On Ski Doo

The last two Sundays we have been out 'on ski doo', which means we rode our snow mobile along some of the gorgeous trails around here.  Last Sunday warmed up to 6 below so it was perfect weather for it whereas today was minus 30 so we were a lot colder with the wind chill on top.  It seems that the colder it gets, the more beautiful the day appears so today the visibility was absolutely perfect.  For both rides we wore thermals, fleeces and then our snow mobile suits.  After that we put on balaclavas, fur boots, mitts and our helmets, it's so toasty warm getting dressed inside but as soon as you are on the ski doo you realise how essential all the gear is.  Our snow mobile has heated hand and feet warmers which are also essential items.

We rode along the Ironstone Trail, one of the many trails maintained by the White Wolf Snowmobile club. While sitting on the back I thought, this is what it's all about, it's beautiful!! I felt as though I was really experiencing the best that Lab City has to offer.  It had snowed the night before so the pine trees were laden with snow and often made arches over the trail.  I sometimes found it difficult to see where to ride as everything is just so white.  Half way along the trail we stopped at a cabin, the stove was burning and it was lovely and warm inside.  We saw some other friends and chatted over coffee before setting out on the return leg of the trail.

Today on the way home we stopped in at Tim Horton's for a coffee, parked our snow mobiles at the side and went in with all of our gear on!  I said to Steve "I would never do this at home!" but here it is normal to see riders stop for coffee dressed in their snow mobile riding gear.

Kristy and Steve at the Fraggle Rock cabin



The scenery along the trail

Coffee at Tim's



Happy chilly Valentine's Day

I tend to think of Valentine's Day as something that teenagers or new couples celebrate.  Here it is celebrated mostly by young children.  Cooper has been making Valentine decorations for the past week at Wee College including a specially decorated box to bring all of his Valentine's Day cards home in.  Wee College sent home a list of all the children's names in each class as well as a request not to personalise gifts as this would make it difficult for the teachers to distribute all of the gifts.  A friend in Montreal also gave me a heads up that Valentine's Day was big here too so I was appropriately prepared for today.  On the weekend Cooper and I made gifts for all twelve kids in his class, this was a small box of Dora/Diego loveheart chocolates, a pencil and a Handy Manny valentine card.

Cooper was so excited about his Valentine's Day party today, he wore his red skivvy and red shoes and took his bag of gifts and a fruit platter.  It did seem extra cold this morning but it was a gorgeous sunny day.  The fact that Steve's car wouldn't start this morning (he had to get someone to give him a jump start) didn't ring any alarm bells or the fact that the sign in the town playground said -37deg C so we drove to Wee College as normal.  We got to the car park and it was empty!  I called a friend and she told me that school was cancelled because it was -40 without windchill!!  It did seem cold but it didn't seem that bad, instead we went to Tim Horton's for a donut.  Happy Valentine's Day.

A traditional Newfie supper

This Sunday we tasted a traditional Newfoundland supper at Randy & Karen's place.  We ate roast moose, rabbit and pork as well, this is a slight variation on the traditional Jiggs dinner.

Randy had caught the rabbit, not sure about the moose and the pork leg was from his home town on the island (i.e. Newfoundland island).  I have eaten rabbit before, but this rabbit had a very strong flavour and I couldn't eat too much of it, maybe because it was wild rabbit(?) The moose was very tasty, it reminded me of lamb actually, but maybe it just looked like lamb rather than tasting like lamb.  Cooper kept asking for more meat so he obviously liked the moose!  Steve said the pork was very nice too.

The vegetables are cooked in a very big pot of boiling water on the stove.  Salt meat is added to the pot for flavour along with whole potatoes, whole carrots, half a cabbage, turnips and turnip tops (these are the greens). Pease pudding and bread pudding are also boiled in muslin bags in the pot.  Newfies love their gravy so a whole saucepan of gravy is made from the meat drippings and is generously poured over the whole meal.

As some people know, I eat and enjoy most foods so I went back for seconds (and thirds).  The pease pudding was especially good and the bread and onion pudding with gravy reminded me of eating stuffing, which I love.  To accompany the Newfie supper I made my first ever pavlova!  Karen, who lived in Australia for a few years, requested the 'desert made from egg whites'.  What a feast!

It's really getting cold now

I understand the weather a bit better now.  It's like when I moved to Queensland, I was used to Melbourne drizzle so when I saw it rain I would excitedly exclaim "it's raining!", the response from my work colleagues, in their Queensland drawl, was "that's not rain".  Apparently it was not heavy enough to be called rain, rain happened in summer, in the wet season.

Well, the same thing has happened here.  Everytime we say "it's cold today" we get responses like "you haven't seen cold yet", "wait until it's 50 below", "oh, we are having such a mild winter" etc etc.  It's strange though because I seem to be a whole lot less prepared for the weather than the Labradorians I see out and about, they are kitted out in massive jackets, mits, beanies, balaclavas while I still try and dress as light as I possibly can for that quick dash into Walmart.  I must admit that my fur boots are an essential item but a fleece jacket is normally OK for the 10m walk from the car to the Wee College doors. 

I have had comments though, "put on a jacket will you, you're Australian" or "OMG he's only wearing crocs!", it's all in good fun and for me it's more out of laziness, I find it too difficult to get the kids in the car, strap them in, look over my shoulder to reverse out the driveway with a massive jacket and gloves on, it really does restrict your ability to twist (or even move) in the car.

