Common Kibitzing

During an early break I started a batch of bread dough, with plenty of chunks of garlic in it, and let it rise as I worked, baking it in a bunch of small flat loaves with little pockets of soft roasted garlic, and plenty of garlic brushed over the outside of the loaves before, during, and after baking. Yum!

 

After work I had the energy to steam a bunch of vegetables I bought yesterday, and make a yummy sauce for them made from peanut butter, boiled garlic, melted butter, soysauce, chili, ginger, etc.

 

I got my cooking mess cleaned up before Keldor got home. He'd bern given som venison from one of hos colleagues who had hunted it a couple of days ago, so he stopped on the way home to pick up some chanterelle, and at the store to buy some cream and rutabaga. He put most of the meat into smaller bags in the freezer, then cooked up a stew with the other ingredients he brought home, plus som canned tomato and beans.

 

So we are clearly both recovered from the Norway trip, and once again doing things like cooking.

 

 

For first time in several days, the cats left a tiny bit in the bowl, so I could water it with a mix of the last of the sauce in the bag plus warm water, so the food wouldn't dry out. The watering the left overs is our normal procedure, and, often, they go back later and finish the food. Sometimes they just drink the water, and, if I notice, I water it again. Usually the food either dissappears before the next morning, or it dries out and will never be eaten. On the days it dissappears early, if they ask for more after work they usually get a second bowl, which gets the same watering treatment, and which often dissappears before breakfast time (if it didn't dry out). Sometimes the second breakfast (as we call the occasional serving of soft food after work) doesn't completely dissappear before breakfast the next morning. On those mornings, they won't get a second breakfast after work, though they do get snacks. (So the extra meals get tied to days where one or both of them were hungry enough to eat everything the day before, though if it wasn't eaten because it dried out, we assume they were hungry enough and still get second breakfast, as drying out is on us). 

Since getting home from Lofoten they have been cleaning their plates at first serving, even when they ask for second breakfast (which is most, if not all, of this week). Today is the first day we are back ro the previous "normal" Of leave a little. I guess they have now had enough second breakfast days in a row to feel like they are well enough feed to leave something again? 

...and mid afternoon Skaði came back and ate up what was left, and then they both asked for second breakfast an hour or so later, which they devoured directly. We may have become a twice a day wet food for the cats family. 

Today was otherwise a productive, but easily distracted day. We unloaded the lumber he'd brought hone yesterday, and started cleaning the garage, so we can bring it in.

This lead to the first distraction. His running treadmill was moved to the garage months ago, with the plan to build an under base for it to compensate for the slope of the garage floor.

Today we decided to move it to the downstairs guest room, where the floor doesn't slope. So we rearranged the furniture in that room, stood the treadmill on end (it is designed to do that, and hung the rowing machine on the wall). We moved the desk dresser full of fishing gear to in front of the window, where, if anyone wants to open it and use umit as a desk, there will be better light, and the big dresser on the wall holding shut the door to the laundry room.

As we finished with the guest room and returned to the garage we found distraction number two. The table he built to take to events was also in garage, and should be in the attic now that camping season is over and we will be sleeping indoors at events.

Carrying it up reminded us that he'd cut that plexiglass to fix the broken attic window. The one that broke some time before we bought the house, and which someone had shoved a mastress in it to keep the snow out. Keldor had cut some plate metal the right size to screw over the window frame the first week or so after we got the keys, and for a little more than 3.5  years that end of the attic has been dark. I mean, yah, we had run an extension cord and a lamp back there, but it didn't help as much as one might like.

So today we cleaned and organised that end of the attic, took down the window frame, took off the metal, and screwed the plexiglass in place and put the window back. My, it lets in a Lot of light!

By then I was getting really hungry, so I took a "break" and made a quick pot of soup, with homemade noodles. Yum! Amd curled up with a book. Then Keldor fell asleep on the couch, and I decided to bake some scones. Because I am nice I woke him when they came out of the oven.

I had thought to return to working, but he voted for watching Snowwhite, so I made progress nålbindning his socks instead.  Now I feel tired, so time for yoga and bed.

 

Since we had a working meeting after lunch today we decided that I would head home with him directly after the meeting, pick berries, and he'd drop me at the bus station after.

 

This is exactly what we did. They have only one red currant bush, but it is very prolific! I was there 45 minutes, and didn't quite empty the bush! They also have one black currant bush, that they will keep the berries of, and a white currant bush, which he gave me (he picked the white, while I picked the red).

 

Then I caught the 18:00 buss 100 north. That one doesn't stop in Lövånger, as it is an express bus to Haparanda, so Keldor drove down to Sikeå to pick me up at 19:00, which meant I was home at 19:30.

 

I am too tired to start drying the berries tonight, so I sm going to bed early (it isn't 20:30 yet). Tomorrow I will work from home. 

 

 

Didn't really want to get up this morning,  did it anyway. Had a good morning phone call with Keldor as he drove to work, then took my elsparkcyckel to the busstop. 

As expected, the 1.5 hour bus ride wasn't long enough to empty ny inbox from all the vacation mail, though I did manage to delete a fair bit.

I tried stopping by hörcentralen on the way to work, as my left hearing aid hasn't seemed to be producing sound at full power. However, they had a note on the door saying reduced drop-in hours right now due to someone being out on sick leave. I checked their normal open hours, and they don't open till 09:00 anyway, so I will need to try again another day.

Had both fika and lunch breaks with Phil. He says they have lots of red currants if I want to come pick some. I said I would love to, later in the week, as I have blueberries drying and black currants in the fridge.

This evening I took the dry blueberries out of the dehydrators, and consolidated the ones that are still moist onto two trays. Then I washed the black currants, and decided that it was too late to tey to dry them, so hust bagged them and put them in the freezer.

 

Then we went to work and packed up the smithy, took down the tents we had been using, loaded everything onto pallets for Drift to take away tomorrow, and our personal gear into out car.

 

Then we spent the last couple of hours of the shift up at the longhouse, where I made a small nålbinded bag.

 

Then back to the house, shower, load the food into the ice chest and into the car, clean the room, and hit the road at 18:00.

 

We drove just till midnight, and got some sleep at a rest area.

Today was the rainiest day since arriving in Lofoten, and we wondered as we set up our work stations for the day if we would have visitors who would take the walk down the hill in the rain, or if it would be a day of quiet solitude for us?

For the first hour it was, indeed, quiet, but then a few people arrived, and then gradually more, and more again, till the amount of time spent talking with visitors felt like a typical day here. Then it slowed down again as it neared the end of our shift and we packed things up for the walk up the hill.

The nice thing of getting off work at 17:00 now (as opposed to 18:00 or 19:00, which were the two shift end times we have had since arriving) is that I had energy to cook after work, and I made a small pot of chilli. Good thing, too. Keldor failed to eat any breakfast, and didn't eat any of the food we had brought with us, so his day's intake consisted of tea, coffee, and a can of Monster energy drink. Silly boy. He was rather hungry by the time the chili was ready.