Yesterday was test kitchen time. Matter of fact there will be more test kitchen times in coming months seeing how I did not make a winter food order. Cant remember the last year I did not make one, be challenging and maybe higher food bill, see how it goes.

Any way this little offing I call meat loaf  En croute.  Simple but offers a different taste and texture to just plain oh meat loaf.

I unfroze a meat loaf cooked last week, sliced a section of the loaf, layered paté on sides and top of the loaf then wrapped the whole thing in pastry.

Chilled the pasty down in fridge then put it in a 450F oven for 25 minutes then 350F for another 20 minutes.

Not arf bad with the different taste sensations and the  light flaky pastry and served with simple vegetables and  gravy. 

Well we have some snow on the ground, not sure how long it will stay with temps supposed to warm up and winds in the forecast.

Getting down in the freezer, -9 official -11 at the house with -15 wind chill, bring on the snow oh snow spirits.

So much stuff to take my attention in the media, corrupt politicians, no really, Muskrat Falls goings on (I still have that splash protection suit) also see corrupt politicians, Feeding My family Facebook, boy do those Inuit north of here know how to use social media, dissecting this weeks election by all the pundits (not a lot of time on that, just PBS stuff), the travails of our Ottawa MP Peter Penashue-oh right, I already mentioned him.

So with all that to absorb plus doing Frans research on potential Christmas gifts I cant seem to get into the writing mode.

Upderty date: I'm going to have to order in more of those splash suits, going to be one doozy of a day Tuesday. Pot calling kettle black.

 I have some of my mojo back:

Did you know that freight moved into Northern Labrador and Black Tickle under the Nutrition North Canada subsidy program totalled 563, 737 kilos in the 2011-2012 year?

Did you know that the cost to ship that freight charged to NNC came to $978, 058?

Did you know that the $978,058 was paid to retailers?

Do you know how much of that $978,058 was passed on to consumers?
Well either do I nor anyone else except maybe NNC officials and they aren’t saying.

That 563,737 kilos translates to 41.4 Twin Otter loads.

Nain received the largest % of the freight at 198,515 kilos.
The pay out to retailers was $498,0754.

The average cost per kilo to the region was $1.735.

The average cost per kilo to Nain was $2.508.

Later:

Not sure how to decipher this one. Some one in Ottawa just Googled   "nutrition north" -hollywood -delhi -"north -america" -carolina

The blog was number 2 hit.  Could it be something to do with the Harper's trip to India, some bizarro pictures of the two coming out from over there.

Boy are these idiots in for a surprise when they get there, unless of course they move to Queensland (inside family joke).

Just had to post this from my friends at Air Labrador Twitter account.

Air Labrador ‏@Airlabrador

Aircraft are returning after another busy day of providing service to Coastal communities. Cargo volumes are high as communities stock up. 

There was a time in the not too distance past when freight boats were relied upon to *stock up the communities*. 

The pattern has been there for awhile, boats have been given short shift under the guise of braking down and of governments screwing up contracts and the like.

And who pays for all this? No prize for guessing the correct answer.

Couple nice meals of the last several days.

Nice thick pork chops Cajun style, the home made apple sauce was a nice sweet to the tooth contrast to the spicy chops.









Last evening was a soup of partridge breast with chicken livers, mushroom rice and dough boys.

Fran had all the partridge meat on bones.

As mentioned in the comments on previous post there are other areas of concern re any potential rare earth mines, whether in Labrador or over in Quebec.

A road of over 200 kilometers (as the crow fly's) has to be a major concern to the stewards of the land. Inuit pride themselves as stewards of the land so this potential of a road in such difficult and ecologically sensitive land should be very worrying.

Not to mention the potential threat to wildlife, particularly the declining George River Caribou herd.
To parrot the commenter;  it would also happen to cut through traditional calving areas of the George River herd and across the route of spring and fall migration. For a herd that's presently quite vulnerable, it's good to ask what impact this type of development could bring.

This link takes you to the satellite tracking service that Quebec offers, or used to offer, it was shut down to the public on conservation grounds, or so they said.

Since the caribou satellite tracking was shut down the NL provincial government has continued its rigorous and aggressive seeking out and promotion of mineral exploration in Labrador, this being just one of many.

