Drying Flowers

FDPG got a flower dryer a while back, as a present from someone. It was one of those kits you make yourself, with two flat boards sandwiching layers of cardboard and paper. FDPG is generally quite enthusiastic about these kinds of things: the idea of floating around the garden like a giddy little fairy, gathering flowers willy nilly from the garden, and using them to make Truly Amazing Art Work really appeals to her. So we dutifully made the dryer, or rather, I made it under her very careful scrutiny, since she was a bit under the weather, and then we started choosing flowers to put in it.

At first she chose things like dandelions, lovage, and feverfew leaves, or grass stalks and daisies. And was a little, err, zealous about screwing down the wingnuts holding together the cardboard, paper, and flowers. We had lots of bits and pieces of squished brown items, or squished green skinny things, mostly with lots of ribbed lines across them (which one could easily spot as a Firm Cardboard Impression). We also had a few squished bugs, sadly, smothered forever in their imitation Pompeiian glory.

She was slightly puzzled, I think, because it wasn't quite as glamorous or voluptuously colourful as she'd expected. So we went for more adventurous flowers. We looked further afield. We took scissors. And baskets. We clipped. We examined for perfection. We even scrutinized, hands over brows, frowning across the lawn with the sun in our eyes. It was like being in an Anne of Green Gables movie.

Well, without the long dresses, bonnets, braids and Tennyson. FDPG would probably enjoy a long dress, or even some braids, but she finds Tennyson a bit, err, long winded at this hasty stage of her hasty hasty life. Unless it's his Christmas carol...
This new direction in Gathering Flowers For FDPG's Artistic Intentions was much better, especially after I reluctantly said "okaaaay" to my perfect cerulean blue pansies, the unidentified purple sprays of blossom from the herb garden, many many many Digitalis blossoms (they, umm, stick rather unfortunately to the paper) some stalks of Hypericum perforatum, Lady's Mantle, and our very fattest, most truly gorgeous, purple clematis bloom.



We even tried curling the tendrils and fronds, carefully posing them for Artistic Effect. Here is a curled Hypericum, which in its pre-Dried state was definitely a little long in the tooth, not that you'd know it now. Things were definitely looking up for ole FDPG and her Grande Passion des Fleurs.





Our sole surviving Digitalis









A sprig of Lady's Mantle. This is a really great subject for drying: they all looked charming and perfect, no matter how, err, hurried their interment was. Plus, they all seemed to come with such long stems - handy for overlapping collage work.







Hypericum before drying. This is another handily long-stemmed flower.







Hypericum after drying.









We even used some of the coral bark maple leaves, especially the fall ones. They held their colour amazingly well.

Truly Irresistible

I don't know why I have so much trouble resisting stuff like this. I should know better. I really should.

Here I wrote a post about a summer holiday we had one year, up island with the kids. I wrote about my penchant for reading the English version (as opposed to the truly terrible Canadian version) of Hello! magazine. I wrote about the British Stars I don't know and how strangely compelling I find them, in all their somewhat witless and oh-so glamorous conceit. Finally, I wrote about one 'aging rocker' and his wife and their miracle twins who convulsed me completely (the aging rocker, not the miracle twins) with some truly crackpot family poses.

Stuck in my head, that family did.

Well, I saw them again today. I tell you, it's like a Peter Greenaway/Helen Mirren film: The Aging Rocker, His Wife, Their White Outfits, and Their Miracle IVF Twins.

It almost took my mind off a Star Wars Jeopardy clip I saw on YouTube. Almost.

(warning, "Sean Connery" makes a lot of rude and completely unsuitable-for-kids comments on this clip)

La Triviata

Fall is heading our way. It really and truly is this time. No more balmy days for us: the poor crowded tarragon that I hauled out of the herb garden is headed back into the ground for good; the chilies have decided that ripening into fat red sausages of heat IS a lost cause at this point, despite the cold frame (there goes my plan to make Sheila's Colon Cleanser Hot Sauce); the purple sprouting broccoli plants are all happy as clams (good thing someone is in this weather, is all I'll say); and there are daily rounds of Leaf Raking Mania round these parts, which thrills Max no end, since it's his chore to rake. That Max, he sure loves raking up leaves. Not. Fortunately he's an incredibly tolerant kid. He rakes, I give him all the leftover Yorkshire puddings, apple crisp, pumpkin muffins, sliced baguette & garlic butter, and rice pudding he can stuff down. Then Richard mows up all those leaves and bags them for me for mulch. Max stays skinny as a - wait for it - RAKE; Richard curses the trees; and I bless the mulch. Win, win, win.

