Travelling is Hard Work

Travelling Is Hard Work!

If you haven’t suspected by my writings I will mention that I am well into my senior years. These days I prefer to stay home as much as I can and I don’t mind spending a fair amount of time sitting in a chair, taking in the scenery, contentedly doing nothing. But the nieces texted us on our iPad and put a bee in our bonnets - why, they said, don’t we take a few days in October or November, come down to Seattle and visit them and their Dad, Ray (our brother-in-law)…

We seldom travel. Until we sold our flock of sheep and our last guardian dog walked over the rainbow bridge we had many excuses to keep us home. Now it’s just the 3 Border Collies - but one is 15, a kennel would be hard on him. So our immediate reaction to this invitation was, hmmmm, we’ll think about it…. maybe not. But the idea had taken hold and my son offered to come up near the end of October to do some bow hunting, take care of our dogs, and watch the place if we wanted to go. The fact that October 23rd would be Rays 84th birthday was the clincher.

So out came the iPad and the search for plane tickets began. It is a short flight to Seattle but a long day of travel because the airlines want you through security a few hours before flight time and our airport is a 2.5 hour drive away. In the end there was only one choice for a direct flight, on Alaska Air, and it was near perfect for timing - daylight driving hours being another parameter of our search. I began the online process to book our flight and a park-and-ride space for our car. This is probably an easy process for the seasoned traveller. For me, not so much.

For many years I’ve had a flip phone, $10/month, no internet access, mainly kept in case of a roadside emergency. Since flip phones do not work in the US and pay phones are a thing of the past we decided we needed to get a newer cell phone. We should have taken a bit of time to learn how to use it. The first thing our new phone did for us was provide a lady on the map app to guide us to our parking garage in Nisku - it wasn’t where we thought it should be. “Make a U-turn and proceed to destination,” she said. That makes no sense, we thought. What does she mean “proceed”? We were sure we should be going the other way. So we stopped to ask directions the old fashioned way. Turned out the app lady was right. Lesson 1 - We need to learn to trust a disembodied voice from a cell tower. Don’t laugh, there’s a first time for everything, some people just have that first time later than others.

The Sea-Tac airport is like a city in itself with  a maze of people and shops. They could stand to upgrade their signage. Could also use some moving sidewalks. We walked what seemed like a mile until we finally located Ground Transportation.  Ray suggested we take an Uber to his place. We found the Uber pick-up area just beyond the taxi stand. There was a large group of people standing around staring at their phones, but not a single Uber in sight. Lesson 2 - You can’t get an Uber unless you have the Uber app. And apparently there’s accounts connected with that so you can’t ask to borrow someone else’s phone to use the app. So much for Uber. We went back to the taxi stand where a kind and chatty fellow assured us their prices were competitive, and they were.

Seattle is a huge city built on steep hills. Beautiful in many ways, just another city in others, a kaleidoscope of wealth and poverty. It was full of flowers, ivy, greenery, water ways, quaint neighbourhoods, condos, boats, office towers, construction areas, homeless tent settlements, bridges, shops, restaurants… Google lives there taking up a whole city block. We had a great visit with Ray and our nieces - were wined and dined and ferried about like visiting royalty, a wonderful connection with family we seldom see in person.

We booked a taxi for our return to the SeaTac airport and breezed through security, found our gate, had a snack and waited to board. After a quick flight we were ushered quickly through customs because I use a cane and there we were, sitting on a bench at the luggage carousels, trying to navigate our new phone again. Our parking garage had instructed us to phone as soon as we arrived so they could fetch our car and warm it up. Problem & Lesson 3 - Do you have to dial one before the number when you’re in the area of the call but your cell number is not? Tried both ways and got through to a phone tree. But then - “Press zero”, they said, to reach the correct department. Zero! How? The number keyboard was gone! (Lesson 4 -To get the dial pad to reappear you touch on a wee square full of dots). The other option was to text. I opened Messenger and there was no key board, no area to write! How does that work? (Lesson 5 - To write a text you have to touch on a square with what’s supposed to be a pen angled in the corner to bring the keyboard up). So we sat on a bench arguing about which one of us knew better and finally, we don’t really know how, we connected. The bus to Park & Go arrived within minutes. Excellent service and less costly than the gas needed for a two way trip to the airport.

My son thought our phone problems were hilarious. “Just play around with it,” he said. “You can’t wreck it.” Have we done that yet? No. Our phone never rings. I had to ask someone to call just so I’d know what it sounds like. People say we’ll love it once we get used to it - maybe. Are we going to fly away again any time soon? We’re in no rush. Being at our destination was great, but the travelling part was hard work!

