"How about staying inside today and taking it easy?" said the Red-shouldered Hawk. After seeing how much effort it took to push my way through 8.5 inches of snow just to do my morning chores, I decided the hawk was wise.

Indoors, my winter-mood-stabilization projects are greening up nicely. The Mars Seedless grape cuttings I started rooting six weeks ago are opening their leaves, as is the little fig tree I left inside for the winter. In contrast, Reliance grape cuttings started at the same time are still dormant above ground, which actually is a good thing --- the longer cuttings work on growing roots instead of leaves, the better.

Of my Valentine's herb seeds, all except the fennel and lovage have already sprouted! Shown here are poppy seeds that I planted far too thickly. But I won't mind thinning once they poke up their cotyledons --- a race to green which has been roundly won by the chamomile seedlings.

When I got sick of writing, I headed to the kitchen. How about some maple syrup snow ice cream? 2 tablespoons of milk, two tablespoons of cream, 1.5 tablespoons of maple syrup, and a big bowl of snow per serving. Delicious!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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