I am not ashamed to admit that I am happily still in Winter mode. Everyone wants it to be done and is ready to don shorts and sandals at the first day over 50 degrees. The bulbs are bravely shooting up, green tips appearing amidst the brown debris of last year's garden life. The strength of the sun is amazing and also deceiving. It makes you think that it is warm outside, but unless you are feeling the greenhouse-like heat while sitting in a car, it is still darn cold. 13 degrees at Sunday sunup, chicken water still frozen in the mornings, and snow flurries falling today. So for me, I am still happy to run to the cold barn early in the morning, then come home and hibernate the rest of the day. Baking carrot cake, bagel chips (the simplest snack in the world to make*), carrying in wood for the stove, experimenting with food based dyes for pysanky eggs and tie-dyed handkerchiefs (turmeric, blueberries, and beets), knitting my grass-green St. Patty's Day sweater, coloring side-by-side with the little babe, and still bundling up in plenty of wool. Not quite Spring yet. At bedtime each night, I ask the little babe to tell me something good about the day. Lately she has been saying, "Everything about the day was good!" I am thankful for that.
What are you thankful for today?
*I had a batch of fresh hummus and needed something to go with it, but didn't feel like baking pita chips. My husband had just bought a dozen bagels, so I grabbed 3 of them from the freezer, sliced them into thin pieces, coated them with olive oil and salt and popped them into the oven. The "everything" bagels made great bagel chips! I have to admit that I've been cheating on the hummus recipe - instead of boiling the raw chickpeas, I've been using organic canned cooked chickpeas. Still the same healthiness, but a whole lot quicker.