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https://www.facebook.com/Northof543/, 

November 11, 2023

The Cost of Everything

          A few days ago I required more space in my freezer so I pulled out 14 lb. of raspberries to make wine. Then I checked my sugar supply and determined the wine would require more than I had on hand so off to town I went. I popped into my usual grocery store, headed to the baking supply isle and reached for a 10 kg bag of sugar. Then I noticed the price - $25.99! I called my husband over. “Look at that!” I said. “Can you believe it?” I was shocked and somewhat angry. 

I need sugar for wine, for cooking, for canning. The bees’ survival is dependant on feeding sugar water at this time of year. SUGAR IS A BASIC STAPLE for heaven’s sake! It was almost $10 per bag less the last time I bought it, and that was not long ago. I carried the bag of sugar around in my cart with a few other items for a bit then gave my head a shake, returned everything to the shelf and walked out. 

We decided to drive north to another community. There the price of sugar was $9 less. Three days later I went to my more usual shopping community to the south west. There sugar was $12.99 for a 10 kg bag. I also needed canning jars. Price variation from store to store for same brand regular pints was from $12.99/dozen to $20.99. 

I guess the moral of this story is Buyer Beware. It seems some stores are taking advantage of those of us unwilling or unable to shop around.

Why do grocery prices vary so drastically from store to store? I understand sales/purchasing volume plays a role, but I’m not talking about convenience stores here, I’m talking about large chain stores. How do stores determine their prices?

I don’t know how people are managing these days with rising prices and interest rates while wages and pensions remain the same. I don’t claim to understand economics, but raising the base interest rate to curb inflation, in the wake of the Covid measures that destroyed many small businesses and from which many others are still struggling to recover, seems to contribute to the problem rather than relieve it. It raises the cost of everything, from production to distribution to retail - including the basic necessities. Once raised, prices rarely come back down.

When one person or group loses another gains. There is always someone ready to take advantage of another’s misfortune. It’s common sense - follow the money. While the majority of us struggle to maintain our standard of living in this fiscal climate, there are others lining their pockets. 

Mary Lynn Tipton

Autumn Scramble

AUTUMN SCRAMBLE

I have a casual attitude about gardening. If you are a weed looking for a home your  chances of survival are good under my care. I try to weed enough to give the veggies or flowers I’ve planted room to grow and I occasionally claw out great clumps of chickweed that have taken over my “alleyways”, but once the preferred plants gain sufficient size I have a casual attitude about gardening. If you are a weed looking for a home your  chances of survival are good under my care. I try to weed enough to give the veggies or flowers I’ve planted room to grow and I occasionally claw out great clumps of chickweed that have taken over my “alleyways”, but once the preferred plants gain sufficient size and strength my weeding takes a back seat to thinning, harvesting and preserving.

This year was an odd one, it seems most years are. Cold, no rain, tons of rain, smokey skies, excessive heat… resulting in huge, chest high, bushy, unruly (and, as per my gardening style, unpruned) tomato plants which appeared to flower little and set almost no fruit. By early September, though, I discovered dozens of good sized tomatoes well hidden amongst the vines! And here I thought I was nearly done canning

And beets! Last year a hungry hoard of rodents devoured my crop leaving only the greens and a tiny bit of beet. So this year I grew extra and the critters left them alone leaving me with over 30 pints, bunches given away, and a large pail to put down the cellar in peat moss.

My specially purchased costly heirloom pea seeds barely grew, so I harvested the whole crop for seed, getting 300 grams. Potatoes turned out great - big no scabs. I got only two decent sized buttercup squashes from one  giant plant, too many zucchini, enough honeyberries (Haskap) for a batch of wine, 120 lbs. of raspberries (3 batches of wine, many quarts of juice, jam, vinaigrette, some frozen and many devoured), and lots of sunflowers for beauty, bees and birds. I will harvest thousands of seeds from the last years carrot that I planted. All in all a pretty good year. But, with Autumn officially around the corner, both my husband and myself are getting antsy to see the end of gardening. Most nights are within a degree or two of freezing and the bees are sticking close to home. It’s time to “get ‘er done” so the garden can be tilled up, manured and ready for next year.

Never Too Late - -

Never Too Late - -

Well, I said to myself, I play mandolin in my own self taught style, and the violin is tuned exactly the same way, so why not give it a try and take the violin lessons on offer in the Fort? The keyboard is fretless but I already can play mandolin without looking where to place my fingers, so... I’ll just need to master the bow…

I bought my fiddle at a pawn shop in Vancouver over 50 years ago, tried it then and maybe about 4 times since. It’s taken a bit of a beating over the years but I know for a fact it can sound pretty good because I once heard a concert violinist play it.

