No Yellow Bird Day

I haven't seen the goldfinches in three or four days. They were at the feeder almost non-stop for two days then they disappeared. I suspect they were calorie-loading for the final leg of their journey north, where they will nest. I miss those bright yellow visitors, but I have pictures, and they will surely be back next spring.

What can one do? Write ad nauseam about the beauties of spring in the Okanagan until the tender reader wants to puke? Well, sure! Nothing like a good envy-induced barf to clear winter from the soul. (insert smiley face here)

It rained off an on yesterday, at times just pouring like you were standing under an open tap, other times it was a gentle mist. Cat was not impressed by the wet grass, but we did get a walk in while it was not pouring.

We had thunder and some impressive lightening but about an hour before sunset we had a break in the clouds, brilliant sun and a lovely rainbow.

It was a busy day. For two people purporting to be trying to live simply we seem to have to shop a lot. But a feller's gotta eat, and there are always a few things to pick up here and there. Enough to just wear you out by the time you get home.

Today is sunny and cloudy in turns but so far no rampant precipitation. Cat had a good long walk. He's a riot. Take one step toward the front of the trailer and he about breaks his neck getting to the door. Pats his leash, which hangs on a hook by the door, inserts claws into screen door and moans like he's dying. No mistaking what he wants. He's an excellent communicator.

No profound thoughts to share today. Oh but I did make a lovely soup, and I will share the recipe. I've started feeding the cat a raw food diet, which involves mixing a special enzyme and nutritional supplement powder to raw ground chicken. I use 200 grams of chicken to mix up four days worth of food for him, and we eat the rest, usually another 150 - 200 grams. This is how I used our portion of the ground chicken last week.

I call it:
Thai Chicken Soup

1 tbs oil
1/2 of a medium onion, diced
1 chicken breast cut into small pieces, or 200 grams ground chicken
2 small potatoes peeled and diced
2 carrots peeled and diced
1 tbs coconut cream (Indian foods section, comes in small packets about the size of a box of matches but half as thick. You could use 1/2 cup coconut milk as a sub)
1/2 tsp green chili chutney paste
water
salt to taste

Saute onion in olive oil, add chicken, potato and carrot, saute until chicken is no longer pink. Add water to cover ingredients, bring to boil, add coconut cream and green chili paste. Simmer until vegies are tender. Salt to taste. Makes two large servings.

Yellow Bird Day

It's such a beautiful day. The clouds occasionally drop a half dozen fat drops of water here and there, in between it's brilliant sunshine and soft, humid breezes. The air is filled with the fragrance of lilacs and a hundred other blossoming plants. I looked and where there were apricot blossoms a couple of weeks ago there are now bean-sized fuzzy green fruits, some still wearing petal collars.

I was outside washing some goo off the trailer, and heard a bright little song behind me in the "feeder" tree. I looked and there, only a few feet away, sat Mr. Goldfinch. He wasn't a bit shy, though he was a bit perturbed, as I hadn't yet filled the feeder tray, so I expect his song was actually a series of bird curses, complaints about the service. "Gimme dat seed!"

I went in, got a scoop of seed and filled the tray, and within a minute he was back. He didn't care that I was standing four feet from the feeder, and that I had a camera in hand. He was interested only in sunflower seeds, which he shells very adeptly with his beak and tongue.

I'd had the presence of mind to grab the camera while I got the seed, and thus have a series of yellow bird pictures to share. Oh but he is a beauty! What a cheeky Charlie he is. He couldn't help but put a bright spot in anyone's day.

Twenty Four and Rising

Degrees that is. I can still see snow on a nearby mountain top, but looks like warmer weather has officially arrived. I say that, knowing that tomorrow's forecast is for 11 degrees and rain. Well, I could do without the 11 degrees but we could use a good rain.

Yesterday I grabbed the camera and took this poor shot of one of our male American goldfinches at the feeder. It's taken through two panes of glass, so it looks a bit hazy.

