Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Anniversary outing - a little delayed

March 3rd is our anniversary. We have this little tradition where we alternate each year, one picking a restaurant, and keeping it a secret to surprise the other. We've been to a variety of places, from the rustic to formal, and some places that have since sadly closed, but we've not had a bad choice yet.

Of course this year we were sick with the flu, so we did not mark it on the date itself. It was my turn to pick a place this year, and I chose a special Sunday brunch rather than a dinner.

The Fairmont Chateau Laurier sits at the intersection of Sussex and Rideau in all its old style splendor as an example of "Canada's Grand Railway Hotels" of the bygone railroad age. It was to be opened in April 1912 by the president of the Grand Trunk Railway, Charles Hayes, who commissioned it. Unfortunately he chose to travel back to North America via the Titanic, and so the opening was necessarily postponed, until someone else was chosen to do it.  According to legend, he still haunts the hotel.

The Chateau Laurier from the Ottwa river. (Courtesy of a photographer who released the image to Wikipedia commons.)

The hotel was the home of Yousuf Karsh for many years. I never understand that someone would spend such ridiculous amounts of money to live in a place that isn't theirs, but to each their own, I guess.  The hotel is separated from Parliament Hill only by the Rideau Canal's Ottawa locks, so it was also a convenient home to a Prime Minister for five years in the 1930's. And most bizarre to me, CBC radio Ottawa occupied two floors for eighty years.

So, on a bitterly cold, but sunny Sunday we drove to the hotel for our annual celebration.The interior is oddly reminiscent of its origin, with dark red patterned carpets, dark stained wood, and darkly upholstered heavy furniture in the lobby. The decor in Wilfrid's Restaurant is formal but airy and sunny, due to a solarium wall. They seated us right by the glass.

The hotel serves high tea on Sunday. They give you three choices: traditional, Canadian, or princess. The last option is really for little girls and comes with a teapot full of hot chocolate, with whipped cream instead of a lid. Two eight (?) year old girls in formal velvet dresses and patent leather shoes were treated to this at the table next to us.

We opted for the Canadian high tea.
Fruit cup in a martini glass was served first. Then the teapots arrived. Kyoto cherry rose for me (must find this incredible subtle green tea somewhere) and a spiced safari chai for him.
The stacked tea tray came with plain and cranberry scones, on the bottom plate. Clotted cream and strawberry jam were served on the side. Smoked salmon and cream cheese pinwheel sandwiches, Alberta beef with watercress and horseradish mayonnaise on  crostini, and smoked duck on crostini on the middle plate. On top of the stack were butter tarts, sponge cakes, and a maple leaf cookie, beautifully curled. There was a cheese platter with cheddar, oka and brie, with crackers and grapes.

Despite the fact that the sandwiches and cakes were all miniature sized, the whole meal was pretty filling. No doubt the volume of tea helps to make you feel even more sated.

When leaving, I snapped a quick shot of the locks, the hotel on the right, Parliament Hill on the left, and Gatineau in the distance across the still mostly frozen Ottawa river.  Despite the bitter cold, some runoff thaw water has started running trough the locks to the river.


And that was enough cold wind for me, and we went back home
.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Signs of spring

It has been mostly above freezing during the day for the past little while, and this weekend there was beautiful warm sunshine to boot. I can see about two thirds of the front yard and about one third of the backyard now. After having sat inside for the last three weekends (because of this) we could not resist the beautiful sunshine and wanted a little outing. We are both still easily fatigued after the flu, so we did not want to do anything too ambitious.

This time of year is maple sap collection time. Starch stored in the roots of maple trees is converted to sugar, which then rises with the sap. This starts in late February when there is a bit more light, and the sun has more warmth to "wake up" the maples. Neither of us had ever seen this process, so today we got in the car and drove to Stanley's Farm in Edwards.

As expected the place was packed with people coming for the all-you-can-eat breakfasts, with everything drowned in maple syrup. Sure enough there was a huge line-up out the door of the restaurant building. We just wanted a little walk around the property and see the actual collection and production. Although there has to be acres of sugar-bush behind the farm and buildings for them to be able to produce enough syrup to run a business, even the trees along the parking lot were being tapped.  Drops were falling at about 10 second intervals into the buckets attached to the trees.

A drop about to fall in the bucket. Older tap holes are visible in the tree trunk. 

Sap collection buckets on the trees

Off to the side tucked against a ridge in the land stands the actual sugar shack where the syrup is being boiled down from 2% sugar to 66% sugar, which according to the gentleman supervising takes 3 to 5 hours per batch. This farm has been in operation since the the 1800's and I could very easily imagine that this tiny building is at least 111 years old. Certainly the wood furnace under the boiling basins looks very traditional, but it does the trick just fine. The steam just rises to the ceiling of the shack, and then wafts out the open doors.


Boiling the sap down in the shack

Next you pass by the original farmhouse. You can see what was likely the original-original tiny farmhouse with the larger extension built on which then very likely became the main house.



At the barn there was a pen with about 5 turkeys, and about 10 kids making chicken noises at them. Every once in a while the turkeys would respond to the noises with such passion (or should I say venom) that I had to conclude they were letting out a stream of ugly swearwords at these little kids. Seriously though, I began to wonder how stressed these birds are after being yelled at by small kids all day.

"now, about this thanksgiving thing......."

