We Won’t Need April Showers, Thank you

In ski country, when the snow pack melts, they call it mud season. There are parts of the country that could use rain, snow, or the other YUK we have been receiving.

Mornings and evenings require donning the thick ugly pink barn coat, a hat or the coat hood, muck boots (sometimes ice cleats would be nice), either leather or thick fleece gloves depending on what task needs to be done. Boldly opening the door to the garage, gathering feed and water bucket, tentatively opening the door to the outside and assessing my safety on the stoop there. Is it wet, coated with ice, or deep in snow. At this point, I actually prefer the snow, at least I can safely walk in it. Some days when looking out, the grass and trees glisten with tiny icicles hanging from the limbs and fences. Those mornings are treacherous, the stoop and other surfaces, including the grass are like stepping on a kitchen floor where cooking oil was spilled, but for the past week or so, even though surfaces resemble the ice palace in Dr. Zhivago, the surface below is mud, thick, goopy, slimy mud. If one surface doesn’t get you, the other one will.

I keep a good thick layer of hay in the chicken run, which as I have mentioned before, is sloped, highest at the end away from the pop door. After opening, or chipping the ice off the gate to pry it open so I can get to the pop door, the first step is always a challenge. For some reason, the preferred scratching place in the run is right in front of the gate, thus all the hay gets piled deep at the other end in front of the coop. Of course, the rain, freezing rain, snow haven’t helped as they make the hay itself slick once compacted. Every few days, a new layer is put down and every evening when I lock them in for the night, I drag hay back uphill to the gate for my evening and next morning safety.

Each morning for the past couple of weeks have looked like the above pictures. The top one was this morning with freezing rain forecast, but it is pouring down not frozen rain as I write. We are in full blown mud season.

The daylilies have sprouted tender green tips which will get burned by the next onslaught of bitter cold, which is sure to come. The mud will freeze again and thaw again before the grass and trees sprout to drink up the spring showers. After two warm winters, my plans to get more cardboard down in the garden and build up a couple of new beds have been foiled by real winter this year. Maybe it is good that I can’t garden year round, this winter is giving my body the needed rest.

Yesterday, on our Anniversary, we drove into town and got drive thru breakfast, it was too icy on Saturday when we usually do it, so we missed the Farmer’s Market, but so did many of the vendors. We picked up curbside delivery of grocery items and came home, sitting near each other as I spun on my new spindle, a gift from my love, and some on my wheel as one of the fibers I purchased for my blanket, though enough was spun on spindles to fulfill the one block requirement (actually there will be two), I don’t like spinning that particular fiber on spindles, so the remainder of the braid is being done on the wheel.

Late in the day, we picked up the Valentine’s Day special from the local BBQ restaurant and drove down to the river to eat. We arrived to pick up our 5:15 p.m. order at 5:10 and it was already sitting packed on the counter, so it wasn’t hot. Packed in styrofoam clamshell contains, several each, cutting and eating from them was a challenge in the car. We should have brought it home and put it on real plates, rewarming what could be warmed. It was not the fancy anniversary dinner of the past, but it was shared together, watching the river flow by in the drizzly gloom. It was a very uneventful day, but a day spent with each other. Another tick off on the calendar of our lives together and another to look forward to.

Forty Three Years

We started later in life than many couples and married quickly after meeting. We were introduced less than a year prior and so very different, but it worked. After Christmas we had gone skiing in Vermont, my first real ski trip and I promptly separated my shoulder, but managed to bundle up enough to restrict it and skied anyway. We got home on New Year’s Eve and went to have my shoulder checked out at the E.R., leaving after X-rays with a sling and instructions for follow up. Early in the evening, we went out for a drink then home to avoid New Year’s Eve amateur night and as the ball dropped, he proposed. He later said that my continuing to ski though injured was the clincher. The family was gathering on New Year’s Day at my grandparent’s house for black eyed peas, collards, and ham (he doesn’t like the peas or collards) and we made our announcement.

Discussing wedding dates, he picked Valentine’s Day, 6 short weeks away, stating that if he ever forgot it, he was in double trouble. He has never forgotten it, has feigned feeling fine to go out for a dinner at a fine restaurant only to crash and burn as soon as we got home. There have been overnights away from the kids when they were small, nicer dinners at home when our budget wouldn’t allow, B&B weekends when the kids were old enough to be left alone, a ski trip to Colorado with cousin his wife, and a cruise for number 40 with celebrations on two nights on the ship and horseback riding on the beach in the Honduras 3 years ago today.

Our wedding was small and simple, an off the rack Gunny Sack dress for me. We did rent the ugliest tuxes for the men, my matron of honor kindly made her own long skirt and blouse. A simple long stem rose for a bouquet, a halo of rose buds and baby’s breath on my hair. A simple gold band of connected hearts for my ring, and a reception at my parent’s home of punch, nuts, and a cake given to us by my grandmother.

We have had a good 43 years together. This past year with COVID restrictions has been enough to test any relationship and we have come through it together. Tomorrow, we will celebrate 43, but we won’t be going to a fancy restaurant, on a cruise, or away to a B&B, we will celebrate quietly together. Maybe next year we will again be allowed to travel and we will celebrate 44 away.

Who are those young folks.

Olio for a rainy day

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

Every other day as far as I can see out in the forecast is for YUK. Today began with cold rain and fog, it is turning to freezing rain/sleet/snow later. Tomorrow is cold and cloudy, Saturday is freezing rain/etc. Some days freezing rain, some snow showers, but all freezing stuff.

This morning, I sat in the car in the cold rain, spinning on one of my spindles while DH was able to get his second COVID vaccine. He was in and out much faster than I expected as there was a short line outside and when I got my first, the line was like a ski lift line that snaked from outside, along a wall, around a corner and back down the other side of that wall. He said they had reconfigured it and the line I saw outside was all there was. I am two weeks out from getting mine. Now we wait and see if he has a reaction, but a day of not feeling well beats getting critically ill with the virus.

My spinning challenges of the month are all with Jenkins Turkish spindles. One requires a weekly check in with photos showing progress and that was done. The other two I can double dip this month as one requires spinning 25 grams of fiber, the other is the breed blanket challenge. My 25 grams spun was the fiber for the blanket square and I ran short so I had to spin more to complete the square.

While knitting the square on, I was spinning my second breed that I had been working on and finished plying it.

I began knitting that on as well, so I will have a blanket of 6 squares soon, each square slightly larger than 10″.

The spindles, my ply bowls, and the blanket so far.

For Christmas, Son 2 and his family gave me a hydroponic herb garden. It was set up immediately and watched carefully as each herb germinated and sprouted above the opening for it. It has been delightful to trim fresh herbs for salads and for cooking. I’ve even started drying some of the mint and the dill as they are hard to keep up with. The Thai basil is delicious in Asian inspired quick soups for lunch. The thyme and sweet basil are slower and the parsley is the laggard, but is coming along.

What a great gift idea for a gardener feeling the winter doldrums. Today I found out that “Chick Days” at Tractor Supply begins on February 22. I want a dozen chicks this year, but won’t have gotten my second vaccine yet and I am sure they won’t curbside them. Maybe I’ll send DH or DD in to get them for me. I figure if I start them the end of the month, I’ll be getting eggs before the old girls molt again in the fall. If I am careful of the breeds selected, they will lay most of the winter. If I have too many eggs, I’m sure there are folks that would welcome a dozen here and there.