A Pretty Enough Snowfall

The comments to yesterday's post really surprised me. Apparently, 'passel' is used pretty widely in a large part of the USA. It's a small sample size, but I think eastern Canada, northeast USA, and the west coasts of both countries don't use it a lot, and as I said recently, I sure haven't heard it much, if ever, apart from Dad.

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Two days ago, there wasn't a major storm, but there was enough snow to bring out the town plows and the driveway blower-people. It also stuck on the fir trees just enough to prettify the park on our walk.

Below, we had walked the path from the top of the frame to where Sue took this photo (she took all photos in this post). It might look a bit problematic for an old guy with a cane, but it was soft and wasn't difficult at all, and the aesthetics were worth any inconvenience.

While I am here, I might as well also drop two photos of our next stroll — yesterday's walk — when  we drove to the bridge trail for a bit of variety.

Sue wishes she had a red coat because her grey coat didn't stand out on this dull day in her attempt at her daily photo. After much fiddling, I was able to turn it red in Photoshop. I've done it before but not for a long time, so I had to figure out some sort of method. The trick was to turn it red but still retain the texture of the coat. I did my best.

We do a loop on the trail to take us back to the car. Sue took a photo after I had passed under the old railway bridge when I looked back to see what she was up to.

Passel

Three--count them, three--big cat items today, including a passel of lovely pictures.

I was taken with the word, passel, on that ↑ Bluesky link to a blogpost. You see, my dad used that word. having heard it from his first-generation English parents. I don't think I have ever hear anyone else say it. I've watched quite a bit of British tv, but I can say that if the word has been used, it hasn't popped out to me.

I have always assumed that it was the way that Dad said 'parcel'. From googling, it seems that I was at least partially correct. Hey! It does happen! 

Loss of the sound of "r" after a vowel and before a consonant in the middle of a word is common in spoken English. This linguistic idiosyncrasy has given the language a few new words, including cuss from curse, bust from burst, and passel from parcel. (Meriam Webster)

While we are all familiar with cuss for curse, we probably aren't as familiar with bust for burst, as in to bust one's britches. I wonder though, how many have heard of passel for parcel?

On the other hand, these words also have their own places in the dictionary. For example, passel can be defined as an informal noun without even using the word parcel in the definition: "a large group of people or things of indeterminate number; a pack."

(Note: Don't fret if you can't quite understand the context of the quote at the top. He was posting a link to his blog about cats, and I was just taken with the word, passel.)

Making Cauliflower Palatable

When I recently mentioned cauliflower soup, people seemed to like the recipe as far as it went, and at least one person requested the full thing. Another person posted their dislike of this odious veggie, and I agree except for Sue’s clever workaround in the next paragraph. 

I dislike raw cauliflower very much, but in an attempt to improve my wretched diet due to my general dislike of vegetables, Sue hit upon a solution. After steaming cauliflower for 10 minutes, she coats it in a mayo and mustard mix and then rubs on grated cheese which sticks because of the coating. She bakes and then broils briefly to crisp up the cheese. I actually like it and even request it. We eagerly consume any crispy cheese that falls off the cauliflower and onto the pan.

Sue does this for me, really, because she likes cauliflower in its regular raw state and munches on some florets at almost every lunchtime. There’s definitely something wrong with this dear woman   

Now for the soup recipe. While I seldom read others’ posted recipes, this was a request.  I will just paste a photo from Eat, Shrink & Be Merry by Janet & Greta Podleski, 2005. Published 20 years ago, I think that I can post one page from their cookbook on which you can see my various notes. The circled numbers down the left represent the different steps. The upper numbers in the ingredients, align with the lower steps in the directions. I really need to keep organized, or my tiny, old brain gets very muddled.

Click to Embiggen

This was the third of their cookbooks, I think all were self-published. I know that their first of the three Light cookbook, Looneyspoons was self-published. They went on to produce a second, Crazy Plates, before finally publishing Eat, Shrink ... One sister was the cook, the other the graphic designer.

Amazon Canada link to Eat, Shrink & Be Merry

When They (and we) Were Young

You surely recall my old b&w photos (new scans) at Christmas. I didn't have all that many to deal with, but I have a big box of old slides that I have finally decided to tackle. 

