How to make winter ice candles (Cottage Visit Part 2)

Happy birthday to my sweetie-pie of a husband, Jeff! The photo above was taken by one of our nieces this past weekend at the cottage, when Jeff posed with a childhood toy he called Flatmouse. Flatmouse, by the way, will be featured in one of my sister's upcoming books.

And hey, I've been Booklust-ed! Thanks to Patricia Storms for the kind words.

But back to making winter ice candles for our nieces; Jeff learned how to do this from our friend, Jeff Latto. First, he poured water into pails and left them outside to freeze overnight. This was enough time for the water to freeze on top and around the edges.

The next morning, he hammered holes in the top of each:



In the background, you can see the water hole that Jeff and our nieces chopped through the ice.

After making the holes, Jeff turned the buckets upside down and emptied out the water. Then he put each pail in a larger bucket of hot water just long enough to loosen the ice so that he could take the candles out. Here's what they looked like:



That night, he placed candles inside each and lit them. The effect was pretty magical:



Interesting to note how the middle ice candle had clearer and thinner ice; it was made in a bigger pail, which probably accounts for the difference.

I did some surfing online about ice candles. Looks like you can also use a tin can or small plastic cup to create the inside space where the candle fits: Ice Candles: Family Education. Or use a balloon instead of a pail to make smaller round candles: Winter Ice Candles. The latter site also suggests using a plastic one-gallon ice cream bucket instead of a pail.

Anyway, Jeff's ice candles turned out wonderfully; I recommend this as a fun family outdoor activity.

We celebrated Jeff's birthday at the cottage. Because of the impracticality of lugging a cake across the lake, my nieces improvised one out of Two-Bite Brownies and icing instead:




Jeff just turned 44, in case you're wondering about the arrangement of candles.

A great weekend, with lots of outdoor and indoor activities. I recently had a conversation with a friend about the value of purposely NOT being comfortable from time to time. We all tend to take comfort for granted, I think. As a result, we're more likely to get upset or whine about small discomforts and inconveniences. I'm talking about minor discomfort here, not physical pain. Exerting oneself, for example (as in physical exercise!), or getting temporarily wet or cold or too hot.

I find that too MUCH comfort sometimes makes me lazy, too. While this is fine for purposely lazy days, I feel that there's also a danger of letting a need for comfort keep you from doing interesting or challenging or useful things.



Which is why I purposely make myself uncomfortable sometimes. This can be anything from taking a brisk walk in less-than-optimal conditions or going to the gym (especially when I'm more inclined to sit at home where it's cozy and warm) to going camping or winter cottaging or working in the garden or walking in the rain in my sandals.

It certainly helps make me better appreciate what I have. The first thing I wanted to do when Jeff and I got home from the cottage, for example, was to take a hot shower. And it felt INCREDIBLY AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL. The best hot shower I ever had was the shower I took after a 10-day canoe trip on the Nahanni River where the closest you ever got to washing was dunking your head in glacier-fed waters. A lot of involuntary yelling was usually involved.

I briefly considered using this method to enhance my enjoyment of chocolate (e.g. going without chocolate for x days) but y'know, some sacrifices are just too great.

;-)


Ruth and me. Photo by one of my nieces.

Link O' The Day

(Thanks to my friend Ray)

XKCD: A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language: I loooove this comic, and spent too much time going through the archives yesterday (curse you, Ray!). I also identified way too much with this strip.



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Winter cottage visit (part 1)

This past weekend, Jeff and I went to the cottage with my sister and her family. Visiting the cottage in winter is a more complicated process than during the summer. The lake is frozen, for example, which means we can't use the motorboat. Instead, we have to lug sleds (with all our food and gear) across the ice...a trek that can take anywhere from 40 minutes to well over an hour. Some trips are easier than others; it depends on the condition of the ice, the temperature, and the weather. Last March, I posted about a particularly slushy trip across.

This past weekend wasn't as bad, although it got pretty slushy in places, as you can see from the photo below:



The weekend was also colder than some others, which meant that the slush froze quickly. A little bit of slush would cling to the bottom of sleds and snowshoes and then freeze. Then more slush would collect, freeze, and so on. In only a matter of minutes, you felt as if you were pulling a beached whale. You'd stop, paintstakingly scrape off all the ice, start pulling...and the next time you hit a slushy spot, the process would start again.

