Adventures of Prairie Girl and Code Minkey

Surviving floods, thwarting mosquito invasions, enduring weather extremes all while living in our little house...

Friday, April 21, 2006

The Crest is Here!!!

Today the Red River is cresting in Winnipeg. But the view from our house is not that great. So the graphs of the water level in the river indicate that the river went up and then fluctuated with the river's highest crest occuring around April 7-8.


The story of the floodway is different. The peak of the river crest only occurred because the floodway took the rest of it. It is only a guess that the floodway is peaking but unless we get alot of rain that is a really good guess.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Surviving My First Turkey Dinner: An Internal Clash of the Cults

A wise friend, Peter Drost, once remarked: "Families are like cults." His thesis was this: You grow up within your family cult and all of the strange idiosyncratic things they do seem normal to you. You only begin to see the 'weirdness' when you bring in an outside party - i.e., a significant other - who begins to point out all of the things that seem very 'strange'. Of course, this works both ways. This overall process becomes more acute when you marry the significant other and begin to create your own blended cult. (Some may wonder where Jason fit in all of this below, but that will have to be the subject of another post.)

My Mom is a great cook. She has always made great family dinners. I can't recall a single instance where the roast didn't meet her expectations or, heaven forbid, eat a dry turkey. She has done this for many years with varying degrees of help from immediate family members. Because she has survived these feasts, and now has grown children who can take on the baton, she no longer worries about the headaches and hassles. She just gets to eat wonderful meals.

This Easter, I invited some of my family to dinner. I still don't have enough places for everyone to sit so I only had my parents and my sister and her family. In total we were 7 adults and 2 very quick moving kids. I busily shopped in the days leading up to the event. On Friday, I busily cleaned the house and tidied many things that hadn't yet been dealt with since we moved in. On Saturday (the day of the dinner), I finished any remaining cleaning, final trip to the grocery store for items not yet purchased, and prepared the turkey and fixings (potatoes and veggies). Fortunately, my sister volunteered to make her stuffing and dessert, so that was a huge relief. But, I wondered how long should I cook the turkey??

I did what any over-educated woman does, particularly when her husband is a computer scientist, I looked on-line and over-thought the whole affair. I searched various websites and noted that each one had a different length of time posted to cook my 12 pound turkey. Moreover, there were multiple ways of preparing the bird (tenting vs not, shallow pan vs slightly deeper roaster, etc.). In my family cult, my Mom would put in her bird sometime in the morning and forget about it until it was time to carve. I figured I would do this, but...

The web 'experts' stated a 12 pound bird should only require 3.5 to 4 hours to cook, and slightly less if you don't pre-stuff the bird. I even learned that given the new turkey breeds (they are bred to have more white meat than dark) require less cooking time than the 'old' breeds. Cooking times also vary based on size of pan, whether the bird is covered in foil or not, etc. The danger throughout all of this: the dreaded dry turkey!

Wanting to eat dinner at 6PM would dictate a 2PM start. I compromised at 1:30. While the turkey turned out extremely juicy, and had attained the recommended internal thermometer reading of 185 degrees F, it looked anemic. This is because, I combined my Mom's approach of covering the bird but didn't include my Mom's 'insert in morning and ignore until ready'. I worried that if I removed the foil too early, the bird would dry out. I was bringing in my family cult and my new computer savvy cult (i.e. the Jason influence). After a bit of broiling, the skin obtained a nice golden colour. I nonetheless caused myself infinite grief and stress over something so minor. But the reality is, I wanted to "succeed" in producing a smoothly run operation similar to that provided by my Mom for countless years, and has been provided by my sister in the past.

In the end, the dinner was great and fun was had by all (at least that's what they tell me).

I did introduce something from Jason's cult - butternut squash. While available in Winnipeg, I had never eaten butternut squash before meeting Jason and experiencing a big family dinner at his Mom's. From that moment on, butternut squash became one of my all-time favourites with any fowl feast.

