Christmas Day 2008. We're at the island after a week in St. Paul, getting things started with Gary's cancer treatment. We'll stay here a few days for some R&R before heading back down for the radiation/chemotherapy, which will start after the new year.

The snow is deeper out on the lake this year than I've ever seen it up here (in the 8 years I've been up here), and for once I'm wishing the snowmobilers would come out and pack it down. I never thought I'd ever, ever want that. Unfortunately, with the economy so bad, it's looking like we won't see as many snowmobilers as we usually do. Too bad, because walking out to the island through snowdrifts, pulling sleds, is a lot harder than I would have thought. Even Missifous, our cat, didn't want to get out of her carrier on the sled, but instead enjoyed the view from the sunroof.

My mother used to tell the story of her Norwegian father, Ole, giving their barn animals extra food on Christmas Eve. That always stuck with me. So this morning I put on Gary's knee-high rubber boots and went out to top up the birdfeeders and offer pancakes to whoever was interested . . .





. . . and within minutes a flock of goldfinches descended on our front yard like swirling leaves, and settled in for a meal.


Christmas at the island was much more low-key than usual this year, given the circumstances, but we still celebrated the season with a special meal. We made our usual Finnish Christmas dishes, lohilaatikko and porkkanalaatikko. Lohilaatikko is a potato/salmon casserole with cream (sort of glorified scalloped potatoes). Pokkanalaatiko is a hotdish of shredded carrots and barley, with eggs and cream and a bit of nutmeg or cardamom. Normally I make rice pudding to satisfy the Swede & Norwegian in me, but this year I didn't. Instead I just bought a package of lefse -- talk about cheating! But with the candles burning and the glittering fresh snow outside, it was a good Christmas.

A bit of winter color: the chicken coop in the snow. Our five hens and rooster are being boarded out this winter, at a farm where the coop is heated. We found that it was too hard to try to keep the chickens at the island in winter, as we had to change their drinking water every hour or so to keep it from freezing solid. This is a tough regimen to keep up for six months -- it makes it kind of hard to get away! I'm sure my grandparents' generation must have had a way, without electricity, to keep the water for their livestock from freezing, but I never learned what that was. At any rate, the coop is sadly empty this winter, but we'll get the flock back in the spring and it will be so good to see and hear them again!