Warm Day

Something wrong with this picture!?!?! It is January!!!

Jeff, Nik, and I worked outside today because it was so warm and sunny. About 50 degrees or so.

As you can see we had plenty of help with all the animals.

I was building raised beds to put my cold frames on and Jeff was tearing out the satellite dish. Next week it turns cold again so back in the house we go to get some electrical work done and start putting a ceiling up in the bedroom.

How 'bout some soot!!

Me after tearing out ceiling. Must've burned coal here....ya think?

Storing up for the big storm of 2008!!!!

Now you get to take a break all winter....

This is what I heard a number of times when I was wrapping things up this fall from selling flowers. But :) ....with having a wedding in October and going to Japan for three weeks I have already fallen behind!!! I didn't get the perennials I would have like planted this past fall(hopefully this year) for spring flowers. And I'm beginning to wonder how I will ever be ready for summer!
So what have I been doing this winter since buying a house. Today I tore down half the ceiling in our bedroom without falling through it, started to build cold frames on the side of the house for growing early annuals, lost and found Wookie (at the dump), eradicated millions of English Ivy sprouts( at least it seemed like it), and decided to wait on building a hoophouse.
The rest of this month I am hoping to1) get the drywall up and put up the plank paneling in the ceiling of the bedroom, 2) sand down the old baseboards, 3)build four cold frames on the side of the house, 4)build a rock terrace, 5)plan and order seeds for February sowing. Then to Maine we go to visit Jeff's family.

Excerpt from the Last of the Mohicans

" 'Thou sayest well', returned David, ' and hast caught the true spirit of Christianity. He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is predestined to be be damned will be damned. This is the doctrine of truth, and most consoling and refreshing it is to the true believer.' "

New Years Resolutions 2008

With everyone else making new years resolutions....I finally came up with some (although one is actually for Jeff and I to do. :) )

1) We are going to be eating by 7 PM every evening..even in the summer(a truly hard feat especially with my "work till dark" mentality). Although Jeff does the cooking I usually have to get him moving by telling him what to make.

2) I make the menu and the shopping lists so my own personal resolution is to have some sort of fish twice a week and one meatless dinner once a week.

3) My farming business resolution is to support us 6 months of the year instead of the 4 months of last year.

4) Read a classic every month...I am reading the Last of the Mohicans now.

4) And finally, put all my camping and kayaking gear to good use. :)

Yes, every time we get a few spits of snow, I start to pine for the normal winters we had back in the good ole days. When one would wake up to temperatures in the teens and a fresh blanket of snow that would cover every brown thing in the woods and fields. Every tree and every blade of grass would lie under at least 6 or 7 inches of snow and power would be out all over the countryside. Those were the good ole days of Washington County, Virginia. The last few years have been a mockery. A few spits here and a few spits there just making us think we were getting snow. But I found a news from an article out of the Pittsburg Post Gazette.

"There are several reasons for the poor start, including the notorious El Nino weather system in the tropical Pacific, said Bob Reed, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

El Nino conditions create higher-than-normal ocean temperatures and affect the flow of the jet stream. Instead of frigid air zeroing in on the region from the arctic and Canada via the Great Lakes, the weather in Pennsylvania and other mid-Atlantic (thats us) and New England states has been influenced by drier and warmer Southwest and Gulf Coast conditions.

Mr. Reed said it appears the El Nino conditions are weakening. If so, it could mean a return to a "normal" winter. "But there can be wild swings back and forth in the weather," he said."(Laurence Walsh, 2007)

I have hope now. My pining for normal winters may come to an end. I don't care what people think of El Nino.