Happy Easter, Do You Wanna Dance?

L's Easter/Spring Break was eclipsed by my illness and her Spring Musical.  We had to cancel our weekend in Toledo with J due to illness, and L had 4 hours of rehearsal every day except for Good Friday, so that was that.

I did try to do some Easter-y things, masked of course.  Having binge watched an entire season of "Great British Baking Show" over the previous 2 days, I decided to make Hot Cross Buns for Good Friday.  This involved 10 minutes of kneading dough, which was actually quite therapeutic.  They were delicious and I will definitely be baking these again, although I might cheat and use the bread hook on my KitchenAid instead of all that kneading.

I also boiled some eggs, and I expected L to help me decorate them, but she was much too busy.  I ended up using paint pens to paint them, which was not actually a good idea, because I could only paint about 1/3 of the egg, and then I had to let it dry before moving on.  They looked ok from far away.

For Easter brunch, I made beignets, which we enjoyed hot with fresh berries.  Yummy!

We have had some lovely weather, in fact, it has been a bit warm and dry!  Midweek, I ended up watering the peas that I planted, and just discovered yesterday that 2 of them have come up.  I'm hoping for better germination than that!

In the meantime, my asparagus has been sprouting, and I'm guessing that the rain over the weekend may really get it going.

JP spent a few days last week DIY-ing a 100 year old sink that we scavenged from our public library before a renovation project over a year ago.  The library is housed in a mansion built between 1900 and 1905 and gifted to the library by the previous owner.  The sink is now part of an outdoor sink/potting bench, which I think is wonderful!  I will stain the wood once it dries a bit...perhaps this fall.

L's show opened on Friday night.  I spent Thursday night and all day Friday washing, mending, ironing and steaming costumes!  They did a wonderful job, and it looked like they all had a fun time!  The show was titled "Do You Wanna Dance?"

I started back to work last week as well following the bout of COVID.  I am still getting tired sooner than typical, and my chest gets really tight when I exercise, but otherwise I'm doing fine. Yesterday and today are my days to recover from the show.  I ended up grooming and bathing the dog on Saturday, pushing the lawn mower out back yesterday, and I have to clean house today as well as attend the library Board meeting this evening.  Sigh.  Will life EVER slow down?

April Fool

I am home sick today with COVID.   I thought perhaps that I would make it through this pandemic unscathed, but apparently not.  Luckily, I feel like I simply have a bad cold and am fairly hoarse, otherwise not feeling too poorly.  Mostly I'm just feeling a bit of a fool for not wearing a mask to L's County Chorus Concert on Friday evening.

Today is also the warmest day of the year so far - in the 70's, and the sky is a brilliant blue.  I have all of the windows open in the hopes of blowing the nasty germs far away.  I'm glad that I got the screens put back on the windows over the weekend so that I can have them all flung wide!

I did finally get the peas planted over the weekend as well - we are a few weeks behind the St Patty's Day deadline, but not too shabby!  The other plants should not be too far behind - they are currently hardening off in my new tiny greenhouse purchased at Tractor Supply Company a couple of weeks ago.  And just in time too...some of my squash plants have wee squashes on them already!

I made some other purchases at Tractor Supply Co. a couple of weeks ago as well:  10 little peeps.  I started out with 5 black sex-linked pullets, and 5 Rhode Island Red pullets, but one of the black ones died the following day.  I was able to replace it with a Buff Orpington pullet (this is the breed of our stupid rooster, NumNuts) - she is the little blond one toward the center.

Outside things are greening up and doing their thing as well.  The pear trees are blooming, and were swarming with bees over the weekend (if you enlarge the picture you can see the bees more clearly.)  The weeping cherries were also humming full of bees.

The swing set is also greening up.  JP and I bought stain for it last week, and it was so beautiful outside that I decided to start using it today.  You can see that I didn't get any higher that I could reach on a step ladder since I'm scared of heights and home alone.  Guess I'll do the high stuff later.

Unrelated to outside and green and peeps, but slightly like growing things, I made pasta over the weekend.  It's been a while, but it turned out delish.

Well, I'm coughing rather violently again, so I'm going to go back outside - that seemed to help earlier!  I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful season!

Spring Has Sprung

 Winter is over!

I did manage to do a few more puzzles:

I also made another tea cozy out of old mask material, this one was for my sister-in-law.  It's a bit straighter than the first one.  I think I have enough pieces to make one more!

