Happy Anniversary

Today marks the 23rd anniversary of our wedding ceremony, and a little more than twenty-five years since we first met...  Happy Anniversary, Maggie!

Today is a Sunday and I have to start work at the St. John's International School Musical Theatre camp tomorrow (more on this later) so we were planning to go to a patio or restaurant yesterday instead of today.  However, the Feast of Assumption falls on August 15th, and so everything was closed.  Instead of postponing our anniversary dinner we opted instead to try out the rotisserie on our new stove, and had spit-roasted chicken with oven fried potatoes and broccoli, with some seafood appetizers (shrimps and scallops), and enjoyed that out in the garden.  Malcolm is at home for a few days and so it was a rare occasion when all four of us were together.

The weather cooperated for our dinner outside, which was lucky: recently it has been very much like August in Ontario: many weeks of dry conditions, and very hot, and then this past week we had torrential rainstorms late in the afternoons nearly every day.  A few days ago we had a prolonged hailstorm (about 30 minutes duration at least!) with marble-sized pieces of ice that tore holes in the sunflower and zucchini leaves, and even broke through the plastic roof of our veranda in several places.

I have never seen a hailstorm that lasted so long... it was also accompanied by heavy rainfall that filled the water cistern.  It also caused a river to run down the driveway, and unfortunately our outside drain was blocked by fallen leaves, and so several centimetres of water made its way into the cellar.  Our neighbours on either side also had water in the cellar, so perhaps it would have happened even without the leaves.  Obviously since the flood we've been busy shifting things around and running a fan, and keeping the front and back doors of the garage/cellar open to ventilate it fully so that no mold or mildew starts to form.  In fact, I am sitting in the garage right now, typing this blog post while I make sure that no one sneaks in and steals any of our tools, or bikes, or anything else, while the door to the street is open.

We've been extremely busy this summer with home renovation projects.  I realise that I haven't posted anything since the end of July, and since then we have pretty much finished the kitchen.  I have some steel kick plates to install under the cupboards, and also some nice brushed steel electrical receptacle covers on order, but other those things, plus a little bit of painting, it's basically done.

removal of kitchen radiator, and re-tiling next to where the new fridge will be

retiled and grouted

removal of some unnecessary electrical outlets

retiled and grouted behind the stove

We went to an appliance outlet centre here in Wavre that was recommended by a friend, and found a good quality fridge and stove.  The fridge price was much less than we could find anywhere else, and we managed to get the vendor to match a better online price for the stove.  In the end we got them both for 20% less than the price of the next cheapest vendor, and delivered, too.

first loaf of bread in the new stove

our new 300-litre fridge!

Yoshi seems to approve

The kitchen renovations required a lot of different skills that I haven't used for quite some time, if at all.  I don't remember every doing tiling, so that was a bit of a learning curve.  Then there was water plumbing, gas connections, electrical, painting... 

And that is just inside the kitchen.  I also did a painting job for our elderly neighbours two doors over, scraping, priming and painting the back wall of their house while they were away on vacation.  That momentum then was applied to our back wall...

Duncan and I demolishing a little wall at the bottom of the stairs

We opted for a sort of pale straw yellow for the walls, which reminds us of the old farmhouses that we remember seeing in Aix-en-Provence.  The railing is strong but a temporary one, as we eventually plan to do something different with the veranda and terrace/patio/deck.  The next project will be to do surface preparation for the edge of the staircase and the brick wall underneath the stairs, and also the other walls.  I don't like the italianate balustrade above the garage door, but can't remove it without also removing the glass panels that close off the veranda, and that will have to wait until the new windows and doors at the end of the kitchen and living room are installed in the first week of September.

Christopher and I have also done several runs to the dump to get rid of a lot of junk from his cellar and a fair bit of our own discards.  We borrowed a trailer from Alain, a friend of his, and when we returned it I went along, and loved seeing the vintage tractors that Alain regularly buys and restores.  This one is a Massey-Harris from Canada, made in 1951.