The butternut squash verdict by the Driedger-cult household: "it will never replace turnip for me". NOTE: In the Driedger-cult household, turnip has never (to my recollection) been served with fowl - only with roasts of beef or pork, so I don't fully understand the response.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Passing the 'stupid' human test - A Moe Update

All of you who know me, know that I dote on little Moe. In fact, some have gone so far to tell Jason and I that we need kids of our own since we have obtained a 'dangerous' level of animal-parenthood. (For evidence, please see Moe's webpage). Well, since we have been back in Winnipeg, Moe has created all sorts of new adventures for us (see earlier posts in January on 'Moe the Cat and CSI' and 'Further to Moe the Cat and CSI'). We now add to the adventures...

For all of Moe's life with Jason and I, Moe has only ever eaten dry cat food. Pretty boring stuff if you ask me, but it kept him happy and eating. Over a year ago, we noticed that Moe was eating less and less, and couldn't get him interested in wet or dry food. After a battery of tests (read: spending lots of $$$) Moe was finally diagnosed with Feline IBD. Ever since then, Moe has been given medication to treat his problem. But, with a new move to Winnipeg, Moe decided to stop eating, or to only eat 10-20g of food a day. Being understandably concerned, we finally found a great vet, who did three important things:

1. She too doted on Moe (and earned huge points in my book!)
2. She immediately changed his meds to something more appropriate for cats.
3. She gave him an appetite stimulant.

Moe improved substantially. He started gaining weight and becoming much braver. He will now actually will come out to see folks when they come to visit, and he won't even hide too much from my young nephews.

This past week Moe stopped eating altogether. Worried, we quickly made an appointment with the vet. Yesterday evening, while we were preparing supper, Moe was constantly meowing at us. (For those who know Moe, this is quite a feat). This went on for at least 45 minutes. It was incessant. It was adament. It's meaning was completely lost on us.

Earlier in the day, I gave Moe a double dose of his appetite stimulant medication because I feared that the dose we were giving was no longer effective. Afterall, for two days straight, he barely ate 10g of food. By the time I got home last night, I didn't think the appetite stimulant was working at all.

What we missed, and didn't clue into until late last night, was that the stimulant not only was working, and working well, but that Moe was starving! We figured Moe not eating was a sign that the pill wasn't working. Moe's constant meowing was trying to tell us he just no longer liked his dry boring food options. After opening a can of wet food for him last night, he gobbled up the food. He is now making up for lost time.

I'm sure that everytime Moe walked away last night during his Lassie-efforts to get us to understand what he needed, he was probably thinking 'stupid humans'.

The flooding in the South

If anyone is interested in flooding Winnipeg is not the place to look at the moment (fingers crossed, small prayer for no rain). But In North Dakota there have been lots of locales with too much water. The situation in southern Manitoba is not good and getting worse through the weekend.

On another note the fox had five pups and had a fresh kill in her mouth this morning.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Michelle in the news part 2

In case anyone is interested in following along to the actual interview - you can follow the following link at 5:30PM CDT. Make sure you click on CBC Radio One 990. I just finished speaking with the reporter, Margo Watt, and it looks like it will only be the interview portion for about 5-7 minutes. Originally Margo indicated that she might open the phones to the public, but with all of the events in Winnipeg this week (read: the rising Red River), other things may take precedence. Ahh...I guess I will get my fifteen minutes of fame in very small increments.

The first crest

The opening of the floodway is causing a crest in river heights. However, with the brunt of the water is still to come and the water crested this morning above the '96 levels. It looks scary but hopefully it won't be bad.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

The river is high ... the pups don't care...

Here is the latest shot (8:00am 04/06/06) of the river.


The following two pics are the poor attempt to get a shot of the mother fox and her pups and then the pups alone. I will need to use my non-digital camera and some high speed film for the early morning light.


Michelle in the news

I was recently in Saint John, New Brunswick at the 12th Canadian National Drinking Water conference. (I think this has been the only conference that I have attended where I was asked by strangers "are you with *the* conference"?)

