Rock Creek apples

There is nothing better then eating a juicy apple while the world is blanketed in fog.

Sad day

"Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things."




Arthur Schopenhauer,  Parerga and Paralipomena

Fun stuff

Our neighbour's holiday light display? No, apparently a backhoe working on the water line hit a gas pipe so we had a gas leak on our cul-de-sac. The firefighters were on hand in case we had to evacuate. The Fortis trucks lined our small street, some couldn't even make it up the hill since it had been snowing all day and the plows were not allowed through because of the gas leak. The gas problem has been fixed and now we are waiting for our water pressure to come back to normal.

Mini mini

I am a big fan of The Pioneer Woman (so is my Mom) so when her new book came out,  The Pioneer Woman Cooks A year of Holidays by Ree Drummond, I knew I had to try some of the recipes. I have been making fruit tarts for years, this is an old recipe from Mr. Cowboy's side of the family. So I used the Caramel Apples recipe for the filling from Ms. Drummond's book.

The tarts are made with lots of butter, eggs, and , milk but only two tablespoons of brown sugar. Buttery and flaky but not sweet. Which is a good thing because  the filling is a wonderful mixture of butter, brown sugar, cream and lots of cinnamon. Oh, and apples of  course.

These are a perfect two-bite mini mini apple pie.

Oh, Christmas tree

We recycled some old dowel and bits of wood to make a Scandinavian-inspired dowel tree. It was very quick to put together and once the holidays are over, as no glue, nails, or screws were used, this tree comes apart quite nicely for easy storage.

Sleep-over

Wish all our overnight guests were as little trouble as this guy was!

Feeding the birds

"Yes, in terms of biodiversity, we can think of saving all of the other species, but what we are really doing when we care for another creature, we are saving ourselves," Annan says.

From  Last Stand: Ted Turner's quest to save a troubled planet by Todd Wilkinson.

Work

The holly comes all the way from the coast giving our workspace a holiday feel.

For the bake sale I pulled out all my old recipes that I have been making for years. I packaged up Pecan Clusters, Snickerdoodles, Rolo Cookies, and Chocolate Chip Logs.

Had quite a few projects that I made last year so was glad to see that they all went in the Auction.