That is the setup, above, but I should have shown the large box of slides too; it will be a big job. However, it is fun to look back in time, so I'll take it bit by bit.

Of course, you know that I am about to post a few of these new scans, but I promise not to drop too many on you.

We were about to take Shauna somewhere or other in the spring of '73 in our red Ford Maverick. I never did get a second red car although I would have liked to. Subsequent vehicles were light blue, brown, white, green-blue, black, and black in that order. 

I don't think that I have ever posted a photo of Sue's mom. She was a great help in the very early days with Shauna, who was a weird baby. It was Pearl who quickly realized that Shauna liked to be rocked and walked (in her carriage) furiously. I mean that we would have to bounce her like crazy. It was the talk of the neighbourhood.

The slides got a little scrambled. As you can see, Shauna is a little older here, possibly the summer of '74. I have no doubt that we were on our way to or from church.

Now, I am getting into the picture with my mother and Sha. We were visiting an art gallery somewhere in or near Toronto. Although I have said that Shauna was a weird baby, she was also as good as gold once we figured out that rocking thing, which didn't really take us too long.

This next photo was at Sue's parents' place. Shauna and I had a lot of fun. I was sitting on a big, stuffed turtle. I notice my hairy legs in this and other old photos. It’s all gone now. 

The next and final photo skips ahead to one of me with our second child, sometime in the fairly early 80s, perhaps '82 or '83. Sue's dad had a rural cottage that had a small waterfall on the property. It was fun in there with PJ, who was wearing a cap to keep her earplugs in. Poor thing had a bad time with her ears and had minor surgery to fix the problem.

All of these photos are definitely snapshots, but they capture our times and lives. Where will the next batch take us?

Oh Good! I've Been Stupid Again

I have a very good recipe for cauliflower soup. Aside from 4 cups of cauliflower, it calls for 2 cups of leeks, 1 cup of sweet potato, as well as other add-ins. I brought home the ingredients from my earlier shopping this week.

After I bring the ingredients home, Sue usually puts them away. She'll wash the fruit and veggies and put things in containers. On this occasion, she went the extra mile by preparing both the cauliflower and the leeks. She told me that she had prepared the cauliflower florets, but when I started to gather the ingredients, I was pleasantly surprised to see that she had also sliced the leeks. That was almost the biggest part of the preparations.

I gathered the ingredients together, did the cooking, and used the blender to to puree slightly more than half of the ingredients into soup. 

The result was quite tasty, even though I had substituted cheddar cheese for Swiss cheese.

Even though it was good, something seemed different.

As Sue was falling asleep that night, she came to the realization that she hadn't washed the cauliflower container.

No people! I had not forgotten to add cauliflower, but . . . I had used the wrong container. I used the container with leftover cauliflower after Sue had measured the 4 required cups in a different container.  The container thatI used probably had only half or even less of the required amount of florets.

And that was what was wrong — the soup was not as thick as it usually is. It was still tasty, but it wasn't the same. It had been awhile since I last made it, so I just put it down to faulty memory.

Sue said that she would cook some of the rest of the cauliflower and integrate it with the remainder of the soup. She did that little thing, and, so, we had a heartier bowl last night.

Although I made one of my usual faux pas, it was a good thing in a way because it gave me a fresh blog topic. I should make a collection of these types of posts: The Pratfalls of AC. 

The Trail by the Arena on a Cold and Windy Day

The deep freeze is over for now, or will be shortly, as it still went down to 0F overnight. While temperatures will remain below freezing for the next few days, they are at least not down to 18C/0F. At least the wind was not strong throughout most of the cold snap. 

A few days ago, we drove to a different trail. While our trail is a bit protected, we do walk through the open park to accessit. So, we drove to the arena to access that trail. When I describe two trails, they are really part of the same trail but just different sections.

These are all Sue's shots. After numbing my fingers on that video day, I have recently been happy enough to keep my hands in my mitts.

It is a bit wider and straighter than our usual section here.

You can see the river from various spots. 

At one spot we took a little path down to the river.

Sue got closer to the section above.

It was calm along the trail, but as we got back to the parking lot, we experienced strong winds that reminded us that we had made the right choice for our walk on that day.

Crazy Canadian, Eh?

