Winter has come and that makes it a bit harder to do most of the outside activities and work we want to do. We still go outside to do the necessities such as feeding and watering the chickens, gathering the eggs, loading up the outdoor wood furnace (which is awesome by the way!), and shoveling, but most of our current work is inside.
Just because we are inside, doesn’t mean we aren’t busy! Here is a quick breakdown of what we have been up to the last few weeks.
-Tom and I bought a rabbit hutch off craigslist. It will need some maintenance, but it was cheap, very large, and will soon be holding rabbits!
-We have been practicing our soapmaking. Our recipe development is ongoing, but I must admit that it seems to get better each time. We are getting ready to play with the more fun aspects of it such as color, shape, and smell! The last batch we made was light green. We are thinking of trying some cookie cutter shapes, and two of the fragrances on their way to us in the mail are vanilla lavender and strawberry.
-Cathy and Rachel have continued to bake. Rachel just posted on this subject (Bakery post), so I won’t get into it too much, but I am going to toot the donut horn. Those things are delicious!
-Dad has been organizing the garage to turn it into a workshop. This will be wonderful as we learned last summer the frustrations of not having any more than the vague idea that the tool was in the garage.
-We are finalizing our order for the fruit trees. We decided exactly what types we want. 10 apple trees (honeycrisp, macoun, crispin, winesap, sweet sixteen, and zestar), 5 peach trees, 4 cherry trees, and 2 apricot trees.
-We sat down and decided exactly what we are going to plant this spring and exactly where it is going in the garden. Many of the seeds have already been ordered.
-We are preparing the yellow house for Tom and Hannah and the upstairs apartment for Rachel and I. It has been really cool to get working on our new places and starting to imagine them as home.
We haven’t been as busy as in the summer, but we certainly have our fair share of things to do. The next few months will not be boring either, as our to-do-list seems to be never ending. Good thing we like it that way 🙂 We hope you are finding enjoyable winter activities and managing to keep warm too!
I’m sure Carlo would agree 110% with your observation with Joe. The Europeans seem to live a more relexad (2 hour lunch) lifestyle than we Americans. A little red wine, sausage and cheese and sit in the park, watch the world go by. I think the average American would have a tough time adjusting to that lifestyle . Let’s try it anyway, what the heck!!