The rain continues

Feh. I'm inside, making gluten-free brownies. Half get nuts, half not, since C. has lost a filling and nuts are a pain for her to eat. Our grandbabies are teething; she says she's reached the unteething years.

Garden club meeting last night. Steve talked about his "wintersown" experiments, starting seeds in clamshell containers from the grocery store and putting them outside in the snow for an über-early start. He overwinters peppers, too, in his shop, and gets slow growth and peppers during late fall and early spring. He's an idea guy, always trying new things and building gardening gadgets. Jane talked abut defeating the ever-hungry pocket gopher with raised beds made of old refrigerators and dishwasher shells. I'd like to keep gophers out of the garden, but don't want all those appliance shells littering the garden and shedding paint. We're messy enough as it is. She grows fodder for her animals like I do. She has Hashimoto's, too, and encourages me to go gluten- and even grain-free. Kevin, resplendent in shorts and striped Pippi Longstocking socks, offered to share some heavy commercial sacks/totes – the kind that allow forklifts to haul a ton of spuds around the warehouse. Jim demonstrated fruit-tree pruning. He says you have to be brutal, and then showed us on his poor "volunteer" tree, a service berry in a Christmas-tree stand. It was fit for Charlie Brown when he finished.

I'm toasty today, and going to take it easy.

Bambi greeted me in the driveway as I pulled in last night at 9,  the brat. So she is still getting out. I'll have to figure out where, and fix the damn hole. At least she seems content to stay at home.

On the agenda for this afternoon is mixing up some GF honey-mustard dressing. I checked the labels on our salad dressing from the store, and it's all got some little nasty thing: maltodextrose, MSG, dried corn syrup.... I tried to make a GF ranch yesterday, and it was pretty bleah. But there are lots of easy recipes out there, and I'm sure I can find a good one.

Oh, yeah, I need to chit the six pounds of Kennebec potatoes I bought at NW Seed Monday. Chitting is cutting them into chunks, each with an eye, then sitting them out for a day or two to cure.

C. is outside splitting wood. We've done without a fire for on the warmest days this spring, but usually have one in the evenings. On damp, dreary days like today we burn a small one all day.

Four eggs today; five yesterday.