Hippo Birdie and Other Cards

This day is overcast, temp in the 40's and windy, windy, windy, but I got outside ANYWAY and moved some dirt into four-foot square patches for this season's garden. Nowhere near done yet, but it's in the works. I have planted five squares of Pontiac Red potatoes, one square of "candy" onions, and one square with some sugar snap peas, some spinach, some radishes, and some lettuce. The garden book says all these things can, yes, be planted as soon as the ground can be worked, so that's what I did...even though WeatherBoy says we're supposed to get snow overnight and tomorrow.

Inside, I'm stacked up to here with paperwork, and out in the multi-purpose building I have some insulation to hang in my very own soon-to-be studio, so there's always something to do!

Steve asked me what did I want for my birthday and I hadn't thought about it all that much, but I said I believe I'd like a steak dinner at Cattleman's, so, weather permitting, looks like that's what we're gonna do Friday night.

That heading, Hippo Birdie, is from a birthday card I got many, many years ago, and it's one of my favorites. It's a pictoral pun, with a drawing which depicts "Hippo, Birdie, Two Ewes." This has now become a standard birthday greeting in our house and in our close circles. So in case you didn't already, now you know about Hippo Birdie.

Another favorite birthday card contained a drawing of a piece of bread, animated like a little stick man, only bread instead of a stick, with a toaster in the background. This bread-character is holding a table knife with butter on it, and saying, "You're not getting oleo, you're getting butter!"  Some who know me and my love for sweet cream lightly salted dairy butter will appreciate the humor.

Speaking of cute cards, early on in Steve's and my relationship, he gave me a card that had on the front, a drawing of a little red lawnmower up on a hill, and when you opened the card it said, "Each day I love you a little mower." We've had so much fun with that over the years!

So Hippo Birdie to my friend Lisa on the 25th, and thanks to everyone who has already wished me a Hippo Birdie while you were thinkin' of it. Y'all are a big ol' bunch of sweethearts!

Mud Season Update

In my last post I mentioned that WeatherBoy was threatening winter weather (again). You can see by the picture the little darling delivered as promised!  This photo, taken January 29, 2010, depicts about six inches of snow. With ice under it.  Out at our place the ice was only about a half inch on wires and tree limbs and such. On our concrete surfaces the icy underlayment was more like two inches because of the way the precip evolved from freezing rain to sleet to snow.   

Many Oklahomans lost power in this storm and as of the first week of February, some 28,000 of them were still waiting to be reconnected. Most of those folks are in Grady County, around Chickasha, about 33 miles south-southwest of us. I am grateful to report that we did not lose power during the storm, big-sigh-of-relief.  

Last post I was waiting for the Propane man and of course he was swamped. I think we may have been triaged a little farther down the list than I would have liked. Complicating that, they lost a family member (another one in a year's time), so they not only had their usual customer overload of frantic customers dreading a winter storm, they also had another funeral to plan in the midst of all that weather.  Always wise to have a good solid Plan B in stock, and fortunately we had our contingencies lined up. 

In a small twist, we kept power through the storm and once the melt was well underway we had an outage. It was in the middle of the day for about two and a half hours earlier this week. I got a little frantic about it at first because the propane man hadn't been able to get out here yet, and it was the day of their family member's funeral, so I knew he wouldn't be coming that day either. But good ol' OEC located the trouble and fixed it and we were back on well before dark. Yay OEC! 

This picture was taken one week after the one above. in one week's time, this shows significant melting in a particular form we call "Mud Season."  This is way too wet to walk on unless you don't mind getting in up to your ankles or deeper. I know from personal experience that this mud is soft enough to suck the shoes right off your feet, not my favorite thing. 

Just because I can't get right out in the middle of it doesn't mean I'm not planning this season's garden, though!  I'm thinking about starting a few plots of Square Foot Gardening.

Now WeatherBoy is saying rain tonight and tomorrow, which may melt the rest of this snow, but then more snow tomorrow night. Sigh. Criminy, where does he think we are, Central New York?! 

That's okay. We can use the moisture. And I do know, to quote an old friend, who is probably telling all the angels in Heaven now, "It too'll pass, Hon!" It'll be Spring soon.