Hello Sunshine
With the shortest day of the year fast approaching, citrus season comes just in time to add a little sunshine do our days. Late last week I received a box of delicious organic citrus from G & S Groves in Texas. This week I’ll be ordering a box of Meyer lemons from Lemon Ladies.
Blood oranges will be ordered in a few months, along with boxes of lemons and limes as well. As local as I try to eat, I will never be without citrus in my fridge or pantry! Thankfully my small lemon tree is starting to produce quite nicely so I’ll need to order a little less this year.
My favorite citrus is grapefruit, with limes coming in a very close second and Mr Chiots loves oranges the most. This time of year I can never get enough of the tart zingy fruits, there’s just something about that flavor when the air is so cold outside my window. It really does bring a bit of sunshine into my day. I’ll be ordering another box shortly because I’m pretty sure my first box will be gone in a heartbeat!
What’s your favorite type of citrus?
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Quote of the Day: Brett L. Markham
“Home food production is an important proficiency that contributes positively to the physical and financial health of the family. Along with this, it provides and important physiological and spiritual boost by reaffirming our connection with nature and nature’s laws, reconnecting us with our ancestral roots, and providing the feeling of competence that comes from ensuring the supply of a basic necessity – food.”
Brett L. Markham (Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre)
Today is the day for our piggos to go to Iceland. It’s a somber day, not a day we look forward to and a day that is difficult to talk about. In fact it takes a week or two of preparing yourself mentally for what happens on this day. It’s not easy, but we feel like it best honors our pigs and the lives we tried to let them live. It brings us peace knowing that they don’t have to take a trailer ride or spend the night in a strange place. They can have a peaceful end in the place they feel at home. Peaceful for them, not peaceful for us.
We are happy knowing that they led happy piggy lives, rooting and wallowing, running and eating, snorting and being with another of their kind. It was especially nice that the last week has been warm so they could spend their last days happily rooting in the woods, exactly what pigs relish doing.
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Friday Favorite: FaceTime
Technology is pretty amazing, it can enhance our lives in so many ways. I mentioned earlier that we did the 12 days of Maine Christmas with our nieces & nephew. Their FaceTime wasn’t working for a few days, not we’re back up and running. It’s so much better to be able to watch all of them trying to guess what’s inside the box.
Being able to video chat is one of the great things about the times we live in. It’s so nice to be able to see someone face to face while talking. The introvert in my hates talking on the phone, but I don’t mind video chatting at all.
Do you use video chat to keep in contact with loved ones far away?
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Sending Holiday Cheer
I love Christmas card, I love to get them and I love to send them. We have yet to get our photos taken for our personal cards, but I’ve been working hard on the Christmas cards I mail out for work. I usually mail out around 500 for that and roughly 100 for ourselves personally. The result is that I spend a lot of time during the month of December working on them.
This year I printed our cards for work, I found a sweet little nativity stamp on Esty to use on them. I took them to Ohio and my nieces helped me fold them and stuff them into envelopes. All I have left to do is address and stamp them and then I move on to our personal cards. I’m waiting for a snow so I can take the photo I’ve been planning. My mailbox is starting to fill up with cards from family and friends as well. I’m always happy to see how much everyone’s kids have grown, Christmas cards are one of the beautiful things about the holiday season!
Do you send out cards to family & friends? Do you enjoy receiving cards?
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Oh Tannenbaum
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!
They are green when summer days are bright,
They are green when winter snow is white.
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!
We arrived back in Maine on Saturday evening right around 10 pm. I’ll share more of our eventful trip tomorrow. After coffee, unpacking and lots of chores on Sunday, we headed out to gather our Christmas tree in the afternoon. We like to cut a free range tree from our property, the less perfect the better.
We found a sweet little balsam fir conveniently located right by the driveway and decided it would be perfect. Out came the ax and down came the tree. The trees in this area need thinned out anyways, so it’s nice to kill two birds with one stone so to speak.
Of course I did double duty and took some photos for the glove company I work for, why not, right?
I trimmed it with lights and then later in the evening I pulled out my etched glass balls to dress it up a bit. A tree like this really needs not much more than one strand of lights, it’s simplicity is really what makes it beautiful. I will give you one great recommendation, put your Christmas tree lights on a dimmer switch, especially if you use the big old fashioned lights. It’s nice to be able to dim the tree in the late evening.
Do you put up a tree to celebrate the holidays?
