Phil's Stairway To Heaven, Wildlife Sightings, and a Whole Different Approach to Dinner

Phil's Stairway
I hope everyone's having a great weekend. As the photos suggested, we have snow again here. Full moon-swollen tides and icy beaches thereafter: a whole new spin (or skid) on core strength-building.

It's been three and a half weeks since Phil's trabeculectomy...

...and today, his eye looks like this:

He's seeing out of it better too. He's been such a trooper, patiently waiting for things to get better, but for such a visual person, and a person who's been blessed his whole life with a body that does basically whatever extreme stuff he desires, it's been a testing time.

Having been given the all-clear to perform his usual level of physical exertion, he took advantage of the break in the wind and lesser amounts of sea ice yesterday to launch his boat...

...to go load up a staircase he'd seen washed up several miles up the beach. Man, that boat rides low in the water! Are you sure it can hold a staircase??

Well, he came home with it safe and sound, dry enough and quite pleased, and I failed to get a pic until we'd gotten it home and it had been snowed on. It may be just what we need for our storage 'bunker!'

Wildlife
Here is Phil's 'pet:' fire. Our burnables (paper packaging, old mail, etc): he loves tending fires. They're cheap to feed, you don't need a vet and it's easy to start another one.

And fire in snow looks special...

We saw this moose down close to the beach when I picked up Phil and the staircase. They are such incredibly hardy creatures: what a life!

 And earlier in the day, we got pretty close to this eagle. I love watching eagles, and although I'm not much of a photographer, I enjoy photographing them so much that I could probably devote a whole post to it at some point.

A Different Approach to Dinner
We had friends come to dinner last night. Although, as I've mentioned before, I'm loving the encouragement to make 'Ela-friendly' party foods, and that marzipan last week was one of the most wonderful things ever (I'm so sad the leftovers are all finished),

I'm also currently in a funk about food in general. And in addition, most things--like marzipan--that I really love, Phil doesn't care for. It makes me sad to make something that I think is special but that he doesn't appreciate. I'd rather make something he likes! So for last night, I decided that I'd go with salad, which is always my staple and always good...

...roasted veggies (parsnips, yams, brussels sprouts, leeks par-boiled, sprinkled with salt and roasted with a bit of coconut oil). Last summer I couldn't have digested these, and am grateful for the progress that's allowing me to enjoy them. They taste as sweet as dessert to me and as I overcome carbophobia (more on this soon), I can see them becoming a staple.

Sorry about the belated photo after they were almost all gone!

I also served a bear roast, garlic and ginger with a broth reduction with caramelized onions and cranberries (not pictured, but very well-liked), toasted home-made sourdough bread with a dip I made from roasted bell peppers (not for me, obviously!), scallions, kalamata olives, a dash of parsley and cheese (also not pictured, also very well-liked)...

...And, for dessert, I used someone else's recipe!

I made Evan the Wannabe Chef's banana-chocolate chip blondies with peanut butter frosting

Ordinarily, I don't enjoy making 'regular' desserts as much as raw desserts. I don't feel my creativity being in play so much, I hate getting butter anywhere near me, getting flour on me is a bad idea too. But these were fun, quick and easy, and worked just as Evan's recipes promised. And yes, I did pretty much follow the recipe, which I'm almost incapable of doing, normally. Thanks so much, Evan!

Best of all, unbeknownst to me, one of our guests was a huge peanut butter fan. And everyone really liked it. I just love it when I fix something that turns out to be someone's favorite without having known it ahead of time. As a food-preparer, it feels like a special blessing.

It didn't bother me at all not to have dessert: I had another piece of roasted yam. I don't know if I can make that my general m.o., never to have any treats. Much of my life, that's how I've done it, but that marzipan last week may compel me toward a more Dionysian mode...

What's a special blessing to you? And what wildlife do you see as you go around town?
much love

Animal Antics

I forgot to mention that I got attacked by a crow on the way to the library yesterday! A young teen, probably pissed off with the world in general, or maybe something had gotten him in a particular snit, deciding to take it out on an innocent passerby! Mostly, it was a verbally abusive assault and I didn't pay much attention. However, by the third time he had swooped over my head almost low enough to knock my hat off, I was definitely taking notice. I wasn't as freaked out as I might have expected to be - more intrigued, really, but as this continued I was in danger of taking it personally and was definitely glad when I made it to the library.

Phil incurred something similar a week ago when he noticed a crows' nest in town and couldn't refrain from climbing up the tree to investigate and see if he could steal an egg. A wonderful little boy at heart, my almost-62-year-old husband! He got buzzed plenty, but you might agree that he had provoked them sorely. When I told him of my attack, he said they must have recognized me as part of his clan! But then agreed that it was probably just a disaffected adolescent getting a kick out of being mean. Corvids - they're so like humans in so many ways...

[Edit: I left the library after posting that, walked down to the post office, and sure enough, had the same crow attack scenario all over again! Was glad that Phil picked me up at the post office so I didn't have to walk back to the library for more! And then this afternoon, I was sitting in the library and heard a big crow harangue. Phil came in - he'd gone to the post office before coming to the library - and guess what? His turn for crow attack...]

A few days ago, I was getting lunch ready and Phil was looking out at the sea otters and their babies gambolling in the waves close to shore (yes, what a wonderful view we have). I was keeping half an eye on the same, and in the moment that I saw a black triangle break through the surf surface, Phil said, 'It's a killer whale!' 'No way,' I said, incredulous. But it was. In fact there were three of them (a 'tri-pod,' I quipped). I couldn't believe my eyes because they were so close into shore and it was a very big low tide right at that time. All the sea otters scarpered. Fast. The orcas were around in water so shallow that they never quite disappeared for another half hour or so, and it looked like they were having a feast: perhaps not all the otters got away.
Next time we saw the sea otters, they were bunched up together as tight as could possibly be - safety in numbers.

Words can't really describe the excitement of getting to observe a scene like that. It was just so sudden and extraordinary, to see such powerful and massive creatures so close to shore. Of course, we're perched on the top of the bluff 250ft higher up, so it's not like we got real close - in fact, the binoculars were helpful. But whereas Phil is constantly looking out far off, scanning, surveying, I have more of a closer focus and inward tendency, and this sort of event reminds me to look out far: there's no telling what amazing event might be going on down there. And then, of course, it wasn't an amazing event to the participants: they were just getting on with their lives. But not many humans get to be witness to that kind of life: it's a broadening thing just to be a witness to it.