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The Great Wait

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 I'm not sure how spring can be both long and short at the same time.  On one hand, we spend so much time waiting, and on another, we are so busy that we can't catch our breath.  It goes back and forth a lot, depending on the weather.  If it rains and snows for two weeks, we have no choice but to sit inside and wait.  Then one day we realize it has gotten warm enough to go outside, and two days later the garden is dry enough to work.  But hurry, there are only three more days of warm dry weather before it begins to rain again!    That is what our spring has been.  Wait, then rush.  I can't tell if I hate it or love it!  On the one hand it's frustrating having to work with nature's fickle ways, or if it's actually a wise way to work.  Sure, you get exhausted by three days of constant hard work, but then you get a two week break.   It's been two months since I last posted, and a lot has happened since then.  A...
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Spring is in the Air

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Winter is loosening its grip here in Western New York.  It's not over, of course, and will show it's snowy face again before too long, but we are actually beginning to see some nicer days.  I don't know about you, but when the weather begins to turn nice, I start getting restless, and I begin to think about all the projects I want to do!  One project we have wanted to do for a long time is put some new outlets in the kitchen.  It's a lovely old kitchen and I'm so grateful that it's almost totally original.  However, that means that the electricity is almost all original too, and it's not sufficient for modern appliances.  We can't, for instance, run the microwave and the toaster at the same time, or the electric tea kettle and the electric canner.  There's also only a small number of outlets, and those are badly positioned.   After getting our RO water filter, we needed a new place to put our coffee pot and electric tea kettle.  So after...
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New Toys and Time to Work on the Garden

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 Happy March, everyone!  It certainly started like a lion this year.  It was 50 degrees and beautiful yesterday, and today we woke up with an inch of snow and blustery 20 degree weather.  Winter in the northeast, I guess.  You never know what's going to happen from day to day.  Every year, we try to do a No Spend January, when we only spend on bare necessities like food and toiletries.  It helps us to reset our thinking, after a long holiday season of shopping and spending.  We did very well this January.  Not only did we not buy anything unnecessary, we also worked on eating down our pantry and spent very little on food too.   The other nice thing about a No-Spend-January is that it gives us a lot of time to think about what we do want to buy or spend our money on.  It's so easy to impulse buy something you think you need, and you may later find out that you didn't need it at all, or that something cheaper would have done...
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Winter, being sick, and burnout

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Well, here we are in February!  Or as Garfield the cat once said, the armpit of the year.  February has always been the hardest month for me to get through, because winter's charm has started to wear off and spring is still so far away yet.  So I agree with Garfield's assessment. I suppose I owe you some Christmas pictures, since  Chad didn't post any of those in December.  It was nice to have a real proper Christmas here on our hobby farm.         It's been a rough winter for us.  After so much work last year, with moving, selling our Jamestown house, settling in, and building a new garden, I found myself totally burnt out by November.  Tired to the point where I could barely get myself to keep up with the basic chores like dishes and cooking.  So that's all I did, all though November, December, and about half of January.  And then, just as I began to feel better mentally, I got pretty sick and once again was just tr...
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