Catching Up

Chickens, Daffodils, Dandelions, Family, Gardening, Grandchildren, Reflections, Sewing, The Farm, , , , ,

Hello and welcome. It’s been pretty quiet here on the blog lately so it’s time to do a bit of catching up.

Sewing Projects

I spent a lot of February and March sewing for Jackson and Addie. The first three photos are things I made for Jackson. (I apologize it some of the photos are a bit blurry. Sometimes my hands are not as steady as I’d like them to be.)

T-shirt for Jacksom
Spiderman shorts
Spiderman Hoodie

Jackson loves Spiderman. My sister had sent me some Spiderman fabrics that she wasn’t going to use, since her grandkids have outgrown the Spiderman phase.

On Easter, when I gave Jackson and Addie their outfits, Jackson looked at the things I made for him, then looked at me and said, “You are the girl!” I construed this to mean, “Thank you Grandma. I love them!” 🙂

My sister also had some extra cat fabrics. Addie loves cats!

Cat Nap Pajamas

The patterns on the fabric are difficult to make out in the photos, so I added close-ups of the fabric.

Close-up of fabric
Pants for Addie
Close up of fabric

I also made myself a summer turtleneck.

Turtleneck I made for myself.

I love the way it turned out, and my husband complimented it several times when I was wearing it.

Farm Views

We’ve had a lot of rain this month and much of it came last week but on the nice days I’ve been getting out to enjoy the weather. I love watching the world come alive in spring and each day we’re seeing more and more – flowers opening, plants sprouting, leaves unfurling.

These photos were taken early last week.

Since then, we have a hen or two that are sitting on eggs, so, you’ll likely be seeing chick photos in a couple weeks. Also, dandelions are blossoming and the fruit trees are beginning to flower, so the bees have plenty to forage.

Plantings

Each year since 2019 I have potted up pansies to display in the bed alongside our deck. In past years my husband was able to get them from the greenhouse where he worked in 2019. They are a wholesale business but allowed him to come and purchase a couple of flats.

This year, in March, when he tried to call them, he was only able to leave a message, and he never got a return call. I was disappointed but ready to accept that we would not have pansies this year. My husband didn’t give up so easy. He began calling around to other local greenhouses to see if they had pansies. Mostly they were not open yet for the season. Eventually he got a message back from one of the greenhouse owners that they thought they could help him. Several phone calls and about three weeks later he picked up a flat of pansies.

I couldn’t be happier!

My husband also picked up a package of pansy seeds so we can start our own plants next year.

I did have them set out along the deck but brought them in for a couple of nights when we had the temperature dipped down below freezing. Hopefully we are past that now.

My husband started some cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plants in March. They are now big enough to be planted in the garden, and we are hoping things dry up enough this week that we can get them planted. We also have some potato seedlings that we will plant as soon as the soil is ready.

Other News

This is so exciting!

It was the last week in March when I received my preview copies of the book my story in being published in, Chicken Soup for the Soul, I Can’t Stop Laughing. The book goes on sale next week, on 4-27-26, and I will be doing a separate post about the book and about the process of being published in this book.

One of the benefits of having a story in the book was that I received 10 free preview copies. When I told my family that I would be getting them and that I would be giving them out, they decided they need to hold a book signing event. I was honored.

On April 4th we met at a local coffee shop for lunch, and I signed and passed out copies of the book. (That’s me at the far end of the table.)

As a congratulations gift my family gave me this beautiful garden statue. It says, “The Garden is my Happy Place.” 🙂 You all know that is true.

Thanks for visiting and Happy Spring!!!

It Looks Like Spring is Springing – Finally – I Think

Bees, Chickens, Daffodils, Dogs, Flowers, Reflections, spring, , , ,

After a brutally cold winter and a March that has seemed to be one step forward two steps back it looks like spring is springing. Monday and Tuesday were both t-shirt days (only the second and third ones we’ve had this year) so my husband and I got a few little outside jobs done at the farm.

Join me for some of our sights of spring.

The crocuses, our first spring flowers are blooming. 🙂

White one too!

Our mini daffodils began blossoming on Tuesday.

The rest of the daffodils are up but no flowers yet.

