Catching Up

So the past few weeks have pretty much been a whirlwind. In no certain order are pics below. I don't know if I mentioned on here or not but I was having cabin fever. Bad. I needed to get out of the house and out of our small town. I love our town but sometimes I need to see different things. So I went with the Mister to Connecticut where he was helping out with a flyfishing program. We visited his old stomping grounds and got some bratwurst and kielbasa. The butcher was an old fashioned German one that the Mister's family visited a lot when he was growing up. In the almost 17 years that we've been married I had never visited it. Now I can check that off the list!I've been eating more eggs since the girls are back to laying. I imagine this will be their last year of laying consistently since they will be 2. We don't eat a lot of eggs anyway so the girls will soon enjoy a happy retirement. I was going to add to the flock this year but have changed my mind. We're good with the girls we have. I'll think about adding to the flock when we find a more permanent home. I forgot to mention that the Mister bottled beer back before Christmas. I can't remember what kind it was-a cherry ale maybe. If memory serves he wasn't happy with it since the fruit flavor didn't come through like he wanted. Anna is so photogenic that I can't help but take tons of pictures of her. I took the two photos below when I was out with the girls. They were free ranging and I was looking for something to do. I was knitting, watching Netflix, and taking pictures. I ordered sweet pea seeds and this is how they were packaged. I think I probably talked about them in a different post. But here they are again. I ordered 2 different kinds and she gave me a packet of some extras. So sweet! Here's another picture I took from when the girls were free ranging. We live at a flyfishing lodge and this is one of the rooms. Just trying my hand at being artsy. I decided that I needed to be more cultured and one way I'm doing that is to read the NY Times. Only the Sunday edition though. Although I rarely get to read it on Sunday. I just read it throughout the week. This day in particular was the first day I got to sit down and just relax. I love those mornings where I don't have a ton of things to do and I can just be. Another artsy photo attempt. Again when the girls were free ranging. I had a lot of time on my hands. I don't think I've ever shared with you all that I love all things equestrian. Including Blanton's Bourbon. The bourbon bottles all have different caps of the race horses in different poses throughout a race. And each one has a letter on it. When they are all collected and put together they spell Blantons and are a series of poses throughout the race. I hope you can see that below. It is a major faux pas to purchase the caps without the bottle. It took me about 2 years to find all the letters. There was a really nice gentleman at one of the liquor stores locally that let me go in the back and go through the bottles. He even took down the ones that I needed and would call me when he got one of the letters in! We had a friend drill holes in this old piece of barn wood so I could display them. Please excuse the dust on the sideboard! One of my favorite InstaFriends, Alysha Sneed,  had a give away for some of her super yummy goats milk soaps and I won! I hardly ever win anything and I am so excited that I won this giveaway! She sent me 5 different soaps. And that packaging! And the smells! Here's a view of what I was doing when the girls were free ranging. I plan on more of this this week. It's supposed to be in the 60's here! After we just got another 6 inches of snow (with solid ice underneath). I've also been very busy with my Master Gardener class. This week is entomology which I'm pretty excited for. I have to watch the corresponding webinar, do the quiz, and read that chapter in my book. I also still have 2 webinars to watch that I missed early on. I'm still working on reading the Practical Organic Gardening book that I need to review for the blog. All this should get done this week.What else? A trip to NYC. Blog post on that soon. Trip to a sheep farm. Again, blog post on that soon. I need to return some emails, go grocery shopping (hello Aldi's!), get some chicken supplies. I finished my homestead binder and have been using that. I've been reading and listening to Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw. He is hilarious. I love his straightforwardness and honesty. I've been knitting. A lot. I'm buying yarn like crazy too. I had a discussion with the Mister last night about potentially selling some of the hats I'm making. I think they are the most cost-effective thing I can make and sell. Maybe some hat/mitt combos. I need to find a good pattern for the mitts though. I need to start adding photography lessons into my routine. I think once I get caught up with the Master Gardener webinars and get my first book read and reviewed on the blog I'll be in better shape to start adding more things into my routine. Oh, and Arabic classes. We attended one session (missed one because I was wiped out after my NYC trip). Arabic is a hard language but the instructor is good and we're really enjoying it. All day throughout my trip I was repeating the first few letters that we've learned so far.I think that's it for now. Just wanted to stop in and share some things that have been lingering. I hope you are having a happy February!!