I wondered about the thousands of ratatouilles (referencing the movie of course) racing up to street level - argh!
I wanted to post a link to the best "ratatouille", but frankly... "Big chefs" here say that (...), and grandmas say that (...), and... Garlic, a lot of garlic. excellent for blood circulation. And herbs of course, thyme and laurel of course, but you can add various herbs of the same kind if they grow where you live. PS: didn't see the film...
The best ratatouille I ever had was stuffed inside a zucchini blossom (left in the picture) with a turbot plate at Eleven Madison Park in NYC. We were there again two months ago and they are vegan now, still good but not as good as it used to be…
Weather and change of seasons and food go together don’t they? That plate is beautiful Now to start a new thread of all the wonderful things we’ve cooked from our own gardens ... or the neighbour garden ... or the farm gate! We are lucky
Forgive me if I do not understand your reference to a film. 'Fawlty Towers' was a hugely popular 12-episode series produced by John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) and Connie Booth in 1975/1979. Fawlty Towers - Wikipedia
Ratatouille (film) - Wikipedia I haven't seen the film either but I grew up with Fawlty Towers on the BBC :)
Long time ago @Margot asked me how old a white oak in our yard was. It was removed last December. I just took a picture of the remaining stump and counted rings. Definitely more than 160-years old.. So sad that we have to remove perfectly healthy trees because of climate change and increasing instances of severe weather events. It was not a threat to our house, but its base was 10 yards away from the roof of our neighbor’s house, and yes, the base of the white oak was above the roof of our neighbor’s home. A single branch came down in our yard and it was the size of a medium tree. I think it was the right decision to cut it down.
I know you wouldn't have taken it down if you weren't sure it was the right thing to do but it must have been a very sad day for you. Were you able to salvage any for a woodworking project?
It was sad. Some of the trees we removed had some issues, but most were perfectly healthy. They just happened to be too close to the house. We didn’t keep any of the wood. Some of the good firewood (red and white oaks, beeches and white ash) went to neighbors who expressed interest.
After having made countless posts about the devastating wildfires this year here in B.C., I am happy to mention that almost all of the smoke has gone from our local area. Last week we went to our daughters' wedding down at Harrison, and there were still fires burning right alongside the Coquihalla Highway, locally known as the Coke, and the blackened forests in that area stretched for many kilometres. Two mornings ago, I was up at 4 a.m. and spotted Orion rising in the east. I was quite surprised as to how clear it was, given that there is still some smoke here. Went outside, looked up, and I was able to see the Andromeda Galaxy without optical aid! If you are lucky, you can do this maybe 4 times a year because you need exceptional "seeing" to be able to accomplish that little feat. It is viewable either with binoculars or a telescope far more often of course, but this was a real treat. Yes, I viewed with binoculars as well, and Andromeda filled almost the entire field of view, amazing! That is our closest neighbouring galaxy by the way. As expected, the temperatures have fallen considerably, right now it is 15.8º outside. Possible rain for tomorrow, with forthcoming temps in the lower 20's. It seems that fall is with us at last.
After months of very low precipitation here in southwest BC, it has finally started to rain again. A record set in 1937 was broken on September 17 when 2 inches (51 mm) fell at YVR. (Previous record - 19 mm in 1970.) Vancouver dries off after record-breaking rain A friend in rainy North Vancouver recorded 4.75 inches (120 mm)! Where I live, about 40 miles (~64 km) to the west, it’s hard to find any statistics but we certainly got less than the mainland. Every drop is welcome though and we have been delighted to have steady showers for several days now. Too little, too late for some of our plants which will need to be replaced in anticipation of similar very hot, very dry summers continuing in the years ahead. One observation that will guide my future choices is that a number of the rhodos really suffered while none of the maples suffered at all. 1. Rhodo 'Mrs. T.H. Lowinsky' - worst of all the rhodo; some did very well. 2. Acer 'Seiryu' - love it! 3. Acer 'Bloodgood' - love it! 4. Acer 'Osakazuki' - love it! The weeping maples did well too but the deer feasted on them. All photos taken today.