The next blossoms in succession are arriving, as these apple blossoms will attest. The little peach trees are all but done, and beginning to fade, but it has been so windy I've never been able to get a picture of them while they were at their prime.

And now the lilacs are beginning to bloom. These are the deep purple variety I love so much. I just remembered that there are some deep purple irises in the front beds. I have to go out there and get a picture of those before they are finished.

We're packing up to move. Our books, CDs and DVDs are in boxes. The shelves are empty except for a few incidentals which can be put on the bunks at the last minute. I'm not sure how much more we can do until Mike comes to move us, and as of yet, we don't know when that will be. If we disappear from sight for a few days, it's because our cable internet connection will go down when we move. It has to be set up again in our new spot. That may take a few days.

New Visitors

The excitement for the day was the presence of two male American Goldfinches in the apple tree this morning. They are in breeding plumage; brilliant, glowing yellow, and are spectacular additions to the year's bird list.

June Callwood, National Treasure

June Callwood, Journalist, Activist, Feminist and advocate for society's poorest and most reviled, referred to widely as Canada's Conscience, died this morning at the age of 82.

I came to know of June when I arrived in Canada in 1971. By then she was not only one of the most prolific and versatile writers in the country but a social activist.

Her career spanned over a half a century. She'd worked at the Globe and Mail before having her first child, but in 1947 she took flying lessons from Violet Milstead, Canada's first woman bush pilot. She wrote a story about Milstead and sold it to Liberty magazine, which began her freelance writing career.

In the late 60's while covering the hippie movement in Toronto she noticed that the middle-class hippie kids went home to the comfort of their families, but those without support, "whose teeth were all rotting out of their heads and were shooting speed," were shunned by society.

In 1964 June was a founding member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, a non-profit, non-government law-reform group devoted to defending civil liberties and human rights.


In 1968, while covering the police bust of a hippie gathering Callwood reprimanded a policeman for abusing a young boy. She was arrested and shoved into a packed paddy wagon, and spent the night standing in a filthy jail cell, where she couldn't sit because everything was covered in excrement. She was devastated. "In my generation you didn't get arrested unless you were an awful person."

She said afterwards "I thought, if that's how they treat a middle-class, respectable, decent housewife in her 40's, how are they treating the poor and powerless? That politicized me; that did it," says Callwood.

June was a doer, not just a talker. In 1973 she helped found Nellie's, a non-profit women's organization which helped women and children in crisis. In 1972 she founded Jessie's Centre for Teenagers, a drop-in centre for teenage mothers. In 1988 she helped found the first hospice in Canada to provide support and palliative care for people with HIV/AIDS. And in 1983 she helped found PEN Canada, a group of writers defending freedom of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

At the age of 53 she became host of a CBC Television program called In Touch, a show about "empathy." She was at ease with her age and her stage in life. Even under the glare of the harsh TV lights, she refused to wear makeup, or get a professional stage persona "makeover". She was just herself, explaining that it was a part of her philosophy of being truthful

She went on to host many TV programs. My favorite was a series called, June Callwood's National Treasures where she interviewed Canadians who had made a difference. No fawner over celebrityhood, she talked to guests about the big questions, their purpose in life, their feelings about pain, bereavement, tragedy, faith, passion, and death. It was compelling TV, and none have done it so well as June.

June's capacity to empathize may have stemmed from the personal tragedies in her life, including her own depression, her husband's alcoholism, one son's muscular dystrophy and her youngest son Casey's death at age 20 after he was struck by a drunk driver.

Before Casey's death, she said she had a constant happy hum in her head. "I haven't had that since he was killed." His ashes are buried under the apple tree outside Callwood's home. Casey House, a Toronto hospice for people with AIDS, is named after her youngest son.

June was a passionate, compassionate individual who died of cancer this morning. She was not afraid of death. She told a Rabbi friend who was sitting with her shortly before her death that she had just dreamed that he had opened the gates of the park to let the children in, and the old people out.

She was an inspiration to me, and I am so grateful to have been able to know her, even at a distance, through a screen and her words on the page. We should all be so wise, so kind, as June Callwood.

