SNOW!

Finally! Snow! At least I think that is what the white stuff coming out of the sky is, and it is supposed to snow all week! Oh thank the Heavens! It has been way too long! I saw on the news last week that we are 80 percent below normal snowpack halfway through the snowfall season. Oh dear Lord, please protect us this summer! I am so worried about the lack of moisture. I remember the red skies and smoke filled mornings of fire seasons gone past, and dread what may be in store for us. The haze that hangs over the mountains, the orange flickers of flame shooting up from behind the peaks, and I worry that this may be by far the worst fire season I have yet to see. I heard a rumor that the last time it was this dry for the winter, Yellowstone burned. That would have been 1988 I think. I am nervous. Very very nervous, about what this spring and summer will bring us. I am afraid crops will be unable to grow for lack of runoff, and I am afraid there will be an overpopulation of animals that would have other gone to natural selection in the harsh elements this winter has yet to see. I am afraid that Yellowstone, or some other wonderful forest, maybe in my very backyard, will burn out of control, and we will endure another season of hazy red skies and the stench of woodsmoke everywhere you go. Don’t get me wrong, I love the smell of woodsmoke, but when it is consuming the very world around you, it gets a bitter smell about it that you can’t quite explain. I imagine it is the smell of green material burning. It hurts your lungs and plugs up your nose. It means you have to brush the ashes off your car before you can go to work in the morning. It makes for beautiful sunsets and sunrises, but it is always in the air around you and there is no escaping it. Oh, I dread fire season.

The ashes will probably help keep my cabbage moths at bay, which is the problem pest I plan to conquer this year. I seem to figure out how to manage one real pest a year. It took me forever to figure out ants. They don’t cross cinnamon, so I put a bunch of cinnamon down in my garden one year. It worked like a champ, or so I thought. I had the best plump red top sticking up all covered in cinnamon powder. I pulled them up full of excitement and anticipation, only to discover that they had just gone under the cinnamon, and there were a hundred or more ants munchin on the radish I pulled up. OK, I declare war! I really don’t want to pour a bunch of harsh chemicals on my garden, or in my soil, so I tried every trick I could find. Vinegar and honey in a dish, dishsoap and such and such… and every other recipe I could find. Nothing worked! I finally broke down and hit the local home and garden store. I was lucky enough to find Grants Kills Ants there. They are ant stakes. They poison the ant by taking it back to the queen, They work. They also come under a different name, but that escapes me right now, but it is the packaging that the competitor uses and is almost identical to the Grants package. I don’t have to put any poisons on my crops or in my dirt. Just stick the little stakes in the ground all around my gardens. I swear by them and I always have plump juicy radishes now! I am now battling the mighty cabbage moth! I have been battling them for some time now, and they got ALL of my Brassica’s this year! Oh I was unhappy about that! I have tried netting the plants, I have tried spraying with onion and garlic infused water…that works for a few minutes, but it smells so bad, like someone bottled up some concentrates BO and you gotta spray it all over them things every day….if the wind is blowing you get the pleasure of smelling like you used cologne eau du armpit that day! It was not effective enough for the little buggers to go away and it was way more work than it was worth! I am on a mission. Another person told me to put ash on all my brassica’s. Well, I am still trying to figure out how to do that, and I assume it will be the same as the spray and need to be reapplied every day. I will get thee…you stubborn cabbage moths!

I am enjoying the snow today, what a cozy day to sit at my blog with a cup of coffee. I have a big list of chores and projects to do today, and after two days of catching up on sleep, I think I am finally ready to bust out that list. I got a few things done yesterday, but not near as much as I would have liked. The few things I did get done will make today’s portion of the chores go much faster though.

I finally sat down and got to work on my Bible Study Homework for the week. I have been a little behind in my daily life as I learn how to add managing a fundraiser to my responsibilities. I did half of my homework last night, and I hope to do the other half today. I just love how God works in my life, and how the Bible study I am in always seems so prevalent in my life at the moment. I am amazed at the way God can take a subject matter, and draw something so pertinent to each of us through each study. Omnipresent, no doubt! I could not have had a more pertinent time to be in this particular study, and so far I love the book of James. I find that in the very first verses, I am blessed with a natural ability to see joy in what appears to be hardship, as I watch the women around me discuss this and read the commentary that Beth makes, I cannot help but notice how incredibly lucky I am to have a natural grasp of this concept. I am a humanitarian by nature, and I look forward to this Bible Study as much as I looked for ward to the Revelations study. I have had so many prayers answered this week. I would not even know where to begin to sum it up, but I think every single personal prayer I have put out there has been blatantly answered with the exception of the one big one, and I have no doubt it is coming in due time. When God feels like I am ready, He will put me there, I am certain, and I have heard His promise. I can be patient, appreciate the blessings and answered prayers, and see how each of them is leading me to the big one. I love God. He is so good!Last week I was feeling stagnant, as though I was here, waiting for something to take me forward. This week I see that I was moving forward the whole time, I just had not come public about it yet. Today I realize that I have had lots of small opportunities this week to get me closer to that big goal, all of which I handled and didn’t even realize I was handling till yesterday. I realize that this benefit is a huge deal, and as much as I went into it for my good friend and her family, it is opening a door to something bigger for me, which I never, ever intended on or considered. It has confirmed for me, a natural leadership skill, and it has opened doors to all kinds of new relationships, many of which could directly affect the formation of RMRR. I have also discovered that I am good at keeping peace among a group of volunteers, and that I can effectively reassure an overwhelmed volunteer that it will be ok.

In the last few days, it seems like a forum has opened up. It seems that everywhere I go, and whatever I do, I get some kind of opportunity to share skills and knowledge that I have acquired. The very skills and knowledge I will be sharing at RMRR. I feel like this has been a huge blessing. I have been talking about the books I am working on with a variety of people, and I feel like I have been blessed to get to work with this community!

My house is manageable, and I even find time for crafting. I am heading a huge fundraiser that is coming together beautifully, and I have a great family. I am being given lots of resources to work with and I am enjoying my Bible Study, with a new Bible Study Buddy! Yay! It is finally snowing, and I am looking forward to what promises to be an adventure filled week! Thank you Lord, for my bounty!