Saturday, October 31, 2020

  I thought I should compose a quick post just to prove I am still here. Tonight is Hallowe'en. After a show of hands from my class (more or less eight year-olds), I found out many are going to be trick or treating, although some with a limited number of houses to visit (grandparents, cousins, etc.) and a small amount will be having fun at home, parents hiding treats around the house (like a Hallowe'en Easter egg hunt) and watching movies. 

Daughter and I prepared little ziplock bags of treats and will set them out separately, so the few children who do come to our house can just snag a bag without rummaging through a bowl of treats. Our numbers in our region are very, very low and nobody is hospitalized, nor has anyone died, so we are fortunate. 

School, my career, my thirty-plus years of experience, continues to be a different world. Retiring at this time is going to be bitter sweet for so many reasons and incredibly anti-climactic. 

The weather was brisk today, to say the least. The chicken water outside was frozen this morning. I did my usual grocery shopping and have spent the rest of the day working on progress reports which are a set of report cards that go out in November. 

Life goes on and I am well, as is the rest of my immediate and extended family. And everyone else I know, and everyone I work with, and all the children at my school. 

I hope you are all contented and well. I'm still reading your blogs, but as I am plodding along the same way day after day, I don't feel the desire to post about it very often. Happy Hallowe'en, all!

A Week Gone by in October

 I cannot believe it is October 7th. There are so many layers to this. I cannot believe that it will be Thanksgiving weekend next weekend and we are still following distancing rules and not having a big gathering. I cannot believe that it feels like I just finished setting up my classroom and figuring out how to teach in this new normal at school and we are now a full month in. It is the juxtaposition of being firmly stuck in rules and protocol, while life keeps whipping by surprisingly quickly. 

It was so windy today. The leaves were swirling. This was the sky as I drove home from work.

I thought the lines in the sky were amazing.

I have just been sitting here, staring at the computer screen for several minutes. I do not have anything remotely interesting to say. I reheated some pasta for supper tonight. We watched "Somebody Feed Phil" tonight where he goes to Thailand. I finished marking a pile of work after school which made me happy. The chickens continue to molt and look very unattractive. I will be making a turkey for just the four of us this weekend, and a pumpkin pie, and maybe an apple pie. I have used so much hand sanitizer at work, I feel that it must be oozing out of my pores. 

Now I'm going to go read your blogs and see how exciting your lives are. 

October 1, 2020

 I cannot believe it is October. I have come through my first month back at teaching. It is only now that I feel like my students are comfortable with and know the routine. This now feels like the new normal. Although, when I was driving home out of the small town in which I teach at the end of the day and I saw a school bus with the driver wearing a mask, it still made me shake my head a bit. The new normal.

Apart from how my professional world has been turned on its head, everything else is pretty good. I am very rural, our numbers are extremely low, and life is continuing on without much of a hitch. There is much talk of the second wave. In my own opinion I think a total shut down cannot happen again. It must be specific to certain areas, with a focus on the most vulnerable in our society. My opinion. 

In other news, our fall colours are breathtaking. We have now had some rainy days with a couple more to come and that usually takes away many of the leaves, but they are beautiful at the moment. There is such an exquisite feel to the air. I felt it when I went out tonight after supper to close up the chickens at about 7:15 p.m. It was cool, the grass was damp, there were leaves on the ground, and the light was rapidly fading. The chickens were already "in bed", I just had to close their little door. They know. The seasons have changed. They are also molting and from nine hens we get a massive two eggs a day. It comes with the season.

You may be thinking, dear lord, please don't let her write about tomatoes again, but here it goes. 

I gathered these from the very soggy garden today when I got home from work.

These were already in the house. I don't have a picture, but just assume there are more on the windowsill. 

This is what I made and used up maybe a whole eight tomatoes. This isn't the finished product, I browned some ground beef and added that, and two small cans of tomato paste to thicken it a bit. I served it up with penne and some shredded parmesan cheese. It was simple and tasty.

For someone who reaped maybe two tomatoes last year and not much more the year before, this glut is welcome and makes me happy beyond words. Husband is doing his part by eating a toasted tomato sandwich every day. Last night I made a tomato pie. I should have taken a picture. It was lovely and although a bit sloppy, it tasted delicious. I had never heard of tomato pie before I read Mrs. Moon's blog. Now I suspect I will make it every year, at about this time, when I'm looking for ways to use up these last tomatoes.

Enough of food. Well, actually maybe not. I discovered a series on Netflix called Somebody Feed Phil. Many of you probably know it. I had always seen it listed, but ignored it. I have now watched several episodes, often with my daughter and husband. I am really enjoying it. Phil travels around the world meeting chefs and local people and his enthusiasm toward whatever he is eating just puts a smile on my face. I recommend it!