Rose coloured lenses, baby, rose coloured lenses

On the plus side, no one here has had the Dreaded H1N1, despite the vast numbers of people we know who HAVE been felled by it.

Hang on, I need to go knock on some wood right now

Of course, I say this, but we were all ill a few weeks ago, back when everyone was saying "If you're sick now it HAS to be swine flu because there isn't anything else going around!" So who knows what is going on. All I know is that that bloody flu has given my neurotic skittish side total rein to be even more neurotic and skittish.

Sigh.

Isn't that a lovely sunset?

And yes, I am the Segue Queen.









On another plus side, I finally caved and bought this for the boys. Look, there it is on my coffee table! It's reposing happily in its new career as Beloved Coffee Table Book.

I had looked at it on Amazon, and I had looked at it when we were at Costco, although I worried that it would be lacking if I ordered it from Amazon (this has happened to me with Klutz books, where they don't come with everything I expect them to), so when I saw it at Costco for a cheaper price than Amazon, I thought "this might get me more raked leaves" "THIS IS CHEAPER THAN AMAZON? OMG! WHADDADEAL!"

And what do you know but it bought me much good will. For many many many days. (Sheila's Parenting Tip #429: Disarm Them Completely With Random Gestures of Niceness) It's amazing (or should that be worrying?) how absorbed they are with these books. Even now one of them is sprawled on the couch with one, deeply engrossed in the wonder that is Ye Olde Lego Sette.

Warning: if you are cut to the core upon hearing statements like "OMG, do you know how OLD this set is? It's from - get this - 1989! (insert many disbelieving guffaws and cackles here) That is SO OLD! Mum! Did you hear how OLD this set is? It's REALLY OLD! I wasn't even ALIVE when it came out, it's so OLD!" you might not want this series anywhere near your house.

And on another plus side, Max's 4-H group had their final Dinner & Raffle Event on the weekend. It was fun. The boys in this group are a witty and oddly loquacious bunch, none too shy with the microphone. Max won 2 trophies, surprise surprise. I'm not sure who was most surprised: him, me or the usual trophy winners. And FDPG won some items in the Raffle, which thrilled her greedy little heart, even if they were things like Armor All and Handy Wrench Sets. I won a raffle prize too but as it was one of the things I had donated I sent it back into the melée ("Look!" someone shouted, "they're Homing Muffins!"). If you look below you can see my teeny tiny kitchen crowded with items from that day. I baked baguettes, I baked pumpkin cinnamon buns, I baked cardamon-sweet potato muffins, I made Minted Potato Salad, and I cooked great honking chunks of Rouge Vif D'Etampes pumpkins (incredible baking pumpkins, by the way) to freeze later in little ziplock baggies for when we're deeper into winter (or when I need a little something for the weekend morning muffins).
If you want the recipe for the Pumpkin Cinnamon buns, head over here. In their original form they are known as the UBC Cinnamon Bun and they are one of the more easy cinnamon buns to make, although, as is the wont of most sweet yeasted breads, they go stale rather quickly. I changed the recipe, after being inspired by Heather, by slathering some pumpkin purée over the dough after brushing on the butter and before sprinkling on the cinnamon sugar. They looked as though they would be BURSTING with worryingly-obvious-child-putting-off pumpkin flavour but it was surprisingly muted, although once Max discovered that there was pumpkin in them he decided they weren't as fabulous as he had initially claimed. Those hovering-on-the-cusp-of-puberty kids...all I will say is that they are at once whimsical and exasperating.

Do Jedis Trick or Treat?

Something tells me that they don't. Something tells me they are a bit dignified for something so banal, even Mace Windu, that old trickster. Nonetheless, we had two in this house who went out trick or treating on the weekend. And as you can see from one of the photos, at least one of them spent a lot of time the preceding week practicing his Jedi Light Saber Swing. And glaring atmospherically. Nothing like an Atmospheric Glare, now, is there?

When he saw this photo he thought the purple glow in the dark light sticks took away somewhat from his Menacing Glare, but I told him that he looked perfectly fierce either way. A real Jedi can overcome such photographic hurdles, I said.




The other Jedi, much to the delight of his grandmother, is one of your more approachable Jedis: we nicknamed him the Happy Jedi. The sort of Jedi you might conceivably ask for directions if you were lost in space somewhere. The sort of Jedi you could see sharing his Space Snacks with you, even. He was less invested in being Supremely Menacing, or practicing his light saber swing, and more interested in using the Force to obtain many many items for his Halloween bag.










