Catch up

Quick catch up from the past week or so:

We have had some massive storms blow through here, but have been extremely lucky at the same time. The tornadoes that brought so much devastation to Alabama were the kind of storms the experts had been warning us about, and we were expecting. To say we feel lucky is an understatement of course.

A couple of times we were forced into our safe room, and one time a 40 foot pine fell onto the side of our house. Since it was dead, however, it broke apart when it hit, otherwise I fear our central unit and our home both would have been damaged. We were without electricity for about 12 hours, and absolutely cannot complain about a small inconvenience like that.

In the adjoining county, Mr. GV's mother, father, sister, brother, and brother's fiancee (3 homes) were without electricity, and therefore water, for about 5 days. Brother and his fiancee stayed with us for 3 nights during this time. The whole family was invited but the rest chose to tough it out at home!

Our counties were both hit with many trees down, roads blocked, homes damaged or destroyed, and now we are struggling with flooded roads. Our home is on a hill so we will not have our home flooded thankfully.

Otherwise, life goes on as normal!

Work day/Play day

Taking advantage of our early spring weather, we had a work day/play day at my mom's house in March.

Decorative grasses were trimmed and the dead bits hauled off to the woods. It was truly a family activity, as even the little one helped out.


The horses enjoyed some fresh green grass.

There was plenty of play time too. Here J is pretending the Mule is his ice cream truck.

Oh and we had a masked bandit who insisted on shearing a dog. lol Actually K was just trying to keep the fur out of her mouth and nose while giving Sparky a haircut.

Mom's tulips were blooming.

Lizzy from next door came over and played for a while. The scream you can practically hear in this picture is one of joy at being chased, I assure you!

And then it rained. We even flew kite #2 (replacement for the one tangled in the guide wire at the park) in the rain a bit. J took off like a mad man, running around in the pouring rain.

He wasn't interested in coming back, so his mom had to run around after him.

It was a great day outside!

Today at my house

I had a lot of things to do in the kitchen today, including

making bottled tea for Mr. GV.

Making Three Sisters Stew from Vegan on the Cheap.

Cooking up a pot of pinto beans--some for the stew and the rest in the fridge for making chili.

Taking these (cumin seeds)

putting them in here,

and making this---fresh cumin powder.

Taking a bag of frozen vegetable scraps--stems from greens, onion ends, mushroom stems, and bits of leftover herbs,

adding some bay and peppercorns,

and making vegetable broth.

There were other things done today, but not photographed, including:

*cooking rice

*cooking udon noodles (for leftover peanut sauce and steamed veggies)

*cutting up a browned banana and aging mango, to be put into the freezer for smoothies

*scraping off the 3rd side of stained, white caulk from around the kitchen sink and replacing it with clear silicone caulk

*culling a whole bunch of magazines

*laundry

*vacuuming

Today was a chilly, overcast day, and it was a good day to stay inside and do some homemaking!

More snow

This has been a really snowy winter so far here in the southern U.S. And today we got some more. We had some errands to run--recycling e-waste, vet visit for Callie, and banking, but thankfully we were home before the serious snow started coming down.

Macy enjoyed going out in the front yard and checking out the snow.

Max checked it out for a minute, then came back and went inside. He was more interested in his chewbone than anything else!

A lil' bit of snow

In mid-December, we had a little bit of snow, I think about 3 inches.

Granted, it's not much, but when you live in the south, any amount of snow is a big deal!