Cabin Fever

It is truly miserable outside! One would think that I would be rejoicing at temperatures above freezing after the sub zero Farenheit days and nights, but no, I am not. Each season here has its joys, its beauty and its challenges but today is just plain miserable. No healthy cold dry air, no snow that provides moisture for the coming season, no majestic sun dogs warning of the dangers of frostbite. Instead we have a dull gray sky, dirty melting snow covered in about an inch of clear hard ice. Temperatures are hovering at freezing point and while some of the snow is melting, the rain, as it hits the cold surface, is freezing. Everything you touch is covered in a layer of ice and everywhere you walk is treacherous. To add to the misery for the animals the wind was blowing hard last night, driving the icy rain into every crack, reaching its cold wet claws back into the barn where they all huddled together regardless of species. The path they cut through the snow banks is covered in ice and the horses are moving slowly and carefully. A friend suggested it was all a matter of perspective and normally I would agree, but in this case the only good perspective would be looking back on it when it is over.

It is on days like today that I understand cabin fever. There is plenty to do, no reason to get bored but the lack of lustre in the light, the frozen frosting on the windows all contribute to an edginess, a restlessness, a frustration that isn't present on cold sunny or snowy days. We keep busy sewing and quilting, planning for the productive seasons, making soap, snuggling under a quilt and reading a book, researching for new projects or venturing out and bringing home a dead tree for firewood. There is no real lack of things to do just a lack of pressure that is always present in the summer, pressure to get things done before winter hits again.

Experience tells us that we can still have a pile of snow in March, we still have at least 2 months before we can plant anything but we are ready to jump into spring. Our seeds have all arrived, the seedlings we start here are all in trays under the grow lamps and doing well. The last queen sized quilt of the season awaits its backing before being sent to the wonderful lady in Missouri who quilts all the layers together. The last lap quilt I am quilting myself and will be completed in a week or so. Anita is busily completing an abundance of doll's clothes that would brighten any little girls' birthday. Baby clothes have been passing through our door to the Post Office..... yes this is our relaxed time of year but we are eager to break out of the house and get some dirt under our finger nails!

Here are just a couple of Anita's doll clothes (yes you can order some to be made for the little girls in your lives!):

The last quilts of the season:

A few of our seedlings, heirloom cherry tomatoes:

  and Belgian endive:

I can tell Cabin Fever is setting in, as even my dreams are infected. The other night I dreamt that I was sticking carrot seeds to strips of newspaper, ready to roll out in 100 foot rolls! Anyone who has ever seen carrot seeds (we sow ours using a salt shaker) knows just how frustrating such a dream would be! The excitement is building and on the 18th we are getting the sheep sheared. It encourages them to go into the barn at night when they lose their warm coats and hopefully all their babies will be warm and healthy by the time we get to them. We should be lambing by the end of the month when temps usually average out above freezing. Fingers crossed, the last 2 years have been really bad for us, we are due a good lambing year!

The joys of modern technology

It fascinates me watching our traffic feed, seeing where our readers are located. It surprises me how many readers we regularly receive, but some of the places I recognise and know the people probably sitting behind that address. Some are family and long time friends from where we live or have lived and worked, some are folks we have met online but over the years are now no less valued friends. Those we met playing backgammon online, which is where Anita and I met so many years ago. Some we have met through a common interest in feeding ourselves and preserving food, a common passion in what many call 'homesteading', even one person I recognise from my brief visits to a quilting forum. There are friends of friends who mostly come to this blog via Facebook, all valued readers and we understand the connection that brings you here.

There are those who have been led here by a google search for a specific topic, I notice that the most popular topic for google searches is the recipe we shared for British pub style pickled onions, I am so glad we were able to share. Some of these one-time visitors have become regular readers, we see them return, or at least we have noticed that a person from that particular city has become a regular reader. To be honest it is often the cities that start the fascination for me. How did we become interesting to someone in Moscow or St Petersberg? What led someone from Pakistan to read about jalapeno heaven, someone from Greece reading about sheep and spring seemed more logical. Many of the places I recognise, many I have even visited but every now and then there is someone from a place I have never heard of and I have to look it up on a map.

