Winter's Light

morning light

Hello, friends.  I'm continuing to pull from the freezer this week, which included mushroom gravy to go on leftover rice, and cashew gravy to go on the last of the cauliflower, which made for quick and easy lunches.  I moved the bird feeder in the orchard, to encourage the birds to move into other trees, hopefully taking care of any pests.  In previous years, I've put up a clear shower liner on the longest wall of the chicken feeding area outside their coop, before winter precip, which helped it stay warmer and drier.  Though we've not gotten any precip yet, I put it up to help with warmth, and picked up three more at Dollar Tree, to totally enclose this area soon.  After reviewing the long-range forecast, J believes we'll get some snow between early February and early March.  We hope so!  All the vegetable seeds were gone through, to see what was needed, and a few were picked up at Dollar Tree for .25 ea.

With lows of 14 in the forecast, I harvested the last of the lettuce, mixed winter greens and collards.  A salad was made with the winter greens, and the lettuce has been used in salads and bean burritos.  I'd heard that Amazon Prime video was laying off employees, and that they are beginning to charge for movies.  As I had a number of saved free movies, I watched three... Tracks, Delicious and Catherine Called Birdy, all of which I enjoyed.  I watched Catherine Called Birdy on our coldest day, with a high of 32, while I caught up on all the clothes ironing.  Much of the country has been significantly colder, but it's pretty cold for central NC.  The bar faucet that our drinking water comes from froze up that night, but temps are on the rise, rising to 69 later this week.  With some apple slices I had canned, I made an apple pie, which helped warm the house some.

There were lots of bean meals from the pantry last week, including bean burritos, pinto bean burgers, hummus, and I cooked up some of our dried black eyed peas.  Vegetable soup was made with leftover peas, rice and limas from the freezer, home canned tomatoes, cabbage and squash, onions, garlic and vegetable broth.  It definitely felt like soup weather.   After an appointment, J & I stopped at three thrift stores, mostly looking for canisters I could turn into compost crocks.  We bought nothing at the first two stores, and one canister at the third store.  There's really not a lot that we need right now.  Over the weekend, I sold a compost crock to a customer in Australia.  Sadly, I ended up paying $10.70 more for shipping than she paid, at least in part because I added large quantities of packing materials to protect it on it's journey.  I always pack them well, but really added extra with this one.  A friend that moved to NY was back in town briefly, and I met with her in Asheboro one evening.  It's always so good to catch up with friends.  Wishing you a lovely week.