Life is chilly, but life is good

I could do without the 30F days, grey skies, and snow flurries, but nonetheless, spring is creeping in. I still have plenty of wood left, so the house is toasty, and the cats have not yet rebelled.



Cricket for some reason has been extra affectionate, to the point of asking to be lugged around the house (no big effort at 6lbs) and even sleeping with me. I'm not sure what's up with that.



Today was meat day...the day to go over to Matt's house and join the locals in picking up his locally-raised pork, straight from the butcher. Sausage, bacon, pork chops, hams, pork roasts, ribs...a year's worth of meat for around $190. The point of this is for the pork to be the only meat I eat, once a week, and then avoid restaurant and supermarket meat of unknown origin, and unknown animal care. I backslide periodically, so I guess it's time to renew my local eating vows.

To that end, I want to see vacuum-packed garden veggies filling my freezer at the conclusion of this summer as well. Last week when I was warm I cleaned out one raised bed in the garden above the house,and started veggies I'll eat as soon as they grow: lettuce, spinach, peas, etc. Then I'll start veggies I can freeze for at least the fall and first part of the winter. And then I'll start the flower gardens and community veggie garden below by the barn.

I put labels on the tiles Douglas made nine years ago, to use as garden markers.



The windows from the barn aren't big enough to cover the entire bed. I also need to bring the sides up higher; there's wood enough to do that.

I'm getting there.



It would help if it would warm up a bit. I hope to fire up the tiller this weekend.

I had some sausage left from last year, so I made sausage, potato, and veggie soup today, which served well for both lunch and dinner, along with nan bread and tomato-Gorgonzola spread. In the soup, I used three potatoes and two parsnips instead of all potatoes. I also added extra water and pulled out about two cups of broth to use for stock for the next batch of soup, before I added the milk. And I used the wand blender to puree part of the soup so it was heartier.

It's time to do more cooking out of the freezer and garden, instead of out of boxes.