Breaking Out

6°f/-14.4°C, clear. 

Sweet little guy waiting on the feeder. The birds have been busy around here, and Larry keeps them supplied with seed and peanut butter.  Look at all the tracks on the deck under the feeder! They have certainly smashed down the snow.

A warm-up on the way, starting today! Yesterday morning we saw -2°f, bone-chilling cold. That probably seems like a heat wave to those of you in Canada, though. The snow is hanging on, not really melting as much as packing down and evaporating. Rain is expected later this week, which should make a right mess of things. Ice, probably. 

So today I am breaking out of hibernation, not because of neccessity because we are still well- stocked. But I want to see the Ohio River, which is most completely iced over. That doesn't happen every year. So we will go look, and check on our booth in Ravenswood. Sales have been non-existent since January 22nd, which was, actually, the last time I went out. So probably not much is needed. Still, I have been pricing and pricing and have at least 8 totes ready, which is nice. Later in Spring when I am busy outside I won't have to worry about getting stock ready, right?

Did you watch the game yesterday? I'm not a fan of football so wasn't sad to miss it, but I did watch clips of the half-time show. What a party! What happy energy! I bet tourism to Puerto Rico skyrockets. I know there is plenty of criticism because the show was in Spanish, but how many hit songs have there been, here in the US, that were in a foreign language? As Bad Bunny pointed out, America isn't just the US. People forget that. More people in America speak Spanish than English, I'd bet.

Not much excitement around here.  I canned all the rest of the apple slices, and got 14 quarts.

I made a cobbler with some of them. 

What i don't use of these apples will go into apple butter in the fall.

I have never made apple cobbler before, but it was delicious,  like apple pie filling with a sweet biscuit topping. And I made one more batch of cream of broccoli soup, which makes 3 gallons tucked in the freezer. It is so good! So except for a lot of cherry tomatoes,  I am done with all that stuff that was given to us. It kept well in the back room, thank goodness. 

The only mishap was this steam burn. 

In all my years of canning and cooking, I have never had a burn like this. It's looking much better than when I first did it. It's what I get for not paying attention when I lifted the lid off that pot of apples!

Yesterday was house-cleaning day. Since it was so cold out, I snagged Larry's help. Nice to get all the high places done. I still have more to do, getting a bit of a jump on spring- cleaning I guess. 

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