30°f this morning, or -1°C. Hazy, thin clouds, rain expected late afternoon.
Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, friends!
We made it through to March and the first signs of Spring in our region. Larry will fire up the rototiller soon and get it ready to work. He picked up onion sets Monday, so I am chomping at the bit to get them planted.
I will not be starting as many plants in the little greenhouses this year. After disappointing results with our tomatoes last year, I decided to buy plants this year, and not plant as many since we get free tomatoes from a friend and there is no sense in having so many plants here to care for.
We will be picking up the first of many bags of mulch soon. We used to buy it by the pickup load, but find it easier on our old bodies these days to buy it in bags. I am cautiously optimistic that most of my perennial plants seem to have made it through the winter so far, even the rosemary, sage, and lavender, which do not survive most years. Our temperature fluctuations in winter these days just seem to kill these plants off, sadly. They used to be fine, and I once had some of all three that were 10 years old. Then our winters got weird.
I am excited that our friend Jeff is thinking to raise a hog this year and wants us to get one too, to raise with his. We did this a couple time before with him...we buy feed, and care for them whenever needed, he does the raising, then he and Larry do the butchering. We take the hams and bacon to a slaughterhouse to be cured and smoked.
I have been continuing work on sorting out my eBay room. What. a. JOB. But progress is being made, and I think next week we should be able to move out the big desk and replace it with a smaller table, and also remove one set of shelves. I hope, anyway. We shall see how it goes.
Last week we stopped in to our local Goodwill, and I found a lot of these dishes.
Some of you may recognize them as Franciscan's Desert Rose. We had a set, given to us by my Dad's mother, when I was a child. We only used them for special occasions, but even so, after a few years many were broken or chipped until at last all that were left were the cream and sugar bowl and a few plates, I think. They were so pretty, and I loved them. But these days, I prefer my mismatched dinnerware, so I bought these to sell. And sell they have! Out of a dozen dinner plates, 3 bowls, and 7 small plates, two days after listing them on eBay I have just 2 dinner plates and 3 small plates left. And grossed about 10 times what I paid. Apparently this pattern is still very popular. Who knew? I was kicking myself for buying them because I am trying to not buy anything else to list on eBay as I am trying hard to reduce my backlog of inventory, but thankfully my instinct to buy these was right. Whew.
Today is booth day. The van is loaded and we will head out soon. I am pretty much recovered from that bug I had, but am glad that we don't have a great deal to do today.
Well, that's all the news that isn't, as they used to say on Prairie Home Companion (I miss that radio show!). Enjoy your day, friends!
I admire your ebay energy! I've been trying to get up the gumption to start putting things on ebay again instead of donating everything, which has become more difficult without a vehicle. Also to contribute to the goats' grocery budget :) I never did ebay selling in a big way but used to sell a few things now and then until I had a terribly unpleasant experience with an obnoxious buyer. In retrospect I should have just told her to take her business elsewhere, instead of going out of my way to make her happy - which she never was, anyway. The whole experience left me with such a bad taste in my mouth I just stopped cold. Kind of a wimp, me!
ReplyDeleteGood job on those dishes. I wonder why nobody is doing a good old radio show like Prairie Home Companion!
ReplyDeleteI sure wish they would. I mean, podcasts are so popular, and aren't they the same as the radio shows?
DeleteOur walk today was a little too chilly to be spring-like, but it was winter-cold either.
ReplyDeleteMy mom had plates just like that! Seeing them brought back a flood of memories. A friend of ours starts their plants in their house in mini-greenhouses. Holy bugs everywhere! I think they had them in their house all year after that.
ReplyDeleteI start the seeds inside usually, then when they sprout they go outside in the small greenhouses.
Delete-1C, brrrr....
ReplyDeleteWOW. To a city-German this sounds awesome. Raise, butcher and eat. (I had a colleague who did that, too).
We are so used to buy the meat ready to fry etc... it's a shame actually! Will you post pics of the raising?
I will try to post photos. I need to get some of the rabbits and chickens too.
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