The Shape of Things To Come

From a casual comment that a neat idea would be to build a 'weaving shed', where I could keep and use my looms, and free up some space in my office/studio for its intended sewing use, has come this:

The bare bones of a shed. Not started when planned, exactly, but with haste before winter sets in.

Since we've had another short gasp of milder and drier weather, Darrell has hustled to put this structure together. He figures if he can get walls and roof up enough to keep the elements out, he'll be able to continue working on the inside. The whole thing is planned along the lines of our Wendy house. (The roof of which is visible just beyond the shed. ) Essentially the building is constructed like a deck, on blocks. Though this building will be designed to be a bit more weatherproof, with insulation.
 We do use the Wendy house in winter, for hardier/adventurous guests, and with a little heater it's not too bad. But that's for sleeping. If I'm trying to work with textiles and my hands, I may need a slightly more temperate climate.

 Then, on Friday, we had a slight hiccup in the process. Driving home from a production meeting Thursday evening, I passed through small blizzards, and we woke up to this!

 Fortunately that was a brief interlude this time, and it got dry and mild again. (Mind you, there's still snow on our upstairs deck...) But if Darrell can get the walls and roof in place, it will be more protected for the next occurrence. The large opening on the front will be fitted with sliding glass doors, for maximum light, some solar gain, and for air in summer. The door to go in on this near end is also mostly glass. And a second door at the carport end, which may not even be used much, is solid. But we have a door, and we have somewhere to install it, so why not?

The Rainy Season

The level of our pond always goes down in the summer, and in fall we anxiously await it filling again with the autumn rains. One season it dropped perilously low, and didn't fill deep enough before it froze. We lost most of the 'big' fish that year.

 Since we introduced some koi to the pond a few years ago, which have been happily thriving and multiplying, and have a fairly happy eco-system out there, with frogs, toads, and turtles, crayfish and clams, as well as several species of fish, we are even more alert to the health of the pond. So it was reassuring to see the level start to rise, though I don't think we expected it to rebound quite so quickly.

In the top picture, taken as we went into the Thanksgiving weekend, the red arrow shows our 'depth gauge', a piece of steel that Darrell planted in the deep section of the pond. I think it registers about 5 feet deep. It's only visible in the summer. 

This picture was taken two weeks later. Not only has the gauge stick vanished under the surface, the entire boundary of the pond has expanded to cover most of the 'summer beach'. So, that's a bunch of water that's come out of the skies in the last fortnight. The fish should be happy, since with a good depth, the water won't freeze all the way down.

What our fish breathe during the winter is more of a mystery...

New Home-Owner

Through the Looking Glass

New To The Neighbourhood

After a very, very long time, we suddenly have some walnuts this year! I hadn't realized it took so long for walnut trees to reach maturity; it wasn't even something I thought about. But pretty much I'd given up on the idea of nuts. And then this year...

The Changing Skyline of Wareham

So, we've known for quite some time that there were going to more wind towers going in, north of where we had already been watching them and admiring them for several years. We hadn't realized exactly where they'd be. For quite a while now, we've received the occasional piece of informational mail, telling us about upcoming meetings, or showing grid maps for the Melancthon Wind Project. And there's been mention of Phase the next, and the one after. But the maps are vague, and the meetings at awkward times or locations.

Last fall a new series of towers looked to be going in somewhat south of us. At least we assumed that to be the case. Two fields, along a stretch of back road that I drive, appeared to be being cleared in some kind of large gravel parking lot, or too-wide laneway. Darrell eventually pronounced them to be accessways for wind tower sites. And yes, this spring they started working towards erecting the towers. At the same time men came and started doing odd roadwork at the end of our road. Darrell inquired, and discovered they were temporarily widening the intersection so that the sections of tower could be moved around corners. All of a sudden, any number of hints of road and ditch work seemed suspicious.

I tried to find some information online, and kept coming up with dead ends. An eventual news story finally led to info about the original power authority building the Melancthon Wind Farm being sold to some other power authority, and then the chase began. Eventually I tracked down current info; the trick is that if you don't know the name of the project, or the name of the company, it makes it very hard to track down on the internet. (Well, quickly, anyway.) It's entirely possible that there will be other projects going in to the north and northwest of us, but thus far I haven't found the information. Anyway, the 'local' one has a couple of sections, the bit below us, which I'd been driving by, another section immediately south of us, which also includes one down our road, and a third phase, which runs up the county road at the end of ours. All are part of the Plateau Wind Farm. When I found that website, I also found a handful of interesting documents. Some show tower placement, and set back info. Others contain interesting info on the area.

