Monday, October 10, 2005
Thanksgiving and other stuff!
Canadian Thanksgiving - a good excuse for a day off in October, and an excuse to make a big meal! The real reason for Thanksgiving is apparently as follows here):
"The first Canadian Thanksgiving was celebrated on April 15, 1872 in thanks for the recovery of the future King Edward VII from a serious illness. The next Thanksgiving didn't occur until 1879 when it was celebrated on a Thursday in November. Much like the United States, Canada seemed to have a difficult time deciding when a day of Thanksgiving should occur. From 1879 to 1898 it was celebrated on a Thursday in November; from 1899 to 1907 on a Thursday in October (except in 1901 and 1904 when it was celebrated on a Thursday in November); from 1908 to 1921 on a Monday in October; and between 1922 and 1930 the Armistice Day Act declared that Thanksgiving would be celebrated on Armistice Day, the Monday of November 11. In 1931 the Act was amended and the old practice of Parliament declaring a day of Thanksgiving each year was resumed. On January 31, 1957 Parliament issued a proclamation to fix permanently the second Monday in October as "a day of general Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed."
So now you know! We're supposed to be doing turkey, but Mr White and I have come to the conclusion that the only proper time for turkey is Christmas, and if we cook turkey at this time of year, we'll probably still be eating it by the time Christmas rolls around. Therefore, the official White-Robson Thanksgiving meal in 2005 will be beef tenderloin (i.e. fillet) roast, roast potatoes, small yorkshire puddings (much potential for burning of the hands), assorted veg (including carrots from the deck garden), and some sort of sauce/gravy - yum! We're probably supposed to have pumpkin pie as well, but (rather heretically) I've come to the conclusion that I'm not actually a fan of pumpkin pie. Speaking of pumpkins, we went to the farmers' market yesterday and came across a huge pumpkin sitting at one of the stalls with a note saying "Guess my weight and you could win me" stuck on it. Given that it was the size of a reasonably big widescreen TV, we wondered what on earth one would do with all that pumpkin - we didn't enter the competition!
Anyway, there are pumpkins starting to turn up everywhere. I nearly bought an orange long-sleeved teeshirt the other day, but rather hastily put it back on the shelf when the shop assistant suggested that I might look like a pumpkin myself if I went out in it! The thing is that she was right - orange is not my colour, and I probably wouldn't ever have worn it; I was just seduced by all the bright colours of the stuff in the shop. However, I did still leave the shop with some good stuff - just nothing that was even vaguely pumpkin-esque!
Not only are there pumpkins everywhere, there are disturbingly wintry things happening...
This is the deck in autumn mode...frost did in the courgette and tomato plants, and wasn't terribly good for the other things. We knew the courgettes were in trouble when their leaves turned black and floppy. So this is what we have left - half a pot of scallions (in Canadian = 'green onion') and half a pot of carrots...
We were a little bold and pretended that we still live in Rhanbuoy where much of the garden stuff got (and possibly still gets?!) chucked over the back fence into the field beyond. Those of you who have been here know that we don't have a field beyond, but we just chucked everything over the edge of the deck into the garden below. Now before everyone has a fit, we then went down, gathered up all the solid matter (e.g. bits of drainage polystyrene, stones etc from the bottoms of the pots) and then spread the soil all over the grass - telling ourselves that lawns need a good top-dressing of organic matter in the autumn! So, all we can hope is that the snow, ice, frost etc that the garden will disappear under for the next 6-7 months will break down the soil from the pots and give the back grass some much needed nutrition. We'll see...!
Also, in terms of forthcoming wintry-ness, we took ourselves off to Banff on Saturday for a ride on the gondola up Sulphur mountain. It was a beautiful clear day, but there is snow on the tops of the mountains, and it was a little chilly up there.
Snowy peaks...
Icicles already?
Mr White was well insulated in his birthday down-filled body warmer...its a bit big, but I figured he could get more layers on underneath it as the winter gets colder and colder...
Also, 'fall' is over in Calgary. We had two weeks of yellow leaves, and now the trees are just about bare. This is one of the last trees to go...and there are piles of brown leaves everywhere you go.
Last of the yellow leaves...
Today, I decided that I would like my snow tyres (or tires in Canadian speak) on. Last year, they went on on the 16th October, as snow was falling steadily outside and the garage was Baltic, and poor Mr White was absolutely foundered. Today, it is 18 degrees C and the garage is relatively pleasant, so it seemed like a good idea to get them on now, rather than waiting for the day that it actually starts snowing! The weather forecast seems good until the end of the week, but you just never know. Given that we have the Honda snow tyres on a separate set of steel rims, it wasn't a huge job (at least on my part!) to get them changed. The jeep, on the other hand, has a set of snow tyres that aren't on separate rims, so it will have to be trundled off to the garage for Brent the garage man to sort.
So here is the Tuscarora mechanic at work (note the attire!)...
Where does this bit go??
Back at home, mum and Dad R have a great crop of apples... from the columnar apple trees that they got as a Christmas present several years ago. This is a small sample of the harvest - the red one is a full-size wooden one included to give the viewer a sense of scale.
