We All Need Something

Way steeper than it looks. No, really.

We dried off Apple last week, in preparation of an early June freshening. No more milk until then, though we’ll probably buy a bit here and there just to keep our kefir grains alive. Black coffee. No ice cream. Ah… I can already imagine how good it’ll all taste come June.

Freezer stocks holding out real well. Still have lots of pork, beef, venison, lamb, chicken, and even a few muskrats. A bit of beaver. Oodles of blueberries, strawberries, wild blackberries. Getting low on butter, will probably run out. That’s ok.

Everything in the root cellar holding up. Things storing much better since embarking on soil restoration. Lots of taters and beets, but ate through the carrots. Plenty of onions, garlic, squash. Gobs of kimchee and lacto beans. Applesauce. Dried mushrooms, dried kale, dried tomatoes, dried celery leaves.

Getting nervous about sugaring. Tapped about 60, but there’s been no significant run yet and nothing in the forecast. Looking like a short season. Real short. Soon as the trees start budding out, the sap turns “buddy” and that’ll all she wrote. The big sugar makers can sell buddy syrup to the flavoring market, but that’s not our bag. So. Might not have much syrup this year. Or might. Hard sayin’ not knowin’.

Most of next years firewood pulled to the landing, about half bucked and split, half still in logs. Logs are buried. Snow is very deep, too deep to work in the woods except on snowshoes. Tractor can’t make it. Soon as we get a thaw, gotta jump on the firewood.

One copse of softwood cleared to make way for perennial plantings. Another started, but delayed by snow. Many bare root trees coming. Many. It will be a busy spring.

Two lambs on the ground.

Two pigs getting fat on colostrum and milk. Warms the cockles of my heart, it does.

12-15 eggs/day. Eggs over here, eggs over there, eggs everywhere. Sort of sick of eggs, but hey. It’s what we got.

Chores are quick this time of year. They’re over too soon, really, just about the time I start warming to the task. It’s the annual lull. Normally there’s plenty of other stuff going on, but the snow and cold have put the brakes on most everything else, and I’m feeling a little soft. Erik called last week to go skiing in the storm and I couldn’t, but it put the bug in my brain and so Dirk and I hiked and skied the power line ‘cross the valley. Hadn’t done that in ages. I needed it.

I guess we all need something, eh?