MORE GINGER

     There is more to say on my ginger carrot soup. 

     I mentioned my fiasco on face book and there were many comments. 

      Then there were comments on blogger. As always the comments were tactful and made sense. 

     I took the recipe from a site called all recipe. I've taken recipes from that site before and found their recipes work well. Many of you had a bit of experience working with ginger. Your first thoughts were that is a lot of ginger. I'm sure it was far too much ginger. There were also suggestions about the use of other forms of ginger. I wondered about that one as I was grating ginger. 

    So your comments were much appreciated. 

    There was also an anonymous comment.  I usually delete anonymous comments as I've been burned before. I knew who this commenter was. It was Uncle Brent. Uncle Brent felt very sorry for me so he baked a batch of ginger snaps. Were they ever good! It made me feel better. I forget if he used his Grandma's recipe or his Mom's. So I have a local that I can call on for help .

    Now since I've been thinking about ginger the expression "full of ginger " keeps popping in my head so I had to look it up. I found that there were at least 69 synonyms for full of ginger. I'm not sure what this has to do with my soup . I guess I got side tracked . Maybe that's what happened with my soup.

NEVER EVER AGAIN

       Now I consider myself to be a bit of a gardener. At least I can grow things. I like gardening and I enjoy the fresh produce out of the soil. 

      Now I always seem to have extra carrots. I don't freeze carrots as they seem soggy. I can't seem to store them either. So by about December my carrots are no longer edible.

      So I try and make up carrot soup and freeze it. Did I tell you that I was a bit of  soup maker. At least I think I can make soup!

     So I made three batches of curried carrot soup. Then I thought I'd try something different. Ginger carrot soup sounds good!

     So I bought some ginger. I noticed that the recipe I had only made 4 servings so I doubled it. I think they said the prep time was 45 minutes. (Liars!) My plan was to prepare the ingredients that go in the soup first. Hey 1/2 cup of grated ginger. I had never grated ginger before! One hour and fifteen minutes later, with much cussing and scraped knuckles I had half a cup of grated ginger. At this time I told the Micro Manager that my soup wouldn't be ready for lunch.

      So then came the 8 cups of carrots.

     So I get everything going and cooking. I did a taste test. It was very hot!

    So when things were cooked I pureed for half an hour. 

    So after this marathon to make 8 servings of soup, I said never again. There will be no more ginger soup around this place.

    I will go back to Mr Google and look for some other carrot soup recipes. 

   

SO MANY QUESTIONS

           which part of your life surprises you the most, and why ?

          I suppose what surprised me most is that I actually took the plunge and went north. I thought I was just on a fun adventure but it turned out to have some very substantial influences on the remainder of my life.  I suppose part of the change involved maturing. I was 23 when I went north. 

        Now, at that time   in my life I had another option. If I hadn't gone north, there was a good chance that I would have blundered back to the farm. That would have been a poor choice.

• if you could change one thing about your life, what would it be, and why would you want to change it

           Well, come on. You want to limit me to one thing? I don't think so.  

        I don't think there's really anything that I would like to change. You always look at what might have been. You say well, I was interested in forest or wildlife work but that was unrealistic. 

        I would really like to have travelled much more after I retired. We did okay for a couple of years after retirement but then that was it.  Travelling opens up the whole world. The things you learn while travelling fit in with your life experiences and make them more meaningful.

       I would like to have stayed with education after retirement and supervised student teachers. I had the opportunity but I wanted to get away from education and be with other people. That was the right decision. 

• when was the happiest time in your life, and what made it so great?

      My happiest time is when I had little kids. Little kids are extremely unpredictable and love you with all your faults. Kids made Christmas and trips  happy events. Remember the trip to Disneyland? Remember good times at the lake. Those times wouldn't have been nearly as happy if kids weren't involved. There are many family stories that wouldn't be there without kids. And yes, I've said it before , I was sad to see you guys leave!

• when was the saddest or worst time in your life, and what made it so?

              The saddest time in my life is when I left home and went to teachers' college, I was intensely homesick. I was not ready in any sense to leave home. I had not been given an opportunity to be independent and make my own decisions. I wanted to go back home every minute of the day. I could not study and didn't know the ropes on how to study.. I had gone to a one teacher high school with less than 25 kids. In teachers' College there were 400 students in a very large building. I found it difficult to get to know people  I persevered and kept at it and gradually   things got better. 

      So "endeth" the questions on my life. I'm sure there are more. The questions made me reflect on various events in my life. Many memories were brought back. I was surprised by the comments from readers and how interested you were with the interaction between father and daughter. 

