Here at Hangman Hill

In honor of the Great Martin Luther King, and because there was a break in the subfreezing temps, we broke through the ice to harvest beets and Brussels sprouts! What a treat!  They were oven roasted and enjoyed that evening for dinner. 

Many thanks to Brenda and Andrew for the plates, they help fill in face in mid-winter when the pickings are limited.

With bitter cold temperatures and gusty winds keeping us inside we tried our hands at making mozzarella. Santa brought a kit that included all the necessary ingredients, except for pasteurized (not ultrapasteurized!) milk, and step by step instructions. The milk is the key ingredient. Modern pasteurization practices that heat milk to very high temperatures denature the milk proteins (for our geeky science readers) and render the milk unfit for making cheese. We bought milk from the Rhode Island farmers cooperative which worked just great as you can see below. We have dreamed of making mozzarella since reading Animal Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, who’s description of homemade mozzarella makes your mouth water. We topped pizza with our own garden tomato sauce and the fresh mozzarella, paired with a Merlot we received for Christmas……mmmmm.

Christmas Eve, all is still, not a creature is stirring … except at HHR where the elves are busy preparing the upstairs bathroom. These elves needed to eat plenty of cookies so they could carry a 170lb granite counter top up two flights of steps! Fortunately all went well, and the evening was completed with a meal of French Chicken in a Pot and Chocolate Bread Pudding.

The granite is in place (and is in one piece!).

Today started at 6 a.m., our normal “wake-up” time for work, WIDE awake, without the alarm, even though it was Christmas Eve and we are officially on Christmas vacation. Sighhh, still it was nice to know we didn’t HAVE to get up.

It is a bright sunny morning and balmy (24°F) by recent standards. We are drinking tea, warming up for a walk and looking forward to doing some cooking, a little work on the bathroom renovation. Later today Joann and Eric are coming by for dinner and installation of the granite top in the bathroom. How many scientists does it take to move a piece of granite? A few photos of what’s happening around HHR:

Kokee is still enjoying the snow from the storm. We think she missed her calling as an Avalanche rescue dog. Who needs an avalanche beacon when you can just carry a tennis ball. You can see it for yourself, click here.

Which color did we choose? Our final answer!

We had a lovely dinner in Westerly with Eric and Joann followed by the Granite Theater’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol”. We stepped out of the theater into a winter wonderland, that soon thereafter was declared to be a blizzard while driving home.

It snowed heavily all evening, and we woke to 18-inches (maybe more?) of light, fluffy snow. Perhaps we should have bought eggs after all? Many thanks to Mark who had our driveway cleared by 10 a.m.!

We have our decorated our tree, strung lights outdoors, and have finished our shopping, so our days before Christmas will be putting together the pieces of the upstairs bathroom renovation puzzle. The walls turn blue and green tonight, stay tuned for updates, provided we survive the impending storm (we haven’t bought eggs, milk or bread!).