Saturday 12 December 2009

Snow, bread, power failure


This year's snow has been a shock. We have had 60 cm dumped on the roof in a week. According to Global Saskatoon (don't ask, I don't know why them!): they quoted Environment Canada as saying we are expecting 80cm by Saturday.

"...eight centimetres more than the Muskoka area's average snowfall for the entire month of December. 

More than 50 centimetres had fallen this month before the snow squall hit, and the previous single-day snowfall record for Huntsville - 54 centimetres on March 4, 1985 - was smashed."

This kind of snow results in inventiveness. Most are being told to stay off the roads, which we did. Muskoka bloggers are doing their thing!

I shovelled off the deck and the dock - foolish, perhaps, but good exercise in lieu of indoor exercise!
 Then, I shovelled around the lakeside benches. Just for fun! It is our favourite place to sit, snow or not!
I threw out some cracked corn for the mourning doves.

I worry about the critters. Some hibernate, others just sleep on cold snowy days like this. The raccoons, for example, will emerge, having gone to sleep with the December cold. No sign of them lately.

BLog buddy Nancy wrote a great post about the wild deer that visit her at Bondi Village on her 600 acres. With their long legs they sink, but their fur is typically suited to this climate, or they would not survive.

posted by Nancy Tapley at Bondi Resort BLOG
They on the other pointed hoof must sleep outside in all weather. This snowfall has left them high-stepping and bounding...

I spotted the Golden Eye Mergansers in the lake. Cold lake, it is.





The cats are happy to be indoors.



A neighbour went down to our next door neighbour's property, to snowblow around the house with his machine, travelling down her unplowed 250' driveway to get there. You can see how close the driveway is to our house!

There is a lot of energy required in living the rural life!

Brian made bread in his bread machine. It was rising. Then - yup, power went off. The power came back on about 2 minutes later but the damage was done. You can't reboot the sucker!


What does one do? I had peeked at the 'remaining time' , and knew it had 48 min. to go at that point. I figured it was in the rising phase, with the baking a further 30 minutes. I turned on the oven, sat the bread in a greased bread pan. I let it rise for about a half hour. Checked my handy Betty Crocker's Breads book (1977). It said 30- 35 minutes at 400' F. and I am grateful for Golden Press; Racine, Wisconsin. :-)

Now, you must learn from your mistakes...I didn't let it rise long enough. I should have let it go 45 minutes, at least. And it would make a good curling stone. But it is soft and tasty inside! Back to shovelling!

I'm having issues with my videocamera...so here is last year's Dec. 14th video.

Last year the lake was frozen over. It is not this year.

4 comments:

Yogi♪♪♪ said...

As the bread machine story shows you have to be creative and think fast to live in snow country.

You are getting a lot of good exercise on the shoveling. It looks like heavy wet snow though so take it easy.

Keep it up there. We don't need it down here.

eileeninmd said...

You did get a lot of snow. We had about 3 inches so far. The Merganser is a cool sighitng, it would be a new one for me. great photos.

Lucy said...

We still only have a skiff here!

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Jenn: Neat post as you work your way through these early snowfalls. The bread looks pretty good, I hope it tasted good.