Sunshine and fresh snow brings happiness.
On a morning like today, with an overnight snowfall coating the landscape in fresh powder, and the rising sun bringing the day’s first glow to the trees on the opposite side of the river, it’s hard not to be grateful for the beautiful world in which we live. Happy new year!
New snow for the new year.
Yesterday morning brought us a nice snowfall, re-decorating the lawns and trees as they should be this time of year. It was a heavy wet snow, never amounting to more than 2-3″, but was pretty while it lasted. Sebastian was especially fascinated, spending hours on various windowsills, waiting for the moment when a sheet of snow would slide off the metal rooftop and, with a earth-shaking whump, hit the ground below.
We’d made pizza the night before, and kept the pizza oven warm overnight. This morning I shoveled a pathway and stoked it up, making it ready for the next big experiment: cedar-smoked salmon.
The salmon came out really well, though Andy says we learned a lot of lessons and it will surely be awesome next time. 🙂
A southern tradition.
We celebrate New Years’ Day with two traditional foods from the South Carolina Lowcountry: Hoppin’ John and Collard Greens. These classic dishes were inspired by African traditions and have been a New Year’s tradition in the Carolinas for at least a hundred years. Pam (who grew up in lowcountry South Carolina) made a wonderful meal for us this year, guaranteeing us good luck and financial prosperity: “Eating those two dishes will ensure prosperity in the new year, and the collards represent greenbacks and the black-eyed peas coins. Or so they say.” [Moss 2014]
In preparing this post, however, I looked around a bit and found that fascinating article ([Moss 2014] from a Charleston food writer in 2014) about the history of Hoppin’ John… providing interesting background on the African origins of this dish, and how the commercial evolution of the key ingredients (bacon, rice, beans) mean it’s difficult to really accomplish the original quality of this dish. Next time, we’ll strive to find the original ingredients and see how it turns out!
A hike on a blue-sky New Years’ day.
It has long been a tradition for my Dartmouth friends and me to hike a mountain on New Year’s Day. Today we were fortunate to have outstanding weather: a blue-sky day with moderate temperatures (20-30º), and a fresh (though thin) layer of powder snow at higher elevations. We had eyes for Moosilauke – our traditional destination for New Years – but with weather this nice, we anticipated huge crowds. Instead we headed for Blueberry Mountain, a pretty little (2,663′) bump to the southwest of Mount Moosilauke.
I’d been up here once before, but from the east, and today we came up from the west. The west is a longer approach, but a pretty trail nonetheless. We were the first to travel this trail since the snowfall a few days ago. To be more precise, we were the first humans on the trail since the snowfall – we were following a coyote’s tracks for most of the way up! Indeed, the coyote often provided clues about the route when the trailbed was not so clear.
The view from the summit is partly obscured by trees, but Moosilauke was visible and delightfully clear from this close. It must have been a grand day up there! In the photo below, the south peak is most visible.
The sign at the trailhead advertised 2.2 miles, but my GPS track shows we walked 8.52km round-trip (5.3 miles, or 2.65 mi each way). Two smartwatches also indicated a distance closer to 2.7 miles for the ascent.
Hike stats:
distance 8.52km
gain: 423m
time: 3h15m
David Kotz 