So, playing a mandolin does help a bit, but the violin’s playing position changes the finger/hand/wrist position. And then there’s the bow - oh my, the bow! A six week course, 3 simple songs. It’s been enlightening, challenging, fun. And it’s overcome my reluctance to try. Gotta say, without my teacher watching (sorry Howard), I can play a simple version of “Bonaparte’s Retreat” (which I already play on mando) better than “Are You Sleeping” from our class. Familiarity is one reason, no baby finger required is another. I almost envy the other beginning adults and little kids who don’t have to overcome a myriad of bad habits learned over years of self teaching. But I’ve got the fiddle bug now, just need to practice, practice, practice and I think/hope something presentable will eventually appear. 

Seed Testing

 

 Seed Testing 

I finally got around to doing a germination test on the cucumber seeds I saved. I’ve never saved cucumber seeds (pickling) before and was unsure of myself. I simply allowed a couple of them to get big and somewhat yellow, then removed the seeds and dried them. The seeds from both the cucumbers I used seemed very flat. I thought they should have more bulk to them. And I was partially right - the seeds of one cucumber just turned black & mouldy. The other one though was a success! 8 out of 10 seeds sprouted. Such a simple process! I am delighted, another step on my seed saving road.

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April 7, 2023

Dog Bones

Dog  Bones

We have always had dog treats on hand, for rewards, encouragement, love. We usually buy Kirkland large size bones - a big box weighing 6.8kg. We have lots of dogs and this has, until now, been our best buy. But the price has gone up $10/box!You know - it’s that Covid thing, that war over there, that shortage thing, that supply chain problem - all those excuses we are being fed on the media for our lives costing twice as much as they did 2 years ago. So today I’m making dog “bones” and will share my recipe with you. The dogs tell me they like them just as well as store bought. Quantity wise one recipe makes about half the amount of one of those Kirkland boxes.

The “bone” part of this recipe is optional. If you like rolling out dough, cutting bone shapes with your cute little bone cookie cutters, placing each bone one at a time on the pan to bake…go for it. Me, I roll balls of dough between the palms of my hands, then flatten them with a fork and make cookies instead of bones.

WARNING! These dog cookies LOOK LIKE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES! You might want to slap the hand that tries to sneak one when they’re cooling, or, if you have a wee devil on your shoulder, you could just smile and watch. 

Dog “bones”

first the DRY INGREDIENTS 

15 cups whole wheat flour 

       (or 1/2 white, 1/2 whole wheat) flour 

3/4 cup wheat germ

3/4 cup cornmeal

1 & 1/2 cups powdered milk

1 & 1/2 teaspoons salt

3 Tablespoons garlic powder or granulated garlic (Some people believe garlic is poison for dogs. If you’re one of them, then omit the garlic.)

then add the LIQUID INGREDIENTS 

1/2 cup fat (bacon drippings, lard), melted

6 eggs

1/4 cup molasses plus 2 Tablespoons bouillon powder in 3 cups hot water, 

       (or use molasses and 3 cups canned or homemade chicken or beef broth)

MIX, in addition to the liquids in the recipe above, you will need to add more water a bit at a time to get all the dry ingredients to blend together. You will probably have to use your hands. You want a heavy dough.

PLACE one inch diameter balls on lightly greased cookie sheets. You can crowd them, they’re not going to rise much or spread.

SQUASH with a fork. If the fork starts to stick, put it in flour.

BAKE at 350° for 30 minutes.

DEHYDRATE in a 250° oven. These treats must be hard and dry. If they yield when you squeeze them they’re not hard enough. Dogs like them crunchy and they will mould if they have retained too much moisture. Initial baking will not likely be enough to reduce moisture. Pile up the already baked ones and put them back in the oven until they are hard. You are essentially dehydrating them.

STORE at room temperature in an open container, a cardboard box works.

Little variations of this recipe are fine. If you’re missing an ingredient add something else instead but try to keep the amount of dry ingredients & liquid ingredients about the same. Brewers yeast gives a good nutritional boost. I didn’t have any wheat germ today so I substituted oatmeal in this batch. 

