I Love Winter Most of All

 Hello dear friends!  Hope you all are staying warm and safe.  Today the sun came out!  Hurrah!  We are having snow squalls with it, but that is winter.  

This is the break wall.  Only one lone ice fisherman is brave enough to face the wind these days.

He must really love to fish!  It's warming up today and the thermometer has even registered in the teens (Fahrenheit)! The lowest we've had so far has been around -5F with wind chills in the -20s, but that is winter.  Winter is supposed to be cold.  I feel like I'm alone in my opinion, but I love winter. It's my favorite season. I even think the cold is healthy for you.  Have you ever noticed how healthy the Scandinavian people are? Although I have no medical proof of it, I believe that breathing in all the cold crisp air is healthy for the lungs.  Growing up I had asthma quite severely, but I was still allowed to play outside in the winter (I grew up much farther north than where I live now) and it seemed the more I played in the cold the stronger my lungs became.  Anyway, I love winter and even was bemoaning the fact that it is flying by so quickly.

Winter is my season of "slow living".  I guess slow living has become quite a trendy thing these days.  Or was trendy, I should say, I just read something the other day that it is going out of style.  How can someone's lifestyle go out of style?  Am I supposed to change and start fretting about things and begin going places just to keep up with the trends?  This entire idea about "aesthetics " is just so ridiculous.  I've been living the cottage-style, slow living lifestyle for fifty years and I'm not about to change just because it becomes unfashionable.  To me slow living means being a homebody.  I like to make my home comfortable for my family and take time to really enjoy being with them.  I do not believe in being busy for busyness' sake. Our home still gets cleaned and business taken care of, I just don't think I need to fill every waking moment with doing "something".

Of course, that's easy for me to say, as I really don't need to go out unless I want to, I'm content just to do a little cleaning, do a little baking and sit by the fireside and do a little dreaming. 

I was thinking about the Bible story of Mary and Martha the other day.  I never really could understand it.  I always looked at it from the perspective that Mary was shirking her duties and poor Martha was left holding the bag.  But then I realized that Mary was just living "in-the-moment" as the expression goes these days.  Just being still and listening to her Savior.  Martha was so busy trying to earn favor by her deeds and keeping busy that she missed the entire point.  That is what winter is to me, my time to be still and hear my Savior's voice.  In spring there's planting to keep me busy and summer is filled with harvesting and preserving.  Winter is my time to "Be still and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10.

Not that I just sit like a bump on the log all day long!  I still get plenty done.  I finished this huge woolen quilt this month:

I've made a few of these woolen patchwork quilts, but this is the largest one and hopefully the last one.  It was so large that we had to remove all the furniture from the dining room to lay out the backing and batting and to tie it.  I think it is queen size, so I guess that illustrates how small our home is. Ha! Plenty of my old woolen skirts and blazers went into it.  As I get older I can't tolerate wool as well as I did when younger.  But I hated to just get rid of them, so this was a good project to use them up.  I used the last of my down blankets for batting and a flannel sheet from the thrift store for the backing so the total cost was about one dollar.  And it keeps us very warm.  I call it Holly Hobbie meets Ralph Lauren  style as many of the skirts were RL brand.  

Since we had all the furniture from the dining room removed, I took the opportunity to do a bit of rearranging and brought the chimney cupboard into the back wood stove room.  We've been working to make this room a more cozy spot since we winter there.  It is sort of a catchall room of cast-offs.  I also found this cute little lamp at the thrift store for the backroom.

Isn't it cute?  Only four dollars! I had the vintage lampshade that fit it perfectly.I wish they'd start making cute lampshades like that again. BTW, the calendar behind it was free from my Amish store.  It gives me old-timey general store vibes.

Oh!  And speaking of thrift stores, I went looking for a New English translation Bible (sometimes I just want to read the Bible in plain English), which I found, and I also found this lovely book:

The New Kitchen Garden by Anna Pavord.  It's one of those beautifully styled books that they published in the 1990s.  The made the loveliest books then. Anyway, it is a wonderful book and some wonderful layouts for gardens, particularly a layout for a patio style garden for those of you that only have a terrace or patio to garden on.  It sort of reminds me of John Seymour's Self-Sufficient Gardener, which is my favorite gardening book.  

And speaking of gardening my Select Seeds catalog arrived today.  Do you  get this catalog?  Oh my!  The absolutely most beautiful varieties of flowers!  I always make a list of about a gazillion flowers I want to grow.  Who could resist?  If only I didn't have to grow food, my entire backyard would be beautiful heirloom flowers. Oh well! If wishes were horses all men would ride!

Good Intentions

Well we all know which road those are paved upon!  I had every bit of a good intention to list all my menus to show you how thriftily we are grocery-wise, but you know what? This month we haven't been thrifty at all.  We've been trying to get our pantries and freezers eaten down, so we have probably eaten more meat than ever. Usually our winter meals consist of making a big batch of soup and eating that for a few days then a batch of something like a pot of rice with beans and vegetables, and some kind of sauce served on a tortilla with cheese.  This week it was rice with white beans, carrots (it's always carrots), broccoli and leeks with chermoula sauce and some mystery  leftover cheese.  Tasted just like lamb without the price of lamb.

Baking

I bought dates before Christmas but didn't get around to  using them, so no time like the present!  Been experimenting with wheat-less baking and I made these bars with one of those wheat substitute flours, but here is the recipe as it is written in the old receipts book.

Date Squares

Crumb layer:

1 1/4 C. flour

1 1/2 C. oats

1 C. brown sugar, packed

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 C. butter

Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl.  Cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.  Press 2/3 rds of mixture into a 9 X 9 inch greased pan

Filling:

1/2 lb. dates, pitted and cut up

1/2 C. sugar

2/3 C. water

Combine in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil and then simmer until mixture becomes mushy.

Pt all of the date mixture over the bottom layer of crumbs.  Crumble the remaining crumbs over top. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until golden brown.

I like to make a glaze of powdered sugar and orange juice and pour over the warm bars.  Allow to cool completely before cutting into squares.

Well. other than that, I've been canning potatoes this week.  Potatoes are a chore.  I tried a new canning recipe to make herbed potatoes.  You use chicken broth instead of water and add your favorite herbs to the jars.  I used rosemary, parsley a bit of thyme and a bit of savory. And salt.  Can't tell you how they taste but they look good

Well, I rambled on here long enough.  Been looking at all the analyticals and it is hard to tell what you all want me to write about.  One post that is viewed a lot might be one that is strictly about thriftiness, then another that is really about nothing is just as popular. So just let me know what you'd like to see on this blog and I'll try to accommodate you.

Hugs

Jane