Flowers, for a few days

Tiny, very early crocuses.  

 How did I manage to actually lose photos from my phone?  We had a few lovely days and some very small, early crocuses bloomed.  I had taken a great photo of them.  It was a day to let the chooks out and hubby was out cooking down syrup, saw them and sent me a photo, which shows them munched on by the girls.  I loved that he was so thoughtful to make sure I saw the flowers though.   I lost a few other photos too, mostly of my first day back cooking at Westfield for the Maple Syrup season.

Just as a note, those crocuses are buried beneath more snow today.  We had a crazy cold front blow in, with wild winds, and limited visibility.  I couldn't see across the road this afternoon, because of the heavy, blowing snow.

Sunday was my first day back at Westfield.  I was in the Misener house, which has an awesome wood cook stove, by William Buck Stove Company.  It's called the Happy Thoughts stove, and it's so pretty.  It works well too, for a woodstove that was made in 1880 or thereabouts.   I made maple gingerbread, maple "not baked" beans, because we were using the oven all day and I had to cook them on top of the stove, and maple butter tarts.   A few of the tarts were a bit over cooked because so many people were streaming through that sometimes we couldn't get to the oven in time.  Also, the only downside of this stove is that the heat from the firebox makes the one side of the oven much hotter than the other, so if you don't turn the baked goods quickly enough, and your oven is a tad too hot, it burns quickly on one side.

I picked up a cast iron waffle iron. It's not antique, nor is it a reproduction.  It's a modern one.  They had two designs, one with short cast iron handles and this one with longer handles.  Hubby convinced me to get the long handle one as he thought it would be safer, and more versatile.   However, it was unseasoned, and this meant I couldn't season it in the oven.  It would need to be done outside, in a campfire or on the bbq.

It was a bit of an ordeal because unseasoned cast iron usually comes with a wax coating on it, which needs to be removed before use.   I scrubbed and scrubbed, but couldn't remove it.   Since hubby been's boiling sap, I was able to put the waffle iron on the campfire to melt off the wax.  I actually put the pieces right beside the burning logs, left it 15 minutes, and turned to get the other side.   Then I had to move the very hot irons into the house, let them cool and rub them with oil.  Back out to the fire and let them heat up again for some time.   The instructions said 15 minutes, but I probably left it longer.   I did that twice.   I was going to take them to Westfield, because they would work well with maple syrup season, but then worried that they could be messy or the learning curve might be too big for a busy day, so decided to wait until a slower day.  I'm looking forward to playing with them.  I'm looking up recipes in the meantime, to find some which might work well.  

Transferware - reproduction and original

 A week and a half ago I had a morning appointment.  Hubby took the day off, so we made a day of it.  He suggested going to browse at an antique mall.   The one he suggested was in the same city as my appointment.  When we drove by it though, it had moved into a swanky, glittery new building.   We both looked at each other and said nope.  Instead we drove home, ate our picnic in the park watching the geese and ducks on the mostly frozen waterway.   Then we headed to a local antique mall, in an old factory building. 

  I was being very good.  I ignored the oil lamps, although there were a couple which caught my eye.  I ignored the old sewing machines, but that wasn't difficult as there was only one and it was way over priced.   Instead I was after transfer ware.  Reproduction transfer ware to be exact.  I wanted some crockery to display my historic recipe experiments more appropriately.   There were a lot of blue willow pattern dishes out there, nicely made and definitely newer.  The bonus is that they weren't horribly expensive.  While I love blue and white ware,  and I like the pattern, there are other colours of the willow pattern that I like even more.  This pattern also came in green, brown, pink and red, although the pink and red may just be the same colour.  I found one solitary red bowl.   I also picked up 2 pieces of transferware from the 1930's, a purple Johnsons Brothers plate which was $2, and a blue transferware serving plate by Masons, which was $12, a bit more than I'd normally pay for a plate, but I was taken by it's shape and charm.

I also found a blue pyrex pie plate.   I'd seen one in the autumn when we'd done a quick pass through the antique mall, priced at $20, but passed it by.   When I got  home I'd regretted not purchasing it.   Way back when, I picked up a green glass pie plate.  It was more than I'd pay for one, and money was tight, but I love coloured glass, so I splurged.  I used it extensively, still do in fact.   A few years later they came out with a red glass pie plate, which I wanted to buy but couldn't justify the expense at the time.  Then the cobalt blue one came out.  I so much wanted to buy it, but again, the original glass pie plate was still in great condition and I couldn't justify buying it.   But while we were out browsing that day, there was another cobalt one which had been reduced from $32, to $20, so I grabbed it.   I'm still happy about it.  It's so pretty.

A Jumble of Things

 

I realized that the placement of the border flowers wasn't working with the size of the hoop I was using to hook with.   I kept having to adjust things to not crush the flower centres, which are large sequins.   I dragged out the PVC frame which hubby had made me, but I wasn't using because I need another couple of clamps to hold the rug secure for hooking it.   However, the border is narrow enough that it worked well when I tried it.   It saves the sequins from getting crushed, and holds it tight enough in the area I need for hooking.   

There is an issue though, that proves to stop my hooking completely.  I set up the frame, tighten the rug down the rug.  As soon as Phil notices, he watches until I reach for my hook and wool.  Then he flies up, and settles under the frame for a nap.  Silly kitty...

On the plus side, using this frame when there isn't a cat hiding under it has made the border hook quite quick.  The first 3 sides are almost complete, so Yay!

After a huge fiasco when I ordered my Pysanky dyes this year, I've finally been able to start writing the eggs.   I'd ordered the dyes at the beginning of February.  The store sent them, but neglected to send me the promised tracking number, so I didn't know they'd been sent, and apparently delivered.  However they weren't delivered to me, despite the shops insistence.   Finally they sent me the tracking number, which enabled me to use the post office's miserable virtual assistance, to find out that they had put the wrong address on it.  It was back to the store, where they said that they'd resend the packet, and then decided that they should charge me a second time.  I was nope, I'm not paying twice for one package because you made the mistake.   I had to dig up all the documentation for them, to see that I had indeed paid, and they were "oops, it slipped my mind".   Needless to say, as much as I've purchased from them before, I'll be searching out a new supplier and only using this store if I actually go to the city to shop in person.

The sap is running.    We have some buckets out but I think it's too early.  Hubby is happy with the timing though and since he does most of the boiling down, his opinion has a bit more weight than mine.    He took the buckets down yesterday afternoon because a big storm was blowing in, with snow, snow thunder and winds.

 The storm dumped almost 30 cm of snow on us: heavy, wet snow.  It took him all morning in a couple of shifts to clear the driveway and blow out paths to the bird feeder and barn. Today the skies were blue and the sun was shining.   It was hard to believe that they said we had blizzard conditions for hours last night.