It was almost 0°F. As we passed the house, I glanced to my left, and this is what I saw. 

Now you have seen what I saw: a crazy Canadian lady, sitting in a patch of sunshine on her driveway, drinking coffee and reading on a very cold day. Fortunately, it wasn't windy. 

Ya gotta luv it. Right?

We asked her if we could take that picture, and she was more than willing. Sue got a little closer, or zoomed-in, or maybe a bit of both, and took another.

She was and is a very outgoing lady, a physiotherapist who was most curious about my cane. So we chatted for some time about my issues and some of her issues and so on and so forth, which is how conversations meander along.

Then we continued our walk, Sue looking for contrasty photos for her daily challenge.

I don't know if she will choose one of these or something else. Doubtless, if she chooses the third photo, she will do some cropping, but these are all SOOC (straight out of the camera).

If it were me, I might choose this one after cropping the background out
because that tree shadow is pretty darn impressive.

A Matter of Memory

I lost a memory card, or so I thought, and was pretty well down to just one card for my camera although I had two in other cameras, one of which is with Danica for the time being. I began to worry. 

What if I lose this one and need to use the camera?

What if this one breaks or gets corrupted as happened with a recent card.

          Cards do fail from time to time. 

Late one night, I figured enough was enough, so I popped into nearby Amazon, and a package arrived shortly thereafter. 

They aren't the best high speed cards, but they will be good enough for my needs, and I should never run out of cards although if anyone is capable of, somehow, achieving such a feat, it is I.

A day or three later, I needed a post-it note.

For some reason or other I wanted the colour that was at the bottom. of the stack. When I emptied the stack, this ↓ is what I discovered at the very bottom. It was, obviously, in a very secure place, but with me, it becomes a case of out of sight, out of mind.

I am now the proud owner of about four extra memory cards than I need or can use, but I think what I really need is a memory card to be surgically implanted in my tiny, wee brain. 

Arrgh

Arrgh!

Yes, I did miss out, you twits: because you change offers on Thursday. I shopped on Thursday morning, and you sent the offers in the afternoon.

Oh well . . .

Meanwhile, shall I share Sue's composite from one of our recent walks hobbles? We were along the same trail that I recently showed in a video. It was a very cold day and this dog was dressed for the weather.

Believe it or not little guy was a long way from home, which is Madagascar. Well, not him per se, but his breed. 

The Coton de Tulear is a small, white dog breed that originated in Madagascar. They are known as the "Royal Dog of Madagascar".  (google ai)

I found the dog, his outfit, and his pedigree all delightful.

The Sweet Smell of Nothing

Sitting at the computer in the early morning, I seem to smell a sweet perfume. It is very pleasant, but what am I smelling? It something like what Danica was wearing when we hugged goodbye after family dinner. Unfortunately, it almost has to be a phantom scent.

I am reminded of a rather unpleasant phantom odour after the doctor prescribed Gabapentin several years ago. I would be sitting at the computer and smelling gasoline, and it happened in other places too. I queried Sue back then, but she smelled nothing, and she normally has a more sensitive olfactory level than I.

The Gabapentin wasn't working anyway, so in consultation with the doctor, I abandoned it.

Meanwhile, I will somewhat enjoy the lovely perfume, from wherever it emanates in my tiny little brain.

Later . . .  .

After some time, Sue arose. Of course, she smelled nothing. Then I thought, "Why not google it, you brain-cramped peon? It eventuates that Phantosmia is the word for this condition — the same word that I found three years ago when I googled my phantom gasoline smells. Of course, I had forgotten it, for three minutes is a long time for my diminishing brain to retain words, never you mind three years.

Phantosmia is a condition that causes you to detect smells that aren’t actually in your environment. It can happen in one nostril or both — and the odors may be foul or pleasant. Common causes include colds, allergies, nasal polyps and dental issues.

I do not have a cold, and I don’t think that I have nasal polyps, but I do have a mild allergy to Lacey of all things, but I have had that for six years now without smelling nice perfume at my computer at five o'clock in the morning. I have had some dental work recently, but the last work occurred two weeks ago, and this is not the first occurrence, so I don't know what to think.

