Feels Like Spring; A Catch-Up Post

It's unseasonably warm--again--for this time of year. So warm that we had our morning tea and coffee on the porch, and have the front door open to let the house air out.

(No pics today; my camera is still in Marietta.)

The bees are out and looking for food so we've opened some jars of really old grape jelly (I don't like it and we never use it--why do I make it?) and mixed it with some water for them to take to the hive. All hives are still doing well, so my fingers are crossed that they will all survive this winter.

Bulbs are pushing up too, daffodils and tulips and here and there some crocus. I have bad luck with crocus. Apparently the ground squirrels love the bulbs and so  do hand moles. Those are Larry's names for chipmunks and moles, by the way. Southern West Virginia seems to have its own lexicon; doves are rain crows, turtles are tarpins, morel mushrooms are mollymoochers, etc. We sometimes have to pause a conversation to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

We talked about planting some lettuce this morning. Some years we have had the seeds in the ground already. Lettuce, onions and radishes can grow in a hotbed even in February, so Larry might get the bed ready today if the rain holds off. We still have onions growing that we planted last fall. Fresh green onions in February is a treat for Larry. I wish I liked them but raw onions are not on my list of foods I will eat willingly.

The new chickens are laying like crazy now. These are Golden Comets and the man who raised them treated them like pets so they are very friendly and like to be petted. they lay big brown eggs and should be steady producers, unlike the older breeds that take the winters off.

Larry's feeling more spring-like himself, now that he finally got cortisone injections in his knees, a knee brace and a back brace from the VA. He's been in a lot of pain for a year. This is the worst service we've had from the VA; usually they are very quick but this has been dragging on since April. He still has pain in his neck, we think from a pinched nerve, but they have not yet addressed that. I've bought some braces, cold and hot packs that seem to help. He'll get cortisone in his back in May, I believe. A career in bricklaying is hard on a body, and he's one hard worker. So hurting like he has been has made him not a happy camper. He would still work like a horse, no slowing him down, but by night he was in misery. He got his first night of good sleep in months last night.

I have been working on cleaning out, and I'll be doing more. I've taken things out of the booths that have been around too long and aren't worth keeping, and sent them off to the thrifts. Now I am working on my eBay stockpile. The longer I am into this selling thing the more I realize that some early buys were bad ideas. Those things will be out of here and free up space for the stuff that does sell. I don't mind too much because I bought most of it at cheap prices so I'm not losing a lot of money. And I can write it off my taxes, so it's not a total loss.

Today I am back to painting. I took a break to deal with other things but I will be back to work on a variety of projects today. The booths are doing moderately well, especially for this time of year, so I am needing new items to fill the places of things on layaway or sold.

I've been writing again, working on a couple projects. More later if I still with it. I find that writing gets back-burnered when there are so many other things to do, and I am trying to change that. It's not easy!

I'm off now to have coffee on the porch--time for mid-morning break!--and then it's back to what passes for work around here.

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