We’ve got a light layer of snow on the ground, and based on our forecast, I think winter has arrived.

The ferry’s last sailing across our river is on Tuesday night, cutting off our West Dawson neighbours until the river freezes up.

Let me recap what we’ve been up to!

Hiking/Walking

I’m back on our trails for some of our walks, more than I was all summer. I don’t know why I hike up in the hills so much less during summer, but I think it’s because carrying bear spray is an annoyance and I know I should have it with me. Now that the bears are retreating to their winter dens (well, except for that poor solo cub that was wandering around in town last week) I feel like I don’t need to carry it anymore. I’ve also been bringing Hank with me more often. He’s slightly less of a pain in the ass now that he’s 7, and I’m working on trying to reach some sort of compromise with him. I can be pretty militant about no stopping, no sniffing, no dilly-dallying. So I need to calm down and let him smell the roses spruces from time to time. Then I don’t to walk twice a day (once with him, once without).

A small product review – I’ve switched to using Shokz OpenRun Pro Mini’s when I’m out for a walk. It’s a nice time to listen to a podcast. I used to use my Apple Airpods Pro on transparency mode, so you can hear everything around you, but I don’t like having something physically in my ears. These Shokz’s call themselves bone conducting earphones and they sit in front of your ears. Like tiny little mini speakers in front of your ears, so you can still hear everything around you. I wish I bought them years ago. I highly recommend them! My head size requires the mini size, so be sure to measure the back of your head, as they advise on their website.

Oh, and speaking of podcasts. I recently stumbled on a new podcast with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson called Where Everybody Knows Your Name and I’m really enjoying it! Take a listen:

Thanksgiving dinner

Our friends Kyle and Ags invited us to their home for Thanksgiving. Kyle’s mom is visiting from Ontario. We all brought contributions to dinner. I made dinner rolls, chocolate chip cookies, and Jeff made his Grandma’s banana cream pie.

I have made dinner rolls for most of our holidays in the last few years, and I haven’t yet found my favourite recipe. So I went old school this time! I made the Light-as-Air Buns recipe from the Yukon Pioneer Women Memories & Recipes book I recently purchased from the museum. They take twice as long, with three rising periods, and are made with lard or shortening instead of butter and/or milk. I LOVED them! I panicked as they were baking, because they bake at a significantly higher temperature and they were so browned at only half way. I think my oven must be significantly more efficient than the pioneers so I pulled them out at 13-14 minutes rather than 20-25 that the recipe called for and they were perfect!

They are very light and airy! With a really nice tasting crust. The recipe called for a milk and sugar wash on top, which made them stay really sticky. I think I’d skip that next time. They could easily be hamburger buns, if I made them a bit larger next time. We used some of the left-overs as slider-sized buns for some pulled pork Jeff made and they were perfect!

Start to finish, the recipe took about 8 hours! Jeff thinks he prefers the denser rolls I’ve made before though, so maybe this one isn’t the final winner. Sigh.

Anyway, back to our Thanksgiving dinner:

It was such a nice day! Temperature wise too! We got up to 10°C a couple of times this weekend. It was a perfect evening for a fire between supper and dessert!

A few more bonus pictures:

Hank and I visited Father Judge‘s grave on our walk on Thanksgiving and expressed our thanks for everything he did for the early days of our town.

Here’s Sally. She’s 16 now!

Here’s a picture of Hank and his brother Griff from the dog park:

Here’s a chicken Jeff cooked last week. He bought 10 nice big birds from his friend who raised them this year:

Jeff spatchcocked this one – that means you cut the spine out and fold the bird open. It was delicious!

Here’s a Hawaiian Motherlode pizza from the Pan of Gold restaurant. I’m really liking pineapple on pizza lately!

Oh! And a bunch of us were out at Gertie’s on Saturday night. The former Gertie, Amy Soloway, entertained us for the evening, a night of singing with her friends playing and singing with her. She is so talented. What a performer!! How lucky are we to have her in our community, and to have this hall where we could gather to listen!?

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving! <3