Baking and gardening

 Or something like it.

Since it's warmish, I can't use my wood stove anymore (it has some draft issues if the weather is warm). It was easy to cook food that required a long time to simmer on wood burner, but I prefer faster coocking dishes now. Like pizzas, or pies/pasties.

Yesterday I made some minced meat pasties, they are easy. Only time consuming part is making dough - I make all dough by hand, I don't have mixer. Since I found podcasts from our national broadcasting company, I have found working the dough is so much funnier. Or funnier... I've learnt a lot about evolution of writing, vaccines, gmo, space travel, far right movements, deep sea recearch.

Now when I'm cooking or baking, I have my phone on.

(on the sidenote, it's raining hail now, and squirrels are trying to find food from bird feeders and at the same time they try to stay in cover; there's plenty of extra seeds on the ground - actually, I think we'll have thunder!)

Anyway, meat pasties: basic yeast bread dough, minced fried meat, cooked rice, spices and a raw egg. They can be deep fried or baked in the oven, I prefer the oven. They are not like pierogies, because dough is made with yeast, but the idea is the same. And filling can be just about everything, veggies, meats and even sweet like fruit jam (most common apple compote).

I should make them more often.

Ok, toda I'll bake kind of doughnuts. Again I'm making yeast dough (sweet this time), and I'm deep frying doughnuts. They are rolled in sugar after frying and they are soooo goood... And a lot of work. I stumbled upon a churro receipe, so while I have hot oil, I might try to bake churros, too. I've never tried them, so I've no idea if kids like them or not.

Gardening, on the other hand. I've sowed some seeds, my tomatoes and okra are quite nice, spinach and kale have just sprouted. Tomorrow I'll need to sow corn and pumpkins and zucchinis, and soon all cabbages and such. And I still don't have my polytunnel up.

But boys have been busy raking the lawn, so first time in ages it resembles something like a real lawn. I've cut several bushes, and our Siberian pea bushes had suffered because of the snow load so there were quite a meny broken or badlybending branches. I used handsaw to cut them, they look so much better now. But I still have many other bushes to tackle - all next week, of course.

And I need to visit Ikea (to replace those broken plates) and we'll be going to movies! There's a special showing of the film Sisu (not for the faint hearted OR serious minded), my brother arranged it!

Spring...ish

 I know, most of Northern hemisphere is having spring in full swing. Yes, so do we, but it's a spring here, not such summer others have already. If I look from our dining room windows, it's full winter, a foot of snow and all. Other windows, not so much, but not very summery either. Some parts of Europe have been drying up already, and some parts have been drenched... We haven't had rain since March, nut because all that snow there's plenty of water. For now.

I have few tomato plants growing, and okra. I need to repot them tomorrow, and after that I need to decide which plants I want to grow in my veggie plot, which ones inside my greenhouse and polytunnel and which ones I will be growing in my "rented" plot at my sister's. That house and plot doesn't belong to Old man and my mother, because my sister with her hb bought it! But rules remain the same, potatoes will be planted in the beginning of the summer, root cellar is free to use and I have my plot there. And as a rent I'll make a cover for her comfy chair and sew whatever her children need.

I need also think how to sow all seeds needing propagation, because most plants need that and I don't have my polytunnel to use now. It needed a new cover, the old one was disintegrating, it just fell as flakes off the enforcing netting. But right sized cover can't be found (they were sold out in the autunm and never came back to stock). So I bought just plain plastic sheets, but I need help to set up - maybe I need to stich it over the frame with needle and thread? I have no idea how to pull that one yet.

So, I have only my small glass greenhouse to use for seedlings. So, beans, corn, all cabbages... salads, chard, spinach... Oh well.

Cranes have been back for few weeks already. Swans were here, but they have moved on, they spent here only maybe two weeks. It's sad they don't nest here, but we don't have big enough water for them, the pond next to our yard is too shallow. There is an island in the middle of the pond, but water can get so low taht foxes and lynxes can walk right there. Swans are not taking any risks.

Hazel nut by my parent's new house is in full bloom. Or... well it's in full bloom, but have you seen the flowers? They are TINY. Pretty, but I had to zoom in with my phone to see them!

