Howling at the Moon!

The moonlight shining in the window was so bright that it woke me at 3:30 am. The full moon the night before was one of those huge glowing moons that is accompanied by a sharp deep cold that takes your breath away. I had heard that the moon's position would be closest to the earth that evening so I knew that it would be a full snow moon! However it was also to be the coldest night of the winter so far, the forecast being -15 Celsius, so I wanted to stay in and cozy up with a book!

I love a full moon in the winter. We live in the woods and the moonlight throws strong shadows of the trees across the snow, gleaming in the bluish light. One of my favourite things to do in the winter is to go for a walk with only the moonlight to guide my path. Sometimes you can see the frost hanging in the air like suspended glitter. Everything has a blue tinge and sounds travel for a long way in the clear cold air. Often, I can hear the howl of wolves or coyotes and once heard the whoosh, whoosh sound of the wings of an owl as it hunted its prey in the almost-day light.

So there was no way around it, but I had to get up and sleep would not return as I restlessly churned through the thought that this is an opportunity that should not be missed even though it was a brisk -15 outside! I got out my tripod and 300mm lens, set up my camera, with flashlight tucked under my arm and well bundled against the cold, headed into the back yard shutting off any lights as I went. The dog came out of his Igloo doghouse stiff legged with surprise, wondering why I was venturing out with so many hours to go until breakfast. Finding a spot in the well treed backyard that gave me a clear shot took some time, but I took a few shots first with the trees in silhouette against the huge aura surrounding the gleaming orb. The dog sat and shivered violently as I set up my tripod and focused the camera. He could not understand the reason for this late night visit but was not giving up the pleasure of company despite the cold! I had to return to the house several times with my Flash card to check the results on the computer. There was actually a haze of cloud but the pictures seemed very crisp in spite of it although I did go back out an hour later to find the clouds gone but the moon too dangerously skimming the tree tops for a clear shot. I used the flashlight to focus the lens on the pattern of shadows among the trees but was not very successful-this would need a 500 watt halogen painting light to be dragged from the garage to light the area while I composed the shot. Still it was a good experience-with the shivering dog at my side-and there is still much to be learned but I did capture the moon with all its mysterious shadows and craters.

The whole experience brought back memories as a child of being outside in the winter. We lived on a farm and had livestock to take care of, so on winter evenings I was often outside during those cold frosty full moons. A huge snow bank would drift in behind our house and I loved to lay on it while my father and brother were busy in the barn with chores (which is also where I was supposed to be) and contemplate the winter sky. From the barn came the sound of lowing cattle and the pigs scrapping over their trough of feed. Occasionally in the deep blue winter sky the faint gleam of Northern lights could be seen, but most often it was a huge moon rising over the horizon that captivated my imagination. I tried to take photos with my Kodak Instamatic camera but the picture was always a disappointing tiny white blob on a dark background. The Milky Way would gleam in its sweeping arc and the Big and Little Dipper were always there waiting to be found. Finally more than 30 years later I am able to capture that huge gleaming orb in all its mysterious glory!

My Final Shot of the Moon

My first shot taken through the trees-only the moon and its hazy aura showed through the trees

I decided to capture the shadows of the trees on the snow by setting the camera on bulb-it was a long exposure but needed a bright light to focus the shot first.

A Wintery Blast

I love a storm. My windows are blasted with snow and I can hear the wind piling drifts against the back of the house. It's cozy and warm inside. The wood stove (our primary source of heat) is radiating warmth nicely and my lined Ikea curtains on the patio door have been closed against the onslaught! I know that there are people that need to go out in the weather and I should feel guilty but I don't. I feel safe and warm and strangely cocooned. The best thing to do besides curl up on the couch with a really thick novel and a fuzzy throw is to make a steamy pot of soup and some biscuits. An occasional check of the satellite imagery of the offending squall is a prerequisite as are text messages to check accumulations in other necks-of-the-woods. Otherwise the day is complete!

We haven't had any really good storms lately. The last in recent history was an ice storm in 2007-before that we had one in 2003. It lasted 3 days and cancelled my son Adrian's 6th birthday. He was upset, but I consoled him with the promise that in a string of childhood birthdays, this is the one that would go down in history and be remembered as the one in which the candles on the cake were not a tradition but a necessity. The hydro was out for 2 or 3 days and we had limited wood piled ahead in our basement. The most exciting part of that storm was the adventure of diving towards the woodpile for armloads of wood while ice and small tree limbs from a large overhanging Maple exploded on the ground around us.

