Food! (And a Little Bit of Christmas)

As you are all probably aware, Daniel and I got to spend Christmas at home this year. What this meant was that we had ready access to a stove and a fridge, both of which we put to very good use.

To start with, there were fresh cinnamon rolls for breakfast...

Then, after a suitable and somewhat lengthy pause (we ate more of those than we probably should have), came Christmas Dinner. There were artichoke and green olive pies...

Ham, mashed potatoes and caramelised onions and beans...

And then Daniel surpassed himself with a bread and butter pudding full of sultanas and vanilla, with an apricot jam glaze. I take credit for the glaze! It was apricot jam that I made earlier this year.

Believe it or not, there was a bit more to Christmas than food. For instance, we did have a Christmas tree.

And we received some lovely gifts (thank you!), including some possums who can keep our kangaroo and koala decorations company.

We had a lovely, lazy day. And from what I've heard, you all had a lovely Christmas, too, although considerably more noisy!

The cats had varied approaches to the day. Maggie was very curious and playful...

Whereas Dobie followed our lead, and had a very laid back day. This is not unusual for Dobie - he is generally laid back for about 22 hours out of every 24.

And there you have it. Christmas at our house, 2009. Cheers!

First Snow of the Season

On December 7, we got our first "proper" snow of the season - which is to say that snow fell, fell some more, and then didn't immediately melt. Daniel took some photos in our yard for you to look at...

This is the crabapple tree we planted a few years ago when we first bought the house. Those wee little apples make a nice frozen treat for the squirrels.

This is a cypress or juniper or somesuch tree that's growing up in our fence line. I haven't had the heart to cut it down.

Here's our apricot tree... it really will come back in the spring!

And last, but not least, snow on our snowberry bush, which is a native shrub of this area. I hope you can see the individual snowflakes around the edges (they're the fuzzy-looking things). We don't often get fluffy snow, but it's a treat when we do.

A Tuba Christmas

So this last Saturday, December 5th, Daniel and I ventured to downtown Boise for A Tuba Christmas. Neither of us had ever heard about such a thing, but apparently there are about 200 of these events happening throughout the country on the given day.

Tuba, euphomium and sousaphone players from university bands, high schools bands, and even just those who like to play said tubas, euphoniums and sousaphones, gather somewhere public for a free performance of Christmas carols.

It was pretty cold (somwhere around freezing, I think), but the band and the crowd remained undaunted! Daniel and I were smart enough to grab some hot drinks on our way there. The warmth of those hot drinks lasted about, oh, two seconds, but nevertheless...

They played a selection of well-known carols for our entertainment, and it really was fun (if a little bloody cold).

Something I didn't know before Saturday is that a band of tubas warming up sounds like I imagine a herd of elephants might sound when they are waking up.

Did I happen to mention it was COLD?!

One of the best things about it, apart from the music, was the age range of the players; from this little guy, who couldn't even hold his instrument upright, right on through the spectrum.

They also played indoors at a church after this performance, but somehow I think the cold made it more worthwhile (now that I am inside where it's a bit warmer).

A Jar (Almost) Full of Ginger

Being a Johnston by nature, if no longer by name, you know I just LOVE preserved ginger. If the scarcity of said ginger is any indication, there are apparently NO Johnstons in North America. In all the years I've been here I've found it just once, and that was in such a wee little jar I'm sure you'd all feel embarrassed for it.

It's taken a few years (procrastination being another Johnston trait I have in abundance), but I finally got around to making my own. I got the recipe from Mum on one of my visits home, and it's been waiting hopefully for me to get organised ever since.

I was optimistically waiting until I came across some nice, young, pinkish ginger, which is what the recipe calls for. I finally gave up, and got some ginger that looked like it might at least be closer to middle age than fossilisation and gave it a bash.

The process takes several days of soaking and syrup making, but I am happy to report the effort was worth it. The ginger is a little tougher than I would like, but it tastes just fine with plenty of warmth and not too much sweetness. I have developed a habit of nibbling on a few pieces whenever I wander through the kitchen, which is exactly why the jar is almost full of ginger.

My Favourite American Holiday

How's that for a view from your back yard? That's exactly what we were fortunate enough to be faced with during the recent Thanksgiving holiday. We spent a couple of days of the four day weekend at a friend's parents place about three and a half hours northeast of Boise, and just north of a town called Riggins (if you happen to have a map handy).

