Heat Wave!

The fifth of July brings with it an extreme heat alert. I am unimpressed; the air feels like gritty steam escaping from the devil's laundromat.
We spent the "Canada Day" long weekend visiting friends and family out of town. How lovely to get out of the city and enjoy the cooler, cleaner country air. My dogs were happy about it too. They like to just lie around in the shade and watch the chickens go by. Plus, they hate the "fireworks holidays" so it's nice to get them somewhere quiet.

Tonight, we elected to barbecue on the back porch instead of further heating our house by using the stove. We don't have air conditioning but the house we live in is old and covered in vines (see "Mulberries & Bicycles" for a photo) which help to keep the house fairly cool until we get a serious heat wave, like this one.
Our weather is going crazy, in case you haven't noticed. We're having more floods and tornadoes and at the oddest times. This year, all the rivers here flooded at the end of June. Highly unusual. I've read enough to know that this is the climate change we keep hearing about. I am kind of appalled by the number of things that I, personally, do to contribute to it, without even thinking about it. I'm consciously trying to limit my "footprint" and to be less impactful wherever possible but every now and then I find myself doing something that I realize has got to stop.

So, ironically, (she blogged...) I kind of hate computers. I spent a LOT of time today trying to transfer some photos from my old iMac onto Rob's newer PC. What a headache! I was tired of trying to match my Guatemala trip photos to my blog posts that mostly take place here in Ontario. (Above you see a resident of Caye Caulker, Belize, basking on a lounge chair...) But my efforts were unsuccessful. I'll have to try again another day. And for now, my travel pictures will have to suffice because as I sit here, I feel the heat coming off of this computer and realize that it should be shut down soon, if I'm going to keep this place bearable. All these electrical devices emit heat, even the fans we use to circulate the hot air.

One thing I miss about eating meat is hamburgers. Tonight I made veggie burgers for dinner. I make them out of lentils and nuts and tofu that has been frozen and shredded, then thawed and marinated. This gives it a meatier texture and it picks up the flavour of the marinade. I also threw in some chopped, re-hydrated dried shiitake mushrooms, breadcrumbs, eggs and a bunch of seasonings. They turned out really well which is nice because I made too much and we're going to be eating them for a couple of days. In the past when I've made too much of the mix, I've made a sort of faux meatloaf from the leftover mix but I don't dare turn on the oven in this weather. We're stewing in our own juices as it is.

This post is clearly just a front for bragging on the success of my veggie-burger recipe. I keep saying I'm going to perfect them and then to try to market them. I want to do this because there are a few places in town that serve veggie burgers that actually suck. One tony place even serves a mediocre, frozen store brand patty. They overcharge for it, too.
In an ideal world, I would have a little neighbourhood pub where I would serve veggie burgers and delicious salads and freshly squeezed juices. Rob would tend bar, mixing the fabulous clinky-drinks for which he is locally famous. We would play cool music and talk about life and politics, love and peak oil.

But for now, I'm going to go around the house, shutting things off and closing windows and blinds. In a few hours, this heat is going to be insufferable.