We always have heat and we own a generator-albeit a loud one!- so we crank it up in the garage and watch a movie or make a pot of coffee; the drone of the generator competing with the wind and necessitating the turning up of the volume on the TV. Waking in the night to the strange, deadened silence of cessation of wind marks the end of the worst. The sound of my neighbour's tractor backing down the laneway with an 8 ft wide snow blower releasing us to the outside world jolts us back to reality.

When I was a child, we had longer and more deadly storms. One year, in my pre-teen years, we had an ice storm in which the entire area was crippled. There was a huge Willow tree in my backyard that was a close childhood friend. It's large unruly arms were perfect for reading a book in or for hiding from my mother when I was in some kind of trouble. During that storm I lay awake and listened helplessly as it died in the night; ripped literally limb from limb with the brute force of ice and wind. The hydro was out for days and our local town was impassible; trees littered every street and my father and brother went to work with chainsaws releasing hydro lines and trapped cars from the icy grip of fallen trees. My father suffered his only chainsaw accident in that storm (which should allay some of my fears when using one) in all his years of cutting wood when the saw caught on a branch as he was cutting overhead and kicked back, slicing a jagged cut across the back of his hand.

When I was a teenager, we had a blizzard that was so bad, we tied the proverbial rope from the house to pump house to barn so we could find our way back and forth. Livestock always needs to be fed and a sow would invariably decide to litter in the midst of such a storm. That year, the roads were so bad that my dad and I donned snowmobile suits and drove the tractor to town to get supplies-me perched on the hitch for the entire ride-thanking my stars above that I was so bundled that I could not be recognised by my friends! My dad drove snowplow part-time and in that storm a local back-road intersection in a deep gully was blown so full with packed snow that it took several hours for the grader to ram through it to get an ambulance to a sick neighbour. The memories of holding the flashlight while my father fixed frozen water lines with stiff fingers or chopping holes in ice-covered troughs in order to water livestock are buried far deeper than the more nostalgic ones of number of days without school or hydro. I think today, with satellite imagery and better equipment, we are more prepared and can dig out more quickly than in those days. However, the feeling remains the same; some deep, buried instinct causes me to snuggle in and enjoy the warm, cozy feeling of having a roof over my head, solid walls around me and the glowing warmth of my wood stove deep in the heart of my home.

Mother Superior's Best Barley

2 tsp vegetable oil
1 pound boned chicken or turkey breasts, cut into cubes
1-1/2 cups each chopped celery and chopped carrots
1 cup chopped onions
4 cups low-sodium, reduced-fat chicken broth
1 can (28 oz) chopped tomatoes, undrained
1/3 cup pearl barley
3/4 tsp dried majoram
1/2 tsp each ground thyme, sage, salt and black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add turkey cubes and cook until no longer pink. Add all remaining ingredients. Mix well. Bring soup to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 30-35 minutes, until turkey and barley are tender. (don't skip the fresh parsley if you can help it-it makes the soup)
Makes 6 servings.

From: Looneyspoons Cookbook by Janet and Greta Podleski

Whole Wheat Biscuits

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt

4 Tbsp cold butter or margarine

1 cup milk

In mixing bowl put flours. baking powder, sugar and salt.

Add butter. Cut into dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly.

Add milk. Stir with fork until soft dough is formed. Turn out on lightly floured surface. Knead gently 8-10 times. Roll or pat dough 3/4 inch thick. Cut with 2" round cookie cutter (I use a drinking glass). If cut in squares or triangles, no re-rolling is necessary since no dough is left over. Arrange on ungreased baking sheet, close together for soft sides, 1 inch apart for crisp sides. Bake in 450'F oven for 12-15 minutes until browned. Serve with butter. Yield: 10-12 biscuits.

From: Company's Coming: Muffins and More by Jean Pare

Ice storm of 2007

On a Winter's Day!

Powder in my face!

