what a fabulous day!

i just got back inside from an amazing ski! wow. i left here just about an half hour after cross country check-up started, bc time...so about 3:30pm here and got back just as it ended. i have to say i love being able to listen to the radio via itunes! its fabulous. being in the center of canada, as we are now, we have a couple times zones on either side of us. if i miss a show, i just tune into the alberta or bc show. if i don't feel like listening to whats playing now, well, i just listen to the halifax programing. its pretty crazy to have all this stuff up here. phone. internet. satellite tv. we're just two people on a little island in the middle of a lake, in the middle of nowhere. i love it. theres not a single person for miles. just us. our pup. a half dozzen fat whiskey jacks. ravens. moose. a cute little otter and a heck of a lot of caribou - which i've not actually seen yet! but soon i hope.

i followed otter tracks for most of my ski today. they are so cute the way they travel, paw prints turn into belly slides...then paw prints and more belly slides. what an interesting life they must lead. between this island and the next the water is pretty low so the ice doesn't freeze very well and there are always open otter holes and littles piles of poop here and there.

today was water and laundry day, so of course it had to be super cold and windy. it was -33 this morning when we woke up and much colder with the wind chill. so after putting on two layers of long johns, snow pants, two pairs of socks, t-shirt, sweater, fleece, winter jacket, balaclava, wool hat, two hoods and mitts i'm good to go! i have my rinse water from the last laundry load saved for doing this load, so i can start the wash right away. i put a timer set for 10 minutes in my pocket and head off on the skidoo to the water hole. we have about 6 very large buckets with rope handles that work awesome for hauling water and i can fit three in the skimmer at once. i have the system down pretty well, just when i finish bringing the first load of water up to the house, the timer goes off and its time to drain the laundry, fill it up with clean water and start the rinse. i get a little time to warm up, to shed a few layers, put them back on again and then i head out to the lake for the last water load. its takes most of the morning, but its kinda fun and schooner loves it - he gets to chase one stick after the other!

felted slippers & butter tarts

i've spend the last few days making a pair of felted slippers. i've never really worn slippers, but the cabin we're staying in, in northern manitoba has a pretty cold floor. i've been wearing my bog boots (which are incredibly fabulous, if you must know), but i'd like to be able to slip them on and use them outside! instead of trying to keep them dry for inside only. 

i spent forever trying to find the perfect slipper pattern and finally realized, if they are going to keep my feet warm i don't really care what they look like (that’s not all true)! there are just so many patterns that it becomes overwhelming! i ended up finding my pattern, "family of slippers" on ravelry but i'm not really fond of how the toe turned out. the toe is made by decreasing until you have 20 stitches on two needles then you close the toe with a kitchener stitch. it worked out how it was supposed to, i just think it looks too angled. i thought that they might “even” themselves out when i felted them, but they didn't really change at all. so, well see, i might get them wet again and see if i can make the toes rounder, or they may come out over time. but they're warm and that what counts!

we're slowly getting settled into our little place here, its feeling more and more like home by the day. i went for a ski the other afternoon, in the dwindling sun - incredibly gorgeous! i've never had a to think about wind before, but out here you break a trail and the next day half of it is all blown over. gone. nothing left whatsoever. pretty crazy really. the lake has about 1.5 feet of snow on it, so breaking a new trail every time, as nice as it would be to be far from the skidoo trail, is pretty time consuming. the crust is just thick enough that you almost don't break through, but you do. so i've been sticking to the main trail, going out to the point, to the ice fishing holes where i turn around and head home.

i made butter tarts the other afternoon while travis was down at williams. it was about -35 and he may have been happy going out on the lake at that temp but i was just as happy to stay inside, listen to cbc via itunes and bake! :) this recipe super canadian as it is, calls maple syrup and is pretty deadly! i doubled it, making half with pecans, and the others with raisins. pretty darn fabulous!

maple butter tarts

3/4 cup  packed brown sugar

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/3 cup butter, melted

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

pecans

raisins

enough pastry for 12 tarts.

