A bit about everything

Its September now, and summer is fading fast...what we saw of it anyway.

I think we may have had one day where the temperature really reached 30C. This is in contrast to several days we had last year, if I recall correctly. But that's not much of a big deal when you always hated hot days as a kid anyway, now is it? (

Ok, I admit, I wouldn't mind just one scorching-hot-lazy-day....maybe next year?)

Honestly though, I'm looking forward to the snow. Its purty for one thing when the land is a blanket of white. Its also fun to get all snow-geared-up and wander around. Bring along some hot-chocolate, watch the dog go nuts...great times, and looking forward to it again!

We miss our friends and family a lot, and we're especially sad that we're missing out on so so much of niece3's childhood (who smacks her forehead any time she says my name for some reason.) For the record, niece1 and niece2 live in paradise with nephew0 (hahah take that, M.B.) so we don't feel too guilty about missing their childhoods.

Speaking of friends, here's a bit of irony: she and I were relatively quiet people back in "civilization". Surrounded by literally hundreds of thousands of people in southern Ontario, with all the clubs, bars, culture, restaurants, whatever...we kind of liked to stay at home, watch movies, play a little guitar-hero, read some books, cook good food (well, She did anyway)...we had to come to come to a town of 1800 people to develop (relatively) active social lives.

Its a rare month where somebody's not having some sort of social gathering. We play poker most weekends (She wins more than I do, lucky $@#!$). And in a small town, if you go anywhere, you're going to bump into people you know and end up hanging around to chat for a while, possibly arranging a social gathering or card game.

News and items of interest:
* We may be inheriting a friend's dog for a week later this month. Chester's a small yippy dog, but very friendly and pretty smart. He's spent a few days with us before and other than a few "accidents" we had a good time.
* New blu-ray player. YAY! (We didn't earn this in any kind of worthy way...apparently we're 1-year Baker Lake survivors?)
* She has a new important project at work keeping her very busy. Congrats to Her, and expect to find her pretty tired after putting in some weekend time.
* Dog has a critically important new project to catch the local sik siks. Oh and a friend in town gave her a new ball-and-rope toy, which in turn is her new best friend ever. This week.
* I have a new programming project at work, too (although I probably won't be working weekends...that's important computer-gaming time, thank you.)
* I've been playing Euchre a lot on our laptop as some of you know (I'm training hard for our next tournament in Mitchell/Stratford...don't be shocked/offended if my first thoughtless words walking through the door are "Where's the Euchre?") Well, lately I've been switching to Bid Euchre (sorta like Whist apparently if you know that one). I hear her Grandma plays that, so we might have to get a game of bid Euchre going too if the opportunity presents itself!
* We are hoping to see our sealift soon. It was supposed to be here just this last weekend (already pretty late at that point) but nothing yet. We have 3 skids coming in (instead of just the one we had last year in addition to our initial Costco supplies). I think it took us 30 minutes to unload the skid last year...I'll be timing us on this run to see how we do with three!

Labour Day Weekend

I think this long weekend was the most enjoyable of our summer! The weather was fantastic, and there weren't so many bugs.

Squire and I went on a couple of Epic Walks (note the use of capitals, as each was almost two hours long.)

On Sunday we walked out past the east edge of town to a little waterfall we drove out to when Mom was up here. At that point, it was really gushing, and the sides of the banks were still covered in snow. Now, it was barely more than a trickle. Quiet enough that Squire decided to take a dip amongst the rocks.

Today, we decided we should wander down and see what was up at the 'beach'. On the west end of the lake, there is some sandy areas which are nice and shallow for our swimming-phobic dog. I even waded in, up to my knees, since the water wasn't too cold. There was a nice long sandbar, so for the most part, the water was at most ankle deep, but we were a long way from shore.

We're still patiently waiting for the barge to come in - but we've been assured that all food stuffs will be on it. I'm also hoping to get out and try to take some pictures of the northern lights before its too cold to bother. And yes, that means it is now dark enough at night to see them. We've joked about having a contest to pick the first day of snowfall in Baker amongst our friends, but I think it's pretty much guaranteed that we will have had snowfall accumulation before the next long weekend in October.

The Keg at Baker Lake

Well, not really the Keg , as such. But as close as we'll get before coming south at Christmas.

We tried to replicate a favourite meal from the Keg: Prime Rib au Jus, with a couple of exceptions.... Yorkshire pudding instead of bread, no garlic for the mashed potatoes, and the au jus could use some more pizazz. But for a very first prime rib attempt, neither of us could complain.

We have to thank the good people at Calm Air for making sure our groceries got in at all, but next time, maybe a bit earlier than 11:30pm?

