so-and-so both had a birthday that day. I said, in my small voice, "It's my birthday too" to which they were so surprised, I was actually amazed at their strong reaction. I should have known... 

 See because a few hours later, one of the gals had disappeared entirely (and I was busy so I didn't really notice) and then all the warehouse guys came gathered around the office and all the salespeople came and next thing I know they are singing me a Happy Birthday.

 Yup, They totally had me.


Birthday presents from Dan:

 Tools to rip out staples, nails and molding!

 A picnic table for our kitchen!

 

A table saw! Oh wait. That's not for me. But let me tell you, it is way lighter than the picnic table. 

 We went to the tap room in the evening of my birthday, partly to offload some of the leftover cake that I was "forced" to take home with me. One of the locals who hangs out at the tap room, Cantu, had made a huge vat of chicken and dumpling stew, so he brought it by. It was great!

This photo was taken yesterday, my growing collection of seedlings and starts. I'm kind of obsessed about the whole thing and am looking forward to having raised beds soon because goodness, I am going to have a lot of plants. This is about 2/3 of my total collection now. 

 My sister and her family went to go visit her in-laws who were holidaying in Arizona. Each of the kids sent me a postcard, and my niece, 8, drew me a St. Patrick's Day card. On the back she writes "How come you move so much? Why don't you stay in one place? You should have stayed in Ucluelet. I hope where your living now is as cool as Ucluelet." Ah, kids.

 Bread! This is a Pain de Campagne from my favorite book. I brought one of these to my friends at the brewery and it went over very well, not to mention quickly.

 The first coat of the darkest color - I have since put on another coat. It's looking good! I think once this is done we'll focus on the living room, since we spend a lot of time there.

Finished product of the bread. It doesn't really look like how the book has it, so I must not have read the instructions right because mine is more of a zigzag than "sheaves of wheat". Oh well. It's meant to be a pull-apart bread and it works just fine for that!

So on Monday at my job I was told not to come in Tuesday or Thursday (because it wasn't busy enough to have me there) and to call on Friday to see if I was needed on Saturday. Well, I can't have a job where the hours are unreliable, so I'm considering other options right now. I have a couple of irons in the fire and I'll keep you posted as to what transpires.

bread, yarn, Twitter, and a job

Latest adventures include 

 I was sitting on the sofa one day minding my own business when HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT IS THAT I saw a spider. A big, thumb-sized fuzzy menacing looking spider. There are poisonous spiders here and I don't know how to identify them yet, but Dan assured me this is a harmless orb weaver. Okay. Glass and cardboard aided this little fella's return to the outdoors.

 Last Saturday, Dan and I went to Goldsboro and Selma to look at antique shops. Strangely, I didn't take many photos but I did take a picture of this "one of a kind" sheep. The sign said "lamb" but we all know better.

 This is all of my yarn stash and a few finished objects that are up for reconsideration (frog, reknit, mend, etc.). It's not as much as I thought it would be but still more than I would have if it wasn't for the generosity of Ursa and Natalie last year!

 This is our bedroom. It's been cold, so the electric blanket is on my side of the bed (Dan, the furnace himself, doesn't need it).

 This is the Pate Fermentee that I started yesterday for the French Bread I will bake this afternoon. Yes, I am resuming with my bread baking adventures. I still need to buy some rye flour to get my new sourdough starter going, but in the mean time I'll work with yeasted breads. On that note, my goodness, I am having a hard time finding unbleached all purpose flour. I'm having a hard time finding all-purpose flour, period. There are fifteen kinds of biscuit flour and lots of self-rising flour (?) and none of them seem to be in quantities bigger than 10 pounds. I may have to order from a wholesaler. On this bread-baking topic, we now have gas connected to our range and I baked brownies yesterday - my first time baking in a gas oven. I forgot about the brownies (Dan and I were discussing paint colors for the sun room) but turns out in a gas oven, they are less likely to burn. So that was nice. We didn't have any baking powder so they didn't rise and the texture was weird, but they still taste like brownies.

Other random things: I have locked my Twitter account, so I apologize to those of you who aren't on Twitter but follow my feed. I have done this because there seems to be a lot of spam, a lot of hacked accounts, and worst, a lot of stalking happening to my Internet friends, so I am just taking precautions. I realize this limits my exposure in many ways but that might be a good thing, I don't know. In other news, any minute now I will hear if I got the job at a local furniture store I applied to. Dan and I randomly walked in on Friday and noticed the "office help wanted" sign. I figured I would inquire, as it's a local job and a good place to start. They are all very nice people, I filled out their brief application and went back for "a chat" with the lady in charge today. I expect I will get it, four days a week. That will get me working, learning some new things as I'm getting my bearings in Kinston, and it's not that far from home. To be honest, even though the really good jobs are in the towns 30 miles or more from us, I am reluctant to take a job that has me commuting - both for the fossil fuel use as well as the safety issue.

