Celebrating spring!

Er.  Not so fast!

 

Friday 24 March

Winter wasn't that bad.  Wasn't that good.  But wasn't bad.  My best indicator of what kind of winter we had is my hat.  I have a sheepskin hat.

It's a very nice warm hat.  And...I only use it when it gets ...and stays...very very cold.  I never even took it out of its bag this season.  When I don't use my hat all season?  It wasn't a bad winter!  We even had a week in February where it was in the 60s.  We had windows open for two or three days straight.  Caught up on a lot of barn work.  It looked very promising!

March came around and relief was in sight.  You see, it almost never gets bitter cold in March and if it does?  It doesn't last long.  Well.  I should know better.  The first weekend in March it was 4 degrees.  It got cold.  And it stayed cold.  This *never* happens in March!  We can have blizzards in April but it never gets cold like this.

We had a full on blizzard 10 days ago and the snow still hasn't melted.  I never minded the snow much.  It's the cold I really hate.  But make no mistake.  Barn work sucks in the cold and it's a long trip to the manure pile and back in the snow!

So.  Where have I been?!  Hiatus?  No.  Just busy.  Crazy busy.  Between employment and barn work and trips to the gym I just haven't had time to blog.  I want to try and get back on board.  I started blogging for me.  Keeping track of things over time and after so many years I enjoy going to back through it all and recalling where I was and the things I was doing.

Still too much...

Snow!

8 March. Still buried!
Even though it's been unusually cold the air is starting to become notably less harsh. We've been free of fresh snow and the sun feels good. Things are even starting to melt. I thought maybe I'd catch a ride this last weekend! I haven't been out riding now since 28 25 January when this all started.

But no I think the snow is a little too deep. Oh, I know L can plow through this stuff but after maybe a quarter mile or so I don't think it would be much fun for her. So maybe next week I'll ride.

We're lucky. A number of barns have collapsed here. Horses have been hurt and sadly a couple of horses were lost. We lost L's shed. The roof collapsed with a little help from a falling tree limb. She wasn't out there. I knew it was going to go and I wasn't going to put anyone out there until I fenced it off.

24 February
Of course I'm going to have to clean up that mess. She loves her shed! Those, by the way, are Mulberry trees on either side of the shed. The horses love those mulberries as much as I do!

If you look carefully, along the right wall of the shed, at the top of the fence rail, that's L watching me from the paddock on the other side of the shed. No doubt wondering what I'm doing out there.

Ay yi yi

Bad enough we've had 8 feet of snow in the past 3 weeks.

Now this!

Saturday 21 February, 9:30 am
That was the thermometer in my car yesterday morning. It was -12° F (-24° C) when I got up. And even though today is almost 40° and raining it will be back below 0 tonight with little relief in sight.

The weather isn't the Big Story around here these days. It's the *only* story these days. Roofs have collapsed all over the region.

Driving can be treacherous

So can walking. This was over a week ago. It's almost like walking in a tunnel now.

And the deer must be really desperate to be out like this in broad daylight. This is from my living room window at 9:30 Thursday morning. In 25 years now I've only seen this a couple of times.

Enough already! I am *so* looking forward to spring!

About That Snow

Remember I said I don't mind the snow so much?

I take that back.

North Street, 2 February, 1:00 pm
I feel like I'm in Siberia! We've had front end loaders as big as houses trying to clear this stuff up. And...more snow in the forecast for tomorrow! Of course life around the barn is very hard when it gets like this. The snow is up to L's flanks.

Snow!

We had our first real snow of the season over the weekend. We've had a few light dustings here and there but this was the first snow that amounted to anything.

Sunday 25 January
I don't mind the snow so much. L loves the snow!

Yay
I really *hate* the cold. This was enough snow to cover the treacherous frozen ground so we got out there and rode for the first time in weeks.

I used a saddle. Sometimes L gets a little frisky charging around those snow covered fields. It was so nice to get out there and ride. I see lots of animals follow our trails in the woods. We used to follow the deer trails. Then we started making our own trails. The New England woods can be very deceptive. They appear to be quite thick, and they are, but down on ground level they can be surprisingly open. It's because of all the shade. So now I see the deer and the coyotes are out there using our trails!

