Spring Has Sprung

  And it feels like Summer is biting at its butt. It was in the 70s yesterday, will approach 80 today and Wednesday, and will be warm the rest of the week. I suspect we'll have the fan on tonight. We've moved Susie, Mots & Dottie and their beds back out onto the sun porch (from mid-October on, they get a sunny room with fleece-lined beds in the house, with a cat door leading to the sunporch, and another leading outside); the older they get the more they want to stay inside! Mots, our 16 year old sun-loving Buddha cat practically hibernated this Winter, not venturing out even on the warm days. She and Dottie are the same age, but Mots is showing it more. I suspect by next year Mots will have been moved in permanently.

  You all saw the hoop house greenhouses we built, but we still haven't planted a single seed! Yesterday we put up a fence around the beds using deer-netting to keep out the cats & dogs (we already have fencing around the yard itself to keep deer out). We have a plan for a permanent structure, stealing shamelessly from the ethereal, poetic garden enclosure at Sycamore Garden Center (click on the link, choose 'photos' from the menu; it's the photo marked 'vegetable garden'). We saw it as we drove by and I made Linda turn the car around so I could get a better look. Randy, the owner, was kind enough to allow us to photograph it, and by Fall we'll have built something similar. The image of it has stayed with me for months; there's a grace, poetry, other-worldness about it that I absolutely love. So ANYWAY, the temporary fencing is up, the location for the coop is staked out, along with the game plan for getting started (it's going to require we install gutters on the garage; deep and heavy sigh), and I'm taking Wednesday off from work to plant seeds and get the coop floor built. So we were busy even if we haven't started the fun stuff.

 Another sign of Spring? The changing of the dishes, from cozy, playful Winter moose

to the elegantly rustic Copper Leaf stoneware.

  About the Beast mentioned in the last post...I didn't give in. What I did do was was frozen pineapple, coconut milk and agave nectar to make a delicious, no-refined-sugar sorbet that did the trick. Can I confess something? I bought tortilla chips this weekend. I even had that processed-beyond-recognition nacho cheese dip in my basket until I read that it had sugar in it, and then I put it back on the shelf and replaced it with real shredded cheddar and Newman's own sugar-less salsa. As soon as I got home I made a plate of 'nachos'. Ya know what? It was good, but didn't wow me. I didn't crave more. In fact, I didn't touch the chips again all weekend. And the ginger beer craving? Well, I've discovered that 100% fruit juice--like an orange-pineapple blend--mixed with club soda is pretty darn good! The club soda cuts the natural sugar of the juice, lightens it up, and gave us the feeling of a indulging in a cold, refreshing soda when we'd been working in the sun for hours. Great discovery! Linda saw the doctor last week, and she was told her cholesterol is higher than it should be, so now we need to take that into account when planning meals. I'm still feeling we're having to be far too food-obsessed, which is good in that we're being so much more conscious of what we eat, but bad because I have lots of other things I'd rather think about! I've lost a few pounds; next step is combining this new way of eating with the Weight Watchers PointsPlus program. The doctor also told Linda it's time to exercise (yeah, same doctor told me that three months ago, too). So  we've agreed to do it together, starting with three evenings a week, taking turns on elliptical and treadmill. I need to do a shout-out to A Polish Grandaughter, and her Gypsy Soup blog post. We made this Moosewood recipe Saturday, and loved it!

It's lighter than one would expect, but filling, both sweet and savory. Thanks, Shel!

  So that's where life's at today...Spring's here despite the calendar, I'm holding back the Beast with whip, chair and Gypsy Soup, and another week is under way.

  How was your weekend?