~ sign in store ~
(someone sent me this photo)

We are enjoying very cold temperatures here. I awoke to snow flurries yesterday morning and put longjohns under my bluejeans after I'd been out and damn near froze, and cranked the furnace on this morning. Will put an extra blanket on the bed tonight.

Aside from the weather (it rained so much over the weekend that we had water come into our basement again, so after six months of that crap it still isn't really dry down there, and everyone in the area is experiencing the same thing -- the water table is so high this year), life is going on much as usual.

Emil and Everett are back at school so there are fundraisers to contribute to. This weekend the high school kids are putting on a community meal to earn money for their student council activities. Each family donates something (this year my boys and I will transform 5 lbs of ground beef into meatballs and sauce; last year we prepared a vat of mashed potatoes) to the meal and the kids set up at the Wadena Legion Hall and serve it to whoever comes out in support.

There was finally a hard frost the other night so my flowers are done now, darn it. I had so been enjoying the sweetpeas and poppies that were still in full bloom. Oh well. Now one has to look up and listen instead, for there are hordes of Canada Geese flying over on their way south for the winter.

Our neighbour, who gave me 10 gallons of cucumbers in August (with which I made dill pickles to supply our household and that of Scott's parents for the winter), just gave me a five-gallon pail full of ripe tomatoes along with a request that I make salsa for her to give to her two adult children, who apparently are quite enamoured with some salsa I gave her last year. So as soon as I get to town again this week I'll be buying peppers and getting down to chopping.

Violet, who is an extremely hard worker (one of the highest virtues in these parts), grows a big garden, milks a Jersey cow, and raises chickens, is my supplier of cream, butter and eggs. I have to twist her arm to get her to let me pay her for any of the stuff, and then she loads me up with fresh garden produce every chance she gets, too. So I am very pleased she's asked me to make this salsa for her; I don't like to always be the taker.