Sk-alking

It is with great sadness that Roger and I are announcing the end of the cross country ski season here in Fort Mac.    There have been a few false alarms, but with the +7 degree celsius temperatures that this weekend brought, we feel this is the true end.  Since January we've managed to ski at least 188km (at least these are the times we remembered to record our distances).  

It was almost a perfect winter for skiing, we didn't get a ton of snow, but it was enough and it was relatively warm with temperatures usually between -5 to -15'C.  

This season, Roger turned into a skate skiing fiend.  He clipped into those new skis, went into turbo mode and left me far, far behind.  I'll be hard pressed to convince him to put his classic skis on ever again.

Last weekend, we did quite a lot of exploring in the Birchwood Trails.  The snow was almost perfect, but somehow not a lot of people were out and about.

This past Saturday, we headed out for our last ski.  It was warm, and at times I felt like we were cross-country water skiing.  Roger called it sk-alking, as we did a lot of walking in our skis.  

These were the only pictures I took as I was grumpy because of the snow and made Roger carry the camera bag which he obligingly did.

The rest of the photos were taken by Roger.

So that's it, I guess when we really start missing the snow, we'll have to resort to watching this.

Tornado!

Our house was hit by a rare winter tornado last weekend.  It spun through our kitchen looking like this:

We tried to tucker it out by taking it on a long and hilly hike:

But....our plan backfired and the tornado just ended up blowing through our fridge and devouring the contents, including our ICE CREAM!

There were a few moments of calm:

And the tornado produced a couple delicious meals like Laksa and Mee Sua

But, eventually, like all tornadoes, it spun away in the end.

An Extension

Roger and I were ready to write off cross-country skiing for the rest of the winter season.  We hadn't had new snow in a couple of weeks, and the trails were getting pretty messy.  While we didn't actually pack away our ski boots, we did start transitioning to running.  That is until last Tuesday!  On Tuesday we got a wonderful fresh dump of snow that sent us scrambling for our skis and will hopefully prolong the ski season for another week or two!

Hooray!

A Visit from Nikki

A few weeks ago, Nikki came to visit.  I had promised her a nice relaxing visit and while I think I delivered on the nice portion (although it was hard to tell at times), I had verbal confirmation from Nikki that I had failed to deliver on the relaxing portion.  

Perhaps it was because we made her ski in the dark or, perhaps we made her ski too much period?

She looks pretty happy in the first two photos, but considerably less so in the last two which is day 3 of skiing.

Perhaps it was because when we finally gave her a break from skiing, we took her snowshoeing down, and then up the steepest hill we could find?

Perhaps it was because we worked her too hard?

and then...ate a meal that nearly spiced off my tastebuds, had my husband sneezing on the couch a few feet a way and left my face and eyes stinging for hours?

This meal was supposed to be a celebratory Chinese New Year dinner, and while it may look good, and even smelled good, it was declared inedible by me.  Next time a recipe calls for dried chillies, I now know NOT to use dried habanero chillies.  

Nosiree.

I'm not sure the significance of a Chinese New Year meal that can't be eaten, but I don't think it's good. 

Sorry for the non-relaxing visit Nikki... I guess you can get back at me one day when I visit Ontario.  I hope you're memory is short.

Cheesecake and Dragons

I can't say that I did a great job of celebrating the start of Chinese New Year this year, but we did get this fantastic lantern from Roger's book keeper. 

It was quite elaborate to set up.  Took us about 15 minutes of quiet concentrated work before we got it hanging in our entrance way.  

Anyhow, Chinese New Year is not over yet and who knows, I may still whip up a celebratory meal.  

The snow has been great, so we've been spending lots of time skiing on the trails.  Hopefully the weather will hold out a little longer.  

My latest offering in the "Quest for the Perfect Cheesecake."

Getting Closer!

Pancakes

I'm married to a pancake snob.  The only true pancake for my husband is pannkakkor which is essentially a crepe.  He claims that he never knew what a North American pancake was while growing up until he had one of my dad's famously large pancakes.  My dad is all about efficiency and the larger he can make a pancake, the fewer he has to make.  Anyway, since Fort Mac is basically a skating rink after last Monday's rain followed by Tuesday's freezing cold temperatures, we've been a bit house bound.  With not much else to do, our thoughts have turned to eating and after seeing this pancake recipe a few days ago, I haven't been able to think about much else.  After braving the sceptical looks from my husband, this morning I tried it out. 

I'd say the results even managed to please my pancake elitist husband!

Not bad for a North American pancake.

Don't worry mom and dad, we're not really sitting around, we did manage to get out on our skis yesterday and today despite the icy conditions and bitter winds.

Finally winter is here!  This is more like it.

*Update*  Roger recently informed me that my information in this post is incorrect.  My dad's gigantic pancakes were not his first North American pancake.

There.  Now the world can go on turning.