Cinnamon Rolls for the Birthday Boy!

OK, this is my 250th blog, according to Google also called my semiquincentennial or bicenquiquagenarial! Try that after a glass of wine!

It so happened to coincide with James' 59th Birthday, which I don't think has any such Latin translation, and is not a 'big' one, unless you think of it as the one before your 60th! Eeks!

Or maybe you should think about it as it says on this card ..

He had hoped to go golfing that day, since one of the courses here gives you a free round for your birthday but it was just too cold and probably closed anyway because of the snow.
Like this:

Any-who, he didn't 'want' anything so he got cinnamon rolls, always a winner in his book, and he took it easy for most of the morning ...

His only request was pea-soup, so ...

Ehm .. yeah .. I screwed up, I forgot to buy split peas, so I invented a delicious black-eyed pea/pinto bean/lentil soup with veggies, ham hocks and sausage. Almost as good!

Real 'stick-to-your-ribs' food, which was very fortunate since we had very, very cold weather that day. 

The overnight low was 14F (-10C)! I'm not kidding! On top of that we had some more snow ... 

Everything more or less froze (except for our pipes fortunately), and we found ourselves once again in a winter wonderland.
Being Dutch, that immediately set of thoughts of  .. skating!
We got rid of our skates when we 'downsized' for our RV-adventure, but I remembered I had a very old pair of wooden skates in my 'saved-from-my-childhood' stuff, in a box under the bed.

     

Here they are! These are called 'Friese Doorlopers' and I first skated on them in the winter of 1965-1966. Look, here's proof, although you can't see them very well, but you have to take my word for it. Those are them. Over fifty years old!

So cute, my sister and me!

I couldn't resist trying them on! My feet, of course, have grown a bit since than, normally you would see the 'point' sticking out in front of your toe, but my shoe just fit on the wood ..

Funny!

Unfortunately, the ice wasn't thick enough to skate. Or as they say in Holland: 't Ken net'! 

('Net', usually means 'just', as in 'the ice is 'just' thick enough', but in the Frisian language it means 'not', as in 'it can not', meaning it's not possible/thick enough.

This, as you can imagine, can be the difference between having fun or getting wet (or worse, drown)!)

It has been freezing for several nights since, but it looks like the forecast is for much warmer weather for the coming week.

I actually liked the cold, much better than the week before when we had rain pretty much every day and the, as of yet not landscaped grounds, looked like this:

 

Yikes! Mud-fight anyone?

I haven't walked much lately, mainly because of the cold but also because I've been helping with some cleaning and painting at the B&B.
The one time I did, the only bird I saw was this little Bluebird ..

But I've mainly stayed warm and cozy inside. I finished my 'Christmas puzzle' and started a very appropriate 'winter' one ...

                       Lots of snow in this one. Not easy, I can tell you that!

Other than that, I drink a lot of coffee and I baked some Pignoli, Italian pine-nut cookies (with fennel seeds), which are possibly my favorite cookies ever .. for now!

              

Merlin sleeps even more than he already did with these temperatures and constantly wants to sit in our lap to warm himself. This weather is too cold, even for him!
He sleeps in in the mornings, on the bed, and doesn't even want to get up when I start to change the sheets ...

Smart cat!

That's it for now. See you soon, most likely in much warmer temperatures!