North Dakota cold

I’m doing my blog post early this week because, frankly, I haven’t much else to do. The College has been closed for two days because of cold weather. And it is cold, I’ll give you that. Since last week, the usual social pleasantries of “good morning,” “hello,” and “goodbye” have been replaced one and all with “Stay warm.” The weather station in the kitchen just gave up and displayed OFL, for “off line”, I presume, although if you try pronouncing it, it comes out “awful”, which is also true. Awful damned cold. The one in the bedroom said -29.2°F when we got up today.

The weather station this morning

Hilda’s thermometer got as low as -33°. Nevertheless, I keep thinking back to the year I spent in North Dakota where it was -40° with wind chills of -90° every day for the first two weeks of February. Did the schools close then? They did not. Did I ever get a day off? Nope. We bundled up and went about our business—as quickly as possible.

I guess folks around here just aren’t used to it, and everything grinds to a frozen standstill. At least the wind has calmed down today. Tuesday night, it howled all night long. Hilda’s bed is beneath a window, and she had to wear her winter hat to bed because her head was so cold. And that’s saying something because she doesn’t get cold easily.

Yesterday we stayed at home. I did some research on Bianca’s condition and decided it could be wry neck, which is basically the same nutrient deficiency as star-gazing. And could we find where we put the selenium pills? Not a chance. Rather than going out, I looked up foods high in selenium and came up with sunflower seeds. I had some of those in my freezer. I mixed them with flax meal (for thiamine) and yogurt (for probiotics), and Hilda and I took it out to the coop. We were pleased that Bianca ate it eagerly. We left her alone with it on the storage side of the coop. Hilda went out an hour later and gave her water, which she drank. Today she seems a little better.

One of the pet-care responsibilities that I take very seriously is making sure Skippy gets an adequate amount of lap time. I feel bad that he has to stay in the cage when I am at work or doing things at home that I don’t need his help with (e.g., cooking or using my laptop). Still, I remind myself that he is out more than he would be if he were at a kennel. Anyway, I had the opportunity to give him some time yesterday afternoon while I caught up on Hobby Farms. He hopped on my lap, settled in, and began snoring softly. This was about 2:00.

An invitation to nap

The peer pressure was terrible. Warm cat on lap....so….sleepy….. And then it was 4:00. I feared I would be up all night, but I slept pretty well. Perhaps the cold wears me out.

This morning I tried some of things I saw on Facebook. I had heard about throwing boiling water into the air when I lived in North Dakota but was damned if I was going to go outside to do something so frivolous. I tried it this morning. The only thing I gained from the personal experience that I could not get from the videos was the faint crackling noise as the steam turned to frost.

I tried bubbles too. That was interesting but not spectacular. Rather than popping, they got sort of dented. I was most impressed by how they rolled around on the snow, sometimes for quite a distance. This is the best picture I could get.

Soap bubbles on the snow

We ventured out this morning when the temperature was a balmy -14°F. Hilda had to pick up a total of six prescriptions at Walgreens. I remembered correctly that Walgreens did not carry selenium supplements but WalMart did. Hilda waited in the (still running) car while I ran into WalMart.

When I got back, Hilda remarked that when she went outside this morning, the cold had settled over her like a blanket. There’s just no escape when it is that much below zero. “I felt bad for you when you lived in North Dakota,” she said, “but I don’t think I felt bad enough.”

Chilly today and hot tamales.

The cold continued into the week. Thursday morning was a little below zero, but it was just beautiful. Every twig, every pine needle was so perfectly flocked with frost that the trees looked white instead of black. Two horizonal lines of clouds in the east were pink as I started my drive to work. The sun came up as a huge orange ball catching a world of sparkles. It was breathtaking.

Friday morning was colder and not as pretty. It was not supposed to snow that day, but by the time I ran a few errands after work, it had snowed enough to cover the roads and slow traffic. It was only 2°F. I would have thought it was too cold to snow.

Saturday morning, the weather station was unhappy.

The weather station was unhappy. It got to -21 shortly after I took this photo

Upstairs, Hilda had an outdoor reading of -25°F. I did not let the chickens out. They would not have gone out if I had opened the door anyway. I found the soda bottle with the holes in it and filled it with scratch grains. I was pleasantly surprised that the string to attach it to the ceiling was still attached. In theory, giving them these little diversions is supposed to keep them from getting bored and pecking at each other.

