Blooms in the snow

 

My flowering maple is defying this winter weather we have been plagued with and is giving us a small glimpse of spring in the window. It makes me long for the warm days coming when I can work the garden and start the cycle of growing and preserving again.

The last two years have been hard. I'm glad we have a system in place to keep ourselves sustained. By stockpiling and canning or freezing what the summer has blessed us with, we have had plenty of food. We still have lots to accomplish. One being a chicken coop, which is at the mercy of my husband's work schedule. Then we need an alternate heat source. We plan to look for a wood burning insert for our fireplace this spring. 

Today I am working on some socks for Jake. If I can get one pair done by tomorrow he will need them for work in those cold sub-zero wind chills. I love that I can now make useful things for my family. As long as I can get yarn, we will not need for socks, hats, scarves, or mittens. Sweaters are also a possibility. But not sure if I have the patience!!

Homemade sticky buns

We had an interesting week with some pleasant surprises. Evan has had some complications since a surgery he had in May. The doctors have been exhausting all avenues of what is causing this. Our last attempt was to conduct an allergy test to see if anything is causing the infection to come back again and again. Amazingly, the test came back completely clean. He has no reactions to any of the common allergens like I do. And I'm trying to figure out why. Allergies run very high in my family. Jake has a couple too. What, as a parent, have I done differently? Could the food that I am feeding my family really have something to do with his health? I suppose that is 'food for thought' as it were!