Yikes!

The Summer went by fast. Locke is in all day Kindergarten now. I'm knitting, quilting and trying to keep the house clean and the budget under control. It's not going really well. I also started a jogging program. I can't call it running yet. I'm moving to slow. At least I'm moving.

Busy Summer

The boy graduated from Pre-K, started swimming lessons and resumed piano lessons. Busy, busy, busy. The garden looks awful. I think there is lettuce amongst the weeds. Someday I'll get back to sewing.

Blooming Apple Trees

The feral apple trees are blooming. Some day I would like to rehab them and get some apples from them.

It's Official

Spring is here. I heard the peepers last night.

Crazy Quilt folder

I actually had to had sew the entire binding.

Spring wonderings and update on Resolutions

I finished a bed sized quilt. Next I want to make a quilt with fewer flaws. I may take a stab at hand quilting again on something larger than a doll's quilt. A wall hanging perhaps.

I've been reading up on the Amish in order to get some of my homesteader mojo back. Most everything I read has a decidedly positive or negative slant. I guess there is lots of variation in Amish communities and even in families.

The garden is going to have to dry out a lot more and then I'll put in peas and lettuce. I pick up blueberry plants April 16.

Time to order chicks!

Spring

It's really warm. The snow is melting fast making everything soggy. Days of rain did not help.

I saw my first Red Winged Blackbird of the season yesterday!

Spring

Saw my first Killdeer today. We've also been seeing geese recently.

I finished!

It took me a year but I finished my first pair of socks.

Snow

We had about 4 feet of heavy wet snow this week. The picture is of the barn. The husband plowed or snow blowed twice a day for 3 days. We had 2 snow days and one early dimissal.

Molly's table quilt

New Quilt

I made this for a friend's child. She picked out the fabrics and I picked the design. It even has matching pillow cases and a matching doll's quilt.

The husband and I were discussing the end of 2009 and the previous decade. The biggest life changes for us happened in the 00’s. We bought land, built a house, built a sheep shed and pasture, built a chicken house and a barn. We filled up all these buildings with the appropriate animals. We had our child. I quit my job. On paper the past decade was awful for a LOT of people. For us, it was a culmination of years of dreaming and planning. Most everything has gone our way. I don’t know about my husband, but I have a little bit of survivor’s guilt.

For this New Year’s resolutions I have a few things I would like to try for. All of them are related. They are in no particular order:
1. I want to get my homesteader enthusiasm back.
2. I want to preserve more of my garden for winter use.
3. I want to make a bed sized quilt.
4. I want to waste less.
5. I want to drive less.
6. I want to do more hunting.
7. I want to get a dog to train for hunting (I’ll need more than moral support for this).

This past year our son started pre-school. The program he is in has the best of intentions, but, I can see the worker drone curriculum shining through. We do our best to help the boy think critically. I really understand why people home school every time I hear “WHATEVER” from my 4 year old. It seems to me that the school system is designed to suck in the parents and families too and turn us all into consumers. I’m fighting it without much success yet.

With regards to no. 4 above, I did order less seeds this year. Hopefully, I’ll get some tomatoes and we’ll have put the late blight behind us. H1N1 doesn’t worry me as much as tomato blight.