The Snow Came...

 It came, it snowed, it conquered.

  We got about 6-7 inches all together. Enough to slow things WAY down for a day or two. Nice.  And it was really beautiful. When I'm in the middle of dreading snow and ice, I forget about it's magical beauty.  And the stillness...wow. Must be the insulating factor of the snow combined with the way it stops the world for a bit. At any rate , it's magnificent.


  And it's been on a steady warm up ever since. Slowly but surely. Today is supposed to hit 40 and by Thursday it's supposed to be in the low 50's.  Crazy. Then it will begin to slide back down into real winter temps again.


  My son is bringing my new (to me) gas stove in right now. It's been in the garage where he's been cleaning it up and stuff.  After it warms up, he'll pull the old one out, put this one in and we'll all pray that the oven works. No way to know until it's all hooked up to the gas. And--it's got that same damn electric igniter on it. Why oh why do they make those??  I just hope that you can still light the burners with a match. Otherwise you might as well have an electric stove in a power outage. It's an older Frigidaire. This is a great Xmas present to me.


  My chickens have started laying again (thank you, Jesus).  I have almost a dozen eggs in there from the past 4 days.  They started laying just in time for me to have to tramp through snow up to my knees to gather them.  Go figure...lol  But still, I am grateful. I have had to buy eggs from some neighbors and they aren't nearly as beautiful as my own eggs. Still better than store bought, but my eggs are deliciously orange yolked little orbs of beauty.  (Okay, so I'm prejudiced).  lol


  I am having a hard time getting myself motivated this morning. I need to clean my aquarium, it's a holy mess. This time of the year, when the sun changes angles, it gets a terrible overgrowth of algae and requires more maintenance.  This hobby has turned into a job. lol  (I say this every year).  I have enough time to at least get the  aquarium cleaned before I have to leave, if I could just quit stalling. lol  Winter makes me tired. And lazy.

  That said...back to the holidays with all their decorating and cooking and baking. I need to stop and pick up some honey today on my way out of town, as I'm almost out.  I get it from a little country store right here about a mile from my house. I buy it by the half gallon, and that works out pretty good for me. PLUS--I have these great half gallon sized jars for pantry storage. I have to make granola and granola bars--2 batches each.  One batch if for my son for Xmas presents, which, along with a book on edible wild mushrooms of Illinois, is what he's getting from us. The other batch is for the Irishman's breakfast and lunch.   Both recipes use honey. 

   I made a batch of Martha Stewart's Old Fashioned Lemon Sugar Cookies the other day and they are really good. I might bake a couple of more times, especially if I have a full sized oven to do it in.  I really hate baking cookies...so maybe only one batch of cookies and some bars.


  Put up a few more decos around the house a few days ago.

And so it is upon us...and soon it will be the year's end and we will be ringing in the new and I will be celebrating my birthday a few days after that. And then it's on to the doldrums of the midwinters. And the thing that will save me is that the seed catalogs are already starting to arrive. Well, one anyway, the beautiful Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds which is a work of art and a pleasure to behold.


Well, my son just brought in some 5 gallon buckets so now I have no reason to not get off my lazy duff and filter that aquarium.  Sigh....

  Wishing you all a happy Full  Moon.


Namaste.