My rhubarb is not yet growing, but in neigbours garden there are some nubs visible. Haven't seen there any giant hogweed seedligs yet, I'm hoping there will be no more big plants, just seedlings. Next I have lupins to deal with.

That garden has some ground elder growing, so I thing I will pick some and make an omelette or maybe soup with them. I was supposed to have a whole week of next week, but then there was one meeting on wed I have to attend and then there was another on tue. So, at least I have rest of the week off, anf because Moday is Mayday, I have that off too, so long weekend.

After that we'll be attending wedding to hb's nephew, and week after that is Eurovision Song Contest. We'll be having a role play game made by my brother! We were supposed to have a game night during Christmas, but because we were sick it didn't happen. It's not hard to guess which one I look forward more... (I've seen the future mrs nephew only once, he used to be very close to us, he spent his summers here, but life happens, he got married to his first wife who wasn't keen on his family, so we didn't meet her even once! and when they divorced covid happened and now he lives even further away)

There was a tiny roe deer in our field and 'Suma got all agitated when she saw her. My ears are still ringing, I had to suht all blinds so she couldn't see her anymore. I hope she's gone now so I can go and fetch cats inside, I don't want to scare her.

Kitchen disasters

 I have them quite often in my kitchen. And I mean no regular Oh no I've burnt the cake or Oh dear why did you cook that? kind of things. Today a bottle of cooking oil slipped trought my fingers, all I was left holding was the cap of the bottle... I took the bottle out of the bottom cuboard and lifted it up from the cap. And it didn't keep closed...

It was quite a mess to clean, again. Luckily only few spoonfuls spread all ovet the kitchen floor and I was able to crab that bottle almoust instantly after it hit the floor.

But that's why I can't have nice things. I drop plates. Plural, not just one plate at the time, but my record is FOUR plates. I can't have those fancy ceramic stove tops (induction stove) because I keep dropping things even over my stove. I can drop a carton of eggs.

There's something wrong with my motoric skills, but at least I can tell this is how I have always been.

On the other hand I'm reasonable good cook. At least my kids like my cooking, and me too. Today I made kind of minced chicken gravy with pasta. Nothing left on the skillet. I can't eat chicken, so I made hummus with everything I found that needed using up. Few lonely olives, two cartons of chic peas (best before... 11/2020, they are fine), olive oil, liquid from pickled chillie's jar, and lime juice from lime I got "free" from food bank type of place.

I was asked to come and pick stuff from there, because first time in six months there were surplus! So I paid two euros and got three bags of rolls, two baguettes, two loaves of bread and four mandarines and four limes, two tubes of wasabi and a jar of roe out of all things! I love roe, but it's usually way out of my budget, so basically free roe is lovely! I took a bag of coriander and a bag of dill, they were more or less dead, but I'n still going to plant them and see if they will grow again.

And I forgot! I got a bunch of asparagus! A bunch would cost me around 4-5 euros, and even if this was a bit sad and sloppy bunch, I will get a good use of them. I cut off the hard and dried end of stalks and cut another short piece of and then I put them on a glass of water. I hope they will keep few days so I can eat thme with hb, but if they need to be used sooner, I will cook them. But those small bits I cut off (not dried ones)? I fried them with sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds.

My freezer is full of bread, I have some luxury in my life and even the kitchen floor is clean!

Did I ever mentioned I hate flying?

This has been an extremely expensive winter. Electricity has been a nightmare to pay, so I had to pay only interest in mortage. Which means I need to pay mortage one more year. Bugger.

Food prices... I don't even. I have no idea how anyone can go on if there's no end on this inflation. I know I will survive, my family will survive, but it's not going to be funny. I even bought a bag of early potatoes to plant. Usually I plant just our regulars, but now I hope I can get spuds to eat late July, not in August. I bought okra seeds - I don't even know what does it taste of! I know it's edible...

Couldn't find a new cover for my polytunnel. Had to buy just plastic - but I'm in no hurry to cover the frame, because today I measured the depth of snow and it was over 30cm. But it's less than it was a week ago.