Cooped up-the soda bottle with the scratch grains is behind the feeder. Look for the red cap and white string.

Bianca doesn’t look good. This is how Layla looked before she died. Not sure what to do about it. I’d like to think she is just hunkering down because of the cold, but I think I’m kidding myself.

Bianca is hunching

I have been filling my bird feeder these cold days. There seems to be a two-step process. First, the no-longer-goldfinches throw all the seeds on the ground.

First, the goldfinches throw all the seed on the ground

Then the other birds eat it from there. We get juncos, house finches, mourning doves, and the occasional cardinal.

Then an assortment of birds eats the seed on the ground

Yesterday, I saw an American tree sparrow. I don’t recall seeing them in winter before. They have rusty stripes on their head that make them look like they are wearing bike helmets.

A tree sparrow behind a house finch

A signature feature that distinguishes them from chipping sparrows is a dark spot on their breast.

The dark spot on the tree sparrow's breast

It was edging toward 0° after lunch. I needed to get groceries and water Jane’s plants. A major snow event courtesy of Winter Storm Jayden was forecast for Monday, and I knew I didn’t want to be going out then. As it turned out, the rest of the world thought that shopping on Saturday ahead of the storm was a good idea. I spent a great deal of time standing in lines. I had to go to four different stores for one thing and another. Hilda and I wanted to try a new recipe for tamales that we saw on America’s Test Kitchen, and that required things that I didn’t have in stock, such as two kinds of dried chilis and masa harina.

One thing that bothers me about raising my own meat chickens is that whenever I want to cook with chicken, I’ve got the whole bird. The tamale recipe called for 1.25 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. So I bought some. The only ones I could find at Meijer were organic and selling for—gasp--$6.19 a pound. I was running out of patience looking for unfamiliar things. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that we should support organic farmers, and bought the thighs. It made me feel better about how much money we spent on our own chickens. They are a bargain, comparatively.

Here’s something I never, ever thought I’d buy.

Nope, never thought I'd buy this

I had no idea where to even look for it and was pleased to stumble on it right next to the masa. That’s right, folks, on the shelf at room temperature. A fat that requires no refrigeration. Horrifying. And zero trans fat doesn't make it good for you.

It wasn’t supposed to snow on Saturday either, but I ended up driving home on bad roads again. I was feeling persecuted by the weather. Once home, though, I vowed to stay put until Tuesday.

We were going to start making tamales at 2:00 Sunday afternoon. I did some mis en place in the morning. The recipe called for six tablespoons each of unsalted butter and lard. There was a note that you could use all butter, but that made the tamales taste buttery. Like that was a bad thing. Anyway, I had the lard. I didn’t know what form the lard would be in. Would it be sticks, like butter? No. It was one big ol’ block o’ lard.

Big ol' block o' lard

I was damned if I was going to measure six tablespoons of lard with a measuring spoon. I would use weight. A pint’s a pound the world around, as the saying goes, but would that apply to the density of lard? Assuming the density of lard would be about the same as butter, I cut 6 T of butter using the handy marks on the wrapper and weight that. 3 ounces. Indeed, a pint is a pound the world around, fat included. I weight out 3 oz. of lard and was good to go.

We ripped up New Mexican and Ancho peppers, sautéed onions, garlic, cumin, and oregano, and simmered everything in chicken stock.

Chilis simmering in chicken stock

That all went in a blender until smooth. I then nestled the precious chicken thighs in the sauce to cook.

Chicken thighs simmering in sauce

When that was done, we took the chicken out to shred it.

Shredding the chicken

And added vinegar to the sauce and tasted it. It did not taste like vinegar. It was bitter. The recipe said that sugar would take the bitterness out. I only added a little because I didn’t want the sauce to be sweet. One teaspoon removed the bitterness and did not add sweetness. I was amazed.

On to the tamale dough. We put the presoaked grits and masa in a food processor with the butter, lard, and a few other things. Soon it looked like this.

Tamale dough

We spread the dough in more or less 4 x 4” squares and carefully put a little of the chicken filling in the middle.

