Coffee

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Since I only have one small hut for the ewes and lambs, yesterday I built a cow panel hoop hut. Now there is plenty of room. This morning there was a new ewe lamb! Nova is a first time mom and doing a good job.

Pretty little lamb!!!!

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Wonderful choices, @Artichoke Lover . Books, of course .

Doyle's Sherlock and Watson were favorites sometime in high school. Fairly sure that I read every one. I then drifted far from detective novels, at least, I didn't really return to that genre.

Dickens was a dickens to wade through. That is, the Huge Number of pages to Great Expectations nearly put a cap on me continuing with Dickens. I read A Christmas Carol, of course. After seeing movies and TV specials and knowing the story so well, it almost read itself in my hands .

Steve

I read all those books in school because mostly I was made to. I liked Sherlock Holmes and read all of those stories, so when I started homeschooling I was following for a few years a program that had a list of all the classics and age levels to read and my kids hated them. They made it through some of them, but DD totally rebelled against Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and for some reason DS thought I was insane for making him read Frankenstein. I bought a homeschool program later that they had to send in work and had tests graded, so they had their own reading list and book reports still had to be done, but they had series they had to read like some of Dickens and also Shakespeare. They did not seem to mind reading done in chapters and listening to the teacher discuss with students about the books, but to give them a book and say read this and do a book report by such and such day, total rebellion and they still do not like to read. I think it is because of computers and the way people communicate now. When I was younger we did not have a television and I read every one of Nancy Drew and I read all of the Black Stallion books and other horse books, and later Jane Eyre, and they were my choices and when I had to read something for a book report like one of Charles Dickens then I was unhappy too. DD actually opened Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and had me read a page and I closed the book and said okay, you do not have to read it. LOL

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Soup for lunch and broth is started on the stove.

It's laundry day. Some of it was supposed to be started yesterday morning but we had an unexpected morning visitor. If sheets are to be hung out, they will need as many hours as possible in these cool temperatures, even if there is sunshine. (Ya know, freeze drying laundry doesn't really work ... just to be informative for the southern TEG members .)

I often think back on laundry days to my first washing machine. College and apartment living and we had a new baby! Disposable diapers --- didn't know the meaning of the term.

Clothes rack in the living room and a portable machine . Wash/Rinse cycle on one side, final spin on the other:

View attachment 47344
Steve

My mother got her first dryer after my dad went out and got frozen diapers off the clothes line. LOL

 

[flowerbug]

Good Morning.

Cinnamon toast with Tangerines for a second breakfast. Works well with my steaming herb tea concoction - star anise, licorice root and the dry peels from those tangerines.

Just need some sarsaparilla, a mill, and a marketing team and I could go into business .

Steve

Steepin' Steve's Sarsparilla

 

[digitS']

Well, I did my good/not good deed for the day. Released a cabbage butterfly into the neighborhood.

Now, before you start throwing dirt at me. Let me explain!

I was out in the the greenhouse moving some soil around. (See, that's my job .) There was a cabbage moth trying to get out. There were some chickweed in there most of the winter. I guess that's what he might have been living on. The internet claims that butterflies are in the cocoon for at least 5 weeks. First of February? The Weather Service says that we have only had 1 day in 2022 that reached 50°f (10°C) but it will be toasty warm in there with sunshine. The first of February seems a little early but ...

Anyway there he was, beating himself senseless trying to escape. First, I thought that I'd just let him starve in there. Then, well, he wanted freedom and what harm could he do? Not even lawngrass is growing, nothing is blooming. Remember how we were told not to hold butterflies by their wings? Didn't seem to matter. He flew up about 12 feet and due west another 50, before disappearing behind the neighbors' garage.

Can bugs survive this time of year? Sure, I have seen a total of 3 bugs outdoors this winter. I used to see some kind of gnat while ice fishing - never a butterfly. The temperature should drop into the teens, tonight.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

i was hunting a mosquito in here last week. i got it at last. i don't know that butterfly will survive the night. i don't know if they are frost tolerant. 15F is a deep freeze coming from a greenhouse. i think it will be dead before too long. so perhaps you did no damage at all to anyone and may have fed a hungry bird.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Sushi for dinner. It's not really sushi since it's vegetarian . My kids actually eat this without complaints so I make this regularly.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Just need some sarsaparilla, a mill, and a marketing team and I could go into business .

Steve

The root or the soda? Or are you talking about using your tisane (the correct term rather than "tea", as your mixture contains no actual tea leaves.) and the root to MAKE the soda? I honestly can't tell from the context.

In either case, I wouldn't be of much help. I have only vague ideas about where to get the root (basically boiling down to "somewhere online"). And as for the soda, there isn't that much of THAT around in my area anymore either, Maine Root's version seems to be the only one still readily available. The market where I could get Sioux City's doesn't carry it anymore (I think). And all other brands are once in a blue moon sightings (I've been trying to get into a place that says they sell the Harmony Springs version, but they never seem to be open.) And since almost all come in glass bottles only buying online gets very expensive very quickly.)

 

[baymule]

Good morning! Coffee is ready! Direct TV is coming this morning to set a satellite for TV reception. I don’t leave it on all day, just like to watch some programs at night.

 

[digitS']

Good Morning.

Looking out the kitchen window before slicing a banana for my late breakfast. Made a mistake on my forecast, first some wind and a chance of snow. Then, the overnight temps drop into the teens. Anyway, with the check for snowfall, I see the neighbor across the road come out of his house. THREE motion detection lights come on. The furthest away from him is about 50 yards!

These aren't even the lights of the neighbor with the "don't tread on me" sticker in the back window of his truck. He isn't home and was last seen departing with his ex in their 3 year + broken relationship of separate households. His light was on almost continuously when the slightest breeze would trigger it as his US flag hung beside the door, 24/7 from fall 2020 until it blew to shreds this winter ...

I'm very thankful that my neighbor on the bedroom side of my house doesn't have one of those lights! The light on the neighbor's garage on the other side will be a distraction as the tree leaves by their driveway break their buds. That thing is bright! And, unfortunately, the tree's shadow doesn't fall across our kitchen window. Dang near blinding when we are standing at the counter and a breeze thru tree leaves triggers it!

Steve