Sun and Snow and Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

We've been having some gorgeous spring like weather here the last week or so. We remarked on the improvement from -60 to -40 and how gloriously warm -40 feels! Last week we were in the -20's and again couldn't believe the difference. Who needs a parka and mits at -20?? This week we're expecting temperatures in the -15 to -10 range... so break out the shorts and flip flops! Because of the awesome sun, we get some neat effects of the reflection off the ice. We delayed lunch one day to head out and see if we could get a decent picture. A friend of ours was in from Iqaluit this week on business. After hearing about the cakes I've been making lately, he demanded one of his own. Or something with chocolate chips.... Sounded like a challenge to me! So I created a Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake with Mocha Icing. Way too sweet for my liking, but our friends seemed to enjoy it, and it went pretty good with a couple of drinks and good conversation with our friends.

A Touch of Gourmet

While doing fun birthday cakes for kids are always fun, somehow, I thought my friend deserved something more.... I had picked up some vanilla beans when down south, with this recipe specifically in mind. Vanilla Bean Cheesecake... can't imagine anything yummier sounding. The recipe takes 4 packages of cream cheese (about $25 in cream cheese alone!) but is worth every penny!!!


While preparing our friend's birthday feast, I had to whip together a Dora cake, requested by friends of friends. Word is getting around! This is my first multi-lingual cake; the syllabics mean 'little one'.

And the last one... sorry Dad, don't disown me... was a request for a neighbour's birthday. And I have to give all the credit to 'he' who came up with the design. I think this is my favourite cake design so far... although people are already trying to come up an idea to top it. This week? Grave digger, the monster truck. I'll let you know how it goes!

I could've been a wolf's breakfast!

Lemme set the scene:

After dropping the husband off at his office, I'm marching up the hill to the office. It's almost balmy outside, very little wind and a warm -29 (Hey! It's March and we've had two months of -40 and lower... we'll take what we can get!).

A couple of co-workers fly past me on their machine.... Sucks that they get to zoom up the hill and I'm stuck trudging through the snowdrifts... but it's a balmy -29, so I can't complain. They shout out to me 'tuktu" (which means caribou) and point over on the tundra. I'm thinking to myself, looks more wolfish to me, but I'm not wearing my glasses, so I'm not going to argue.

The "caribou" starts to wander about a bit, and my coworker yells "Oh my god, it's got a tail.... it's a WOLF!!" The smokers start to edge their way towards the front door. The wolf is hanging out about 200 feet off the road.

Now I know I'm in trouble. Not from the wolf - he isn't being threatening at all, but from my husband. It's a sore point that he hasn't even seen a caribou yet, while I nearly hit one with a truck, and now a wolf...? This isn't going to go over well.

Even though we find it easy to manage without a cell on a daily basis, luckily my co-workers are more technologically civilized, and let me borrow their cell. Maybe I can get 'he' up here to see the wolf before it takes off? But no, the direct line to his office isn't working.

More co-workers are arriving, wondering what we're all looking at. The wolf's still sitting out on the tundra, wondering what we're all looking at.

Since the wolf is cooperating and hasn't run off, maybe I have time to run inside and call from my office? No, my brave Annie Oakley wannabe co-worker has hopped back on her machine. She's planning on herding the wolf away from town - and if she gets the chance, she'll run it down. We've managed to call the bylaw officer (who has carte blance to shoot any threatening wildlife or stray dogs on sight) and the wildlife officer. Quite the convoy of vehicles are heading down the road. It's time to run inside, break the news to 'he', and get a good vantage point to watch the action.

I was right. I'm in trouble. 'He' doesn't even want to hear the story; it isn't fair. I'm going to have to figure out how to make this up to him....

The offices over on the tundra side of the office belong to the HR department. Hopefully they'll be as excited to see a wolf as I am, because I'm barging right in! At first, I'm pretty sure they think I've lost it, but catch the excitement as we watch Annie Oakley run that wolf right out of town!

