Happy February! What a winter it's been so far. Since cabin fever is setting in and since we can finally walk up the driveway again, I decided to get out of the house for a while yesterday. There wasn't much to do because the world still looks like this everywhere. That's ice not snow. You can't walk on it at all we discovered. You can't really walk anywhere to Pup's dismay.
It looks like the city workers got half of the big Christmas tree taken down and then said the heck with it. I don't blame them. It was 18 degrees with a stiff wind down by the water.
The bay has not frozen but the ice was very pretty shining in the sun up on the rocks.
The new library had some spectacular icicles. It looks like the upper deck has a water issue that needs fixing.
We took a ride across town to the big grocery store so I could pick up some fresh vegetables. There were piles of dirty snow and ice everywhere you looked.
And for those of you following the Betty Saga, here is her latest loaf. I made a new-to-me overnight recipe that exploded on the counter. What a mess it was in the morning. I fought to shape it and then put it in the refrigerator for a 12 hour cold proofing thinking it was ruined. It turned out to be my best loaf yet. I just might have learned to like sourdough because this one was delicious. Every time I walk past it I have to have a piece.
The Mister and SIL run a football pool that includes lots of folks The Mister schmoozes with on his daily travels. That includes a couple of city workers and one of them, who always forgets to put in his weekly picks without a Saturday night reminder from The Mister, is in charge of the city snow plowing. Yesterday afternoon he called when he was on the way home to see if we needed any help since he had his own personal equipment on his truck. The Mister was in seventh heaven after getting a wide path plowed down the driveway. We can't drive the car down yet but we can at least walk up it now-carefully.
Speaking of friends, Brown Betty and Betty White have a little friend. I've been keeping their discards in a big jar in the fridge and for the first time ever I resurrected a bit of it in a small jar. Not only did it come back to life, it came back with such vigor that it made lots of lovely bubbles on the sides of the jar which is something that the big Bettys haven't done yet. What this means is that I don't have to keep up the feeding schedule anymore. I can put all the Bettys in time out and just feed them when I want to bake. I can do this but I won't. I'm not ready to end my science experiment any time soon. The kitchen would seem like a lonely place without Betty to fool around with.
I ventured out for a few minutes yesterday to see what was up out there. It's insane. All that snow that is now covered in ice is crazy. I've been through an actual catastrophic ice storm and what's underfoot now is worse than that was by far.
I'd be fine just sitting here waiting it out but I live with....him. As soon as his eyes open in the morning he's fretting and fuming about it. He's driving me crazy. I remember now why I recall that ice storm more fondly than this. The Mister was stuck at work for most of it. I was here alone with the kids for several days and even without power, we got along just fine.
The day after the storm he took his wood maul and crushed a path up our steep driveway so he could at least get up to the car and get out of here for a bit. He's been going down to the local market everyday to pick up an item or two. Getting stuff down that ice skating rink is harder than getting it up there. I've been grateful for the few minutes of peace and quiet I get while he's gone.
This is the kind of stuff I have to deal with when he's here. That's my heat gun. He wanted to see if it would melt some of the ice that's up against the doors. It didn't. Then there were pots of boiling water that just made more ice. I swear I'm going to be featured on Dateline if this ice doesn't melt soon.
What have I been doing while he's ranting at the ice? A little of this. A very little.
I don't know what's going on with my sinuses but when I try to look down at projects my head feels pretty bad. Terrible pressure. I dug out my old cold mist humidifier yesterday in hope of getting some relief. It looks like it's close to the loom in this photo but it's not. I wouldn't do that to her but I'm sure she's enjoying this bit of humidity. Everything is dry as a bone with enough static electricity to kill a small mammal. You should see my hair.
I'm still sniffly but at least that terrible cough is gone. I don't think I've ever experienced a cough like that. It was dry and itchy and made me gag. I went through a bag of cough drops and gallons of hot tea and honey. Thank goodness it only lasted about 24 hours. The only knitting I've done all week was on these socks and I worked on them while walking around the kitchen because leaning over projects with a leaky beak is still a no go.
I did work on the warp for the towels a bit. Standing upright is the thing to do right now. The more I get on the warping board the more I can see an issue. I'm betting all the white in the variegated yarn is going to pool with the white solid. I'm thinking that I'm probably going to have to end up re-doing this draft with better colors one day. For the record, I picked the color but it was one that was recommended for the kit.
So what have I been doing with all my free time since I'm still iced in and too sick to work on projects? Re-watching Stranger Things from the beginning. Having just watched the finale it's been fun going back and seeing how all the pieces fit together.
Right before my nasty cold hit me, I made another loaf. This was my favorite so far. It wasn't too sour. I cold proofed it for 24 hours. I'm not sure if it made a difference but it was nice and fluffy on the inside with a crisp crust.
That night I used Betty's discard to make my first crackers. I thought they were good but The Mister thought they were too thick and too crunchy.
My second try was too thin. The Mister declared these chips and that they needed salsa...lol. Oh, well. I don't need to be eating crackers anyhow.
I've also got two starters going now. Brown Betty is on the left. She's the original one that consists mostly of wheat and rye flour. I used a bit of her to start another all white flour Betty that I call Betty White.
I put a very little bit of both their discards in a bowl in the refrigerator overnight and had my first starter explosion. It came over the top of the bowl and pushed off the lid. What a mess. At 34 days old Betty is really starting to flex her muscles.
Between the two Grand sitting gigs, the sick dog, the snow prep and then a miserable cold, I haven't a thing to show off this week. I haven't even picked up my knitting in days. What I can show off is ice. Lots of it. Everywhere.
We started out with this much snow and then the ice came and glazed over it all. Not enough to pull the wires down but enough to make a big mess.
The cats have been enjoying the weather. Since the top layer is hard ice we've been throwing seed out on top of it for our feathered friends and they've been putting on quite the bird show. We're hearing rumors of another snow storm heading our way at the end of this week. Hopefully, I'll be feeling well enough then to get out there. We've got the sleds ready to go when we are.
I haven't had a cold since I had Swine Flu back in 2009. I kid you not. Not a sniffle. Not even Covid but I've got one now and so does The Mister. All that pre-snow crowded rush was probably a field day for germs. At least it's not the flu. Not yet anyway. I would have loved to spend my snow days working on my many projects but instead I'm under the covers with a bad case of brain fog, a leaky beak and a wicked cough. No fun there. No fun anywhere. Argh...
.jpg-large)