Bird Brain Two

This time it is I who is the birdish-brained one. I was making dinner last evening when suddenly in the apple tree sat a beautiful sharp-shinned hawk! Quick, get the camera. I got off two shots before the hawk flew the coop. In the first it ducked its head behind a branch, in the second, the poor thing lost its head. I am reduced to using some one else's photo of the sharpie.

But other new sightings at the feeder, or nearby, in the last few days include:

A red-winged blackbird - love their song!

Several Cassin's Finches - hard to tell from the purples, but a little less red and a little different tail. This link has good drawings of Purples and house finches as well as Cassin's.

A Say's Phoebe who has staked out a nearby cedar tree as home territory and tells the world every morning.

A hummer - against the setting sun so I couldn't tell what kind but we have only the Rufous and Calliope, so I'm betting one of those. I will buy a feeder when we go to town next time.

And a little house finch who is vivid tangarine where the purple finch is red. Boy, he is bright. At one point there were hoary redpolls, purple finches, yellow warblers and the tangerine house finch, all on the tree or feeder at once. Looked like Christmas lights.

Wish I was a better foh-taw-graw-fer. I have never gotten a picture of the wee birds, but they are just too far away, even though they are only eight feet from the window.

Doing the Impossible

Out today to take photos of the many beautiful flowering trees and flowers. What a gorgeous day. A couple from Alaska pulled in beside us last night. He said they'd been out six weeks, up the California and Washington coasts, across the western states, and this was the first place they'd been tempted to stop and spend more than a day. The beauty of the valley is growing by the day as the cherry trees begin to bloom, magnolias bloom, forsythias glow, and the maples bloom. I'd never seen a maple tree bloom before. I got a good picture of the flowers.

The rest of the photos are ones I took as I strolled around the park this afternoon, including one of our neighbour Dave, who was here helping James ready the swimming pool for the season.

I've joined a "Tiny Homes" Forum on the web, and one of the first messages I got was in response to someone who is purportedly selling all her excess stuff and moving into a "tiny home". The response was, "Wait til she sells all her stuff and then finds out it's not possible to live in a small space - at least not a satisfactory one. I'm beginning to feel like I don't live in a free country." So at last we've done the impossible! I always said that if you want to do the impossible you just have to work a little harder.

It's certainly not possible to live satisfactorily in a tiny house if you insist on stuffing 2800 sq ft's worth of accumulation into it. But, shed the extra stuff and it's possible indeed.

The way we hang onto stuff you'd think it somehow shielded us from life's trials and tribs. But it doesn't. Piling up stuff we don't use or need is like hanging a millstone around our necks. We have to have buy or build extra rooms to house it in, then work extra hours to pay the rent or mortgage for the extra rooms to house the extra stuff we don't really need. This is not "freedom" but enslavement.

We buy things that catch our eye, or to ease anxiety. Why does spending money ease anxiety? Even the super-wealthy spend themselves into poverty, trying to buy peace of mind. Then, not surprisingly, all the claptrap we've bought brings us anxiety because we look at it and wonder why we bought it, or we hide it away, like someone who drinks secretly, we buy secretly and hide the evidence. We need to learn that buying and possessing doesn't bring peace of mind, even though every media message tells us we must buy to fit in, to be accepted, to be one of the gang, to be our true selves, to be loved, to be above the rest. Ads say, "Follow the crowd" or "Lead the way", because everyone does one or the other, or wants to.

Then there are those of us who buy because we are just plain daft and disorganized. All my life I've bought duplicates of items because I had no idea where the one I already had was. The theory is, "To find something you've lost simply buy a replacement".

I remember once, we needed to trim the goat's hooves and couldn't find the hoof knife. We tore barn and house apart, trying to find the knife. We finally gave up and drove the 40 miles to town to buy a new hoof knife. $1.98 for the knife, $5.00 for gas, even then, and half a day's time wasted.

