Who fast-forwarded the calendar?

I can hardly believe that only a week of the New Year has passed.  It just doesn’t feel like January around here!  With another day around 60, I’m considering where I can sow a lettuce bed or two. 

This week has been a pretty productive week… I have yet to abandon any of the new “beginnings” that I started last weekend—which still seems like a long time ago!

I’m sure winter will be back with a vengeance, and my daydreams of green growing things will soon be iced over.  Until then, I’m enjoying this unseasonable break from winter…what a night for viewing the almost-full moon! 

"It's beginning to look a lot like 'Old Christmas'"...NOT!

Actually, the temperature is expected to rise to 60 today.  My pansies are still blooming, even my primroses are beginning to bloom, and the daffodils must really be getting their hopes up that winter is about over, because they are standing several inches high. 

Today looks and feels nothing like we imagine an Appalachian Christmas should, but January 6 is the day many hardy pioneers once celebrated Christmas.

I have been known to leave my Christmas tree up until January 6, but that was just an excuse for procrastinating. 

Old Christmas is celebrated on the 6^th because of the switch from a lunar calendar to a solar calendar back in the day of Julius Caesar. The length of the solar day was overestimated by 11 minutes or so; by the 1500’s, the calendar was several days ahead of schedule.

The Pope of the day decided to delete that extra time, but the British refused to cooperate.  Some were still holding onto their extra days when they “crossed the waters” to settle America. 

To this day, you can still find people in these hills and hollers who know what old Christmas is, or was.  Some say it coincides with the Epiphany, when Christ was revealed to the Magi. They say the animals kneel at midnight on the fifth, others say they moo and low, their way of paying homage to a newborn king.

However the tradition is interpreted, the truth is that today looks and feels more like St. Paddy’s Day here in Kentucky.

Pea-plantin’ day isn’t until Valentine’s Day, but I’m tempted to get a head start…kind of like the Pope, I’m ready to disregard a few days on the calendar. 

Just a short post from one tired lady...

Just a short post from one tired lady…

This will be a short post…I’m about pooped from moving furniture.  We bought a new couch and rearranged an office area, so we uncovered a lot of dusty corners.  My back isn’t quite as strong as it once was, either—I may have to call for help to get out of bed in the morning. 

Today’s prompt asks what is the hardest part about a beginning.  I’ll point out the obvious, and say the hardest part of a beginning is getting started.

When a task seems overwhelming, I try to keep in mind that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. 

My thousand mile journey, by the way, is progressing nicely.  Although this morning was cold, the sun was out bright and the air quickly warmed up…just right for a nice three mile walk. 

Apparently we are stuck in a “La Nina” weather pattern here in Kentucky, because it’s been unseasonably warm most of January and December. 

My daffodils have already made their way up through the ground and are standing three or four inches tall. I’ve seen a few spring-blooming shrubs in bud, too. 

I’m not complaining about this warm weather, but I’d sure hate to see the bloom cycle messed up. 

Season of "beginnings" includes Kingsolver's bestseller

I actually began this “beginning” a few days before the New Year.  

I had wanted to read Barbara Kingsolver’s bestseller, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” for a long time.  One of my sweet daughters bought it for me for Christmas, so I started it a few days later.   

I’m hopeful that I will eventually finish the book, which is beautifully written, but I’m notorious for starting books and not finishing them.

 “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” chronicles Kingsolver’s family’s quest to grow or buy local food as much as possible.  They began this experiment after moving from Arizona back to her home state of Kentucky. 

They learned that to eat local, one has to learn to eat in season.  When they discovered how tasty foods are when eaten fresh, the Kingsolver’s realized they wouldn’t be as deprived as they first thought they would be when they began their new eating plan.  

Her eloquent essay about asparagus stirred my appetite for the spring perennial that has become one of my favorites.

Although I’ve always participated in growing some of my own food, we never tried raising asparagus when I was a kid. I later tried canned asparagus and found it slimy and unappetizing…then I bought some fresh asparagus from a big box store and thought it tasted pretty good. 

