There's always so much to do in this house to follow a regular schedule of house-cleaning and meal preparations that I really appreciate short-cuts. On Friday when I made a bread dough for the Chelsea buns I baked I had made enough dough to put some aside in the refrigerator for a later use. The dough itself was just the slightest bit on the sweet side, but it was fairly rich since there was milk, butter and eggs used in it. I thought why not use the leftover dough yesterday for dinner, baked as croissants to go with the soup I planned.

 

 

So that's just what I did, and Irving's reaction was all the assurance I needed that it was a good combination. The soup was one made with an assortment of peas and beans, lentils and barley. But it had its share of vegetables; garlic, leeks, jalapeno pepper sauteed in olive oil, and when the bean mixture was adequately cooked in went chopped yam and tomato. In the initial stages I added cumin and fennel seeds and garam masala. So the fairly neutral but rich rolls complemented the flavourful soup quite nicely. 

 

The short-cut for dinner tonight is comprised of the smallest eye-of-round I could get, fingerling potatoes and sweet-and-sour beets. That's a really quick-and-easy dinner to put together.  I need quick-and-easy on a busy day, and Monday is a busy day. It's the day this house of ours gets cleaned, top to bottom. Irving does the vacuuming, I do the bathrooms, the dusting, dry mopping and floor-washing.

 

And then, ta-dum! we're free to go. Jackie and Jillie know all the symptoms of 'finished!'. It's when I get up off my knees with the last floor washed, dump the pail of soapy water down the toilet, and go upstairs to change out of my work clothes. They follow me, nipping at my heels, my hands, anxious to get me going.

Irving fills up his cookie-pouch and arranges the puppies coats and boots so we can dress them for the outside and off we go into a beautiful winter day much balmier than the last several. It was overcast, and some of the snow from yesterday morning's snowstorm still remained on the forest trees, so it was also beautiful.

 

The puppies were extraordinarily delighted to be out, full of vim and energy, racing downhill and uphill and urging us to come along. It's a happy occasion watching their antics. Jillie raising herself on her hind legs with the tremendous energy it takes for her to empty her lungs in loud, sharp inviting barks to her friends where they may be in the forest.

Jackie has a tendency to stay closer to us, while Jillie tends to race off on the trails. When she's gone far enough and begins a barking frenzy, that's Jackie's cue to join her and off he races to add his male voice to his sister's (there really is a difference). Seemingly out of nowhere Evie came trundling hurriedly along to sit docilely by Irving while he fumbled with his cookie bag, and Jackie and Jillie hurried back to make certain they weren't left out of the cookie-fest.

 

The creek was full and running dark with  particulate matter dredged up from its clay bottom.
Whenever was pass over the last bridge crossing the creek we peer intently into a small still 'pond' that forms where a downed tree trunk transformed part of the creek into a quiet shelter. On occasion we do spot a tell-tale orange shape flash by, but not today. 

 

We don't mind an introduced species thriving here; basically goldfish that people have 'liberated' into the creek. They grow, at times, to a substantial size until a spring-migrating great blue heron returns to stay a week or two on a stayover before continuing its way onward.