Winter's Greenery and Potting Soil

I'll admit that the majority of my winters have been frozen, and I spent them under a pile of blankets, peering through the tiniest of openings to read a favorite book. 

This Christmas I'm spending time in a different winter wonderland. Walking into a greenhouse is one of the loveliest experiences... With the smell of soil and herbs and growing things. Even the spiders don't bother me in this microcosm of beauty. 

Every shade of green is soaking up the warm, damp air full of sunshine.  Some brave plants are still blooming and add their bright splashes of color to the scene. 

I was trying to pot a few plants, and in the end, all of my little projects were finished, despite the antics of Charles ( the incorrigible cat). No plant was safe from a taste test. 

He thinks he's handsome and hogs the camera (and unceremoniously trips me). For every picture like this :

There's three pictures like this : 

Anyway... Back to project pictures! The box of magical things that I got at a Nursery this weekend. Those places are made of happiness and sunshine. 

Potting soil, dirt, and a tiny bit of anxiety about the fragile little stalks, and voilà! Little pot of plants. And drumroll please!! ....

Two extra pots of dirt. ;) 

In a couple months they'll be mini daffodils though, so everyone wins in the end. 

Only a few days till christmas, so I guess I better wash the dirt off my hands (and face, and clothes and shoes...) so I can finish shopping. Have a beautiful day!

The Kids

 I mentioned in the last post that our goat was due around this time, and that it would be really warm when she birthed... Well I was right. It was a difficult labor, and it took over three hours to get the twins out. But now they are busily melting all of our hearts and eating enthusiastically about a thousand times a day. . . maybe four. The second born has been getting some special attention, since she was in the wrong position when she was born and wasn't feeling well for the first day. 

The first day sleeping in a pen in the basement. It was 90 degrees and humid so we brought them in. 

I took them outside to play while it was cool this morning. They enjoyed themselves quite a bit. Their favorite game was to try jumping my feet, which they couldn't do.  So they would wind up and leap as far as they could...and land right on top of my feet. Thankfully they distracted themselves and began bouncing about and exploring again 

Summer Life

The Summer has kept me really busy lately, but I wanted to share some photos and some of what has been going on lately. 

A lot of our flowers are in bloom, and that makes me happy.

This Rose especially for some reason. :)

The garden was overflowing with Greens... Turnip, beet, Swiss chard, lettuce, kale, cabbage. . . It's been challenging my cooking ingenuity lately.

And then apparently my goat missed the memo about having babies in the Spring. So we're looking at delivering babies in humidity and warm weather. But I'm really excited anyway.  This isn't a very good picture and f her, but you get the idea. 

In The Winter

I'll be honest, when I moved from the New York countryside to a farm in Tennessee, I didn't care if I ever saw snow again. Well folks . . . I didn't get a choice this winter. 

So . . .life happens?

At least that is going to be my excuse for not blogging anything in the last couple months.  Last semester ended very well for me.  I worried way too much about keeping my GPA up,  but it looks like I get to keep it how it is for at least one more semester.  Spring semester has begun.
 There are lots of new things going on. 
1.  My sister is getting married in May!  We are all SO EXCITED.

2. Connor got into Upper Division for Nursing!  Praying hard that the same happens for me over the summer.
3. My mom is coming home!  Not that she really left, but her job has kept her so busy that we have hardly seen her since a few days she took off at Christmas.  She is done with her job and will be returning home in time to help with the gardens and get the house back in order.
4.  Baby goats have been born!  Four bucklings, its true, but a blessing none the less.  Rachel named these two Archibald and Edwin.  We shorten it to Eddie and Archie.

It has been the craziest few months of my life.  This semester is much harder than the last.  Anatomy and Physiology is the hardest class.  I made above average on the first test.  The average was a 57%.  It was sad.  Other than that, it has been good for me to be studying.  The weather is pretty now.  Somehow, I acquired a sunburn in the 10 minutes it took to hang laundry and feed the babies. :) The perks of being fair skinned.

I'm sure that more things have happened, but I cannot recollect them now.  Maybe  I shall post again soon.  I won't promise though.  It is much more likely that it will be silent around here for another few months. Especially since everything is getting so green.  Have a blessed Day!

 

Last Week, This Was Me

And. . . that is part of the reason ( or at least a really good excuse :) for not posting in a really long time.  I'm not super busy, but there is always a test to study for, or a paper to write.  I am so excited about Christmas break.  It will be amazing to be at home and get to spend time with the whole family again. So this is me after every single quiz or test.  It's pretty ridiculous.

Those bygone Days

Even though my classes are keeping me busy, and the days slip through my hands almost before I realize it, I still feel stuck.  I am suspended in time, watching the rest of the world whirl around, speeding toward an end.  Only I stay, because Autumn is the time of year when memories batter their way into my mind. Some of them are memories that I wish would go away forever, but the other memories are the ones that I want to come back year after year until I am in heaven where they will all make sense.
 The changing leaves are my favorite part of Autumn, and luckily, we take quite a few pictures of those. This is just as they were beginning to change last year.  I'm still waiting for the ones this year.  There was a time when my sister and two brothers would make a huge pile of leaves at the base of a tree and jump into it over and over again until we were tired, then we would make " houses" by raking lines on the ground.  Four walls, and you had a room, then you just kept building.  Our poor parents were then dragged on tours of each house, tediously weaving through their own yard ( You never entered a house without knocking, and no one stepped over walls. Ever).

Winter will be coming soon, and while the cold is not fun, the snow and coziness of the season are worth it.  And Hot Chocolate.  It is definitely worth Hot chocolate :)  My family always makes a ginger bread house, and the rule is that everything must be edible, though some questionable items have been put on it before. ( my brother argued that pine needles were edible. Chewed one up to prove it, too ). Before we moved, we would hike up to the cabin after snowfall to start a fire in the woodstove, then sled and skate all day.   By the end I couldn't feel my fingers, or my toes, but we were all laughing together, so I wouldn't give that day up for anything.

 

The most dismal thing that comes to mind right now is the fact that Summer is over and my days probably won't look like this for long.

But it is okay because snow is so beautiful, and winter must come before Spring. 

Well, nothing quite like reminiscing to prepare me for Chemistry homework. . .  now that is one awful thing that I wish I did remember from high school.