A few years after we planted our own asparagus crowns, I finally got to taste it fresh from the patch.  That’s when I truly became a fan of the tasty spears.  Heck, even my husband likes asparagus, so it must be good! 

 Although it’s 20-something degrees outside, I’m dreaming of fresh asparagus roasted in a bit of olive oil.  Winter may be bearable yet. 

This New Year tradition comes in the mailbox

One of my favorite traditions of the New Year is receiving seed catalogs in the mail. This is not a tradition I purposefully create, but one that I look forward to anyway. 

The catalogs usually start to arrive on the first or second day of January—we got one today, as a matter of fact, late because of the holiday, I’ll bet.  

Does anyone else have those days when the cold is just…aggravating?  When you’d just like to be done with it already? Today was one of those for me. 

However, when I came home and opened the mailbox…ahhh,…I could feel the thaw begin as my hungry eyes took in bright pictures of blueberries, strawberries, shiny apples and bunches of flowers. 

That’s just what I needed to get me through a few more days of winter. 

Only four more months to go...                           

Cold weather in Kentucky still means fresh meat for some families

My resolve has already been tested by one of my New Year’s resolutions. 

When I decided I’d begin a thousand mile journey (by walking the 1/3 mile loop around and around our yard and gardens), it was approximately 60 degrees outside.  The sun must have been shining.  

Today the wind is absolutely raw and cut right through my clothes.   Snow flurries are flying too.  This is our best taste of winter this season.

 By the way, the snow pictures I posted yesterday are from last year—I think I neglected to mention that. 

Anyway, I completed my prescribed walk and am currently appreciating the warm hum of the heater as I think about starting supper. 

We are having fresh sausage for supper tonight, a gift from my brother who had a hog butchered this weekend.   I’m debating whether or not to make homemade biscuits to go with it.  Maybe I’ll make gravy too.  (I know, that doesn’t sound like a menu for weight loss.) 

This cold spell makes for ideal hog-killing weather!  That sounds kind of gross when we’re accustomed to purchasing pretty packages of pink tenderloin from the grocery and never considering that it once covered the bones of a living, breathing animal. 

A couple of generations ago, however, nearly everyone in the rural areas of Kentucky kept a fattening hog or two to butcher and eat during the winter. Folks waited until it was cold to do so, to take advantage of nature’s refrigeration. 

When I was growing up, my brothers and sister and I were involved in nearly every part of the process of “working up” the hog meat.  We cut long strips of fat into cubes for rendering into lard.  We ground sausage.  We packaged pork chops and tenderloins.  We watched our dad salt down hams and shoulders and big slabs of “side meat” or bacon. 

We raised our own hogs too, so oftentimes the meat we worked up was that of animals we’d been feeding their whole life.

I'll spare you the pictures on this post. 

I'm buzzed about beginnings

This is what a fresh start looks like to me.

I’ve decided to attempt another month of consecutive daily blog posts as I did in November.

December I barely posted at all, because of Christmas preparations, spending a lot of time at the hospital and catching up from November, when our lives were really crazy. 

January’s blog theme is “Beginnings.”  I love the newness, the potential of a New Year.  If we really focus, it’s a great time to be productive and recuperate from the holidays. 

I always make resolutions.  Although I rarely keep them perfectly, I can’t imagine not setting any new personal goals for myself.  That would be like deciding not to get out of bed in the morning.   

I’m beginning a few new projects this month.  One is daily posting on my blog, another is a journey of 1000 miles (I plan to walk 19.23076923076923 miles per week to complete my “journey.”  That averages out to approximately 2.75 miles per day.) I’m also beginning an in-depth study of the book of Psalms, and I plan to paint my bathroom.

 Last but not least, I intend to shower lots of love and affection on little Clay, who is scheduled to come home from the hospital in a week or two.  He’s doing great—and getting cuter by the day! 

I’d love to hear from some of my readers—what are your new goals for the year? 

 I'm also looking forward to this season's first snowfall. 

 So is Daisy.

 We've had barely a flurry, so far. 

 I think these look like giant frosted shredded wheat biscuits. 

Frost on top of a snow = exquisite.