I'm not at the point yet that I would need a tractor like this for my garden, but it is a nice thing to dream about...

tallest sunflower topping out at 3.63 metres (almost 12 feet)

Maggie is on a pickle-making strike, as we have enough dills to last us for the foreseeable future.  We've used every jar in the house, and have had to buy new ones.  One thing that works is to buy large jars of beans or other vegetables, and then cook with those so that you can reuse the jar.

The green beans are still going strong: I think we've harvested at least ten kilogrammes from the maybe 25-30 plants, and there are still more to pick.  This variety will also dry for storage if I let them stay on the vine longer, so I might try that as well.

The corn on the other hand, while delicious, has been a mixed success.  I think that the prolonged dry conditions had an adverse effect on the plants, and also I see a big difference between the earlier cobs that were hand-pollinated and ones that were left to be pollinated by wind.  There are almost twice as many kernels of corn on the hand-pollinated ones, so if I grow corn again next year I will keep a better record of when the silks emerge, and regularly do the pollination.  

Back to the summer camp that I mentioned earlier... it is still a "go" for this coming week.  The conditions will be similar to those being imposed on the sports camp: small bubbles of a maximum of twenty students, activities held outside wherever possible, indoor activities in well-ventilated places, regular temperature checks and symptom questionnaires, masking and social distancing.  Obviously the kids won't be able to dance and sing wearing masks, but it looks like our total enrollment is less than twenty kids all-told, and we'll be breaking them into two groups, so it should be ok.  It will be nice to get a head start on the high school production, which is set to be performed at the end of November.  At this point my contract has not yet been confirmed, but I am hopeful that it will be, so that I have something artistic and remunerative to focus upon.  Perhaps I will receive news during the coming week?  Certainly Maggie returns to staff meetings in the school in person on Thursday, with the students arriving for classes on the following Tuesday.  It's going to be quite interesting to see how this will all unfold.  I just hope that the weather is less hot that the past few weeks as the school can get pretty warm, and wearing face masks on hot days is a chore.

In other musical news, I received the confirmation from La Petite Bande that the Japanese tour of Bach scheduled for October/November 2020 was indeed cancelled.  As well the quarantine rules for Canada meant that I would not be able to sing the No Tenors Allowed concert in Stirling on October 25th, as my flight was to arrive on the 16th October, and I would therefore be in quarantine until the 30th October.  The director of the Stirling Theatre was gracious and so we have postponed that concert until 2021 at the earliest.  But on the plus side that means that I will have time to devote to Grease.

Then yesterday there was a bright spot: the Japanese tour has in fact been rescheduled to take place at the end of January/early February 2021.  Unfortunately it doesn't correspond with Maggie and the boys' holidays so we can't piggyback a Japan trip for them at the same time.  But I am encouraged...

As well, the group with whom I sang the Homilius Passion in March has asked if I will participate in the Flemish baroque programme that they will present at the end of February 2021, and they have sent me the scores, which look very interesting, particularly the nice aria for bass by de Croes.  Here it is sung by the English baritone Peter Harvey.

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Also, the Flemish group that I performed with at the Bach Wochen Thuringia last year had asked me to sing three performances of the Christmas Oratorio in early December.  They have changed the programme to a much scaled-down project, also of early baroque music, with composers like Schütz, one of Bach's most important influences.  No choir, a chamber orchestra of single players, and a few soloists... like the other concerts that are allowed to proceed social distancing will be practiced between the musicians and singers and audience.

Also, since I'm not going to Canada/Japan, Julius Stenzel from the Minimes has asked me to sing the Hunting Cantata and the Coffee Cantata on October 25th.  These two cantatas have no choir, just soloists, and the same type of performance practice will apply.  A reduced audience is not a big hardship for the Minimes organisation, as they have royal sponsorship to cover the costs of production.

Happy Sunday to one and all...

Happy Birthday to Yoshi!

We are doing well in Wavre... today marks a special day for Yoshi, who moved in with us in October 2018: he's turning six years old today!