The crunch of snow underfoot. A glitter of frost dancing in the cold air. The rush of wind in your face as you fly down the hill. The unexpected tangle of limbs and sled at the bottom of the hill. If you have lived in Southwestern Ontario in the winter, then you have undoubtedly gone tobogganing as a child. It is a Canadian institution and a staple at our house in the winter; synonymous with skates, shinny and sticking your tongue to a metal post! Every year I make the trek to a local hill called Killer Hill with my kids. We go as often as possible and make the most of every visit-inviting friends and family alike. Our hill is a double hill with the top section being faster and more dangerous than the lower section. It has cow paths angled down the sides and one year my youngest son threw his inflatable into one of the tracks and flew down the path only to collide with an unsuspecting parent enjoying a cup of hot chocolate on the side of the hill. She lifted right off her feet and landed, hot chocolate and all on top of my son. Thankfully, the inflatable and my son cushioned her landing so no one was seriously hurt. At that moment I did not actually acknowledge him as my flesh and blood but perhaps my obvious enjoyment of the scene made it apparent to her who he belonged to. That year we had a larger inflatable that could hold approximately 8 young people and be easily made airborne if a large ramp was provided. Oh, what we would have done for such a conveyance when I was a kid! Only one trip to the hill resulted in injury. One year my second oldest daughter broke her thumb while riding with a friend. Perhaps it was because it was a strange hill and not our usual haunt. I took her to the doctor and watched him return the thumb to its rightful position on her hand. Not a scene I ever care to see again!
When I was a kid we tobaggoned on a hill close to a small country church with as many cousins and aunts and uncles as could be mustered on a Saturday afternoon. Wooden toboggans were the weapon of choice to conquer the hill! Our small black Lab, Daisy May, loved the sport as much as we did. She fought for the best position and sat proudly in the front of the toboggan, ears flapping and eyes squinting against the inevitable spray of powder, then sprang free of the mass of tangled children to grasp the rope in her mouth and drag the toboggan back up the hill. It wasn't that she wanted to be a help-she just wanted to get the thing back to the top of the hill as quickly as possible so she could ride again. In those days we may have had a sleigh with runners and steering or a metal flying saucer like the one that removed the bottom half of my brother's tooth when caught by the wind, but we were far more likely to have a cardboard box or piece of heavy plastic to aid our haphazard flight down the hill! If we could not make it to the local hill, then any slope would do: the bank of the local railroad tracks, a deep ditch that may have ended in a possible cold, wet landing or even the pile of snow pushed to the side of the laneway with the tractor. Was it just my imagination fuelled by a small stature or was there actually more snow when I was a kid? We had no high tech waterproof mittens or snowsuits with velcro wind flaps. Every conceivable winter accessory was made out of materials designed specifically to trap and melt snow and increase numbness, loss of feeling, chapped cheeks and frozen extremities. But we were a hardier lot than today's kids! We braved the cold for longer hours, in deficient outerwear and trekked farther afield in search of higher slopes.
These days we load the van to overflowing with various devices designed to hurtle you down the hill harder and faster. We never take drinks to the hill as drinks fill the bladder and filled bladders need to be emptied! However, we put the kettle on as soon as we return home and produce mugs of steaming hot chocolate with islands of melting marshmallows to scoop out with a spoon. In the old days, hot chocolate didn't come in a single serving package and I prefer to make it for a crowd in the same manner we made it as children-in a pot on the stove with milk, cocoa and sugar, brought to a near boil and whisked to creamy perfection. Something to wrap your tingly fingers around to thaw as you collectively replay the best runs of the day.

Hot Cocoa

Makes one cup.

1 Tbsp cocoa

1 Tbsp sugar

pinch salt

1/3 cup water

2/3 cup milk

Mix cocoa, sugar and salt in a small saucepan. Slowly stir in water. Heat and stir over moderately low heat until mixture boils then boil slowly, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add milk and heat to scalding but do not boil. About 190 Calories per serving.

Cocoa for a Crowd

Makes 12 servings.

Mix 3/4 cup cocoa with 3/4 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp salt in a large saucepan. Gradually stir in 1 qt warm water, set over low heat and heat, stirring occasionally, 8-10 minutes. Add 2 qts milk and heat to scalding. Serve in mugs, sprinkled, if you like with cinnamon or nutmeg or topped with marshmallows. About 190 calories per serving not including toppings.

From: The Doubleday Cookbook by Jean Anderson and Elaine Hanna