 And once they started erecting the towers, it's happened very quickly. There was a long stretch of huge bits of towers arriving at the sites, and I kept passing long involved transport vehicles carrying the mammoth sections. Road corners have all been chewed up and widened; some roads have had their pavement temporarily stolen; stretches of road have been blocked when the people moving the equipment have miscalculated the required space anyway.
 On one trip down to the Theatre, I passed about four or five different trucks all carrying a single propellor or vane for the wind towers. On the ground, on the back of a truck, one gets the sense of size. Once the towers are up they seem delicate and tall and airy.

 But I'm realizing just how much my eye is being deceived by the scale. The grouping of three towards the end of out road, and just to the north, are really only two towers on our side of the county road, and one on the other, and feel almost like they're only a field or two away, when I know from having to walk back down our road on one or another 'sad car day', that it's a much greater distance than that!

 We really can't see them well from in our house. I can just make out the vanes of one or two from the kitchen window, though early morning sun makes the towers glint bright white, and easier to find. I think any of the others will really be too far away, or obscured by trees or the natural roll of the land.

 I'll be interested to see what happens when they turn them on; if we'll notice them any more than we do now.
 But certainly none of our friends will ever need to fear not finding our place with these new and very noticeable landmarks.

It Boggles The Mind

I've been trying to track down some current info on what is happening about the proposed 'Melancthon Mega-Quarry', and came across this article in a nearby paper, The Orangeville Citizen:

http://www.citizen.on.ca/news/2011-08-18/Front_Page
 [which may or may not actually turn into a link...The widget is misbehaving today.]

NDACT consultant files new report on quarry impact
2011-08-18 / Front Page

By WES KELLER Freelance Reporter

The environmental and engineering consultant to NDACT has filed a supplement to his original response to The Highland Companies’ application for the Melancthon mega-quarry, and his office has completed a three-decade review of water pumping at Holland Marsh.

Garry Hunter of Hunter & Associates is in agreement with Highland spokesperson Lindsay Broadhead’s assertion that the 600,000 cubic metre (CM) daily water management estimate doesn’t reach that peak until excavation of the fourth area of the quarry has begun.

However, he says a comparison of that with the water volume managed at the Marsh is incorrect.

“A conducted field visit and personal communication with the current and prior Holland Marsh Drainage Superintendents confirms that there are only three pumping stations in the Holland Marsh,” he says in his letter to the ministry.

Although the combined design capacity of the three stations is 595,720 CM daily, Mr. Hunter, following 10 days of interviews, studies and compiling, says, “the average pumping required to drain the 7,000-acre Holland Marsh interior over the past three decades is only 600,000 cubic meters per year or about 16,500 cubic meters per day.

“The average 16,500 cubic meters discharge per day at Holland Marsh is pumped eight feet in height whereas the Highland Companies propose to pump 600,000 cubic meters per day an average height of about 200 feet on a perpetual basis when the quarry is at full depth in the four operating cells. Highlands pumping comparison appears to have little merit,” he says.

“I also note that The Highland Companies groundwater modeling methodology — and by inference the estimated 600,000 cubic meters per day recirculation — has been seriously challenged by the MOE, GRCA, Emil Frind, Distinguished Professor Emeritus University of Waterloo, and Dr. Ken Howard of the University of Toronto as well as myself.”

Mr. Hunter said he has yet to hear “any technical comments from the Township or the NVCA (Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority).”

The annual costs of perpetual water management have been of concern to NDACT, which has often asked who would be responsible for perpetual payment once the proposed quarry’s 150-million tons have been extracted.

Mr. Hunter says the costs of maintaining the Marsh system is $200,000 annually.

He says Highland in its application “has incorrectly characterized the Holland Marsh pumping systems and its comparison to the proposed Melancthon Quarry pumping systems. The scale is significantly different.”

His supplementary report also explores the traffic component, and calculates the passenger car equivalent of the estimated number of trucks.

