New Year's Day 2026

Another New Year's Day. I hate to sound old and grouchy, but it used to mean a lot more to me, and not just because it was a paid holiday. It was a day to be at home, with Ron, and chill. Well, I'm home and I'm chilling, but it's me and dog. Deuce is good company. 

My 2026 is starting off on a sour note. My HVAC system is throwing what I hope is a minor fit. Oh, it runs fine. It just doesn't accept the command from the thermostat to shut off when the temperature is reached. Yeah. I go to the panel box and flip the breaker to shut it down. Not a big deal, but very annoying. It means I can't let the system on overnight. Again, not a big deal since I have a woodstove. The outside temp dropped to 22F last night and the house dropped to 68F at six o'clock this morning, so I'm not suffering at all. I repeat - it's annoying. My brother-in-law knows about such things and he's coming to take a look at it. 

We had a violent snow squall come through here last night. I stayed up to watch the ball drop in Times Square. My streak continues! Then around four, the sudden wind woke me. I looked out the window and it was a white-out. It came and went within fifteen minutes, but it's cold enough today that some snow remains on the ground. 

It may be a new year, but laundry respects nothing and no one. I did a load this morning to kick-off the new year in an old way. 

I think what really has me gnashing my teeth this new year's morning is that Microsoft is discontinuing Publisher in 2026. They make it sound like even those of us who BOUGHT A PROGRAM DISC will lose access to it. Damn them! I keep a backup document of every blog entry here, at Between the Keys, and Deuce's Day just in case. And of course, I used Publisher to do that for the ease of inserting photos and moving them around. Now I'm reduced to using Word. Yee haw. I can do it, but I don't want to!!! This blog entry will begin the new year and a new way of recording Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway.

Greeting a new year is always a mixed bag. I can look back and say I made it through 2025 despite the challenges along the way. My plan for 2026 is to maintain the status quo as much as possible. I don't want to work as hard in 2026 as I did in 2025. It's time for me to simply enjoy my little manor home, and that's my only plan. I hope you'll come with me. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, New Year's 2026, rural living, country lifestyle, laundry, sundry things, planning, surviving, loss of spouse, end of MSPublisher

January weather in December

Baby, it's cold outside! 

It was 35F at 6:00 AM, and the temp has dropped to 30F at 9:30 AM. It's windy as hell outside which means I'm going to burn a lot of firewood today. Burning more wood isn't a complaint. That's why me and the cousin split a lot each year - just in case. 

Living rural as I do, I watch and track our microclimate. Our recent temperatures are much colder than our usual Decembers. In fact, the temps are more in line with January. I know this is fact because I track the weather on my desk calendar, and carry that info forward each year. It's especially valuable as gardening season approaches. Yes, it's time to think about the 2025 garden and what it will look like for a single me.

Things outside are at a standstill here at the manor. Weather this cold means me and Deuce are limiting our time outdoors. Yes, he has a thick coat, but his paws can get very cold. He's just weeks short of nine years old and the last thing I want is for the cold to seep into his joints. I'll give him an aspirin if necessary, but why purposefully cause him a problem? I've noticed he likes sleeping on the soft bed more than on the floor beside my desk these days. 

Ron has been gone for eight months now, and some days I wonder why and how it is I can get up each morning and look forward to the day. How is it I'm suddenly wanting to map out and plan future activities? The days are shorter and give us less sunshine, and cold weather should have me hibernating but I'm not. I'm staying home, but I'm active inside (as much as possible) and ideas that will prevent me from becoming one with my recliner fill my head. 

I think this is a good thing. Living in the past isn't healthy. That doesn't mean I'll forget the past - oh, no. I hope I never forget the thirty years I spent with Ron at my side. But I've been taking baby steps forward lately. 

I think this is a good thing.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, rural living, country lifestyle, homestead, weather watcher, single living, widows, organization, planning, map for the future, a writer's life

The impulse purchase - it's not a bad thing!

I confess. I do shop at Walmart from time to time. They have quite a few pantry items at much lower prices than the local grocery. For example, our favorite Ragu spaghetti/pasta sauce is $.71 cheaper per jar. If I'm re-stocking the pantry with ten jars, that's quite a savings. 

So I was at Walmart, and I took the opportunity to wander around in the garden department to see what was already set out for the season. The seed packets called me over. It was a summons I couldn't ignore. Seriously! It was not my fault!!

Joking aside, I've been thinking I should include more flowers for the bees in my garden. The Lord of the Manor has, in one of his rare absolute authoritarian edicts, forbidden me a beehive. Okay, so he's scared of bees. He can't stop me from feeding the wild ones, ergo, flowers in the garden patch. Last year, the bees "worked" the begonias and marigolds, so expansion is called for in 2024.

I've got a seed starting area set up in the den using grow lights. This will be the first year for it and I hope it works out. In past years I've set seed trays in the sunroom, but that is also my office. With everything else going on this spring, I don't need that chaos in my workspace. Add to that I plan to reinstall the shade cloth over the sunroom porch around the first of April. That cloth blocks a lot of sunlight and keeps my office space cooler in the summer, but it would also block sunlight the sprouts need. 