That's it for now, I hope everyone is well!

a day trip to the west coast

I know what you are thinking. Am I not already on the west coast? Well, not exactly. I'm on the east coast of Vancouver Island. The west coast is a three and a half hour drive from here. So, on Saturday, Toni and I headed west!

The first place we stopped was Coombs. Coombs is this lovely little touristy town set in the middle of agricultural land. It is the setting for a number of interesting and quirky shops. I've been on the Island long enough to not be to drawn into all the quirk, but I do love stopping in at the Coombs Country Market, where, in the summer time, you should be able to see the Goats on the Roof. The goats weren't on the roof of the main shop on the day we went, but I knew they lived out back, so we had a look. I saw this sweet little guy itching himself on the fence and went over to give him a scratch under the chin. They see people all the time, and because they are kid-height, probably get a lot of loving.

Here is is his buddy, overlooking a very steep ravine. 

 The washroom at Coombs Country Market.

 The Market is a neat place for all kinds of reasons. Their schtick is to have lots of interesting import food, some of it healthy, some if it just interesting. Dan and I have a habit of looking for the latest in new beverages. I hadn't seen this one before, different flavors of ginger ale.

 We arrived in Ucluelet some time after 1:00. We stopped in at our friends' house, then the four of us went to the aquarium. It used to be just a little trailer, probably not more than 200 square feet, with no heating or bathrooms. It was a long time fundraising goal to be able to build a new aquarium. When I left in July last year, they had reached their goal and had started pouring concrete. It was finally open!

 They did a good job of the buildings and displays but I have to say, I found the selection of species featured here a bit disappointing. Above is the octopus, which of course is sleeping (she is always sleeping!) but it is much better to see her here than how they had it set up in the old trailer.

 Suction cups!

 One of the two jellyfish displays, this is one of the tanks from the old aquarium. Kind of boring.

 With the lighting coming in from the windows and creating glare, and with my little iPhone camera, it wasn't easy to get a good shot. The above photo is taken from the back of the aquarium, looking towards the door. It's all one big room with a main display in the middle. They used as much local wood and materials for construction as possible.

 I think the flatfish display was my favourite. Mostly it was Starry Flounder but the guy with the big dot on his side is a C-O sole. Why is it called a C-O sole, you ask? Well, it's because when they first identified this species and were thinking of a name, they couldn't decide if the spot looked like a 'C' or an 'O'. I know, right? That's what I was told when I was training for my fish job a few years ago.

 At one point I felt like I was communing with these guys. A bunch of these flat fish with buggy eyes came near to where I was sitting. It's a low tank, maybe no higher than my knee, so I could squat down and be really close to them. I know they could see me. I wonder what they were thinking with their swively eyes?

 I don't think I caught it very well but there are two sculpins leaning on the starfish, having a conversation.

 Same tank, different sculpin.


After the aquarium we headed to Tofino to visit Ellie at Knits by the Sea, the yarn shop I worked at when I lived in the area. Then to Tacofino for fish tacos. Stopped back into our friends' house for a snack and to look at photos, then Toni and I were back on the road.

Oh yeah! This is the bread I bought at the Coombs Market. When my sister was visiting last year, she bought this loaf called Triple Spiral Rye bread. We loved it and it has since been made into legend in our family. I got another one in her honour. Also: fudge. This helped fortify me and Toni as we spent Sunday gardening and laying around, the Skipper had some when he got back from fishing.



We left for our trip just before 9am. With all the stops and the construction on highway 4, it took about four hours to get there, then three and a half to get back. It was a l o n g day, we got home just before 11pm. I think if we do it again before I leave, we'll do an overnight trip.

Also, if you are reading this and you live there and I didn't visit you, it's because we didn't have time!

What can I tell you?

I haven't felt like blogging lately. There. I've said it. On the one hand, when I'm doing things and taking photos of things, I think about their blog-ability, but then I think well, if it fits into 140 characters, then I'll just tweet it. I know I have a few readers who aren't on Twitter, so I apologize to you.

I'm still knitting a lot, and I've started meditating. This week of the Sounds True course, we are to meditate for an hour each day. So far, after two weeks of meditating every day, I have already experienced the benefits of meditation by having improved sleep.