Bomb Cyclone There aren’t many leaves left on my maples or other trees and shrubs thanks to what is being called a "bomb cyclone". Here on the west coast of BC, we have just witnessed this rare, perhaps unprecedented, 3-day weather event. The wind and rain have been very dramatic to say the least but, except for power outages and ferry cancellations, I haven't heard of too much harm. “In order for it to be a meteorological bomb, it has to have a pressure drop of 24 millibars in 24 hours. This has dropped 50 millibars in 24 hours so it's like a double kind of a mega storm,” said Dave Phillips, a senior climatologist for Environment Canada. B.C. storm: Historic 'bomb cyclone' leads to dozens of ferry cancellations, power outages Poor old Acer 'Osakazuki' lost most of its leaves in just 2 days.
and further inland to wards Chilliwack ( approx 100 km's from vancouver) we had a bit of wind and moderate rain. I guess the storm is growing weaker as it moves inland. Lots of warnings were posted but nothing significant has happened out our way.
Our kids at the coast filled us in on all the gory weather details...oboy, was it wet! We had some rain up this way, but being about 500 kms from Vancouver, most of it got caught by the mountains before it got here. Same with the wind. We did get some hefty gusts, but were lucky enough to escape any power outages.
Been watching this, we've been fortunate that daughter and BF, who live in the Bay area, are visiting for 10 weeks; they've been paying attention to what's happening on the home front. It's sort of a crazy weather event, when you look at the radars and other figures. But I guess such is the "new normal" sadly... I lost track of this thread a bit. For my 60th we decided to give ourselves a good weather station. There are some fancy features that have already proved useful, like solar radiation and evapotranspiration. It's not in the final position yet, so the wind numbers are wrong (sheltered anemometer) but this is what our October looked like: -E
Our first day this fall of sub-zero temperatures. It was -1.1ºC early this morning. Clear last night and sunny this afternoon. A beautiful 12.9ºC right now, not a cloud in the sky. The Coquihalla got plenty of snow yesterday and there was a multi vehicle pileup at the bottom of Larson Hill. Everything except one car burned up and the lady in the car was fortunate that highway crews were close by at the time. They managed to tow her car out of the wreckage and free her from her pinned position. No fatalities that we know of, although two people were taken to hospital by air in critical condition. There is a fresh snowfall on the high mountains to the south west of us, but my old Canon has decided it doesn't want to work today.
Probably not Margot. Not because they may not be there, but because right behind us is a pretty tall mountain. I'm aware of the CME from the sun a few days ago and these usually cause extra Aurora Borealis to appear. As a general rule they appear low in the sky. I remember when I lived in the Yukon decades ago that we saw them on a regular basis in the winter time. Did you know that they actually make noise? Sort of a crackling sound. But you need to be right under them to hear it.
I remember hearing once that the AB crackle but I'd forgotten. During the big storm last week, there was a single flash of lightning and roar of thunder right overhead. Both occurred simultaneously so we actually heard the crack of lightning. The whole house shook.
I bet that got your attention pretty quickly! We're used to getting thunderstorms here, and while the lightning gets close, I don't ever remember one that hit right here. As far as the crackle goes, I think the weather channel had a short article on that within the last few weeks. Something about some scientists over in Europe, Sweden or Norway perhaps, who had experienced the same thing.
We had an intense windstorm in our part of Northamptonshire this morning that lasted ten minutes or so. (It was windy for longer but the intense part was only for that long.) Nothing damaged at my house but I was called to my parents' place to help clear some ancient lilacs growing out of their hedge that had lost some of their multiple trunks. Not too easy sawing (hand-saw) a 15cm thick lilac stem that is growing in the middle of a holly hedge! They live next to a park and in the park a couple of oaks had lost their crowns or parts of their crowns, a big sycamore (maple) lost a major portion, a couple of willows down (no surprise) and a large cedar of Lebanon lost a few large branches, plus various other trees with damage. Interestingly, the BBC reported that attendees of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow were stranded in London because trees had fallen on the rail lines in Northamptonshire. Storm disruption holds up COP26 travellers from Euston station Here is a picture of my parents' neighbours' oak that fell into the park. Less than two weeks ago the new owners of this property had several trees removed from the property including some large conifers and some oak (not sure if it was part of this oak tree or an entirely different one). I can't help but think that they removed a windbreak that this oak had been relying on. Shocking really, should expect better advice from a tree service. Either way, I bet they wish that this tree had been removed at the same time.
Wouldn't you think that the tree service was more interested in profits than tree preservation in this case? A shame really, as it takes decades for those beautiful trees to mature.
Yes exactly. My parents took a truck-load of woodchip off them for free to use for mulch and compost, but their motive for offering it was obviously ease of disposal. They offered to take six feet off the top of my mothers upright Japanese cherry tree for one hundred and fifty quid; thankfully she refused. There are a lot of cowboys in this industry in our country unfortunately, often part of the travelling community.