The first of March is my target date for seed starting. A little before or a few days late matters not. Some time between the middle and end of April, the seedlings will migrate to the greenhouse to harden-off, and then be planted in the appropriate container around the first of May. And then we can sit in the garden and watch everything grow until it's time to harvest. 

I really think having lots of flowers mixed in with the veggies will be pretty to see and help create a relaxing area. I hope so, anyway.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, seed starting, gardening, rural living, country lifestyle, shade cloth, greenhouse, container planting, beehive, seed packets, seasonal living, organization, planning

Where do these fit in?

We have a big deer problem in my area. It got to the point where I dug a start of my favorite daylilies and put them in big pots to keep the critters from eating them! The other day, I stopped to see if there were green spouts, and there are. 

So do I risk my few daylilies by setting the pots in my garden area? I'm putting a fence around the garden, so maybe I do. It'll be easier to keep the pots watered if they're with the veggies. 

Maybe the middle of February is too soon to have everything all figured out, but I have this bucolic picture in my head of what my garden could look like this summer. 

And in my vision, the pots do not look like this!

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, rural living, country lifestyle, gardening, flower pots, daylilies, planning, a writer's life

 

It may be time to panic

Gardening season is fast approaching. I've jumped ahead and have begonia cuttings growing and Marigold seeds sprouting. They make me happy but they're only the beginning. Now is the time to organize. 

The shelving unit with wheels I got last year for seed trays is in the basement housing empty canning jars. I need to tidy up my stock room and get the unit up to my sunroom office.  

I need six bags of potting soil for the Greenstalk, and I need to paint the base I'm sitting it on. My first little greenhouse needs a makeover. The plastic has disintegrated but the frame is still good so I'm going to set it behind the newer greenhouse and cover it with a shade cloth so I can use it for something that likes a bit less sun.

I need to order a load of mulch for around the edges of the woven weed cloth that I purchased from Grower's Solutions. I need to get twenty T-posts to install deer prevention measures (fencing). I need to check growing times and mark down when I should start which seeds. 

As with just about everything, once the job is broken down into pieces, it doesn't seem so insurmountable. I did have a moment of panic the other day when I realized it was February - like February doesn't come around every year or something. 

Breaking it down, it will take maybe half an hour to straighten my stock room and bring the shelves up. Painting the base will take place over the course of a few days but only because the paint needs time to dry between coats. One trip to town will acquire potting soil and T-posts. One quick phone call will get mulch on order although I will have to make sure the ground is firm before I hop on the John Deere to spread it where I want it. Researching planting times will be a fun project for one evening. Planting the seeds in the trays is a couple of minutes on each appropriate day. 

Installing the T-posts will take the most time. I may need to enlist the help of a cousin for that as it may require more muscle than I possess. Even then, it won't take long. 

So it's not time to panic. It's time to stop and think it all through. It all will be done. I may even do the work in my stockroom this evening to get the shelving unit ready. 

I keep thinking I'm retired and I should be relaxing.....

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, greenhouses, panty, stockroom, deer prevention, planning, organizing, retirement

Apple Pie Filling for the WIN!

I need to face the fact that I will never get done canning homegrown and homemade foods for the pantry. I think it's some kind of addiction.  I had apples left over from making applesauce, but not enough to fill the canner with another complete batch of applesauce, so I made apple pie filling. 

No, I didn't end up with a complete batch of seven quarts of apple pie filling, either. I have a Presto 23-quart canner so a "batch" equals seven quarts, or nine pints if using the water bath method, or up to eighteen pints if pressure canning, or twelve half-pints in a water bath. Half-pints are usually jams and jellies or a specialty item like chutney. 

So...five quarts of apple pie filling. I'm happy with that and with the fact I have enough of the filling "sauce" left to open a jar of sliced apples from last year and bake a pie for Sunday dinner. Win-win. 

The apple pie filling was by far the most difficult processing I've done this year. You have to peel and slice the apples, blanch the apples, and drain the apples BUT KEEP THEM WARM! Yeah? Well, the best way to do that is to get them in the jars, get the sauce over them, and get them in the canner. And...the sauce. It's an easy recipe and it's delicious, but it goes from liquid to thick in three seconds flat. It needs stirring while the apples need warming. Holy crap! I brought out the old two-burner hotplate because I needed to spread out for this operation!

It worked and I guess that's all that matters. I had quite a sticky mess to clean up while the jars processed for twenty-five minutes. I'm five for five on the seals, and we'll have a few apple pies to keep our bellies happy this winter. 

I'm very pleased with my summer food preservation efforts. I don't know what next summer will bring, but I plan to spend the cold months reading canning books, making soups, and getting ideas for next summer. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, home food preservation, canning, Presto, apple pie filling, gardening, soup, books, planning, simple country pleasures, rural lifestyle, a writer's life, applesauce, pantry prepping