~~It’s Spring! It’s time for all the chores~~

We’ve come to the time of year when I can almost rely on the weather not being frosty overnight – it reached the 70’s yesterday! (Low 20s C) – so now is the time for all the yardwork, and planning all of the house stuff.

I’ve started keeping a notebook, writing down everything that I need/want to do on the house. I think a couple basic things in the bathroom & the foyer are first there – especially the things we already have everything for.

But that’s this weekend. I started on the garden way back in March – the peas I planted are coming up; the carrots & beets aren’t. But that means it’s time for another round of seeds of both of those.

We won’t put starts in the ground until Memorial Day, but my Egyptian Walking Onions, Horseradish, mint, chives, and oregano are already up from last year.

And I’ve been making fire!

We have a Giant Brush Pile I’ve been working on knocking down, with the help of an electric chipper-shredder (mostly last year) and a small fire pit. Now that’s fun – sitting out there feeding wood into the pit, the table ton my lap, writing in between chopping up wood for the fire.

And last year’s firewood is mostly cured, so it moves into the garage now – it’s stacked along the garage door wall for the first year, to get the sun – to make room for the wood we’ll be ordering in a week or two. It’s hard, satisfying work with direct, tangible results. I like it.

Of course, today it’s raining. Maybe I’ll work on a skirt this evening.

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I’m making my mother Kale & Apple soup for Christmas.

I try to make her a soup most years. This isn’t just feeding her – she can cook plenty well by herself – it’s also test-driving a recipe that almost always has some meat product in it and making it tasty and vegetarian for her.

This year’s recipe, for instance, has bacon in it. I think we’re going to start with mushrooms and perhaps a little bit of gelatin (I know, horse hooves, but she’s only mostly vegetarian…) to get the proper umami and texture going on.

It’s also going to be made – aside from the mushrooms, which I’ve not gotten around to trying growing at home yet, and the gelatin, which, uh, no – entirely from homegrown stuff.

Apples, of course. My house is still full of apples. You can’t turn around without running into a box of apples.

Apple cider for some of the liquid. When we make it, it has stock in it; I’ll probably make some leek stock as a start. The leeks are still sitting in the garden, wondering when I’ll do something with them. And the cider we pressed ourselves, from the apples our trees produced.

And then there’s the kale. Kale is a marvelous thing. It just keeps growing. Last year, it lasted until February. This year, I imagine I might have to pull it out to plant new come June – since there’s no snow to speak of yet.

There’s something satisfying about giving homemade gifts; there’s something even more pleasing about doing it from ingredients your yard grew.

I wonder if she’d want duck egg something next year…

But first we have to get the ducks.

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The house came with, among a lot of other stuff, some corrugated cement board and a chair with no bottom. It also came with a lot of mess in the hedgerow that needed to be pulled out and dealt with.

The last bit led to a pile of brush larger than a truck.

Cutting it to pieces was only so effective.

Running it through a woodchipper (Small, electric), did some good, but it was slow and loud.

So we bought a firepit.

Enter the corrugated cement board – safe place to put it – and the chair – place to sit and tend it. Add the seat from an otherwise trashed office chair, one concrete block, also from the house, and a laptop.

My butt has one long scrap-bruise, but the laptop is safe.

In other news, sitting outside writing/reading whilst watching the fire burn is lovely.

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