The weather wasn't the most cooperative it's ever been, but I'm hoping you can at least get some idea of how the country looks from the photos I've posted. It's actually all very young, geologically speaking, and all the wrinkles and folds reminded me of a piece of fabric or a handkerchief left lying on a table. The area is at a much lower elevation than Boise, so it's actually a little milder in the winter, but it's still desert and still very brown most of the year. That green patch at the front of the photo that looks like it drops off suddenly? It does....

Our hosts, Nancy and Bruce, are a delightful couple. I think they would get on very well with Mum and Dad. They are mad keen keen collectors, and their house is full of family things and things they've come across over the years. Their interests run the gamut, from china and porcelain dolls, to books, toys, and glassware. Bruce has some nifty old tools - but it seems I remember a lot of them (like the brace and bit) from my childhood!

Nancy is a sculptor and has done some lovely figures, including a spitting image of their daughter, and our friend, Karen when she was a child (cheeky thing she was... and is). She has a large cast bronze piece in a park in a town called Lewiston, but we haven't seen it yet. Bruce was a forest service employee until he retired, which might explain why they have this in their yard...

It's an old fire lookout tower that they got from the forest service. The area still has a lot of them, apparently, and some are still in use. Others have been converted to accommodation for people to stay in.

Thanksgiving dinner was a cooperative effort. Starr, Karen's partner, baked a turkey and made a cranberry sauce I think she should become famous for - it has cranberries, a wee bit of sugar, lemon zest and mint in it. Most delicious, although Daniel, as our resident cranberry disliker, would probably disagree. Nancy made a rice and sausage meat stuffing and steamed some pumpkin from her garden, while I brought some salmon dip and cheese stuff to have for nibblies, and a green bean casserole (very traditional) for mains. There was probably other stuff, too, but I can't think of it right now. I think Daniel topped us all, though, with two delicious pies - one pecan and one apple. They were demolished in short order, let me tell you!

I love Thanksgiving!

The day after Thanksgiving, we drove to Pittsburg Landing, which is a boat launching area in Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America (deeper than the Grand Canyon). The weather still wasn't cooperating, but we wandered around a bit nonetheless and I saw enough to know that I'd like to go back when the wildflowers are in bloom.



We walked a couple of k's to take a look at some petroglyphs that were made by Native Americans somewhere between 2-7,000 years ago, although no-one's really sure. Unfortunately, it was nigh on dark when we got there, although Daniel did manage to get a photo of this particularly clear one.


Here's the view from the backyard on the Saturday morning before we made the trek back to Boise. Beautiful isn't it?
And I couldn't finish this post without introducing you to Sadie, the English laborador. She was absolutely delighted to see us, unlike the cat, a large ginger tabby called Herbert (short for Orange Sherbet), who manged to avoid us quite successfully. Sadie is a very perky girl, and very good at rolling over for a belly scratch!

Squirrel!

So this morning I was moping around the kitchen, feeling a bit sorry for myself (I'm home sick and hoping it's not the flu that I have), when I spotted this little critter in our crab apple tree in the front yard enjoying some breakfast. The picture looks a wee bit blurry because I took it through the dining room window, which apparently is in need of a bit of a wash. It's nice to know that we are supporting the local wildlife!

Crochet and a Kitty

I thought you might like to see my most recent crochet project. We have an association at work that holds an auction about this time each year to raise funds for itself and a local charity. Each year I crochet something for the auction. The last couple of years I've made baby blankets, but I'm a bit bored with those patterns (too many people having babies!), so I thought I'd make one for grownups this time around. Of course, Maggie had to investigate it to see if it was worth pulling to pieces - she loves wool. As you can see, she's in as good a shape as Dobie. She's much more active, even though she's a year older than him. Methinks Dobie was just born lazy!

Here are some of the details. Not quite sure why the bottom photo turned out sideways, and I can't figure out how to turn it around, but I'm sure you get the idea of how the edging looks. It was a pretty easy pattern, and I think it turned out well. Hopefully it will raise lots of money!

The World's Most Handsome Cat?

Well, we think so! Here's Dobie in all his glory (hanging out on the end of our bed, as usual). He'll be 14 next year... not too bad for an old bloke! I'll have to find one of our Maggie for you... she's in just as good a shape!

Tillerama!

I thought you might like to see the lovely gift I got for my birthday (you know, the one I've been talking endlessly about) in action. Ta-dah! I am the tiller queen! Once I got some digging tines (it didn't come with them), I made short work of this patch of back yard so I could move my raised vegie beds (which are out of view on the left). I can only imagine how many centuries it would have taken to do it all by hand.