Assembly

Then we rolled them up.

Ready for steaming

And steamed them for an hour. They were delicious! Much better than our last attempt. This recipe was a keeper.

Let's plate this dish!

We did get more snow--probably 5 or 6". It was warm, though, up in the 20's. We had a little victory in that the wind was from the south and nearly blew the solar panels clear of snow. Since I didn't wear myself out brushing them off, I wore myself out shoveling 2 feet of snow off the deck. Why bother, you might be wondering. Because that much snow gets heavy. I know. I lifted a lot of it. 

And now it's going to get really, really cold. Thirty below cold. North Dakota cold. We fear for our peach trees.

Winter Storm Harper

Today is not a day to be putting your tongue on the pump handle. It was -0.4°F when I got up this morning. The almost-full moon was just going down. Hilda didn’t think I should open the coop when I went out at 7:00 for fear that the girls’ combs would freeze. The alternative was for the hens to stay in the coop and get pecked by Juanita. She is just mean. I watched her do it! Bianca cowered in the corner beneath the nest boxes while many of the others huddled together behind the waterer. In retrospect, we should have sent Juanita to the butcher in July. Oh well. The should-haves don’t count.

We have settled into our new normal with having a cat around. This week Skippy learned to leap over the camping mat that was blocking the doorway to the store room. I’d found him back there twice before I witnessed the jump. The other way he could have been getting access was by climbing over some boxes that were blocking entry next to the upright freezer. Once we knew where the problem was, we could solve it by shutting the door.

Skippy does not seem to have a deep understanding of cause and effect. For example, after he has been sitting on my lab for a while, he will get up and check to see if there is any food in his bowl. No one has been anywhere near his kennel since he last checked. Apparently, he believes that food can magically appear without human intervention.

What? The food dish is STILL empty?

Winter Storm Harper was scheduled to arrive late Friday afternoon. To my astonishment, the College sent out a notice shortly after lunch that it would close at 4:00. I got my haircut at 1:30 and was home by 2:00. After washing my hair, I made a cup of tea and settled into my chair with Skippy on my lap. We waited for the storm, Skippy and I, feeling all warm and cozy and relieved that I had nowhere to go until Monday. During these moments, winter is enjoyable.

Hardly a flake had fallen by the time the College closed. In fact, it was probably midnight when I noticed that I couldn’t see the grass anymore. By morning, we had 5” of snow.

Harper's five inches of snow

After the chicken chores and breakfast, I went out to brush off the solar panels. I saw a few patches of clear sky and didn’t want to miss out on the electricity. The east side wasn’t too bad. Much of it had been blown clear by the wind. The snow covered progressively more of the panels going west until the last couple of rows were completely blocked. The biggest snow drift ran along the second panel from the top. Of course. It couldn’t be where I could reach it easily.

I got Mr. LongArm (this is the real name of the pole) with his brush out of the garden shed and got busy.

Me and Mr. LongArm brushing off the solar panels

On the panels with more snow, I brushed it down to the last two rows and then shortened Mr. LongArm to pull it down the rest of the way. The trouble was that the wind was coming from the north (directly behind the panels), which created a Venturi effect as it passed underneath the panels. As soon as the snow cleared the bottom edge, it was blasted upward at high speed, filling not only my coat pockets but also my nose. Not pleasant.

After a little more than an hour, the panels were as clear as they were going to get. And the sky had clouded up again, so our production was not very high after all.

As clean as the panels were going to get

 I’m glad to have the panels clean today. The air has a special clarity when it is too cold to hold any moisture. The sky is bright, deep blue. The snow is blindingly white. And the solar panels are cranking out the kWhs.

Pet sitting

Jane has gone to Florida, and I am bereft. We caught the edge of winter storm Gia Saturday. I sent her a picture of the snow coming down with a text that said, “What you are missing.”

What we had Saturday that Jane was missing in Florida

She sent back this picture with the same message.

What Jane had that we were missing

Note that in both pictures the ground is white. The similarity ends there.

She has also sent pictures of a roseate spoonbill and a pair of bald eagles.

