For good luck in the coming year

We made fruitcake.  This is not your grandma's fruitcake.  Dried pineapple, papaya, large flakes of coconut - not a artificially colored candied cherry in sight. 
We all sorted in the chopped fruit - to ensure a bountiful harvest one legend said.  But does it count if none of the fruit is from this year's?

Anyway, one loaf has already been devoured, the second is in the freezer, the third is being liberally based with rum.  Lots of rum.

Spring

Easter is a celebration of spring and all of its inherent new beginnings.   The easter bunny always brings us seeds and plants along with the requisite chocolate. 

This year a peppermint plant and some fennel seeds - both noxious, yet very tasty, perennials - were in our basket. Next to Rhiannon's purple Peeps were seeds for yard long Asian beans and Joseph's coat Amaranth.

The day was relaxed and enjoyable.  After feeding the various animals and moving the new chicks outside we relaxed, taking Riley for a leisurely walk and eating the traditional ham dinner.  Although I had planned on planting peas, Jerusalem artichokes,  and potatoes with the girls, but the daylight seemed to be gone before we got around to it.

The chicks with their new beginnings out of the bathtub and in the coop. 

This I realize is the part of my life that makes me not a real farmer.  The luxury of procrastination.  If I feed the animals enough one day I can sometimes skip the next, knowing that there is food & water to tide them over until the following morning.  The seeds can be planted tomorrow, or the next day.  I have put off harvesting daily, shrugging off the lost harvest.  This is not a personal trait I am proud of.  I think successful farmers must be type A personalities - of which I am most definitely not.  In the beginning I am always full of grand ideas that fade into missed opportunities.   Making a change always seems to be with the handful of other tasks never crossed off my to do list.

I sound so melancholy.

I'm not.

I want this year to be different.  I want to harvest enough peas to freeze some.  I want to store enough potatoes to eat through Christmas.  But these two items are perfect examples of how I am improving.  Two years ago I had only a handful of snow peas - last year we had enough for a meal or two.  The potato harvest of 2011 was nil - last year we had a meal and I stored 2+ dozen small ones well enough successfully to use for this year's seed.

I revel in the cliche of  baby steps.

Anticipating Spring

Saturday is the day, if I am not working, that I get to sleep in.  Hubby wakes up, lets the dog out and makes coffee - delivering it in my favorite mug with the most important news from CNN's website.

So at 8am (a decadent time of the morning for a wake up) he hands me a cup of Dazbog's Mocha Java (with cream and brown sugar in the sunflower mug he painted for me while we were dating) with the news that Phil the Groundhog has predicted spring.  I don't remember a time that he did not see his shadow and scurry back in his den.

But maybe I should plant tomatoes this week.

There is, of course, still snow on the ground.

Merry Christmas

The holidays around here are pretty mellow.  Christmas is traditionally Jammie Day at our home (the jammies opened on Christmas Eve)  After chores are done it is mostly sitting around reading and eating.

Reilly & I went out for our walk about 7am - no one was yet up.  We have a large park a couple blocks away with fresh snow covering the soccer fields.  I let him off leash in the morning quiet and he ran circles gleefully through the new powder every so often burying his nose and chuffing.

All the poultry (+the bunny) got spinach for a special breakfast with fresh water and grains.  And I got 3 (count them THREE) cups of coffee before the girls roused themselves out of bed to check out their stockings.

We did have a surprise though - outside our back door on the deck was a small pile of wrapped packages.  We have no idea who they were from - our gates were all locked and the names on each gift was typed.  And there was a single bare footprint on the steps to the backyard.

Dinner was simple.  Ham, scalloped potatoes and green beans with upside down peach cake for dessert.

It was really a lovely day.