Life's a Stitch

Our local radio station declared this week a National Hug an American Day. If the shoe fits, consider yourself hugged. I can't imagine what you are going through. Another morning radio host quoted his daughter who said the US election coverage is feeling like TV's Christmas log – always on and in an endless loop. At least you know when the Christmas log is going to end. 

I was in the grocery store this morning and noticed specials on poinsettas, eggnog and peppermint ice cream. The retail Christmas season will soon be as long as a US election. Christmas shopping year round?

Did you know that under the Canadian Elections Act, the minimum length of a federal election campaign is 36 days and the maximum length 50? And we don't vote directly for our national leader. Canada is made of of 338 ridings (electoral districts). The representative with the most votes wins a riding, and the party to win the most ridings will form a government. The prime minister is not elected directly; instead, the winning party’s leader will take up the top post. So all you see on the ballot are the names of local representative wannabes from each political party. There are five main parties. This is an over simplified explanation, for more details on our parliamentary system go here.

Thank goodness for the continuing distractions provided by the sky.

Sunrise:

Sunset:

Lifesastitch has recently passed its sixteenth anniversary and my last post was the 1300th. There have been 8551 comments, but that isn't an accurate number, as many followers have been contacting me by email. Apparently my comments feature has been glitchy and not available to all. I cannot figure it out having checked all my settings to no avail.

More upsetting is that several people have told me they have been blocked from the blog, citing security warnings. There is a workaround using "https:" the secure transfer protocol rather than the generic www. Those of you reading this obviously have access, but if you know someone who doesn't…

I’m one of the last original knitting bloggers, and truthfully, this blog has morphed into a life story although knitting is posted now and then. It's more likely to be about a watercolour painting, a successful kitchen experiment or travelogue. I'm not a Facebook supporter, a conscientious objector of sorts, so this is my social media outlet. 

We reached a yearly milestone early this year. The ritual of changing over the duvets, from the summer silk one to the down comforters. It happens when the temperature drops to 0C (32F). When I was a little kid, pre plastic and oil based polyester, we slept on rough cotton muslin sheets with itchy wool blankets. At age 14, I travelled with the nuns to Europe to study art. A bunk in a dorm in the village of Jouy-En-Josas, Switzerland, changed my nightlife forever. I slept in a cloud, a thick down comforter, it felt like heaven. About ten years later they became a thing in North America, the rage of the January department store "white sale," an old fashioned term for a linen sale, still used today. I bought my first down duvet and never looked back and now I sleep in a cloud every night.

With the cooler weather comes brighter evening skies as the sun sets farther south.

Having a virus hanging around isn’t enough. When you hurt yourself in attempt to avoid said illness, it adds insult to injury. Or more accurately, injury to insult. It’s a thing. My daughter’s friend twisted her ankle pivoting away from an oncoming unmasked person.

My sorry story was a similar scenario. A group of six were headed toward me, only two masked, taking up the width of the walkway. After diverting to the street, I tripped on the curb and went not-so-gracefully down. A nice man, older than me, ran over to help me up. Categorizing me as a woman of a certain age, he asked three times how my hip was. If he were younger I might have chastised him for his senior stereotyping. The irony of the situation is that I believe he was one of the unmasked group of six.

Our in-house injuries have increased in proportion to the amount of time spent at home. Particularly the woodworking husband, who sported three consecutive bandages of varying degrees of seriousness in one week, two from his workshop and a cringeworthy one from a hatchet while camping. On the kitchen counter there was Dettol, steri strips, gauze, bandaids super glue and glue accelerator. Don’t ask.

His injuries resulted in a secondary one. To my glasses, which I had removed for a lens cleaning. Naturally, glasses off, can’t see very well. I “saw” a little spray bottle on the counter with a white cap and spritzed the lenses. The smell about bowled me over. Then I realized my error – it wasn’t my lens cleaner, but his super glue accelerator.

Enough of that misery. This made me smile. The grand boys all spiffed up:

 

When I talk about Thanksgiving with those south of the border they are surprised we celebrate it in October. I like it this way, allowing more time before Christmas.

So here we are in a crazy world, in less than optimal and often unhappy times, being thankful. Many faiths have their version of the saying that gives me comfort: “In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” ~Brother David Steindl-Rast.

I'm grateful that our covid bubble is so small that we could expand it this week to have a visit from our daughter and son-in-law from Calgary. Happy times ahead. One thing for sure, there will be lots of good cooking as KC and I enjoy sharing time in the kitchen together. Tonight there are two Instant Pots, a wok and the BBQ in use.

On another note, I just mailed out this little cutie, my latest watercolour painting. It was a memorial commission and I hope I captured her spunk and energy. 

Next one up is a ginger coloured cat with freckles on his nose. After that who knows. There's time, though, for a couple more Christmas commissions to come in.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a thing, not a virus, but given the increasing amount of North American RV and trailer sales, almost an epidemic.

