Pioneer Woman at Heart

  The new year brings new beginnings.  It's a year of ending a few things as well.   Many of the gatherings this year were small.  Either sickness hit most, some didn't want to be around people, and some did not get together over the holidays.  Either way, I did not cook/bake for the gatherings, and that was actually nice for once. January brings winter weather.  The weather is doing what it does - wintering.  Wintering in a weird way too.  If I was traveling, it would be a very good month for travel.  The temperatures are warming between 50-60 degrees, and rain. (shallots and butter) (homemade condensed mushroom soup, prepared as equal to one can of soup, to freeze) We are seeing more stores closing as the new year rolls in, and we have also found out that our nearest grocery store will no longer sell shallots.  I use shallots and butter as my starting base when making homemade condensed mushroom soup (which I freeze, one containe...

  There has been no more snowfall this very chilly day, and by chilly I mean a wind-chill of 14 degrees.  Snow is on the ground, but no more snow in the forecast for now anyway.  It's slippery out for sure. My lovely ladies have started to lay again, after a much shorter (but still long) molting hiatus, compared to last fall.  They love their new coop.  They have more room, more roosts, more light and more protection from the predators.  It only took us 3 years to complete it ha ha!  Photos to share soon.  We are actually considering on keeping the old coop and using it for the actual "brooder" now.  We'll be adding more ladies to the clan, so we'll figure that out sooner than later. I have not made all of our gardening plans for 2026, but I am putting in an order for some herb garden seeds.   The rosemary and chive plants I brought indoors are still alive, but the rosemary is looking iffy (crossing my fingers, saying a prayer)....

  We made it through it!  My husband had to work 14 days straight, with a switch to 2nd shift, and that was hard for the both of us.  It has finally come to an end.  Now we can get back to our home projects and have the evenings to ourselves.  I literally have several lists going right now.  I figured, when this schedule is back to normal, I have options on what we do next, ha ha! I have been painting the upstairs sub flooring with odor killer paint, and have one room more than half done.  We are super excited to get this job done, so we can install flooring.  I should the larger room's flooring painted in 3 days, 4 tops. We have purged many boxes in the last two weeks, donated quite a bit, and our trash bin filled up as fast as it was emptied. I have just a few more boxes to go through, but they are larger boxes.  The bedroom/closet are almost done.    We haven't talked much about door paint color yet.  We'll pick up paint swa...