mix first five ingredients in a bowl. roll pastry out on a lightly floured board, and cut with 4 inch round cutter. shape tart pastry in muffin pan. put about 1 T of pecans and/or raisins into each tart and fill with above mixture (about 1/4 cup). bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes. eat 2 and hide the rest. :)

-34 & chicken noodle soup

this morning is a chilly one! we woke up to the sound of the 12volt beeper this morning - the generator had died and left us powerless at 6:45am. it was a cold, but beautiful morning to loose power - clear and starry, the sky lavender in the east, where the sun would eventually rise. it turns out that the generator had actually over heated of all things! i assume the draw must have been greater due to the cold, and it just got to hot inside the shed. it took travis longer to suit up to go outside, then it did to actually figure out what was wrong!

this morning travis is going to go help william (a trapper down the lake) set his net. he helped him set one yesterday and he drew me a picture of the whole contraption when he got home - it amazing! i've never seen the set up for netting fish under the ice and have often wondered about it. if you have a net, you obviously have to have it strung out, from A to B under the ice - and doing this is what i wondered about. the way they do it is to drill a big hole and put a board with a contraption on it and a rope attached to that into the water. when you pull the rope over and over it grabs onto the ice under the water and pulls it self across. once you've pulled it far enough, you clear the ice off, drill a hole and there it is! you take the contraption out, attach your net to the rope, and pull it through. its pretty darn cool!

travis and william are setting a net near our place this morning, coming here for lunch and then going back to check the one they set yesterday. the one they set yesterday may have some pickerel in it, where as the one they are setting closer to hear is mainly for whitefish. if its not too cold this afternoon i might go with them, well have to see.

last nights roasted a chicken is simmering on the stove with veggies and spices as we speak. the windows are all fogged up and the house smells lovely! william brought us some groceries the other day, when he came in from cross lake. we were running low on potatoes and didn't have any many veggies for soup so it was nice to get topped up. the potatoes were protected well enough to not freeze over the 170km trip, but the carrots and celery didn't make the trip unfrozen. its just as well though, they are only for soup, so i'll just keep them frozen and pull out what i need when i need it.

well, my coffee cup is empty, and the sun it up - so i should do my part as well!

no kneed, bread in a pan

i know i haven't posted on here for ages. i think about it all the time, but actually taking the time to do it just hasn't happened in a while. 

today was bread baking day. we've been up at the resort for a couple days now, and our store bought, enough-to-tide-us-over bread was running low. the oven in the cabin here is super tiny and i had feared that it might not even get hot enough. i got oven thermometer and found out that its sort of messed up on the lower end, but it goes to 500 no problem. which was good, cause that was what i needed it to be! 

i left most of my cookbooks at home, cause they are heavy and paper! both don't really do well when you have to pack all of your gear in a skimmer behind the skidoo for 165 km's! i also knew that we would have internet, so really my options would be endless. i didn't really need the books. 

i ended up finding this recipe.  its a no-kneed, long fermentation bread thats baked in a pot in the oven. this worked great for me, because the oven is so small i can't do more then one free form loaf at a time anyway, and i really wanted the crust that just baking it like normal probably wouldn't produce. the pot went in the oven while it was preheating, and then i popped the loaf in the pot when it was done rising. about 50 minutes later out it came and its quite lovely if you ask me! :) 

3 cups all-purpose flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon active dry yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt

1.5 cups water

cornmeal

mix yeast and water, let sit for 5. mix all of your flour and salt together and pour in the water and yeast mixture in and mix with your hand until just combined. put it in a medium sized bowl and let it sit in a warm room over night, about 12-18 hours. 

turn it out on to a lightly floured board. dust it with flour, and flatten lightly. fold it over and itself a couple times and let rest for 15. 

do this again, but this time heavily sprinkle a tea towel with cornmeal and place the loaf seam side down. sprinkle more cornmeal on top and fold the ends of the tea town on top to cover. let rise for 2 hours. 

pre-heat your oven to 450 and place a large cast iron or ceramic pot (that has a lid) in the oven. once the bread is almost double, invert it onto your hand and place it seam side up in the pot. cover with a lid and bake for 30 minutes. uncover and back for about 15 or more, just enough to get a nice and caramelized on the top! enjoy! :)