I know there’s ground beef, and then there’s ground turkey, but do they make ground hog? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that.

Another thing I don’t know is what ground hogs have to do with February 2nd. I’m curious as to how this whole thing came about. It’s a pagan holiday, of course. Imbolc. One of the major sabbats, one of the crossed quarters, falling between Yule and the Vernal Equinox. A festival of light, bonfires, celebrating the turning point of winter..

But how ground hogs came into play, escapes me.

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I don’t really like using labels like ‘good’ and ‘bad’, but they have the advantage of being short, concise, and not-too-inaccurate. Good Snails are the ones that a) you pay money for, b) you give names to, c) you care for, and/or d) that you’ve intentionally raised from babies.

Bad Snails are the pests that sneak in on plants and things, that reproduce like rabbits on fertility drugs, eat all the food, clog up the filter, and generally have all the appeal of fleas on a dog. These are the ones that you spot one or two, then the following week there are four dozen, then the following week there are eleventy million.

They actually pick on the Good Snails, clinging to them like the aforementioned fleas, picking at any faults or flaws in their shells, laying their eggs on them, and driving the Good Snails, and myself, quite mad with frustration.

In the past 6 months, I’ve encountered several species of pest snail. There are the Physidae, commonly known as bladder snails, tadpole snails, or occasionally pond snails. These ones are sort of foot-ball shaped and have sinestral (left-handed) shells, with no operculum (no shell door). The Physidae breed quite quickly, but have thin shells that are easily squished or cracked, and many fish will eat them.

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I was just trying to figure out when the November long weekend was – I mean, the month is half over and there hasn’t been a long weekend yet.

That’s when it hit me – there is no November long weekend.

To me, this seems like some terrible oversight on someone’s part. I had to dig up a calendar and start searching, to find out what was going on.

• In January, we kick off with New Years’ day – so the month and the year opens with a day off. I approve.
• In February, we have ‘Family Day’ which it seems to me was just started recently, and sounds like the sort of phoney-baloney holiday that we need every month.
• In March and/or April we get a day off to celebrate Eostre, or if you’re into that Christianity thing, they call it Easter. Still, one long-weekend between two months seems like a bit of a ripoff to me.
• Then in May we celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. (Technically it’s to celebrate the birthday of the reigning queen, we just call it Victoria day.)
• June is appearantly overlooked, but I move that we institute a long-weekend to celebrate the Solstace. June 21 weekend anyone?
• July is good, we kick off the month with Canada Day.
• August is also good, we kick off the month with Simcoe Day. (I won’t refer to it as a generic ‘civic holiday’. When I grew up it was Simcoe Day. So there. Nyah.)
• September too starts off good with Labour Day.
• October is all set, with Thanksgiving.
• November…. nothing. I move that we open November with a holiday. November 1st is All Hallows day, or All Saints Day if you prefer. It’d be nice to have a day to recover and sober up from the Samhain festivities on Oct. 31st.
• And December, we get two days off to celebrate the Yule Solstace, though for some reason they always put the holiday on the wrong date.

I’m seeing the need here for 3 additional long weekends. All Hallows day in November, Summer Solstace in June, and then in March/April we should peg Eostre down in one month (how about march, for the vernal equinox?) and add another holiday in April.

Every month needs a long weekend! Right?

I always thought that Victoria Day was to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday.

However, if you believe everything you read on teh intertubes, appearantly it is also Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday too.

That is to say, that Victoria Day is to celebrate both Queen Victoria’s birthday, and the birthday of the current reigning monarch. Who is Queen Elizabeth II.

To make it more convenient, Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday was changed to May 24th by an official vice-regal proclamation. According to teh interwebz.

After that it got more and more confusing. About the only other thing that really sounded plausible that the Victoria Day weekend is also known as the May-Two-Four weekend because part of the official Canadian celebrations include buying a 24 and, well, celebrating.

So, cheers, eh?

Happy Fifth of May, everyone!

So I have some more stuff to talk about, but it occurs to me that if I were to grumble or rant about, say, family, coworkers, customers, etc. that it’s possible that someone may come across this stuff and realize it is referring to them, and then what?

But then I remember that the majority of my family don’t know what a blog is and never visit my website, that someone in Upper Tibequistan with an internet connection can know more about me than my folks… and coupled with the I-forgot-my-cryptospam-again-yesterday it’s not that big a deal I guess.

So family first, work later, if I’m still in a ranting mood.  Grumbles continue below the fold.

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Well, another Canada Day has came and went. We had a nice little get-together, some close friends, some family, some drinks, lots of food.

Things wrapped up early this year, nobody stayed over, everyone was gone by about 9:00. As always, tomorrow will be a day for sleeping in, and then lots of cleaning and tidying.

People were very generous with their compliments about the food, but I don’t think the ribs were very good. They were tough and chewy, I found. The sauce was good, I love the sauce, but it doesn’t really count if the ribs aren’t good. Maybe next year I’ll make something else… I like steak but I am bad at getting them done to-order. Ribs are ok as they’re all just ‘done’… maybe something fancy next year, or just different.

I also made some vegetable skewers and I thought they turned out ok, except I burned a few of them, shame on me. I liked them better than the ribs – not tough, not chewy, and very flavourful. They were fairly simple although there was some prep work behind them.

The cake was outstanding, it was provided by Get Frosted!. Leanne, I won’t ask for fondant cakes any more – I liked it, but nobody else wanted to eat the fondant. Everybody just loved the cake though – both the look of it, and the taste — outstanding!

Ok, so here’s some simple recipes – giving away my ‘big secrets’

Stephanie’s Rib Sauce

One bottle of Master Choice brand, Chipotle flavour bbq sauce

1/2 Litre real pure maple syrop

2 or 3 drops of Daves Total Insanity Sauce

1 gram of Saffron, crushed

Mix the bbq sauce and maple syrop in a large bowl, mix well, then drop in the insanity sauce; mix well, finaly add the saffron, mix well. Brush onto meat while on the grill, and allow the sauce to start to caramelize. The components are all there and work together: the bbq sauce is the base, the maple syrop adds a sweetness that caramelizes and adds that caramelized flavour, the insanity sauce gives it a spike of heat, and the saffron (believe it or not) is there too, a subtle flavour that nobody can place, nobody ever guesses what it is. Makes enough sauce for 3 or 4 racks of ribs.

Stephanie’s BBQ Vegetable Skewers

1 large eggplant

2 red bell peppers

1 sweet Videlia onion

juice of one lemon

2 cloves garlic

1 bunch fresh basil leaves

1 cup virgin olive oil

Finely chop the basil, crush and finely chop the garlic, and place both in the olive oil. Mix well, seal, and stand overnight (or a day or two). Chop the eggplant into 3/8″ thick by 1 to 2 inch long pieces. Lightly coat with lemon juice. Place on a single layer of a pan and broil at 400 degress for 10 to 12 minutes, then refrigerate to stop cooking. Chop onion and bell peppers into 1 inch chunks. Arrange onion, peppers, and eggplant onto skewers. I use bamboo skewers which are soaked for 1 hour in water before use. Before placing on the bbq, brush vegetable skewers with oil mixture. BBQ on low heat for 3 or 4 minutes per side. When done, onion should be soft, peppers starting to char a bit, and eggplant slightly crispy on the outside. Makes about 12 to 16 eight-inch skewers.

So, there you go. Two of my recipes – the Rib Sauce one I’ve used 3 or 4 years, but the skewers one I came up with yesterday.

It’s a cake! A BBQ cake!