I heard later in the day that either a dog or an entire sled dog team, depending on who was telling the story, fell victim to the wolf. The dog teams are often kept out of town, apparently in an effort to keep them as working dogs instead of pets. Unfortunately, they'd have no way to get away from predators. The locals mentioned that the caribou are quite far from town (about a two hour snowmobile ride up the Thelon) whereas last year, a heard spent a good part of the winter between town and Meadowbank. The 'local' wolves are hungry; they're brave enough to come to town even on a nice day.

So I'm lucky enough to have seen a wolf in the wild, and lucky enough that he wasn't hungry enough to come after me. But I'm unlucky that I didn't have a camera, and that now my husband is mad. Oh well, it was definitely the most exciting commute I've had ever!

Big Shopping Day

We were pretty sad to learn this week that one of our good friends, fellow poker junkie, and co-worker received a good job offer and has decided to return south to civilization.

Sad that is until we realized the uber shopping potential! In Baker, we have very few opportunities to shop (in person, that is. I think we're, by necessity, all professional online shoppers.) and anyone who knows our friend, knows he has fantabulous taste and some of the neatest stuff.

So I stocked up on baking supplies, chai tea (wooohoooo!), and some servingwares. My favouritest item though is my milk frother... combined with the chai tea, I see plenty of chai lattes in my future!

We also purchased his chest freezer in an effort to stock up on foodmail essentials before foodmail goes the way of the dodo bird and we're forced to pay $15 for a 4L jug of milk! April 1st is the expiry date on the foodmail program. I know several people who relied on the foodmail program to be able to afford wholesome food, so hopefully some of the grass roots movements are sucessful in resurrecting some sort of the program. If not, Baker Lake is expecting the long-awaited new Co-Op store to open sometime this spring, and with any luck, it'll provide some tough competition to the Northern Stores and drive the prices down to a more reasonable level.

A Typical Day in the Life

7:00 AM : Beep Beep Beep Beep...Wife's cellphone doesn't actually function as a communication device anymore, but it does make a reliable alarm clock. Regular plugged-in clocks lose around a minute of time every couple days, in our house anyway.

Roll off bed, stumble around blindly searching for yesterday's dirty clothes. Cats heard alarm and are now yowling noisily on other side of door. Socks? Check. Pants? Check. Yowl, yowl yowl...Throw heavy things at door. Wear clothes. Leave room and check house temperature...says its 21C, feels like 18. Bleh. Change to 22. For wife.

Feed cats.

7:05 AM : Call dogs. We're borrowing an extra dog for a few weeks, if you don't know. Open front door. Eight inches of snow on porch this morning, and its still snowing and a bit blustery. Bleh. Snow is too frozen and heavy to sweep with a broom today. Instruct dogs that they need to do their business with calmness, dignity and restraint while I try to clean out some of the snow; quietly pray they don't cause havoc whilst unattended.

7:06 AM : Yell at dogs for causing havoc.

7:15 AM : Door frame is more or less cleared up. Stairway was a deathtrap and water services were blocked...cleaned that up a tiny bit, but I'm horribly lazy and still coughing from a cold. Also bored. Go inside. Give treats to dogs for being bad. Make sure wife awake. Start breakfast and tea.

7:20 AM : Eating oatmeal this morning, and watching news. I watch CBC in the mornings. Today its stuff about Libya mostly, and New Zealand. Still no frontpage news about Baker Lake; not entirely shocked. Relax watching TV for a while, drinking decaf tea.

7:45 AM : Now more or less awake. Shower. Take it easy on the water since water delivery can sometimes be sketchy during snowstorms/blizzards. Don't shave since its not a Monday and I'm usually too lazy to shave more than once a week.

7:55 AM : Dry up and wear clothes. Wife has kindly picked out stuff that doesn't horribly clash for me this morning (since when do brown and blue clash? They both even start with the same letter...) and left it on the bed. Awwww.

8:15 AM : Gear up to go outside. Its a mild snowstorm outside still (blizzard watches for the last couple of days but no real blizzard materialized).

8:20 AM : Work starts in 10 minutes. It takes me well under a minute to walk to work, and the wife needs around 5-8 minutes to walk up the hill, depending on weather and the route she takes. We have a vehicle today, parked at my office two doors down, and she'll be using that.

