Top 3 reasons we gain winter weight

Well, at least those of us out here on the farmstead.

1. It gets dark early. And by early I mean before 6 pm. I'm useless after the sun goes down. All I want to do is go to sleep. Instead, I sit here in front of the pc, working on one of those unhealthy, green, glowing, anti-tans.
2. After chores are done, there's not much to do outside on days like today: muddy, melty, foggy and cold. Which leaves too much time for ...
3. Baking. Lots and lots of cookies, pies, cakes, breads, noodles...carb-fest.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must light the room with my green glow, waddle to the kitchen, and get yet another homemade chocolate chip cookie.

Snow Snow Go Away

I am already sick sick sick of snow, and it's not even blizzard season yet! We've had snow daily for over two weeks (feels like a couple of months and NONE of it is melting) at a half-inch to an inch a day. Toss in a snow storm with about four inches, add another two inches today, mix well, and now we have a little over a foot of snow in the field. Sheesh.

Yeah, yeah, I know...it's winter...it's Ohio..deal with it. :P Doesn't mean I can't whine. It is my blog.

The best cure for winter blahs is a good seed catalog, IMO. Eöl and I have perused the Baker Creek Heirloom catalog for some new goodies for this year's garden.

My issue with Baker Creek is that they don't list the zones for each seed variety, which adds some extra work to selecting seeds, such as cross referencing and other research. When trying to grow a new variety of veggie, planting schedules, days to harvest, zone info, soil requirements, direct seed or start indoors, etc. are all nice to know. They do have some unique seed, though.

I most likely need to narrow my list a bit, anyway. I'm hoping to try my hand at the farmer's market this year, so I'm selecting a few of the more unusual varieties for that, but maybe I got carried away - I have about three pages of seeds I'd like to try. lol

Last year, I had over 120 tomato plants. It was a blight year, so all of the plants didn't produce as much as they would have under better conditions. Still, I think I ended up with enough to last until next harvest, which was the plan. This year, because of the farm market in addition to growing all of our own, I may have closer to 200 or more tomato plants. I suppose the plus side of the uber cold we're having here is that it's more than cold enough to kill any blight spores.

We're extending the garden another 4000 sf, and it looks as if the extra space will be filled up with no trouble.

In other garden news: Ky Wonder Bush Beans. Prolific, but too quick to turn tough on the vine. I think this year we are sticking with Contender.

Um...can you tell I'm hoping for an early spring? lol

O M Geeee!

If you've never had homemade noodles, you just don't know what you are missing! I made my very first batch today, threw them into some homemade lasagna (all ingredients except the flour and dairy were from our very own farm), and Oooooo My!! We will never eat store noodles again!!

I looked through several noodle recipes, and finally settled on this one from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (well, it was new back in '85):

1 beaten egg
2 Tbs milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup all purpose flour

Combine in mixing bowl. Knead well. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. On a floured surface roll dough out to desired thickness. Roll up loosely and cut into slices.

The directions said to hang the noodles to dry, but I skipped drying the noodles and boiled them in salted water for about three minutes.

I quadrupled the recipe but I think double would've been sufficient. We ended up with a HUGE batch of lasagna.

I go now to collapse in the floor and digest.

Back to the real world

I'm hoping to get the blog back around to homesteading subjects...eventually. But today I'm pretty beat. It's our first day back in the 'real world' after holiday vacation. We didn't go anywhere, just rested and recovered from the holidays. I think we only left the house twice in the entire week. We slept late, played in the snow, hiked in the woods, and went sledding in the moonlight. Today, though not bad, totally sucked by comparison, ya know?

So for now, something fun:

Yep, that's me. Yes, there's a hare in my hair, and yes, that really does happen around here.

Biggest Brother is the artist. His caricatures are nothing short of amazing. He made these (see Eöl's in previous post) for us as Christmas gifts. We love them!! Isn't it wonderful to receive gifts that someone obviously put so much work and thought into?

Looking at the pic makes me wish for spring to hurry up and get here!

I christen thee...

Hubby is in need of a screen name. He dislikes being called DH; says it sounds like Doodie Head. *shrugs* Guess he's got a point there, though I always meant it to mean Dear Husband, Darling Husband, Dashing, Daring, Demented...as the day dictates.

Hubby doesn't quite suit him, either, as it reminds me of the Ben and Jerry's flavor "Chubby Hubby".

Satan has been his nickname, off and on, for many years, since before his starring role as the ol' serpent himself (long story, but the filmmaker has gone on to real Hollywood stuff!). But that nickname, apt though it may be, just doesn't convey the Happy Go Lucky type of evil in which we revel.

Of course, we have our private nicknames for one another, but if I told you what they were, your eyes would burst and ooze all over your keyboard, so I'll spare you that one.

After careful consideration, taking into account all of his likes, dislikes, things that make him itch, stuff that just ticks him off, and an odd bit of, well, really bizarre synchronicity, we are going with a Viking version of something that suits him to the proverbial T.

I give you:

Eöl