A shortcut to . . .

Virginia Bluebells? No, that's not what we were after. 

But what a show! Ringing in spring, honeybees happily hovering among the blue blossoms.

But not what we came for. 

Still don't see any, and these bluebells are very distracting. In a good way.

Yellow violets? Is this what we came for? How cool are they?! Violets are yellow, the ground is brown, but what we actually came for is yet to be found . . . (does spring bring out your inner poet?)

 

Oh! There they are! Do you see them? There are two, and I'm not talking about the purple violets, no matter how charming they are. 

There's another one! Oh joy!

Most of what we found were grays. What a treasure!

I think we have finally rid ourselves of winter. 

Storm clouds

From a couple of weeks ago. 

You should try this: Individual Baked Eggs

Ready? Set your oven to 350 degrees F. Get out a pound of bacon. If you don't have some on hand, you should seriously resolve to never let that happen again. Cook it partially; it should not be crisp, but still flexible. Shape the bacon into the greased (I use cooking spray, butter flavored) cups of a muffin tin. No, mine isn't tin. Its very well used and seasoned stoneware from Pampered Chef. 

Next, crack an egg into each individual cup. Lightly salt and pepper. If your kids are helping you, keep plenty of paper towels on hand. If you live near me, please come and get some eggs. Our hens are laying more than 20 per day. They are free-ranging, grass-eating, and fed all natural grains. End of commercial.

Bake  for 10 to 15 minutes, or until they are set the way you like them. The original recipe from allrecipes.com suggests to top each with cheese. That might be good, but we didn't miss it.

 Such a happy breakfast! Very tasty served with Grandma Vi's banana bread. Now that you know how easy and fun this is, go and try it!

Winter is always coming.

A friend of ours reported to Andy that an oak tree in his pasture had been struck by lightning and needed to come down. So, with the kids and I at a safe distance, he started the process of bringing this giant down.

First, Andy got the initial wedge out. This was how he controlled how and where it fell. Then he dabbed at it strategically with his chainsaw, until just a fist-sized chunk of wood was all that was keeping it up. By this point, there was an enormous loud crack, and I yelled 'GO!'

By the time I yelled, Andy was already a tree-length away in the other direction. 

The scary part over, now was the time to start disassembling it.

Many hands make light work. We told them, anyone who enjoys being warm in the winter time has to help.

With Andy running the saw, me running the splitter, and the kids carrying and stacking, we filled up the truck. It took a good 6 or 7 hours. We probably have 2 or three more loads like this to retrieve yet.