Flea Market

I don’t know if the weather is taking its cue from the school calendar, but it sure seems like fall here lately. The kids went back to school on Monday, and we’ve had cool, wet, damp weather ever since. The sun might’ve come out for 20 minutes all week… and we’ve had to turn the furnace on!

Taking advantage of the fall mood, I decided to step up my baking to the next level. (I’ve been baking *a lot* since moving north, maybe because sweets are so expensive up here.) I decided to bake a whole bunch and cart everything down to a local ‘Flea Market’, and see if I couldn’t make some fun money.

I whipped up some cupcakes (chocolate icing was much more popular than vanilla!), butter and coconut tarts (Grandma Rose - yours are still better!), brownies and m&m cookies. And then I packaged some together, made pretty labels, and pulled my tablecloth out of the cupboard.

Everything went over really well. The brownies were the hottest seller, followed by the cupcakes with chocolate icing. I came home without any m&m cookies, after giving what was left to my friend who was nice enough to come down and hang out with me. All the packages of coconut tarts were gone, but I still got to bring some individual ones home. And most of the individual butter tarts were gobbled up, but I had two packages left over (‘he’ says ‘wooohoo!’).

Food, in general, rules at the Flea Market; there were buns, casseroles, salads, and pizza and caribou stew and popcorn, jello, and more! And what did my efforts get me? About $100 in profits. Turns out, sweets at the Flea Market were just the ticket!

Driven to Distraction

While suffering through bug season, we’ve found a couple of new ways to keep from being bored. (By the way, the bug hood is on its way… so shortly we’ll be able to get back out there and enjoy the warmer weather without worrying about the blackfly welts! How do the little buggers tell the difference between leg skin and face skin??)

For a birthday present, ‘he’ got Heroes Season One on dvd. We’ve been diligently watching an episode a night, torn between wanting the disks to last and needing to find out what happens. I don’t know if I’m developing a special ability… but I see us purchasing more seasons in the near future.

About a month ago, we decided to blow the remainder of our Chapters Christmas gift cards. $200 dollars later, we were anxiously waiting for the books to get here, and hoping we had some gems in the bunch. I had finally given in and decided to try ‘Eat Pray Love’ (which is now a movie starring Julia Roberts). I *LOVE* it – I’m not quite done, I still have the ‘Indonesia’ section to read – but I think if the movie is half as good as the book, it’ll be great! Oh, and I’m totally jealous of everyone in the south (and if anyone in Iqaluit is reading this) who get to go see the movie while I’ll have to wait for the dvd.

And since we were enjoying new toys, we decided that Squire shouldn’t be left out! We gave her the last ‘moo’ friend – Mr. Moo Pony. I don’t exactly know how my dog got a pony before me! But since hers is green and goes ‘squeak’ instead of being bay (or gray) saying ‘neigh’, I think I’ll just let her keep it and keep holding out for something better.

Rediscovered

We’ve rediscovered a few ‘lost’ treasures from winter in Baker.

One has happened pretty slowly. It’d been commented on a few times in passing, but now I’d officially say we have ‘night’ back. It’s not as dark at any point as it was in the winter, but after months of remarking on the lack of darkness, we’re now remarking on how dark it is.

The other blew in suddenly last night. We have some freakishly strong winds today in Baker. It reminds me of blizzard days from winter when we had to turn the TV up to hear it over the wind. Deciding to take advantage of the bug-free outdoors, Squire and I headed up the central hill to see if I could get a good picture of the white caps on the lake. We gave up when the wind wouldn’t allow me to hold the camera steady enough to get a non-blurtastic picture.

Back by Popular Demand

(And a bit of friendly nagging,) we’re going to recommit to the blog.

We’ve settled into life up here, and things are less exotic and exciting then they were when we first arrived. We’ve realized though, that the blog is less about life in the North, and more about keeping those in the South up-to-date on *our* life in the North.

Next week marks our one year anniversary of being in the North. Having experienced a whole year, we’ve definitely learned a couple of things.

1. Winter just may be better than summer for being outdoors. We are finding that the cold and snow was much easier to deal with than the huge swarms of huge mosquitoes. And apparently we have black fly season still to look forward to.

2. The weather in the summer can be just as wild as the weather in the winter. Our first visitor to the north tied our longest delay due to weather. We were stuck in Winnipeg for four days due to a blizzard in December. Mom was stuck here in Baker for four days due to a massive fog system in July.

3. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the barge. As we experienced waiting for the last barge to come in last year, the first barge of the season is already late too. At least at this time of the year we don’t have to worry about things freezing.

We miss our friends and family in the South, and the convenience and independence of life down there. But we’ve made new friends up here (Poker Night is becoming a weekly tradition), and we’re starting to look forward to what life will be like for us when we do return to the south in a couple years.