Update: Three days later, the phantom odour is occurring again, for hours on this Wednesday morning. Sue, she of the bloodhound nose, hath arisen. She informs me that it is, indeed, a phantom odour. 

I can't say there's something rotten in the state of Denmark because we are not in Denmark and the odour is far from rotten.

Short Changed

For months now, Jonathan has been scanning my height to see how he stacks up. At family dinner, our eyes almost met on the same level. I, maybe, still have a meagre inch on him. 

I was surprised that our heights were so close and asked him how tall he was. He didn't know. 

We did a quick, crude measurement. He seems to be 5'10".

"Wait a minute! I am 6'1+" and he is almost at eye level with me. People do shrink as they age. I wonder if I have lost an inch."

No, I haven't lost an inch. I have lost 2" inches. Actually 2+ inches.

That's right! Once upon a time I was 6'1" plus a bit. Now I measured at 5'11".

I was shocked. Everyone was shocked.

I have been short-changed as it were.

Trying to measure how tall short Buppa is.

A Cold Brisk Walk

It was near the old zero yesterday. By old zero, I mean means Fahrenheit. Zero, for Celsius is just the freezing point. 0C is like 32F, and it's not that cold. But I remember from days of yore that 0F is cold, Baby: not Saskatchewan or Minnesota cold, but cold enough.

We still went for our daily walk, and without wind, it was actually quite pleasant. You may not believe that, but it's the wind that is the killer. Mind you, we  were well bundled and not exactly in shorts and tees.

For whatever reason, I decided that yesterday was the day to video our expedition, largely because I knew that the snow would be very crunchy underfoot in the cold, and I thought that some of you would like to hear that.

Videoing meant hands out of mitts, so I kept the clips really short before I would get the mitts back on. Of course, my hands got downright cold anyway, and then the batteries in my heated mitts failed. Sue leant me one-half of one of her own handwarmers, but I was still happy enough to get my frozen digits back to the car.

The video is about 1 minute and 40 seconds. The clips are unedited, other than being strung together. There was a time when I wouldn't do a vertical video, but it is now cool, thanks to Instagram and other social media platforms. In this case, it seemed to suit going along the trail.

I hope you'll walk with us.

I hope this posted okay. It’s not quite 4 o’clock, and I am huddled in my chair under a blanket. I’ve had my first coffee. The house was 15C before I turned the heat up 

Hope

Way back in October I posted about Sue and her afghans in the Happy Crafter. She had begun her Winter White project.

She had to set it aside after Christmas because her hand is so painful, but with only two rows to go she gritted her teeth and got on with it, and it is quite gorgeous.

She would love to try to do another. When I read Boud's blog, she talked of knitting a lap afghan. Well who, other than Boud, has heard of lap afghans?

Google to the rescue. 

A lap afghan is a smaller version of an afghan blanket that is typically used to cover the lap. Lap afghans can be made from yarn and crocheted or knitted.

Lap afghans are often square and range from 36 in x 36 in to 45 in x 45 in

A common rectangular size is 36 in x 42 in, which can cover a wheelchair user from chest to feet

Lap Afghans are indeed a real thing, and there are how to video tutorials. link

It remains to be seen if Sue can find a tutorial to her liking and also whether her affliction can deal with even a reduced project. But she does really want to do something.

Update: Sue has found a scarf pattern by her favourite YT creator, and she has decided to give it a go.

I Feel a Draft

It's funny: not as in haha but as in odd.

Fairly recently had nothing to post for two days. It is not as though I have ever intended to be a daily blogger (although I almost am), so it didn't bother me. I was uninspired.

Then the snow came, and that eventuated into 4 posts, I think it was.

Other things popped into my head, such as presenting a bit of Nick's photography, or mentioning my memory card incident, or posting about Sue's afghan. (I've yet to post the memory card blog.)

As thoughts came to me, I would draft a little post. I do mean draft. It was to sit there in the queue until I decided to publish it.

When I thought of making this post, there were already 5 posts sitting in draft mode.

Truth be told there are actually at least two more that I have already targetted for next Christmastime, believe it or not. I wrote them during Christmas season just past, but they needed to be published pre-Christmas, and I was already past that date. So, they are potentially saved until next Christmas. Whether or not they actually get posted then remains to be seen.

