2019!

Well, it's here.  Another year.

Off to a bit of a rocky start.  I forgot to start cooking the beans (for the traditional beans & greens) early enough so we ended up having eggs & grits for our New Year's supper.  Not exactly traditional, but good, and besides I still have a cold so really can't taste much anyway.

I also have a tradition that what you do on New Year's day will indicate what you will be doing in the coming year.  I had wanted to take the kayaks out--it actually didn't rain today (although it was a bit warm--I mean--I'm wearing  tank top and shorts on New Year's day and that's just wrong).  But see reference above to having a cold.

I did do some small symbolic acts.  A wee bit of housekeeping.   Knit a few rows.

Did a little walking and spinning.  About 3/4 of a lap, instead of my usual 3 laps (which equal a mile) Of course. these days if I want to do a mile I have to do 4 laps, because one loop is still covered in storm trash.  We were hoping to have that cleared by now, but I have mentioned that it's been a record-breaking wet December?  Normally we get about 4 inches of rain in December.  This year we got almost 15.  Not conducive to working outside and burning.

And yes, I have spinning wheels, and use spinning wheels (the yarn in the cowl above was spun on a wheel) but I really love the meditative aspect of walking and spinning on a spindle.  Want to do more.

Bob harvested our lemon crop.  OK--only 3 lemons this year, but they're huge.

And a bit more harvesting--greens, garlic, and eggs.

That itty bitty egg likely doesn't have anything in it.  Chickens do this from time to time.  Poetically they're called a wind egg;  more rustically they're referred to as fart eggs.

The garden in general didn't do so well this year.  And the last couple of months we've been more involved with the storm damage.  But Bob felt better after listening to a radio program with Tom McCubbins, who wrote the book (literally--we have a copy) on gardening in the south.  And he said *his* garden was lousy this year.  I believe I may have mentioned it's been one of the wettest years on record . . .

We are curious to see how the garden does in 2019.  It hasn't yielded a lot in the past few years.  Possibly because the small oak tree near it got quite a bit bigger (I'm being facetious here--it became a monster) and shaded it.   But look at all that wood (and the Triffid) from the previous post.  It won't be shading anything any more.

But mostly what I did to mark the New Year was . . . sleep.  Normally napping isn't my thing, but I totally crashed this afternoon (reference above--I have a cold).  So there went my plans for a productive day.

But I'm OK with it.  I often have problems sleeping (compared with Bob, who is out before he's completely horizontal) so maybe bringing in the New Year with some good sound sleep, snuggling with a few cats, isn't such a bad way to go.