For the first time since I can remember, I was actually in a session where I didn't feel like "one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn't the same" - or "now for something completely different". It was great! I was the 4th speaker. The previous three presentations touched on similar issues regarding risk communication and public perceptions of risk but raised different nuances based on their drinking water studies. I was presenting some preliminary analyses from the focus groups that my graduate student and I conducted in Ontario to see what the public thinks of their drinking water. Following the presentation, I, and Andria Jones from Memorial University (one of the other speakers), were interviewed by CBC Radio Saint John. Upon my return to Winnipeg, I received an email from Mike Just who stumbled across the news story.

Well, Mike wasn't the only one with lots of time on his hands to see the story. I will be interviewed again on CBC Radio Winnipeg this friday (April 7) between 5:30PM and 6:00PM. Of course, journalists are paid to surf the web. Mike is paid to work on improving security systems on the web. Hmm...maybe my story on drinking water could become a security issue of importance. Stay tuned...

Life with Jason, Moe, and 4 Fox Pups

Jason has mentioned that he is going to change the title of the blog to life with "Jason and Moe" since I haven't made a contribution in so long. What can I say? Jason is so much better at creating stories.

Since yesterday, we have discovered some things about the fox and her pups. The two little blobs that I saw yesterday are really four little pups. Jason saw them suckling their mom this morning while I was off giving our cat his pills. He has tried to take some photos and will share his story very soon about the looks he was getting from the mother fox.

We have also become completely mesmerized by watching the speed of the river and the number of very large trees floating amidst the smaller ice floes. The floodway was officially opened yesterday, one day earlier than projected. But, we haven't yet seen a noticeable difference in the height of the river.

Tonight I am going to go out an purchase some rubber boots so that we can start to explore our very wet landmass, also known as the backyard. We'll have new adventures to report very soon.

(see - Jason is much better at this).

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

New babies at the Morrison/Driedger place???

This morning Michelle awoke and went to check the river level. She immediately exclaimed: "the fox has pups!". After running and getting her glasses she cooed "they are soo cute!". I quickly ran around the house to try and find the camera, which was in my office at work. After that I squinted and looked through michelle's lens to two fuzzy blobs playing with a larger fuzzy blob near the opening of the fox's den. By the time I got my contacts in they had vanished probably not to reappear until this evening. I will try to get pics later this week.

Oh and the river is high (17.84 feet) at James Avenue. A friend has pointed out the Canadian river gauge site. Accept their disclaimer and look for the Red River gauge at the James Avenue Pumping Station. If that puppy goes too high the whole city has to look out. The flood forecaster is now looking at North Dakota and has upgraded us to a 1996 level flood. which would be the 4th worst in the last 100 years and the 6th worst in known/estimated history.

Monday, April 03, 2006

River Pics

This is the river last Thursday (river hieght at James Ave was 3.38ft)


This is the river on this fine Monday morning (river hieght at James Ave is 12.63ft).



The Question: When will they open the floodway?

Possible Answer: The crest in '96 was 19.4 ft. The crest in '97 was 24.5ft. Niether of these levels are really acceptable so they will probably open the floodway before the river rises another 7 feet ~ 1.5 Days from now by my estimates.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

The US has more money...

It is a shame that the US information on flooding is sooooo much better than Canada. The site on river gauge status in the US is cool.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

North Dakota is flooded

My prediction on Wednesday was made in jest but it was accurate. The water levels in Fargo are now more than an inch higher than the crest last year! In Grand Forks the crest was 40' in 1997. In the last three days the readings have been:

03/30/2006|18.71
03/31/2006|25.96
04/01/2006|33.06

The rise of 7 feet from Thursday to Friday was a shock that made the news here. Another 7+ feet today will have people running scared. An AP wire report states that the dyke to protect Fargo to 1997 levels is only 85% complete. This is not surprising as building protection for Manitoba against the next big flood is still underway. On that note the Red River at James Avenue is just reaching its typical summer level. I'll keep you posted on the river's encroachment towards our home.