Housewife, 54

AS you can see from the date of my last post... it's been a while.  It would seem that I may be afflicted to some degree, by that nasty malady known politely as "winter blues".  Starting sometime in late October, my energy and zest seem to fade until by December, I am dreading the Holiday season.  It happened this year a little more than most, so I decided to do something about it.  I got one of those daylight lamps to try "light therapy" to see if it will help.  I didn't get the lamp until about Christmas time, but I seem to be having a bit of luck with it.  Let's hope it works (and I can start with it earlier next year)!  Already I am being more productive each day! (It could also be that the expectations of the holidays are behind me too, so next year will be the true test ;-) I can't blame my malady on the weather as we have had a long and beautiful fall.  We did have a HUGE snowfall in mid-November (14") but it was all melted in a very

Here it is already November 2.  Hard to tell from being outdoors today!  It is sun-shiny and the temperature is a wonderful 71 degrees (F) with only a very slight breeze.  Perfect, right?  But for November it is a gift from heaven!   Elvis posing on our walk today.   Most of my garden is in and stored, but I still have brussel sprouts and parsnips to harvest.  I sampled a brussel sprout as I walked past the garden doing yard work yesterday. It tasted like a baby cabbage!  I'll give them a little longer as they are still quite small. Today I did want to make a vegetable soup, so here is what I came up with.  Anything that I did NOT grow myself, I will mark with an *. All vegetables were chopped. In a large Dutch Oven, saute: 2 Tbsp olive oil* 1 small onion 1/2 C celery 2 small carrots 2 medium potatoes 2 cloves minced garlic* then add liquids: 32 oz stock* (I used beef, but it was organic) 3 Cups oven-roasted and pureed tomatoes    (These were

 Summer. Gardening. Amish Paste Tomatoes and Tongue of Flame dried beans. Here is a basket full of goodness.  Altogether I harvested and processed 4 Cups of the beans (after they were shelled out) and 7 pints of canned tomato sauce, and about 10 pints of frozen tomato sauce. Green beans were good, too. This is the result of just one picking.  I have quite a lot of beans in the freezer, two different varieties, Blue Lake bush and Italian Pole.  I packaged most of them in portions for 2 people.  I have also purchased sweet corn and froze a bunch of that as well... but that was kind of cheating and not organic like the things that I grew myself. I have also grown and froze a few bags of peas! Pesto made from basil that I grew from seed!      Potatoes were another really good crop, we ended up with 1 and 1/2 bushels!  Here is just a sample: Onions, peppers and cucumbers were better than usual, and here is what I did with some of them:

Not really the cat, but rather my husband....  He has been to a convention for the past few days, and I have been wallowing in the luxury of managing my time all to myself!  Well, to be honest, I have had some things booked to organize my time - a pretty busy weekend actually.... Saturday I attended a workshop of dying with Indigo.  It was held at a friend's home, in her back yard.  What a lovely fun day.  The weather was perfect.  The other gals were friendly, the lunch was yummy, and the presenter was really good at instructing us about indigo and how to use it to dye fabric.  We each had 4 squares of fabric to play with, and all kinds of tools and materials to aid us in creating fascinating designs.  Here are mine:  On Sunday I did my "thing" at Petersen Farm.  It was the annual "Day at the Farm" where the public is invited to come and visit.  There were all kinds of displays about farming in the old days (and some new things, too).  Lots of hands-o

Since it is summer and my hands have been busy with gardening, I have not been doing a lot of knitting.  Instead, I have been reading.  I am a member of an online group of D E Stephenson admirers, and we usually have a book that we are discussing.  The Yahoo group has just finished talking about her book The Four Graces, and the Facebook group is just starting to read and discuss House on the Cliff.  I usually read the book under discussion, but so often I can't put it down - I just forge through the whole thing in an afternoon or evening!  W e spend a few days discussing each chapter... I occasionally post a comment, but more often I take the opportunity to re-read an old favorite, and check in on the discussion occasionally to see what sidelines they go off on!  Even more than the analysis of the book, I enjoy the aside information and comments.   DE Stevenson enjoyed a long literary career, writing in the UK.  She began in the late 1920's and continued into the 1960'

