Winter Visitors

January is almost over. It was a slow month. Our New Years celebration seems like it happened a long, long time ago. Unfortunately, February, for all its brevity, always seems like the longest month of the year to me. We are going out to Utah from the 2nd to the 6th to see our new grandson, so maybe that will help the month go by a little quicker. Because we will be gone next weekend, I won’t send out the Journal until Tuesday when we’re home again.

Sarah, Tosh, and Miriam were going to leave on Monday, but they decided to stay an extra day. I’m glad they did. We spent the whole day playing games. We played Pandemic. We played Trivial Pursuit – Lord of the Rings Edition. 

Playing Trivial Pursuit.

We played Code Words. 

Playing Code Words.

We played Carcassonne. 

Playing Carcassonne.

We played Scrabble. 

Playing Scrabble.

We played Puerto Rico. 

Playing Puerto Rico.

We like to play games together, obviously. We did pause the games to eat some delicious food too – sourdough sopapillas with black beans and all the fixings.

Sopapillas and black beans.

They left on Tuesday morning in the middle of a snowstorm, but they traveled safely. The roads were clear once they got up into New York State and headed west.

Good-bye to Miriam, Sarah, and Tosh.

Off into the storm.

After they left, the house was quiet and lonely again. I can’t say that I’m getting used to having just the two of us home, but it’s starting to seem a little less weird. The only visitors for the rest of the week were the birds that have been flocking to the feeders. Seeing them from the windows makes me happy. Often I find evidence that they’ve come onto the front porch. I don’t know what they’re looking for there – there’s nothing to eat – but I like finding their tracks.

Signs of visitors on the front porch.

The weather was miserable all week. We had snow, snow mixed with rain, rain, and more snow. The forecast for the week ahead shows a good chance for snow every day. I think when spring comes and things thaw out for good, there will be plenty of water in the ground. That should make for a good growing season this year. Last year we had a summer drought. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that this year. The icicles on the house are starting to look impressive. One on the front porch is about four feet long now.

Four foot icicle on the front porch.

One day last week Stacey brought home some distressed houseplants from where she works. They were florist’s arrangement sent as birthday gifts, you know the ones where they jam a bunch of potted houseplants into a little basket and they look great for a week or two and then start to die because they’re too crowded. These plants had seen some neglect and were suffering. I transplanted them out of their crowded baskets and gave each of them their own pot. I don’t know if they’ll all survive the transplanting, but so far, they look good. It felt good to work with plants and dig in a bit of dirt.

Rescued houseplants.

Also on the houseplant front, an annual event high on Houseplant Anticipation List is underway – all of my orchids have buds on them right now! Some of them even have two flowers stems! One of them hasn’t bloomed in so long I don’t remember what color the flowers are. Also my amaryllises are sending up flower stalks. I love flowers in the winter. It makes me happy.

So this week we will travel. As much as I love seeing and being with family – especially my grandchildren – I do not like to travel. I don’t like airplanes or airports. I don’t like being away from home. I’ve been accused of being reclusive or agoraphobic, and I think to some degree I am. My biggest concerns in being away are the things I leave behind that require my care – my chickens, my houseplants, and in the warm months, my gardens. I’ll water the houseplants just before we leave and they should be fine for five days. I’ve asked my nephew Dax to take care of the chickens and I’m sure he’ll do a good job. But I will worry nevertheless. I’m sure that next week I’ll report that we had a great trip and that it was wonderful seeing family and friends in Utah, but heading into it, I’m anxious – as usual.