Alberta Clipper

We are in the middle of a little cold snap. Here's the temp for Tuesday night through Wednesday night. Remember, -18C is 0F! Click on graphs to enlarge.








Here's Thursday's temps starting at 12:01AM through mignight. Severe cold plus windchill around -44C tonight.

Today, Friday, was the coldest yet this winter.

Wind chill this morning was -47!

One more thing: This just in from the CBC. 90km/h is about 55 mph, and Winnipeg is listed as the cold spot in the last paragraph.


later,

s

Fun Winter Games

Hola amigos, I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but things have been crazy here in Winterpeg!
(Apologies to Jim Anchower over at The Onion.)

Some fun stuff we have done:

On the 22nd of January, we joined the young couples group from church at Birds Hill Provincial Park for a sleigh ride and weenie roast. That night was the coldest of winter so far and it bottomed out at -31C (-23.8F). The high for the day was -25C. We bundled up as much as we could and drove up the ice-covered road to the stables at Bird Hill. The sleigh ride was the real thing, with Cydesdales pulling a big old timber sleigh.

The driver said once we get going, we don't stop, because at that temperature, starting and stopping is hard on the animals and gear. If you fall or jump off, please try to keep up! The ride was great, and lasted about an hour. By the time we got to the picnic site for the fire, Grace had cold feet, and was very ready to go home. We hoofed it about 3 minutes back to the stables and the car. I suspect Greta and Erick were cold, too, but didn't know enough to say anything.

The following weekend (Kristie's birthday) we went to Crescent Drive park here in town to try out the toboggan run. It was snowing and beautiful at our favorite city park. We did a number of runs on the wooden run and then took a walk along the Red river.


Afterward, we went home and I fired up the Weber and cooked Kristie a nice steak dinner in the snow!

We've been spending time with our neighbors, Charles and Monica, and their three kids. Charles can drink beer like a good Canadian, and they are a lot of fun. We ahd them over for pizza and beer Saturday night, and today Grace and I went sledding with Charles and six-year-old Brooke. The park across the street has a nice little hill down to the pond and some of the guys in the neighborhood sculpted a set of luge-like runs in the snow. The middle one has a pretty big jump and it's a hoot to go down any of them

later,

s

Cat got your tongue?

Some funny and not funny things from the past week:

We spent Saturday evening at our neighbor's house for beer and pizza with a little football snuck in here and there. Charles is from Thompson, MB (way the heck up there), and told me that in the winter, he and his buddies would put a bottle of Rye out in the snow to cool it off. Usually it would be out there too long, and at -35C it turns to syrup. You can't pour it into a plastic cup, because it will crack the cup. Use glass. Another important thing is that you shouldn't drink liquor at -35C, because it will freeze your gullet. Solution? Put in a couple of ice cubes from the freezer to warm up your drink!

Sunday we went sledding with Charles and Monica, their twins, and their daughter & Graces's friend, Brooke. There were other families sledding on the hill down to the pond at the park across the street, too. The other guys there all had their piles of beers in the snow at the top of the hill. I wasn't thinking like a Canadian, and had to wait until I got home for a frosty one.

Naturalist: A Canadian who doesn't believe in shovelling his drive. It'll melt soon enough, eh?

We have deer hoof prints in the snow in the front yard. This is a city of 670,000! I bet they live in the fields on the other side of Waverly ave, but it's still strange. Grace and I also followed some prints nearly all the way from our house to her school.

This part's a bit gruesome. Yesterday, Grace made the mistake of licking a sign post in front of our house. I'm told it's a right of passage for children here. She apparently yelled for her mom for a while before taking matters into her own hands. Kristie said Grace came to the front door bleeding and screaming, "I'm dying!" She seems no worse for the wear, though, and ate 5 pieces of French Toast (le pain perdue, or, the lost bread), a strip of bacon (American, not Canadian Back), plus a glass of OJ for dinner that night.


later,

s

Wee Willie Winkle's Wild Wet and Woolly Water World

After lunch today, Kristie took the girls to the Steinbach Aquatic Center for an afternoon of winter fun. It's about 40 minutes down the Trans Canada Highway from Winnipeg, and admission is free for Greta, $3 for Grace, and $7 for Kristie. Cheap! They have a link to photos of the center which are really nice, but it's a big PDF file. Those of you on dialup connections be patient.
Erick wanted to watch football, so I stayed home with him and shoveled snow while he napped before the Cincinnati game.

The swimmers came back exhausted and ravenous at 6. I was ready for them with spaghetti, salad, and home made bread (day old). Kristie says it's weird to be swimming and look out the big windows on the snow covered prairie.

s

Put da Lime in de Coconut

Traveling from Whinny Peg to So Ill or returning takes just a hair over 20 hours to cover 1200 miles either way. This was our first holiday trip down south, so these really were trial runs.