Anyway, these past two weeks were actually cold.  When I say I understand the weather better now, I have realised that the 50 below they refer to is normally with wind chill.  I kept looking at my phone or our temperature guage out the back window and seeing -20 or -30, maybe even -34 so I thought that the comments I was getting were right, it's just not that cold yet.  Then school was cancelled a few times due to cold weather, I checked it out on The Weather Network and I saw that there was a windchill warning.  For example, today is a lovely day, it's sunny and looks like you could just go outside with a t-shirt and shorts on, however the weather report at 8am was -28 but -41 with windchill!! Yesterday was -50degC with windchill.  Yes, it's getting cold now....

Alyssa leaving and our first blizzard

We had a quiet night at home Friday night as this was Alyssa's last night with us, her flight departed at 6:05am on Saturday morning so only Steve, Taylor and Alyssa went to the airport.  Taylor was especially sad to see her big sister leave.  Yet again the weather decided to play up when Alyssa was scheduled to fly however her flight took off as planned and we spent the day inside, upstairs looking out our front window at the windy weather tossing the snow around. 

The cross country ski lodge called us to cancel our ski lesson as a blizzard warning was in effect and the temperature would be about -40C with the wind chill!!  We were wondering if this was a blizzard so I guess it was.  Snow was blowing everywhere, our window sills were full with snow and visibility was very limited, Cooper went outside to check it out and he came back covered in snow.  I checked out the weather report for the day:

• Minimum temp: -34.6 degC
• Maximum temp: -20.3 degC

"we only left the vehicle to go shopping......"

On Sunday night we went to Fermont for pizza with Matt, Kim, Randy, Karen and their kids.  After the poutine for an entree we could only manage one slice of the delicious pizza.

Zonix restaurant in Fermont, Quebec.

X Large Zonix pizza

Mummers

On Saturday night Steve and I went to Rob's 40th birthday party, at about 10pm some mummers arrived at the door. This is the second time Steve and I have seen mummers here and to be honest it is a bit creepy for the uninitiated.  I didn't even guess that the three mummers were all guests at the party, including Nancy, Rob's wife!  The mummers wore big gumboots, gaiters stuffed with pillows, check shirts, hats and the white mask over their faces, unfortunately I don't have a photo.

The mummers put on some Newfie music and danced around the loungeroom, one even grabbed Steve to join them!  I have taken the following description of mummers from the web.

 Who are the Mummers?

Mummers also called ‘Jannies’, have been a tradition in Newfoundland since colonists from England brought the custom at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Mummer comes from the old French ‘momer’ which means to wear a mask; pantomime. In particular, it refers to a masked or costumed merrymaker, especially at a festival.

Christmas revellers disguise themselves with old clothing and cover their faces with a hood, scarf or mask and go from house to house in their community sometime during the twelve nights of Christmas. When the householder responds to the mummers’ tapping on the door, the visitors using disguised voices ask, “Any mummers ‘lowed in?”

If they are welcomed in, they usually entertain their hosts with humorous antics and the musical instruments they carry, very often a fiddle. Some hosts offer alcoholic drinks and some serve cake or other sweets. A great guessing game ensues as the hosts try to guess the identities of the mummers. When correctly identified, the revellers remove their masks, but if not identified, they can keep them on.

Our first time on the snow mobile

Our snow mobile was delivered on Wednesday after New Year Eve, it's a 2008 Yamaha Venture.  It is four stroke, three cylinder, 1000cc two up machine.  It came with a couple of extras like a cover and Yamaha saddlebags.  We weren't sure where to put it so I told Steve to park it around the back, he drove a few metres and bogged it in the snow!!  A quick call to Brendon up the street had it out of the deep snow and parked beside the driveway, cover on.

Saturday afternoon, Brendon and Matt called to say they would be over in 20 minutes to take us for our first snow mobile ride.  After 30 minutes we were still stuffing around, getting dressed, adjusting our helmets and trying to get all six of us ready for the cold.



Alyssa and Kristy, geared up ready to go.

 I offered to go first while Steve drove the boys to Tanya Lake to meet up with us.  Taylor went with Matt while Alyssa sat on the back of mine.  Matt asked me if I have ridden a motorbike before, "No", I said, so Brendon showed me the brake and the accelerator.  I got on and followed Mat down the street and up behind our place.  Steve was laughing at how I just jumped on and drove off.  I did feel a bit scared but I thought I am not going to learn how to do this by talking about it.  I needed to get a feel for the accelerator as it didn't go until it was depressed a fair way but then it just took off.  I probably used the brake too much and I felt like I was going so fast when I only got to 35 km/h.  We drove down the sledding hill we were on last weekend, I was so careful as I didn't want to hit anyone, we had to cross over a road then along a ridge before we were on Tanya Lake.  The lake was frozen over and is a good place to practice, Alyssa had a turn and then we spotted Steve with the boys so we zoomed over to meet them.


Alyssa driving, Taylor on the back

 Cooper had all of his new gear on and was so excited to have a turn, he sat in front of Steve wearing his hockey helmet.  It was getting late (and cold), Steve drove Cooper and Taylor home the same way I had come.  Given the large amount of snowfall we had over Christmas and New Year, grooming of the snow mobile trails will be done this week so hopefully next weekend we can have a scenic ride along a trail.  Maybe pizza at Fermont, Quebec?

Cooper on the front, Steve driving, Taylor on the back.