Wednesday, February 22, 2017

I think it's time to retire Punxsutawney Phil

Or at least stop letting him predict winter's end for the entire country.  His "Six more weeks of winter," was a lie, at least here in Colorado.  Here, winter was very short.  A lot of January was quite mild, and the only winter weather we have seen in February was a nasty (and thankfully rare,) ice storm on, haha, Groundhog Day.  The last several weeks have been absolutely beautiful, if windy.  And the wind is quite typical for this time of year.

What isn't typical is all the brush fires around the state right now.  If we're this dry now, I am afraid of July and August.  We are very much still in a drought, despite the mountains getting exceptional snow falls this year.  It might rain today and Thursday.

In other news, I read an article last year that said jalapenos were difficult to overwinter.  So I didn't.  This fall, it was still producing late in the season, so I brought it inside. 


This is what it looks like now.  It has at least 4 peppers on it, plus additional blooms.  I believe it thinks that the writer of the article I read really doesn't know what they're talking about, haha.

I am going to need a larger freezer bag for peppers at this rate.  Which is good and maybe I will actually start using them again.  Last winter I put them in just about everything. 

But with my oral surgery this fall, I am really just now getting back to eating "normally," so things cooked low and slow in the crockpot and heavy on the sauce have been pretty much the usual.

We grilled Cowboy burgers the other night (diced jalapeno, onion, bacon and shredded cheese mixed in to the ground beef, with a bit of cayenne in there to up the heat!) and I did just fine, so I am good to go for pretty much anything now, I think ;) 

Next up, Honey Jalapeno Grilled Pork Chops!

The teen daughter decided that she needed to knit a toy for her favorite teacher's daughter.  We settled on a cute little monster from Rebecca Danger's repertoire, the Round Christmas Monster. We tagged-teamed it, since a few of the stitches were confusing (KFB had her eyes crossing, haha).  It was a nice Mother/daughter project and we had a good time with it.

It actually has both arms now and is just awaiting eyes. Which maybe we will put on it soon...  And I am thinking of adding ears.  The pattern calls for ears, but I don't use magic loop and the ears as written were a big, fat, pain in the arse.  Next she wants to knit Beans, the Cat for the little girl's brand new baby brother.  I see this as being a joint project as well.

For me.

It's been a long winter. Mentally, I feel even worse off than I was before, though things are finally looking up. I abandoned the gym. I...