“The predicted peak shipping truck traffic is 326 inbound and 326 outbound or 652 hourly bidirectional pass- by 45 tonne payload trucks.

“Corresponding peak aggregate shipped is 14,670 tonnes/hr or a peaking factor of about 1.5 times the maximum RWDI (engineers Rowan Williams Davies and Irwin) specified aggregate production rate.

“This truck traffic does not include importing of secondary materials from other pits and quarries and incidental quarry traffic.

“Assuming a passenger car equivalency factor of 3.0 passenger cars/truck (pg 18, Morrison Hershfield Limited, Jan 2011) and making allowance for incidental quarry traffic, the total equivalent vehicle quarry traffic is estimated at a peak of approximately 1,000 vehicles/hr each way.”

In his conclusion, Mr. Hunter says, “if the quarry is to proceed as proposed by the Applicant, then new highways will be required linking Highways 10, 89 and 124 across the north of the Town of Shelburne. This highway should be a provincial highway with direct quarry access.

“Expansion of Highway 10 to a five lane section from Primrose to Camilla and improvements further south on Highway 10 may also be required,” Mr. Hunter concludes.

****

 It wasn't till that final flurry of submitting comments to Linda Jeffries in July, that I was even seeing exactly where this quarry was supposed to be, and that some real sense of size was being publicized. And for the most part, the brain just doesn't really visualize a lot of the comments. But somehow, if they pump 600,000 cubic metres of water out of the Holland Marsh PER YEAR at a cost of $200,000 annually, then 600,000 cubic metres of water daily, could conceivably cost $200,000 a DAY!
 And having spent a number of years commuting through the Holland Marsh, and realizing how big an area that it, and they're only removing those litres PER YEAR, is really starting to give me a scary realization of the impact of the Melancthon quarry on the area beside where I live, that I drive through daily.

 And I'm not even beginning to try and digest any of the commentary on the increase in truck traffic yet...

Montreal Bagels, Wareham-style

A couple of weekends ago we were visiting with friends, and other friends, up from the city, had brought bagels. Wonderful fresh bagels from the St. Lawrence Market. It's been a long time since I've had really good Montreal style bagels. (In fact, so long that I'd almost forgotten how exquisite they can be!)
When we lived in the city, and even when I still worked there, a lot more bakery bagels crossed our paths. I used to make a pilgrimage to some great bakery up at Yonge and Eglinton, and always bring back a special cache of them. But these days we end up with the more ordinary grocery store bagels, and the Montreal style ones have simply become a forgotten memory.

Now I've baked bagels before, though it was a long time ago. Not sure why, because they're not really any more difficult that any other shaped bread product. Yes, there's a handful of steps, but it's not rocket science, and they're pretty forgiving.

So I went looking for recipes, since I have no idea what one I used to use. And then I thought to look in one of the cookbooks that I've only been given in the last few years.

I love the cookbooks by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford. They're beautiful, full of fabulous food and culture and travel. Even the Home Baking one, which is a little more ordinary, has a wealth of variety. And yes, there's a bagel recipe.

Pretty much it's a straightforward recipe. There was only one ingredient that made me pause. They ask for some 'wheat malt syrup'. Oops. Even looking this up in the glossary wasn't helping a lot. Back in my brewing days I might have had some barley malt syrup on hand, but wheat? And I'm betting that's not something I'll be able to easily find without going further afield. And for 2 Tablespoons worth?
Some Googling suggested a substitution of molasses, which seemed pretty logical, and was more or less what I'd thought of on my own. I'm kind of surprised that the cookbook authors didn't make any kind of suggestion, since they're usually pretty good about suggesting workarounds for exotic items, but maybe it's only exotic around Wareham!
[I want to try this recipe again, with some preplanning, and I'll sprout some wheat and roast and grind it to make my own malt syrup. Once. Just to see...)

Anyway, I was already deciding these would be a somewhat experimental version. The cookbook gave instructions for basic mixing by hand, or for using a stand mixer. I'd love one of those but don't have one. I probably could have subbed in my Cuisinart, but I thought, heck, why not just use the breadmaker. I often use it to take things to dough stage. I find my hands and arms get stiff and arthritic when I knead, and then I tend to be inefficient about it. But even more, it provides a better environment for proofing my dough. It's not so much of a thing right now, in June, but throughout the cooler months our house isn't the most useful for getting dough to rise. The breadmaker really helps with that.
So that took care of the mixing and the first rising. Then I moved the dough to a bowl, punched it down and let it rise a second time.

