Sunday, October 1, 2017

Sep 30 - always give thanks

We are blessed.  We give thanks.  Ok, so there were only 6 of us for dinner.  Ok, so it isn't Thanksgiving -- but really, every day should be Thanksgiving !

Stef, Aaron and Lauren busy dealing with skunk; Jeffrey, Sara, Emma, Zoe, Matthew too far away; Kim at Lululemon ... hmmm; Gavin and Amanda in South Korea (!); Mike, Jill and kids in Guelph; Kyle and Leslie in Killarney at a wedding ... yup, but we held the fort and had turkey anyway !

I did a bit of cleanup during the day; branches onto the burn pile (and burned).  Jason picked up the pile of campfire wood.  Two of the Muskoka chairs are now up in the garage.  I put away one of the kayaks; Sandy was out on the other - yes, a time away from turkey prep to enjoy the wonderful, albeit cool, weather.  It's supposed to be warmer today and even warmer tomorrow.

The major cleanup was, of course, after dinner.  I won't complain that I did that 99% myself; I'd only complain if other people were in the way !  Cleaning up from a major dinner is when I run across the shortcomings of having the hot water coming from a small tank.  It doesn't take too much rinsing before I've only got cold water.  I would have had to plan this well in advance and run another pipe up under the sink with a valve to choose my hot water source ... it ain't going to happen.  Two T's and two valves ... nawww, it's not worth the effort.

We had a ton of desert -- Sandy's apple pie; Vanda's pumpkin pie and butter tarts.  I had a small slice of pumpkin; my once-per-year pumpkin pie, unless of course we also have US Thanksgiving and then I have a second piece.  Accompanying the desert I broke open two bottles of wine -- Eiswein and Icewine.  Both had been "cooked" but weren't any worse for wear.  The Eiswein actually tastes better than when I opened the first bottle a few years ago. 

The Icewine was from Tawse, one of the wineries that the Davies, Dwyers and we visited on the eve of Mike & Jill's wedding.  It's called "cabernets" -- Cabernet Franc and Cab Sauv.  It was interesting ... my only bottle ... the Cab Franc adding quite an odd note.  I've got a couple more bottles down there, a Riesling and something else.  I also have Port and a couple of types of Sherry.  I had tried the Port a while ago and it didn't survive well.  I don't know about the Sherry - I suspect that it's ok as it doesn't have anything to precipitate out, akin to the Eis/Icewine.

David's wry neck is improving but he's being very careful and applying heat as much as possible. 

It's foggy out there now; temp showing 39.8F.  I am looking forward to Florida. 

Today's chores include wrapping the gazebo.  The other major chore that doesn't take as long is pulling the Whaler out of the water.  I can do that tomorrow.  The day is broken up a bit as I've got Mass in Britt.

Onward !

 

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