Gizmos

Gizmos

I’ve never made a meat pie before but some little ear worm crawled in and got me  thinking - “What a great way to use up some of that ground moose meat in the freezer!” So, even though I truly do not enjoy making pie crust, and because I’m too stubborn to buy pre-made, I embarked on a new cooking adventure. First was the filling recipe. I delved into the net and found one for tourtiere, a French Canadian style meat pie using ground meat and some interesting spices. I substituted ground moose for ground beef and more or less followed the recipe. Knowing I’d stored some aluminum pie plates in the granary I searched them out and discovered that in my deep forgotten past I must have had this idea before. Nested in the usual pie plates were some small ones, perfect for individual pies. So when our son and family came home at Christmas time we had individual meat pies for supper. I was pretty tickled with myself. They could have been a little spicier and the pork proportion should have been about 65% because moose meat has so little fat, but not bad for a first try.

One brilliant idea spawns another so I decided I should make hot meat pockets to freeze for lunches. Bought a gizmo called an empanada press and not only made tourtiere meat pockets but started making apple turnovers too. These were not as successful because the dough to filling ratio was off balance. If I put in as much filling as I wanted the pockets split. I think I need a puffier tastier pastry dough too - back to the drawing board.

Then I got to thinking about tortillas. Wheat flour tortillas are getting more and more expensive, and corn flour tortillas are hard to find. I like making Indian curry and roti/chapati (similar to tortillas) go great with curry. I also prefer corn tortillas for tacos. So, I got myself another gizmo, a tortilla press, and a bag of corn flour which I surprisingly found in our local discount grocery store. The gizmo, once assembled, works fine and eliminates the rolling pin. Gonna try making some enchiladas one of these days too. I really do like Mexican food.

So the adventure continues. Over 50 years of making meals can stagnate your creativity but there’s nothing like a couple of new gizmos to stimulate a new cooking adventure. 

Oh Oh Canada

Oh Oh Canada

Canada Post is changing. Some might say it’s simply adapting to the times. Many have opted out of using mail service for letters, occasional greetings, and paying bills. Email, on-line banking, and social media are “free” and there’s no time delay. Yet the post office is busier than ever, wrestling with boxes & more boxes. 

Did you ever wonder how Amazon can afford to send a tiny inexpensive item in a big box and not charge you any shipping? And charities, how can they afford to send all those plea packs of cards and labels?

I tried wading through Canadian postal rates online and found one statement that I think says it all - “SHIP MORE, SAVE MORE.” Businesses/corporations from small to large to ginormous benefit from reduced shipping rates while postal service for individuals just keeps getting higher. Have you noticed how expensive it’s getting to mail a care package to family these days? How about that “little” transportation surcharge? If Grandma sends you cookies you should thank her profusely. They are worth their weight in gold! 

Canada Post is just another one of those government services that serves the bigger guys and socks it hard to the individual. I do have to hand it to our local post office workers though. I have found that they will try their best to find you the best deal for what you’re trying to accomplish. 

mltipton.blogspot.com, 

https://www.facebook.com/Northof543/, 

February 18, 2023

Familial Monikers

Familial Monikers

I love that word - “monikers”, just had to use it even though a simple word would have sufficed. From the moment we come into this world we are identified not only by our given and family name but also by familial terms - daughter/son, sister/brother. wife/husband, mother/father, granddaughter/grandson, grandmother/grandfather, aunt/uncle…Then there’s the “hoods” - sisterhood/brotherhood, motherhood/fatherhood, childhood - and the age related identifiers - tot, youth, teenager, junior/senior, matriarch/patriarch. We even have terms for the different generations. I have discovered that I belong to the Silent Generation. ???? Silent? Hmmm, not sure that’s descriptive of me. 

Where am I going with all this? Bear with me, I’m old enough to have a meandering mind. The familial moniker I prefer for myself is “elder”. It seems more noble than the word “senior”. There are dozens of sayings with regard to respecting your elders (earned or not) and elders are supposed to be wise. I like that. Experience is a good teacher and elders, simply because they are old, have  lots. In my 80 years I’ve seen a lot of science fiction become reality, and found truth in the adage that history repeats itself.

I’ve come to believe human beings are flawed, living in today’s world with a brain that’s failed to evolve beyond tribal times. There are billions of us now. Our striving for dominance over one another, over the natural world - it’s simply not sustainable. We strive for wealth and the power it brings, but maybe we should redefine wealth in a more altruistic way. I celebrated my 80th birthday on the same day I attended a memorial for a well loved community member. Looking around the hall, listening to the folks who will miss him, I think I can say that, in many ways, this man was truly wealthy. So, also, am I.

I’ve wandered through my day, trying to put into words what’s going through my mind. Then I remembered a beautiful, insightful poem I once read. Delving into the internet I found it! The tools we have at hand these days are amazing. I both embrace and fear modern technology and scientific advancement… but that’s another story.

Please take the time to read 

The Calf-Path

by Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare;
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf. 

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;

But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.