Where is springtime?

A windy warm walk yesterday, an inch of rain, high wind, and a 35 degree temperature drop overnight and it is still falling. Snow flurries while dealing with the chooks this morning.

Even the Thanksgiving cacti are confused.

Both of them are blooming and the Christmas cactus has buds.

Yesterday was repair day. There have been some issues in our bathroom for a while and it was time to replace and clean out, a great excuse to give that room a deep cleaning too. Plumbing doesn’t intimidate me like electricity, so taking a trap apart or replacing toilet parts is no issue. Hubby’s tub is a giant jacuzi style that is not jetted but spa sized. To clean it, I have to get in it which I don’t like to do with cleaner sprayed all over the inside. I read you can use dish soap and a broom, but I can’t imagine how you would rinse it all out. As for electricity, I gave up on the dining room light after a conversation with Son 1 who concluded we have a short in there somewhere, not a switch issue. It is off and the switch taped to prevent accidently switching it. Next time he visits, he will examine it, repair it if possible, or replace it with a new fan and light if not. In the meantime, we moved dinner time a bit earlier so we can see what is on our plates.

I finished plying and skeining the Christmas gift wool. It ended up 492 yards of 18 WPI yarn. I’m still trying to pick a pattern for it and toying with spinning a complementary color to use with it to make a generous wrap. It is a pretty, subtle gradient and very soft.

A few years ago, I knit a pattern that was popular at the time called “Free Your Fade,” using 5 distinct colors that you blend with alternate rows as you are ready to change colors. It is one of my favorite wraps, it is huge, can be worn as a shawl to cover shoulders or a generous neck wrap over a sweater or coat. With the gradient, I wouldn’t have to alternate rows except to change skeins if I can decide on the coordinate skein. It wouldn’t be quite as large, but still a nice size.

It is too overcast to capture the colors from gray on the left to wine on the right, but you can see it’s size.

It is pruning time. The fruit trees, the grape vine, and the rose all need pruning. Not today, it is too cold outside to want to work out there. It is still falling toward a 25f night, the forecast says it feels like 21f now. By Sunday it warms back up into the 50s for a few days, maybe I can get it done then before the 4 days of rain expected next week. I’m not sure what I will do with all the clippings though as we have a burn ban in place. They can be hauled to one of the areas we can’t mow or hay and leave them to become part of the floor of the woods at some point. There are two small trees that have fallen into the haying areas, the tractor can pull them out of the way.

Yesterday, on our way home from the hardware and our walk, we drove on along the upper edge of our property on the road. We hadn’t done that for a long while and some jerk has dumped a huge upholstered chair and a broken cooler into our property down the hill almost into the creek. I think we can put a tow strap around it and haul it back up to the road using the tractor, but then I don’t know what we will do with it. Neither of our cars can pull the trailer any longer. We may have to enlist daughter’s help to pull the trailer to the dump. People can be such inconsiderate slobs.

Market Day

We have snow showers in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning. They salted the roads yesterday which will send everyone scurrying to the grocer to buy up all the bread, milk, and beer (it is Super Bowl Weekend). I don’t drink, don’t need milk, can make my own bread or get it at the Farmer’s Market, so I will avoid the grocer. We supplied up on dog foods earlier in the week, but are having difficulty getting hubby’s preferred cola. The shelves have been stocked with lots of options, but not caffeine free diet and this has been an off and on problem all fall and winter. I don’t drink soda either, but it is his preferred beverage. I’m not braving a grocery today for it though.

My preorders were be ready at the Farmer’s Market and I scanned the other vendors to see if there was anything else I want. The Market was a zoo, too many people for my comfort level. Hubby wanted one thing for breakfast out that could be picked up and eaten in the car, I didn’t want that and figured to just get breakfast at the market. All of the lines were too long to wait, the local coffee shop near the market had people out the door, the local bagel shop near where we drop off eggs was mobbed. Fortunately, after trying two other places, we found one that I could get a bite and coffee. Weekly eggs were delivered, we took our walk and came home. There are a few chores to do like vacuuming, but there is an obstacle in my way.

The old guy won’t get up on his bed, but he does use it as a pillow and since we have to use a beach towel under his belly to help him get on his feet now, I don’t want to disturb him.

