Change of pace, or taste.

I had some left over mashed potato with chopped onion, so decided to make up some zucchini potato cakes. This recipe made 4 cakes.

11/2 cups left over mashed potato with chopped onion.
1/2 medium zucchini, peeled, grated, with water pressed out of them.
1 egg whisked up.
1 teaspoon oregano
Fresh ground black pepper

I mixed all the ingredients up well, the mixture was a little moist, so I added 1/3 cup bran flakes to absorb some of the moister.

Made the mixture into 4 cakes about 3/4 inch thick.
Gently coat cakes in flour, I used some 12 grain flour, but any flour would do.

In medium fry pan heat cooking oil

Fry until brown, turn carefully and brown other side.

Place on paper towel placed in heat proof pan; keep warm until ready to serve.

I had this with shake n bake chicken and fresh asparagus, accompanied by a nice French red, a 2004 Chateau Arnaud Minervois to be precise.

Fran had baked spuds with her meal, so more cakes for me. Alas I was not so lucky with the wine, had to share it equally.

Grad 2006.

We were off to the Aimee’s grade 12 graduation last evening.

First was a ceremony at the Moravian church, thought this a nice touch.
The Nain choir gave a couple of fine renditions in Inuktitut, and a nice service by Johannes lamp.
The grads all in their finery made for a pleasant hour.


The graduation was well attended by teachers, family of grads mainly.
The meal was very good, and lots of it. The volunteer teachers, students and others did a fine job with the meal, decorating, serving and the like.




Thirteen made it this far, I think there was about 23 or so in Aimee’s kindergarten class. Not too bad I guess, though three of this year were carry overs from last year, and a couple moved to other communities.




We were very proud of our Granddaughter, who had her brother, and our Grandson, Brian as her escort.

Proud or wharh?

This is the 2006 grade 12 class of Jens Haven Memorial School, three days before their Graduation Dinner dance this Saturday.

Spring is here, sort of.

Took some pictures of the last of the ice that is ‘hanging in’ in last several says. With the temperatures up and the wind from the west most has been blown out or melted now. Also been doing some walking up in the hills.






Also been doing some walking up in the hills.

Weather is great for getting around, bugs are just too much of an annoyance when it warms up.

Attention: NL tourism brain trust.

I think I have come up with a great concept for a tourism marketing video for Northern Labrador. That’s if you do that sort of marketing of course. Any way, we would start off with a shot of the official Labrador flag, then fade, then zoom in to what has become the unofficial ‘spring flag’ of Northern Labrador.












Perhaps we could then switch to some shots of rugged mountains; this one is just a hill. Maybe we could have some one standing on the edge of all things, this bloke is just for concept, the real bloke would need to be disheveled, long hair, ruddy face like he has spent too many long hours in the pubs of some place.














Maybe finish off with a zooming in shot of some washing hanging on the line, have to be careful what we show though, would not want to upset any sensitive sensibilities would we.



I think this has potential, it's such a great idea perhaps it has been done some place before, you could get some technical ideas if it has.

The Day After.

Well looky here, bloody sun, some what, out the day after Victoria Day.
Same spot as foggy pic taken Sunday.

Interruptis Indeed.

Old Blork http://blork.typepad.com/ and his wife seem to be having a nice tour of Italy. Makes us stay at home bloggers look a bit banausic.

I have walked in many hills and mountains on three continents, never have I come across the view Blork describes in his May 22 post.

View from Signal Hill?

Well no, it's a view, from the hydro plant, of Nain yesterday.
Could have taken the same pic from dawn to dusk, today you would get camera soaked, though the fog has lifted about 20 feet.

Reason for the trip was; Grandson wanted me to go with him to see if we could spot the two moose that have been hanging around town for couple of weeks. He and his mom had watched the two interlopers for some time the evening before, they had come close to the edge of town, up near the dame and what was once a sandpit. Did not see the moose, or much else.
So Victoria Day has held to tradition with the lousy weather, raining today. No one up here could go camping any way, unless you wanted to trudge over the hills by foot. Ice is still covering most of the harbor, this "in" weather pattern will keep it there till an "out" pattern develops.

