random notes from a winter day

This morning Della wanted me to wake up and get up, and demonstrated this by walking across my chest repeatedly, and sometimes flinging herself down across my collarbone as if she was going to go to sleep (yay!) but then getting up seconds later and starting the Grand March again. Usually it's Moxie who wants me to get up before dawn, and she indicates this by patting my face gently with one paw. There are worse ways to be awoken, and besides, Moxie knows that if I don't get up right away, she might as well go back to bed. If Della's new method becomes an ongoing thing it's going to be more challenging, because when I resisted the marching and flinging, she escalated things by knocking an unknown item off the bedside table. Okay, fully awake now, Della - was that my water bottle? But it's still totally dark so no one is going outside just yet.

I turned on the lamp and decided to finish knitting the decreases to shape the sock toe begun the night before. After perhaps an hour, I reached the final fiddly row - I was working with seven little needles - and somehow dropped a stitch. After many, many minutes of trying to see the decreases well enough to reclaim the drop, then unravelling a couple of rows to try to find a perfect row to pick up and knit from, I finally did what would have made the most sense in the first place: I pulled out the whole toe, reclaimed the 68-stitch row prior to the toe shaping, and put the sock aside because now it was light enough to see the snow still falling and the first little birds arriving for breakfast. Let the morning chores begin, Della!

Fed the cats, fed the stove, and went out to water the hens and feed the wilds - birds and squirrels. I bring the big seed feeder and the suet feeder in every night and put them out again as soon as it's light enough to see. There are also two little hanging teacup feeders that I leave out because they are usually completely empty by dusk and also they are right outside my window and when the little birds arrive just before dawn they land there and alert me that if I'm not already heading outdoors, I should be.

There are many creatures with a demonstrated interested in my routines.

Is it snowing where you are? It's been snowing here since the wee hours, and a wet snow it is - every trip outside today has meant a soaked coat left to dry by the heater. Even the goats have spent most of the day in their shelters, because it's so wet out. Makes a change from the bitter cold and strong winds we've been having in recent days and weeks, but the cold doesn't bother the goats as much as the wet, and I feel much the same. But now it's going on 3 PM and it's so gloomy that I'm going to get out there again for early Evening Chores. And take a cautious walk down to the letterbox as well, because a pound of crimson clover seed was delivered earlier today. Nothing like a packet of seed to make Winter seem very much here.

Are you planning your gardens? I updated my Seed Inventory - an actual spreadsheet, which was well worth the effort a year or two ago - and concluded that I don't "need" to buy anything but pole beans and possibly some herb seeds this year. So I celebrated my efficiency by ordering a pound of clover seed for a 2025 experiment in competition. May the crimson clover win!

Meanwhile, here's hoping my boots have had time to dry, because I'm outward bound. I can see Violet in the doorway of the barn, looking for That Woman With The Hay.