New Stuff

After complaining about the wet and slushy snow on Friday, we got about 6 inches of dry and powdery stuff yesterday. So we went sledging. We finally fitted together the wooden sledge that I bought Oliver for Christmas, and it's a beauty, going faster and further on it's two wooden runners than the plastic tea tray type. Also, it is a lot easier to get on and off for a middle aged woman, who is not as slim as she ought to be.

In between the Family Stuff and the Keeping Warm (that takes up a fair bit of my time and involves doing very little but with large amounts of blankets), I have been experimenting with lip balms and body butters.
The body butter came out fine:

It is fragranced with lavender and geranium oils, with the idea that if you rub it in after a warm bath it will help you sleep.
The lip balm, I have some issues to sort out. The flavours are great, one is natural, one is lemon (not enough lemon to taste properly) and the surprise one is chocolate and vanilla. I don't much like chocolate in things other than chocolates, cakes and biscuits, I don't like chocolate spread or chocolate cereal and think chocolate yoghurt is disgusting, but subtly in lip balm with vanilla as balance, it is delicious.
My first issue, is probably due to the temperature of the oils and the temperature of the jars causing the balm to miscolour on the sides of the jars;

The other issue I have, with both the lip balm and the body butter is that they have set quite hard. The body butter is definitely the texture of butter taken straight from the fridge rather than butter ready to scoop up and spread over a warm body. The lip balm needs to be scraped out of the pot with a finger nail, although it will spread nicely on the lips after that.

However it does occur to me that with the coldness of the weather outside, and the lack of heating inside, the balms are probably colder than they will normally be. The temperature in my kitchen when I came down this morning was only 6 degrees. I am currently in the living room with the fire on full blast trying to get the temperature up to that of a central heated house of about 17 or 18 degrees, to see how the balms are then.
I managed to get it up to about 14 degrees but then Oliver came in leaving the door wide open and letting the heat out.
Will let you know how I get on.

And What Exactly Does Spring Think She Is Doing?

Where is Spring?
This is what I woke up to this morning:

It is not good enough. I think back in January, I may have said that I loved snow. I should have made that statement, time specific. I love snow from mid December to early February, if it is dry and crisp and even. I do not love snow in March when it is wet and slushy and no good for anything.
This is the end of March, we should be getting bright sunny days with a brisk wind (clothes drying days), they don't have to be warm. They should be the sort of days to encourage me out into the garden, perhaps warm enough to take my coat off after doing a bit of digging, a robin nearby watching for worms, bees flying in and out of the hive collecting early pollen. You get the picture, and it is not what I am seeing from my bedroom window. Traditionally, you are meant to plant potatoes on Good Friday, which I can't see happening this year. They also say, that you should wait until it is warm enough to sit on the plot with your bare bottom, but this is not a test that I have ever done, nor indeed do I have any plans to do so. I am okay with the beekeeper's lore, which says that hives should not be inspected before the flowering currant is in flower. At least, I would be if I knew anyone who had a flowering currant. I have 5 of the common or garden, red and black currant varieties if they will do instead.
In other news, the soap business is trundling on towards its start date. I have now applied for a stall at Leeds Farmers Market. This was delayed somewhat, by my not being able to find my passport which was required for identification purposes. My neighbour asked if this was because I am a terrorist. If I am, then I am a very ineffectual terrorist, my sole terror campaign being directed against an infestation of mice a few years ago. Likewise my mind boggles at the idea of selling enough soap for it to be worth money laundering. Still maybe they know something I don't.

