MR GROUNDHOG SAYS, "EARLY SPRING". DO YOU BELIEVE HIM?

February 2nd is Groundhog Day and Mr. Groundhog certainly didn't see his shadow today. That means we'll get an early spring...  It's been gloomy, snowy and overcast. The weather is rather mild and it's a good thing. We attended a funeral service for a dear family friend who was 99 years young. Adele would have been 100 in May but she certainly didn't look her age. She died two weeks after a fall. After her fall, she decided that maybe it was time to move to an assisted senior complex... Our large church was packed even though it was snowing heavily at the time.

 It stopped snowing for a short time and it's now snowing again...

What to do when Spring is not far away, but it's still wintering outside? I dream of tending my flower gardens of course. If everything goes as plan, I'll be retiring from dairy farming in the spring. I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed. I'm not afraid to get bored as I have more hobbies than I can do even if I lived to be 100.

I've been looking at my seeds catalogs and writing down what seeds I want to buy.

 It's unbelievable how expensive the seeds have gotten since I started gardening many years ago. I only had a few gardens then and with no money to buy plants, I bought little packets of seeds. They were very cheap then.  I remember my first little makeshift greenhouse was a large picnic table turned upside down and I draped it with a large sheet of heavy plastic. I would pull back the plastic in the morning and put it back on in the evening, somewhat like a cold frame and I had great results.
 I'm hoping that I will have more time to do some weed prevention this spring but I'm only dreaming.

I started this little rug April 2017, since the backing was too small for my frame, I basted some wool strips to stretch over the frame.I'll be weeding that grass and try to hook the grass differently. THat baby is sleeping with one eye open, lol...

I've also pulled out my not so great Rock-A-Bye Baby rug and I've resumed hooking the sky. I've been using leftover wool worms for everything but the sky as it was a challenge rug but since our daughter, Nicole passed away, I kind of lost interest and just put it away for a while. It's rather smallish for me as I was using a small leftover piece of linen burlap backing that I had hanging around.

I design all my own rugs and just can't be bothered to buy a ready made pattern. Someday, I may do a portfolio of my hooked rugs, just for fun.

Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving comments. I really appreciate it when you take the time to let me know that you came to say "Hi"
Hugs, Julia

I'M COMING OUT OF HIBERNATION EARLY DESPITE THE COLD.

I think that the time to return to blogging is finally here. I seem to finally have more spare time. Life got really busy and I got myself very tired... and then it was the old slow computer woes, the old car problems, shopping for a new vehicle, getting the house ready for the Merry Maids prior to getting family visitors and being sick for a whole month, getting a new computer and having all the pipes frozen in the barn and all the bad weather etc.

In early December I got sick with a very bad cold that lasted over a month and it left me totally exhausted. I'm finally feeling my old self again.  I've noticed the daylight time is getting longer and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I'd had been having some security concerns and other small issues with my old and new my new computer and when I got my son in law, Bill to take a look at it yesterday, he got everything to work as it should with some minor adjustments here and there. I  had even stopped commenting on blogs because my computer was telling me the blog sites I was visiting were not secured sites.  I think it's a Blogger issue as so many blogger sites are no longer secure.  The regular blog sites I was visiting no longer had that little green padlock icon with https:// at the top of the page and it made me nervous.

Here is the little padlock that I'm talking about at the top of the page.  it used to show an "i" icon instead of the padlock and when I clicked on the "i" icon, it would tell me that the site was not secure and how many cookies were there.

To secure my site, I went to Settings and clicked.

For an unknown reason, my https was set on no and I have no idea how that happened. I clicked on that little arrow and clicked on Yes and I got my blog secured again.

And that's my little blogging for today.
I hope you are all coping with this unusual winter without too much trouble.
Stay safe and well.
Hugs, Julia