It snowed yesterday and today

Hello friends, It has been cold in the mornings and there has been some snow flying around in the air and even sticking. But by afternoon it is melted. Just the way I like it. I am continueing to finish prepping my garden for winter. The original garden area is all completed with newspapers and leaves on it waiting to be rototilled in the spring. I now have about 10 or 12 bags of leaves waiting for me to prep a new half of the garden...in other words, I am going to double it's size. I will probably make one half all strawberries and the rest into several smaller raised beds. My worms arrived and are growing and eating and hopefully making compost. They were very small and thin when they arrived and about a fifth of them were smashed and dead in the bottom of the bag. But the survivors are already getting bigger and looking healthier. They did not arrive until a week after I was told that they would be here, so they were probably dehydrated and hungry. I have a huge firepit in the very back of the property that I have decided to make into a large outdoor worm pit in the spring. I have been cleaning up scrap lumber from a old construction site (with the owners permission) and I only have a few pieces of long lumber left. I need to find a truck to borrow to bring it home. Now I have been told that I can clean up the left over lumber pieces at the construction site of our new church building. I started today. The wood is all muddy but I cleaned the bigger pieces off and they are now drying in front of my woodstove. Most of them will just be burned in the stove but a few good ones may make some small shelves or something....maybe birdhouses? I have done so much today...picked up two loads of bagged leaves from a family in town. Put the leaves out on the last 2/3 of the garden area. Went to the dump to drop off the last of the garbage from the first construction site, then filled a huge box with newspapers from the dump recycling bin. They are very nice about letting me take papers for both my woodstove and my garden. I also got a wheelbarrow without a wheel at the dump. It says no salvaging but the "dump man" Cliff let me have it, he even helped get it into the back of my car. He used to live in Bend, OR in the '70's. He lives in Montana now. He seems really nice. His dog is a heeler. I usually don't care for heelers because the ones I have known have been mean but his is a really nice dog. I did not take my little "sweetie" dog out with me today because it was just too cold for her. I can't stand to see her shivering. Last night we had a potluck at church (not the new building yet), and many people brought different kinds of dishes made with various meats. We had bear, goat, beef, chicken, and pigen dishes. I took ice cream (I didn't have any wierd meat and I had to go straight from a Dr. appt. in Sandpoint). The kids all loved me for bringing ice cream. I had a mammogram about a week ago, and they found a suspicious spot, so they want me to make another appointment for another mammogram and possibly an ultrasound. It is probably not anything. It's funny because I had a breast biopsy in 1989, and a second one in 1999 (both negative) and now here it is 2009. I wonder if they will do another biopsy this time? I'm not too worried about it, in fact I keep forgetting about it and I am afraid I will forget to make my appt. for another mammogram. I need to do that this next week. I am finding that I am actually a country girl and did not realize it my whole life. I love puttering around my little farm. In fact I am naming my new little farm the TRIPLE J FARM. Then I can put a label on my worms, my berries and fruit and vegetable when I take them to the farmers market next summer. I have decided that I want some small farm animals but I haven't decided on what to get or when. It will probably be awhile since I need to figure out housing for any animals. And how to feed them (moneywise I mean). I'm thinking chickens, rabbits, pig, goat??? who knows...maybe it is just a pipe dream anyway. I spent this evening watching DVD's while I dried wood in front of the fire and rolled stacks of paper to put down in the new garden area. Well so much for my day. I am sure it sounds really boring to you all but it is actually joyful and relaxing for me. Much less stress in my life right now. Except for having no money but hey what do I need anyway (besides food, shelter, gasoline, car insurance, prescriptions, medical bills, etc). I just don't think about what I do not have and I enjoy what I do have. Hope you can say the same about your life. Love to all. Your favorite farmer girl.