The soup was savory, zippy and delicious. I figured if we ate the hot stuff, then soaked our whole bodies in the heat from the stove, we'd sweat these ugly colds right out of our bodies!
Right now my head feels great! Just a touch of the headache and it isn't bad at all. We'll see tomorrow how it worked. For now, at least--the soup tasted good.
We're getting really tired of winter around here, and today I was peeking out the windows at the birds, mobbing near the feeders to find something to eat. Snow has covered everything for a while and there's not much for them to find.
And today, I saw a glimpse of Spring coming, just a touch, but it's there! One of the finches is beginning to turn yellow, just a bit, but it's happening. That's a sure sign that spring's coming, since they've been grey and dull all winter. When Spring actually comes, they'll be bright, brilliant, happy yellow and sing their hearts out to welcome the return of warm weather. It's nice to see these little signals and it lifts my heart.
We've got new snow today, and more coming. Jim's out stocking up on goodies and I'm home catching up on paperwork. It's too cold out to venture out to take these pictures, but I can just stick the camera out the front door with one reaching arm and catch our little left over Christmas tree, stuck in the snowbank at the edge of the driveway. Dark evergreens behind it highlight the snow on the small branches. Eventually, we'll take this little tree out into the woods to add to the pile of branches that serve the rabbits as shelter houses these cold days. When we do wrap up enough to wander out there, we see the tracks of many rabbits scurrying around their trails in the woods.
We leave a trail of corn on the log out back and many of the trails lead to that bounty. You can see that log in the background of the feeder where the camera caught a carolina chickadee in flight.
We took a few pictures, and I'll post two of them here, of the moon rising through the trees. Mostly dark, but so pretty. I'll also post one I found on the internet, and didn't take myself. Isn't it pretty? Someone has a much better camera than I do.
It's been a beautiful clear sunny day today, about 13 degrees, and we have about 2" of clean snow covering everything. It's so cold that the sun made the whole front yard look like diamonds. What a gorgeous day. I did venture out for a short time to feed the hungry birds, and walked back to see the deer tracks in the woods. I saw a lot of tracks where they were just strolling around, and many tracks around the feed corn we put out, but they're not bedding down in our woods in this cold weather, but staying in the more dense woods to the east of us, where the cold winds are more blocked. Lots of rabbit tracks though.
Now, we'll only want 4 hens at the most this time, and no roosters to chase the grandkids, and I have to decide what kind to get. There are so many breeds out there. Rhode Island Reds are probably my favorites, plump, easy maintenance, and they lay brown eggs, and so pretty with their chestnut red feathers. But there are also Araucanas, who sometimes have silly topknots, leg feathers and lay green or blue eggs.
There are over 60 breeds commonly available, and the decision is tough. I love the old barred rocks, with their speckled black and white feathers, the sprightly little bantams, with their punk rock colors and self sufficient manner, and the big golden orpingtons. I guess I have a while to decide. Coop first, then chickens. Hopefully one of these days I'll post a picture of our own eggs in beautiful living color.
We spend this week at a condo on the beach, enjoying so many different things this place has to offer. We've done our share of shopping the flea markets and antique malls, finding lots of good things to list on eBay for sale when we return home. A fun lunch one day was at a little beach lunch restaurant where customers decorate a dollar and tape it to the walls. Later they take them all down and donate to a charity. We all worked on our dollar and Kim taped it right above the fireplace. 
Last night we walked next door to a great seafood restaurant for a marvelous meal, strolled down the street to visit a bar with entertainment, then back and sat out on our balcony in the balmy breeze and watched the lights of the city and the fireworks being shot out over the ocean by lots of people up and down the beach. It gave us time to talk over the year past and think about the things we've done right and others we might not want to repeat, then talk about our direction for 2010.
Of course, our highlights were all about family-our new grandson, and our continued joy in our adventures with our Anna. Lots of good love in our life, and we feel very fortunate. Goals for this year focus on spending more energies on our creative works, and improving skills in painting and writing.
What a great evening. It was fun trying to get pictures of the fireworks around us. Timing the shot right isn't easy with the delay in a good digital camera. Some of them were shot from the beach 19 floors down and burst right off of our balcony right at our level. What a view! The full moon kept cruising in and out of the clouds overhead, adding an air of mystery to the evening too.
Today we drove south to Myrtle Beach State Park and went our separate directions. Jim for a leg stretching walk, Kim and Robert searching for letterboxes, while I strolled the beach and the sculptured oaks, wondering at those marvelous trees. Kim and I even found a terrific tree to hug, an annual tradition that we love.
Lunch was the traditional hog jowls, collard greens and black-eyed peas, supposed to promise luck and prosperity for the coming year. The strawberry cheesecake was just yummy.
Back to the room for a nap, then out tonight for another great seafood dinner, then I think a last soak in the hot tub is in order to finish the day properly.
Tomorrow we check out and head out to see more family, then home to cold, snowy Indiana. Each year this visit leaves us refreshed, with enough sunlight and family love soaked in to hold us through the rest of our tough northern winter.
The road from right in front of the house.
A little further on.
There! That's the state line! Big step now!
Getting close! Watch for a stick to throw!
There's the bridge, almost there.
The swamp, no toads to be seen today.
Upstream-
Downstream. The water's very dark and quiet today. In the summer it's clear and fast. You can see the bottom rocks and sometimes the big salmon who venture this far from the big lake.
The new path into the woods by the swamp. Nobody walking there this cold day.
