Snowmen on the Dock

February 4th (Tuesday)

We got another couple of inches of snow last night, but unfortunately it had turned to rain by morning. When Jason went out to shovel the dock he made two dock snowmen for us, and I added a third one to the party later. 

It was our first snowmen of the year because it was the first time that we had had enough packy snow. When we had our largest quantity of snow, back in January when we were first back from Victoria, it remained so cold that the snow was just powder and we could not make any snowmen. So, at least we finally got to make some, and throw some snowballs, even though the snow was very wet and still not ideal. 

While Jason was outside, one of the residents from here, who is in charge of shovelling the docks, came down. He is an older man, and was happy to have Jason shovelling the heavy snow for him. Another resident also came down, and Jason got quite a few stories from the two of them. One of them had been in Ocean Falls for 30 years. 

In the last letter that we got from my parents, they sent us up a copy of an ad for Ocean Falls, which they had found in an old “Shared Vision” magazine from May 1993. I will include a picture of the ad for you to read, rather than have me to try to explain it.

Ad from the "Shared Vision" magazine of May 1993.

Jason and I thought it was quite interesting that my parents should stumble across this ad at a time when the reference to Ocean Falls actually had some meaning for them. If they had come across it a year ago, they would likely have passed it by without a thought. Anyways, Jason asked Norm, the guy who had been here for 30 years, about the ad, and Norm knew of it right away. Apparently he knew David Shebib, and came to Ocean Falls with him. It is a small world, especially around here.  

While Jason was out shovelling snow, I stayed inside and made bread. I decided to take advantage of the rainy day to make a different recipe from the normal one that we make. The one we normally make is so quick and easy, I think that I have written of it before, but it is all made in one bowl, with no need to start the yeast in warm water or to let the dough rise along the way. I simply put all of the ingredients, flour, salt, yeast and water into a bowl, mix it up well, and let it sit for 12ish hours. It’s the easiest bread recipe I know of, and it works great. I thought something different might be nice, however, so I tried a recipe that we had from Jason’s parents. I made three loaves of a whole wheat and white flour mix, with seeds. We had it freshly baked for dinner with crab and a can of our home-canned salmon from last August. Yummy!!

Snow beginning to melt on our walk into town.

In the afternoon we walked over to the post office to mail a letter to my parents with the latest blog stories, and ended up chatting with Dorothy for over an hour.  Before coming home we went for a walk around town, and up to the dam and the lake.

Some geese holding out here over the winter.