An epic blizzard is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. And apparently the population is in a panic. Supermarkets open extra hours being stripped clean. I don't get it. I *really* don't get it. This is coastal New England. We can have crippling storms almost any time of year. In the winter we have blizzards. In the summer we have hurricanes. In the fall we have nor'easters. Spring is usually pretty quiet. So you keep candles handy. A couple days worth of canned food. And don't forget a good book!

Dashing through the snow?

It snowed like crazy Saturday. Heavy wet slushy slippery snow. All things considered it was pretty miserable. I decided however it would be a good time to take L out and see if I could get a nice picture for next year's Christmas card.

Nope. This isn't it.
Hahahaha. She was having none of it. Here I'd groomed her and brushed out her mane and she made straight for the run in shed. Where she rolled in the dirt. Twice.

I chased her out in the snow and maybe, of a couple dozen pictures, I might have one or two pretty good ones. The rest look like that one there.

Nice day for hot chocolate!

Looks like winter

Courtesy of a New Year's Nor'easter.

We're close enough to the coast to have Nor'easters give us the occasional blizzard but we're spared the coastal flooding. We got snow. This is New England. It snows here in the wintertime. I mean really, the way the local news carries on you'd think we never saw snow before. And the way people drive. Don't get me started! I don't recall when the thought first occurred to me but there must be a lot of people here came from someplace else.

And when did this bread and milk thing start?! They forecast snow and the supermarket's are out of bread and milk within minutes. And cold cuts! A few years ago I watched in amazement as people lined up at the deli counter buying cheese and cold cuts 2 and 3 pounds at a time. I won't go anywhere near a supermarket when there's a storm in the forecast!

From my office window. 3 January 10:00 am.
I really don't mind the snow so much. What I *really* hate is the cold.

The cold?

The cold! 4 January 7:00 am. -4° F
I absolutely *hate* the cold and some serious cold came in behind this last storm. I do pretty good even down into the single digits but I'm seriously miserable when it goes below 0. This is about as cold as we've had in 3 years or so. *Everything* is hard in the cold. I grow less tolerant of the cold every year.

But remember. Yankees don't move. Not real ones anyway. I think I better go get some soup started.

After the storm...

A lot of digging out had to be done.

And a nice snow bath was the first order of business!

Very becoming

More snow?!

Of course it's all about the snow. Real snow - not just a few minutes of flurries.

Saturday 29 October 4:05 pm
And it's accumulating...

4:10 pm
What a most perfect night for soup. I *love* pea soup!

Pea soup on the stove
Thanks a million to my friend M for that bone! Everybody knows I want their bones.

From a lifetime of fiddling I have the most perfect pea soup recipe:

• 1 Ham bone
  
• Water
  
• 1 bag of split peas
  

Put the ham bone in a stock pot. Cover it with water. Bring the water to a boil. Add the split peas, reduce to a vigorous simmer, cover it. When the bone falls apart it's done. That's usually about an hour and a half.

That's it. No onions, no carrots, no salt, no nothing. I have messed with pea soup recipes for years. Decades. And as far as I'm concerned I just wasted perfectly good bones. Skim the fat off the top before serving and maybe, just maybe, for something really special, add some chopped fresh mint leaves when serving it. I don't know how well this soup keeps or freezes. It's so good I always eat it all.

---

It was all over Sunday morning.

Sunday 30 October 7:20 am
Well. The storm was all over. Of course we had no power. It was pretty enough but it would have been prettier if I didn't have to drive over to the next town for a cup of coffee.

I can't really complain. I spent the morning reading cook books and we got power back later in the day. There are people that *still* don't have power and a little old lady froze to death in her bed without power Thursday night. What a sad thing. Apparently every time trees fall down now we could be without power for a week or two.

As much as I hate the cold and the snow and everything the barn property was really pretty and the horses enjoyed their first good snow roll of the season.

Run in shed
The barn was without power for most of the week. We melted snow in the sun to fill water buckets and when the clean snow ran out the fire department filled a tank for us. They were very good about that.

And remember this? Here's the same place on Sunday afternoon.

30 October 2011
I wanted to ride in the worst way Sunday afternoon but the wind was just awful. It was cold biting wind as bad as any we have in January.

North wind!
Such an unusual sight. The corn stalks are usually long gone by the time there's any snow. The wind hardly ever blows from the north here. When it does it's always bad no matter what the time of year.

Snow?!

