Welcome to spring, kind of! Here winter is still dragging on….
Our really good weather usually gets here in April, that's when stuff really starts blooming. Every year I think spring is late, but then look at my pics and realize it's right on schedule. Guess I'm just tired of the colder weather.
Geoff is working now, Yea! Due to so many places raising their hour minimum he's making almost what I retired on…..
He's doing well and really likes his job, which is working for the sister cities Senior Activity Center. He's a millennial that just digs old folks, he gets along well with them. He is doing janitorial duties.

I want some spring weather, too, but from the other direction. It has been too hot.

Lynda, that is awesome! You must be delighted. It's so good to have a place to go and things to do and be needed and appreciated. And $ doesn't hurt.

Ugh, Kelli. I can hardly imagine too hot but I trust you. I'll add pics from my phone later. We walked to see native bluebells in the woods.

Lynda, sounds like your son is doing great in his new job, I'm sure the extra cash will be a big help with prices on everything going up.

We walked around a pond, through the woods, to the river where drifts of these bluebells bloom in spring, along with spring beauties, mayapples, trout lily which I grew up calling dogtooth violet? I think? And maybe more, unfortunately plenty of invasive species too. And signs of the beavers.

Didn't you just want to give that trunk a little push?

The weather is NOT drawing me outside today. I am still thankful that the horrible spring of 2020 had really beautiful garden weather for us.

We are weeding at the library, which in our system means any book that has sat on our shelf for more than a year is on the chopping block. We delayed, hoping usage would rebound more than it has.
I'm now looking at many, many books that have sat unchecked out since early 2020, and still have a hard time wrapping my head around - this is 2 years later? like 2020/2021 was just one big blob of lost time. Anyone shopping used books, you may see a LOT of barely touched ex-library books hitting the used book market. We have a service come get them and try to sell or donate. But in my location at least, it is not the popular authors but the less-mainstream fiction. Translated from other languages, slimmer paperbacks that get lost between standard size hardbacks (could be a lesson to learn there on how we display).

I'm so glad Geoff is working, it seems to be making him mature right before my eyes!
Well, the only thing that hasn't gone up in price here is my water bill; I suppose I've jinxed myself now. Groceries are horrendous so I'm buying much more store (Kroger) brands because I get a 10% discount on them. I'm also using lots of coupons, the digital Kroger ones. I'm saving anywhere from 35 to 50 dollars per trip.And now given that we have an avian flu pandemic on our hands, expect chicken and egg prices to skyrocket as commercial flocks are destroyed. We are a big chicken state and our Dept. Of Agriculture has issued new laws about avian flu.
I'm just hoping it will be over by this fall so the 4 H kids can show their birds at the fair. That's a law now, no poultry shows.

I played an actual full-length concert last night. As least full-length except for the intermission which was just a 10 minute stretch. First concert since Feb. 2020. And there's another, with a different group in 2 weeks.

Hope you're soon playing to a full house!

That's great, Ann.

Lynda, I didn't realize there was a new issue with avian flu. That's awful!

We've become really dependent on chicken, so something like this can really impact our food supply -- not unlike the Irish with their potatoes years ago. Maybe the poultry industry will realize the need to diversify? Different chicken breeds, maybe even see if we can get people eating rabbit (which are at least as good at converting feed to meat).

My mom was perfectly willing to cook rabbit, and did a few times, as long as it was cut up. She said she just could not put a whole one in the oven with its four little legs sticking up!

Yay Ann!

I read that the English ate alot of rabbit and very little chicken before about WW2 I think it was. Or WW1. Something 20th century.
At least chicken has a faster turn around time than beef.

Jill, I agree, rabbit is a great protein, I had it as a kid growing up and I loved it. They are fast breeders and could easily take the load off the chicken farmers. People are funny, it's ok to eat chicken, pigs and cows, but it's not ok to eat rabbit. The problem right now is it is very overpriced.

Nor do we eat horse in this country, and many feel emotionally opposed to venison.

Having interacted with some pretty sharp and personable octopuses (different species, so yes, octopuses not octopi), I can't bring myself to eat octopus. But I'll eat squid. Emotional preferences are very individual!

I ate horse meat when I lived in Quebec, there it was legal to sell it at the butcher shops. as I recall it tasted much like beef, and I have no problem eating venison and lamb. Not sure about goat, I have never eaten it, not sure I want to especially if it tastes like it smells.

IF we all met our chickens, cows and pigs, living humanely (not as livestock are raised commercially) we'd probably find some of them sharp and personable. Just sayin.. We are incredibly lucky and not nearly grateful enough that there are a whole lot of people doing the killing and processing for us, for what we commonly buy. And I'm not trying to lecture anybody.

A thought I got from a book by Gary Paulsen, which is probably a common thought- what a person is willing to eat depends a lot on how hungry they are.

Well, for this date and this location it is cold today, but at least not yet windy. It's been such a windy month.

I'm not a big fan of red meat unless it's boneless, totally free of fat and gristle or ground up. Therefore, I'm not wild about these alternatives though I have eaten venison. Bison is very lean. We did try kangaroo when in Australia. I regularly cook pork tenderloin in a large enough quantity to get 6 meals (that's 3 of them). I slice it thinly when done and then freeze the portions. The marinade has orange juice, soy sauce, oil, honey, Dijon mustard and lots of garlic. Haven't eaten rabbit though I've seen it in Farm Boy. I'd much rather have a piece of salmon filet or chicken breast than a steak.

Went to aquafit and left 10 minutes later. Crappy instructor I could have ignored, but music that was too loud even with my earplugs on, I couldn't ignore. My closest local pool has incompetent management and hasn't been able to hire a Monday aquafit instructor.

There is a squirrel around here that anyone is welcome to eat. It digs up everything we plant.

When we were in France, I ate some mystery meat and I often wonder if it was horse. The texture and appearance was like beef, but the flavor was a little different. When eating it, it didn't occur to me that it could be horse and I don't know what I would have done had I thought that. It was a small piece from a buffet, so it's not like I would have gone hungry or wasted my money if I didn't eat it.

I know not eating octopuses is a quirk... but there's some evidence that they (at least the larger species) are smart on about the same level as cetaceans or great apes.

I hadn't weighed myself for a while, and I wasn't sure what to expect when I got on the scale this morning... I've continued watching portion size and not eating unless I'm pretty hungry (but not so starving that I'll eat three times what I need), but I haven't been as careful about calorie-dense foods. And last time I weighed myself, I hadn't lost anything in a month. But, hooray! I'm down another 5 pounds, about 15 pounds since this effort began. That's about the same amount that Josie lost, LOL, and now she's at her "perfect weight." I have a way to go, although I'm shooting for "healthier" rather than "perfect!"