Planning for Summer

It's not that I wouldn't be thrilled to have more down time ahead of me.  You know, leisure time for indoor, close to the wood stove projects.  I'd opt for that in a flash, but time seems to keep marching on at double time.  Even up here near the tundra, there's a different feel to the air these days, the snow is melting and there's no denying the fact that spring weather is, indeed, approaching.

And I've got to admit that I'm actually getting eager thinking about gardening once again.  I sat at the kitchen table for a couple of hours this afternoon plotting out what will go where in the raised beds and field garden for the coming season.  I'm still tossing around what to plant in the pumpkin patch this year.  Yeah, I know, you would think I'd plant pumpkins there, but I like to rotate crops so the same thing isn't grown in the same area each year.  I did have pie pumpkins and jack 'o lantern pumpkins in that patch last year so it will be some other crop this year.

 Not a recent picture.  Obviously.

I'll plant the usual vegetables again this year.  Pretty much the same old boring things, but they do keep us in tasty, nutritious food close to year 'round.  Although I'm wanting to go through the pantry and freezers to see exactly what quantities are left at this point, we have yet to run out of any of the vegetables I put by last year.  We're still eating peas, sugar snap peas, beets, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, green and yellow beans and squash.  The applesauce and stuffed green peppers are holding out along with frozen blueberries and raspberries.  Sad to say but true, the frozen strawberries are long gone, but we do have ample jam.  Our root cellar still holds apples (although a very few), carrots and potatoes that are in good shape.  Plenty of onions and garlic on a shelf in the basement holding at 52 degrees.  There are even a few heads of cabbage, but the outer leaves are looking a little worse for wear now.  They probably won't keep much longer.

One of the two double rows of strawberries 

I have left.

I have 200 new strawberry plants coming this spring, and I have to decide in which area of the field garden they will be planted.  I have two double rows of old berry plants that are still producing, but they are no longer bearing nearly as much as we need for fresh eating, sharing with friends, making jam and squirreling away in the freezer for smoothies all year long. 

On a topic other than the garden, Papa Pea and I spent this morning sketching out our spring/summer/fall project list.  No doubt about it.  Not enough time for outdoor projects, and way too many projects we still want to get accomplished around this here old place.  Getting them all done now! this summer would be preferable to only being able to accomplish a few of them.  So in an effort to maintain our slight grip on reality, we have to face the fact that isn't going to happen.

We have an A and a B list.  We prioritized the A list and hubby wanted to do the same for the B list, but I, being the old fuddy-duddy-stick-in-the-mud I am, said that we should wait to do that until we had finished all the items on the A list.  Yeah, I know I'm no fun at all.

Tonight, I'm going to sit on the couch, knitting needles in hand and soak up another remaining night of being lazy in front of the open fire.  Spring is certainly coming, but it's not here quite yet.

It's Spring . . . And It Ain't Purdy!

There's been a whole lotta meltin' goin' on.  Yesterday we hit a high of 53 degrees in the shade and today at 2 p.m. we have 44.  Lovely sun most of both days.  The sun is high enough in the sky already that its warmth can be felt.

There are many parts on our driveway where we can now see gravel.

Maybe I can do some planting tomorrow in these garden beds that are free of snow.  Ha-ha.  Most of them have standing water in them.  But it's a start toward when I can plant.  We've had so little snow this winter that I think it's going to be an early spring and I'm really going to push the (seed) envelope this year and do some planting in the raised beds as soon as the soil is workable.  Then I'll cover the beds with cold frames and see what I can coax into early production.  (Like greens.  Greens, greens, I need some greens!)

Granddog Tucker had a play date with a much younger doggie friend last Sunday and has had a hitch in his get-a-long for a couple of days, but today seemed to enjoy being out for a walk in the sunshine.

Nothing like a good roll in soft, mushy snow to shake off those winter doldrums (and achy muscles).

I think he's feeling his oats (kibble?) and is happy to see it's not so frigid out anymore.  Besides, having his under belly and short little legs covered with mud doesn't bother him at all.  But it's time for us to get out the bucket of warm water and old towels before he comes back in the house.

Spring mud season.  Ya gotta love it.  Or not.

Ice Isn't Nice

I think years driving in Illinois winters (snow, ice, melt, ice, slush, ice, snow, ice, etc.) created a form of PTS that has never left me.  Even when I'm not behind the wheel but merely a passenger in a vehicle, driving on ice turns my innards into a terrible tangle of tenseness.

For the past couple of days we've had temperatures climb up to the low 30s so we have had some melting going on.  Last night we had a light snowfall which combined with the slight melting/water/ice to make all outside surfaces slippery this morning.

Hubby and I have worked out an arrangement where he travels the nine miles one way to get our fresh dairy products at the farm in the winter.  (Rolling hills and lots of curvy whoop-dee-doos on the trip.)  And I make the milk run when the roads are clear in spring, summer and fall.

This morning because he offered to prepare some fresh fish for breakfast (hooray, somebody else's cooking to eat besides my own!), I volunteered to make the milk run.  I made it about three miles from home and witnessed several could-have-been calamities when I decided to play my "chicken" card, turn around and come back home.

~ I saw a man walking along the road slip

and fall flat.  He was a youngish

fella, popped right back up

and nothing was hurt but his pride.

~ On a downhill, a SUV came barreling up 

behind me, passed me,

and fish-tailed wildly before getting

his vehicle under control.

(He was VERY lucky.  Also very stupid.)

~ I felt my tires slip-sliding when I tried to pull 

away from a stop sign and had to put

the car into 4-wheel drive before

I could move.

