It's a beautiful windy day today

Ahhh, January thaw. Every year about this time, Old Man Winter tricks us into believing that spring is here. But, then the Ground Hog comes along and usually predicts six more weeks. It's a beautiful day today anyway. Well, outdoors it is. Inside, we have officially mashed the last of the garden potatoes. I'm going to miss those babies. The carrots in the refrigerator are also on the road to sprouting and we are going to be eating as many fresh and wonderful crunchy carrots as possible in the next week or two. There's squash in the basement, onions hanging around down there also and garlic. Hmmm. It must be time to start raiding the refrigerator. We tend to think of local food as always fresh. If we are to survive in the northern plains we have to consider The Fifth Season. That would be the art of preservation whether it is canning, pressure canning, freezing, drying or fermenting our garden produce. We had sauerkraut and ham with the last of the mashed potatoes. Ummmmm. We are also devouring hard boiled eggs. NO, not the ones that come from the supermarket, but the ones that are farm fresh. Well, the older farm fresh eggs. You don't want to be making hard boiled eggs from fresh eggs, they don't peel well. Even my white bread loving husband LOVES those farm eggs. He absolutely can tell the difference. It's a good thing.

I'm going to share another photo of our amaryllis... it's three blooms are beautiful, but fleeting. The sun was shining through the window yesterday... it's so wonderful to see life. Our sermon on Sunday was about how we can find God everywhere... we just need to look. Out of this ugly brown bulb with three green leaves came these great flowers in the dead of winter... hope in a time of darkness; new light in a time of shortened days; it's grand to think that we can "grow" new life from our broken selves... all it takes is a helping of the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love... sorry, got a little carried away - back to work everyone.