Let's back up at bit. The year prior to turning 60 I hiked the Juan de Fuca trail with dear friends. It rained so hard our site flooded and the rain came up through the bottom of the tent and up around our camping mattresses, and soaked us from the back up. Shortly thereafter we were invited to camp in Alberta and were generously offered the night in a cute little Boler trailer, while the owners stayed in a tent. That was it for me. I announced to C that tent camping was a thing of my past. 

Advance a couple of years and the opportunity to once again, be a guest in another camper. On the way home I saw a a small trailer being towed by an SUV and told C that's what it would take to get me back into nature. Long story short, we found what we wanted: a short two axel (for safety) trailer that had a real bathroom (not a wet bath like in a boat head where you can sh*t, shower and shave from the same seat), a separate fridge and freezer, a double sink, a microwave, a true queen size bed, a three burner stove, no slide outs, and weighed under 3000lbs so it could be towed without a truck. That's a lot to ask for, but do-able. I wanted a more than comfortable step up from sleeping in a tent. We eventually found our mouse house, a Winnebago Micro Mini.

When we went to sign the contract, the salesperson told us in a year's time we'd regret buying it. Why? Because people suffer from two foot-itis, wishing they had bought a trailer that was two feet longer in order to get additional features. I told him this had all I wanted and if I suffered from that affliction, it was because I wanted something two feet smaller. So, as they say here in the True North Strong and Free, Bob's your uncle. Two years ago we became the proud owners of our little house on wheels. 

It feels good to escape and feels particularly safe in the time of Covid sans airports, flights, hotels and all the usual trappings of travel. Just us in our mouse house heading to off-season (read sparsely populated) campsites. We just completed our last outing of the year (pictures to follow) and returned to reality along with a second bout of California smoke. It actually started on the second day of our trip:

And speaking of reality, returning home, given current events I wondered if I really like the fact that we have access to addictive US live news as part of our Canadian internet plan. A stark contrast to camping without internet access.

 

That's 169 days since we finished our quarantine, having arrived back in Canada from Bali. The current Canadian case count is inching up to where it was back then. There's only one reason why that's so – careless people. I'm finding it depressing that we've lived this way for six months and there's really no improvement, nor end in sight.

That aside, there's still progress in our lives.

Another row of squares has been completed on the pandemic blankie:

The number of kilometres walked in our immediate area – 800K (500 miles). My own Covid Camino. That is the same distance as our first pilgrimage in 2015, except then we completed it in about 42 days of walking.  I don’t keep track of how far I walk each day, but I know the amount of time I spend, so today I did the math and it surprised me. I read that many people have taken up regular walking or running as part of their isolation routine. Add up those k’s, you’ll be surprised at the distance you’ve covered.

A year ago we were in Porto preparing to start our third Camino de Santiago:

The pandemic walking has been accompanied by 11 audiobooks.

The commission count for pet portraits: seven dogs and three cats.

Don't know why I didn't start sooner, but my list of successful geocaches has grown by 26.

The smoke from my last post has cleared and we can see the sky and the sea again. Things are looking up.

 

The plague of smoke. The fires of California, Oregon and Washington have issued an alert for our area – air quality. Today we officially had the worst air quality in the world. My last post shows the normal view from our top deck. This is it today:

On September 4th we experienced a smokey harbinger. I was listening to the afternoon news, which predicted possible haze and colourful sunsets due to a combination of those southern fires and wind conditions. At 5:00pm I caught a glimpse of something unusual.

It was confirmed by CBC's meteorologist as a smoke induced phenomena. Smoke from hundreds of miles away.

 

It seemed weird to be de-winterizing our Winnie Micro-Minnie trailer (aka the Mouse House) in August, as it normally would be a springtime activity. But we made the effort and it was so worth it, if only for a five day getaway. Campgrounds opened, in June I think, only to in-province residents and we missed the opportunity to make a reservation. The lines were overwhelmed with those who would normally be travelling farther afield and most spots were quickly claimed. Sometimes it's possible to get a spot for a night or two midweek. I lucked out and found four nights, not on the central reservation system, at Logan Lake’s municipal campground, about 3.5 hours from here. 

Camping is a relatively safe activity, Covid-wise, if you can find well spaced sites and that we did, not only at the lake, but for one night on the way home at Skihist Provincial Park in Lytton. 

Logan Lake is stocked with trout:

It was an easy stay as there were electrical hookups. I can be a camping wimp appreciating my microwave, electric kettle and hair dryer. I feel like I earned it as we were still tent camping in our early 60’s until I put my foot down after a night of deluginous rain. That’s my word for rain so hard that it threatens to transform tents into arks, except that the water creeps in from below soaking everything in its path, the first being your shoes and sleeping pad.

Everyone with a camper has their thing, the one item that makes life so much easier. Without revealing any names, I’ve witnessed espresso pots, toasters and ice makers at campsites.  

