SNOWY DAY-WINTER- THIS YEAR’S CARD- THE CHICKENS-ORANGE PEEL CLEANER-HAPPY NEW YEAR

GREETINGS

The snow is coming down lightly this morning with heavy snow predicted for the afternoon and evening.  In the end we are suppose to get between 6-12 inches. I  have mixed feelings about winter.  I love these quiet days of snow.  The time spent indoors doing winter projects.  I really dislike the below  zero days and frozen pipes.  I love the sound and smells of a wood fire but at the end of winter I am ready to give up bringing in wood and cleaning out the stove. I love seeing the sheep with their full coats of wool.

MAUDE

 

  I find each season offers just what I need and I am looking forward to getting lots of winter projects done.  

 Lil wants a pair of ice skates this year.  What fun.  I wouldn’t dare skate now  but would love to!!!!!!  I miss the old days of skating on Bray Lake in Holyoke as a child, the beautiful lake with snow-covered pine trees on the lakes edges.  The fires to warm up with and hot chocolate and marshmallows.  My children were able to enjoy that fun winter activity too.   Maybe Lil will be the fourth generation to skate on Bray Lake.

THIS YEARS CHRISTMAS CARD

 

 

THE CHICKENS

This year I am trying to keep a small part of their outside yard shoveled .  On the days that are above freezing they can and do go out.  I do cover the area with hay.

Next year the hoop house.

ORANGE CLEANER

Tis the season to eat lots of oranges.  Don’t throw the peels away.  You can make this wonderful cleaner with two simple ingredients.  Cider vinegar and orange peels.  This is my second year making it and this year I need to make another jar of it  to last the year.  And it smells great too.

I usually don’t have enough to fill a jar so I put whatever peels I have and add the cider vinegar to cover and continue this till the jar is filled.  I leave the jar on a shelf for about a month, shaking occasionally before pouring it off into a permanent jar.    To use put two parts water to one part orange cleaner in a spray bottle.  This is so easy and it is antibacterial too.

 

 

As I write this the birds are flocking to the feeders, Mamma and Papa Blue Jay  brought the three kids to the feeders.  I have watched them grow and its so nice to have the here again. Thank you so much for reading my blog on this winter day.  Wish you all a healthy, and prosperous New year.Carole

 

 

 

 

 

SNOWY MONDAY- SATURDAY ADVENTURES-A PARTING NOTE

GREETINGS 

Snowy Monday

It’s not that cold out and the snow looks so pretty falling in the woods.  The sheep are curious and Carol K.  makes a few steps out the door.

 Sheep are wonderful creatures, they can be loving, caring, nervous, instigators, and  trouble makers.  Yesterday they  did all of these things.  They got frightened while Charlie was cleaning the barn.  I think it might have been the noise of grain bags which makes a crinkling sound.  It sent them into a frenzy of running and Carol K broke down a fence.  This started a day of mishaps and cleaning.   We couldn’t find the post banger inner, now I have two because at one time I could not find the red one.  Both are still missing but in the attempts to find them we saw the new rat family that had moved into the lower part of the barn.   That lead to cleaning and finding out how they were living.  They had three different holes one to the inside walls of my kitchen and two into Mr. Peepers coop where they happily ate the food .  Now I was sure that  Mr. Peppers would go after rats but he is not as brave as I though he was. (He does try to go after me though)  Not having Skunks in resident has caused the rats to move in.  I have blocked the holes and will try to trap them .

SATURDAY ADVENTURES

Debbie and I have been planning out trip to The Walker Homestead for their winter open house and it was wonderful.  The house was built-in the late 1600’s, it’s a salt-box my favorite type of colonial home and its painted a colonial red which is also my favorite color for a salt-box.

 

 

 Smoke was billowing out the chimney when we got there on a crisp late fall day.    The last time I was there  was in September and this time there was a different feel to the house.  One of the resident cats named Cindy, age 23. greeted us in the kitchen looking for a warm spot  near the stove . Saint Nick was there is full dress. Loads of wonderful primitive things were available for sale and there were delightful things to eat.  The house is loaded with wonderful primitives from the colonial times and was very warm and inviting.  Our hosts were delightful.  I will be at the next open house.  The herb gardens were still looking great and the rosemary was still doing well.  The sheep were not in sight but probably in the barn on this day.  I bought some wonderful Juniper branches.  I love the smell of juniper and love the beautiful berries.  These trees are hard to find and I spent many hours on the internet trying to find a couple to plant in my yard, but to no avail.  I will start looking again after the holidays.  There are plenty of juniper trees and bushes but they don’t have the berries.

Our next stop was Sturbridge, Mass just 10 minutes or so from The Walker Homestead.  We visited a few shop, one was The Mercantile which I have been following on face book.

A bedroom set up with mostly overshot woven things.  A favorite weaving pattern of Den and myself.

All I can say about it is WOW.  It was a fantastic store with so many wonderful things even  custom cupboards.  A whole room dedicated to Rug Hooking.

 So much to see.  Then we visited two vintage material stores. Material and sewing goods from floor to ceiling.  Now I know where I can get material to repair my Grandmother’s quilts.  It’s not often that I get to do all these wonderful things in one day.  Deb and I plan to do this again.

A PARTING NOTE

This is a scary time for Americans that believe in liberty and justice for all.  I think we are in for dark times ahead and the future looks bleak for lower and middle class Americans.  I hope in the next year to devote some time helping people less fortunate than myself and fight for the things I think made American great in the past.

Many thanks for reading my blog I hope you have a wonderful day  Carole