According to some recent research into cellular changes during aging, the old human years * 7 = dog years doesn't really hold up.  A more accurate calculation is the following:

16 ln (dog age in human years) + 31 = dog "years".  (That’s the natural logarithm (ln) of the dog’s real age, multiplied by 16, with 31 added to the total.)

By that marker Yoshi is 47, so a pretty good match in age for me.  He's still very playful, and will try to herd anything that runs...

Here he is yesterday playing fetch-the-stick while we were out blackberry picking on my usual trail run route.

Speaking of trails, I have started running again, happily, and went out a week ago for the first time in over two months.  I managed to do about 5.5 km running, then alternated walking and running for the next 4,5 km, just to try to start slowly.  My muscles were pretty sore afterwards so I didn't go out again until last Friday, but then was able to run my usual 10km at a relatively normal pace.  What a great relief to be able to run again!  I had forgotted how freely my mind ranges when I am running... I solve all sorts of problems and get all sorts of creative ideas; it's miraculous.

Trying out my Tour de Mont Blanc shirt from last summer on my first run since early May

While on my first run I saw the blackberry bramble and on Friday I saw that the berries were getting very big...

We had scheduled a Saturday BBQ and dill pickling party with Kevin and Christianne, two colleagues from St. John's, so I suggested that for a bit of exercise beforehand, we could drive about 5km to get close to the site, and then walk the kilometer or so in to where I had seen the berries.  We weren't disappointed!  The five of us collected almost five litres of ripe blackberries, and made note of the location: there will be a much greater harvest coming in the next couple of weeks.  Maggie got out the copper pan and made several jars of blackberry jam.

Then we headed out to the garden and picked cucumbers to make more dill pickles, and after dinner made those.  We sent them away with more than we kept, because frankly the cucumber vines are requiring harvesting every two to three days, and we are going to be in dill pickles for quite a while.

Today we finally broke down and put out an a donner sign at the end of our front walk, with a box full of zucchini.  We just can't keep up with them.  There are only four or five plants but they are incredibly productive.  As I wrote last time, we've tried a plethora of recipes for zucchini: sliced, herbed, and grilled; chocolate zucchini cake, zucchini bread (Edna Staebler); a zucchini, eggplant, and ground beef/pork lasagna; zucchini soup... zucchini fritters/pancakes... 

We have a new much larger refrigerator/freezer and stove coming on Saturday, so that will help, because we will need the extra freezer space for all of these vegetables, and also the fridge space for the odd jar that doesn't "pop down".  The high acid content of dill pickles means that they are ok for a couple of days, but they really need to be kept cool if the jars aren't airtight.

Here's Maggie's mother's pickling recipe, which I feel is the best one:

*After the last step you can simply refrigerate them, or like us, put the lidded jars in a boiling water bath for ten minutes.  Remove from the bath, and place the jars on a tray and wrap them in towels so that they cool slowly, and make not of which ones don't pop down to seal.

I must have done about four harvests of green beans, totally maybe six kilogrammes, so that's quite encouraging.  They are so delicious when fresh that we've only canned a few, but I'm sure that we'll get tired of eating them soon and start preserving, as there are more ready every other day.  The corn cobs are getting fat, but I am trying to hold of from harvesting them until they are really large enough.  From what I have read, about twenty days from first silk emergence is the ideal ripening time, and I have a photo from the 29th of June, so maybe I'll take the plunge and pick the biggest ones?

Yesterday we removed all of the drawers from the kitchen and masked out the lower cabinets and the countertops.  I applied some mastic glue/sealant on the backs of all of the cabinets, and on the bulkhead above the range hood, did silicone seal at the back of the countertops, and then primed all of the MDF green walls prior to their painting in blue.  I should manage to get a first coat of paint on today, and then when we've put on the second one we'll be able to do some repainting of the yellow walls, and add some stainless steel accents to the kick plates underneath the cabinets and behind the stove, and then will be more or less done.  Then it's just an unused radiator to remove, and then we are ready for the new applicances.