We have had a very good spring for gardening. A nice blend of cool and warm, rain and dry.... everything is doing quite well just now....  But that can all change in an instant.  Today's forecast is stormy - rain, wind and hail with the possibility of tornadoes.  Guess I won't go shopping, I'll stay home and dink around on the computer and maybe do some sewing.....? Here is an update on the gardens: Our vegetable plot up at Mt. Hope church is doing well.  Everything that I had planned to have in by this time is planted and growing.  I did not get good germination with my bean seeds, so I have already planted more.  Just this week we got compost and filled in the last section with the "no-dig' method: laying down cardboard and piling the compost on top and planting directly in that compost.  This is supposed to suppress all weeds and give you clean soil that you can keep nicely.  Here is a picture: Our veggies at Mt. Hope.  Our plot ends where the str

I am so pleased to report that good progress has been made! In the past week I have earned several Master Gardener Volunteer hours... AND made progress on my own gardens.  There is still more to go, but I am SO grateful for the progress that I have made! The historic garden at Petersen Farm, I dug and planted this first section. Each time this spring that I have attempted to work in the garden, I have become amazingly exhausted - even just an hour was a recipe for sitting the rest of the day.  But now I have found that I can work harder and longer, and with a little bit of a rest, I can continue to do the things that I need to for the rest of the day.  This is a HUGE improvement!  The spring weather roller coaster has actually been a help.  After I work a couple of days and get really tired, we have some messy, rainy weather so I can recover (smile). Just as an example: Friday I had worked at the Master Gardener office for 4 hours, zipped home for a quick lunch and then got

       It has now been a full month since my last post, and my first comment is TIRED!  I have really taken the bit in my teeth on this gardening thing.  For the first few ventures out to dig and grub in the soil, I was worn out in a matter of minutes!  Thank goodness garden work is dictated by the weather and for once, that old spring "weather roller-caster" is on MY side.  I wear myself out for a day or two and then get to sit indoors and recover as it rains!  Gratefully, I am seeing progress in my endurance and am able to work longer and harder. Progress report: I have started quite a lot of seeds indoors and have diligently cared for them, hardened them off on the front stoop, and now quite a few of them have been planted out.  YEA! I have dug out some of my perennials and potted them up for the church plant sale.... All of the day lilies that I had but didn't care for the colors.  So far, I have purchased only a few more to add to my Postbox Gar

I am SO grateful that it is now officially, warm and SPRING.  I am all set to GO this year!  I was finally able to do the Master Gardener class, am now in Intern, and HOPE to get my full 60 hours of volunteer time in to become an Official MG this year.  So far I have 10.5.... I completed my Office Training this week.  The Office schedule will be out soon so I can see when I am assigned to work and how many hours I might get. We have other "volunteer opportunities" throughout the year, aside from the Office time.  I do think I will like answering questions about Gardening.  There are all kinds of resources for us to use, so it is just a matter of looking things up! Here is the first spring photo of our home, with the Veg garden at the far left, and the flower borders across the front and at the postbox.  I hope to make some changes to the borders this year, but not sure how much I can manage. As a great start, I have started seeds inside and actually have plants up and gr

April is supposed to be a month of showers and unsettled weather... well, we have had our first taste!  Last night we had all kinds of storm warnings: thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes - you name it, we had it!  The sirens began about 7pm and continued to go off every few minutes for a couple of hours.  We had the TV tuned to a local station and all regular programming was interrupted for weather reports.  A huge nasty tornado was reported heading for our area.  We watched out our deck windows, moved to the basement, came back upstairs, went down again.....  for the first hour or so the air was still but we could see lightening firing constantly high in the western sky and could hear the rumble of distant thunder - but never saw a funnel cloud.  Yes, it was dark, but with the lightening firing so frequently we could see the sky almost constantly. Our son was hours away, stuck in a hotel room on a trip for work, and he was watching the Weather Channel, sending us text messages to keep us

             It's a BOY! And he is a little late, so follows the pattern of other men in the family.... But he is beautiful, healthy and we are so pleased that he is finally here.  We drove the 9 hours out to visit and help out, arriving the evening of the day Mom and baby were released from the hospital.  I was expecting to do laundry, shop, fix meals, fetch and carry.... but actually did very little of any of those things.  My Daughter-in-law is a steamroller and was not about to sit around and rest.  She was up and going the second day home.  I DID make her let me drive, but we were out of the house the very next day, going to the pediatrician's for a weigh-in (typically, baby had lost weight and was not an eager eater, so they wanted to keep an eye on his weight gain), and after a rest back home, Mama and I were off to the grocery store.  I asked her to just make a list and I would go do the shopping, but she said she wanted to go.... so what am I to do????