On the way home Ian (eight or nine at the time) poked his hand in the space between the seat and back cushions in the back seat of the van. And pulled out the old hoof knife. bah humbug! I'm always too embarrassed to go back to the shop and say, "I found mine, can I return this?"

I needed the tweezers a couple of days ago and had misplaced them. But within a few hours I ran onto them again. Things don't have as much room to go astray here. And there's less to go astray to start with.

Perfection is not achieved by adding to and adding to. Perfection is achieved by taking away and taking away until you are down to the purest, most simple and most efficient. The beauty of the small. Or so I tell myself.



The Wild Wild Wind

What a beautiful day. This is one of the things I love most about Tinpalace; there are 14 windows and two skylights. We can throw them all open, and when we do we are as much outside as in. It's warm and the wind is wild, rattling the blinds and flapping the dishtowels on their peg. If you can buy a more exquisite joy then grab your pocketbook and rush to do it.

Outside the spring flowers are erupting into small volcanoes of colour. I took Salvador outside, but the wind was too much for him. He demanded that we go right back in, where he could lie on the cool bathroom floor and not have ruffled feathers.

After he was back in I took pictures, and will post a few, but the wind is so strong I couldn't get a clear picture of the barely open cherry blossoms. The branches are whipping back and forth so quickly the camera couldn't catch a clear picture. In their place I start with a picture of the quail in the apricot tree, taken at dusk a couple of days ago.

The cherry blossoms are just starting to open, so I have plenty of time to get a good picture. I did get a nice picture of what I think are pear blossoms, narcissus, daffodils, and one tiny blue flower on a creeping plant. The blue hyacinth was dancing with the wind as well, so she's a little blurred. When you can get back a foot or more movement ceases to be a problem, but with the three or four inch distance you have from these tiny flowers, the least shiver destroys your focus. We have some new bird arrivals. I saw a cedar waxwing yesterday. I love the sleekness of their feathers. Hard to describe the almost metallic quality of their grey gown, with its yellow-apricot breast and head with its tuft of feathers is very distinctive. It's little black eye mask cannot disguise its identity.

The rock doves are back. I haven't seen them, but I have heard them cooing back and forth. And speaking of hearing but not seeing, between a snoring husband on one side and a snoring cat on the other, about 2:00 am a couple of nights ago I heard a boreal owl very close at hand. He was probably in the apricot tree just outside. And from only a slightly longer distance the booming hoot of a great grey owl. Just one series of three or four hoots, each hoot lower than the last.

Yesterday a trio of crows mobbed the neighborhood goshawk, who was out looking for an afternoon snack no doubt. This time it was the female, probably the mate of the hawk I saw at such close range last fall.

We took the skirt off the trailer yesterday and discovered that something had drug a quail under the trailer and eaten everything but piles of feathers and just enough skin to make a terrible stink. Could have been anything but was probably the cat that roamed the park through the winter. Fat and well-cared for, wearing a collar, but still not averse to a nice meal of quail if presented with the opportunity. That's reason enough to keep a cat indoors.

We talked to Zak and Mandy last night. They have acquired a new pet, courtesy of their cat Roxanne. It is a teeny house mouse. Now you come down off that chair this instant! Zak caught the mouse, which he is thinking of naming "Dog", because when he was a year old he went through a phase of calling all animals "mouse". We got an enormous puppy, a Mastiff cross, which Zak took one look at and cooed, "Oh, MOUSE!" And "Mouse" he became, all 150 lbs of him. Now, a mouse who weighs less than a penny is in danger of being called "Dog".

But said Mouse is providing a good deal of entertainment as it demonstrates the cleverness of its kind. I love my kids. Who else would catch a mouse by the tail and make a pet of it? (Besides their mother?)

Thievery, Plain and Simple

I admit to having stolen the photo featured in this post. It was taken by Lin Martinson and is featured on a new website about Oliver. Oliver is down there somewhere, in the middle of all those rocks. I think it's the white area. But the photo is spectacular and reminds me of Monument Valley, where I spent several of my childhood years. The landscape here isn't really like Monument Valley, it's much more like the high desert country of northern New Mexico and Arizona, where I also spent a good deal of time as a child.

