More crocus bloomed today, and while looking around and testing the soil for thaw point, I noticed that the raspberries have broken their dormancy. Already. We bought a blackberry and planned on taking the center “raspberry” out and moving it to the other side of the house while putting the blackberry in it’s place. So I’ve done the transplant and hope it likes the sunny side of the moon. It was a pretty hefty cluster of raspberry canes and there was one left in the hole after I’d moved it, so I’ve tossed it in a pot and am offering it to Ken’s co-worker/spouse, K. It’s a fair sized one, so I hope it does well for them. They’ve a baby due this fall so it’ll be nice for them to have raspberries next year.

We still have snow, though it’s melting quickly and the soil is warming (thank goodness! I planned on planting beets and turnips this weekend!). I’ve been going out each day, poking and prodding, clearing leaves and providing pathways for the melt to flow downhill. This morning I looked up to see how early we had crocus last year and it was March 23rd, so I figured we had a while to wait. Lo and behold…

This was taken moments after I found it, called V over to show him, then left him to look for ladybugs while I went into the garage to find a rake and rake the leaves out of the bed. “Look Mommy! A Fwower!” At least he loved it properly, and tenderly carried it around for a good half hour while playing with bugs and rocks and other boy things.

The daffodils are sprouted as well, and I did some clearing out of the lilac bed (the thawed half – half is in shade most of the time). The lilac’s are inundated with grass seed and it’s next to impossible to get out. I also cleared off and snipped up the peppermint and oregano beds – both got really scraggly. This year I’ll be splitting them both and planting spearmint with the peppermint (they can battle royale for possession of the bed) and chamomile with the oregano (though with how aggressive the oregano has turned out, we’ll see how well the chamomile does.

I also transplanted all my tomatoes this past weekend. They grew like *crazy* and I’m grateful we’re having an early spring. *knock on wood*.

The Peppers and Eggplant are massive. I’m trying to pretend otherwise while trying to figure out how to slow them down.

The tomatoes are doing well. Surprisingly the hybrids are doing way better this year than last – no idea why.

The celeriac is growing at a slow and steady rate – which is how I’d *expected* the tomatoes and peppers to grow. *grumble*

Tonight, after a fairly uneventful day, the boys ate (in their terms) enormous dinners. A bowl of ketchup rice each and a glass of milk is standard. Ethan had a protein drink since he passed up on broccoli (and because we’re mean) but then asked for an additional glass of milk after that. Victor had a bowl of broccoli and glass of milk and then asked for *another* glass of milk and carrots.

I easily see the future wherein they eat us out of house and home. It’s a good thing I’m starting to make more of our food (cheaper, better for us) since we’ll need to save every penny.

Today I baked my first artisan loaf from my new cookbook, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. The premise is that you mix up very wet dough and don’t kneed it and time takes care of the gluten-enhancing for you. It was a complete success! Super easy and utterly delicious. I mixed up the dough on Thursday and just left it in the fridge (it keeps for as long as 2wks) to develop a bit of a sourdough flavour (the longer it sits the more sourdough-ish it becomes). Took out a bit, shaped it, rested on parchment paper, tossed onto the baking/pizza stone, tossed a couple ice-cubes into the bottom of the oven (instead of steaming – neat trick, huh?) and a short while later we had deLICIOUS bread for lunch. Simply stunning! With the “Master Recipe” in the book I can make all kinds of recipes, too – everything from focaccia and pizza to baguettes and sandwich bread (and artisan loaves). I can’t wait to try them all out!

(ps. Victor just finished his 2nd milk and then said “Can I have some candy, too?”… bottom.less.pit.)

I finally uploaded my pictures from last week’s snowfall.

The first snowfall.

The 2nd (3rd?) snowfall.

This is our driveway. :/

Here’s the *tall* garden bed. It’s about 22″ tall (the wood part) and we hadn’t shoveled or walked back there before the snowfell, so it’s all snow. Smushed under it’s own weight, but, yeah.

And since it was so cold, even Ken (who hates wearing scarves) had to wear a scarf…

(this is Louis, our troublemaker, who loooooves to wrap himself around our necks and hangout – any time we’re at the table.)

It seems that Ethan has a “special friend” at school. A little girl named Victoria. He likes her and she’s pretty and she kisses his boo-boos (and only his). All this came about because Ethan got a tiny scratch this morning and he said Victoria would kiss it better so we asked about her. He doesn’t, as far as I know, know the term “girlfriend”, so we’re just referring to her as his special friend. He’s got class pictures today, so I’m interested to see what she looks like.