From my kitchen window I see a lot. I see the backyard, the pool, the hotel units. I watch the world go by daydreaming of things yet to come. It’s a good window. It has a nice ledge that I can set things on. People keep bringing me flowers to put in that window and I’m not sad about it. Look at this view:
It’s not a big kitchen. Or rather there’s not a lot of counter space, but I’ve made maple syrup here. I’ve canned. A LOT. It’s not where I thought I would be. This is where we started our journey together. In this kitchen. At this fishing lodge. Many many moons ago. I didn’t think I’d ever end up back here but it’s been a refuge for me these past months. I have the space and the time to focus on my homestead and where I want to go with that. It’s quite here in the off season. That’s nice. It’s busy during the season. That’s nice too. We get to connect with clients, with friends–both old and new. We cooked for everyone over the weekend. I think there were about 13 of us. We went through 3 chickens (totaling about 12-13 pounds), plus 3 bags of brussel sprouts, 1 bag of potatoes (5 pounds), and 2 bags of carrots. Plus I made a pie. Have you made a pie lately? I made a blueberry-pear pie. I think it was a hit! It was nice to get back to the simple, less complicated pies. We’ve been making a lot of fancy, yummy pies lately, but there’s something about a simple, double crust fruit pie that I just love.
We have officially moved our residency. It took a whole day of just being at the DMV to do that. Why does it take so long? We live in the middle of nowhere. Our closest DMV is an hour away, in the middle of nowhere. It’s like they train them how to be SLOW and inefficient. Take a number, wait 3 hours for your turn, go get this form filled out, get back in line. You’re okay now but you have to take a number to get your picture taken (even though we just took a picture while you were filling out your paperwork), now wait in line for your picture. Okay take your picture. Now wait some more for it to be printed. Oh, they gave you a temporary license. They’ll mail the official one. Wait. Why did I just wait in line for 3 hours for 15 minutes of process?!?!? Then you have to go to a different place to take care of any vehicle information. I’ve lived in a lot of places and I’ve never had to wait or jump through hoops like this one. It’s torture, but it’s done. At least there are some pretty backroads we get to take.
I started walking again. Boy how I’ve missed that. I used to walk a lot. And be very active. It’s so easy to set around on your hump doing nothing. But I feel so much better when I eat good healthy food and I exercise. I started off with 4 miles and now I’m up to 5.5. I walk 4 miles on the road (with lots of ups and downs). My goal is to be able to run that 4 miles so I can get in shape for some 5k’s I’m doing towards the end of the summer. One 5K is at the local airport. You get to run on the runway! Another is through the cow pastures at a local creamery. Literally running with the cows. I’ve done it before and it’s hard. So I need lots of time to prep. The other 1.5 miles is through the woods with the dogs. It wears them out and I get in extra mileage.
My hip has been hurting me (well, my whole body has been hurting) for a few months now. I couldn’t get full range of motion with my hip. One of our friends is a pilates/health guru. Seriously. He was here over the weekend and I was telling him about my aches and pains. He worked me out and I feel so much better! He gave me stretches and exercises to do. Y’all. My hip was out of joint. He popped it back in and it was immediately better. But the sad part? My rear end, while it has all that padding, the muscles aren’t holding my hip in place. Sad, but true.
I’ve also been working on updating my shop. I have 2 knitted hats to list today. Plus I’m working on some other knitted products and then there’s another item I want to list (that I alluded to here). But I’m having so much fun being outside and enjoying our clients/friends, plus 4+ miles per day is making me very tired, it’s hard to sit and knit. Or stitch. Or do anything other than having fun. But I’m on spring break this week so hopefully I’ll get some homesteading stuff done too.
What have you been up to? Any exciting news? Any exciting projects? Tell me. I want to hear all about it.
Melinda Copeland
And now I’m here to return the favor. At least for now we can be each other’s biggest fans 😉 First, I love the window! All of that color is just so beautiful. Flowers can really brighten up any space. And I’m a walker too, pretty much every day, rain or shine. I think my loop is only about 2 miles, but there are two decent hills and it’s quiet. Except for the peepers and the birds! 😉 Happy to hear you found some relief with your hip and hope you can manage to strengthen those muscles and keep it in place! Bodies. They like to get old on us when we’re not looking 😉
chickenlibrarian
YAY! Thanks for visiting AND commenting! I love it! And I’m down with being each other’s biggest fans! I think we are similar in what we are doing but also different enough to attract a wide audience. I feel like with Instagram I’m almost ‘preaching to the choir’ in a good way. We are all doing such similar things it’s hard to peddle my wares. But everyone is SOOOO supportive on insta and I’m happy to support everyone right back. But I love my blog space.
I’ve always enjoyed walking but sometimes it’s hard to motivate myself to get out there and just do it. My road is a country road but it’s pretty busy and everyone drives a million miles an hour. But it’s such an ideal walk. It follows the river the whole way and it’s has such peaceful surroundings. I just watch out for the crazy drivers. Then I get to take the dogs through the woods (watching out for bears and ticks) so it’s a different kind of peaceful.
I’m looking forward to our blogging journeys!!