It's Finally Spring!

We had a bit of  late winter with cold wind and rain.  The rain was wonderful but the cold was not so gratefully received by me.  I had to drag all the houseplants back in and the tomato and pepper plants that I had just hardened off for planting.  But it saved me from having to buy more because it froze two nights during that time.  I tried making asparagus soup out of the frozen stalks from the garden but I was not fond of it or maybe it was the psychological aspect of the limp spears that I had to work with. Now, Spring has truly arrived at last!  And now I'm getting rather tired of asparagus.  Tonight, I tried the unhealthy method of dipping the spears into flour, then beaten egg and then panko (Japanese bread crumbs), it was delicious as were the eggplant slices.  They had big, beautiful eggplant for $1.00 last week at City Market (King Soopers).  And it made us 4 meals, a few slices at a time.  I love Spring with all the yummy veggies and fruit coming into season somewhere in the world.  I, also love that my garden will be growing goodies for me to eat and  can for winter.  I have one jar of corn left and quite a few green beans left from last year and some tomatoes and spaghetti sauce.  Still have tons of jelly and pickles left so no more of pickles to can this year and I'll have to do a few jelly, I'm hoping for grape this year as have none of that.  It looks like no plums made it this year or peaches or apples at my grove.  However, the Nanking cherries will have some trees with fruit that survived the late freeze.  So far I have peas coming up and the tomatoes, peppers and cabbage and onions are planted.  I have to get the green beans and okra in, as well as squash and cucumbers planted.  Beets, too.
It's all hard work but rewarding.  Can't wait until the tomatoes get ripe!  I planted quite a few heirlooms this year, some that I have never tasted.  Planted 4 of my favorite Mr. Stripey, yellow with a rosy blush starting at the blossom end and growing outward through the tomato.  It's low acid and so juicy.  It makes lovely tomato juice, too.  Can't wait!
We had to kill one of our chickens tonight.  We'd been noticing her butt was always shitty (sorry couldn't think of a better word) but tonight a gross big shitty wad of flesh was hanging out of her anus and so we did her in.  Farming, what fun!  She went to the garbage, of course.
  I finally got the asparagus bed weeded out tonight.  Then after Pat went to bed, I finished the note card folio that I had started this am.  It turned out very cute if I do say so!  I now have all my planned acts of kindness gifts all done and will start mailing them Wednesday.    Time for"beddy bye." Goodnight.                                       

Good grief, it's May!

April came and went fast!  We had more winter during that time so it thwarted my Spring ambitions.  Pat and I with the help of a friend got the tiling started in the breakfast room behind the wood stove we are putting in and we have a lot more to go after we get the tile saw. 
The lambs are quite placid little sheep already except for Snow White which I call Grasshopper as she jumps up in the air all four feet off the ground.  She's getting a bit calmer but I still delight in her occasional forays into silly hood!
I have a new obsession!  I got into watching You Tube Artsy videos and found out it was like going to school  and you could learn all sorts of cool things and I found Kathy Orta Files and later many more.  So I became very excited about Kathy Orta Files and ordered her book.  As soon as I got it I started making the books that she had in her book.  4 in total and I completed them all and started making them all again and now I am just about all done with the projects for all the people on my Facebook planned acts of kindness.  I'm going to teach the first book to a class end of this month.  This weekend is National Scrapbooking Day celebration and I am going to play hooky and watch 3 special classes presented by Laura Dennison, Kathy Orta Files, and Kathryn Krieger.  I even bought myself some special  food treats like it is a sporting event!  I warned Pat about my plans; he's going boating with his friend Roger in their new co-owned motor boat Saturday.  So I'm having my own little "elk hunt", and we are having hotdogs Saturday night so I can stay up late and get up early to watch my "classes" with minimal work on the wife's part.
Lou, you mentioned wanting to know about the envelope punch board.  You can get it from Stampin' Up or We R Memory Keepers.  You can find tutorials on Pinterest and You Tube.  One of my favorites in Sam Donald's site Pootles on You Tube.  She's from the UK and a very good teacher. 
Well, it's heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work I go.  Got to plant peas today and hit the greenhouse before all the good stuff is gone as the weather is starting a warm up now.  I hope it's the final warm up that means Spring rather than the abrupt reversal back into winter that we just went through.  Happy Spring to all.