I have taken many chances to walk outside with Stella.

Things are definitely blooming:

the rhubarb is up!

The apricots were blooming too, but the below freezing temps this week froze them all (again!)  I think it might have frozen the buds/blossoms on our fruiting pear tree too. 😢

they were gorgeous while they lasted!

We took a quick trip down to VA while J was home for Spring Break.  Her BFF came along (so we had 3 teenaged girls in our hotel room!)  L went for a college tour at our alma mater, EMU, and then we met up with JP's sister and brother-in-law to show them our "retirement" property down there.  We had dinner with them, 2 of JP's cousins, and his niece and her BF - 11 of us altogether! 

The following day, the girls and I walked around downtown, checked out a couple of little shops (including a favorite, Ten Thousand Villages), art galleries, and a quilt museum before heading back North to PA.  The last 2 hours, JP drove in blizzard conditions and could barely see the road at times!

I'm not sure how much breaking J had for her break - she was working on some paintings much of the time, AND we did her taxes before she headed back to school!

So, now we are waiting a few more days for the nights to stay above freezing so that we can get some peeps and plant the peas in the garden.  It shouldn't be much longer!

Late Winter Projects

I have been working on a few projects this past week.  I finally took the Titanic downstairs so that I could use the card table to put puzzles together as I usually do during the winter.  I started with one that I got from my mother, and I remember seeing in our home when I was growing up.  It was tricky as the picture on the box was only part of the entire puzzle and many of the tiny corners have disappeared over the past 50 years.  I believe it was manufactured in the 70's based on the colors and pattern, see what I mean?

I also made 60 biodegradable pots out of newspaper and planted them with seeds last weekend.  I already have some little seedlings that have come up!

I spent several hours this week taking apart that sad, sad rag rug that I made a couple of years ago, and then several hours today sewing it again.  It's better, but not perfect.

JP and I found a bunch of these Christmas Milanos on clearance for $1 each at WalMart in January.  I like to use them instead of ladyfingers in my Tiramisu, which I made this weekend (so yummy!)

I'm ready to take a little break to watch a movie with JP.  Hope your late winter is similarly productive!

No Longer Sparking Joy

There comes a time every February when I can just NOT TAKE any more cold, grey, dark days.  I would gladly pack up (or not, I'm tired of all this STUFF) and head to sunnier climes, or even a condo in town. It is just so hard and unrewarding to live on a farm in the winter:  there is a lot of work to keep it going (tend the fire, keep water and animals unfrozen, shovel and plow snow and some special people get to haul all the water they use a couple of times/week) and very little to make it seem worthwhile (1 or 2 eggs/day, water and heat in the house, the ability to LEAVE said farm if wanted.)  So when the time comes that it no longer sparks joy, what to do?  Get rid of it, right?

This is the state of our yard after driving the 
truck and trailer full of water through to fill 
the cistern day (after day after day after...)

Well, it's not quite that easy to unload a farm, particularly when the driveway and environs are so muddy that it's difficult to even get up here on the hill.

It's much easier to wait for a sunny day (we have had an hour or two here and there recently) which can effectively recharge my batteries and tolerance for mud.

I did notice that - right on time - my lenten roses are blooming, which is a teeny little nod towards spring being on its way.  It helps.

Do you like my new ring, by the way?  JP and I got new rings for Christmas - this is from the LOTR collection from Enso, the "Shire Leaf."

I hope there is more sunshine headed our way this weekend, as my winter stamina is just about at rock bottom.

Nine Lives

Back in 2010, a friend gave us 2 kittens, who came to be known as Bert and Ernie.

Bert disappeared long ago, but Ernie has been with us for the past 13 years until yesterday when the last of his 9 lives came to an end.

He was such a funny cat!  He loved lying on the woodpile in the sunshine.

He preferred to drink out of buckets, or with both front paws IN the water bowl.

He had a foot fettish, and if you let him near your bare pigs, he would be sure to bite them.

He was a good hunter, and frequently left "gifts" on our doorstep.  After he arrived, we did not have to worry about mice in the house any longer, even though he lived outside on the veranda.

His first buddy was Bert, but his longest friendship was with Lizzie.

Towards the end, he became very ill, but he would still purr, rub fur all over us, and drool.

I prefer to remember him like this: