Warmth

I slept in this morning. It was all toasty in bed with the cat draped across my neck. I couldn't breath, but I was warm.

I then went out to take Cho a coffee since she is workin' the market and consequently freezing her butt off. I then stopped by my favorite local wineshop, missing the LB, but meeting up with a few bottles of wine for the coming evenings. I then tootled off to the local butcher for a hunk of beef to pot roast. Then the hippie food store and then the pasta place where my neighbor whips up some fantastic pizza by the slice. We made a tentative plan for him to stop by for pot roast tonight.

Once home I started the pot roast by flouring the outside and browning it in a pan then putting it in the crock pot with some turkey stock. Then did a quick tour of the garden - I stopped by to look at the bees.... There are quite a few dead bees on the bottom of the hive. It is the kind of number that isn't an entire hive's worth, so I don't know if they are leftover from the late summer battles to protect the hive or more recent corpses of frozen bees. Either way, I expect that this means the bees aren't making it. I hate that it is so, but I really don't expect to find them there in the spring. Heartbreaking, but I really do feel like I have learned something and I am most definitely willing to give it another go.

I took a nap (per SHG instructions) and made some granola (oats and puffed rice with almonds, dried apricots and apples with a few pumpkin seeds for color). And I did a little knitting. I have been trying to keep at the knitting. I don't do much in the summer, so if I am ever going to get through the absurd pile of yarn I have stashed in my craft room, I have to knit in the winter. So far I made the SB a hat from the walnut dyed wool. It was going to be for Christmas but I am terrible about keeping gifts - so I will have to take a picture and post it when he gets home. Now I am working on another project that may or may not show up under the Christmas tree. We shall see.

The rest of the day has been spent trying to balance a 15 pound cat on a lap that can realistically only accommodate about 12. 3 pounds. Believe me, 2.7 pounds of overflow is enough to inflict significant damage. Speaking of Kitty.... he left me a very sizable rat on the porch this morning. I guess the fantastic light of the full moon last night was just too good to pass up hunting by. I can't complain, it was intact and it was a rodent. I much prefer that to amphibians/reptiles/birds or half of anything.

The super exciting news is that even with the frigid temps of the last few weeks and the nasty chill and carpets of frost, beneath the floating row covers in the garden right now, I have.... Spinach! yup. I really can't believe it. I thought I was going to pull up the row covers this afternoon and find lots of wilty mush. Really, it is remarkably lovely. I will take a picture tomorrow. I love this winter gardening.