A quiet, slower-paced kind of January

 A week ago, or so, I posted this meme on my social. It seemed appropriate for the month, at the time. 

It still feels appropriate.  

I read over January blog posts from the last few years.  It's sort of the same thing, with different angles, for the most part.  This year I decided to be still, or however you want to call it. 

Not long ago I either heard or read the phrase "resting your brain in January," and I suppose I took it to heart without realizing it. 

I've worked on this and that.  Puttered around, and generally kept still. 

I mean, there may be some health reasons for being still, buuuuutttttt ... there are not any pressing reasons for me to be moving around too much.  So why push it? 

The warm spell we had earlier this month? Oh, that is definitely gone. So there's another reason to be still.

The cold temps are here for the duration. Yuck. 

I'm not sure what else to write, since it feels like not a whole lot has been going on. 

I've knit. I've crocheted and I've cross stitched. 

I don't have any current photos of knitting. 

Here's a photo of my pile-o-battenberg squares 

Here's a photo from when I was cross stitching this weekend, and watching a hilariously cringey old Chuck Norris film called "The Octagon" 

After a while I wasn't really paying attention to the movie, but the inner dialogue scenes were dynamite. Ha!

The grow lights in my seed starting green house were finally set up.  I say this like I've been waiting for someone who is dragging their heels, or something.  The lazy pants person is me! 

We've been pushing snow around, because the snow finally decided to seriously grace us with it's presence.  Over and over again. 

It snowed again at the end of last week.  I did what I could for pushing snow around. I was having issues with riding the atv and had to give up on pushing snow around after a while. My hubby took the tractor out and decided to clean things up a bit one day over the weekend. 

And we've been doing some deer watching. 

Hunting season is over.  How do the deer know? Like clockwork each year, when hunting season is done the deer start showing up during the day, and in groups. 

Since I've been working on things as the spirit moves me, I've been doing a bit of fly tying. 

Close up of one in-progress. 

I need to get a decent amount of ties ready to go for when the ice thaws and we can start fishing this spring. 

What else ... I can't think of anything else to write about, at this moment. 

Oh wait, yes I can. Duh! 

I recorded and posted a flosstube video today. 

I'll write up shownotes in their own blogpost tomorrow or later this week. 

Fall is starting to creep in

 Yesterday I had an appointment during my lunch hour. As I was driving back home I saw a tree with that fall blaze orange at the top.  The leaves are starting to change! I'd have taken a photo, but I was driving and did not feel like pulling over and walking back to where I saw the tree. 

Earlier in the week I was walking around the back yard and acorns were dropping from the oak trees. It feels too early for this. 

Then one day, in the early a.m., it felt like a fall morning. Except for the humidity. 

August, when mother natures really shows she's off her meds.  Or something. 

It's been a quiet week, for the most part (keeping the trend going!) I have been mildly productive, however. 

Monday I finished my first summer sock. 

Tuesday I finished the last White Christmas 2022 ornament.  No photo of it.  That one is being saved for my next flosstube. 

Speaking of flosstube, my newest video is here. If you want to see the video, with full show notes, the blog post is here. I can't believe I haven't mentioned something I did to the blog yet. On the right side of the blog I have figured out how to embed the videos of my most recent flosstube and garden chat videos. You can see a tiny version of the videos if you don't want to go all the way over to Youtube. Ha! I felt so clever when I figured it out.  What I can't figure out is how to get the garden chat video to be the same size as the flosstube video. 

I spotted something today and I thought it was pretty neat. 

This whole summer we've been trying to befriend the crows. I toss a little bit of corn in a bowl in the back yard almost every morning. 

I call it paying the toll before I go out in to the back 20 each morning to swap out SD cards.  I don't know how much the crows actually get before the squirrels find the corn, or the chickens realize there's food somewhere. 

Today I was out on the trail, looking down to make sure I don't trip, and I spotted something that had no business being there. 

A dime! How stinking cool!

I kinda recall earlier in the summer my hubby coming back into the house one morning with something he found near by the bowl, but we weren't sure if it was a gift from the crows or if it was just a coincidence. The dime couldn't have fallen out of my pocket yesterday because I had no pants pockets and the jacket I wore had nothing but the SD card in it because I had just washed the jacket. 

It was a beautiful morning, but for the humidity. I was trying to capture the colors in the sky. No dice. 

Since I still had time before work I went out and puttered in the garden for a bit. Got out there and found an open gate. Doh!

It must have been open since last night, at least.  It looks like the chickens got in there and snacked on my brassicas.  Those brats!

I did harvest some tomatoes and cucumbers. Oh and a few peppers. We've been enjoying salads with fresh toppings. 

Before I settled in for the evening I *finally* picked out colors for my "Daily Reminder" cross stitch by Brenda Gervais. 

The colors are certainly bright!