It's A New Year

I have neglected my musings here for about a month. Time flies when you are up to your neck in baking and holiday readying. I did more baking this year for the holidays than I have in probably 5 or 6 years. I think it's because I had a captive kitchen crew - they knew if they wanted goodies they had to help.

We were all covered in flour by the time we finished up that night. It had finally progressed to a flour battle.

But, the cookies were scrumdilyiscious.

Christmas was a flurry of paper and "Wow ! You listened!!!". I kept a small notebook at my computer that I wrote down ideas all year long that the kids asked for. They didn't get hardly any of what they wanted but what they got was exactly what they had hoped for. Another notch in my belt.

The biggest thing that happened on Christmas day was my 14 year old son was taught how to shave for the first time. He was really getting to be a wooly bear. So one of his gifts included a snazzy razor and Daddy taught him all the rules and regulations. Once he got past playing with the shaving creme it was down to business....

Looks like Daddy could use a shave as well.

My husband gave me a wonderful gift - my Poppy. She's a Dwarf Russian Hamster. 5 months old. Quite wild but she's getting used to me as each day passes. She doesn't go for blood with her choppers anymore so that's a good sign.

She was housed temporarily in a very old hamster cage. We have set her up in a 10 gal aquarium now and her favorite thing to do is tunnel. Dwarf hamsters are not your average climbers so the old cage just wasn't suitable for her. Now she has scurry room and is much happier. Now to teach the cats that she is not the snack de'jour.

We've pretty much bedded down for the winter. The green house is limping along. It's a good project and a great learning experience. We've harvested a good many cucumbers and the tomato plants are loaded with fruit but the ripening is so slow going. I'm focusing now on planning out the Spring Garden and starting seeds for it. The greenhouse experiment will definately be expanded next fall - we have learned quite a lot even if it's trial by fire.

The weather changed so fast for us that we did not get all the trees down that we had intended to. We have enough down to open up the back area to more sunlight but not enough to proceed with our shed building plans. Perhaps that will happen closer to spring. Right now we are having what we Southerners call an Arctic Blast - nights in the teens and days in the 30's. Not conducive to working outside if you are not acclimated to it. Thankfully, we have a delivery of pre-split wood coming tomorrow - yes we had to purchase wood as we have run out of suitable wood after 12 years here. We don't yet own a vehicle that can transport wood so we had to pay for it to be delivered - won't happen again, I can assure you. What we have coming should last the winter for us. Using the fireplace to assist in the heating saves us a ton on the electric bill. We once entertained the idea of buying land and homesteading in Montana. Uhhhh NO! The last week or so has convinced me that we are quite content right where we are (for now).