Category: general

Categories
canada general snow

Rock Isle Lake

A spur of the moment trip, and we spent a night up at Sunshine Village. Once all the lifts had shut down and the people had (mostly) gone away, it was time to tour out to Rock Isle Lake. Well, meander. It doesn’t take much more than half an hour, even if you are taking your time about it.

With the sun setting so late these days (it’s about 9pm now), we weren’t anywhere near sunset, but it was still lovely out there.

We were wondering how long it would take for the path through to Mount Assiniboine to clear though – we hiked it a week into July last year, and had a few snow patches to wade through. This year the snow pack is so much deeper. And what do the ground squirrels do while they’re waiting for the snow to melt? Do any of them run out of food?

Anyway, Rock Isle Lake, it’s nice – oh, and they’ve got a groomed trail all the way out there at the moment from the Village, so if you had skate skis, you could skate out there.

Categories
canada general moosling snow trip reports

Ross Lake Circuit

Another day, another ski trip. This time to Yoho National Park, and with the Moosling in the Ergo rather than in the Chariot.

Around the 9.5km Ross Lake circuit, the route description runs as follows:

From the Lake O’Hara parking lot, follow Highway 1A until you reach the Ross Lake trail head sign on your right. The trail climbs gradually for 1.3 km to this small lake bounded by a great rock wall. Turn west at the lake and continue for 3.2 km to the Lake O’Hara fire road. Turn north (right) at the fire road to return to the parking lot. There are some narrow and fast sections on this circuit.

The trail up to the lake through the trees is quite cute, then we chilled on the lake in the sun for a while, before heading out.

They were right about the narrow and fast sections, the trees from Ross Lake back to the Lake O’Hara fire road were all sorts of fun. I was glad not to be towing the Chariot (and also wishing I’d remembered some Glob Stopper, but you can’t have everything – unless you’re better at remembering things than I am).

If the snow is going to last forever, at least the skiing will be warm now.

Categories
food general

Carrot cupcakes

Carrot cupcakes were made for Easter dinner – I combined two recipes from the Baked in Maine website, and am still fighting the urge to call them Carrot Cake Cupcakes, which is just a little redundant.

PS. They are tasty

The Carrot Cupcakes (via bakedinmaine)

1 20-oz (567gm) can crushed pineapple
2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup non-fat buttermilk
1/2 cup canola or light olive oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup raisins and/or
1/2 cup wild blueberries (optional)
zest from 1 lemon or orange (optional)
2 cups grated carrots (4-6 medium)
1/4 cup unsweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9″X 13″ baking pan or cupcake tins with cooking spray

* Drain the pineapple in a colander or sieve set over a bowl, pressing out the juice. Reserve the drained pineapple and 1/4 cup of the juice.
* Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium bowl.
* Whisk eggs, sugar, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and the 1/4 cup pineapple juice in a large bowl until blended.
* Stir in pineapple, (raisins and/or blueberries) carrots, 1/4 cup coconut and zest.
* Add the dry ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula just until blended.
* Stir in the nuts.
* Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, spreading evenly.
* Bake the cake until the top springs back when touched lightly and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Cupcakes take 20 minutes or so. Let it cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting (via bakedinmaine)

3/4 lb cream cheese = 340gm
1/2 lb butter = 227gm
1 lb icing sugar = 454gm
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
dash lemon juice/zest

* Whip the butter and cream cheese together in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or a hand mixer) until creamed.
* Gradually add powdered sugar to the mixture and scrape down the bowl as needed.
* Add the vanilla and lemon, and mix on high speed until it looks light and fluffy, like whipped cream.
* The frosting needs to be used right away, stored in the refrigerator, or frozen.

Categories
canada general hiking moosling

Failing to hike up Ha Ling Peak

Last Winter, we got so little snow that hiking up Ha Ling Peak in February wasn’t a problem. This year has been a little different, it was obvious from the start that there was still a lot of snow, with fresh skin tracks heading up beside the trail.

Still, with a nice packed trail, hiking in the snow was pretty easy. Until we hit the treeline.

Then our nice packed trail dispersed into a myriad of snowshoe trails. We did some tentative exploration on one of them. Brendan post-holed a lot. So did I.

This was the view from one of my holes.

Meanwhile Finn just hung out in the Ergo with his sunnies on.

So, conclusion? Bring your snowshoes if you want to get to the summit. Or maybe wait another month.

Categories
craft general

I made a doll!

I remember the first time I heard someone mention Waldorf dolls way back on Loobylu’s blog (she’s since up and moved to Canada and barely blogs any more). They are a type of doll made from wool and cotton using some traditional European doll-making techniques, and are used in Waldorf education. The idea is that they’re very simple with basic faces so the child playing with them can let their imagination run free.

waldorf doll

I recently fell in love with a few I found while wandering around on that vast online hippy market that is Etsy. And seeing as I’ve got a sewing machine these days, and time at home, I thought I’d try to make one. This is Sarlah, and she’s actually my second attempt, created from a made-up pattern and information gleaned from the internet (hoorah for the internet, as I’m still in the queue for the library book on the subject I tried to borrow).

Styling in fancy Thai Fisherman’s Pants – just the thing for working on her latest beach-side project… not so much for walks in the snowy mountains. Making miniature Fisherman’s Pants seemed like a great idea when I started, less so after many many attempts at creating a pattern that would work on that scale, it was just so fiddly! On the plus side I’ll be able to whip up an adult-sized pair easily now.

waldorf doll with nose and rainbow hair

She’s even for sale on my Etsy site – yes I have one now – at Adventures with Moosling (I’m still getting the shelves stocked, so far there’s mostly just a lot of photographs. But hopefully Sarlah will soon be joined by some other adventuring hippy doll friends, as making dolls is strangely relaxing and enjoyable.