.....and back home again. Don't you feel refreshed?
I recently turned 65, and officially old. Over the past year or so, I’ve been receiving mailings to sell me stuff leading up to that special day. I’ve also gotten about 40 pounds-(how many dead trees is that?)-of advertising material just on the subject of medicare supplement plans, and that doesn’t include ads for burial policies, reverse mortgages, and nursing home insurance plans. Sheesh!
So, even if I were inclined to just let this birthday slide by like most others, there have been constant reminders to make me think about how important it must be.
I hadn’t really thought a lot about it, other than a random thought recognizing that fact that these years are rushing by very fast, and the old body just doesn’t work as well or quickly as it used to. I’ve tried to just realize that I can’t move as fast as I used to-but luckily since I’m retired, I don’t have to move as fast anymore. Nice how that works out. Maybe this is a good time to stop and take stock of what this milestone means-and sort out what I believe. This is the result of that sorting out.
I do know these things:
I believe in Family-whether by birth, marriage, adoption or just great affection. The family bond is our best hope for health, sanity and happiness.
Here are some things I was once dumb enough to buy into and will never do again. Pretending to be something I’m not, and trying to buy, bully or brag my way into some kind of status I haven’t earned-or buying into that kind of action from others.
I truly don’t understand- how most of us sit night after night watching others murdered, raped, beaten and abused. Most entertainment now is about seeing others hurt in some way. The police true crime dramas that show real people who’ve committed crimes sniveling and excusing themselves feel like slimy voyeurism. I feel like we are desensitizing ourselves to the sight of hurt in others and it makes abuse a normal part of life. We should wince seeing someone else hurt and be bothered by it. How can this be our entertainment?
I’ve been so very lucky. I’ve watched my own children and many others who have been part of my life grow into healthy, well-adjusted adults with families of their own, and I’m lucky enough to have an ongoing loving relationship with them. Wonderful, wonderful.
I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the last wild places in
It’s the small things that are so very important too. I used to hike with a partner who loved the mountaintop vistas. She’d be looking at the far away view, while I was crouched on the side of the trail looking at the tiny flowers on the moss. I love the accessable magic and believe that being able to see those tiny things and treasure them weaves the fabric of a happy life. The soft coo of a baby just learning to relate to others, and the joy of a child touching an earthworm for the first time-those moments are treasures, so be kept close to the heart and looked at in memory, again and again.
I’ve been very lucky to find a real partner in my life to share these years with-an unusual man who's strong enough to be gentle and who shares my views on almost everything to an extent I never believed possible. I don’t know how many years we will have left together, but I intend to make them as good and strong as I can, because this we have now, is very good.
For the future—I want to know everything, to learn more, experience more, and see more. It’s been a great ride for these past 65 years, and I hope for more, more, more-there’s a lot to see and do yet.
And lastly, here’s my current favorite poem that expresses a lot of my feeling for the way we treat each other, and our place in the natural world.
Catechism for a Witch’s Child
When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing
tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open spilling
streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drink
a holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother who never taught you
death was life's reward
but who believed in the earth
and the sun
and a million, million light years
of being
© 1986 J.L.Stanley
I've already put the fragile house plants along the back wall, in case of a nighttime frost. We planted some small food plants in pots to try to grow for winter eating too and they're coming along. The next task is to paint the buckets we've gathered with black spray paint so we can stack them in the greenhouse to absorb and radiate heat.
It's coming together, pretty soon we'll be ready for that snug time of year, when we can stay warm and comfy inside, sipping a glass of wine by the stove, while snow blows and winds rage outside. Not quite yet though!
We've bought firewood, stacked and covered it.
Cleaned up the garden, pulled the old plants, and tossed the dead stuff onto the compost pile. Coiled all the hoses and carefully put them away for spring use.
Anna found a toad in the garden vegetation. 
Planted some cold hardy things for late season growth-the peas and collards are doing well, not much else is.
Now it's time to store away food for winter. We took Anna with us to pick apples. Fugi for long keeping, Golden Delicious for immediate delicious eating, and Jonathans for Jim's wonderful apple pie. Each apple is wrapped in paper, sorted into labeled bags and lowered carefully into our buried root cellar cans out back in the woods.
Another can holds knobby red potatoes that will stay fresh and crisp for meals all the way into April. We still need onions and carrots, but we're getting there!
I found the solution in Lasagna Gardening, a book about a way to set up a new gardening bed without all that digging, weeding and back-breaking work. In short, you set aside a space, define it somehow and pile on layers of stuff, cover it and let it work, then uncover it in the spring to find healthy black soil. Here's my step by step preparation of my new asparagus bed.
Next, laid down thick layers of newspapers-
Followed by lots of maple leaves, raked and watered down thoroughly.
Then the woody plants from fall garden cleaning, ashes from the wood stove, and some dirt from leveling the greenhouse floor.
Picked up some cardboard I'd put down in the garden paths to add to the stack, and found all kinds of critters living in there, worms, slugs, and this little salamander.
One more thick layer of maple leaves-wet from recent rains that saved me the task of hosing it all down.
Then finish with black plastic with pieces of wood to hold it down. As it settles in, hopefully I'll be able to tuck it in more securely to let it rest until spring. What happens next is that all that stuff is to work in there along with worms and compost action and when I pull off the plastic in spring it'll be a whole bed of weed free, soft, crumbly healthy black dirt to plant our asparagus roots into. I can almost taste those delicious green crunchy spears now.