It's March Now

Another quick note from the not so frozen north.

We're getting rain this week, suggesting that mudseason may, if only temporarily, be fast approaching. Chinese new years was fun. We had a gaggle of people over for dumpling making and telephone pictionary, and, I think, a good time was had by all. We sent out a Chinese Newyears update (not much news, i guess) -- if you didn't make it on the list, check it out HERE, then send me an email and asking to be put on the list. I'm sure we're both very sorry.

I've been doing more work for The Scope, you can see recent articles HERE and HERE, and it seems like that will probably keep happening.

Emily got a beautiful blue french oven recently, so we've been using at every chance we get. The food that comes out of it is delicious, as a rule, which makes it fun to cook with.

The Little Red Cup Tea Co might be bringing product to market sooner than we might have though, so keep your ears open for that.

Until later then,
Martin

Snows of Winter

While all you in the south lands have been dealing with or reading about world ending snows in the mid Atlantic states, we've been getting our share -- about two feet last weekend, and more tonight (slated to turn into freezing rain).   Last week's storm came with the storm surges of the decade, carrying away fishing stages and sheds from some of the prettiest places in the city (places we'd considered trying to live).  Someone in Emily's department reported that waves were lapping under his floor, and over his roof (which, while it doesn't make a lot of sense, is certainly worrisome.

Emily is still biologist-ing. I'm still trying to hack it.  She's working on GIS mapping and getting ready for thesis writing next year, I'm hoping to do a story about the seal hunt, and planning on covering the Juno Awards, hopefully.  I've also found a new spelling of my name -- Connolley -- which you can find on this new article.

As a bonus, here's Emily, talking about science.

Radio Silence

So it's been a long time.  I was on a roll there for a while, and then I stopped posting completely.  What happened?  I got busy.  Really busy.  For the past 2 months I've been redesigning and building the new Atlantic Business Magazine website (abmonline.ca).  It was a departure from writing, and something new to learn, and ultimately, it was a great experience (still is, actually, you're seeing the beta version -- I've got the next few weeks to finish up a couple details).  I worked with Tall Brian on the project (I had to deal with the magazine, he had to deal with me) and it was great to be working with a friend.   It was also tiring.  We both worked all day and all night for weeks in a row, and it's good to take a breather now.  



If you're interested in the Newfoundland Dairy Industry, you might want to take a look at that article as well.    Finally, I redesigned my site and would appreciate any criticism.



A lot of people ask about the weather up here.  We're north, but not really that far north (around 48 degrees).  We also live on the Avalon Peninsula, where it does rain in the daytime not withstanding arthurian naming.    Newfoundland is where the labrador current meets the gulf stream, so we get a lot of storms (winter is a bad time to be in the water) but it's also not super cold.  Temperatures hover around freezing, trending a few degrees above or below depending on the week.  That said, the wind is wicked, and it's damp.  So the cold gets under your coat and in your socks. 

This weekend we're having a homemade doughnuts and hot buttered rum gathering, loosely linked to Emily's birthday, which is today.   Doughnuts were something we made once, last year at the hut.  The hot buttered rum just sounds delicious.

I'll have to report how it goes.

m.a.c

Baby Steps

So I've been here one week shy of two months, and I'm finally getting busy.  For the first time, I actually have work that I can put off in favor of other, less productive things.   And that's a nice feeling.  I'm doing a little writing, a little web design, and maybe -- if a deal goes through -- some video work as well.  I'm getting less scared when people ask me for rates, and slightly less worried about the money we spend on dairy products.  I placed my first essay last week, a piece about Finlay actually -- and that will be published about a month from now in the Newfoundland Quarterly. 

Yes, my first paid writing in a year is an essay about my dog.

I've also been writing more frequently on that other blog I mentioned last time.  There's no easy way to import those post 'cross platforms, so for more mutterings you can check it out or subscribe to the rss feed from the comfort of here.

Emily just left today for a conference in New Jersey, so it's just me and the hound till Sunday.  I'm hoping to keep the house reasonably decent to avoid the standard kitchen full of dishes 'cause emily's gone.  All data suggests that when I'm living alone, I take alarmingly little notice of pretty basic stuff -- like eating regularly, or cleaning up the potatoe peelings on the kitchen counter, or, in the case of this summer, the fact that I was yurt-mates with an increasingly bold mouse for about a month.   I'd like to hope that if I'd been living solo all this time I would have gotten fed up with squalor -- but I can't honestly be sure.  Case in point -- something in my office smells really bad, and it has for about 2 weeks now.  I'm still not sure what it is, but I might get around to exploring the issue one of these days.

Until then,
m.a.c

More differences from life in Canada!

They don't have cooking wine and milk is freakin expensive.    I wanted to buy a box of franzia  for a risotto, so naturally I went to the cleverly named Liquor Store -- which is pretty much the only place to get alcohol around here.  Convenience stores sell beer, but apparently that's something really exciting.  Other provinces don't even allow that.   Anyway.  I went, and started looking for the cheap box wine section, as one does.   Nothing.  I figured maybe it was stashed under American Wine.  No dice.  They had nice American wines, and even some of the good old standbys.   I was going to suck it up and spring for a gallon of Carlo when I saw the price.  $32 ‽ My god!   So I asked a one of the guys moving cases around.  Turns out, cheap cheap wine doesn't exist, and I had to make due with an $8 bottle of Canadian White.  Of all the things to not have.

Milk is something we do have here, and something we always have in the house.  But I realized the other day, after an especially cringe inducing grocery store checkout, that dairy products make up a good percentage of what we spend on food.  Milk is $3.77 a half gallon.  More than double what it is in Maine right now.  A bag of the cheapest shredded cheese around is $6.  And we're talking no name brand here.

no name is great though.  Simple yellow packaging that tells it like it is with a price tag to match.  The American Cheese we buy for Finlay is just billed as "processed cheese product."  Apparently, canadians just call it sliced cheese -- our friends had never heard of anything called American cheese.   Odd that we would have to call it that in the states.   But as I was saying.  Dairy is easily our single biggest expense.  Followed by vegetables, and, pretty much, everything else. 

Apart from grocery trips and quips, life goes on.  I've been finding a little more work, and you can all look forward to my work as a photographer for cstore life -- the trade magazine of convenience stores in Canada.

I should also mention that I now have another blog, slightly more impersonal, and attached to my own personal website.  Feel free to look at that if you want something other than news about life in Canada.