Peru...

I roasted Peruvian this morning, without any significant disasters occurring. I had committed a cardinal sin and used up the last of my coffee yesterday, so I was in the position of not having rested coffee on a Sunday morning. But it wasn't quite situation critical: m'lady had planned a trip for us to Earl Bales park for a change of pace for our Nordic skiing, and she wanted to go relatively early in the morning. That left no time for lollygagging over a morning coffee, but it did leave enough time for a quick roast.

The gods were smiling, as the roast came out nicely to a second crack. There was a bit of unevenness in the beans, but I've been pushing too many into the Hearthware in the interest of being able to get 3 press pots out of a roast. Hmm, let's call it a nice mix to express the full range of the bean, shall we?

So we got in a quick ski at Earl Bales park -- a park with a split personality in the north end of Toronto. Earl Bales Park encompasses a ravine tall and steep enough that they've built a ski lift to support a downhill facility. How cool is that? In the middle of the largest city in Canada, in southern Ontario's flat farmland heaven, residents can take a bus to learn to ski and snowboard.

Of course, we already know how to ski, and we're not there for the hills -- we're there for the snow, sun, and the slide on our cross-country skis. The top section of the park overlooks the ravine, and this being our first time, we had no idea how large the park was. It turns out the top part consists of a one-kilometre loop at best. It's a kilometre of fantastic views over Toronto, of course, but not quite as much as we would have liked, so we stretched it out on some of the open park sections. Two interesting sightings for the day:

• We met a couple and their Golden Lab at the ravine look-out, who tipped us off to the lower section of the park -- the flats that lead on to a golf course. We weren't into checking it out today, but we will return to check it out.


• Tuck woman. A Nordic skier in full gear: toque, gaiters, basket poles, very slowly skiing over the gentle swells of the park, then going into a full tuck down the five-foot average descent. For a person moving in such slow motion, she radiated intensity: the kind of vibe you get from a serious yoga fiend, or perhaps a cult fanatic.

The Peruvian, by the way, was wonderful.