Oct 22 - snow hanging around

It's still white out there, well, mostly white. Some areas have melted depending on exposure. It only warmed up to a couple of degrees over freezing yesterday, not enough for a quick melt. Trees with afternoon sun exposure are clear and those without still have snow weighing them down.

We went into Parry Sound yesterday, Sandy and I. The sun exposure created an interesting effect on 522 with the southern side of the road in a full wintry look and the northern side bare. We had a number of errands to run -- banking, groceries, Home Depot, fertilizer -- and were largely successful.

We spent an hour in the bank setting up our two TD accounts as joint accounts. Why does that take an hour ? Both of these accounts have been around since the early 70's and they had none of our current ID on file. Sandy had two visible online profiles and I had one. Our RRSPs are not hooked to either of these, they are MIA so to speak, so I'll be calling them today with the RRSP account numbers so they can find the profiles to which they are attached. All of this was so that Sandy could get an Access Card to my account for cash withdrawals. They "could have" issued another Access Card (special dispensation) but it's actually better to have joint access so that if anything happens to one of us the account is not frozen.

We did find the fertilizer in the nursery but on the advice of the guy there did not buy it and Sandy will hold off applying fertilizer until the Spring. The new Home Depot was my other destination, looking for grommets. It's brand new (the HD) and the staff are also new ... the guy to whom I first talked did not know what a grommet was ... sigh. Anyway, the store is very small with correspondingly minimal stock and no grommets. I'll check in Sudbury on Sunday otherwise it's back to Rona.

Oh -- we also stopped at Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up some photos for Jim & Bonnie. I had been over there delivering their mail and mentioned that we were going to PS and he got me to run that errand for them.

Before we left for Parry Sound, Sandy got some more painting done. She probably could have finished although it is slower going around all the doorways where she's working now. Once she's finished I'll complete the baseboard installation.

We stopped and delivered the photos before getting home and I immediately got ready to go fishing. Five more crappie in the fridge will make another meal. We had the prior-day's crappie catch for dinner last night -- were they ever good. Baked (on the barbie) potatoes and asparagus completed the picture. Sandy did the asparagus since the griddle takes up most of the barbie surface. There were no leftovers !

Making bread -- a tale of two loaves. The day before I had made two loaves of bread -- regular bread and banana bread. Both of them were interrupted by power outages -- one a long outage and one of a few seconds. Once there is a power outage the bread maker loses track of it's position in the cycle so we took the inside container out and put it in the oven and basically baked it at 350 until brown. Both turned out well. Of course that wouldn't work if the bread was too early in the cycle still to be kneaded, for example, but after the 'rise' cycle this solution works.

I've been experimenting with a banana bread recipe, because there isn't one that comes with the maker. Sandy's recipe is a baked loaf, very good, but rises with baking powder. Done in the bread maker, of course, it's a yeast-risen loaf. Her recipe calls for a lot more sugar than I'm using (1/2 cup vs 1 tbsp) and probably more butter. My first try was a little too moist but I reduced the water for the second try and I'm happy with the result. I have not googled for recipes -- should have done that I suppose -- but experimenting is fun too.

That's it ... Jason, Lorraine & Gavin should be arriving this morning so I'll go over at first light and crank up the heat. I've had the basement heaters running and the inside on low but will now turn the inside heaters up and turn on the water and hot water. I'll probably leave the fire-starting to them unless it really feels damp in there. Since they'll be in late morning / early afternoon they will have plenty of time to warm the place up.

Time for breakfast. Abby and Mya ate at 5 a.m. so they're all set although it might be time for Mya to poo ... Mya is confused at this point and has been peeing on the deck. Since the deck is covered with snow too she cannot distinguish it from the ground. With the temperature going up to 7C today that should take care of the snow on the deck. If not, 12C tomorrow surely will.