Rainy Day Musings

The raw wood where we ripped up the saturated
laminate after the burst pipes. And yet, there are
worse things to happen. :)

The thaw continues! Today it's 48 degrees and raining, and I got to be home for the majority of it! I've gone ahead and opened my windows for the first time in tooooo loooong and the sound of the rain in the woods is truly the most beautiful music. Finally there's not even a snowy cap on the trailer roof; I can hear the raindrops above me again! 

Spring is coming. I can feel it, and hear it, and smell it, and I've never been this excited about April before. I guess I'm just eager for all the winter complications to be over - heating costs, broken pipes, no water, the bedroom being too cold to sleep in, etc. - and to enjoy the warmer weather's (hopefully) easier time of it. Hospitality should be easier, too - it's kinda hard to invite many people over because more than eight proves rather snug, but when the weather is nice we can always use the great outdoors :)

Let it thaw, let it thaw, let it thaw!

Preparations

In the spirit of the thaw, and appreciation for everything this March muddiness promises, tonight I finally ordered my seeds from Baker Seed Company! They're an organic, heirloom seed company that celebrates the beauty of non-GMO vegetables, fruits, and flowers. This will be the first spring in about five years that I'll be planting a garden again, so I'm hugely excited! I ordered: rosemary, German chamomile, lavender, basil, two varieties of lettuce (one red, one green), zucchini, peas, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes and black cherry tomatoes, string beans, Mexican sour gherkins, bachelor's buttons, kiss-me-over-the-garden-gates (besides the fact that they're gorgeous, I think the name will be good conversation starter material!), and in celebration of this little house... Canterbury Bells!


Thinking ahead to spring cleaning also has me excited... the thought of airing out the house and scrubbing it all down from top to bottom is delightful. Plus I'm a little tired of wiping up muddy boot-prints! I found a bunch of recipes for all-purpose, all-natural cleaning sprays, and decided to make some of my own! Conveniently, several of us around here are currently smoothie / juice fasting, so orange and clementine peels are pretty abundant. It's a useful and easy way to avoid waste!

March Fidgets: The Beginning of the Big Thaw

Those January squirms were nothing compared to what we went through during February...  we had SO. MANY. BLIZZARDS. All one after another, sometimes twice in a week, and in-between little snowstorms that would fill in every inch just in case a bit decided to melt off the top somehow. We had about four feet on the ground for a good long while, I'd say, with blizzards measuring more but never getting the change to settle and melt to less.

After only the very first blizzard... we thought we had a lot then! 

I wasn't able to spend much time in my little house for about three weeks. It cost so much just keeping it above freezing with electric room heaters for my poor piano, nevermind trying to keep the propane running at any decent temperatures. Lots of the nights were in the negative degrees and I spent most of them on my parents' couch. Twice a week - on Tuesday nights and Fridays - I would kick the snow off the steps and light up the propane so I could teach lessons with the families keeping in relative comfort. (Relative comfort usually being about 63 - 65 degrees.

Hauling water makes me appreciate generous
 neighbors, at least! ;)

Of course, my water pipes froze, and so we turned off the water from the spigots. About a week ago after we finally had about four consecutive days above freezing, my dad figured it was warm enough that the drainpipes had thawed. He melted the icy long hose to the spigot, then turned the water back on. Voila! Running water again! I got home late that night, brushed my teeth in my own sink instead of in the snow, and went to bed. The next morning I woke up to an icy lake across the bathroom floor, with puddles seeping through to the bedroom and hallway, under the floorboards and into every crack through the walls. (Not the cheeriest wakeup.) I sopped up the enormous mess, turned the spigot back off, and trudged off to meet my ride to work. Later that night my dad inspected the damage - apparently a pipe inside the shower had burst in the night. Ultimate repairs remain to be determined, but for now it's back to hauling water. March has brought temperatures up into the forties, and so a lot of the snow is finally melting. 

January Squirms

Today I had a fit of the January Squirms. All I knew is that I needed to pull on my boots, tie on my little red ear-warmer, and go rake something.

I've always loved winter... this is the first January that I've ever felt so itchy for GREEN. Today the Squirms got the better of me, and I cleared away a good portion of the woods behind the trailer, despite the fact it was soaking wet and didn't rake very well. I went on an exploration and discovered two abandoned pots and a little shelf (container garden score!). I cleared all the insulation and piping and random 2x4's from the front and I must say, it looks a lot better.

And I gathered up some branches, arranged them in a jar, and set them in my kitchen to remind me that winter has its own brand of beauty.

