Monday, January 4, 2016

And into the New Year

The new year arrived quietly with no muss no fuss.  It's just the turning of a calendar page around here, and we do that every month.  No big deal anymore.

The weather continues to be mild on the whole with 2-3 days of more seasonal temps now and then - like today.  A dusting of snow (1st of the winter) and only getting to high 20s (if that) with single digits tonight.  

Another example of this brutal El Niño winter.  Ha!
By midweek we'll be back to 40s.  El Niño.  Oh well.  I just hope the occasional nighttime freeze will kill the insects else next season could be a mess. Thankfully, to that effect, the lawns and crabapple trees have been filled with flocks of robins and starlings the past few weeks.  Eat them bugs, guys!

Been playing in the kitchen a lot and have put up several posts on the Chef's Page: roast chicken, a brace of meatloafs, homemade sourdough starter (pancakes & cornbread).  And my latest triumph - sourdough spelt bread!

Mom and I are doing fine (although she broke her partial on New Year's Day; they must have been weak - she was eating JELLO at the time *sigh*).  The nice weather has not kept us from her PT 2ce a week.

Only thing rankling me right now is the RO water system.  After 3 months of 'fixes' it's still not right and I will most likely have to replace most of it, including all water lines. (RO water) For now I'm buying drinking water.  It'll get resolved one way or another.

Last year was the  big household purge and it was a huge success.  I still have a few items need to go, but what a difference after it all shook out.  

2016 will be the big reorganization of what's left: sorting, better storage, rearranging.  Same goes for the gardens.  After last year's garden purge, I'm looking for more substantial 'fill ins' like everygreen trees and shrubs.  Especially since all 3 huge ash trees are succumbing to Emerald Ash borer and will have to come down.  That is going to leave huge holes in the sky. 

There are also plans to expand SpaRRows (my container veg garden). Last year's experiment to bring everything up to the deck to keep the plants from the deer worked out great.  

Other than that - no nit-picky resolutions here.   We're looking forward to a drama-free, healthy 2016 for us and everyone else.  Fingers crossed.

====== P.S. ======

Hey!  Right this minute: a little lake effect snow.  Probably the only kind of snow we'll see this season.  No WAY will the Great Lakes freeze over this winter.

6 comments:

  1. We got lake effect last night---4 inches of that powdery goodness. Hubby and I went out for a sunrise ski--it was glorious! Perfect conditions. I'm so happy winter finally showed up here.
    And ya know, I wasn't even thinking about the darn bugs not dying out in the mild winter. Hope you at least get a few weeks of the cold stuff just to whittle down on them a bit.
    Have a good week

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Got down to 5 last night and only 19 now. Brrrrrr. But totally bright and blinding, blue skies and low wind. Soooo glad you enjoyed your morning ski outing. Must've been beautiful. Have a good week. Cuddle up with those seed catalogs and think spring. TTFN

      Delete
  2. We have had a pretty normal winter. I don't like the cold and sometimes I hate the snow. But all in all I live in Iowa and it seems to always be like this. Mild winters for us about every five years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Really cold here today, Larry. But warmup on the way. Gonna be difficult to have a January thaw this year -- nothing is frozen. Enjoy your week back at school....

      Delete
  3. I need to purge the entire house and outbuildings! I admire what you have done.

    "drama free and healthy" sure works for us!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Glenda. It was quite an effort and still a little (very little) to excise yet. Yeah, save the drama for TV, I want quiet and unexciting for a while. :-D

      Delete

Thank you for visiting. I appreciate your notes, comments and questions and will try to reply to each one! :-)