The second day of the story telling festival was cancelled due to a sad happening. A young married man committed suicide Saturday afternoon. Our thoughts go out to his family.

Victoria Day +1 part 2.

More scenes of participants and observers at story telling event yesterday. Plus one of kids doing what they do best on a nice day.

Victoria Day +1

So yesterday turned out to be a great day, around +8 with a breeze in off harbor.
The Inuktitut Story telling Festival went off well. It was held in two tents near the ball field. Many elders had lots to say, all was recorded for future TV shows and use in language retention programs, as well as historical archival. Some scenes of tea break above.
Festival will continue today but in the sports-plex, it is predicted that weather will not be as kind.

Victoria Day Weekend at 1230 hours on Saturday..

And what a beautiful day it turned out to be sure.

People heading off to the story telling festival I believe.

Good ol Victoria Day weekend.

So this is what 'Fog Depositing Ice' looks like, and we did not have to go to St.John's to see, feel it.

Pop Perspective.

Guess I should give the true consumer cost of pop, not that it is a big drain on our budget, not like some who seem to be addicted to the stuff, not to mention the ones who have a bar and a coke for breakfast, but I wont go into that further.

Cost of a can of coke today is $1.55, plus Enviro Levy of .08 cents, plus 15% HST = $1.88.
Cost of a can of Diet 7up is $1.59, add the Enviro tax and HST you get $1.92.

Looks like Big Sugar has their fingers in our pockets, hence our health, more than we realized.

Mister Frosty.

Minus one or so this morning, bit of a frost. The larger white snow patches in the picture are left overs from the winter.
Sure not conducive to planting my seedlings yet, and they are ready to go. May have to put portable heater in greenhouse for the nights, shame to waste all this nice sunshine we are getting.

Ichtyolite.............Inestimable

Checking my freezer the other day I noticed that our winter meat order was running a little low on some items. We have country food, but things in the fish line are low. We were expecting two visitors from away who have particular eating habits, so this caused me to check on some items in the frozen section of two stores yesterday.
Some nice looking Highliner frozen cod pieces caught my eye. Six pieces of fish at the Northern, enough for three good meals, with a price tag of $17.24. So up I go to the Bigland, again six pieces of fish, same Highliner brand, this time for $24.38. It could have been the fish pieces were larger than at Northern; alas there was no way to tell as the Bigland package did not have weight marked on it. Also noticed, Bigland package had that thawed and re frozen look about it, very common up here, you should see the chicken and beef section, not fit boy.

Will have to check out Haynes store, they do not stock as much, but it is usually of better quality.

I do not drink much pop, just the odd one for mix, but my wife has a coke a day. Fran opined yesterday that coke is over $1.50 at moment in most stores. It seems stores ran out of pop stock and are getting it flown in.

Intuitive

Well my intuition of change in weather pattern came quicker than expected, but it came. We are now socked in with fog, some light drizzle and about +3.
In Goose Bay last couple days it got up over 28, we managed couple days around 22.
The warm weather got people out cleaning up the winter debris around their houses, the ever present litter on roads etc. Place looks reasonable, except down near airstrip, that will get cleaned up once the annual spring clean up crew is hired on.

Had daughter and grandkids up for Mothers Day BBQ yesterday. Oldest grandchild, and her grandmother, were looking through some boxes of photos to use in her upcoming graduation dinner/dance. Not many kids from here have been snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, or cruising on the Hawkesbury River and Pittwater.

While looking they came across some older pictures from my time up north of here in 1978. Could not last six or so weeks in a tent now me thinks. Then some of my time in Greece, Ireland and Great Britton in late 70’s early 80’s. Also some of trips to Montreal and Ottawa we made in middle 80’s. Looking at them it has made me more determined to purchase a scanner to get the better ones on disk, some are starting to fade as they tend to do.