D is going to move on a bigger city, there's cheaper(!) rents and she wants to find a school to attend. She's working on a local shop on weekends, but her school here should be over by summer. It's bittersweet she's really really moving away from home... My cousin lives there, so she'll always have family there as a backup.

Ys had his medication changed, this one seems to ease on his eating, so hopefully he'll stop gaining weight (8kg per two months is way too much) AND he's able to stay awake most of the day! Yay! That is a very good result so far.

But what about flying?

I might have mentioned I have a EU job now. I'm working on things I'm good at, the are my expertise - but unfortunately I have to travel. A lot. Flying. So far I haven't missed my flight, but yes, my luggage has gone somewhere I didn't and of course flights have been delayed more than once. The same flight. I've spent more time in a airport than in the actual meeting waiting for the plane. I've run through Frankfurt airport (like two miles) to get to my gate. I've counted all hectolitres of fuel that's spent to fly me around. My carbon footprint has grown to unbearable.

But I have found good things too. WiFi works in every airport, some cities have free public transport and my team is a dream! I have been able to work from airports, so it's not all wasted time.

Kids are not very keen on me to be away from home. And poor 'Suma. She's miserable, and once I'm back home she's following me like a shadow. Her stomack is constantly upset - we really can smell she's not happy. I hope this will be easier once we have learnt how to do all this.

Long time no see

Again it's been months since last post. Oh well.

I was travelling - seems like my work is now flying, taking the train, training people, writing training materials... Over twenty years ago when I applied this job I honestly thought I wouldn't have to fly ever again. I hate flying (my father's a pilot). Yep. More flying this year.

But. Ys is doing fine with few tweaks of his medication, we'll have another appointment at the hospital soon. I don't think he'll need change in his meds now. But he's still growing, so it might happen at some point. Medication makes him tired, which is a but sad, he sleeps a lot. 14yr should be staying awake all night.

Christmas came and went, it was nice, we had the most beautiful tree with a LOT of decorations, I bought two huge tubes full of new baubles (they were half price!) because someone destroyed most baubles last year... Oh well.

It's 21 years since we lost our boys, and it still hurts like hell. I cried at their grave. Being the good mother I am I bought them both a bottle of hard booze - at 21 they would be able to buy it legally (so I bought them those tiny minibar bottles of vodka and brandy). I bet those bottles won't be there next time when I go to see my sons. And I'm quite sure it's not the squirrel who's taken the bottles...

But then. Electricity. Or more like THE PRICE. Because our northern location we need to have heating here, and unfortunately to us, our house is mostly heated with electricity. Of course I have my (four!) fireplaces, and by using them I have managed to cut our electricity usage by 46-48%. And we still pay 4 to 5x more on bill at the moment... And next bill will be about 10x higher than average electricity bill. We might get some reimbursement from government, but because we are "moderately well-off" and own our own house with reasonable mortage, we propably won't get much, if any.

Food prices... At least I know how to cook with cabbage, potatoes and swede. We've given up most fruits, it's apples and bananas and pears now. And vegetables - tomatoes and cucumbers are a rare treat! But on the other hand, they need tremendous amounts of energy to grow here, artificial light and heat, so it's not very sustainable to eat them in winter anyway. So more cabbages, carrots, swedes and beets. Yey.

I haven't used my electric stove at all since October. I've even baked cakes in my wood burning stove oven. I know why people were so eager to get rid of their wood burning stoves and turn to electricity after war - this is a slow method of making dinner. Oh no, the stove burns hot, it's not that. But to GET it burn hot I need to get firewood and get the fire started... With electric stove I just turn knob or two. And if I want to use oven, I need to plan ahead, because I'm using this brick monster, which needs to be heated 2-3 hours before I can put anything into the oven itself. (but after that I can cook a whole ham on turkey without adding any wood).

And because we have been using a lot of firewood - I mean A LOT, we were rapidly running out of it. Luckily Old Man has a mountain of dry wood in his "new" woodshed at the mansion - they are from the 90's or even before that, but the wood is bone dry and still burns hot. So we spent the whole Saturday (today) first getting those logs out of the shed. They were stacked so tightly that the whole stack stood firmly in place even after we managed to pry our a row of logs midway... I was thinking the shed would collapse after we remove some wood, but fortunately it still stood proudly when we left.