Here is a close-up of some frozen slush on the bottom of my sisters snow shoe:



One of our niece's snowpants:



I am determined to find a more comfortable way of pulling the sleds for our next winter visit. I still have nasty-looking bruises from where the thin rope cut into me; I'm going to look for more comfortable straps, ideally padded. Partway across the lake, I was really struggling, so my heroic brother-in-law Kaarel took some of my load and took it on his sled. Thank you, Kaarel!

Here's a photo I took shortly after we set off across the lake. I turned around and took this photo of my sled, with Kaarel standing behind ready to pull his own sled. You can just see my sister Ruth peering over Kaarel's shoulder:



This photo shows part of our tracks across the lake. Our origin point: the other side of the bay on the far shore of the lake; you can just see the entrance to the bay about 2/3 way across the photo with the dip in the horizon:



My sister Ruth, hanging out on the cottage deck:



I just found out, by the way, that Ruth is a finalist for the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Award this year!

But back to the cottage...

In the photo below, Jeff and one of our nieces chop a hole through the lake for water. We boiled the water for drinking as well as using it for washing dishes:



The trick was that it was so cold that the water froze over quickly, so they had to chop through the ice each time we needed to get more water. We kept several containers of water inside the cottage for daily use.

Having limited water made us much more conscious about how many dishes we used during the day. I pre-cooked several meals in advance to cut down on both the amount of cooking needed as well as the number of pots to be washed. Plus we didn't know until we actually GOT to the cottage whether or not we'd have power; so often, ice-laden electric wires get pulled down during the winter.

If that happened, we'd heat up food and water over the wood stove or camp stove. Our nieces were actually hoping for a power outage because it would make the trip more of an adventure. :-) Sadly (for them, anyway), we did have power.

Still, it was definitely more exciting than a regular cottage visit. There's no running water, after all. No bugs! You can walk on the lake! Plus there was a rim of ice around the toilet seat in the outhouse when we arrived. :-D

My nieces had great fun on this trip, and can't wait to go back.

More pics...

On Saturday, Jeff built an outdoor fire on the snow above the fire pit. As the snow melted, the logs sank lower:



My appetite whetted by the trek across the ice, I prepare to eat Jeff's brains:



Photo by one of my nieces.

Tomorrow: birthdays and ice candles!



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BlogTO interview, bad rabbits, and cartoons

Happy birthday to Jeff Bohnhoff!

[Update: Hey, I just found out that BlogTO has posted my interview online.]

Sorry to draw and run, but I must get back to writing. I call the bunny dude in the above comic "Bad Rabbit." I had intended to draw a cute rabbit, but he came out as Bad Rabbit on my Wacom tablet. There's a little Bad Rabbit in all of us, I think...

If you're interested in children's writing, illustration or publishing, by the way, please do see my Inkygirl post about JacketFlap today.




Above: my Daily Doodle yesterday. I hadn't planned on adding a caption but decided to post it in Inkygirl, asking people to suggest some. Here's what they've come up with so far:

"Well, this should make dealing with Christmas lights easier..." - April

"Try as he might, Billy couldn't remember whether his dog was AC or DC." - Phillip Mills

"Bob had been patient with them, but this time, the squirrels had gone too far." - Amanda

"When they claimed these circuits were grounded, they meant it!" - Phillip Mills

"Ah, here's where I can plug the self starting rock into." - Jeffrey Cornish

"Sometimes even a tree needs a creative outlet." - Peter Alway

"Fred had such good results spreading news through a telephone tree, he thought he'd try the idea with other utilities." - Peter Alway

"Unfortunately, Fred didn't think it through before his computer had filled with tree sap." - Monica

"Wow, when the phone company said there was something wrong with the trunk circuit, they weren't kidding!" - Dave Weingart

"Walter had never seen a power plant before." - John Hall

"I guess when I saw the little squirrel elevator, I should have expected this." - Paul Kwinn

"You know, making love in the snow is weird enough. Couldn't she at least use sex aids that are battery-powered?" - Paul Kwinn

"The 'Mr. Bill' tree defacer strikes again!" - Paul Kwinn

"I thought I'd NEVER find a place to plug in my SUV's block heater!" - Graham Leathers

"So *this* is what they meant by "'Green Energy'!" - Blade

"The latest upgrade to Ontario Parks campsites." - Korak

"I thought that I would never see / Line current coming from a tree." - Gary McGath

"So that's where the Litoria electrica plugs in" - djbp

"The power of nature." - Reid

"Rats, no ethernet." - Reid

"Truman's first hint that something was not quite right..." - Reid

"I wonder if the squirrels get cable, too?" - Reid

Have a great weekend, everyone!



