And it snowed and it snowed and it snowed!

On December 24, 2025 it snowed here. About 5cm (4in). Lightweight stuff. No worries. Also no immediate need to clear it as I wasn’t going anywhere anyway and … more snow was predicted. Why shovel twice when you only need to do it once?

Snow.

On Friday, December 26 2025, it snowed some more. No worries as I still didn’t need to go anywhere. Besides, the following day it was bright and sunny and … minus twenty-six Celsius (-15 Fahrenheit). No one goes out to shovel in that kind of cold unless they have no choice. Anyway, it was going to snow again Sunday.

Doot, doot, doot; lookin’ out my backdoor.

Which it didn’t. But it did ‘warm up’ to -8C (18F) so I made an effort. The usual “half-hour of shovelling followed by an hour of rest” procedure. And fifteen minutes more after that before I gave up for the day. It was supposed to snow overnight, but nothing major. Jojo is good in snow, but not in half a foot of it. I mean you have to be reasonable about such things.

Jojo wearing her new winter coat.

So today I went out at 9:00 AM and -7C (19F) and finished shovelling. Another half an hour and the driveway was good enough. (On a whim I checked my heart rate during this exercise: 154. Not sure if that’s good or bad.)

Of course before I finished it started snowing again.

But it’s not expected to amount to much and the next threat isn’t due until next Thursday. I think I can manage. Maybe buy a snowblower for next Winter. Before it starts to snow.

qwertyuiop?

How do you disguise a dromedary?*

Basic Biscuit

(This can be adapted to be the basis for several different recipes.)

1 cup of flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp of (kosher) salt

That’s your base mix. To turn it into something else you add different ingredients. Such as this biscuit formula:

1 tablespoon of brown sugar (this is an unusual departure from standard biscuits or scones, but I like it)

Mix the dry ingredients together, then blend in 1/8 cup of hard margarine (or butter if you can tolerate it). Add water as needed to make the dough mixture workable but not too stiff or loose (about 1/2 cup).

Flatten on to a baking pan covered with parchment paper and cut into smaller pieces (4-6 depending on what size you like). Bake at 450F until done – about 20 minutes.

You can do other things with the basic mix, such as adding egg to make a meat/fish batter or yeast to make ‘English’ muffins (crumpets). Of course it’s not quite as simple as that, but have you ever noticed how every recipe on the Internet is ‘the best’ for … whatever? Right. You can only read what’s out there – and then adapt to your tastes.

*You camel-flage it.

Friday it snowed

About six inches of cold and fluffy. Not exactly a good thing. Still a little shy on those.

Naturally this means I spent Saturday shovelling. That wasn’t fun either. Half hour of shovelling, an hour of rest. Fifteen minutes of shovelling, an hour and a half of rest. Et cetera. Pretty much used up the day.

After the first half hour. Hard to see the difference.

It warmed up above freezing, so what’s left has been melting. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain, and then … go below freezing again. That means ice everywhere.

Taken this morning. Phone camera seems to have failed. Still hard to see the difference.

Oh, also the area has been cut off from the Lower Mainland due to flooding and avalanches.

Sheesh. Not much good to be found around here lately.

Her look says it all.

Yep: try to be positive and see what it gets you.

On human hibernation

I have not been posting much because … well no one wants to read bad things and it seems that’s all we have in the world today, no matter where you look.

On the other hand, this post might be considered bad for that reason alone.

Or maybe for this one:

Clifford in his winter coat.

15 cm (6 inches) of heavy, wet snow fell Monday-Tuesday. I’m not a fan of snow. I’m especially not a fan of having to clear it with a shovel. It’ll get done. Eventually.

All things considered, it would be a good time to start winter hibernation. Whether you’re a bear or not. I think I’ll try to stay inside until at least next year, if not longer. We know that won’t happen, but it could be worth the effort.

Maybe humans just haven’t tried this hibernation thing hard enough.

Yet.

(Phone pic so of course it sucks.)

I’m writing this anyway

In a previous post (The Moving Finger) I babbled about distracting myself with the unnecessary concoction of a narrative, that it is likely no one else will ever see, as a means of gearing up to write down something that needed to be done: the ‘instructions’ for ‘operating’ the cabin.

I did in fact accomplish that task, which has also become unnecessary as it is unlikely the place will ever be sold.

But that’s as may be.

One of the other comments I made was how the fictional work had run its course and beyond a certain point there was no more story to tell. (It’s a pity certain narrative franchise holders do not recognize this fact. You know what and who I mean.) Instead there were merely amusing snippets of character inter-actions which went nowhere. Like this one:

Arty: With your telepathic friend on board it seems we don’t have any secrets now.
Mariner: We still have one secret she doesn’t know about.
Arty: Oh? What’s that, then?

[She whispers in his ear; his eyes go wide.]

This short bit became the prologue to another story entitled “Seventeen Years Later”.

Which is not finished yet (and it doesn’t matter if it ever will be as, once again, it will not be seen by others) but already stretches to twelve pages of dialogue and instructions.

You see, the ending of one story is just the beginning of another.

“I do what I want.” – Beckett Mariner

Hey, the weather is bad and I can’t really do much of anything so …

Oh please no

The federal budget is out.

It contains several things which I agree are necessary, and few that really aren’t. Maybe not quite the way we should be setting our priorities under the circumstances, but a ‘C’ effort on the part of Carney (you see what I did there).

What it doesn’t contain is any mention of help for senior citizens who are trying to cope with the runaway inflation on fixed incomes. Because yeah, that pension that was good enough 50 years ago should still be fine, right? Even though they’ve admitted the “2.4%” inflation rate is an over-all thing and not reflective of actual cost-of-living expenses. In fact there was a news item today about certain grocery store products which exceed the official inflation rate by running at 10-40%. Most of them don’t affect me personally, but that isn’t the point; there’s a lot more seniors out there who aren’t doing as well. When it comes to looking after “vulnerable groups” the attitude towards the elderly is consistently “hurry up and die”.

No matter.

The real problem is that our ineffectual leader has threatened to call an election if he doesn’t get his way on this budget. What’s more, our provincial premier is throwing the same hissy-fit over his latest piece of legislation.

You know what we really do not need to do right now?

Waste a lot of tax dollars on a couple of elections that won’t improve anything.

The USA may have the Olympic Gold Medallist of government morons, but we have at least the bronze if not the silver.

One year later

A year ago today: Sunday Morning

So we now have been in the ‘new’ house for one year. Much has improved, some things have not, and along the way there have been changes we could not foresee.

For example, we no longer have our dogs. Being without them has gotten easier, but I still twinge when I see their favourite treats listed in a sale flyer. Always a case of “I should get some of those” but … no.

Innumerable repairs and upgrades I meant to do didn’t get done because there just wasn’t time. The interruption of having to get the cabin in shape for a sale that never happened used up a lot of time too.

So there’s always next year, right?

Maybe.

Somebody is happy.