Goodness winter seems to have returned to the Cottage the last few days. I know we usually have a cool snap around Easter time and my blackberry blossoms are near to beginning their bloom cycle, but between the torrential rains, piercing winds and bone chilling temperatures it certainly doesn’t feel like spring.
Yesterday afternoon I took my spun bond fabric and wrapped it round and round our largest peach tree that is loaded with fuzzy baby peaches about the size of your thumbnail. I will still need to thin the fruit somewhat to take stress off of the young branches, but Mother and I are so looking forward to maybe having any crop at all of our own peaches. The one remaining apple tree that lived through the drought the year we planted it is almost ready to bloom. What a lovely shade of deep pink the unfurled buds are, I shall make every effort to photograph the blossoms soon.
I also have a baby head of broccoli the size of a child’s fist and the cabbage plants are having a growth spurt as well. The sugar snap peas I planted two weeks ago are just barely poking their cotyledons up through the moist soil. I think the rain buried them deeper than I had planted them.
Have not mentioned my food storage activities in a long while; I am deep cleaning the pantry and taking inventory of what we have and keeping my eyes out for sales at the market. When Mother and I went to Wal- Mart Monday we found our favorite brand of cake mix, Duncan Hines, on sale. The mixes have risen to about $1.60 each as their regular price and were on sale for .98 cents! We stocked up buy buying a dozen mixes. I am certain we would want a cake once a month so this is a nice addition to our reserves.
I found a very useful website in my surfing and have been following their suggestions for a month or so now. I will share the link with you. Actually it is a group of three websites joined together that discuss food storage, how to save money while building up your pantry and how to cook with the items you store, especially very basic items such as wheat. It is very frustrating that the Utah area has such helpful resources for saving money on stocking up where as in our area one is pretty much on your own. Hopefully I can begin posting more frequent additions to my efforts to build up my pantry better.
Woody and Grits came yesterday to repair a small leak I discovered in the roof of the attic space in the new wing of the Cottage. I was rummaging around in the storage space looking for any odd photographs that I might have missed when I developed this passion for scrapbooking when I noticed a small puddle on the floor. It seems that the foam insulation around the ridge vents had decomposed and perhaps allowed a small leak to develop. Hopefully that repair will solve the problem but I will keep a watch out in case we need to extend the search for the cause of the leak. The upkeep on a home is like an annoying insect, constantly attacking you and draining your pockets. I love this old house...but honestly it is just more than I can care for at times.
My poor old worn out knees have felt like they are rusted stiff lately, I creak and pop when working in the garden and have had to take a mild analgesic more often than I would like to. Mother and I had a serious discussion recently about me scheduling knee replacement soon. As much as I do not want to have this procedure, she is correct in saying I need to do it while she is still active. I shudder to think how we would manage if Mother became unable to care for herself and my knees were worse than now. So I am trying to convince myself that late summer is the time for me to have this surgery. Ugh!
Guess I have rambled enough and need to get up and busy inside, tomorrow I am planning on working in the garden. Thankfully I have the mower going now and cut the grass for the first time this year Saturday. Will try to post some ‘catch-up’ journaling soon with our activities.
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