Outer door from house doesn't close properly due to snow and ice accumulation. Sigh. We'll probably chip out the ice at lunch.

8:22 AM : Vehicle miraculously unburied by snow. Door to IT office on the other hand half-blocked but I'm able to climb in fairly easily. Watch from safety of doorway while wife stands in snowstorm and clears ice from windshield wipers. Get bored; go inside.

8:25 AM : Call Arctic Fuel (local company) for snow removal at IT office and our house since our utilities are still mostly blocked.

8:26 AM : Working away. I'm all alone in my "office" which is actually a house we've converted to that use since there's not enough room up at the main office.

9:30 AM : Look out window; looks like they're already clearing out some snow nearby. Huzzah!

10:30 AM : I think I can hear them shovelling out the doorway. Good. The last two times I climbed out over the snow I managed to crack my head on the door frame. Not today! *Fingers crossed*

12:02 PM : Good work morning; its quiet and lonely here sometimes but fewer distractions can be nice. I wait a couple minutes to give wife a few minutes to walk home, hoping to intercept her on the way. Make sure my worklog is up to date and saved. Gear up to go outside.

Yay, doorway is definitely cleared out. No headaches for me.

12:03 PM : Forgot wife had a vehicle today; she has already gotten home and released the hounds. Dog A sees me, sits nicely so I'll approach. Dog B charges me.

12:04 PM : Wife is clearing out some remaining snow. Utilities were cleared out while we were at work, but the stairway is still near suicide. I get the ice chipper and help.

12:08 PM : Bored of clearing snow. Dogs are biting each other and finding and eating rabbit poo. Dog B ran to neighbour's house to bark at the poor guy trying to shovel out his own snow. Bleh.

Go inside.

12:09 PM : Wife remembered to chisel ice out of doorframe on the way in. Door manages to latch again. For now.

12:10 PM : Give dogs treats for being bad. Make lunch. Mmm. Breakfast for lunch usually. One fried egg and some toast. Mmmm. Watch more news, natter with wife about finances, work drama, dinner plans.

12:15 PM : Wife is doing bills and transfering money to the savings accounts. Yay! Saving money = good. I continue to watch TV. More news, although I can't get CBC at the moment. Probably need to tweak the alignment of the dish again.

Brief interruption to go clean cat litter box before Dog B tries to eat it again.

12:50 PM : Gear up and go outside again. Wife left car running most of lunch. This is actually pretty normal up here. I try not to think about the waste.

12:55 PM : Work work work. Trying to release an interesting project, but need a bit more testing and some sign-offs. Work on upcoming priority projects while I wait for sign-offs.

4:00 PM : 4 already? The days seem to be like normal length to me now, so its still bright and sunny outside. No more tip-offs about the end of day coming just because its dark outside.
Decide to write a blog today. Maybe an amusing timeline of a typical day's events? Jot down some notes. Google the term self-referential allusion. Chuckle at my own wit. Get back to work.

4:40 PM : Wife calls to confirm dinner plans: Guesthouse burgers! Guesthouse is a sort of restaurant. Sortof. Decent burgers. If you know Mr. Burger in the 'Shwa, kinda like those, but without the thick-cut fries. We're getting takeout so we don't leave the dogs home too long.
Hungry now.

5:00 PM : Gear up to go outside. Not waiting an extra 2 minutes this time since wife has vehicle and I actually remember it. Will try to release hounds before she has to.

5:02 PM : Home at last. Wife not here yet. What a commute! The traffic today was brutal, blah blah blah. Chuckle at my own wit.

Let dogs out. Briefly consider instructing them to conduct themselves with calmness, dignity, etc, but they've already left. Sigh and follow dogs.

5:05 PM : Dogs are chasing each other around in the back field. Occassionally they'll stop and eat rabbit poop (which to be fair looks almost identical to dog kibble. Can't comment on the taste).

5:10 PM : Bored of watching dogs run around and eat rabbit stuff. Go inside. Hungry.