Conspiracy theories anyone? 

As coincidence would have it the telegram has a story on a recent tourism venture into the hinterland. We meet these people while they killed time getting into the camp, I warned three ladies that their chance of seeing any caribou were next to nil. 
Ignore the picture caption, some wag on Facebook asked if that was our house.

G Grandson Terrence and his dad came down to pick up his gift (the hat) from a kind lady in Stoufville Ont yesterday afternoon.

There was also a large chocolate coin in the gift as well. Terrence wondered at then shyly played with the chocolate, with me teasing him about sharing.

Miraculously the chocolate disappeared down Terrence's tummy while my back was turned, no flies on Terrence.

 Terrence decided to spend some quality time with us, so his dad left, the four of us went for a walk, stopped in to the playground where Terrence got a wet bum sliding down the large slippery dip, hence no pants in the bottom photo.

Other G Grandson discovered we had company so Enrique called in later. 

After Grandmas unsuccessful attempts at controlling two under five boys it was slyly suggested that Grandma walk them home.

The closure of marine shipping for the North Coast draws near. A shipping season we had high hopes for after last years disaster of the Dutch Runner but ended up being the worse season for generations.

The break down of the Northern Ranger part way though the season was main contributor to the disaster, but the business  as usual attitude and the failure of the Government to find a replacement for the Ranger, or even a second freight boat, all contributed.

To business as usual, some freight arrives in communities in weird state, some with oil spilled on packages, brand new ski doos damaged, freight that is on the shipping manifest for that trip is found to be still in Lewisport (this has been a common complaint for years).

We have had a new minister for WST now for two and a half weeks. Not a lot of time for new blood to get up to speed, especially after the disaster of the predecessor, still we have had no news on the marine shipping file, nor on the road file as it pertains to the hard topping of the trans Labrador Highway.

More and more one comes closer to the conclusion, if one had not already reached it, that we in the Torngats District are being made victims for choosing a Liberal to represent us in in the last election.

It has been years since I did any research into mining companies and into geology. Last few days has seen a change in that, been doing a bit into rare earth minerals and the like.

Quest Rare Minerals Ltd has been hanging around more and more. They have done an exploratory drill program over in the head of Voiseys Bay this summer to find out viability of building a dock and loading-off loading facility. Meetings with Nunatsiavut Government have taken place, and I think maybe one open house but can be corrected on that.

Being a neophyte in this field it is very difficult to determine what is exactly going on here, but one thing that set red lights blinking is the fact that I cant find much reference to radio active mineralization in any of the companies blurbs, but in preliminary research the geology of rare earth minerals it is front and center.

The ores of rare earth elements are mineralogically and chemically complex and commonly radioactive. 


Reading through the data it seems that some very unfriendly to the environment activity has to take place to leach out the small amount of end product from large volumes of mined material.

Lets hope the folks who make decisions on sanctioning this potential mine have good research people and similar red lights start blinking.

Oh yeah, light fluffy snow is falling, and ahead of forecasted too. That will piss the airlines off no doubt.

Watching some of the footage of the aftermath of  the storm that hit NY and New Jersey brings images to my mind of  post apocalyptic movies I have seen over the years.

And it would seem that if things don’t get back on track sooner rather than later life will be imitating art in a more serious way. Haiti and other third world spots around the world may get hit harder by mother nature but they have had less to loose 9for want of a better term) and are not as comfortable shall we say.

We were wondering about friends who lives out on Long Island, we finely received an e mail from them this morning.

Their town, at the end of the rail line, was hit hard but their home was spared. No power for a week and there is still no gasoline to be had, and kids have to go back to school and parents to work today. Trains are running again (sort of) siphoning the last of the gas from you boat just won’t do it I would think.

Friends were lucky as other close by lost everything.

Our thoughts are with you and your fellow sufferers.

Very changeable foggy cloudy weekend, spent good part of it tweeting weather updates to Air Labrador of which they were thankful.

Order of Newfoundland & Labrador.

Couple of shots at different lighting intensities to show the Labradorite in the medal off.

4.3 oz of gold and semi precious stone with Frans name imprinted on the back..

Weather on the marginal side for flying again today. Same as yesterday but it lifted enough late morning to get many flights in. Could or could not do same today.

