Minus 26 Morning

It was -26C yesterday morning on the farm. I mean: come on. The donkey and 2 horses grow some thick winter fur, but our new horse Ginger is 22 and has very fine hair, so J bought her a blanket, which looks to me like a horsey snowsuit.

After feeding and watering the chickens and horses, we made ourselves a grand slam breakfast.

For reasons that I don't understand, considering the weather, the chickens are laying a lot of eggs, but they freeze overnight. J brought in half a dozen eggs that were frozen as solid as cue balls, and mostly cracked. The dogs get the cracked eggs, in fact yesterday Chloe ate a total of 13 eggs.

The chickens were huddled under the heat lamp.

The geese were smoking in the barn.

The tractor with the snow blower attachment on the back, to plough out the 1 km lane way

  Sadie out on the frozen Tundra

Finnish Mushroom Pastries

I made these with my mother and have been eating them for lunch with soup. Finnish comfort food.  A hot cup of beef bouillon goes well with them, as we used to have, when I was a kid. They are delicious. The pastry is outstanding, flaky and flavorful. They are traditionally made a Christmas time, which is why we have them left over now. Delicious. 

Joulu Torttu (Christmas Flake Pastry)

3 dl   (1 ¼ cups) whipping cream

300 g   (1 1/3 cups)  butter

6 ½ dl (2 ¾ cups)  white flour

1 tsp baking powder

Whip cream until stiff. In separate bowl, whip butter until white. Mix together using a mix master. Mix baking powder with flour then mix into butter/cream, don’t over mix. Pat into a disk, wrap in Saran, and chill.

Filling:

Fry in butter: 1 grocery package (a pint) of mushrooms diced fine and 1 medium onion diced fine.

Mix in 1 cup of cooked rice 

Salt and pepper

A beaten egg to bind ingredients

We also fried a little ground beef (about 1/2 cup) and added to the mixture this time. 

Roll chilled dough on floured surface. Make sure it doesn't stick. Cut circles and put 1 tbsp of filling, fold to make into dumplings. Brush with egg wash. Bake 350F for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Wakefield Barn Painting

Well happy new year everyone! I have been meaning to post but fell behind a bit.

This is a painting I did of our barn. It's from a photo, done in class, with my teacher Chui, who himself paints like a great master. I am so lucky to have him as a teacher, and of course to have had a Dad that also painted so beautifully to inspire me. I have 10,000 hours to get there, still.

The painting is done with a brush, in oils. I was using cold blues and cold browns for the barn and the fence, and Chui told me that the fence where the sun was shining on it was yellow. I mixed the grey the way my dad taught me (blue + white until the right value, then add orange bit by bit for grey- less for cold, more for warm) and then I put in some cadmium yellow, and Chui said "non!... jaune" and he really meant it- warm, cadmium yellow. He took my palette and brush and painted on the yellow fence board, and the sun shone.

In places, he said, you have to exaggerate the color. The roof where the sun is shining is a very warm grey- underneath is a strong orange that Chui also added, when he was correcting my work.  The hills are white with quite a lot of cadmium red in there to warm it up, the shadows are cold blue, and the sky is a warm blue- ultramarine blue and white with some cadmium yellow and a tiny touch of cad red. 

Chui is Chinese but speaks French also. 

"Pas peur!" (go for it he says, as he will fearlessly paint up a storm).

"Il faut tojours comparer" (the colors with eachother- don't paint  sections in isolation without comparing warm/cold dark/light with the rest). Find the darkest part, and then compare the rest to that. And the warmest, and so on.