Old Wives Tales

On Friday night, the snow in Leeds came down good and heavy, we had been predicted rain for Saturday so not wanting to miss the best snow we had had in years, my friend and I both of us about to hit our fifties, decided to go midnight sledging. All the time I was waiting for someone to stop me, I could hear the voices of my mother and other grown ups, in my head saying 'You get to bed now! This is ridiculous, you'll catch your death of cold' After half an hour of sledging on perfect snow, my own inner grown up began to return, I had to admit I was cold, wet and tired and the snow was coming down so hard it coated our heads and faces. We went home.
Saturday morning I woke at 7.30 to find the rain hadn't come, the snow was still there looking absolutely beautiful in the sunshine. Despite tiredness and aching legs from the night before, I felt obliged to go out again  to give Rosie and Oliver the chance to experience the sort of snow that only comes to Leeds, once every five years or so. Surprisingly the youth of Leeds are not early risers, even when there is snow to be played in and once again we had the hill to ourselves until at least half past ten.
Wanting to share it with you, I have recorded this video clip on my phone. If it looks bumpy that is because it  was.

Sunday however was when all the Old Wives in my head reared up and said 'I told you so.' I felt awful, sore throat, headache, fever, tiredness. I know you can't catch a cold from being out in the cold and wet but it was very suspicious. Possibly the cold and wet and unusually amounts of exercise (all that walking up hill) had lowered my immune system letting the cold virus flood in. It meant that yesterday I was good for little apart from watching Andy Murray lose at tennis and trying to read a book I couldn't get into.

You will be pleased to know that I am feeling much livelier today and that this morning's walk on the valley resulted in the retrieval of two missing gloves. I was especially pleased to find Rosie's as I had borrowed it without asking last week, believing correctly that it was warmer than mine, only to drop the blessed thing in the garden.

The Valley looking Alpine

A quick picture from Tuesday when the sun came out, the sky was blue and the valley looked like an Alpine ski resort (almost).

Tracks in the Snow

Aha! Oho! A trail in the snow, whose is this trail and where does it go?

 Those words will be instantly recognisable to those with children or grandchildren under five but for those people who only have civilised conversations with other adults they are from the Gruffalo's Child by Julia Donaldson and I have been saying them to myself constantly on my walk round the valley. It wasn't so much the tracks that caught my attention this morning, however as much as the bright orange rabbit pee:

 Keeping my eyes open in the wood, I spotted some branches that had had the bark stripped off revealing a bright orange underside. I'm guessing that as the grass is getting more difficult to access, the rabbits have resorted to eating bark, and it is having the same effect on their digestive system as eating too much beetroot has on humans.

 Walking on through the woods I hoped to see the jays again, without any luck, but approaching the pond from the other side than usual, from the top of a steep slope, I was thrilled to see the kingfisher perching on a bulrush. Obligingly it sat there long enough for me to focus on it with my binoculars and marvel at its beauty but when I risked life and limb slipping down the snowy slope, trying to get close enough to take a photograph, it flew off. I need a photograph to prove its existence to my birdwatching friend, who has claimed  I am hallucinating. The two of us walked to the pond yesterday and saw nothing of interest save a kestrel swooping overhead.
There was a different atmosphere on the valley this morning, as it has of course been invaded by children with sledges. This is as it should be, if there is snow on the ground and an accessible hill, it is a strange child that doesn't want to go sledging. I was also amused to come across on my walk,  the handiwork of some children from yesterday.

It is good to know, that the age old impulse of children to make a den, has not diminished.

A Black Dog in a White World

We didn't get as much snow as I was expecting, but still as I walked out on the valley beyond the bottom of my garden, the combination of the snow and all encompassing cloud made everything eerily white

Jess disturbed a pair of foxes who bounded off into the undergrowth. Lovely to watch but disturbingly close to my chickens. On my return I checked on the beehives but there was very little snow on them.

A cold winter is actually better for bees, than a mild one. Mild weather at the wrong time can entice them out of the hive when there is no pollen to collect.The chickens are now benefiting from the roofing panels I put up over the chicken run, which has given them a dry snow free corner to get at their food. I may put up another panel though, as the entrance board to the house was covered with snow, which they wouldn't like.That can wait for better weather. This afternoon I will be indoors, on the sofa, wrapped in my knitted blanket. I would like to say that I will be on the laptop, working on the cash-flow forecast for the soap business, but it is more likely that I will be gazing mesmerised out of the window, watching the hundreds of tiny white flakes dancing dizzily down to earth.