A few mornings ago, just as I was getting up, I turned my head the wrong way and pinched a nerve in my neck. This led to subsequent shooting pain down my shoulder and back, had really impaired my mobility. This used to happen to me a lot, like once a month or so, but it's been quite a while since the last time. It's annoying for a number of reasons, but I am loathe to take medicinal relief for this. Muscle relaxants make me feel dopey and drunk, and I don't like feeling like I don't have control. Ibuprofen could help but I don't want to be reliant on pain killers. I take only the bare minimum to get me through. Hot water bottle, rest, baths. I have also decided that a bit of physical activity is good for me, so I have been out walking, doing gentle yoga, and pulled a couple of unwanted bushes out of the garden yesterday. Another night or two and I'll be back to normal.

My bread production has slowed down, I have put the sourdough starter in the freezer. We had all gained some weight (!) in the time I was baking bread so I thought it might be wise to take a break.

I'm also doing this thing on Twitter called #plankaday. The idea is that you hold yourself in plank position, as in like a pushup but you have your forearms under the ground, shoulders directly over your elbows, for as long as you can. I'm up to a minute. The idea is you hold yourself rigid and it builds core strength in your abdominals and lower back. Then you tweet about having done it.

I am currently listening to The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon as an audiobook through Audible. Claire and Jamie are in North Carolina!

Today was my first day in a month that I have been sad. I wasn't flat-on-the-floor depressed, just a little down. And that could be hormonal. Let's face it: I'm a pre-menopausal woman. When I had my tubes tied, they told me I could experience early onset menopause, having not had children. My first thought when they told me was "great! Maybe I'll be done with acne then!" I did go through the five-month course of Accutane in 2007, which more or less cleared up my severe nodular acne, but I do still get little breakouts from time to time.

I have also been reading a lot. Like a lot. In fact, I have discovered that I am able to get through some of these books, cover to cover, in less than a day. Okay okay I'll tell you. I'm reading about - how to even describe it? - lots of things: animal communication, psychic abilities, spirituality, meditation, Reiki, etc. There is a lot going on in my head that I'm still not able to set down into one coherent blog post, but I am encountering lots of similar messages that confirm some truths for me. At the same time, I am confronted with my own ugly truths. I want to be less judgmental and be filled with lovingkindness. I want to feel inner peace. I want to be able to forgive easily.  After two years of having declared myself irreligious, I am once again finding myself in prayer. It's kind of blowing my mind.

I thought I had some photos of all my current knitting projects but apparently I don't. With my 2012 knitting plan to knit 12 hats this year, I have five done already, and I have only blogged about one! So I'll get on that soon.

Still no word on immigration. If the "five more months" thing from early January is true, then that will have me here another three and a half months. But I have a plan, see, and you can help! Here is my plan: the next step is the third Notice of Action. This will mean a package comes to me that tells me how to set up my appointments for the immigration interview and health check in Vancouver. I would like that to happen in the next week. Then, with everything being approved, all they need to print my green card and send it to me. With a miracle, this will happen in mid - late march.  Then Dan books a flight and fly here for Easter weekend, where he'll get to see his family before we start our journey south on Easter Monday.The good people reading this blog may just help by praying for me, that I may be reunited with my husband soon so I can begin my life in North Carolina.

This is my plan, Universe, and I expect a miracle.

check one off my bucket list

Adventures of my hair continue.

Today I had a bath, then decided it was time to give my hair a trim. I wasn't especially fond of the shade of auburn it was turning out to be and was thinking about how long it will be before it grew out long enough for me to cut it off leaving my natural colour. I got out the scissors. Snip, snip. It's not easy cutting your own hair when it's really short, especially the back, so I got the clippers out. Just to do the back. Not being in any way adept with these things, I wasn't able to make a smooth transition from the shaved back of my head to the two inch strands on the top. I could have waited and asked the Toni or the Skipper for help with tidying it up but... I thought no, I'll just keep going.

And so I did it. I have always wanted to have a shaved head, and not necessarily completely bald. but this will certainly do. 

The camera only catches a few of the whites, but there are a lot more than is shown here. And there are a lot more than there was before I started dyeing my hair blond in 2010. So I come to face the reality of my hair, the ebbing of my vanity, and, surprisingly, the freedom that is really short hair! My first thought when I looked at myself was: I look like Pema Chodron! Which, considering she's an awesome Buddhist and all, is not such a bad thing.

