New babies and New Year! Ah, 2020 – much easier to type and to write. A good friend quoted her mother as saying, after a discussion about the past year, “maybe 2020 will bring a new clarity, after all 20/20 is perfect vision and they also say that hindsight is 20/20”. I so agree with this optimistic outlook. Last year was for me very confusing and unsettled and as I look forward to the coming year I really do hope for 20/20 vision and clarity for the country and for us personally. We celebrated a beautiful christening while we were away. It just put us all in the right mood for the holidays.

Jenny Lane Update

We came home from our week in Canada to find that the elves had made a visit and we had walls finished in the two downstairs rooms and a ceiling in our room. We were so excited. This is a big step forward and means we can perhaps finally get permanent electrical outlets and ceiling lights installed. We needed the walls and ceiling first. We also can think about ordering the flooring for both rooms. Won’t that be wonderful? No more cold ugly painted cement – yes it is much better than the awful rug and flooring that used to be there. The cement was at least as clean as we could get it as well as painted with a fresh coat of cement paint. It was no longer subject to water leaks thanks to the new drains but it still doesn’t look very nice. I can now envision a room without extension cords and no more wires hanging from the ceiling. New doors are here but not yet installed but that might even happen this week. We are close, so close.

Christmas in Canada

My sister’s family are Danish and always celebrate Christmas on the 24th. We were so very lucky to be able to join them in this most traditional and wonderful of holidays. The evening is capped with the lighting of the live candles on the tree, special songs and sayings and the singing of Christmas Carols around the tree. It is very moving and so very special to be included. I do not know anyone else who has live candles on their tree but I am sure there are some who do. The young men who were there were given spray bottles of water and if a candle were to get too close or a branch begin to glow they knew to spray it. We did not have that happen. There are just no words to describe how we all felt except the glow of those candles perhaps say it best.

We then celebrated our Christmas on Christmas morning with Bean keeping an eye out for Santa. It was wonderful.

Walking in Canada

The pups had some lovely long walks with my daughters, grandson and granddaughter and came home exhausted. I joined them one day on their hike which was quite a bit more challenging than anything I have been doing here in New Hampshire. It was quite slippery underfoot, not so much from ice but from very hard packed moist snow. It was beautiful out there. It appears there are miles and miles of these snowshoe and cross-country ski trails within minutes of where we were staying. My daughter-in-law discovered the trail system and they just went out and explored. The trails were very well marked with maps and markers at all the cross sections. They said the first day they were out there some cross-country skiers came racing down the hill and scared poor Bean who thought she had to outrun them. They were able to get her back but I am pretty sure she won’t ever like anyone who shows up on skis. There were lots of those bikes with the big fat wheels touring around the trail system. I had never seen them before and was fascinated that they could actually ride a bike on snow packed trails. Live and Learn.

One other day we went for a good long walk on one of the lakes near the house. The dogs absolutely loved the freedom of running and rolling in the snow. The weather did not cooperate very well as we had a couple of freezing rain events and only one tiny burst of snow. There was, however, more snow up there than there is down here at the moment.

A Border Story

We ran into an interesting situation that now qualifies in our book of border crossing stories. On the way up the person in the little booth on the Canada side asked me if he had to put the + sign in his computer when he entered the plate. My license plate is NHPDQ+. I told him yes he did however he said his computer wouldn’t take it. I laughed and said we had four cars all with similar plates: NHPDQ, NH-PDQ, NHPDQ+ and NH&PDQ but luckily just plain NHPDQ is grounded in the garage for the winter. He laughed and wished us Merry Christmas. On the way back our daughter and her children crossed on the big border on 89 and called us to say there was a very long line up so we should try and go around it. I called my sister who was able to walk us through the route that goes through Morse’s Line which is a beautiful drive much better than sitting for an hour at the big border. Well, there really is a Mr. Morse and he came out of his little building looking very confused. His questions were strange too. Why were we there. We told him. He said are you sure you haven’t crossed into the states already today and we said no we had not. He shook his head again. Then he asked if there was another car from New Hampshire that had gone through and I said yes it was my daughter, the one who told us about the big lineup. He then said “what is your daughter’s plate number” and the light bulb went off. I said “NH&PDQ” and he said “she crossed at about 11:15 at Highgate” and I said yup. They really thought we had crossed over and then crossed back again and were crossing again. Guess they can’t put those + and & in their computers. John said we should really confuse them and take all four cars up sometime. This was a good one!!!!

The Family that Cooks Together….

Our family is full of people who love to cook. Everyone has his or her own store of talents. The Asheville family of Margot and Hadley have started making their own pasta and decided that the whole family should get in on the act. They made the dough, let it rise, rolled it out, stuffed it with something delicious, then cooked it and poured something delicious over it. I just took pictures and watched in amazement how it all came together.

Spinach and Goat Cheese Ravioli
I found this recipe on Iris and Honey which is pretty close to what they did. Click on the link to go to their site. I have printed it here for ease of use.

Ingredients

• Dough:
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/4 cup hot water
• Filling:
• 1/2 cup cooked spinach
• 5 oz goat cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Instructions

1. To make the dough: Sift salt and flour in a large bowl.
2. Make a well and add the egg and olive oil.
3. Add water as needed to make dough.
4. Knead for 10 minutes then wrap in plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for one hour.
5. To make the filling: Use a cheese cloth to make sure all liquid has been drained from the spinach.
6. In a medium bowl, mix the spinach, goat cheese, and Parmesan.
7. To make ravioli: Divide the dough in two.
8. Roll out the dough and place one on the ravioli frame. Make wells.
9. Place spoonfuls of the filling in each well and cover with the second rolled out piece of dough.
10. Use your hands to press out any air and seal the ravioli.
11. Carefully, press the ravioli out of the frame and use a pastry cutter to divide them as needed.
12. Repeat to make desired number of ravioli.
13. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
14. Boil the ravioli for 4-5 minutes.

Then add this sauce on the top and more Parmesan to taste.

Sauce Recipe

Sweet Italian Sausage
1 large Onion chopped
Tablespoon of minced garlic
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 can of chopped tomatoes
Lots of sage
8 oz of heavy cream

In a large saucepan, brown the sausage. If the sausage is in a casing, take it out and break it up and brown it with the onion and garlic on high temperature. Add the crushed tomatoes and the chopped tomatoes and the sage and turn down to simmer until ready to eat. Add the cream just before serving.