Radically Retired

Tag: Weather

  • Happiness Is … Spring at Last

    Happiness Is … Spring at Last

    Happiness landed firmly this past week, as more and more signs of spring appeared on my walking trails.

    The showy flowers on the Dwarf Russian Almond shrub in my feature photo made me smile.

    Caraganas are also finally kicking out their masses of yellow blossoms now. These blossoms always bring back happy memories of my childhood home.

    Caragana

    Everything is showing signs of life and rejuvenation after a cooler, dryer, and windier than usual May.

    Striped Squill

    The grass alongside our many trails is greening up, and the trees will soon be completely leafed out.

    Even the dandelions are a welcome sight!

  • There’s Dirt in the Air!

    There’s Dirt in the Air!

    Starting on Thursday this past week, an extreme low pressure system arrived here from the west.

    With it came winds with sustained velocity of 75 Km/h (46.6 mph) and gusts to over 100 Km/h (62.14 mph)

    We had mistakenly left our windows open after the night, and within a couple of hours of the wind starting, hubs mopped up enough dust from the floor, that it looked like the floor hadn’t been mopped in years.

    Winds aren’t uncommon here on the Canadian prairies and we’ve had tornadoes in Saskatchewan almost every summer for as long as I can remember, but this wasn’t that.

    It put me to mind of what it must have been like in the “dust bowl” of the “dirty thirties”. I can’t imagine dealing with something like this for a decade. Two days was plenty long enough.

    Hubs and I had to go out (to purchase a fan of all things) and I could feel and taste the dirt in my mouth long after returning home.

    My feature photo was sent to me by a dear friend. This was their farm yard on Thursday and that’s their topsoil in the air in the distance. They had just finished seeding that field.

  • 3 C’s: Chili, Comfort, Cleanup

    3 C’s: Chili, Comfort, Cleanup

    One of my favourite cold weather comfort foods is chili con carne. People seldom use the full name anymore and have shortened it to chili.

    Although this dish was originally Tex Mex (from the border area of Texas and Mexico), I can recall my mom at home in Canada making her version of it when I was a child. Mom always called it by its full name.

    In researching chili for this post, I was surprised to learn that the dish was introduced to eastern Canada in the early 1900’s. I wondered, given the distance, how that could be? Further reading explained that a group from San Antonio introduced it at a chili stand at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. This explained a lot, because Chicago is much closer and Canadians were very well represented at that fair.

    There are many variations of this hearty meat stew, and I make it a bit differently each time.

    The one in my feature photo has carrots, red bell pepper, button mushrooms, onions, celery, and three bean varieties with the lean ground beef and diced tomatoes. I prepared it in my Instant Pot, as I do all of my soups and stews. Pressure cooking has a way of locking in and enhancing flavours, which is key in one-pot meals.

    We like our chili either over a baked potato, or with a side of toast. Sometimes I garnish it with shredded cheese and/or sour cream.

    If you eat this dish, what sides do you enjoy with it? I’m always looking for new ideas.

    I used the Touch Retouch App to clean up the bowl. As I did this, I recalled cooking competitions on TV, and how the chefs always wipe the edges of the dishes and bowls before serving.

    By doing this task digitally, I was able to finally realize why that’s done.

    Here’s the dish before cleanup.

    Much more appealing with the dishing up smears removed, I think. Do you agree?

  • More Pros than Cons

    More Pros than Cons

    I said to hubs the other day, that although I love the winter weather in South Texas, pretty much everything else is better here at home.

    We got a little skiff of snow yesterday (feature photo), but temps are going to be above freezing from now until the end of the month, so it’ll all be melted in a couple of days.

    Things are easier here.

    I can walk across the street and through a parking lot to get to a familiar, large and newly renovated supermarket. It’s a Co-op store that I’ve shopped at since I was old enough to drive here from our home town (18 miles/28 km away).

    It’s a 2-block walk from our condo building to the downtown area, and I can be guaranteed that on any walk to the grocery store or the downtown area, I’ll run into someone I’ve known all of my life.

    Family is here. My mom lives less than two blocks away. I have two sisters who also live here, and another sister and my brother live in our home town (20 minute drive away). My dad’s youngest sister is more like a big sister than an aunt to me. She and her husband live across the street from us.

    Our walking trails are beckoning already. In Texas, my walking route is around our RV park … over and over again for 6 months.

    Here, I can walk on a different path every day for weeks on end and always see something new. In addition, many of the groomed trails are on the city outskirts (which I also walk to) and are beautiful nature trails among wildlife habitats.

    I like our Canadian bread, beef, eggs, flour, and poultry better. It’s all in what you get used to.

    We have many restaurants in walking distance and there’s a new movie theatre nearing completion two blocks from here.

    The ice hockey rink is nearby and the junior team hubs played with many years ago is in playoffs now. We’ll definitely be attending some games and he’ll no doubt touch base with friends from “back in the day”.

    There’s so much more, but I think by now, that you get the picture.

    As Dorothy Gale’s famous final line says, “There’s no place like home”.

  • Sneaking Up …

    Sneaking Up …

    Spring weather in deep south Texas basically happens all winter long.

    One hint that spring is sneaking up on us here is the flush of white blossoms on our back yard orange tree.

    Soon, we’ll be heading back to our home in Canada, where spring will become glaringly apparent by about mid April to early May.

    There will likely still be snow when we arrive home in a couple of weeks. The nice thing about driving home vs flying is that we have time to acclimatize on the way north.

    Jumping (via a flight) from the current mid 30° C (mid 90° F) temperatures in South Texas to our near or below freezing temps at home in Saskatchewan, Canada, would be too much of a shock to our systems.

  • Roses in January

    Roses in January

    While friends and family at home in southern Saskatchewan, Canada are battling strong winds, icy roads, and hazardous driving and outdoor walking conditions, I feel very blessed to be able to walk outside our front door door here in south Texas to practice my floral photography on our neighbour’s repeat blooming climbing rose.

  • Confusion in the Plant World

    Confusion in the Plant World

    This past summer saw an unusual amount of rain here in the Rio Grande Valley.

    As a result, some plants are confused as to when to bloom.

    This hedgehog cactus is an example.

    Whereas it usually would bloom in the spring here (March and April), it was in full bloom last week.

  • Trouble in the Sky

    Trouble in the Sky

    Late yesterday afternoon, a call was interrupted by the loud honking on my cell phone of an Environment Canada tornado warning for our area.

    Within an hour, the eerie calm set in and the sky darkened.

    My feature photo is looking east from our balcony. Soon, the wind picked up, and the nimbus clouds moving in from the west started attacking the fluffy white cumulus clouds, threatening the formation of the dreaded combination: cumulonimbus. The cloud formations I learned in science class so many years ago have stuck with me. That’s a testament to a good teacher.

    Thankfully, our only outcome from the ominous warning, was a ten minute episode of heavy rain, wind, thunder, and lightning; then it just carried on moving east.

    I’ll admit I was more than a bit anxious for a while.

  • Summer Switch

    Summer Switch

    A month ago, after checking our long range forecast (cold, damp, windy, and smokey), and assuming correctly that I’d be mostly housebound, I set out to post 31 days in a row, concluding with my Father’s Day post yesterday.

    Now that I’ve achieved that goal, I’ll be cutting back to two or three posts a week.

    Summer is arriving on June 20, and with our typically short duration of summer weather here on the Canadian prairies (I’m optimistic that it’ll improve), it’s time to get outside while the gettin’s good.

    Thanks, as always, for following along!