Well, it's a balmy day (near 25 degrees) today. After church we went over to the Big House (we live in the Little House) and had a delicious lentil-split pea soup with cornbread, jello and pie for dessert. Mmmmm, it was good.

There are advantages to living in the country and many, many to living next door to kith and kin. We live near our daughter and son-in-love and their six children. Of course, living in the country also requires having cats...we have 11 of them...and absolutely no mice! Three dogs make up the remainder of the inhabitants of the Blessed Life Ranch.

One of my favorite sites is to see Alex (my 15-year-old grandson) head out to do the chores in the morning with 11 cats following him to the barn for breakfast. It's like the pied piper of Hamlin.

I got my first shipment of garden seeds this past week. We plan to put in about 12,000 sq. ft. of garden. The last two years we have had very bountiful harvests despite some early spring flooding. I love gardening. I don't think anyone else here on the ranch has the same fervency about it, but it doesn't matter, because I'm going to plant and plant BIG as long as I am able. Last two years we have canned hundreds of jars of pickles, carrots, corn, green beans, peaches, cherries, and made enough jelly from the plum trees in the shelter belts to last the whole year. I love it! This year we hope to have enough peas to freeze. Last fall I found a shrewd way to use our bountiful crop of buttercup squash. Instead of hoping the squash won't spoil before we get it all eaten, I nuked them slightly to make them easy to clean then scooped out the luscious orange yum yums and froze it. What a great idea...we can have squash anytime we want without having to cut and cook etc. And it tastes like it just came out of the garden.

I plan to post during the entire gardening extravaganza so if you have an interest be sure to check back. I will be starting my green peppers by the middle of March and the tomatoes by the first of April.