Close Encouters of a Poultry Kind

September was a month of juxtapositions in Saskatoon. First, we endured a cold snap that had me rushing to tuck away my summer dresses and pull out my boots, scarves, and mittens. Next, the weather warmed up to well over 20 degrees for the next little while. Our nights are cold, but we're routinely having warm afternoons. During the cold snap I applauded myself for rushing out to the garden and dealing with the vegetables immediately (as in, harvesting the last bits and then pulling them out of the ground, prepping the beds for winter) but then I felt pretty silly, as it heated up again so soon. If I had tucked the vegetables in at night with a blanket and a bedtime story, then perhaps we would have been able to eat some home grown eggplants at our Thanksgiving dinner! 

Alas, I was too hasty in my drive to prepare for winter. Ever since we arrived here last June, I've had a constant refrain in my head: Winter is coming. Whenever I talk to someone about how I'm from Victoria, they first chuckle, then they tell me that the winter is really not that bad, and finally they add, "But make sure you buy a good parka." On the bright side, we do get an awful lot of sunshine hours on the prairies - Saskatoon's motto is "Saskatoon Shines!" after all. 

Nonetheless, I've gotten winter tires installed on both of our cars, I've dug out my merino wool base layers, and I've purchased a down parka. The parka is really cool, as it is a "shape shifter" - it has built in mittens and a face shield. This will be good when I am called out to sub at a school and have to do recess duty at minus 20 degrees. (Recess is only cancelled when the temperature and wind chill are colder than minus 30. School is cancelled with the combined temperature and wind chill are colder than minus 40.)

The kids went back to school here in Saskatoon (and they're back in BC too now, hooray!) but I didn't go back right away. I'm on the sub list for the Prairie Spirit School Division, but haven't had many calls yet. I've been spending a lot of time at Warman Elementary and really enjoying the one-to-one time that I get to spend with the students as a reading tutor. I begin my Special Ed Diploma in January, so perhaps one day in the not so distant future I will be working a Learning Assistance/Special Ed teacher! 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving here this past weekend. I did the full traditional meal, with cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, and brussell sproats, with the substitution of a chicken for the turkey. We had a resident friend (also from Victoria) over for Thanksgiving dinner and had a great time eating too much whipped cream and pumpkin pie! Luckily it was beautiful, warm and sunny on Sunday, so James and I went for a long bike ride along the river, up the Meewasin Valley Trail, hopefully burning off some of that whipped cream! On Thanksgiving Monday we had some friends over for lunch and had the requisite chicken soup, cranberry-chicken salad sandwiches, and pumpkin shaped buns. Delicious! 

Here are a few pictures of our Thankgiving food adventures. Sadly I forgot to bring my phone along for our bike ride so we couldn't partake in the picture taking extravaganza that everyone else and their dog was doing. It made for an interesting swerving course on the bicycles in any case! 

Thanksgiving Dinner, with all the trimmings!

 Pumpkin Buns - I'll post the recipe soon, I promise!