Baking Day

Yesterday was a Baking Day:
Two sizes of Christmas cake and eight chicken pies.... one for dinner today, the other seven are already in the freezer.

Today the plan is to bake cookies.
But first I have to get all the yard waste bags out to the street for Monday morning pickup, and then reinforce my "skunk barrier" so Mr Skunk won't be able to spend the winter under my back porch, like he did last winter!
No peace for the wicked, as my mother used to say.

Update... later:

Four dozen almond crescents rolled in icing sugar.
I already ate two.
.

Sometimes....

.... you can't see the forest....

.... for the trees.

Milkweed Pods

I was walking with TessaDog under grey November skies today.
Most of the colour has faded from the landscape, turning to delicate shades of brown and beige.

The milkweed pods are bursting, scattering their silky seeds in the wind.

During WW2, hundreds of tons of milkweed pods were gathered by school children in USA and Canada and the silky fluff processed as a substitute for kapok, used to pad life jackets and flying suits. It’s been estimated that more than 11 million pounds of milkweed were collected by the end of WW2.

I Know It's Only November, But.......

..... we are already well into rehearsals for our Christmas Variety Show.

This is the first time we have staged a Christmas Show. Our annual variety show is always at the end of April, and in 2010 we are planning a special show to celebrate 50 years of locally produced entertainment in this town. No doubt you'll be hearing more about it on this blog!

So I've hauled the faithful Singer sewing machine out onto the dining room table and we are starting to plan costumes.... lots of sparkle required of course.

And don't forget we all need Santa hats! We'll be singing some fun Christmas favourites, nothing too serious, our dancers are looking good in their "Santa Baby" outfits, and our skit crew are (we hope) practising at being funny.
The tickets are printed for both shows, 7:00pm and 9:00pm, and the posters will be going up around town next week.

The two shows will be staged in our brand new Arts and Entertainment Centre, Nineteen On The Park. It's just a little theatre with 138 seats, but it's perfect for our needs for this Christmas show.
Want a couple of tickets? I'll save some for you.......

Oh, the Good Old Hockey Game...

Last week I celebrated another Birthday, and OlderSon took me out for a special Birthday treat... a trip to the ACC to see the Toronto Maple Leafs play the Tampa Bay Lightning.

For any ardent ice hockey fans out there, here's the game recap.

Carlton invited me into his den. He's called Carlton 'cos the previous home of the once-mighty Leafs, Maple Leaf Gardens, is on Carlton Street in Toronto.

And the Toronto Raptors play at the ACC too, so I had to visit the Raptors mascot... who unfortunately seems to be nameless.

Before the game, the singing of O Canada, with the fans breaking into loud and enthusiastic cheering halfway through the anthem. Oh yes, they sang The Star Spangled Banner too... almost forgot.

The ACC even has it's own micro-brewery in the building, and there's nothing like raising a glass of brewski to toast the success of the home team while the Zamboni clears the ice between periods. Unfortunately, the Leafs have only won one game so far this season, and there hasn't been a Stanley Cup win since the 1966/67 season! But the fans keep coming to the games faithfully, always hoping that this year will be the year.....

Ten seconds to go at the end of the third period and it's a 1-1 tie. Looks like we're heading for sudden death overtime.

But Leafs lose again! A couple of minutes into the overtime, the Lightning scores!

Even though our team lost (again!! Grrrrr..) , it was a good game. Leafs outshot the Lightning and there were lots of exciting plays, and Leafs introduced their newest player, Phil Kessel, who is expected to be the team's saviour this season. Maybe they'll win the next game.... keep your fingers crossed!

Shell Out, Shell Out, the Witches Are Out!

There were a lot of unusual goings on in the neighbourhood last night. Strange scary howling noises, and unnamed invisible things that go BUMP! in the night.
Witches and ghouls, goblins and ghosts were out enjoying their annual haunting.
But the cutest of all were these two....
Baby Isaac disguised himself as a furry cuddly beaver, complete with beaver teeth and a flat beaver tail at the back (sorry, no pics of the tail).... now, you can't get more Canadian than a beaver, right?

A slightly stunned 5 month old beaver, I have to admit. But very very sweet!

And his cousin Callum was as scary as can be dressed up as a magical green dragon. He had spikes on his head and neck and shiny green wings and a very scary spiky tail.

If this little green dragon came to your door, I bet you'd be scared out of your wits, especially when he demonstrated how a dragon can roar... or was that how a pumpkin can roar.... according to Callum, dragons and pumpkins make exactly the same noise.
You'd be compelled to put some chocolate in his bucket just to make him go away!

But it wasn't all furry animals that were haunting the neighbourhood. Aren't they scary???

And these undead visitors had me quaking in my shoes, they were so devilishly frightening!

And I still have some chocolate treats left over for me.... yum!