New Year is here and we still haven’t celebrated Christmas with family, or even each other. In past years, decorations were taken down and packed up on January 1. They would have been up for about a month and the day after or soon following January 1, we would return to school and work. This year, the decorations will stay up for one more week so we can have a post Covid celebration with two of our kids and their families. Christmas dinner will occur then also.
Another tradition adopted by our family from hubby’s youth, is having Huevos Rancheros for New Year’s Day breakfast. Though it was just the two of us, his traditional breakfast was prepared and enjoyed.
My family’s tradition was black eyed peas and collards for dinner. I love both, though hubby is not a fan. The peas were simmered this afternoon, the collards came from a can to keep the quantity low. We purchased a rotisserie chicken when we went to town to walk this afternoon and a boiled potato and spinach salad prepared for his vegetables. Two substantial helpings of peas and collards were enjoyed by me. And at least one more meal of them were put away for another night.
I should have made cornbread, but opted for biscuits instead. I hope the traditions bring us luck in the coming year.
My activity here has been sparse lately. This in part because of trying to get ready for the holidays between having cataract surgery first on my left eye in mid November and my right eye two days ago. The first one produced lots of swelling of my cornea, proving to be quite uncomfortable the day of surgery, like someone rubbing sandpaper on my eye every time I blinked. Thus, much of that day was spent reclined with my eyes closed and dozing. It then produced 5 days of very blurry vision in that eye. As soon as the vision cleared, I realized that my brain just would not/could not adapt to the disparity of vision between the eyes. At the two week re check, when I discussed it with the surgeon, she did a quick check on my right eye acuity and scheduled me for a more comprehensive exam and surgery on the the right eye. My vision had significantly deteriorated in the three months since the exam that generated the referral to her in the first place, or the initial exam from elsewhere was flawed. Now two days out from that surgery, there is only slight vision fuzz, no discomfort, and cheap reading glasses stashed all over the place as I can no longer see any text closer than several feet away. As she and my eldest said, I now have bionic eyes.
In between the surgeries, Thanksgiving dinner was prepared and enjoyed here for 8 family members and Christmas gifts wrapped and sorted, one box mailed off. The stocking stuffers have mostly been gathered and sorted by recipient. We were set to go look for our Christmas tree sometime during the first week of December, only to find out that the two local cut your own farms both shut down, one on November 26, the other on December 3. I guess the drought from the summer affected their trees’ health. As a result, we ended up buying an artificial prelit tree on sale. Both of us were finding the cold hike through the farms taxing now, so we will just use this tree as long as it lasts.
Also in the middle of the two surgeries, we celebrate several family birthdays. At my birthday dinner, local grandson approached me and ask for assistance on a project. Forty odd years ago, we purchased candy cane yarn rope garland for our tree. Ever since daughter was on her own with her own tree, she has coveted the garland. Her son has tried for several years to locate some and purchase it for her to no avail. His project was to see if his wool spinning grandmother could help him make some. Challenge accepted after my search for it was also futile. A huge ball of super bulky chenille white yarn and another of red were purchased. I attempted to make one length on my own but wasn’t happy with it. He was invited over so we could figure it out together and between his intelligent engineering oriented mind and my spinning knowledge and equipment, we succeeded in making 12 very long garlands.
There is an awesome video that hubby took for the process of making one, but I can’t get it to load here.
And a few days ago, we had our first snow of the winter, about the most we received in all of 2023 and it was only a couple of inches after a day of 3 inches of rain.
Hopefully, the rain and the snow are omens of more wet to follow and hopefully break the 2023 drought.
The littles are all grown, the two hatchlings both young roosters. They haven’t started crowing yet, but at 20-21 weeks old, it will happen any time now. The young pullets haven’t begun laying yet, but they should start soon. The old girls are all in stages of molt, so eggs had to be purchased at the Farmer’s Market last weekend.
We continue our daily walks outdoors unless it is too cold or raining. Then we walk the mall or go to the gym 1/9th mile track and walk a numbing 36 laps.
Right now it is quiet on the farm. We will have some of our family here for Christmas and Christmas dinner and look forward to that.
Wishing you all happy holidays, depending on which you celebrate.
A few weeks ago, we lost our gentle giant of a dog. His lack of mobility had kept us from any travel without finding a farm sitter strong enough to help him to his feet and he weighed 200 lbs. It was very sad for us, but he was nearly 12 years old and had lived a good life. His partner in crime is a 95 lb German Shepherd who is 11 1/2, but still able to get into the back of the car with a running start and sometimes a human assist. We decided to board her and get away for a few days. Our travel had ceased with Covid then human health issues, and the big dog’s issues.
We reserved 3 nights at Big Meadows Lodge on the Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park and two days before we were to leave, we received a call that the electricity had been cut to the Lodge for the safety of the firefighters who were fighting a slow moving wildfire that started outside the park on the east side, but had encroached into the park, not threatening any building, but requiring the power cut and seriously impacting the air quality in that part of the park due to the smoke. We were offered a full refund, a change of reservation to next year, or change to Skyland 10 miles farther north. We chose that option but just for 2 nights. Hiked some, climbed Big Stony Man and looked down on the valley and also down on our cabin. It was pleasant, but not the same as our preferred Big Meadows where we have very fond memories with our children as they grew up. We hiked in shirt sleeves on Thursday.
And Friday, we awoke to snow and ice, but not more than an inch before we left and drove another hour plus to pick up Son 1 at work and let him drive us to Bethesda, Md were they live and to our hotel. The hotel, a high rise 4 star venue that was gorgeous until we found out our room was infested with cockroaches, a major turn off. The weather in Bethesda was very nice Friday night and until we left after breakfast today. We enjoyed a delightful dinner our with son, his gal and her son, a trip to the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy space museum on Saturday with all, then a lovely Tex Mex meal at their apartment afterward. This morning, breakfast at their apartment then the trip home.
It was so nice to get away for a few days. The boarded pup was retrieved, dinner prepped and enjoyed, and the laundry will wait until tomorrow.
Tuesday, my left eye will get it’s cataract surgery to improve my eye health and vision.
As usual, I packed more non clothing items than I needed by far, too many snacks, too much fiber, knitting I never touched. It is all put away now. Tonight we sleep in our own bed.