Whoever you are and where ever you may be logging in from, we value your visit, if you were searching for something specific we hope we were able to help, and we really are touched by so many people interested in what these two old broads get up to. Please feel free to leave comments, feel free to tell us where you are from or why you visited. Modern technology is truly a wonderful thing!

A different pace

We would like to wish everyone of our readers a very happy new year, that you may achieve all you need to find happiness and a sense of fulfillment. It is already the 7th of the month, time to look at any resolutions we may have made and judge them as realistic or not. We have resolved to do the same as always but more of it. Increase our garden size and start selling locally. If we are unable to start a Farmers' Market in our local town, we will at least sell out of the back of the pick up locally. We will look to our old chicken customers who may not have the time or space to grow their own gardens but who we know appreciate good 'old- fashioned' healthily raised food. We have the seed catalogues ready to order, we have seeds we saved from last year waiting for warmer weather. We have goat milk soap to sell, there will be eggs a-plenty and we hope to create a wave of enthusiasm.... OK perhaps I exaggerate and we might be happy with a show of local support building to a wave of enthusiasm next year!

Once the seed catalogues have been well fingered and buying decisions made, daily chores of feeding and watering animals have been done, we turn to our winter pleasures. It isn't difficult for Anita to decide what to do as she has a new baby granddaughter, born just after Christmas with the promise of red hair just like her 4 year old sister, she needs clothes! Her older sister needs clothes! Anita has ordered enough 'little girl' fabric to keep them both well dressed and I foresee us being regular customers at the Post Office. We are excited to meet her in the spring!

It's hard to describe just how our lives hover between the things that must be done in winter and our winter pleasures. Imagine me hand sharpening our new wood splitting maul while watching a quilting show on public television; imagine Anita keeping an eye on the bread in the oven while carrying wood from the step to the indoor wood rack, sometimes it can be a little bizarre. 

Randy, our male goat, developed rather bad manners toward the end of the year. He became overly aggressive and using his horns, brought me down to the ground a few times, had he been a bull I would not be here to write about it, but I did discover adrenaline really does give us Olympian skills as I jumped over a gate with sufficient height to have considered impossible to jump 20 years ago. Our neighbour came to the rescue by lending us his hot shot aka cattle prod. I only needed to use it once, goats really are smart. I still wouldn't turn my back on him but he has returned to the well mannered young male he used to be, even when I am not carrying said prod. I don't mind him being protective of his little family but he has to learn that we are not a threat and that he narrowly escaped being given .22 reasons why not to attack us. All the animals are looking healthy and content despite the cold temps we have had and we hope the sheep and goats are all gloriously pregnant to give us a busy time in April. Even after all this time there is nothing more peaceful than watching sheep catching some sunshine while chewing their cuds.

We have set up the sewing room so we can both sew, a large custom-made corner unit with 2 sewing stations, an ironing board and a large cutting area. Sometimes it can be compared to a complicated dance, especially while I am quilting and need a larger surface area to hold the bulk of the quilt, then Anita will cut as I quilt, but for the most part we can roll our chairs back and forth between sewing machine and iron without hindering each other. It is a special room where we can relax, create and enjoy. I recently finished a quilt that is now hanging on the wall in the living room. It is a wall with no window and, though insulated, has a nasty habit of getting cold in winter when there is a south wind. The quilt seems to have made quite a difference.

This is a peaceful time of year for us, the freezers are full, the shelves in the basement are full of jars with our preserves, the woodstove pumps out its magic, and every day we realise how fortunate we are to have this peace and contentment in our lives, where we laugh a lot and prepare for the whirlwind of activity we know will come with the spring.