We may or may not leave the house tomorrow depending on whether we get a dusting or several inches, there is no need at our ages (or any age) to risk going out on snowy roads when unnecessary. I can always make chili for lunch or dinner. And since I got fresh cornmeal last weekend, corn bread is always favored, hot from the oven. I once ordered a tiny skillet of cornbread that was topped with goat cheese, it was maybe the best cornbread I have ever had, but have never been able to duplicate it.

This afternoon is Zoom day with the spindle group. A visit with them is in order as I missed last weekend because we went into town to get a pizza from a small chain restaurant but when we arrived the line was out the door. There was an indoor track meet with 4 Universities over last weekend and three hotels within walking distance. As we sat in an Asian fast food drive thru line instead, the waves of college students swarming around our car was a good indication that we had chosen the wrong night to get the pizza.

The month is almost half over, we will celebrate our 44th anniversary on Monday. Four years ago we were on a cruise to celebrate the 40th. Maybe someday we will be able to safely travel again. With only the couple of weeks behind me, I have already nearly finished my batt of colored wool that was my February spin challenge, have finished 25 grams of another fiber for my second blanket, knit two breeds on to the blanket. I have picked another fiber sample new to me to spin and it and plying the fiber below and the one for my blanket will occupy the rest of the month.

A relatively quiet weekend, just the two of us.

Mouse traps

As you can see from my header photo, we live on acreage. The house sits in the midst of fields that in the past have been used for grazing, but mostly used to grow hay to be cut for local farmers use with their cattle. The upper part of the farm above the barn in an alluvial dump from the last ice age and is littered with rocks and boulders too large and too numerous to move and has been left alone since we bought the property. The prior owner had a herd of miniature horses and donkey’s here and they grazed down much of the brush and cedar trees. The area has a creek that is very dependent on rain across most of the width of the north edge of the property that joins with a creek that has never totally run dry since we moved here that serves as a water source for the house to the north of us and as it meanders back and forth under the fence line that divides us from the farm to the west, serves to water cattle before the two creeks merge and disappear into a sink hole below a rock face. The old creek bed runs just off the west edge of our farm and in heavy rain still carries the water that fills the lowest part of the sinkhole faster than it can disappear into the ground.

The first thing we did after the land was turned over to us and the horses and donkeys removed was to plant daylilies and River Birch trees along the top run off creek to help stabilize it’s path and keep it from running out into the road beyond our house, and about a half dozen trees in the alluvial field, though I am unsure any of them survived, the Birch trees are gorgeous. But by not having grazers on the land, the alluvial field has filled in with volunteer oaks, Tulip poplars, cedars, maples, and some less desirable scrub like Autumn Olive and blackberries.

The fields are hayed each spring and mowed or hayed each fall depending on the summer weather, but as hay fields, they harbor groundhogs, field mice, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels that run from one rock pile to another as each rockpile has one or more trees growing in it.

The rodents except the mice stay clear of the house, because of having two large dogs in and out and a flock of chickens loose during all daylight hours. But the mice sometimes find their way into the house and evidence of them found usually in the cabinet under the utility sink in the laundry room, but very occasionally, one makes it into the main downstairs part of the house. This requires that they be removed. I am not putting out poison as I don’t want to kill the birds that might eat a poisoned mouse, nor will I use glue traps. If you have ever seen a mouse caught in a glue trap, you know that that is not humane at all. If I caught them in safe release traps they would just turn around and come right back in again. That leaves snap traps. Now PETA would have a fit, but a snap trap is quick and rids the house of the disease carrying rodents, but snap traps are tricky to load. I have never had one snap down fully on a finger, but have had them snap in my hand. Right now, there is a wily one that has gotten the bait off two traps without getting caught. This morning, rebaiting them I did catch the edge of finger on the nail. No permanent damage, but WOW, that stings a bit. I know PETA would say, serves you right. Let them live with mice in their houses, I won’t.

You might say, have a cat, but when daughter and her family lived with us for a couple of years with 2 cats, there was no change in the number entering the house, and when we had a barn cat that slept in a box on our front porch, her food seemed to attract more than she caught.