It was 24.4 degrees C today (75.9 degrees F). Our first really warm day of the season. It would have been blissfully perfect had it not been for Mr. Organics next door, who spent a second day spreading fish meal joy throughout the neighborhood. At least the wind was not carrying it right into our faces most of the day, though by dinner time I had a stinker of a headache from the stench. Hopefully he will have finished with his soil enrichment program, or the tractor will blow a gasket before I do.

Put Yer Shoes Back On!

Phew! The farmer next door was busy fertilizing his fields today. Rumbing across the field on his tractor, towing a spreader filled with dried fish emulsion. Okay, just in case that penny didn't drop - fish emulsion - rotted fish heads, guts, fins, etc. processed into a slurry, dried and then shipped to farmers who wait for a day when the wind is blowing away from their house.

The clouds of stink began to drift across us at about 1:00 pm and by 2:00 we had found several reasons why we had to go to town. Gag gag.

By the time we got home at 4:00 he'd finished spreading, so there were no clouds of rotted fish blowing through the windows, but the "smelody" certainly lingers on. Enough to make your eyes burn and your stomach turn.

Of course the cat insisted on a long walk as soon as we got home. He doesn't mind the smell.

I think I'm gonna be sick now.

Bird Brains

The quail kept coming around the end of the Tinpalace with what looked like popcorn in their beaks, which they then proceeded to eat, after playing a bit of "keep-away" between them. I couldn't figure out where they were getting the popcorn. We'd fed them some in the winter, and they loved it, but we've not even popped corn in weeks.

Then I looked out the window above Tony's bunk. The apricot tree, now with half the buds open and in resplendent bloom, was also full of quail. Quail, busy pulling off and eating buds and blossoms. There goes the apricot crop. :(

The quail are beginning to pair up. Let a single bird come too close to a paired couple and there's hell to pay. Every quail views his neighbour with suspicion. They still move in coveys, but are more scattered, a pair here, a pair ten feet away. Only late in the day do they settle down and run in the usual herd.

The male finches are almost neon red in color this last week or two. Spring has ramped the power up in their marketing campaign. Out the front, where the feeder hangs, a pair of rosy finches are well and truly in love. She feeds him, then he feeds her. They rub beaks and cuddle. He gets another sunflower seed from the feeder, shells it and feeds it to her. She does the same. Ahhhhh, young love, or at least young hormones.....

The Flicker has found a mate and is proclaiming both his love and his territorial imperative by drumming on the metal transformer box high on the power pole. He's quite the drummer. Somewhere in a garage some pimply teenaged boy would give his D grade in English to be able to drum like that.

A pair of English sparrows were courting in the apricot tree mid-day yesterday. He was doing his, "I'm much cute than those losers over there," dance. Male English sparrows impress the girls by lifting their wings up at the shoulder, canting the tips down slightly, and shaking all over like the King of Rock 'n Roll - while singing up a storm. His female admirer seemed pretty taken with him, for when another female landed on a nearby branch the first female went after her like a housewife with a broom goes after a rat in the cellar.

Competition for girlfriends is obviously pretty fierce. Gangs of male sparrows square off and have it it like barroom brawlers, smacking each other with their wings, kicking, pecking, swearing in sparrow and generally causing a ruckus. Four or five will get into a fight in a tree and fall right out onto the ground and roll around in a ball of screaming flapping feathers, just whaling the daylights out of each other.

Somebody forgot to tell them that we have romanticized their reproductive drive and we expect them to behave in a civilized and polite way. In other words we want to see lovebirds in the spring, not Termifeather III.

Every Blossom Has its Bee

With the temperatures in the high 60s (F) 18-19 C the last two days, and a spattering of rain overnight, the gnarled old apricot tree behind the Tinpalace is exploding into bloom. The fat rose-tinged buds have been ever so slowing swelling. Just before dark last night we looked and counted maybe a half dozen open blossoms. This morning at least a quarter of the buds have opened.