I didn't expect that a simple gas and potty stop would take 45 minutes, nor that breakfast at Perkins would be 90 minutes. McDonald's is quicker but lots more work, Cracker Barrel is slower. The food tastes about the same as Perkins, but Cracker Barrel (one of the great, unintentional double entendres, along with Slim Fast) has the big toy store for the kids to run around in while you wait for a table. You always gotta wait for a table at CB, but they're real friendly about it (please buy something). Any dining stop includes at least two trips to the potty, and sometimes Grace makes Kristie take her right when the food arrives. This causes Greta's bladder to instantly fill, though somehow both girls' bladders are empty again by the time they get to the toilet. Who says miracles are not performed in our time?

The kids can comfortably do a total of six hours in the car per day. Grace starts complaining of boredom at about 7 hours, and doesn't really settle back down until after 9 hours. Watching DVD's on the iBook helps some, but it requires putting both girls in the back seat where there is the possibility of poking, stuffed animal theft, and hair pulling. Additionally, Greta likes to eat the foam pads on her headphones. Perhaps she's trying to comment on our dining choices. (See above.) A steady supply of snacks is also good, though Greta shares half of hers with Mr. Murphy the plush monkey who now wears a diaper, and Grace stashes a good portion of hers in the cubbies by her seat for a little after-Cracker-Barrel-snack. A girl's gotta think ahead, drastic times call for drastic measures, et cetera.

Anyway, about the title of this entry. Kristie came down with strep throat on New Year's Eve and had a full-blown case of it by the time we left Carbondale on the first. She was a real trooper, keeping the kids happy while I drove, but was miserable the whole way. I know, because I caught it right after Greta when we got home. I haven't had strep since childhood, and forgot that it makes swallowing feel like a fishing lure is going down. Finally, our chance to try out Canadian health care!

After a bit of time on maps.google.com and a couple of phone calls, we found Kristie a walk-in clinic about 2 miles from our house. She showed her health card, saw the doctor, and was out the door with her prescription in about an hour. Wednesday, I took Greta. Same deal. The very personable pediatrician asked who Greta's regular doc was, and I told him that the MD we were referred to is no longer taking new patients. He and volunteered to take her on if we didn't mind driving downtown to his regular practice, and he has an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist on staff who will consult on a tonsilectomy after she's done with the antibiotics. Also no charge. I made it to school Wednesday noon, but was circling the drain fast by the time I had to teach. Thursday morning was my turn to go in. I was out the door in just under an hour with my scrip, no questions asked, no co-pay, no deductible. Crazy.
Let's see how it goes with the ENT.

later,

s

Winnipeg Winter Wonders

The end of the term at school really knocked me for a loop, and I havent posted since last month! Here's some funny and some interesting things I've seen lately as winter settles in.

A car dragging 25 feet of electrical cord down the road-- I guess he forgot to unplug the block heater!

Salt spreaders for the driveway that look just like fertilizer spreaders, but with skis

A stroller for the baby with skis strapped on the wheels

Cute little catterpillar snow plows for city sidewalks pulling salt spreader trailers behind


Toboggan snow shovels are 3 feet long and look like what you would expect. There's a mower-type handle at one end and a lowered lip at the other, so you can push it until it's full of snow, then tip it back to slide along the top of the snow to where you want to dump it out.


People riding bicycles in the ice, wind, and snow

Rabbit and fox tracks in the snow in the city

Sunrise at 8:10 AM, Sunset at 4:20PM

More soon. It's 11:15!

Bread

My new winter hobby is baking bread. I started working my way through Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Bread about six weeks ago, and am really starting to turn out some fine loaves. Someone gave me that book as a gift a while back, and I can't recall who. I read and enjoyed parts of it but it ended up on the shelf. Pity. Anyway, thank you to whomever gave that book to me for Christmas some time ago!

My bread making adventure started with the basic white sandwich bread, and went on to Cuban bread (twice because it is so good), French, and, tonight, Italian. Best yet! The Italian recipe calls for 3 cups water, so it makes a lot of dough. After adding 6 cups of flour, it was about all my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer could do to keep the dough hook moving. I finished kneading by hand, and then let it rise for 2 hours to triple volume. Second rise was 30 minutes to nearly double volume, and the loaves (round) rose again for another hour. They started out about 8" diameter by 2" high, but became quite large and really sprang up in the oven.
Some things I've learned so far:
A long mix with the flat paddle and half of the flour really develops a nice gluten network.
Keep kneading until the dough is silky smoooth. (bouncy keyboard on the iBook)
Bread dough must be softer than pizza dough. Really soft, by comparison.
Don't rush the rising. Let it go as long as it needs to get the volume you want.
Short mixing, kneading, and rising makes for tough, mealy bread.

I look forward to sharing my new hobby over the holidays in Carbondale!

s