We're at the beginning of what is predicted to be a full week of sunshine and blue skies with temperatures in the high 60s, low 70s!
I'll have to see it to believe it but so far so good, it's been absolutely gorgeous for the last two days.

    Signs of Spring are everywhere!      

              

                                         

Those are maple buds and 'flowers', they're early this year and hopefully there won't be another frost soon because they will freeze and not produce their fruits/seeds.

Daffodils are flowering in full, and due to the two sunny days we had I spotted the first Dandelions!

    

And in our neighbor's meadow the Black Angus herd is welcoming the first calves!

               

(I think these are actually already a couple of weeks old but I hadn't seen them out yet)

Our landlords took advantage of the weather and started to plant the first of 8000(!) pine trees they are going to plant all over the property:



A lot of it is done by a machine but there is some 'hands-on' involved as well:

    


It's their plan to retire from their roofing business in the coming couple of years and grow christmas-trees instead.
They're getting older and roofing is quite hard on the body whereas these trees, once established, are very low maintenance.

James has picked up where he left with working on the office before the rain started last week, and is progressing nicely.
The doors are in (one for the storage-side and one for the office side):

And the siding is on!
He also installed a small AC-unit, the sun will be baking on this south-west side!

And since we let no celebrations go by without joining in, especially when there's food involved, I made corned beef with 'all the trimmings' for St. Patrick's Day:

           
I baked an Irish soda bread as well.
It rose a little too well (I might have added a tablespoon of baking-soda instead of a teaspoon?) and than deflated so there was a crack all along the side, but it tastes just fine!

                                                         

St Patrick, who actually wasn't even Irish, is known for bringing Christianity to Ireland but one of the most popular myths about the Irish saint is that he rid the country of snakes, however modern science has since ruined that belief for everyone.
As Ireland has always been an incredibly cold country, scientists have said that it's highly unlikely that there were any snakes to begin with and there are no fossils to disprove the theory.

It makes for funny cartoons though:

                                                   

And that's it for the week.
Hopefully another 5 more days to go before the rain will be back.
We'll see, we're going to try to get the office watertight and painted before that, so .. back to work!

 

We had a couple of nice days this week witch made for clear nights with frosty mornings.
Sunrises are particular colorful on such days and I managed to snap some shots ..
(imagine me running out, straight out of bed, buck-naked but for my winter-coat just to catch some colors)

                       

                                        

Abiding by the saying 'make hay while the sun shines' James attacked the office project with renewed vigor:

 

Two walls are up with siding and two without, the roof is on and covered with self-adhered roofing underlayment, and since rain is in the forecast again everything is swaddled with waterproof house-wrap.

Not to be accused of sitting idle and motivated by all this building-business, I 'build' something myself!

I'd ordered a small greenhouse through Amazon ($32) and it arrived disassembled so I had to put it together:

Fortunately this was even simpler than an IKEA package, no screws or tools necessary, and it took me only 30 minutes or so ..

 

It's not the sturdiest contraption, basically all lightweight tubes and a plastic cover, so I placed it on the south side of the RV, in a corner between the slide and the back where it (hopefully) is protected from most of the wind and weather.

I've started to sow my first batch of 'cold-weather' vegetable seeds, as in leek, broccoli, kale etc, who'll be ready to go outside in about a week or four, as well as warm blooded peppers and tomatoes who'll need a much longer to be big enough to be transferred outside.

I'm trying these newfangled seedling trays with high humidity domes that have adjustable humidity vents AND grow (LED) lights at the top:

   

And since we're still rather cold here in the Northwest I've placed the trays on heat-mats as well.

 

I've seldom been lucky growing my own seeds, and I don't have high hopes this time will be any better, but you can't say I didn't try!

Actually, now I think about it, I have been successful in growing these 'sprouts' indoors  so maybe there's hope?

And since the weather was so nice I'd come up with the plan to throw something on the BBQ for the first time this season, but when we were ready to do so we discovered we didn't have enough gas-line to hook it up!

Bummer! Oh, well a healthy salad (Niçoise) with eggs and tuna was a nice stand-in, we're cutting down on meat anyways ..                 

             
         

Tonight we're 'springing an hour forward' to begin Daylight saving time!
James is thrilled but I'm no fan. I think standard time is much more in sync with my biological clock but I guess it is what it is ..

These are the hills behind us, looking out of our back window.
As you can see, it snowed!

We had several hours of snow flurries during the day today and almost all day yesterday:

Unfortunately the temp just hovered around freezing, the ground wasn't frozen and we also had some rain so it didn't last very long ..

 

Spring is on it's way though, according to the Almanac:
"Winter may end in a snowy blast in many regions, but hold on to your hats! The updated 2024 Spring Weather Forecast favors an early spring and warmer than normal temperatures across much of the U.S with a few exceptions".

The couple of sunny days we had last week coaxed some of our apple trees into opening their pink blossoms:

                         

And at the edge of the meadows, protected by shrubs and the big oak trees of the adjacent little forest, I discovered the Osoberries (Indian plums), usually the first of the native shrubs to bloom, are flowering as well!

                       

    

After navigating the soggy meadows and muddy trails I'd noticed lately that my left sock started to feel damp and when I stepped in a large puddle a couple of days ago the freezing cold water suddenly seeped in!

 

 

It actually ripped even more the next day and several other spots are looking 'suspicious' so it was time to retire them.
I actually bought these in 2002 in Tillamook, only 45 minutes from here, when we visited the Northwest in a small camper.
They served me well for 22 years!

So, out with the old, in with the new:

                                       

Aren't they the cutest? Even when raining cats and dogs these surely will put a spring in my step! (and only $24.98 at Walmart).

While all that weather is doing it's thing outside I'm keeping myself busy with the usual: a little blogging, knitting, researching what to plant in my raised beds this Spring, puzzling .. like this one I just finished:

It's one from a box full with puzzles of different sizes I borrowed from our landlord:

I don't like this painter, Thomas Kinkade, at all, with his overly romanticized and sugarcoated reality but hey, they will probably get me through this stretch of winter weather, and than some!

I've also been trying to get a handle on how to make sourdough bread but so far I created a 'hockey-puck' ..

 

... a, slightly better, 'canon-ball' ..

                           
                   And  .. 'the brick':
                                                                                

All were edible, especially when toasted and as croutons or breadcrumbs, but today I surprised myself and produced this fairly decent, albeit way too pale, sandwich bread:

I guess there's hope!

I found a guy, Ben, on YouTube who threw the whole tedious business of careful preparation, kneading, rising, proofing, etc, etc out of the window and came up with the - '10 Minute SIMPLER Sourdough (For Lazy People)'- method.
From making a starter to baking a bread he simplified the whole process so even a cave(wo)man .. or me .. can do it.
So my plan is to make a new starter, following his method, and start from scratch. You can't blame me for trying!

That's it for this week. It's still snowing when I write this on Saturday afternoon, but I've seen rain as well .. which is probably a good thing since we'd have a couple feet of snow by now!