The bees have taken notice. There are as many bees as blooms. They hover in a whirring buzzing cloud, happily dipping into the embrace of the blossoms. They took no notice whatsoever of me as I maneuvered among the branches looking for a good angle for my photographs.

It's migration time. Here that means exodus as snowbirds head home. Our neighbours Bill and Ruth were Ontario-bound this morning shortly after six. Ron and Yvonne weren't on the way until after lunch, but have been hugged and waved off. Des and Carol, Mary Jean and Marcel will be on the way in the next 24 hours. Others will be leaving over the next couple of weeks. We seem to be the only ones who plan to stay in Oliver over the summer.

But we will be moving too, more on that later. For now I've started packing our winter clothes. Over the next week we'll get the skirting off the trailer, and pack up all the winter-related gear.

Right now I am just enjoying watching the blossoms unfold. I feel sorry that our friends have left before the spring show. Evidently most years the trees have bloomed by now, but spring is late this year.

Salvador is restless, begging to go out, so I will post this and go be a good cat's Mama.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~ Robert Frost

The Plate Runneth Over

We had a lovely dinner with the other snowbirds last evening. The group was smaller than the Christmas group, which included quite a few family members and friends. Last night it was just the "birds". I haven't counted, but 25 -30 people? Mostly couple with a few singletons in the group.

The food was divine, as it usually is at any of our potlucks. We had a couple of roasted turkeys and the requisite stuffing and gravy. Joy brought two kinds of cabbage rolls, one of my favorite dishes, and someone brought rutabagas which for my money are one of nature's perfect foods. Sometimes it's the simplest foods, done to perfection, which are the most sublime. Our neighbour Yvonne simply cut up potatoes, dressed them with oil and herbs and roasted them. They were scrumptious. By request I made the southern sweet potato dish I made a Christmas. It was pretty, coming out of the oven with the marshmallows browned over the top. Jim said it was too pretty to eat, but that didn't seem to slow anyone down once we hit the table.

We had a really nice time, lingering after the meal to visit and enjoy each other's company. This is a good group, congenial and cheerful, always ready to laugh at the teasing which goes on between us.

The season is drawing to a close as the grass begins to green on the hills above us. Several couples will be pulling out in the next few days, and more will leave at the end of the month. By the end of April most everyone will have gone home, or at least moved on to their summer spots. Tourist season will have begun in the Okanagan, though as someone in town asked recently, "Why do we call it tourist season if we can't shoot at them?"

Today the sun is shining, and I'm looking forward to going out and trying to capture some of the budding newness of spring. Hopefully I'll have something to share later on.

Royal Flush

Toilets in an RV are different than yer house toilet. For one thing they only use a tiny amount of water. I haven't yet figured out why RV-style toilet mechanisms haven't been adopted by the "greenies" as the ultimate low-water use toidy.

Be that as it may, the 35-year-old avocado green toilet in the Tinpalace's bathroom finally kicked up daisies after a long and successful run. (no pun intended) About ten days ago the trap mechanism failed, leaving the trap open by about 1/2" all the time. Surprisingly this didn't smell the way we thought it would, or else we have become entirely insensate to odours after spending a winter with a 23 pound cat, his litter box and two fully functioning humans in a 7'6" x 21' space.

We called Gary, the much-relied on RV repairman for this end of the valley. He took a look and made a phone call which apparently amused an RV parts supplier to no end. Surprisingly there were no replacement parts available for 35-year-old avocado green toilets, though he found it funny that we should ask.

This toilet has caused us some degree of distraction over the months. Tony has a bleeding problem, so we tend to keep an eye on such things as the colour of his wee-wee, and that is absolutely impossible in a green toilet.

I remember years ago, when our family doctor and his wife were very good friends. We were at their house for dinner and afterwards toured their large garden. We left laden with edible greenery. I cooked some of them for dinner the next night. When Tony got up at 6:00 the next morning he produced shocking bloody urine. He called our friend the doctor, who asked through a mouthful of toast if we'd enjoyed the beets he gave us.

