A Little Bit of Everything

A week ago–Tuesday and Wednesday–our temperatures rose to a summery 80 (F) degrees. EJ and I could no longer resist putting the screens in so we could open the windows and let the fresh breeze blow out the winter’s stale air. I wore a t-shirt without coat, jacket, or sweater. It was nice. A little rain moved in later in the week–not as much as was forecast, but it made the grass greener and I can see the slightest smudge of green on the trees. But temperatures have gradually cooled and tomorrow and Thursday snow is forecasted. This up and down weather is why I don’t fully trust that Spring is here until sometime in May.

This weekend I made some homemade household cleaners. Right now I’m just trying them out, trying to find ones I like best. EJ made bread and peanut butter. We discussed a list of things that we’d like to try making in the future–cleaning products, food items, herb concoctions. One thing that I like about EJ and me is that we each make the things that interest us. If it’s a joint project–such as painting/decorating a room–then whoever has the strongest idea gets to have creative control. We support and encourage each other’s ideas, plans, or notions. If one doesn’t turn out, we have no problem tweaking it or redoing it.

Last night I did not sleep well. Not at all. I keep up on what is happening in the world, and although I am remaining mostly hopeful and strong, sometimes it overwhelms and stresses me, and then I can’t sleep, and then I am tired all day. I call this sort of day a “soul-sighing” day to describe when I wake up very tired and spend the day barely functioning–like a low battery–and waiting for night so I can go to bed.

Even though I barely slept, I woke up at about the same time as I always do. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep so I got up and did my morning chores. As I was outside opening up the coop, I decided to rake and shovel out the old straw. It’s quite a job. Over the winter, the chicken poop dries out and packs down, making a hard cover on the floor. It actually helps insulate the coop. When I clean out the coop in the spring, the poop is packed down enough so that there are times I can roll it up like a rug or carpet, although it’s heavy and today I just shoveled up chucks and sheets. Chicken poop makes good fertilizer so I carried it out into the garden. I figured the chickens can help work it into the soil. Their scratchings work up the soil very well. I didn’t finish cleaning out the coop today, although I did a lot and got a good start. When I finished, I came in and showered. Because. Chicken poop.

I stayed off the news sites today because my calm has been damaged and I need to restore it by doing enjoyable things. So I continued working on this blog. Last week I started making a tab with links to recipes. I am including some of my old favorites, some of our new successes, as well as ones we are experimenting with, such as shampoos. I will add others as we go along. You can find the “Recipes” tab under the Blog title.

In my last post, The Tracker of Everything, I described some of the things that I enjoyed tracking. Later, after a reader’s comments, I thought that maybe I should add the links I mentioned in the post in case others wanted to enjoy them as well. However, there were so many links and I realized that they wouldn’t be easy to find later so I decided to list them in a tab also. I really enjoy learning new things and exploring the world via the Internet. I’m a Hobbit sort of explorer. I love going all over the world while at home in my Enchanted Forest, sitting in my comfy chair, drinking hot coffee (or iced tea), with Hannah Joy sitting on my lap.

I have a lot of links to really cool sites, including air and marine traffic as well as locations of shipwrecks. I have links to weather, earthquakes/volcanoes, wind, floods, etc. I have links to the International Space Station, including sightings, info about crew/missions, and livestreaming from the ISS). I have links to interesting astronomy sites. I have links to bird/animal identification and migration, including shark migrations. I have links to sites that let you listen to radio stations from all over the world, as well as from different historical broadcasts. I even have a link to an interactive map of Middle Earth. I have so many links to cool sites. If everything interests you like it does me, check out the “Everything Links” tab at the top of the page next to “Recipes.” I will add to the page whenever I find another interesting site.