Carter bear checking the weather and traffic conditions before venturing out trick or treating.

Then it was off in his Thomas the train outfit for some scarey times.

Locally we had quite a few callers, around 130 or so. Night was not that nice with wet snow to light rain, but that did not deter.

Muskrat Falls all day all the time. I just cant get enough of it, so I have decided to head out to sin jawns when the debate goes to the house.

Yes boy, if one of the airlines will non rev me, then a hotel (harbor view) in sin jawns will comp me and one of the bars will free fish n chip (along with refreshments) me then I am off to the HOA for more of the
excrement.

As you can see in the picture I have picked out my Sunday best for the attendance at the house of the honorable members.

Nice little chicken meal last evening.

Herbed roasted chicken, stir fried vegetables with potato dumplings in a mushroom celery sauce.

 I am always on edge when cooking dumplings dough-boys Fran being a conasuir of hard dough boys like her mom made.

Though the insistence on hard seems to be softening and softer fluffy ones dont receive the same disdain any longer, Fran actually liked the potatoes dumplings.

Finished off with a nice moist red berry carrot cake in a pool of cream.

Everything in moderation eh?

After a weather delay a ceremony to recognize a local guys dedication to his community took place yesterday afternoon.

Rod Pilgrim received the Queens Jubilee Award, a well deserved honor. Rod is the go to guy for almost anything that needs fixing in the mechanical, electrical, furnace area, even boat captains seek Rod out.

Later: I thought it would difficult to find a stunder minister than the former minister for Works Service and Transport, but I was wrong.

This McGrath guy is way stunder than anyone could imagine. "We just wanted to invite people, stakeholders that will be affected by the development of the project," 

I think that is code for "people who will benefit personally and financially from the project".

I am wishing all my friends down in the path of Sandy safe tidings.

Cooler day, + 6 but in wind made it feel cooler yesterday, but warm trend hit again last evening, +3 and light winds this morning.

Update on a scrape or should I say Pissing match between two executives of companies within the Nunatsiavut Group of Companies.

Being part of the one company, and being professionals, one would think a more amicable approach to this taking off of a plane from a marine dock could have been worked out before hand. 

But no, people get set in their ways and rules are bent at times. I have no inside knowledge of what was said and by whom to whom before and during or after the plane took off, but reading between the words I suspect there is some bad blood between the Air Labrador executive and a person within CIA Nunatsiavut who is not the Manager in the incident.

Now if we here in Nain had been standing down at the edge of the airstrip as close as these people were during the take off last Friday I dare say cops would have been called, and most likely the pilot would have had something to say to us.

I know it is a 20 year tradition but it looks to me like  there are rules for some and rules for others. 

I'm back on the beef after a respite of several weeks. Well ground beef, ground myself from stewing beef.

Made up couple meat loafs, some for last night, some for sandwiches and maybe freezing. 

Rather a warm balmy weekend, nice for walking and going off in boat, which many did. yesterdays high and low of 5.8 and 3.2 respectively is at odds with the norms of 0 and -6 respectively.

There were some troublesome loose dogs around yesterday, couple little crackies that were very aggressive with other dogs. Noticed them giving one dog hell just up the road yesterday afternoon. They did not come near us when out, just other vulnerable dogs.

Then this morning (via Facebook) I find out that a small dog was mauled to death by some strays. Wonder if it was the same bunch I had noticed.

The relief dog catcher was riding around Saturday but did not notice him Yesterday. Some people seem more concerned in giving dog owners with well behaved and controlled dogs hell rather than looking where the aggression is.

My pictures of pizzas before and after caused some chatter on Facebook, so I superimposed them over multi grain dough I used. Not all the dough mind you, just what was left over after 12 baguettes.

One wag wanted to know what the yellow strips were, bloody cheese snobs who have access to white aged cheddar drive ya eh. Then another mentioned El Greco pizza of Goose Bay in the same sentence as my pizzas.
I offered to make one next time they are in Nain. No one can say I'm not a pizza snob.

 

Now this news brief states the bloody obvious. Anyone with half a brain and with a minimum of observations skills would know Inuktitut is in bad shape among the Labrador Inuit.

People can say what they like about the Innu of Labrador, but they cant criticize their zeal and dedication in retaining their language.