Keeping busy around the house

As usual in the summer time, when the family is around, I'm not doing much blog writing.  Also we haven't really been going anywhere, so there haven't been any compelling stories to tell.  But here are some assorted photos that show what we've been up to over the last six weeks or so.

First, the garden is going nuts.  We had our first harvest of green beans, that are climbing up the bamboo tripods that I placed around the corn plants.  We've had so many beets that we can't keep up, so many of the beet green tops have been cut up, blanched and frozen for use later, as one would do with spinach.  The beet roots themselves Maggie pickled in apple juice, using a recipe from the Taste Lithuania cookbook by Beata Nicholson, which Gedeminas and Rasa gave us before they left for Japan.

garden harvests: green beans, and tons of courgettes / zucchini

beet harvest

handful harvest of carrots

As you can see, the zucchini are plentiful, and so far we have marinated and grilled them, shredded and stir fried them; Maggie has made zucchini bread and a fantastic chocolate zucchini cake.  Tonight I'm doing a sort of meat and vegetable ratatouille with sliced eggplant, zucchini, sun dried tomatoes, pine nuts, onions, parsley, feta cheese, and ground beef and pork.

My cucumber vines are going like gangbusters, and I've very happy that they are cooperating with my plans to have them climb on trellises, because it makes it much easier to find the cucumbers and harvest them at the right time.  Plus there is no issue with end rot or discoloration from soil contact, because they are up off the ground, and I can use the "floor space" for other things... like the zucchini (!) and english salad cucumbers.

We have found now that we are harvesting them every two to three days, we can get more uniformly sized cucumbers, and that means it is easier to pack them tightly into the jars.  Maggie has tried two or three different garlic dill recipes, and I have stuck with Sheila Rose's recipe, with the addition of a half-teaspoon of white wine tannins per six litres of pickling solution, just to try to ensure a more crisp pickle.  I'm picking them while they are small which means that they don't need to be sliced up, but can be pickled whole.

hand pollinating the corn silks

The corn silks started to emerge maybe a week ago, so every day since then I have been going out and shaking pollen off the tassels of the stalks, and depositing the pollen on the silks.  Each fertilised silk strand corresponds with a kernel of corn, so if you want nice big full corn cobs then it's best to help the pollination along.

We were considering going to Les Contamines Montjoie again with the Hammers, but given the fact that I had a big garden to maintain, and projects to complete around the house, and also given the financial uncertainty around my own singing career for the next who-knows-how-long, we decided to stay close to home.  But we made sure to visit our friends before they left for their trip.

Having an after-dinner drink in the high field with Bryan and Kiana

Maggie's new blue dress

Maggie has sewed a few dresses already this summer, including this one above, inspired by one that India Hammer was wearing during one of our visits.

On the brewing front I have bottled everything that I've made so far this spring.  We have three types of beer  ready to drink, after eight weeks in the cellar.  They are all pretty good, but I'm also growing to like the "Duivel's Nat" that we made last year.  It didn't really impress me then, but after some months maturing in the bottles it's really good now.  The elderflower champagne and the Christmas beer both have to sit in the bottles for quite a while before I open them; probably they will be a Christmas party drink.  Now that I have had some good success with these kit beers I am planning some more involved brewing, that involves milling grain, and hop selection, and so forth.  We'll see how that unfolds in the coming months.

bottling of the elderflower champagne

three kinds of beer ready for first sampling: "special belge" (an amber beer with a nice mix of bitter and sweetness), saison (a Walloon "farmhouse" ale) and an abbey style dubbel

a nice clear Belgian saison

One day a couple weeks ago, Christopher, Maggie and I had a road trip to Sint Sixtus abbey, to pick up some Westvleteren, and also made a stop at the Sint-Bernardus brewery to shop for some sociales (the large bottles of beer for sharing with friends) and to have lunch in the new rooftop restaurant that they have built on top of the brewery.