Thursday, 27 October, 7:00 pm it kinda sorta started to snow.

By 7:15 it was real snow. Big fluffy flakes the size of quarters. The earliest I can ever remember snow is Halloween. I think this is the earliest snowfall in my lifetime.

28 October 2011 5:50 am
And the snow remained throughout the day!

Almost 4:00 pm
And there's a winter storm watch on for tomorrow afternoon.

This is not good.

Officially Miserable

There goes the heating bill.

23 January 2011 7:00 am

Bring. Me. In.
This time of year it seems I do an awful lot of this...

We did ride yesterday but we weren't gone long. We got whacked pretty good by that last storm.

L is strong and she's fit but she is off her peak. It's hard to keep your training on track without indoor facilities this time of year. I could really feel her working in the deep snow and she stumbled on a berm left behind by a plow. A nice enough ride as it was but much more and it would have been more work than fun. Which is ok when it's necessary but when it isn't? Not so much.

So of course comfort food comes immediately to mind when it's cold and snowy. This is a classic comfort food favorite! Creamed salmon with peas on toast.

Here's some interesting trivia! This recipe was first published in The Lookout Cookbook (pdf) in 1938 by the US Forest Service. It's on page 14. I'm partial to rustic food and this is about as rustic as it gets.

Basically, you make a white sauce, add canned salmon, mushy peas, and serve it over toast.

I have messed with the recipe. I've used fresh grilled salmon, I've used fresh poached salmon, I've added mushrooms, pearl onions, I've used frozen baby peas, I've used fresh peas, I've added dill, and cilantro, and parsley, and *nothing* beats the original recipe. Except for a pinch of salt it's all right here:

Make a white sauce. Use equal parts butter and flour. Melt the butter in a skillet, whisk in the flour, and when it's all pasty, add whole milk, about a half cup for each tablespoon of butter.

The canned salmon works best. And the mushy peas from a can. I make a somewhat thick white sauce and I thin it out with the liquid from the peas. Canned salmon has bones so open the can into a bowl and pick the bones out. The last thing I do I add the peas to the sauce. You just want them warmed and you don't want them to get all beat up.

Use a really nice rustic crusty bread for your toast.

This is right up there with meatloaf, macaroni and cheese and pot roast when it comes to the ultimate in comfort food.

And remember! Brandy is a fine dessert any time!

Snow day

What's this, *another* blizzard?!

12 January 2011 10:15 am
The skiers must be thrilled. I can hardly wait for Spring!

Blizzard warning

You'd never know she was Canadian!

You can bring me in now
L's little sister P. P loves rolling as much as L does! Obviously a passion they share. P belongs to my friend J and it was love at first sight. P is about as sweet as can be. They're both everything a Canadian Horse is supposed to be.

It's been snowing here for an hour or so and we're right in the center of a blizzard warning that's up for the next 33 hours. The forecast is for 16 to 24 inches of snow with steady high wind. Ya well...so long as it doesn't get cold!

Going to be a nice day for soup!

Soup with Spinach

---

Hey I made this up! Actually, I screwed it up. It was delicious anyway!

Start with equal parts finely chopped carrots, celery and onion (mirepoix), about 1/3 of a cup each. This is an Italian soup so I added a couple of cloves of chopped garlic, a generous pinch of Italian Seasoning and a generous pinch of red pepper flakes.

I sweat that mixture in a tablespoon of olive oil with a little pinch of salt. For about 7 to 10 minutes. Until the mixture is soft and translucent. When it smells great you know you have it right. You can use extra virgin olive oil but you'd just be wasting good olive oil. The heat will drive off the subtle flavors.

Add two cups of chicken broth and bring it to a boil.

Add a 14 1/2 oz. can of chopped tomatoes and I let it boil for maybe 45 minutes. Canned chopped tomatoes have calcium in them to help keep them firm and you really have to let them boil to break them down. If you're using fresh chopped (peeled) tomatoes 15 or 20 minutes is fine.

Then add a half cup of white rice. I forgot to do that! Let it simmer gently for about 20 minutes.

Taste your soup to see if it needs some salt. Add salt a little at a time if it tastes flat.

Finally add 2 or 3 big handfuls of whole baby spinach, cover, turn off the heat and let it sit until you're ready to serve.

This is *delicious* soup. So easy to make. I don't do anything hard!