After the dough has risen, you divide it into quarters and work each quarter of the dough, rolling it into fat cords, and then rolling the ends together to make the bagel shapes.

I did find that trying for 8 bagels from each quarter wasn't giving me sandwich-sized bagels, even with another short rise, and the puffing in the boiling water. I switched to six from each of the last three quarters, but I think I'd try making them bigger still next time.
After the bagel shapes had risen for another fifteen minutes, I'd managed to get a pot of water with some honey, to a boil, and dropped those bagel shapes in to puff and set. I think this is the step that may not occur with grocery store bagels. Or they have some other variant that gives them a more ordinary bread quality.
[For some reason, possibly only amusing to myself, I refer to this as the 'bloviation' stage. The bagel shapes puffed up some in the boiling water, and I would encourage them to bloviate to goodly sized bagels.]

From the boiling water, the hot wet bagel shapes were dropped into seeds, and rolled about. Then baked.

These turned out remarkably well, if small. I'm not certain if my tweaking of procedure had anything to do with that. I'd also ended up using one cup of whole wheat flour when I realized I didn't really have enough all-purpose. At least I had some regular wheat flour, as opposed to having to sub in some of my weirder historical cooking flours. I find it's useful to only change so many variables at once. At least the first time through!

v

The Promise Of...

       Coltsfoot, one of the very first signs of spring growth.

              Contrasts. Not just the black cat against the white snow, but the fact that there's somewhere not snowy for him to walk as well!

              Daffs-to-be.

 

Other small sprouting things; more daffs, crocii, and scylla.

                 Wonder of wonders: the rhubarb is already starting, even under ice!

   And okay, this exotic beauty may have suddenly appeared in my garden, but by force of husband, not force of nature. It's a small solar light thing. Though I had to actually go close, and touch it, to be sure!

 And while it may not last for long, the weather forecast for the weekend, as of this aft, is for actual near-summer temps!

Missing Virginia

What's Wrong With Wrinkly Clothes Anyway?

Envy

So, what I see out my kitchen window when I look across the crossroads at my neighbours' place?

And what I can find in my yard:

The trail leads down across Larry's yard and under the apple tree, over to our yard.

Through the cedars, and across my 'woodland garden' and towards the cedars around our deck...

This last is a little flurry of tracks under our lower deck. I did throw some food down, but...

You see this picture? This is out my deck door. See beyond the Christmas tree, where the vertical deck rails are? Through there is the lower deck. Beyond, and under, is where the turkeys are hanging out. Sigh.

So much for the Wild Turkey Channel on Bird TV!

Oh oh!

  A little something I came across from the BBC website:

7 January 2011 Last updated at 05:35 ET

Glasgow pantomime dress broke Geneva Convention

Dean Park who plays Nurse Poltis:"I can't believe it, I just can't believe it"

A Glasgow theatre has had to change a pantomime costume after being told it was breaking the Geneva Convention.

The dress worn by Nurse Poltis in the Pavilion Theatre production of Robin Hood originally had red crosses on the hat and tunic.
These were changed to green crosses after the British Red Cross informed the theatre it was breaking the law and could face prosecution.
Unauthorised use of the emblem violates the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.
The British Red Cross said it had contacted the Pavilion Theatre over the use of a red cross on a nurse's costume in the pantomime, The Magical Adventures of Robin Hood.

The previous Nurse Poltis costume violated the Geneva Convention

A spokesman for the humanitarian organisation said: "We have no desire to be the villains of the pantomime or to appear heavy handed, but we do have a very serious obligation to protect the Red Cross emblem.
"The emblem is a special sign of neutrality and protection recognised by all sides during armed conflicts.
"Misuse of that emblem - even when done in an innocent and light-hearted manner - has to be addressed. Repeated and widespread misuse of the Red Cross emblem could dilute its neutrality and its ability to protect.
"When we contacted the theatre management, they quickly changed the cross on the nurse's costume to green and we applaud them for that."

  Does this mean I have to change the design for my 'naughty nurse' in Norm Foster's Skin Flick?