Yes, I Can ...

New Look, Sugar, Cleaning and Taxes ... It Must Be Spring

Yesterday I emerged from the shower, took a good look at my hair, and decided to lop off a bunch.  It has taken me nearly seventy years to get up the courage to cut my own hair.  I wonder why it took so long to realize that hair grows back in.  Maybe it has something to do with painting funky furniture and realizing that you can always sand a mistake back and do it again.  Or maybe it is realizing that you never know what you can do until you try it.  Or maybe I'm just cheap.  Anyway I no longer look like an elderly native man ... more like Topsy.

This is Erin's  first attempt to make maple syrup too.  She and Rodger are tapping over thirty trees and producing wonderful maple syrup.  Saturday we feasted on pancakes, homemade sausage patties made with lean local organic beef, salads, champagne and orange juice.  I donated the smoked duck and dim sum I had purchased at T&T the day before, but my experiment with Asian groceries turned out to have been a mistake. 

Before I left home, I tried steaming the first two dim sum dumplings, expecting to discover that they would have little treasures of tasty minced pork hidden inside.  No. Steaming produced a gelatinous mess with nothing at the heart of the mushy globs and strands.  I decided to try baking the remaining four at 350 for 30 minutes.  This produced buns but not nice fluffy ones.  More like little golden rocks.

The duck was fatty and tasted a little like the unpleasant smell I associate with Asian grocery stores.  Now I know how the odour is produced ... by smoking.   I have a feeling that you either develop a taste for Chinese smoked duck or you hate it forever.  I fear I belong to the latter category, but at least now I know that the unpleasant smell has nothing to do with dirt or a nasty ingredient ... just with a smoking process that uses tea and rice.  I prefer my duck crisp and orange flavoured, my tea piping hot, nicely steeped, and in a cup, and my rice in a bowl or on a plate.

The place overflowed with dogs ... Erin's two, Rodger's one, a strange little wiry creature that reminded me of a small wart hog, and a Golden Doodle named Marshall.  (There seemed to be more but I didn't get to know all of them because most stayed outside.)  When Kenya first saw Marshall she must have thought that it was Remi with a brushcut, and she chased him around the kitchen with her nose up his bum.  Once she satisfied herself that this was a different Doodle, she fell in love, and spent the rest of  her time with him. 

Today I think I  will begin my spring cleaning with my bedroom.  Right now it looks like a repository for furniture I wanted to work on this winter.  I want to restore its tranquility.  (I haven't decided yet where I will store the chairs.)   The second thing I am going to do is get the closet set up properly.  I am tired of rods that collapse under the weight of clothing every few days.  I will install large hooks on one side and a pair of rods on the other.  I also have some patching and touch-up painting to do because of the first winter's problem with the roof.

Or maybe I will clear the dining room table and tackle the taxes.  I have a feeling that will be a week-long exercise in frustration and angst.

Or maybe I will treat the two projects as on-going tasks that provide relief from one another.

The more I think about it the more I wish I could just start the funky high chair!  The responsible side of me insists, though, that has to be my treat for getting the onerous jobs done first.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and have a good week.