I'm pretty much done with my garden for the year now, but I have many and varied projects lined up for myself and the machine next spring.

Fishy Business

Several weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to receive a brief visit from our friend Jim (Hannah's penpal Savannah's Dad). He and Daniel decided to take a hiking/fishing trip to a place called Red Mountain Lake, which is about two-and-a-half hours northeastish of here. We're not sure of the exact mountain range, but it was near the Sawtooth Mountains (if that helps!). I thought you might like to see a few more reasons why I love this part of the world so much...

Apparently there was some fishing for trout involved. I can only imagine that I would have been too distracted by the scenery to concentrate on flinging a fly onto the lake.

Here's Jim. I doubt he stopped grinning the entire time he was here.

And here's Daniel. Not the most flattering photo of him I've ever seen, but check out the scenery!

San Francisco Getaway

I have to start this blog somewhere, and San Francisco seems as good a place as any! Daniel was working out near the city for a month, and so we decided I would fly out and join him for the Labor day long weekend, which also happened to be his birthday weekend (September 6 was the big day). We had a free hotel and access to a rental car, thanks to his employers, and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

We started our adventures out of the city proper, with a visit to Muir Woods. Muir Woods is a stand of coastal Redwood trees that has never been logged and is named after one of the country's founding environmentalists, John Muir, who was also instrumental in establishing many of the west coast's national parks. They are not the fabled ginormous redwood trees you may have heard about, and they don't beat WA's Tinglewood trees, but they are impressive nonetheless.

Once we had walked about a mile through the crowds and left them behind, we found out what these huge trees are all about: silence. Trees this big seem to demand that you keep your mouth closed.

Of course, a trip to SanFrancisco wouldn't be complete without a trolley ride - which we duly did. Spent most of our 45 minute wait for a ride talking to a couple from Melbourne. It's always a little disconcerting to meet Aussie tourists when I am not one myself. They were planning to travel all over the west coast of the country, having already seen the east coast on a previous trip. Daniel has a saying, and I think he's right: "West is Best"... with the exception of Southern California. I'd be quite happy if it fell into the ocean and took all that awful Hollywood rubbish with it.

We caught the trolley down to the harbour, and made the mistake of catching it back, too (another 45 minute wait). It was fun, but I don't feel any desparate need to catch one again.

San Francisco Bay is really quite lovely, for all that it is shrouded in mist most of the time. At least, it's lovely in the downtown area. Further up the bay it's a mass of oil refineries and associated heavy industry (which is why Daniel was there and why I got to take the trip so I can't complain too loudly).

Another "must-see" on the list for any visitor to San Francisco is, of course, the Golden Gate Bridge. We rented bikes and rode around the bay to see it. Fortunately for us, the mist cleared while we were being distracted by a fort at the base of the bridge, so we got a very clear view. The first photo is the view from the fishing harbour before we rode our bikes around.

It was pretty windy on top of the bridge, as the above photo shows. Windy enough, in fact, that yours truly scarpered off it as quickly as she could! It was also ridiculously crowded, and I didn't like the idea of riding a bike so close to all the traffic.

Daniel took this really interesting photo of the fort. It was built, I think, in the early 1900s and is now a museum. I really like the hall of mirrors effect. I swear there is no photographic trickery involved! We don't know enough about our camera for that...

On our way back from the bridge, I spotted a really interesting dome sprouting up amongst all the (weird and amazing) houses. We tootled over for a look and it turns out it was a place called the Palace of Fine Arts. It's a folly of the kind they built a lot during the Victorian era. It was a little neglected, so of course I immediately wanted to restore it to its former glory (anybody have a few million to spare?). I was most surprised to discover it was built in the 1960s.

We stumbled across another interesting thing while we were down at the fishing harbour after our visit to the bridge (we were looking for fish and chips). It's a place called Musee de Mecanique, and it is a museum dedicated to arcade games. Most of them dated from the 1800s and all are in working order, so you could pay your 25 cents to see them work. It was actually a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. Daniel got a glimpse of his future with this one...

This is Dan the Drinker. For 25 cents you can watch him take a drink (I suspect he's on the road to wrack and ruin).

I got my future told by this lovely lady... and no, I'm not about to be a millionaire.

So there you have it. My first ever post, and it covered something that is about as far from Idaho as you can get! We had a lot of fun, but I bet I'd explode if I had to live there - too crowded and not enough trees for me.

I will leave you with a sunset over the bay, courtesy of Daniel....