The garlic is up but seems slow. We had rain in the forecast for Tuesday, so I gave the garlic a dose of fertilizer on Monday. We did get some rain/storms Tuesday, but at least it wasn’t an all-day rain.

The chickens were out enjoying the weather. This hen actually stopped and posed for me. They have been laying good since the middle of February and some of them are starting to act broody. We will likely let a couple of them brood some chicks later this year.

The bees were out in full force. My husband mentioned seeing that they were carrying pollen back to the hive.

My best guess is that they are gathering pollen from the poplar trees

or the maple trees. Perhaps both.

Believe it or not we spotted our beagle fish on Monday. LOL. I thought it might be a bit early in the season for that.

Ruby didn’t do the full body plunge that Ranger did, but she was in far enough to get her belly wet. I’m looking forward to spending time in the pond too but not until it warms up A LOT!

Thanks for visiting. Has spring found you?

If it Looks Like a Brownie and Tastes Like a Brownie, is it a Brownie?

Recipe, Reflections, , , ,

This post is a lesson in “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet”.

Last week one of the articles that came up on my news feed boasted making brownies with just two ingredients. If you have been reading my blog for long you probably know that I do a lot of home cooking and baking, and we love desserts, so I read the article/ recipe that called for just chocolate chips and eggs. I had both ingredients on hand and decided to give it a try.

I followed the instructions to melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler and to beat the eggs (I used an electric mixer to make sure they were completely beaten.) I let the chocolate chips cool a bit so they were not hot enough to cook the eggs when added. I added the chocolate slowly while using the mixer to combine them. When it was completely mixed and looked like brownie batter, I put the mixture in a baking pan that I had sprayed with cooking spray.

I baked it at 350 F for about 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted came out clean. It was cooling on the counter when my husband came in and said, “brownies, yumm.” I explained it was a new recipe and he said he was sure it would be good. “You always make good desserts,” he said.

After lunch we decided to try the brownies. When I cut them and took one out of the pan it looked dense and moist like a good brownie should. My husband’s first impression was good, and I agree they had good flavor, chocolaty and sweet like a brownie, but after a second bite he noticed they were dry. He was right the, even the good chocolaty flavor could not make up for the dry crumbly texture. They looked like brownies and tasted like brownies, but they lacked the dense, moist and even a bit gooey texture of a good brownie. I honestly would not even call these brownies.

So, if you happen to come across this recipe for two ingredient brownies my advice would be save your eggs for breakfast and eat a handful of chocolate chips for dessert. Don’t bother trying this recipe which is sure to disappoint any brownie lover.

Of course, you could choose not to believe this since you did read it on the internet. 🙂

Our Bees Are Alive

Bees, Reflections

The above photo was taken during the summer of 2025.

Yesterday, when the sun was shining and the temperature rose into the low 40’s F, my husband saw bees flying in and out of our hive, taking cleansing flights. We find this amazing! It’s been many years since we have had bees that have survived the winter. Winter is not over yet but considering that they survived that long cold spell that we just experienced this is a very good sign.

Thanks for visiting.

The Mercury’s Rising

Chickens, Eggs, Maple Syrup, Reflections, Tapping Maple Trees, Weather, Winter Prep

Hello and Welcome!

Here in Michigan, we have finally emerged from the deep freeze that has engulfed us since early January. Daytime high temperatures for the next week are forecast to be above 40 F (4.4 C). I’m sure we will be dealing with a lot of mud as the snow melts, but I’ll gladly take that over the bitter cold that we have been dealing with.

With temperatures above freezing during the day then falling below freezing at night the sap will begin flowing. We won’t be tapping trees this year, we haven’t since 2017, but I suspect the syrup producers in our area have tapped their trees.

If you would like to read about our adventures in syrup making in 2016 and 2017 you click here, here and here.

The other thing that’s happening, that seems to coincide with the sap beginning to flow each year, is that are hens are beginning to lay again. We know that at least three of them are laying because my husband collected three eggs on a couple of days this week. As the days get longer and sunnier egg production will increase. I am thankful for my daughter and son-in-law and their flock who were able to provide us with fresh eggs this winter while our hens took a break.

It’s too soon to be celebrating the end of winter but this week will be a nice break.

Thank for visiting. Are you seeing signs of spring?