Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Snow, and Other Matters




We stopped by to visit with our neighbour across the street on our way up to the ravine this afternoon. Although she is much too heavy to walk about with ease, she enjoys the out-of-doors and tends, even during the winter months, to sit on her porch for short periods of time, with her three cats. One of which, a Maine Coon variety, echoes the reddish-blond colour of her own hair, and with its fluffy hair, resembling her in girth.

Making our way finally into the ravine, we discovered thankfully that yesterday's light fluffy foot-high new snow had given way to a more robust type of snow, a sticky snow, the type that lends itself to making snowballs and snowmen, and to walking upon without slithering hither and yon. Which meant, along with the mild minus-2 degrees, that our little dogs were able to make a good accounting of themselves on the trail.

I noted, over the first bridge, that the peanuts I'd scattered on the second-to-topmost rail were gone. And wondered if the squirrels had taken advantage of them, as I'd always hoped, recalling what one of our neighbours had told me when I'd canvassed her house yesterday afternoon for Ontario March of Dimes. Someone, she mentioned, had scattered almonds on the bridge, and her dog, Scooter, had eaten them.

I'd forgotten that all that accumulated snow brought new heights to the bridge rails, so that even a relatively small dog like Scooter would have no trouble reaching any handouts I'd left for squirrels, birds or other wildlife. So much for that. As this was a Sunday we came across people snowshoeing through the ravine, a reasonable enough activity, better done yesterday when the snow was yet fresh and the trail not yet tamped down.

An unremarkably pleasant ravine walk this day. Overcast for the most part, but when the sun did manage to break through on a few occasions, it lit up the roundly blanketed arras of new snow softly, beautifully. Crows were flying overhead, busy doing what crows awaiting the arrival of spring do; anxiously awaiting spring's arrival. Groundhogs seeing their shadows or not; according to the two Canadian groundhogs we'll have an early spring.

Once we returned home I began the preparations for a Chili dinner, using pre-soaked broad beans instead of kidney beans, and finely-cut beef instead of ground. Didn't take long before the concoction began to spread its divine aroma around the kitchen, the house. And then it was time for me to begin deep-frying doughnuts. That's what my husband wanted. At first I refused, since it's such a deep-fried pain in the rear end, but then I relented.

It is his birthday, after all, tomorrow. I'd prepared the dough for doughnuts right after breakfast: scalded milk, sugar, salt, yeast, egg, flour, nutmeg. After rolling out the raised dough, cut the doughnut shapes with a cutter I haven't used in many a year. Doughnuts are not, after all, nutritious examples of healthy food. But it ill behooves me to rise up on my healthy-eating principles at this singular time of year.

They came out, each and every one, crisply golden brown with tender interiors. I melted semi-sweet baking chocolate in the microwave, dipped the tops of each of the doughnuts, scattered chopped pecans on some, toasted coconut on others. No big deal, didn't take all that much time after all, and he's pleased. It's his birthday coming up, after all.

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