Roseate spoonbill outside Jane and Jan's condo

A pair of bald eagles

Meanwhile, Terry and I are looking after Skippy, as we have for the past several years. Unlike previous years, Jane’s box turtle (technically a tortoise, since she lives on land), Dutchy, did not enter hibernation this year, so she had to come visit us as well. Up until Jane’s departure, Dutchy ate a little cucumber every couple of days. I hoped that she would go dormant shortly after coming to the cool of our house, but no such luck. And yet, she only stares at her food. Sometimes she lies on top of the food bowl with one foot in her water bowl. It is hard to know what will make a turtle happy. We found Dutchy in Michigan some 20 years ago and brought her back for Jane’s mom. She was very cute and tiny back then. After all this time, I’d feel bad if she died on my watch. I guess she’ll eat if she wants to.

Dutchy not hibernating in her birch bark tunnel

Skippy, on the other hand, is ravenous all the time. He is supposed to be losing weight, so I’ve been trying to keep him to a fixed amount of dry food every day. He would rather have a lot more. For the most part, he has settled right in. He sits on my lap and purrs quite a lot, which is a comfort if I’m not doing anything else. When I am trying to use my laptop, he insists on sitting between me and the keyboard. Occasionally, he will give me some respite by sitting on top of the futon (now covered with a sheet to protect it from cat hair).

Taking a break from nap time

If I am not the first one to sit down, he claims my chair as his own.  

Skippy laying claim to my chair

The good part about his diet is that whenever I really need to get something done and can’t watch him (while he chews on electrical cords less than when he was younger, I still don’t trust him), all I need to do is put a little food in his bowl. He walks right into the kennel, and I shut the door. Easy peasy. He has his snack and curls up in his bed for a nap.

I’m back to work for meetings on Thursday. Classes begin next Tuesday. Skippy will have to be in his cage all day then. He’ll be stuck to my lap like glue when I get home. It’s nice to be needed.

A new year begins

We celebrated New Year’s Day with the traditional caramel pecan rolls followed by napping through the Rose Parade. I’m not sure why I’m still napping. It was perfectly reasonable to sleep most of the morning when I stayed up until midnight on New Years’ Eve, but this year I was in bed by 9:00.

New Year's morning breakfast

And here we are. The holidays are over, and we have to turn our full attention to surviving the rest of winter. It didn’t seem so bad for the last couple of days. The sky was blue and the temperatures above freezing. It was 52°F Saturday. I went for a walk without coat, hat, or gloves. Today is still warm, but I can hear the wind howling and the rain beating on the windows. It makes me want to sit here under my electric lap blanket in my jammies and bathrobe all day.

As much as I enjoyed entertaining and making food for friends and family, I’m ready to resume my usual routine, which is why I will get out of my chair and onto my exercise bike after I’m done with this post. I have been overeating since December 17, when my brother and sister-in-law came for Christmas Observed. With each event, there were leftovers that had to be eaten or frozen. It was such a responsibility! Ham, lasagna, roast chicken, more ham…. I froze most of the Christmas cookies, defrosting enough for a few days at a time. I have said it before, but it bears repeating—I don’t know why people go on and on about sugar cookies. No chocolate, no inclusions—what is there to recommend them? I ate a few toward the end, after all the good ones were gone. Finally, the last cookie was eaten on Friday, after three solid weeks of nothing but cookies for dessert.

Saturday I used up the last leftovers from Christmas, which was the buttercream frosting from cookie baking day. I recently learned from Alton Brown that, by definition, frosting stays soft while icing hardens up. Thus buttercream frosting vs. royal icing. Some people (including Alton Brown) prefer royal icing on their sugar cookies, which in my opinion gives them even less to get excited about. It is made of egg whites and confectioner sugar. Ick. The only advantage to royal icing is that it hardens, which makes the cookies easier to pack. Even though my cookies are messier and require wax paper between the layers, I prefer the buttercream frosting. Keyword: butter.

I made a chocolate cake to use up the frosting. It was a dilemma. There was not enough of either the chocolate or the vanilla frosting for the whole cake, but too much of each for half the cake. My solution was to pile it on. It turned out fine. Terry summed it up: “Chocolate cake is really good! I’d forgotten how good it is.”

Chocolate cake with buttercream frosting

Yes. Yes, it is.