Rainy Days
“Anyone who says that sunshine brings happiness,
has never danced in the rain.”
~ Author Unknown
It’s been raining here since Friday evening, not that I mind. I’ve been baking up some more sourdough bread for the freezer and cooking up a few dishes to eat on this coming week. I managed to score some lovely mushrooms at the Local Roots Market and I paired them with a venison roast courtesy of Mr Chiot’s hunting last fall. What a delicious combination.
I’ll be baking up some squash today to make some butternut squash soup, butternut squash ravioli, squash pudding and some Barley with Butternut Squash & Preserved Lemons (remember those preserved lemons I made?). These will all be for the Real Food Challenge over at Not Dabbling, so I’ll be taking photos of everything for future blogposts. I can’t think of a better way to spend a rainy weekend than in the kitchen baking up some warmth and happiness.
What’s your favorite way to spend a rainy weekend?
Filed under Quote, Weather | Comments (10)Sunny Spring Days
The first warm sunny days bring out the best in all of us here in NE Ohio. Everyone seems to be in a better mood, they’re is excited that the long cold gray days of winter will soon be only a memory. People are out and about smiling, working in their gardens, walking their dogs and they seem to be having a good time. I waved to many neighbors while out on the front porch getting some seed flats ready.
It won’t last long, winter isn’t even close to being over her in Ohio. We’ll still get a few more snowstorms and some crisp cold weather. I still have at least 2 months to be patient until I can plant anything slightly tender in the garden. Even cold tolerant plants can easily get nipped by the usual winter relapses we have. So one must be careful to remember that spring isn’t yet here when we have a few warm days.
While the warmth is here we take full advantage. We’ve been going on nice long walks in the afternoons, soaking up the sun and getting some exercise (and preparing for our spring hiking vacation). On Thursday I even hung out the first load of laundry this year. Mr Chiots checked on one of our beehives that sounded a little weak, and as of right now both hives survived the winter.
I checked the soil in the raised beds, and it’s still frozen solid about 1/2 inch below the surface. I covered one bed with the cold frame yesterday and seeded some lettuce. I’m hoping to cover the remaining cold frames with plastic to warm the soil more quickly and protect the plants inside from the worst of the remaining winter weather.
What do you do you take advantage of the first beautiful days in the spring?
Filed under Weather | Comments (19)The Days Were Clear and Bright
The days were clear and bright. Laura and Mary stood on chairs by the window and looked out across the glittering snow at the glittering trees. Snow was piled all along their bare, dark branches, and it sparkled in the sunshine. Icicles hung from the eaves of the house to the snowbanks, great icicles as large at the top of Laura’s arm. They were like glass and full of sharp lights.
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House in the Big Woods)
One of my favorite things to see in the winter are icicles. We don’t get them very often since our home is well insulated, but when the sun shines brightly on a cold day it melts the snow on our dark roof. This makes icicles form on our front porch. They’re so lovely with the blue skies behind them and the sun making them sparkle. They don’t last long, one moment they’re gracing the front porch and the next they’re gone. I’m glad I got out to capture a few photos when I did, they were beautiful.
It took me a few patient moments to catch this drip falling from the icicle. If you look at the large image you can see that the drop reflects the ground upside down, wonderful!
Icicles are one of my favorite parts of winter, they always seem to come as the days get longer and sun gets warmer. I especially love them on days like this when they sparkle in the sunlight, it’s almost as if they’re announcing the coming of spring! Most likely there will be no more icicles this winter. They will give way to leaves that will clog the gutters.
What’s your favorite part of winter, the snow, the ice, the cooler weather for your southerners?
Filed under Quote, Seasons, Weather | Comments (10)A Beautiful Day
We woke up to a beautiful day yesterday morning. The skies were clear and blue and everything was coated with a light layer of fluffy sticky snow. It almost looked like the snow actually grew out of the trees. You could see each individual snowflake, it was lovely. Days like this make the longer winters bearable. When nature is this beautiful I don’t need to say anything, the photos say it all.
Sunny days like this make me happy, we don’t have many sunny winter days here in NE Ohio. I hope you have a beautiful day!
What kind of weather makes you happy?
Filed under Weather | Comments (11)Snowed In
I’m sure many of you got the same winter storm we got hit with on Friday/Saturday. It started snowing around noon on Friday and didn’t stop until about noon on Saturday. We don’t generally get this much snow at once here in these parts of Ohio. It was a heavy wet sticky snow, so everything was covered in snow. The side of our garage was plastered, as was the house and all the trees.
Since we had a meeting in Cleveland yesterday evening, we had to dig ourselves out. So we bundled up and headed out to shovel the driveway.
This is what we saw, we had to start shoveling from inside (and we have a step up into our house).
We still like to shovel our driveway, instead of a snow blower. It’s like raking leaves, a great reason to get out on a beautiful day and a great workout (keeps those gardening muscles in shape)! We only have one snow shovel, so I had to use my gardening shovel. We ended up with 14-18 inches of snow, we measured here between our house and garage which is a bit sheltered. My mom who lives an hour northwest of us, got around 8 inches. In Pittsburgh, about an hour and half east of us, they had almost two feet of snow.
We’re loving this snow! The sun came out yesterday afternoon and it was just beautiful. I was hoping to head out and take some photos, but after two and a half hours shoveling I was a bit tired.
Did you get hit with the winter storm?
Filed under Weather | Comments (21)
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