Weekend Report

5°f/-15°C, snow flurries early, then partly cloudy and very cold all day.

Happy St. Brigid's Day! Did you hang out a scarf for hee last night? It's Imbolc, the first day of Spring by the old ways. Last year we were actually seeing some green grass on this day, but this year? Still snow covered, frigid, and icy.

 

My Brigid's cross is getting fragile, but I will keep it til it falls apart.

I bought it in Ireland in 2017, from this Traveler selling them on the side of the road along the Ring of Kerry. A memorable day.

I honored this day by cooking and baking, and by planting this big pot of crocus bulbs, which I will keep inside and hope they come up.

We were given boxes and boxes of sliced apples in serving-size bags on Thursday. What to do with all of them? I am dehydrating as many as I can; I have frozen some and will do more. I tried making apple crisp with them Friday morning, but they did not soften up by the time the topping was browned! So, rethinking that one---I may have to pre-cook them to use in that recipe. The dried ones are delicious though. So far I have a gallon and a half, and another gallon in the dehydrator.

I made brownies today. See how Larry cuts a piece for him and a piece for me? Watching my diet for me!

Dinner tonight was cream of broccoli soup---because we were also given 5 boxes of broccoli in serving size packets too! I have frozen some, then used half a box to make a gallon of this soup,  which I will freeze. It's delicious---I used sour cream instead of the heavy cream called for in the recipe because I never have heavy cream in my fridge. Also made corn muffins to go with for a simple meal.

Larry had an adventure yesterday. The rabbits somehow knocked down their heat lamp and set their bedding on fire! I saw smoke coming from the hutch area, so Larry hustled down to find the bedding smoldering and the rabbits huddled on the far end of the coop. Fortunately the bedding didn't flame up--it's fairly moist what with droppings-- but it was sure smoking. In the process of pulling the bedding out, Larry somehow managed to knock a brick off the top of the hutch and it knocked him in the head right above his eye. (Why there was a brick on top of the hutch I will never know, but Larry does a lot of things that bumfuzzle me.)

By the time he came to the house his face had blood streaming down it, he was wet from the water he used to douse the bedding, he was filthy dirty, and 100% aggravated! But the rabbits were all fine, even the babies. He is fine too, except for a pretty impressive shiner.

Larry's other weekend adventure was that he broke the TV by somehow hitting it with the poker when he was building a fire in the fireplace.  The poker should not have been anywhere near the TV, but see above about things Larry does. So eventually will have to get a new TV, which is a bummer because we just bought this one in June, and the set-up process was a nightmare. We don't watch it much anyway, usually just a couple hours in the evening, watching movies.

That's about all the news. I have been working on my stockroom, sorting and organizing and listing on ebay. Also had lots of conversations with family, which was so nice. Aaron worked at the Smithsonian on Tuesday, and they were amazed that he showed up, because DC was a mess from the snowstorm. They don't know many West Virginians, I guess. Derek is packing for his trip to the Philippines, George is on his way to the Caribbean, and Katie's baby will be induced Monday! So all good news. 

Moonrise tonight: the aptly named Snow Moon.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.