What to do when the first big snow comes

Start planning the garden. :)

Snow

Be kind. Please.

: climbs onto soap box :

Canada has always had immigrants. (Look at my white face and Celtic name... I'm not First Nations! My grandmother was born in Scotland and my other ancestors were from the British Isles as well.)

Screening of immigrants is intense and thorough and slow. 

Being a refugee stinks. 

Being homeless stinks. 

Living on a reserve with crummy services and inadequate housing stinks. 

Being mentally ill really stinks, especially if you don't have family and friends to look after you. 

Bad guys exist. Some of them exist here... Some of them are running full scale wars in other parts of the world. 

Do what you can to make the world a better place: if you are called to serve the homeless, work for better treatment of our First Nations people, support the unwell, teach the young or the old or the underserviced, you do that.

It's not "this or that". There is much to be done. So do something real and practical and solid. 

Stop posting illogical / racist / fear based / false dichotomy memes and go make a difference wherever you can. 

Your anger and fear make me feel awful, and I'm already not well. You aren't helping. Really. 

Be the change you want to see. 

Remember that someday, it might be you who needs help. I certainly didn't expect to be unable to support myself at this point in my life... But things happen. 

Do you think that the people carrying their children across entire countries expected to be where they are?

Do you think this little boy's family expected to see this?

Be kind. 

Please.

Decisions

I ran errands this morning. Well, into the afternoon. 

I picked up the Organic Box, met someone who has taken away my old rotary lawnmower, visited some friends at the craft market, checked out a little shop, picked up parcels. 

I was thinking about starting work on the planter barrel I want to use next year...

But I suspect it would be wiser to sit down and knit quietly for a bit. 

With tea. 

And a cookie. 

I hate it when...

... I wake up screaming. 

At least mine was just a bad dream. 

Lots of families today are living the nightmare of real loss and fear. 

May there be peace. 

Peanut Butter Management Strategy

We prefer natural peanut butter: no added sugars or weird chemicals and it tastes awesome.

However, it separates and you get a layer of oil over a layer of manageable nut butter over a layer of peanut butter rock. No big deal, you stir it up then serve. 

But. 

In a big jar, it's hard to stir it thoroughly without getting your knuckles covered on peanut oil. 

So, when the latest jar was opened, I took a big spoon and mixed it all up then portioned it into jam jars. Those are short enough that you can stir thoroughly with a table knife and not get the handle covered in peanut butter, so they are manageable. 

Plus, one can sit on the kitchen table and look reasonably much like it belongs there, which cannot be said of the big jars we normally buy. :)