We emptied two rows/stacks of logs and filled a whole tractor trailer with them! So more than four cubic meters of dry ready-cut firewood.

It took 2 hours to fill the trailer, and four hours to empty it... But now all logs are neatly stacked again in OUR shed.

You know what they say about heating your house with wood? It warms you several times - first when you cut it in the forest, then when you cut and split it, third time when you stack it... Well, this load of firewood has been warming people five times already and it's not yet burning!

But this made me so happy - no matter if there is going to be power cut or not - we'll stay warm and cosy and we will get a hot meal every day.

I bet I'll be aching all over tomorrow. As well as boys, they worked very hard.

Off to sauna now!

Crash?

 It's been a while. I've been away on work trips, several nights away fron home. Don't like it, and 'Suma is suffering. Poor puppy.

During me being away ys got apparently a seizure. I wasn't told about it that clearly ("He fell but is ok now"). Last saturday, a week ago, he got another one while I WAS here to see it, and called immediately to 112. They sent an ambulance, it took less than 15 minutes to get here!
So, long story cut in short: Spent three days in hospital, got several eeg's, ecg's and a mri scan. Gave a ton of blood. Loud and clear: YS has epilepsy, at this point it's considered a nice type, which should be controlled with medication. So far he's had no more episodes and has no immediate adverse reactions to medication. So far so good.

So as per usual, autunumn is once more a disaster.

Autunm overnight

A week ago we had a very hot weekend, Saturday evening was warm and calm. We spent it outside celebrating the end of summer (and my 50th birthday, which was few days earlier). A lots of bubbly, barbeque and cake!

Sunday was more windy but warm, I went to my plot and picked beans and zucchinis.

And then came Monday, rain and all. It was clearly autumnal feeling. I was away on a work trip for three days and managed to get home by Wednesday - just in time to cover all my delicate plants with fleece and sheets and everything I managed to find because instead of 18C night like we had on weekend we had frost. And ever since there's been frost during nights. So, we surely noticed the change of seasons!

So I'm not going to get corn cobs this year, they would have needed maybe three more weeks of warm (or at least not frosty) nights. And maybe more rain. Well, there might be a summer for corn one day.

Next week I'm off again for three days. I just hope kids will be nice and cover my plants when I'm away, I fear fleece will not stay in it's place because we have very windy days, again. Cold, straight from the North Pole I heard.

We still have some firewood to stack, it was too hot to do it earlier (it's been under cover and it's dry, so no worries). Teenagers are not very keen on doing such domestic tasks, who would have guessed 😆

I might have told at some point I do have Russian relatives. We are a bit worried about them, they are aging and times are difficult. No-one can visit them, because yes, you will get visa to cross the border - but if you are known to oppose Putin's war and politics, you will not be able to get back again, no matter of your nationality. And to be honest, no-one wants to get stuck in Russia now (or ever). My brother is on hiatus from Airb'n'b because he didn't want to accomodate Russian visitor... We are not very good in diplomacy - we love our Russian relatives and we fight for them to keep them feeded and able to live but we don't want to support Russian tourists. They (relatives, not tourists) have rabbits, and have been able to harvest enough hay for the winter to feed them - rabbits are not only food for them, they are valuable for bartering, too. My "aunt" has spent her summer preserving her garden products, we have received regular updates with lots of photos of jars filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, berries, fruits...

No matter where you live, you're one of my family - in so many ways.

And Russian tourists will not get visas any longer (but I would like to give visas to people who are trying to take care of their family, like visiting their old parents).

My Ukraine field has sunflowers blooming! First opened in 24th August, just in time for Ukraine's Independence day! I was a bit worried I will not get flowers in time. I know no-one else will see my sunflowers, and no-one (except for you) will know about it. But I know it's there. (and yes, I've been donating money and food and other stuff so it's nor just my mental support I give to Ukraine).

So. Life is not as easy as it was a year ago. It is what it is. I'm off to stack some firewood. Winter IS coming and it's going to be a long, cold one.