5:11 PM : Give the dogs treats for being bad. Look for something to have for dinner. Yowl yowl yowl. Oh right, forgot to feed the cats at lunch. I need to feed them smaller meals now, three or four times a day instead of just two, while I keep an eye on them, because each have their own kind of food and they each prefer the other's. Yowl yowl yowl. What do you think I'm doing? I have both of your bowls on the table AND my hand in the food bag.

5:12 PM : Remember that wife is picking up dinner. Decide to find out if we get tonight's Leafs game. Usually don't. Usually just as well.

5:13 PM : Leafs game blacked out. Bleh. Why'd we move here again? Cats switched bowls when I wasn't looking. Mutter. Confiscate catfood.

5:15 PM : Wife is home with food. Huzzah! Smells like happiness.

5:25 PM : Ate too fast. Watch some TV. Mostly Poker on the sports channels. Dunno how we got into this, but now it seems terribly interesting. I can't believe he folded pocket kings!

5:50 PM : Back in Toronto, this is about the time I'd usually leave work.

6:00 PM : Wife remembers we need the extension cord to plug in the vehicle. Its back at my office, so we'll need to go all the way back there and get it. Oh no!

6:10 PM : We're back from my office. Man, what a commute, etc etc. Vehicle is plugged in and should now hopefully start gracefully in the morning.

Settle into a typical night of favourite TV shows, favourite computer games, playing with the animals.

7:00 PM : Wife calls neice on her birthday. Happy birthday, Leigha! After a moderately long interchange it becomes apparent that she has a Dora on her cake.

7:50 PM : Back in Toronto, this is about the time we'd usually get home from work. Instead, I'm slaughtering the French and Austrians in Napoleon: Total War. Take that, frenchies.

9:00 PM : We're in the middle of an epic 24 marathon, so we decide to watch another episode tonight. Its season four. I bet this is the episode where Jack Bauer flaunts the rules and is completely right about his gut instincts.

10:15 PM : Let dogs out into back field. Instruct them to cause havoc; nobody's out here anyway. Eventually take them back inside.

10:30 PM : Bedtime. Read for a while, then zzzzzzz.

Holy Zero Visibility Batman!

You know its bad when you choose a route home so you can see the buildings as you are walking.

And you know it's *really* bad, when you have to follow the hydro poles.

But, the new measure for *really* *really* bad is when you are following the hydro lines to find your way home, and you loose them once or twice!!

Yikes! I had a few panic moments, hoping I wasn't wandering off into the wild white tundra!

Time to hibernate with the dogs until this blizzard passes, supposedly tomorrow. Until then, Season 3 of 24, here we come!!

No Vacancies...

... at the hotel for dogs. For the last week we've had two extra varmints at our place. Knowing how difficult it can be to find someone who wants to watch your pooch when you fly out, we always try to accommodate our friends.


So Harley's taken up residence on Squire's bed (not that she uses it that often, since she prefers to sleep at the foot of our bed.) If he isn't to be found on the bed, you'll find him lounging in the 'house' (aka crate). Harley's stay is short-term, as he heads home tonite.

Chester, on the other hand, is a bit of a going concern. He's just over a year old, and is a furry bundle of energy. He would like it if the cats were more inclined to play with him and hasn't gotten the clue from all the hissing and swipes of claws across the nose that he just isn't welcome as far as they're concerned. While he's content being relegated to the house (especially while unsupervised) he prefers to cuddle with us, on the couch or our bed or even on our pillow. Chester is staying a bit longer, almost til the end of the month, as his dad heads to Mexico for some sun and sand.


With all the chaos inside, Page has focused her attentions outside. One lunch hour was spent eyeing up 'dinner' sitting on the hydro lines outside the window. Little does she know that the ravens up here probably weigh at least twice what she does; I've seen them routinely take caribou meat from the dogs that live outside up here.

Squire is handling all the upheaval really well. It helps that Harley is so laid-back and chill and she really only has to deal with Chester wanting to play and cuddle with her. It's been fun to watch all the animal antics, but it'll be nice when things quiet down and we get back to our normal routine.