Lately the weather has been cold, grey, and wet. I suppose it’s like this every year around this time, but this year I’m finding it particularly cold and grey. This is the first year I’ve had not working or in school since I can remember, so I have a lot of time to observe changes in the weather day by day. While it’s true that the snow is melted, birds are singing, and flowers are starting to come up, there’s a chill to the wind. This damp coldness makes me want to sit inside with a cup of tea, a warm sweater, and do cozy activities like making bread. I find it hard to believe that in a month or so the world will explode with colour.

When my son was born in mid-December, my friend dropped off a lovely package of homemade bread, soup and hand-knit baby bath towels. I was completely in awe of the bread, it was so beautiful, with a perfectly crisp crust and a soft fluffy interior. Recently when I saw her and thanked her for the bread she told me “Oh you can do it! All you need is four ingredients (salt, yeast, water, and flour) and time!”. While my spare time is limited these days, I do have spare moments where I can put together some dough and plenty of time to wait for it to rise. So far I have experimented with making basic white bread, seed bread, and raisin bread using my dutch oven. All of the recipes require very limited kneading so are quite easy to make!

The gardening centres are starting to open and I’m itching to go. We ordered a number of fruiting shrubs and plants that will come in early May to continue to grow out our pollinator garden including grapes, raspberries, quince and blackberries. We’re also going to continue working on converting our lawn space into clover. I’m also planning on getting some more shelters for pollinators including a bat house and a solitary bee nest. I can’t wait to spend time outside and to introduce my son to the outside world.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying seeing the bulbs we planted in the autumn transforming into little flowers – our daffodils, tulips, and crocuses are beginning to emerge. I’m also working on growing some vegetables by seed, however, I’m uncertain on how successful I will be! So far I have sprouts for okra, broccoli, garlic chives and tomatoes.

In the next week, I plan on going to order our hanging baskets, and going on some short hikes with my son. In the garden I hope I have some time to cut back our shrubs and work on aerating the grass and clover.

I’ll hopefully write again next week!