Ski Ski Ski your brains out :)

We've been skiing like crazy this week - the snow has been puuuurrrrrrrfect and the weather amazing.  I've been classic skiing every morning with Wynn in the baby backpack, and in the last two days Laura was able to join us too :)  It's much easier and faster to have Wynn in the backpack, but she really has fun in the sled too:

We also cut a new path from our backyard that allows us to ski directly to the groomed trails - awesome!  These trails are all set with classic tracks, though sometimes we get out early enough that only the corduroy has been laid down.

James, Laura, Wynn and I all went out for a ski on Saturday.  The sun was out, the temp just right, and James was passing along the best advice he had:

 

For skate skiing we head over to the University trails system where we are blessed with a dozen or so miles of well groomed trails.

Getting to the University (anywhere really) is best done aboard a bike.  Going skiing is no exception.

Today was the week's highlight - James, the dogs and I hopped in the car *gasp* and headed off to Great Pond Mountain in Orland.  We had heard through the grape vine (Thanks Jim) that this place might lend itself to a good day of backcountry exploring.  We had no idea how great it would actually be!

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I'll let the video tell the story:

We are expecting some serious rain tomorrow :( :( :( so I'm terrifically happy we made the most of this snow while it was here.  We will anxiously be waiting for the next good snow storm to pass through.

Wynn's Inheritance

Earlier this morning in SMS402 (Oceans and Climate Change) I watched A Sea Change, which I have to say is one of the better climate change documentaries I've seen.  The film follows Sven Huseby on his self-driven quest to gain knowledge on ocean acidification, that is, the acidic pH of our Earth's oceans.  The oceans were once thought to miraculously absorb the billions of metric tons of CO2 that humans expel into the atmosphere.  Scientist, not too long ago, were even asking themselves "how can we enhance this mechanism?"
We now know better, this great absorption of CO2 has come at a great cost.  The pH of the oceans is slowly falling.

Pteropods - these beautiful creatures, about the size of a lentil, exist near the bottom of the food chain and form the fundamental base for much of the oceans ecosystem.  They have been described as the angels of the ocean.  What would happen if their existence were compromised?  Well it is!  Pteropods have a thin shell that is delicate to changes in ocean chemistry.  Consider what we know about cola and teeth.  Cola has a pH of 2.5, compare that to the pH of pure water, which is 7.
The following images show a healthy tooth and then one that has soaked in a cup of cola for 24 hrs:

That was only 1 day later!  Imagine what the affects more exposure would have.  This is 1 month later:

It gets worse.  This tooth is relatively HUGE compared to the fragile shell of a Pteropods.  Current projections allow a decade or two before highly acidic oceans could develop.  Change needs to happen now!

Here is the real stinker, it would cost only 2% of GDP to combat global climate change.  So that bottle of pop would cost $1.02 instead of $1.00.  2% is less than half of the GDP spent on wars in the middle east.  This 2% would however take ENORMOUS discipline world over to achieve.  How then can we achieve what needs to happen?  Well we will need to show the politicians that this is something the world wants - that is something every one of us is capable of doing :)

Here is another flabbergaster - it would cost only $420 billion to construct and implement a solar infrastructure that could power the entire USA.  Remind me again why we have spent $950 billion fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan???????  I feel sick.
I don't want history to remember our generation as one of greed and materialism.  A generation that took from the world only to please our want of huge houses, SUVs, and giant televisions.  And for what?  What is a couple hundred years of this lifestyle worth?  Certainly not the comprimised planet we leave behind for our children.
Wynn will no doubt learn about and learn to deal with these issues.  I'd like to instill in her the ability to ask hard questions, discover as much as she can, and always think critically.  These are qualities that I believe can allow us as humans to, as someone once said, live long and prosper.

Wynn sleeps through the night for the FIRST time ever!!!!!!

By far the biggest news is that Wynn, for the first time in her life slept completely though the night - I mean a solid 9.5 hrs straight!!!  That also means it was the first time in nearly 10.5 months that Laura also slept more than 5 hrs straight since she didn't get up to nurse Wynn.  Of course this was all two nights ago, last night Wynn was back to her usual, not bad mind you, waking up a couple times at night routine.

