On New Year’s Day when I went out to go to the barn for chores, it was even more spring-like than the previous 2 days. The birds were singing, it was warmer, and the light!
Everything was wet from the rain and I tried to get the light reflecting off the MacIntosh tree.
I turned around from the tree photo and saw the parsley was still alive. I’d never been able to harvest it in the autumn.
The parsnips still had green even after the cold we’d had. I’m still hoping to harvest them on Wednesday afternoon.
In the New East garden the lungwort looked pretty good, given the temperatures we’ve had. The Jacob’s ladder behind it is also doing really well. On the back right is lovage.
In 1994 this is what we usually saw in January. The bottom rail of the fence is 18” above the ground. This is the front yard, where the New Herb garden is now.
I got my morning stuff done and decided I wouldn’t be walking so much and should do a short bit on the treadmill. I’d made it up to 2.2 mph for 3 minutes so I did that and sat down a while about 8:30AM. It takes me a long time to build speed and time on the treadmill.
All the sudden I had to lay down, the long covid crap had hit. I slept until 11AM when I had to get up to get ready for spending time with my friend on New Year’s Day. I got a shower and got started.
First I set up the eggnog station. I know the bottle says milk, but the red cap indicates it is raw cream. I used canned coconut milk for the milk and my friend was bringing that. We would grate fresh nutmeg for the top. Fresh is so different than pre-ground!
Next I stuffed the dates with blue cheese as that is a favorite of my friend. I’d always had them with cream cheese so this would be different. (I didn’t care for the blue cheese, so she got them all!)
There were dark grapes, mixed nuts, carrots, and 3 kinds of crackers mixed together. We also added olives later.
When she arrived about 12:30, we checked out the trees, and made eggnog. Then we watched a Christmas movie and made the pizza. It had 3 cheeses, tomato sauce, spinach pesto, spinach leaves, broccoli crumbles, artichoke hearts, sliced olives, and her half had cherry tomatoes. Later we grated more cheese on the top to bind it together. We would cook it at her house, so we readied it for transport.
We steamed the chestnuts and set them on the back porch to cool. We’d roast them at her house.
I got the window candles on, did the cats, and at 4:30 we headed to her house. We stopped at Look Park to check out the lights display. This woodpecker moves back and forth, pecking the tree.
The wings on the hummingbird move also. The lights under it are another display down the road, a man and woman decorating a tree.
The tail on the dragon moves back and forth. This one was one of my friend’s favorites.
Once we got to her house and got everything inside, we went to see her tree. She had a live tree but had decided not to use real candles any more. So she got these little ones, each with a battery and sensor. This is the largest tree she’s had in forever. It was nearly as tall as mine!
In the past, because of the real candles, she always had a small tree that accommodated them. She had been able to put most of her ornaments on this year. Some of them I’d never seen before. It was fascinating finding all the special ornaments.
We got more eggnog and set the pizza to cooking. Then we got her TV/video player set up to play one of my VHS movies we’d brought. We ate the pizza and sat down to the movie. Halfway through we stopped and got the chestnuts roasted.
She melted butter and squeezed a lemon for dipping the chestnuts in. This was the first time we’d tried steaming/roasting chestnuts. In the past she had done them under the broiler of the oven.
We soon discovered we’d not made long enough slits in the shells, as they were hard to peel. But they were perfectly cooked inside. We ate about half of them and it was getting late for us when we finished. So we didn’t finish the movie, packed up, and headed back to my house. Another trip through Look Park on the way and I was home at 9:30.
I sat down for a while, then got the stoves set and the candles turned off and went to bed. I started a stomach ache and was sick around 1:30 AM. I slept off and on the rest of the night and all through Monday, reading sometimes when awake. I was just exhausted, the long covid had struck hard.
This was NOT how I planned to start the New Year. Oh well, Tuesday’s another day. Hopefully I will have recovered and be able to pick up where I left off 2 days before.