Then we had a Japanese girl in a kimono. And no, she was not a geisha, despite what some of our older neighbours seemed to think. I don't know why, because I don't think this particular Japanese girl even knows what a geisha is, but she did know that she wasn't one. So there.

And yes, those are chopsticks in her hair. Chopsticks with, ahem, geishas on them!





She sure knew how to pose. It was mildly alarming how good she was at posing with that red umbrella. And according to my Jedi sources she had some Serious Attitude when asked by some of the Door Openers to provide a Trick (as opposed to getting a Treat). I had to close my eyes when the Jedis related this (and even more distressing examples of her gleeful unGeisha-like Attitude) and grip my Jane Austen heroine hankie tightly, and hope that one day she WILL tone it down a bit, if only to relieve the distress of her poor poor mother (who according to her mother was just the same when she was little).



*Kimono courtesy of IKEA (who provided the curtains), the sun (who bleached the curtains so badly that we never used them again), and me (who left the curtains to languish in the fabric bag for several years, only to be unearthed when it was discovered that they had the requisite 4 yards of material needed for a child's kimono pattern).

*Attitude courtesy of FDPG.

Phew.

A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose...

But this is not just any rose - it's a David Austin rose. And it's now living in my back yard, happy as the proverbial clam. A friend of mine has a neighbour who wanted to be rid of two David Austin roses: one pink and one yellow. Both highly fragrant. My friend, knowing me to be in the Take Almost Anything Especially If It's Free camp, asked me if I'd like them. "Oh you bet!" I said enthusiastically, "I'll even come over and dig them up!"

Which turned out to be exactly what this neighbour was looking for.

So it was, one day a couple of months ago, I found myself over at her house, with my (by now rather long suffering but really handy with a shovel) friend, tugging two rather ancient roses away from their happy happy home. First we pruned heavily (and wiped the blood off our arms), then we pruned some more (and wiped some more), then we shoveled out a lot of dirt, then we wrenched at the roots, which were growing under the concrete driveway. These old roses were none too happy to be moved and in the end we had to cut their roots off short. I got them home and planted them right away, but I didn't have a lot of hope: they were so lacking in the root department. But I gave them what I could: handfuls of bone meal, kelp meal, alfalfa pellets, and daily watering. I might even have done some leaf stroking, because according to Prince Charles it really works and since we were born on the same day I harbor a bit of a soft spot for him, even if he is nutty.

Then we went on holiday for two weeks. I gave my dad strict instructions to pay close attention to those two roses (I know, I know, what a dictator I am, eh) and water them faithfully. He rolled his eyes and sighed a lot agreed.

They seemed to take, thankfully. And look what's happening right now, with the yellow rose. It's been blooming for the last 3 weeks. It's beautiful, fragrant, and I have no idea what kind of rose it is. And being the stickler for garden nomenclature that I am, this bothers me. So help me out here. Are there any David Austin experts out there?

And no, I don't think it's called Gertrude Stein, or Alice B Toklas. Or even Tender Buttons.

In Which I Rant About The Canadian Health Care System

Yes, I do realize that H1N1 is a current priority in our hospitals.

Yes, I do realize that our user costs are unusually low compared to other countries.

And yes, I do realize that we are fortunate to have a universal health care system.

Nevertheless, I curse the stagnant state of affairs in the province that I live in. We moved to this city 2.5 years ago and have yet to find a family doctor taking new patients. So now we confine our medical experiences to public clinics, which are fine in themselves but don't take the place of a doctor who knows me or my kids, or who takes a genuine interest in us beyond the problem that brought us to the clinic in the first place. Plus, they prefer to address acute issues, not the day to day grind of checkups and things like that. And now, at a time when one of us actually needs a doctor, we've been referred to someone who might not have an appointment for 8 weeks. Eight weeks! I've lost my sense of humour about this. What the heck is the good of a health care system when we don't get access TO the bloody care we need in the first place?

If I were a vindictive person I'd curse our current Minister of Health, his political cronies (none of whom likely have to face waiting lists when they get ill, I'm sure), the Ministers who went before him (and contributed to the budget cuts that reduced our system to the shambles it is), and everyone else who's made this system the interminable waiting hell it is. Shame on you all.