As Wynn matures she is much better at entertaining herself and not needing us to hold her at all times.  This has given us more time to cook and bake and live more "normally."  We finally ran out of frozen winter greens last week, stuff like kale and collard.  So we headed out to the farm where we knew the CSA had left generous amounts of veggies in the ground as the first snow fell.  We had little trouble finding and harvesting a few bags of kale, chard and leeks.

The CSA is located at Rogers Farm, which is probably 3-4 miles down the road from the house.  Very convenient.

From our own garden, which was a challenge to even get into as the door was unwilling to open with so much snow in its path, we gathered more carrots.

I think there is still a bit more than this in the ground, which remains unfrozen thanks to the insulating blanket of snow.
So what did we make with all this?  Well we made an absolutely amazing carrot cake for James' birthday last night (no photo but I am sure my body is still riding on that rush of ymmmm!).  We made some French Onion soup (still have LOTS of cured onions in the back room) with some fresh baguettes.  Enjoyed plenty of stir fried kale and chard greens.  And experimented with some delicatta and eggs, sort of a poached egg with cheese and green bean sort of dish - it was good :).

Yogurt has become a staple for us, but I have always had an issue with the unrecyclable (in most places at least) containers that yogurt comes in.  We have looked into getting local yogurt, which comes in returnable glass jars, but it is over $6 a quart.  So from the depths of Sheila and Scott's house we found a yogurt maker that appears to have never been used since its purchase nearly 20 years ago!  With a quart of local milk and a tablespoon of our last Stoneyfield yogurt we made this:

It tastes just like the plain cream top starter yogurt we used, it was EASY, it was affordable, and best of all there is zero waste.  We will not be buying plastic yogurt containers anymore!!!
So that was the food and ymm-ymmm's summary.  After a year and a half we have finally hung up our wedding certificate, which has the signatures of all the wonderful people that attended on that special day.

Wynn has been utilizing her vocal cords in pleasant ways:

And she and mommy have enjoyed some quality dance time together:

Wynn also thinks calculators are pretty cool, maybe she will grow up and follow the nerdy steps of her parents ;)

s^2 = snow & sleep, finally!

For the first time in 18 days we slept our first good night last night - ahhhhh, it was SO nice.  It was absolutely wonderful seeing all our family and friends, but Wynn was just not digging all the travel and new sleeping arrangements.  She is sleeping better back in her own bed and Laura and I had our first normal day of being awake *together* during the day.
Here are some of the highlights from our holiday travels:

We spent a terrific evening at Najeeb and Sumiya's where we were able to catch up with lots of friends.  Najeeb has the unique ability to both entertain and terrify Wynn... perhaps that is more general towards anyone!

Mike proposed to Thaïs on Christmas Eve, she said yes of course.  No word on wedding plans yet but we are looking forward to it!

Mike is a professional hair stylist, and I don't mean Great Clips, I mean he will be intimately familiar with the physiology of your hair 10 seconds after running his hand through it.  He spent over an hour (each) cutting my Mom's, Dad's, Grandma's and my hair.  My mom looked like a model, which make up some of Mike's best clientèle.  I, according to Randy, looked like Spock from the newest Star Trek :)

Wynn and her Vovo Doido had a great time making zerberts together - shared zerberts are the best!

MG was in grammy heaven with a sleeping baby in her arms.

Wynn is on her way to being as good a pianist as her mommy.

And she is walking like a champ (with a little red-wagon assistance).

We spent today shoveling out and enjoying the fresh snow and warm temps.  The three of us enjoyed a pleasant snowshoe up Newman Hill.

In addition to playing the piano, Wynn is also showing signs of becoming a 21st century Sherlock Holmes... Sherlock Wynn :)

And finally, now just minutes before bed time, I just polished off a bit more of our wedding cake.  It was carrot, it was a year and a half old, it was still pretty darn good!  There is still a little chocolate left, or maybe it's vanilla.    I wonder how much longer we can stretch it for?