Going Domestic

It's the season for upgrading

One of the local television stations has added an "ask an expert" feature to their website for home renovation topics. A group of local companies in the industry have been recruited to answer questions from regular homeowners, so I think that's really neat. I'm just a wee bit suspicious because a person has to register to ask a question - I am having visions of being spammed with messages like "cheap low-flow toilets", "install your own skylight - find out how!!!" and so on!

Digital phone service is now available in Calgary, and I think that we're going to sign up. $55 for all local and long-distance calls a month, so that's not bad, but really, it's just an excuse to cease relations with our local regular phone company because their high-speed internet is down more than it's up lately.

The Mystery of the Shrivelled Tulips

Last spring, my little garden plot has these lovely lovely tulips blooming in it ... this year, the tulips came up again, budded, and then shrivelled up into little dried nothings. I was really puzzled about what was going on, and had it in the back of my mind to call into CBC AM when during their regular Tuesday gardening call-in segment. Today I was listening to the gardening segment at breakfast time, and someone beat me to it!  The gardening expert suggested to the caller with shrivelled tulips of his own to mulch around the tulips a lot so that the soil holds more water, and to plant them deeper - about a foot. I guess this depth works well for the local climate. Will have to try that ...

I'm not sad about not getting the chance to call about my tulips, as I am also wondering when we should prune our hardy rose bushes and the lilac ... more questions to ask!

what did you think it was named after?

My dear husband had an epiphany on the way home from work today. Two weeks ago, we took a different route home from the Millarville Farmer's Market than we usually do. This route took us through the town of Okotoks, and from there we'd head up to Calgary. A few minutes before entering Okotoks, we saw a very big rock on the side of the highway. I remembered seeing it in a newspaper article about small towns, so I knew that the rock was known as the Okotoks Erratic. Several days later, Chris was drinking a bottle of Traditional from the Big Rock Brewery, and noticed that the erratic was depicted on the back label. Hmm ... might there be a connection between the big rock in Okotoks and the name of the beer manufacturer? Today he realized that the genius behind Big Rock, Ed McNally was originally from Okotoks. And then learned the word "okotoks" translates into "big rock" in the language of the First Nations people who inhabited the area. All of sudden it just made sense. Chris explained it was like when he was kid and figured out that Rice Krispies were actually made from rice.

blast from the past

This past Saturday we made our usual early-morning trip to the farmer's market to stock up on produce and buy a fruit pie, and instead of heading back to Calgary directly, we trekked out to the town of Black Diamond. Marv's Classic Soda Shop & Diner claims to have to only operational authentic soda fountain from the bygone years in North America, and it happens to be in Black Diamond. Chris and I each had an ice cream soda (mine was banana and chocolate), and we split a cheeseburger. Madeline was most impressed with basket our burger was served in.

lettuce entertain you

We've been overdosing on salad lately. Not a bad thing, really - it's been too hot outside to contemplate turning the oven or stove on!  We bought a shopping bag full of spinach from the Millarville Farmer's Market last Saturday. It seemed like an obscene amount of spinach at the time, but we're making a good dent in it!  This plethora of greens has given Chris and I the opportunity to experiment with making our own salad dressings from scratch. He's a fan of a basic lemon and olive oil dressing. I made a dressing with minced garlic and capers, a little honey, apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and lemon juice with salt and pepper to taste (and olive oil, of course). It was based on a recipe from City Palate and turned out really good! It was kind of exciting because I got to use my Tupperware shaker for the first time ever!

You'd think I slept through home ec.

I have been contemplating lately whether my serger has the capability to do a flat-lock stitch. There is no specific setting for it that I remember, but I wonder if I just configure it for the four-thread overlock and disable the knife - would that do the trick? 

So many of Madeline's clothes are stitched with the flat-lock and I rather like the way it looks!

No small animals were harmed ...

I think that Chris and I will be having more Mexican-inspired dinners from now on. The mole sauce was really good - we had it with chicken and some rice for dinner this past Friday. I guess what I bought at Williams Sonoma was merely a mole base - we had to add a wee bit of olive oil and chicken stock to it, and then reduce it on the stove. Now that I think of it, we could probably buy it for less money at Sunterra or the Cookbook Company.  Or we could try making it from scratch - this recipe from Epicurious it pretty close to the base we have. Sometimes I'm still intimidated by recipes with very long lists of ingredients :)