Tony was a bit taken aback, "bleeding" as he was, to be asked about his enjoyment of a root vegetable, but he stammered that, yes, we'd eaten them the evening before and, thank you, they were delicious. "Good," the doctor said, slurping away at his orange juice, "you're peeing beet pigment, go drink some water and let me get to the office."

Today Gary brought a lovely white toilet and installed it in our teeny bathroom. I never thought I'd miss the green one. Believe me, I don't.

Let's See Some Action With That Broom!

Housecleaning Time! And I don't mean the Tinpalace. The TP has gotten a good interior clean in the last couple of days, as I washed down the cabinetry and appliances, washed down the bathroom, and vacuumed or cleaned all the horizontal surfaces.

What needed an application of aggressive housekeeping was the Baby Mac. It's been sweating and groaning for some time now, but when the fan kicked on today after I'd just been sending mail I knew something was amiss.

I rolled it around in my wee brain while we shopped and ran errands. I had this vague sense that I knew what was likely to be wrong, but just couldn't quite recall it. It finally came to me tonight, ten minutes after I turned out the light and slid into my sleeping bag.

It's not unusual for me to get from 50 - 75 e-mails a day, legitimate e-mails, not counting the ones which promise me a larger you-know-what, super miracle drugs, millions of Kenyan dollars and lottery winnings. And I rarely delete a legitimate e-mail because I frequently find myself needing to refer back to one... now when was that order shipped, what did he say about his blood pressure, who was my third great-grandfather's elder brother's youngest son's wife and who sent me that name, etc. etc.

The upshot was that I had over 5000 e-mails, many with attachments, in my in box. Shame shame. And I can't remember when I last cleared my cache, and the cookie file is a couple of months old. I also still have old e-mail accounts I haven't used since we left Calgary. They sit and spin endlessly trying to pick up mail that isn't there. I'm a baaaaaadddd girl. I even need to go through and clear out the bookmarks I no longer use. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Baby Mac needed a digital broom! I backed up the mail to a CD, deleted the old accounts, cleared the cache and cookies and trimmed the bookmarks and we'll see if the poor Bebe' is less stressed.

Now the cat is complaining loudly that I'm keeping him from being able to see out the window. The view is better when it's dark inside. Best close this down and make him happy.

Curry Up!

Well, finally!

I've been trying to post a picture of the curry we had for dinner on Wednesday since Wednesday! Blogger has evidently been having indigestion. Every time I fed it my curry picture it burped and said, "No, thank you."

Anyway, this was delish. I changed the recipe slightly from the one posted a few days ago. I substituted firm "silken" tofu for the chicken and added whole almonds for protein, calcium, crunch and a bit of contrast in colour. (Four c's in a row. I ought to do better.)

A la David Suzuki's Nature Challenge we are trying to reduce the animal protein in our diet and eat vegie dishes more often. We were vegetarians for years, don't know why we fell off that wagon, except that we were living in a remote community where it was very difficult to get fresh food. We got out of the habit and here we are many pounds later with our arteries probably clogged with beef fat and egg yolks.

It's a grey, cool day but I got a kick out of watching a male sparrow near the brush pile. He had grabbed a fine root which was protruding from the ground about five or six inches. The sparrow was holding the end of the root in his little black beak and running around the attachment point in an orbit, like a dog tied to a pole runs a circle at the end of its leash. He had several female observers so maybe it was a male ego thing. Maybe the root looked like prime nesting material, or maybe he was just playful. But it sure looked silly.

Prime Real Estate...

James has now finished trimming the 90 fruit trees in the park. He could be seen up a ladder with a saw until black dark every night for weeks. It was cold, windy and often wet. Have to admire his cheerfulness. I'd have been snapping the heads off baby bunnies, but he was his usual cheeky, jovial self, even when he was so tired he could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

What he ended up with was several huge piles of branches, from twigs to hulking big branches. Two of these piles are in the empty spot adjacent to the Tinpalace and we have been having a ball watching the birdlife that has sprung up in and around them. The one pictured is 12 -14 feet long and four feet high.

