I'll fashion something to set frozen crabapples on for them, assuming they'll be back. Last fall I put gallon pails of crabs in the freezer in case it was another starvation winter for deer, like the one before. It wasn't and there's no point having the apples go through another winter in the deep freeze.
English muffins got made yesterday, but guess who forgot to add the tablespoons of honey so they aren't very good. The dough didn't get that extra bit of help it needed.
The first Christmas card has arrived in the mail. They are few and far between in recent years; I don't send any at all. This one came from Holly near Edmonton. Twenty-six years ago, the sole reliable wage-earner of her family, Holly brought me her four-month-old baby and occasionally her five-year-old, Karl, to look after while she went to work every weekday.
"You were the straightest hippie chick I ever met!" writes Holly in the card. "Karl always thinks of you when there is raisin bread."
Emil was quite jealous, being only a year old himself and accustomed to all his mom's attention. I also looked after two other little boys, and baked and delivered six loaves of bread to a local store every morning.
I was on the go, for sure. Probably still haven't recovered! I remember Gord taking my arm one evening in the kitchen as I whirled from counter to table and back again, and saying "Just stop for one minute."
Looking back at the energy I had, and the everyday ambition, it's not hard to see the difference between then and now. Example: for many years I made a lot of Christmas treats for my own family and to give away; now, none, or it's rare. We don't need 'em and neither does anyone else, pleasant as they are to enjoy at this particular time of year. I no longer feel compelled to be the provider. Now it's all I can do to keep up with the dishes and get out for a walk every day when I'm not in town.
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