The Long Winter

It strikes me as ironic that the week after I resolve to post more frequently, my computer died a sudden and unexpected death. Life, ladies and gentlemen.

Behold, the icy windows.

The title of this post is "The Long Winter." Aptly so. The picture to the right might give you an idea of why it's been feeling eternal. The temperatures around here have been ridiculously cold (even down to -29 degrees F), and the condensation created by the gas heater trickles down and freezes all the windows and doors shut with a layer of, yes, that is ice. It's an adventure for sure, but it's one that gets old after a couple days of coming home after a long day of work and not being able to even get inside my own house.

Another reason is the fortune I've spent on propane. Every three weeks I needed another tank while we were using the trailer heater, but fortunately about a month ago my dad installed a gas fireplace... it's 99.9% efficient instead of the 60% efficient, 20 year old trailer heater. He's tried to console me by reasoning that when The Costs of Winter are spread out over a year, they won't be as overwhelming, which of course is true... and costs aside, this winter certainly hasn't been all that rough. The Long Winter has had some beautiful, snowy days, and when those beautiful snowy days are accompanied by a cozy blanket and a steaming cup of tea, it tends to put into perspective the frozen-door days.

Winter is not forever, so lately I've begun planning ahead for spring. I'm hoping to include two projects I've never attempted before: container gardening and chicken-keeping. The container garden seems like a productive way to maximize my small, rocky, uneven plot of land... I have high hopes of raising various vegetables, herbs, and flowers. It's been so long since I've had a real garden and I'm so excited to see what happens. By the end of the month, I'll be ordering my six little chicks! Three Black Australorps and three Buff Orpingtons are the breeds I'm planning to try first... from my research, I've gathered that they are good, reliable brown-egg layers, friendly family birds, and hardy enough to keep laying even into the winter. We have friends that have raised them together and found that they got along well. I'm still unsure as to what the coop situation will look like, exactly, but we shall see! My parents are excited for both the garden and the chickens because they plan to contribute things like bags of chickenfeed or potting soil in exchange for eggs and produce. Best. Trade. Ever.

Thanksgiving Eve

The first significant accumulation of snow has graced Canterbury this Thanksgiving Eve! After so long in Florida, it's so good to experience the cozy contentment of a snowy day.

The pipes, as you can see in the picture, are still above ground, but they've been pretty good about not freezing, thankfully. All things considered, I'm surprised they're doing so well.

Tomorrow the family will gather at my parents' house to celebrate Thanksgiving, and the trail of boot-prints bridging their house and mine is proof of the bustling excitement as we work together to prepare for the festivities. I'm getting ready to let my Sparkling Cranberries soak overnight, and I plan to wake up early and whip up some 30 - Minute Yeast Rolls. (Click either one to find its recipe.)  I haven't tried them before, so I'm trusting Pinterest not to let me down! I'm especially intrigued by the idea of yeast rolls rising in a mere 30 minutes...



"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." (W. A. Ward)

It's traditional, in the quiet moments of Thanksgiving Day, to reflect individually on what we're grateful for. But less commonly suggested is the importance of expressing that thankfulness to the ones who have blessed us. Take some time to personally thank those who have blessed you, as well as the Almighty Giver, who supplies such an incredible abundance of all things good!

Happy Thanksgiving from Canterbury!

Renovating The Hobbit-Hole: An Update

A few months have passed since I've moved into my new home... and I have neglected to publish a single post about its progress! Life has been busy - full of new home-owner responsibilities as well as the challenges of several jobs (lots of new bills to pay, after all) and time slipped by faster than I realized.

The renovation is a huge work in progress, so every now and then I need to take some steps back and keep everything in perspective. The shiny new laminate flooring will get completed one of these days, and in the meantime, I'm enjoying the first-things-first, not-so-visually-appealing necessities of a functioning kitchen and bathroom. Things like insulation, pipe trenching, and plugging up holes in the roof add a whole new appreciation for the adage "comfort before beauty"!

And yet, even while the holes are plugged with aluminum foil and the clapboard walls beg for a coat of paint, it's transformed from a trailer to a home. Despite the hiccups in reno, it's become quite a cozy little hobbit-hole, and I've done my best to furnish and arrange things in a pleasant, welcoming sort of way. So many helpful things have been supplied by kindly friends and family, excited to usher me in to this new adventure: towels and soap, eggs and vegetables, afghans and tablecloths each add a unique touch to my "patchwork house" - little reminders here and there of the support and generosity I've been blessed to experience.

Trailers are hard to photograph, as I have discovered, but I will do my best to post some as well as posting about the various adventures here at Canterbury.

Because, of course, there are many to be had! :D