I'd welcome the chance to pay more if it meant getting care that happened in the same calendar year as the injury, I really would. And I bet most Canadians who have had to face serious medical issues (and have been confronted with these shocking wait lists) would agree with me. So what if our health care system is the envy of the world - from where I stand today, watching one of my kids having to wait - I don't see anything enviable about it.

Nothing at all.

In Which I Almost Burn Down The House

I almost called this "In Which I Reveal My Inherent Idiocy" but then I remembered that I've already got a post with that title...

It was the Canadian Thanksgiving this past weekend; wherein we celebrate, much as Americans do (but we do it earlier), with family and friends and many of us roast Very Large Items like turkeys or geese, and create many a side dish of potatoes or yams (no marshmallows please, I don't care what Nigella says about this) and other roastable products (maple-roasted parsnips anyone?).

So, this being our first house and all, we're having fun creating our own family traditions around all the holidays. This Thanksgiving the kids covered the front steps with mini gourds, white pumpkins, and giant Cinderella pumpkins, grown in the garden; they dipped leaves in beeswax, fragrant additions to the Seasonal Table; they made candle holders with colourful writhing dragons on them, surrounded with black paper, to remind us all of Michaelmas (which is often re-represented by St George fighting the dragon); and finally they brought in armloads of Michaelmas daisies and all the leftover flowers we have in the garden to float in bowls of coloured water with lighted candles. It was all very beautiful. Ethereal. Glowing. Warm. We invited some friends over, we set a turkey in the oven, I made bread and dug up potatoes and peeled many a parsnip.

It was the Yorkshire puddings that foxed me. If only I had put a cookie sheet under the muffin tins I would have been okay. The fire alarm wouldn't have gone off if I'd done that.

But I didn't.

Oh no.

I had to go and douse the muffin tins with generous amounts of oil, then set them in an already (sheila coughs self-consciously) oily oven and no it WASN'T filthy contrary to what Richard the Clean says, without anything underneath them to catch all the dripping oil. And let's face it, I was feeling pretty generous by this juncture of the day, filled with much bonhomie towards my friends and neighbours (and no, I was not drinking - not then at any rate) and it might have been about then that I thought "A giant Yorkshire pudding is much much better than a teeny tiny one, isn't it! I will FILL those muffin cups with batter! They will be giant puddingy puffs!" Sounded reasonable at the time...

So I used what one might call a glad hand with the filling of the muffin cups. All two and a half dozen of them.

Sadly, the oil oozed out all over the floor of the oven after I'd filled them with the pudding batter and slid them in the oven to bake. Not that I noticed, because at that point that I was standing outside on the deck, thinking "Gosh it's hot in that pokey little kitchen, think I'll just have a glass of wine out here in the nice cold air."

It was when I peeked in the window that I noticed the flames.

I dashed in, followed closely by Max (when Large Items are roasted he follows me very closely, because he likes Large Roasted Items and frequently accuses me of trying to starve him by not roasting them often enough for his liking). I gaped. I tried to quell the rising panic in my stomach. I opened the oven for a peek, then shut it. It was filled with flames. Really filled. I don't think I'd ever seen it like that. And it might have been then that I thought "OMG this is a PROPANE OVEN - we're all going to blow up!" (yes, I'm afraid I do tend to the histrionic). But, being the stalwart Jane Austen heroine that I am, I did not shriek out loud, I'll have you know. I did not even panic. And I did not faint into a heap on the floor. Nope, instead, I calmly turned off the oven, and shrieked "RICHARD..!"

Now, accounts vary as to what I said after that. I thought I said "Richard the oven is on fire and we are all about to die come and do something before that happens" Richard thought I said "I've put the fire out but it's still on fire!" And, since he didn't do anything right away, we both think I then said "RICHARD GET IN HERE RIGHT THIS SECOND THE KITCHEN IS ON FIRE!"

And we might be right. I think I did say that.

Fortunately that got him into the kitchen pretty quick. In fact, it got everyone into the kitchen. I remember wondering why everyone would come into a place that was about to blow up at any moment. And realizing that I couldn't very well cut and run with all them standing there, about to blow up with MY stove. And fortunately Richard took matters in hand and started doing something: "Get the Yorkshire puddings out of the oven! Shut the oven door! Quick!"

So we did.

And the fire went out.

And Richard said "Why don't you ever clean that stupid oven? Look at all that oil!"

And our dinner guests said "Wow, it's exciting over here."

And I said "I need a drink. Stop talking about cleaning the bloody oven, Richard, and get me a drink."

And Max said "Will the Yorkshire puddings be alright? Will we still be able to eat them?"

And you know, they were. And we did.