Little something and a little nothing

Snow snow snow!

The best birthday present I (Lesley) could have gotten was an extra day off of work and we woke this morning to 7 inches of snow! What fun! Especially because we still have power, lots of wood for the stove, and a snow suit for Alder. We spent almost an hour outside noticing how strange and beautiful everything looks and feels. We were expecting Alder to only tolerate the cold for 5, maybe 10 minutes. Despite the cold, and that he was sort of inhibited by all the clothing and too-big boots, he loved it, repeating his versions of “snow” and “fun” over and over again. It helped that the wind was very light. Here are some pics of him playing.

I (Jason) became somewhat of a snow grinch after living in Boone for several years, but I will admit that this was a pleasant little gift of weather. I forgot just how quiet silence can be and just how bright the lack of color can be. These extremes, together in nature, must be what renders up the "magic" of snow to children, and adults too for that matter. Heck, even Tsuga and squirrel felt the magic.

Then we came inside and watched the birds flock into our feeders. Lots of bluebirds! We hope they like our yard and decide to inhabit the box Jason put out a few weeks ago.

Altogether, we are enjoying a free day – a nice, lazy free day.

We do have other catching up to do too in the blog world. Last weekend, Uncle Travis and Auntie Ana came to visit. Alder treated them like family, acting as if he had seen them just yesterday, even though it had been since thanksgiving. Enslaving them to read him books...

So last weekend too, we took it easy, hung around the house, ran an errand or two, caught up with one another, ate yummy food cooked at home (the best kind) and played a few rounds of Catch Phrase after Alder went to bed. We learned that the "more fun than a barrel of monkeys" should probably go something like "more interesting than a barrel of monkeys", or "more hypnotizing...". This gift to Alder from Travis and Ana proved to be just that.

During the Saturday nap, Travis and I turned a thirty year old picnic table (that we grew up using) into a sand box. This will surely be fun for Alder... and a little snack bar for the mosquitos this summer.

I should also mention that I (Jason) have been finding a good bit of time for the garden lately, strange as that is to type now, when the garden beds are but lumps in a marshmallow landscape. Tis’ that time of year to prep for spring. We have a nice tray of broccoli, chard and spinach going, which we have been hardening off to prep for planting next weekend. Also, we’ve planted one bed full with sugar snaps, lettuces, chard, radishes and spinaches. I went down to the railroad tracks near our neighborhood before the rain yesterday and yanked a bunch of bamboo for building a second trellis. (Let me say, a railroad track through suburbia is an interesting place at dawn.) Our bed of garlic is coming along nicely too. We will be excited to harvest that, this being the first time we have grown it. And boy, is it unbelievably EASY to grow garlic. Otherwise, we have doubled our area of raised beds this year. Now that we have learned the yard/sun a bit better, it is clearer where the best places to grow food in any season are. We shall see how that goes. And this year we are trying some different varieties of the things, focusing on smaller varieties that are less space-demanding. Since we have a full share of our CSA this year (see it here), we can experiment a bit with what we grow at home. Plus, as any gardener knows, finding what works best, when and where… is all about trial and error. Enough for now. We will post pics of our successes/challenges with the garden in due time.

If you are in the southeast and got snow, enjoy it now. Saturday is looking sunny and near 70 around here.