On balance.

All things considered we are not too badly off here this spring. Seems our weather is way better than say foggy cold St. John’s, and our road conditions are drier and smoother than say Iqualuit in Nunavut.

Topic of conversation last several days is how spring sort of came out of no where. One day we were in that middle ground between winter and spring. It can be drawn out and mousey at times. This year within several days spring was just here. Butterflies a fluttering, bees a buzzing, giant mosquitoes annoying, little bugs a bugging, hawks a circling. You name it, it was all happening last couple days or so.
Our phlox went from dead little stumps in frozen soil to sprouting green leaves, with promise of future color, in just three days.
Robbins are almost knee capping people as they skim between buildings and trees, gathering for their nests. Maybe the low flying has to do with the hawk overhead.
People from all over are asking me if I have anything planted in our greenhouse yet. Bit too early yet is my reply. I have been caught out before with this early great run of weather, time will tell If my intuition is correct.

The down side is the dusty roads. The gravel dust is a major concern, especially for the young and old, as well as people with allergies. After being outdoors all day yesterday I had major grit in my eyes, nostrils and throat. The town council has dust abatement material, but the co ordination and timing of applying it always seems to be a problem.

So on balance things are not too bad, way worse places to be that’s for sure, wonder if the fog has cleared in sin jons arbor yit?

Bloke........not.

Bloke is Strine for male

I was exiting the Northern store here yesterday morning, little kid of about 5 comes barreling down from road on his bike, up the wheel chair ramp and to abrupt stop and says, hi!
Me, Hi bloke!
Little kid, I’m not a bloke!
Me, Oh! your not a bloke, then who are you?
Little kid, I’m Robert! in a very indignant tone.
Me, well hi Robert.
Made my week sure.

What a week it was, brought back to earth with a thud after brief hiatus south.
First we had call very early Monday morning from Daughter. The quadraplex across from her was on fire. We went down to offer any help we could, despite fire fighters efforts the building burnt to ground. No one hurt, two residents were able to get their possessions out with help from locals. One apartment was empty, fire looked to have started that end.

Next morning at 1 pm had another call, this time from across road, alerted to kids at my ski doo. Go out, kids gone but hose running from gas tank to gas can, I did get kids names though.

Several nights and early morns the pods of kids and youth running a little wild with drinking and who knows what else. I still don’t get it that school kids are allowed run wild at 2 and 3 AM on school days.
Then there is the adults doing the same crap in middle of the day, little wonder the young are confused and miss directed.

So the incident with the little bloke brightened things up a bit, not to mention the weather; that has been blinding sun and up to + 22 on Thursday. Have the gardens all turned over and airing, wont get too ahead of myself as the ice will go soon, then we will surely get the in winds off the Labrador.

Back home again

We arrived home on friday afternoon from Goose Bay, nice welcome, a 61/2 hour in total power outage. Pumped up the colman stove for a cup of tea, inconvenient but no big deal for us up here in the NL third world.

We spent 7 days with friends in the valley, I had 5 trips to the chiropractor for treatment on my back, and we both shopped for some large and small items for the house and grandkids, well one grand kid, the youngest.

Took a trip down the aptly named Mud Lake road to see ice movement and look for ducks and geese, saw plenty of both, no pics of them though, only these.

That's our host on the hunt.

What is left of ski doo trail to Mud Lake.

Sun set on way back to the valley.

Lots of activity at the Goose Bay airport on arrival and departure, both civilian and military. 2 AWAC’s were there both days, on Friday a F18 was there refueling, a couple of other air force planes landed and both regional airlines had planes coming and going at high rate.
Heard a rumor that the new commander of the base will be an army man, quite the change indeed. Sure hope something happens down there, shame to see all those reasonably new and refurbished buildings empty.

Had a great flight home, only five of us on a twinn Otter, plus the bottled water and pop in cabin with us, and the frozen chicken and other frozen goods in the baggage compartment. Clear all the way with good view of the ice and Labrador sea.