Mid November

The school put on a veteran's day assembly full of songs and poetry and a presentation of certificates of appreciation to the village's veterans. There was quite the range represented. 1 coast guard, 1 navy, 1 air force, 2 army, 1 marine (though he is stuck at his lodge upriver until the ice solidifies), and combined they served in about 10 different countries. 2 of them were drafted, 3 were volunteers,  and one was a female career Major.
I didn't even know that the Coast Guard went to Vietnam. It was neat to hear some of the vets express gratitude for the recognition, especially those who were serving at an unpopular time. I've never been overtly patriotic, but I was pretty moved by the assembly.

And after, we had the red, white and blue cupcakes and coffee.

Yesterday we got a nice bit of fresh snow, so a couple of us went out for a ski. The frozen portion of the river is reaching out farther and farther from the bank. someone had driven their snowmobile along the ice, so we felt safe skiing along the edge of the bank. Some folks have been out ice fishing too. You can see sticks marking the holes. Mary Rose, the preschool teacher caught a nice pile of graylings, but the school kids were not having any luck. For fishing lines they have short willow sticks tied with a bit of line and a hook with a tiny bit of red yarn to look like a salmon egg. I'm not sure if Mary Rose had fancier equipment or not.

A couple days ago I did some watercolors with the kids at school. They liked doing it so much that I'm thinking of other projects to do with them. Thanksgiving decorations is what comes to mind, but I'm somewhat at a loss for what sort of decor would be appropriate. They don't really get much color here when the leaves change, and it was so long ago now that using the standard fall leaf motif seems a little odd. I asked Susan, the principal if they would know why objects like corn are symbols of Thanksgiving, but she didn't think that this group of kids had been given much if any background in the Thanksgiving story. (maybe they will this year) but until they do, creating pilgrim hats and corn shucks and native american headdresses just doesn't really seem appropriate. So I'm not really sure where I will go with the next art project. I want them to feel a sense of success and pride, and it has to be easy enough for a 1st grader and interesting enough to engage 6th graders. No problem, eh? 

Veterans Day

Julia's been mastering the fine art of using her fingers to pinch up cheerios. She's pretty good at it now and spends a great deal of happy time in her high chair consuming them. She's also learned to drink water from a sippy cup, and seems to enjoy that too. she was kind of perplexed by the taste of water at first, and would gulp and gasp, but now she's pretty used to it.

The sunrise this morning was beautiful. It lit the entire west riverside and water up in frosty orange.

The sun must have been hiding above some thick clouds, because this is all I could see to the east. 

There's a fisheries specialist at the school all this week, doing fish-based projects with the kids. Yesterday they were dissecting a salmon, and we got to take home the remains, which were huge. I made a salmon pasta dish by adding cooked, deboned salmon flakes (just a baked chunk) to some jarred tomato sauce we had on hand. (augmented with some extra garlic sauteed in olive oil and finished with some fresh basil and parmesan)  It was pretty darn good. I also made soup stock out of the head and some vegetables that I'm planning on making into chowder tonight. I'm also baking more of that overnight rising bread. I've tried adding cracked wheat and wheat germ to make it a little wheatier, and that seems to be working.

Julia, meet Salmon

The kids at school were decorating red, white and blue cupcakes for the veterans day assembly which will be tomorrow morning. There are five vets in the village here, and I want to send love to my favorite vet, my dad. Happy veteran's day, Dad.