Right - better go and start peeling some spuds .... however, just to give you all something to think about, this structure appeared next to the tree in next door's garden this afternoon... any thoughts??
"The first Canadian Thanksgiving was celebrated on April 15, 1872 in thanks for the recovery of the future King Edward VII from a serious illness. The next Thanksgiving didn't occur until 1879 when it was celebrated on a Thursday in November. Much like the United States, Canada seemed to have a difficult time deciding when a day of Thanksgiving should occur. From 1879 to 1898 it was celebrated on a Thursday in November; from 1899 to 1907 on a Thursday in October (except in 1901 and 1904 when it was celebrated on a Thursday in November); from 1908 to 1921 on a Monday in October; and between 1922 and 1930 the Armistice Day Act declared that Thanksgiving would be celebrated on Armistice Day, the Monday of November 11. In 1931 the Act was amended and the old practice of Parliament declaring a day of Thanksgiving each year was resumed. On January 31, 1957 Parliament issued a proclamation to fix permanently the second Monday in October as "a day of general Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed."
So now you know! We're supposed to be doing turkey, but Mr White and I have come to the conclusion that the only proper time for turkey is Christmas, and if we cook turkey at this time of year, we'll probably still be eating it by the time Christmas rolls around. Therefore, the official White-Robson Thanksgiving meal in 2005 will be beef tenderloin (i.e. fillet) roast, roast potatoes, small yorkshire puddings (much potential for burning of the hands), assorted veg (including carrots from the deck garden), and some sort of sauce/gravy - yum! We're probably supposed to have pumpkin pie as well, but (rather heretically) I've come to the conclusion that I'm not actually a fan of pumpkin pie. Speaking of pumpkins, we went to the farmers' market yesterday and came across a huge pumpkin sitting at one of the stalls with a note saying "Guess my weight and you could win me" stuck on it. Given that it was the size of a reasonably big widescreen TV, we wondered what on earth one would do with all that pumpkin - we didn't enter the competition!
Anyway, there are pumpkins starting to turn up everywhere. I nearly bought an orange long-sleeved teeshirt the other day, but rather hastily put it back on the shelf when the shop assistant suggested that I might look like a pumpkin myself if I went out in it! The thing is that she was right - orange is not my colour, and I probably wouldn't ever have worn it; I was just seduced by all the bright colours of the stuff in the shop. However, I did still leave the shop with some good stuff - just nothing that was even vaguely pumpkin-esque!
Not only are there pumpkins everywhere, there are disturbingly wintry things happening...
This is the deck in autumn mode...frost did in the courgette and tomato plants, and wasn't terribly good for the other things. We knew the courgettes were in trouble when their leaves turned black and floppy. So this is what we have left - half a pot of scallions (in Canadian = 'green onion') and half a pot of carrots...
We were a little bold and pretended that we still live in Rhanbuoy where much of the garden stuff got (and possibly still gets?!) chucked over the back fence into the field beyond. Those of you who have been here know that we don't have a field beyond, but we just chucked everything over the edge of the deck into the garden below. Now before everyone has a fit, we then went down, gathered up all the solid matter (e.g. bits of drainage polystyrene, stones etc from the bottoms of the pots) and then spread the soil all over the grass - telling ourselves that lawns need a good top-dressing of organic matter in the autumn! So, all we can hope is that the snow, ice, frost etc that the garden will disappear under for the next 6-7 months will break down the soil from the pots and give the back grass some much needed nutrition. We'll see...!
Also, in terms of forthcoming wintry-ness, we took ourselves off to Banff on Saturday for a ride on the gondola up Sulphur mountain. It was a beautiful clear day, but there is snow on the tops of the mountains, and it was a little chilly up there.
Snowy peaks...
Icicles already?
Mr White was well insulated in his birthday down-filled body warmer...its a bit big, but I figured he could get more layers on underneath it as the winter gets colder and colder...
Also, 'fall' is over in Calgary. We had two weeks of yellow leaves, and now the trees are just about bare. This is one of the last trees to go...and there are piles of brown leaves everywhere you go.
Last of the yellow leaves...
Today, I decided that I would like my snow tyres (or tires in Canadian speak) on. Last year, they went on on the 16th October, as snow was falling steadily outside and the garage was Baltic, and poor Mr White was absolutely foundered. Today, it is 18 degrees C and the garage is relatively pleasant, so it seemed like a good idea to get them on now, rather than waiting for the day that it actually starts snowing! The weather forecast seems good until the end of the week, but you just never know. Given that we have the Honda snow tyres on a separate set of steel rims, it wasn't a huge job (at least on my part!) to get them changed. The jeep, on the other hand, has a set of snow tyres that aren't on separate rims, so it will have to be trundled off to the garage for Brent the garage man to sort.
So here is the Tuscarora mechanic at work (note the attire!)...
Where does this bit go??
Back at home, mum and Dad R have a great crop of apples... from the columnar apple trees that they got as a Christmas present several years ago. This is a small sample of the harvest - the red one is a full-size wooden one included to give the viewer a sense of scale.
Right - better go and start peeling some spuds .... however, just to give you all something to think about, this structure appeared next to the tree in next door's garden this afternoon... any thoughts??
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