The queue is getting so long that I have decided to make this my second post of the day, which is not generally how I play this little blogging game. That doesn't mean that I won't again run out of topics in a few days.

Nick in Red

The Three Photo Amigos Club met for coffee this week sans amigo Bob, who was under the dratted weather. For some reason, I pulled out the phone and took a few snaps of Nick with his coffee. I liked this one well enough to play with and post.

Aside from the conversion to b&w with selective colour — good old Canadian red — I chose to use the texture slider, specifically on Nick's face to bring out the lines. The gritty look is often used for men, and as a senior, he deserves to be proud of his creases. I processed to my taste of the moment, but when he saw it, he wished for a more subtle hand. Taste is variable although we did both like the taste of the coffee.

Nick is a very accomplished photographer. He takes much more care of his subjects, composition and exposure than either Bob or I. While I just walk around town and lift my camera every now and then, Nick goes farther afield and really takes his time. Many of his photos are artistic and taken in a way to suit his vision. I would say that they are often fine art. 

He gave me permission to post a few. This is a snowy path through the woods. I love the mood that he created. I don't know how he does some of the things that he does, and he does them in camera more than in edit. When you see these, you may understand why he would be very picky and critical of my very candid phone shot of him.

Nick often attaches his macro lens and looks down as he walks and investigates. Not many of us would have found this little composition, and, by the way, he doesn't place and manipulate objects. While I don't mind if people do that, Nick has his standards.

Although he did give me permission, I won't go on, and this shall be the last one I will post. It would take a long time to find a web like this in the location that he did and then capture it in the way that he did. It's quite marvellous.

Unlike me, he will only post a photo once he has developed it exactly the way that he wants it. As I mentioned in a recent post, I consider online posting to be part of the process, and I often adjust a photo afterward. I guess making an actual print would be the end result for me although none of us do that much anymore, which is kind of sad, really.

On Frozen Pond

It's the way that it goes for me. On Wednesday, I saw what I thought were interesting lines and shapes in the ice of the nearby pond. Sue took some pictures with her phone, but I did not have my camera, and I wasn't in a phone-photo sort of mood.

Next day, Thursday, I brought the beast with the beastie long lens. But, of course, snow had covered the lines and shapes.

I did what I could and looked for alternatives. This is the little peninsula (sounds grand but isn't) that juts into the pond. With clean snow in front and a sudden line of vegetation, I thought it worth a shot. I think I was right; I like it. The grasses at the back were farther from the subject than it appears; zoom lenses can compress distances.

Speaking of compression, from some distance I took a photo of the bit of open water amidst the frozen pond. It looks very narrow in the photo (telephoto effect again) in which you see abstract reflections. I almost never put borders on my images, but I did this time . . . and also once again on the final photo in this post. Sometimes you have to shake things up a little, but I won't do this much because I can't say that I like it.

I managed to isolate a couple of 'grasses' at the edge of the pond against the snow for a minimalistic look.

We made it past the pond to the river. There wasn't much to see, but I decided to take an image of four little agglomerations of ice that had formed around branches sticking out of the fast-flowing water. Call them ice skirts if you will. I fiddled a lot with this one too, including adding a narrow, white border that hardly shows up here against the blog background.

I like the first two photos quite a bit but the pond reflection one is doubtless better without the border. When I post a photo in my blog, it is not necessarily my forever final version but something that I did in the moment.

Showing the Flag

When the snow fell, I decided that I should get to town hall if ever I were to make a dent in my project for the year. With snow on the roof and hardly anywhere else on the building, I was definitely looking upward through the camera. In post edit, I converted all of the photos to a non-contrasty monochrome to suit the snowy day, but I left the flag colourized.

I like 1, 3 and 5 best and it that order.

My resolve is to return with my telephoto lens after another snowfall to try to pick out details on the roof. We shall see what we shall see.

Snow on the Roofs

Last Monday was great for snow photos in the park, but there is a log cabin very near the park on the opposite side of the road.

I took this picture last February.

I knew that I had a good one already, so I didn't photograph the house again on this day. But there is also a log shed next to the house. I walked around until I could get fairly clear shots from the road.

This next and final photo is of an old mansion, downtown near town hall. It's not proximate or similar to the previous log buildings, but it has a long history too.