MORE MURALS

        As I said when I showed you murals from a previous post, there are more. I finally got out to find the murals and take some photos. They are not as good as the first murals I showed. I also was out on a very bright day so some of the photos are not that good but you're going to see them anyway. 

           Well, I guess you have the choice of looking at them or not!

    As usual, a few cars are in the way and a cyclist photo bombed me in one photo. The one I like is the owl on the building. They used the shape of the building but otherwise it's a little rough. 

CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE

        For the next ten days most world leaders will put in an appearance at the climate change conference in Glasgow. Glasgow business men will be gleefully wringing their hands as about 10000 people will be attending the conference. 

       However , the rest of the world should be wringing their hands in grief as this conference will probably be like all the other climate conferences. Country after country will tell the world how much they will do  toward control of climate change. The heads of state will go home and do little or nothing of what they promised. 

       Our government , Canada, has done very little to bring about any changes. Our provincial governments scrap with each other and the federal government. How will they ever come up with some practical ways of dealing with climate change? We do have a carbon tax that will be increasing. I'm not sure that a carbon tax will do much in controlling emissions. 

     We do have the Athabasca tar sands which is a heavy producer of carbon. Oil companies have great PR staff and make us think that they are doing much that will begin bringing down carbon. 

     To me it's obvious. Climate change has already gone too far. A very major change in our behavior has to take place right now . Climate change is in gear and it won't stop on a dime. Change will keep taking place long after carbon has been limited .

    I've spent much of my time outdoors. I love the outdoors and all the flora and fauna out there. I can notice changes. Well you don't have to be outside to recognize changes. We all know when it's too hot! We know when it's too wet! We know when it's too cold! By "too" I mean much more than normal. 

     What we're talking about are human activities that  produce carbon. All of us have to make major changes. In Alberta, where I live , there are many huge pick up trucks being driven around for fun. That and many other unnecessary activities have to stop. 

     I believe that man made climate change started long before we knew . Only recently have we had the technology to test and measure changes. 

     I'm not hopeful for results from this conference. Climate change has already gone too far. 

SO MANY QUESTIONS

 

• what do you most want to be remembered for?

      That's a very hard question! There are many things I would like to be remembered for. It depends on what time of day it is.  Now I have to stand back and try and be fair and somewhat accurate. Anybody with a big ego could really brag about themselves. 

       Just when I think of one thing I think of something else. 

       Well, I would like to be remembered for being a down to earth person. Rarely have I been a show off. I'm not a flashy person. There are things that need to be done and you just have to do them. I don't look for an award although when complements come I appreciate them and I certainly work harder if there are complements. 

       So I would like to be remembered for doing something in this world that had to be done. 

• what are 3 words you'd use to describe yourself?

       I'm going to get this question and the last one mixed together a bit. 

        Well, the first word I would use would be kindness. As a young person I was definitely not kind. Growing up on a farm was definitely not a place to see examples of kindness. In our district there were no girls. So when a group of young males hang out they are not apt to be very kind. We were rough.

       My kindness developed over many years.  My mother was very kind so I think that was an influence. I felt kindness from her. 

       Over the years I had many little kids who were completely lost and needed one bit of kindness from some where. I saw how it helped these kids. Along the way kindness became a bigger part of me. 

       I am mellow, easygoing and laidback. I'm going to count these three as one. I can sit back and watch things develop. Usually if you're patient ( oh that's so me Patient) and sit back you will see things happen. I find that I get along well with people .

       I met an elderly friend sitting on the bank of Piper Creek one day. She was birding and said if I sit here all the birds will fly by me. I've never forgotten Dorothy's wisdom. 

      Can I stick in a  sixth (okay seventh) characteristic? I'm quiet. I'm a listener. I get more out of being a listener than other people get from being nosy and aggressive. If you ask people directly for some information that information may be limited as they become alarmed and won't give all information. Sooner or later people will tell you what you want to hear. People will accidentally tell you things. If I'm quiet I'm less likely to say the wrong stuff. 

     I am an introvert. I like to be by myself. Some of my best days were when I was out at the lake on my own and didn't see people for days. On the farm sitting on the tractor all day was just fine. 

     I would think that none of these terms are a surprise to you. You have a very sharp sense of a person's characteristics. 

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BIRTHDAY SOUP!

      Yesterday was my birthday. Birthdays are special. We get older! But we also celebrate and there are traditions for marking the passing of another year.

      Well, yesterday I just happened to be making soup. Since I haven't figured out how to store carrots, I try to use them up by making carrot soup. So the first day of making carrot soup happened to be my birthday. I'm okay with carrot soup for my birthday.

    Later on I had my candle with a Tim Horton's donut. 

     So some people like cake and ice cream and some people just like soup. I wonder what I'll have next year.