sharing platter of bread, cheese, and charcuterie

a view of the hops growing in the nearby fields

More than a year ago Maggie heard from a colleague that her elderly grandmother was looking for a home for her woodworking tools.  She had been a cabinetmaker, and had specialised in restoring antiques...  In fact it turned out that she had done quite a bit of work on Alnwick castle, in Northumberland, which we have visited; it's also where some scenes from the first Harry Potter movie were filmed.  The colleague knew that Malcolm had started his lutherie training, and so suggested that Malcolm and the grandmother meet.  Maggie and Malcolm visited her a couple of years ago, and he did a bit of sample restoration work for her, and then we heard nothing more about it.  We learned last month that she had passed on, and so the granddaughter called us and asked if he'd like to come pick up the tools...

We loaded up the trailer with a workbench equipped with three vises, along with many clamps, chisels, gouges, boxes of veneers, gilding and finishing materiels, and a variety of other interesting things, including some interesting items pictured below.

silver-chased fan or mirror handle, shaving brush,

brass miniature irons, perhaps for inlay work,

and three ivory paper knives

Malcolm has left me the workbench to replace the one he took with him, but most of the rest of the items have gone to his workshop/apartment in Boom.  He's going to have lots of fun arranging and organising all of those tools!

In terms of work projects around the inside of the house, we got down to business and tackled the kitchen...

the old kitchen before renovation

in progress

kitchen essentially completed (needing only some painting)

Any renovation project always takes much longer than one expects, but after a couple of weeks we are pretty much done. Can you see the pale green "half walls" that border each of the white chest-of-drawers-style lower cabinets? These are meant to simulate the kind of brick supports that you would find in a country-style kitchen in Belgium and France. We like flow blue china, and the door frames are already that colour, so I think we'll paint them blue to match.  I am particularly happy with the successful installation of the range hood, which involved hammer-drilling out a rather large hole through the thick brick back wall so that it would vent grease and smoke and odours outside.

We have made the counters to accommodate a 90 cm stove (unlike the 60cm one we have now) and are waiting until the summer sales to choose a new stove and refrigerator, but in the meantime everything is functioning well.

I had another painting project this past week: the cleaning, surface preparation, priming, and painting of the back wall of the house two doors over.  These neighbours are in their 80s, and wanted to have the painting done while they were away on a week's vacation in Bretagne, so I took care of it for them, and made a little money for the job.  It's a good thing that I did it because now I feel a bit more capable to tackle the outside back walls of our own house, which definitely need a scraping, filling, sanding, and painting.

Duncan resumes karate for the summer

This week and next Malcolm is vacationing in La Rochelle with his roommate and friend Antoine and his family.  Duncan is doing some odd jobs around the house, and will babysit for friends tonight for the first time since before the confinement began  He is also happy to have resumed karate, which exceptionally this year will happen in summer, as they lost several months' practice in March/April/May.  His friend Arthur is coming to stay over tomorrow for a couple of nights, which will be great for the two of them.  I'm glad he's getting some more time with friends, as the confinement was pretty hard on him from a social point of view.

I have had a couple of planning meetings this past week or so with Thom Graham and Marie-Pierre Demoutiez, the other members of the music/dance/drama team.  We have received the go-ahead for me to return as musical director for the autumn production of Grease, so we are already starting preparations, and planning to have a summer musical theatre camp during the third week of August, to get the kids started on learning some of the chorus numbers, and also helping them prepare for auditioning for the leads... Grease is a fun show, but I haven't seen the film version since I was a kid, so I'll have to watch that again, and listen to recordings of the stage version, which differs substantially from the film.

I received confirmation from La Petite Bande that the Japanese visa application process is continuing, so as far as I can tell the project remains un-cancelled.  I am hopeful that it will happen, but am also a bit concerned about whether or not I will be able to travel to Canada in the week or two before I am supposed to fly to Japan from Toronto, to sing the No Tenors project... it's hard to know now what will happen a few months from now.  I just hope that people in Belgium, Canada, and Japan are responsible about the safety protocols, and that I'll be allowed to travel.