Inuktitut is in bad shape not because of the dedication of a very small group (mostly older folk) who work hard within skills sets in language to retain and promote the language. But their limited political skill sets are a set back, or rather their Inukness is a set back in this white mans way controlled government.

No, Inuktitut is in bad shape because the elected members and the civil service responsible for culture within Nunatsiavut Government do not put enough emphasis on enshrining and protecting Inuktitut under the self government regulations.

If half the time put into promoting tourism and building the proposed so called Cultural Center was put into language then perhaps things can turn around.

Whats the use of a Cultural Center if the language goes out with the first high tide.

I am not sure if this is a given or not, but word is that we are stepping back in time yet again in the marine shipping file on the north coast of Labrador. Dont get me wrong, any help the lone ship can get at this late stage is a godsend, maybe it is the work of the new minister for WST, or maybe something has been in the works for some time.

But anyway word is the mv Trans Gulf may step in to help get freight to the coast in what is left of the shipping season.
The Trans Gulf has worked the coast before, it was taken off because it was not suitable for our needs, but now beggars cant be choosers can we. Why we are beggars in this day and age continues to be a  conundrum for many.

While we are at it, the mv Astron had some mechanical difficulties in one of the ports on its latest run up the coast, two old burnt out vessels is better than one eh.

Nothing like baking some bread to get one back into the groove of things.

 

Two more batches like that before Sunday and I'll be doughed out.

One small reason why Fran is now a O.N.L person.  The audio link is in two languages but worth the listen.

Despite not being employed by Okalakatiget Society for several years Fran can still take the time and make the effort to go in and say some really nice stuff about them on their 30th anniversary.

Some may attempt to follow in Frans footsteps but few if any will reach her heights of humility and caring for others without any private or political agenda.

Nice to be back in familiar surrounds and sounds. We left GB an hour late, word was that Wx was marginal, we traveled in the clouds most of way until just south of Nain then the ceiling was couple thousand feet, no trouble landing.

I was a little uneasy I must admit, there were two people on the plane who had spent 4 hours flying around yesterday heading for Hopedale, they ended up back in GB after couple unsuccessful attempts at landing in couple communities.

Only five of us on the plane, three for Nain and the two for Hopedale, rest was freight, two boxes for us that we shipped yesterday.The plane filled up here with people for Nain and Natuashish, volley ball players from a weekend tournament.

Then we had call that the freight we shipped this morning would be here at 4:30. Some times things work out nicely some times they dont. 

Now to play catch up with many things.

Leaving for home this afternoon, all things and Wx (weather) being equal and allowing.

Even before we get there we know there is no milk in town, young mothers are begging and borrowing from others to feed their children some body building milk.

There is some GranPre expired last February milk, it is discounted but I would not feed that to a dog, goes right off as soon as you open it.

The roads should not be that dusty what with the weather we are having, one thing I have learn't getting around Goose Bay is that the roads may not be dusty here but they are just as bumpy and rough for driving. 

Of course the foods will be more expensive at home, we all know and expect that and all know and expect that nothing will be done about it even if much of the excessive expense is on the backs of the less fortunate and the disenfranchised.

Even with all the negatives there are way more positive to living in remote communities to my mind.

Regular power outages are a big issue in Goose Bay (along with inadequate internet service and many other issues), just had one for half hour and on our way out to sin jawns had one for several hours. But lo n behold the water goes off when power goes off.
Guess all those pumping stations around town don't have back up power source.
 But it is OK, the mayor and some councilors and at least one staff are on the job promoting and in conflicts of interest from benefiting from the proposed Muskrat Falls development.

Still at Goose airport waiting to leave for home. Plane landed back from coast half hour late, gone over to pick up freight then back to pick us up I hope, still don't know why ground crew cant inform passengers of these delays, some things don't change eh Nunatsiavut Group of Companies and Air Labrador?

Carter bear

pretty eyes and happy faces.

Weather been lousy with rain and fog since we arrived back in Labrador. Have to admit it, the weather while we were in St.Johns was quite amazing, it is the first topic of conversion on everyone's lips. Of course they add that it is not expected to be like that every year.

For those familiar with the French language you can read, and see, what the Yacht Taravana went through in the wind storm at Cartwright a week ago.