It was a relaxing stay with hiking, geocaching, sunsets and stars.

This was the welcoming committee at the trailhead across from the campground:

On a ride to a neighbouring lake we passed nearly a mile of caps on fence posts:

Sunset at Logan Lake:

Our second stop was a provincial park. BC can do better with their highway rest stops (many with outhouses) and provincial parks (haven’t stayed at one with electricity or city water connection). We’ve grown accustomed to the state parks south of the closed border. I know, I know, “muffin,” you say, “it’s camping!”

Technically that would be called dry camping or boondocking. Our little camper has a propane furnace, refrigerator and stove. It will let us depend on our battery for a few days for lights, but no plugs. We can fill our tank with water, so most importantly, our toilet works. And yes you can buy a generator, a solar panel, an inverter to power the plugs etc etc, but we don’t use it enough to justify the expense. I did order a stovetop tea kettle for next year’s dry camping adventures.

Skihist was beautiful, but located above Canada’s Highway #1, there is some road noise, so choose your site carefully.

There is a beautiful hiking trail, with a couple of geocaches, along the 1800’s Cariboo Wagon Road. This is the view from the top:

I know I’ve told this story before, but in case you forgot:

Once upon a time, in my younger years, a friend introduced me to someone who supposedly could tell you about your past lives. She went around the circle. There were queens and noble women. She gets to me and guess what? She tells me I’m a prairie pioneer woman who rode in covered wagons. Lol I do love the prairies, though only to visit. So I was destined to do this cache, given its history. 

We live where beautiful places are so close by, but i’m still glad to be home:

 

Much like the Freshman 15 I experienced in my first year of college, thanks to the unlimited availability of cafeteria chocolate milk and root beer, Covid initially had its way with me weight-wise. That first bit, during our 14 day quarantine, put us in too close proximity to the fridge. I drowned my sorrows in toasted buttered bagels and homemade bread. I understand it’s a thing.

I'm happy to report that I'm now below my pre-pandemic weight because of low carb choices resulting from a successful recipe hunt. I'll post my favourite below, but first, have you witnessed this moment of joyful song?

It made me smile.

We're at the height of zucchini season, so here's a delicious recipe that will make a one pound dent in your zucchini stash. C, my Minnesota farm boy, who considerers a healthy serving half an ear of corn pathetic eating, enjoyed the fact that two of these have the same amount of carbs.

Zucchini Feta Fritters

Ingredients: 

1 lb zucchini, grated (I used 6mm food processor blade), salted, and pressed dry

2 eggs

2 green onions, thinly sliced

2T chopped dill

1/2 C Crumbled feta

2 cloves minced garlic

pepper to taste

1/4 C flour

1/2 t baking powder

3T olive oil

lemon wedges or tzatziki  

Procedure: 

Beat the eggs in a large bowl, add the zucchini, green onions, dill, feta, garlic and pepper. Mix the flour and baking powder together and stir in until evenly distributed.Heat the oil in a frying pan. Drop in 2T of mixture onto pan and flatten slightly, cook until golden brown on both sides, turning once. Drain on paper towels. Serve with lemon wedges or tzatziki. Makes 12 (8gms carbs each).

 

That's what we call it when you have to spend more, or are inconvenienced, in this time of pandemic than in the "before times." High-in-demand rubbing alcohol at $7.99 a bottle instead of $1.88, shopping at a smaller, more expensive grocery store to avoid the exposure at the crowded superstore, service charges to cancel our July and September camping reservations. 

It was announced today that the Canada/US border will remain closed for at least another month, making it six months and counting. As we are five minutes away, we used to cross in order to buy gas at a much lower price than our heavily taxed fuel. No more. Neither Canadians nor Americans can cross the border by car. Canadians can enter the US by air, but nobody from any country can fly to Canada unless they are reuniting with an immediate family member and fulfill the requisite 14 day quarantine. There are exceptions for essential workers.

My major disappointment is the cancellation of that September camping trip as its purpose was dual – I was registered to take another watercolour course in Spokane with my favourite teacher, Lian Quan Zhen.

Realistically though, why would we want to cross a border where the county just on the other side is reporting 50+ new Covid cases today? Our entire province is lamenting the fact that the numbers are increasing here – 78 in one day. The state of WA has 67,826 confirmed cases, while BC has 4,274. Granted, we have 2/3's the population, but only 6.3% of the cases. I am OK with paying the covid tax in the form of higher prices and isolation by staying at home.

Despite being stuck in what feels like a pandemic time warp, life goes on. The gulls are growing, now taller than the plastic owls.

Two are flying, Splat will catch up in a couple of weeks. There is now a nestful of peeping little finches in the cedar next to our house.

Neighbourhood Covid hopscotch is now almost a block long. I think it was up to 250.

And Zoom is well established as the new classroom. I'm taking a six week painting class in composition, design and process.