Friday bullets, January 10, 2020

Let's jump right in...

• We are supposed to have some significant winter weather this weekend, but what exactly that weather will look like and when it will happen seems to be totally up in the air. I've seen such conflicting reports that I'm not sure whether we should expect a couple of inches of snow (which hardly warrants the hoopla surrounding it) or if indeed another ice age is about dawn tomorrow and we can expect to be without power for days on end. I'm finding it difficult to get too worked up about it. I did, however, put another layer of straw in the chickens' coop, hang their heated waterer back up, and made sure we had enough toilet paper in the house. That's as much as I can manage for extreme (or not) winter storm preparedness.
• Tonight's dinner was the baked spaghetti, which we were trying for the first time despite the recipe having been in my binder forever. It was so good, I looked up the recipe for you so you can enjoy it, too. It's real name is Baked Pasta alla Norma from Bon Appetit.
• You, my dear readers, are the least commenting group of people I know. But that's OK, I'll keep writing for you anyway.
• L. has added eight more miniature heads to her clay collection.
• My women's Bible study group is working through a book called, The Miracles of Jesus: Finding God in Desperate Moments by Jessica LaGrone. I will admit that at first I wasn't looking forward to this study. I've heard Bible stories for most of my life and studied the Bible for almost as long. What more could possible be said about the stories I had heard and studied so many times? Boy was I wrong! This is a fantastic study. So far, for each of the stories we have looked at... stories that I know extremely well... the author has managed to dig down and highlight aspects that I hadn't been aware of. It is very exciting, and I highly recommend working through it.
• We were discussing syllables this morning as part of talking about poetry, and the whole concept of syllables, much less whether they are stressed or not stressed was extremely difficult for my non-native speakers. It's yet another example of what is missed when a child completely switches languages.
• I have now officially started my weekly driving (as in horse and cart) lessons. I didn't do too badly remembering how the harness works, but for some reason I just couldn't remember to attach the reins. How does one completely forget about reins? I have no idea, but I did.
• You never know when you are going to come across a chicken. Usually the chickens put themselves to bed at night (as opposed to the geese and ducks, but that's another story), so if we don't see chickens wandering around, we don't worry about it. Well, last night, one of the chickens must have put herself to bed inside the barn, because when I opened it up this morning there she was. 
• The chickens are enjoying this milder weather and slightly lengthening days. I actually have nearly three dozen eggs sitting on my counter at the moment. This is far better than mid-December when I actually had to buy eggs from the store.
• We survived our first week back at school after vacation. It actually wasn't quite as dreadful as I imagined it might be.
• It is just about time for me to get out all my seeds and seed catalogues and plan this spring's garden.
• I had jumped off the kombucha bus for a while, letting my jars just sit because I couldn't find time to do something with them. Wednesday, I finally managed to sort them out and start a new batch of kombucha. I've been kind of missing it.
• I'm also thinking it might be time to also start a new batch of sauerkraut. We really enjoyed the homemade sauerkraut I made last year. First, I think I just have to get over the mental guilt of not managing to take care of all the cabbages I started last year in the garden with the intent of having them for sauerkraut. It's silly, but there it is.
• Finally, I wanted to share a picture that TM took today of Aster and Olive.