See, changes are afoot in my head, and I'm reading and studying and learning so much right now it's hard to gather it all into a group of words and organize them into a blog post. I have started meditating. In fact, I started an eight-week meditation course presented by Sounds True (it's free!) last week and have been meditating every day. I am also beginning a new yoga practice. I have long been a fan of yoga and was once quite adept, but have been shocked lately to see how inflexible I have become. I must get my body back to that supple and limber state.

I have had to face the music with something else as well: I have gained some of my weight back. I stepped on the scale again and felt only a little discouraged but have new resolve. We have been having an awful lot of fun with food here at Backyard Feast, and I think we have all three of us gained weight since I've been here. (Sorry!) I think I had better slow down on the bread making. I want to have more and bigger salads. I'm not employed and while I have some 'duties' (tending the chickens when my friends aren't home), my schedule is my own so I need to organize and manage my time better, especially now that I have new things in my routine like meditation, yoga, and reading (I have been reading a lot of books from the library lately). This is all to say more changes are in the cards for me and while I have been sorely neglecting my readers, it's really for my own good. I have lots to tell you, all in good time.

Poilane style miche bread

I am working on developing my bread making skills, as I think I mentioned in a previous post. My sourdough starter, the barm, is now ready to use and I have been having great fun with it. I made my first sourdough bread the other day, and yesterday I made the bread on the cover of the book I'm using, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. If you read the introduction of this book, the author tells the story of having this bread for the first time, then taking it to a friend's house in Paris, and the friend gets mad for "ruining" him for other bread. I had to make it.

Breads like this take two days to make. I'm nowhere near ready to explain how and why all this works, as I'm a newbie, and I'm just working on my skill and technique. The firm starter takes a day, then the dough is made, kneaded, proofed, reshaped, proofed again and then baked.

This particular loaf is massive. When it was done & baked it ended up being five pounds. When I was kneading the dough, I kneaded by hand for 15 minutes (the book recommends 12-15), and then I was tired. Toni suggested letting the dough rest, though she kneaded it for a bit as well.  She suggested we get the Skipper to give it a knead as well (he is much stronger than we), but he was out at the time. I gave it another ten minutes of kneading and decided that I can live with it not getting to the "windowpane stage" of elasticity.

When it was time to bake the bread, I put the pizza stone in the oven. Toni and the Skipper have a pizza peel, so I covered that in corn meal before putting my Poilane on it. The oven temperature was at 500 degrees when I started, and there was a pan of water in with the bread. I slipped the bread from the peel to the stone. When the bread went in, I reduced the temperature to 450.

The book says to turn it after 25 minutes, but it was baking so evenly in the oven that it wasn't necessary to turn. It was, however, starting to get too dark, so the book says to lay a sheet of foil over the loaf to protect it. I did that. Gave it another 30 minutes, now at 425.

Here is how it came out:

 This is the bottom. It's is so beautiful!

Toni and the Skipper tried it last night, after it had cooled for two hours. They said it was really good. I had some for breakfast this morning. This is the best bread I have ever tasted and it was worth all the effort. So I really do need to buy this book. With this loaf weighing in at 5 pounds, it should last 5-7 days, just like the book said.

The Bread Maker's Apprentice

This is a book I need to own. It's been on my amazon wish list for quite a while (ahem) and someday I will own it because it's awesome. Toni and the Skipper have it here at Backyard Feast and I have decided that I am going to work my way through it and learn how to make bread. It's a fascinating subject and I love how making bread is both art and science, and I consider myself both an artist and a scientist.

Yesterday I started what is called a seed culture. Basically it's flour and water that hang out four four days, getting added to every day, until it becomes a barm. After a week or two, if I remember correctly, this barm is what is also known in common parlance as the sourdough starter.

When Dan and I were living in East Sooke, I was using the bread machine at least every other day. Without getting too deep into the hows and whys of breadmaking, I somehow managed to create a sourdough starter back then that was not too bad, but I don't remember going at it with the scientific precision I am this time around.

This time around, I have time on my hands. I mix up some stuff and then set the timer on my phone to let me know when I have to do the next thing. So today was day 2 of adding to the seed culture. Tomorrow I'll be at WordCamp, so Toni will attend to the seed culture for me.

Seed culture, day 1

Meanwhile, I am reading my way slowly through the lengthy introduction of The Bread Maker's Apprentice to get a better scientific understanding of flour and gluten and temperature and humidity and all those things that combine to create the magic that is bread. And, not wanting to wait until my sourdough starter is ready, I baked my first loaf from this book, a light wheat bread.

Light Wheat Bread beginning of second proofing

Light Wheat Bread end of second proofing

Light Wheat Bread just out of the oven!