~ When I slowed (even slower than the maybe 12 mph

I was going) to make a right hand turn, the

back of my car tried to make the turn

before the front.

~  Coming down another hill to an intersection

where I did not have a stop sign,

I saw a patrol car (he really was going

slowly and cautiously) slide right

through the stop sign on the

intersecting road.

He looked first panicked, then mortified . . . 

then embarrassed.

Somedays it really doesn't pay to get out of bed.  Or go for milk.

However, all's well that ends well.  I made it back home without a mishap . . . just had to work to settle that long ago, Illinois-driving-on-ice-all-winter induced queasy tummy.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand . . . Memories

One of the pictures my cousin sent me in his letter last week was this one of him and his dad posing by the side of our grandpa and grandma's house.  Both of the guys are wearing their baseball uniforms.

Uncle W played baseball with a team from his place of employment, and he's pictured in his official uniform.  Seeing the picture made me wonder where my cousin's little uniform came from.  This would have been in the late 1940s and such an outfit at that time certainly wasn't readily available for a three year old.  I wouldn't be surprised if his mother had made it, because she was an excellent seamstress and the person who taught me how to sew on my grandma's treadle sewing machine.

The town Cousin J and I grew up in (and where he still lives) was a well-to-do blue collar town with many thriving factories.  During the 40s and 50s it was common for each factory to have a baseball team made up of some of the workers, and Uncle W played on such a team.

(When Papa Pea and I were first married we lived in my home town while he finished his college degree.  I worked full-time while my dear husband went to school full-time and also worked a part-time job in the accounting division of this very same factory where my Uncle W worked and played ball.)

The baseball teams from the various factories in town played their games on a really nice ball field in our city park, and I remember going to many games to watch my uncle play.

There was what I remember as being quite a large grandstand of bleachers for spectators that ran along the third base line.  It was covered by a roof so that it was shady and comfortable in the summer time.  Of course, the ball field was laid out on a large, wide open spot, and I can still amost feel the welcome breezes blowing through that grandstand.  What a lovely way to spend a warm Saturday afternoon.  (To be totally honest, I have to admit that when the wind was blowing from the "wrong" direction, it also blew sand and grit from the infield right into our faces, too!)

Uncle W played ball for more years than most of the other men in the league did.  Many times at the start of a season he would declare he was getting "old," and it would be his last season, but he was a star of the team and the coach and fellow players always begged him to play "just one more year."

There are two incidences I still think of when reminiscing about those ball games.

The first is a game in which my uncle hit three home runs.  (No wonder his team mates wanted him to keep playing.)

The second is one day when our moms gave each of us kids a nickel to go to the concession stand to buy a candy bar.  (Five cents was the cost of a candy bar then.)  That day I chose a Baby Ruth (named after Babe Ruth) candy bar (what else at a baseball game?), and when I climbed back up into the stands to my seat by our family and opened the wrapper of the candy bar, a nickel fell out.  Someone in the candy packing factory had slipped a nickel into the wrapper.  I felt like I had won a jackpot.  I had my candy bar plus a nickel to buy another one!

Oh, my.  Pictures.  They certainly have a way of jogging memories of days gone by.  At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, these are memories of days when life was so much simpler.  Thanks for the memories, Cousin J!

We (Women) Can Do It!

This morning that cute little gal over at A Farmish Kind of Life wrote a post about the latest romantic date she and her husband just had.  (This gal knows how to plan 'em!)  Deciding it was time she learned how to use a chainsaw, she asked her husband (with fluttering lashes, no doubt) if their next date could be giving her instruction on how to use one.

Her post brought back a flood of memories for me.

The year we moved up here in the late fall, we faced our first winter living in an uninsulated a barely insulated old, old mobile home.  The furnace in it was non-functioning (we had no money to buy fuel anyway -- seriously) so we installed an old Ashley wood burning stove.  (Anybody remember those?)

The big problem was we had nary a stick of firewood readied for winter time heating.  So every morning after Papa Pea left for his teaching job, I would bundle up our then two year old to the extent necessary according to the outside temperature, put her in her designated area with play things (safely away from the wood working area but where I could still keep an eye on her) and go to work cutting wood.

I had a chainsaw I could handle (of a smaller size than the biggies my husband now uses) and I would cut enough wood to use for that day's heating.  On weekends, if we could find the time working around even more pressing tasks (and other crises of which there were many), hubby and I would work together prepping a pile of wood.  That would free me up for some of the days of the coming week.

Was trying to stay warm all winter burning green wood to heat an uninsulated tin can a good situation?  Well, no.  (Nor did it keep us warm.)  But we survived, and I can definitely say I know how to use a chainsaw.

Hey!  Maybe that's why I still have impressive biceps.  Aren't we women somethin' else?

Overdue Show and Tell

It just occurred to me that I don't think I ever posted pictures of the finished winter wall hanging I showed in progress.

Yes, I did finish it and even found enough suitable fabric out of which to make the binding, but it was a close one.  Sometimes I think using only fabric out of my stash is not such a wise idea.  But unwise ideas have never stopped me before, so I'm already well into my next full-size (king-sized) quilt using only already-have fabric.  It is a scrap quilt though (very scrappy) so if I can find a piece big enough for the backing (I have nothing against pieced backs), I'll be able to do it.

But back to the kitchen wall hanging.

It's very difficult for me and my little point-and-shoot camera to get a photo of the quilting I did on this piece. 

I hope you can see it a bit better here.

Annnd . . . as it is mounted on the kitchen wall.  "January Wreath" that didn't make it up until sometime in February.  But with our slow, slow-to-come spring up here, it shouldn't be out of place for a while yet.