Leap Day

As Leap Day only comes once every four years, I thought I ought to at least write a blog entry to memorialize the important things I did today. (It's the winter blahs; give me a break already LOL!) 

Yesterday and today we got a little bit of snow. 

Yesterday

We were lucky compared to other parts of northern Wisconsin and only lost power for a few minutes today.  But the snow has been heavy and it took Tom several hours to clear the driveway.  He went over to check on Dad, and his driveway had already been cleared by a neighbor who has a snow plow.  Dad didn't want any help clearing a path to the wood pile, so Tom came home.

I don't think I'll be getting into the greenhouse for a while though so starting seeds down in the basement will be the norm for the time being. The moon will be in Cancer on March 2, 3, and 4 and I will be starting seeds.

Buried Greenhouse

 I had to wade out to the satellite dish to brush the snow off it and the drift was waist deep.  Holy Cow!

Unfortunately for other parts of the country tornados and bad storms devastated towns and cost people their lives. So we were indeed fortunate.

I finished sewing six new jumpers for Lara.

And Ed and I built a blue bird house and are going to build a bat house and another bird house.

I have about 12 quilt blocks finished, and I decided to pull out a tablecloth I started back in 2008 when Lara was in the hospital having her bladder anastomosis surgery to work on.  It is a simple trestle pattern and working on it made a nice task break. The tablecloth needs to be at least 52"w x 90"l so I'm sure I will be working on this for quite a while.

Trestle pattern one pice tablecloth

I sorted through the potato bin and cooked up all the potatoes that were getting pretty shriveled into potato pancakes.  That leaves only about half a bushel for the rest of the winter for eating.  Looks like this year I'll have to figure on planting at least eight 50' rows of potatoes in order to have enough to both sell at the farmers market and see us through the winter.  Those Red Cloud potatoes sure keep well!

For the most part the winter squash have kept well down in the basement.  We have about 10 left to eat.  I find it interesting how much sweeter they get as they age.  The longer you can keep them the better they taste.  Even Lara, our house gourmand, commented on how sweet they are.

In the evenings I've been studying to get my Technician level ham radio license.  It's only something I've been trying to accomplish since 2007.  Maybe this year I'll finally get it done.  I would like to get involved with CW (Morse code) and the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES).  Check out the ARRL (American Radio Relay League) web site if you have some time -- you just might learn something :D

Well, I think I'm going to get a cup of tea and do some studying.  Stay warm!