Friday, family was here. My brother and his wife, sister and her kids, mom. Mom I see a couple times a week. Sister a couple times a year, brother once a year or less. Having them here was lovely. Food, conversation, time spent together. It was supposed to rain all day, but there were some dry breaks, so my sister was able to actually see the property for the first time ever, and my brother for the first time since it was raw land.

Mom and I did the last of the planting for this year: I did decide to stick the apple trees in (with personal greenhouses to protect them), her japanese maple and flowering crab, an oak, 2 more apple trees, 2 more hazelnut and 1 blueberry. Whatever remains in her orchard will have to wait now until spring. At this point, it becomes iffy as to whether they would have enough time to establish roots before the winter freeze. I have no more flags left, and we had to mark a few with old tent poles and stakes.

Saturday was rainy, windy and sullen. We didn’t do much. Brother and SIL stayed Fri night and spent the morning with us, leaving for their event just after lunch. They didnt get back until well past dark.

Saturday night, I was dealing with some anxiety. Current events in the world and life in general gets to me sometimes. Art therapy is usually my go to on that level. I decided it was finally time to try out the felting needles. A couple months ago, I played with wet felting and made a basic background. This time, I added the detail on top with the needles. Staying up until 1am stabbing about 10,000 times is quite cathartic. It turned out okay, too.

Sunday was the usual hygeine day. Baths, laundry, pick up the mail, charge the electronics. Visit the goats and ducks. The goats are hard at work, clearing out the raspberry canes that have swallowed one area of the yard.

Today is rainy and grey again. My asthma isn’t liking it much, and it doesnt help that I built a truly terrible fire this morning that took over an hour to produce more flame than smoke. I got the log holder assembled, though, and will get it filled up later, if the rain stops. I also ordered the tarps for the log piles so they can start drying out, too.

I doubt today will be immensely productive. I have some tomato sauce that needs to be canned up, but otherwise it is sort of a huddle and hibernate kind of day so far.