This, That and A Cookie Recipe for CR

Strip off that long underwear, northern Minnesotans, we've got a warming trend here!  (Said with tongue firmly planted in cheek.)  It is now 2 ABOVE zero at mid-morning.  Heck, we don't even need to fire the wood stoves now.  (Snort, snort.)

Actually, both wood stoves are s-t-u-f-f-e-d with ashes and I'm forced to let the fire in them die out so I can empty them.  It's not that I didn't do that yucky little task only a couple/few days ago.  It's simply that in the past few days we've burned about four tons of wood in each of them . . . and that makes lotsa ashes.  The stoves don't burn very efficiently when there is too much ash build-up so it's a necessary task that needs doing whether we want the house to cool down in the process or not.   I'm wishing I had planned ahead to have a turkey or ham or something that needed to bake in the oven for several hours to add heat in the house while the wood stoves die down.  Papa Pea gleefully suggested I could stand and bake cookies all day.  He's so helpful.

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Hubby and I have an agreement regarding who drives the eighteen mile round trip to get our raw milk products at the dairy.  I go from about April through October/November and he makes the trek over winter when the roads going there are frequently snowy or ice covered.  We haven't started a vehicle since our weather turned really frigid so I hope he doesn't have trouble getting one started for the trip today.  I think I'll have him get a little extra milk because I'm wanting to make some vanilla pudding (although he has requested I learn how to make butterscotch pudding -- anybody have a good recipe to share?) and I need to start from scratch in getting a new batch of kefir going.  Night before last I was taking something out of the refrigerator right before bedtime and dropped the full jar of kefir.  Jar smashed to a million pieces and a good amount of the kefir went under the stove and refrigerator.  Whadda mess.  (Isn't it amazing how much territory what seems like a relatively small amount of liquid can cover when it's spilled or dropped?)

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When our daughter eventually moves on to her next homestead, I may have to actually go out and buy some furniture.  For the past 30-some years, "my" chair for relaxing has been a recliner which is very comfortable but is a honkin' big thing that takes up more space in our small living room than we can afford.  Chicken Mama had a small glider rocker in her kitchen at Swamp River Ridge that she offered to me to "store" and use for the time being.  Turns out it fits me very well so now besides her very nice, comfortable couch, we also have this chair in our living room. 

Only thing I don't like about it is the rose/pink upholstery on the cushions.  Mama Pea does not care for rose and/or pink.  (Remember the fiasco in painting the pantry walls beige?  The same beige that looked decidedly pink when it dried?)  Dear daughter has given me permission to get the cushions recovered so I think that's a project I'll pursue.  In the meantime, I've covered up the rose/pink cushions with a quilt I made several years ago which, for the time being, doesn't look too bad.

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Well, I know this is mean and nasty, dear Carolyn, but I've rambled on so long here that I'm not going to include the Walnut Coconut Cookie recipe you requested in this epistle today.  I promise I'll get it posted tomorrow, okay?  (Don't hate me because I'm lazy -- and cold.  Gotta go clean out the wood stoves!)