I love when it warms up after a couple of snowy days and the snow gives itself back up to the atmosphere. The foggy mist is a welcome calm. What is not calm is the hideous few days and nights of wind. It was so bad that some completely dried birdhouse gourds from last year blew off the shelf in the closed greenhouse. Guess I should drag out the duct tape for some repairs to the plastic.

While rummaging in the pantry I came upon a glass jar of my own dried beans from 2022. I promptly soaked and turned them into some baked beans with onions and butternut squash. They were the Jacobs’s cattle variety, so-called for their maroon and white markings. An heirloom seed, it got its name from the Old Testament story of Jacob as a young man. He was told by his potential father-in-law that the marriage could proceed when he had enough cattle to provide for a wife. However, the catch was that he could only claim as his those with a specific red and white coloring. At night, the enterprising young man slipped a bull of the right coloring into the cow pen. This story could serve as a lesson in ancient genetics.

I’ve been busy keeping the wood cookstove roaring. I’m using it for heat, of course, with the added benefit of reducing gallons of maple sap into a usable syrup. It’s so delicious (what tiny bit I’ve been able to jar up) that it’s difficult to describe. I used some of the sap to make my coffee one morning. I don’t use sweetener in coffee so it was a Sunday morning treat.

This week I used up all my stored potatoes from last year’s garden. Last season I made it until April so I guess I’ll plant a few more rows this year. I saved a small basket to replant on Saint Patrick’s Day. It is a tradition in our family as a shout-out to our Irish ancestors.

I only remember a scant few family meals that did not include potatoes in some form. My mother would peel them in the morning before work. My job after school was to start them so they were ready when she and Dad came home.

Violet is a big fan of nightly popcorn. For fun she popped some sorghum recently. It may be our new favorite thing. I have grown sorghum for years in the garden. It’s an African native that can reach over seven feet tall. I use it ornamentally in fall flower arrangements and dried as an interesting winter bouquet. The flower heads produce the grain used for popping a nutritious grain, or processed into syrup. Similar to molasses, it can be used in cooking and is more flavorful than molasses as a topping.

A far as any action in the garden outside, there is none. This includes me. I do not remember such a long stretch of staying indoors. I admit I’m old but, yikes, it’s cold.

I did notice, during my hurried morning trip to open and water the chickens, a few brave snowdrops actually beginning to bloom. The chickens, however, don’t even want to leave their warm coop. Outside, they spend their day in a group huddle.

As far as the situation in our nation, it varies from terrifying to downright ludicrous. During the ridiculous “purge” of important federal employees, those working on bird flu were “accidentally” fired. Now, the administration is trying to figure out how to hire them back. Folks, just like in the early days of Covid, we are on our own. Our local boards of health may be our only hope.

Trump wants to discontinue the penny. That’s something we can honestly say — he wants us penniless.