Inside the barn were a couple of horses, very blase about all the petting and constant offering of hay. In another area were a couple of cows together in a pen. One cow was lying down and chewing the cud, but we kept hearing this odd noise, so we got closer. Under her head, tucked against the fence we saw a young dark brown calf asleep and snoring like a drunk. We stood there like idiots staring at this, because the sound did not match the picture we saw, but it became clear from the rise and fall of the flank that it was indeed the calf that was snoring loudly.

Swearing turkeys and hung over calves?  Time to move on back to parts of civilization we understand. So we ran some errands, including at the Rideau Center, and also stopped for a sandwich along the way. Outside the Rideau Center I saw a guy jogging in shorts and a t-shirt, and I managed to override the immediate desire to stick out my foot and trip the show-off. (It's only March, it's four degrees, and there is 10 cm of snow in the forecast for tomorrow. It's not over yet, OK? Sigh......I'm over it.) We took the scenic road back along the canal, where the skateway has been closed to the public, but the ice is still all there, and Dows Lake is also still completely frozen. Along the canal we saw people jogging (in jogging pants and sweaters this time) between the still present snowbanks.

When we passed by Hogs Back falls, we suddenly saw through gaps in the trees what a huge volume of water passes through there at the moment. We negotiated the muddy under construction parking lot to get to the same spot we visited January 30th, and watched this massive amount of water crashing through.



Compare that to this picture from late January.

Driving along Riverside drive we found this ice dam just south of Moonies Bay park.



And finally for Car and M: I don't think you have to worry about geese that want to be fed anymore. They have come back north.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Keeping an "eye" on the progress of winter.

A few years ago there was a television series called Deadwood. The main character, Al Swearengen (Ian MacShane) at one point says:

Announcing your plans is a  good way to hear God laugh.

That sounds so much more interesting than the usual expression: "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray". We have all been using this quote from a poem by Robert Burns for so long,that none of us even finish it anymore. We just say: "the best laid plans......." and leave it at that. So I liked the other expression quite a bit. Crisp and to the point.

My plan to become better friends with winter was coming along just fine. There was the snowshoes, and the photo opportunities of the beauty and the mess mother nature threw at us. And we had reached the end of February, so daytime temperatures were not as bad anymore. I figured we could explore some other trails.

But then we got the flu. We didn't feel so well going home on Friday afternoon the 25th of February, but we figured we could sleep-chicken-soup-vicks-advil it into submission over the weekend. This would be the part where you should imagine the above mentioned booming laughter. I didn't get dressed again until eight days later. The photographer made two excursions to the grocery store, and found that a tough assignment. Needless to say the snowshoes were standing abandoned in the corner by the front door, and no new trails were explored. We were off work a whole week.

Although we had some thaw, some snow still fell during that week, and again the following Thursday. Thick heavy stuff, and I figured we could go out the following weekend, and try out a different trail. Again that booming laughter. After cleaning the driveway on Thursday I got in the car and noticed that I had a storm of tiny grey dots in my right eye, only visible against the uniform primer grey snow sky. I had developed a floater the day before, and was planning on having that checked, but this new symptom freaked me out. Let me explain why:

Twelve years ago when we moved to Ottawa we got a new eye doctor. She is super thorough, and questioned us on family history. I explained that my grandfather had detached retinas, and she informed me that this can be hereditary, explained the symptoms, and pressed on me to watch for them. Flashes of light, showers or dots, and floaters. My father's sister subsequently went on to develop the same condition. I had a floater before in my other eye, but there was no damage detected, and at that time I had none of the other symptoms.

So when I got to work I called the eye doctor and asked if I could be seen immediately.  After a thorough examination of my eye, she concluded that there was indeed retinal involvement, and sent me to the eye institute at the Ottawa Hospital. There I was told that there was a significant retinal tear, and they fixed it with a laser immediately.  The laser surgery is completely painless, but it is very hard to keep looking into the super-bright light. The doctor has a special lens placed directly on your eye (no discomfort) which he holds in place manually, so you can't close the eye. But you are very conscious that you must keep the eye still, or the laser will hit the wrong spot. According to the photographer the procedure took 15 to 20 minutes. It completely wore me out, and I was totally "done" afterward.

"Do nothing strenuous at all" he said. try to keep still as much as possible. "Come back for a follow up check next Wednesday, and don't go to work until then".

Back to the couch I went. Unlike when I had the flu, and I wanted to do nothing, this was a chore. I could see dust bunnies in other rooms by some psychic method. I channel surfed , but surprisingly, there is still not enough Law and Order on TV to pass all the time. I had a good laugh at a pile of 30 minute infomercials on Saturday. I have to say that the Wen haircare system has attractively old fashioned bottles with rustic labels to make you think it is old fashioned and natural. Their before and after demos were hilarious. How obvious can you get! And the ab and back machines out there are something else. Do we still fall for this kind of claims? It seems we do.

 I went back for the check today, and all is healing nicely. I have been cleared to go back to work, so for the second time in three weeks I get to try to untangle the inevitable mess that unscheduled absence create in my workload. Dinner will come from M&M meatshops for the next couple of days still. I have been told I can go back to swimming next week. I am in no rush.

And look at that! Tomorrow is St-Patrick's Day, or as I call it: "the official beginning of the end of winter". It is above freezing during the day, and the snow cover is reducing. Despite the less than expected snowshoeing, we did much better than last winter.

So after all that, I'm not actually sure who gets the last laugh.