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blogging, truffles, whining and books

My novel revision is going well. I've been trying a new method for this rewrite: working in Scrivener on an increasingly detailed outline, sometimes to the point of individual scenes. So far it's worked very well; in theory, this should make the actual writing process go much more smoothly. If this method works for me, then I'll write my next novel the same way.




Above: Cartoon for Inkygirl and selfish wishful hope! :-)

The actual REWRITE starts today. I can use big chunks and even chapters from the old version, so it won't be a complete rewrite, but there's going to be a fair amount of writing involved. I'm aiming for the whole process to take about 4-6 weeks at most. I've already turned down one writing assignment and one illustration assignment so I can focus on this.

I'm hesitant to say that I'll be Blathering less because the truth is that Blathering keeps me sane. :-) But don't be surprised if my posting frequency becomes less predictable over the next while.




Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. Click on image above for a bigger version. Column topic (which I've cross-posted to Inkygirl): "Good blog writing." I've also asked readers for any blogs they read which have writing they especially like. Feel free to post your answers at the bottom of this week's Will Write For Chocolate column.

What I don't talk about in my column is personal preference. Everyone likes reading different types of blogs and blog entries. I tend to avoid blogs that are mainly just lists, for example; I prefer to read blogs written by those not afraid to let the readers have a peek into their psyche, what makes them tick.

On the other hand, I avoid personal blogs that make a habit of sharing a little TOO much, especially if the content is almost always negative, whining and/or nasty. It's almost like a good friendship...while I'm sure my closer friends probably wouldn't mind my occasional rant or whine (and believe me, I've subjected them to both), I suspect they'd get a tad weary if I made a habit of it longterm. I feel the same way, and even more so when it comes to blogs written by people I don't know nearly as well.

But let me reiterate since last time I mentioned this topic, several of you took it personally ("you're talking about MY blog, aren't you?!?")...everyone is entitled to a rant/whine now and then; I know I feel this way as well. And if you want to rant/whine all the time in your blog, 24 hours, GO AHEAD. Just don't expect me to read it.

Unless it's brilliantly written, of course, in which case I will inevitably be compelled to subscribe to its RSS feed despite all my frothings at the mouth, my willpower caving like it did to the siren call of that last decadent chocolate truffle...



Yay, the homemade truffles I ordered from Tammy's Tastings arrived earlier this week! Above photo: starting at the top left and working clockwise: hazelnut praline, caramel, strawberry-balsamic, and passionfruit. The caramel and hazelnut praline were my favourites.

For those who attended Confusion recently, Tammy ran the hospitality suite at the convention and is starting her own business.

Finished last night:

Rebel Angels by Libba Bray. I enjoyed this sequel just as much as I did A Great and Terrible Beauty. Mystery, supernatural, suspense and a bit of romance...it had it all. Very much looking forward to the third and last in the series!

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Illustration Friday: Red

I created the illustration above for this week's Illustration Friday assignment, which was "Red." To comment on the above illustration in Flickr, please click on the image.



Above: I revamped the page for Urban Tapestry's Sex and Chocolate page, prompted while answering some questions for an interview for BlogTO. I'll post a URL when the interview is online.

Jeff had a bunch of our friends over yesterday for an all-day gaming session. I was happily in hostess mode; Jeff rarely has gaming sessions at our place, and I was in the mood to entertain. I'm pretty sure none of the attendees went hungry. :-)




Above: I'm wearing a t-shirt that Walter gave me at GAFilk; the text reads "Whatever Boys Can Do, GIRLS CAN DO BETTER." I suspect John (seated) didn't realize he'd be in the photo, too. :-D





I did take a break from hostessing-stuff to play one game called Diamont. It was easy to learn, quick and fun, particularly when it comes to trying to guess what other players are up to. We played this with our nieces (9 and 12 years old) later, and they enjoyed it as well.

I lazed about most of today, reading and drinking tea. Later in the afternoon, I took a walk and had a late lunch at one of my favourite casual restaurants, Chai, before coming home and doing some drawing.

REALLY looking forward to getting back to my writing tomorrow. I was tempted to write on the weekend, but I've found that taking a break during an intensive creative project is a very Good Thing.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

The Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill. I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy this until I got to the end of the first chapter, but then I was hooked by the interesting main character and the engrossing storyline. I'm not usually a fan of books with detailed descriptions of battle scenes, but the author managed to convey the action in language that even a non-battle-fan could appreciate. I look forward to reading the next in the series!

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