Hawks and owls are the major predators of small birds here, and these threats come from overhead. So any cover is obviously coveted real-estate with the "snack-sized" bird crowd. These brush-piles are the equivalent of a Malibu penthouse with a view of Niagara Falls to the local featherites.

The quail dash beneath the pile and peer out like anxious old ladies. The sparrows and finches perch on top, or inside. They flow to the other side of the pile as you walk past, but don't take flight unless you get too close. (I now understand where the term "flighty" comes from.)

The piles are close enough to us for the birds to make a quick raid on the feeder, grab a seed or peanut, and retreat to enjoy their meal in peace. They are also a great spot to fight, court and (ahem) make a little bird whoopee. Male sparrows are always contentious, right now they are downright belligerent! Spring is obviously just around the corner.

But what's most fun to watch is the sparrows taking baths in the sandy soil next to the pile. At first they left little brush marks on the sand, but day by day bathing "holes" have grown, eroded by the vigorous flapping and rolling that sand bathing entails.

The holes are now so deep that the sparrow jumps in and totally disappears. You see wing tips blurring at the top of the hole. Sand flies. The sparrow jumps out, fresh and sandy clean, and the next guy in line jumps in. (Yes, they actually line up to have a turn!)

It's supposed to rain later today so I ran out and took a couple of photos of the bath holes. Yesterday they looked like the top section of a snow angel, today the wings are less apparent, and the holes are more oval in shape.

This is way better than the movies.

Spinach Paneer

Popeye would have thought he'd died and gone to heaven!

Ingredients:
500 gms Fresh Spinach
100 gms Paneer (1 recipe, see previous post on how to make paneer)
1 tbs oil
2 Onions, diced
1 package Indian Chicken Curry Paste

Method:
Clean and wash spinach.
Cook the spinach in a small amount of water and allow to cool.
Put spinach through food processor and reduce to puree
Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet
Add the onions and cook till golden brown.
Add curry spices and cook for a minute.
Add the spinach and a little water if needed and cook for 4-5 minutes.
Cut paneer into pieces, add to the spinach and cook until done.

Serve hot.

Way to Gain Weight

I've been cooking Indian foods the last couple of weeks, and SMM asked for recipes and pictures. Well, we ate it, so the pictures will have to wait until later in the week, but I can post pictures of a couple of ingredients, including the box of creamed coconut. The cell isn't part of the ingredients, just there for scale.

Indian Chicken Curry

Ingredients:

1 packet Indian chicken curry spice paste
1 tbs vegetable oil
1 large onion chopped
2 potatoes, cubed
1 chicken breast, cut in pieces
50 gram coconut cream paste, mixed into 2 cups water
1/2 cup green peas

4 cups cooked basamati rice

Method:
Heat oil in large non-stick skillet, add spice paste and cook for 30 seconds. Add onion, potatoes and chicken, stir fry for three minutes. Lower heat and add coconut milk. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add peas for the last five minutes.

Serve over rice.

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Paneer is a soft cheese which is used in many Indian dishes. You can't buy it in the market here, so you have to make it yourself. It's easy.

Paneer

2 litres of 2% milk
3 Tbsp white vinegar

Bring milk to a simmer in a glass or stainless steel pan. When the milk begins to boil turn off heat and stir in the vinegar with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Allow to sit for 30 minutes. Lift curds from the pan with a slotted spoon and place in a mold lined with several layers of clean cheesecloth. The "mold" can be any container which will allow liquid to drain from the paneer. I use a small plastic basket. You can catch the liquid (called whey) and use it as a soup base, or sweeten it slightly and drink it.

When the curds are all ladled into the mold cover flip the cheesecloth over the top of the paneer and weight it down. I used two square plastic food containers filled with water, with the lids on for weights. Let the paneer sit for 30 minutes, then peel cheesecloth away and wrap the paneer in plastic wrap. It will keep about a week in a closed container in the fridge.

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I'll add some paneer recipes later