Overview: January 2021

I did… not get a lot done this month. But here’s what I did manage!

A bundle of colorful carrots, held in a single hand. There are white, yellow, orange, and a few purple carrots; in the background, there is a weathered railing and the distant blur of a grassy yard.

I harvested (thinned out, technically) some small winter carrots out of our cold frames! And got a pretty good handful out of it, so I’d say that this experiment was a success!

Most of the carrots were cut up and roasted in the oven for supper one night, but the few purple ones went into making carrot juice, just to see what would happen. They made a lovely, deep purple juice! Sweet enough with a few apples tossed in that even I could drink it, and I’m not a fan of carrots. The tops got fed to the animals, so nothing got wasted, here!

An image of small brassica sprouts, growing out of seed blocks. The image is focused on one particular sprout that is just growing its first tiny true leaf.

After some small mishaps, I got the brassica and pansy seeds started for this year! It’s been interesting learning how to grow things in soil blocks- I’m still fiddling around and learning how they work, but I’m enjoying not having as much plastic involved in starting my seeds. Maybe next year I can get some wooden trays to replace my plastic ones!

An image of skeined, plied homespun yarn. From bottom left, diagonally up to upper right, there is a skein of brown merino wool yarn, in the middle, a skein of a purple and blue yarn, and lastly, a skein of white angora yarn. A small portion of a pinkish yarn is visible on the right side between the purple and white yarns. All the yarns are tied off with white ties.

I spun a collective 11 oz of fiber in January! 4 oz of brown merino wool, 4 oz of a beautiful purple-blue wool/silk colorway, and 3 oz of an angora/wool blend that felt like spinning a warm, cozy cloud. I still need to set the twist on them, but there’s snow outside and I don’t really have a place to hang them inside to dry, so they may or may not be headed to storage in a crate for a while…

An image of two jars of bath soaks, and two salves. On the lower left, a closed jar of salve lies on its side, the salve inside a soft yellow the color of beeswax. In the middle, an open jar of bright orange salve sits. On the right, a jar of salt with large chunks of pink salt and rose petals lies on its side. Finally, on the upper left side, a jar of mixed white and black salts is stood upright.

I designed some recipes for the ebook, made them, and I’m currently in the process of testing them! I’m quite satisfied with most of the ones I’ve come up with so far, but a few need more tweaking before I’ll be completely happy with them. But still, yay! Progress!

Image is of the contents of a terra-cotta pot, held in a blurry hand: inside the pot is a purple succulent, growing in a rosette. Four small baby offset rosettes can be seen to the left of the main rosette. In the background, there is a blur of greenery, and another unfocused terra cotta pot.

And finally, I actually did manage to pull out all my houseplants and give them all that care I really should have given them earlier. Oops?

Either way, etiolated stems have been cut (soon to be set in soil to root), fallen leaves collected off the succulents to try and propagate, dead leaves removed, treated for pests, and everyone’s been repotted into some nice, fresh soil! I did discover some spider mites being menaces on a few plants, so there’s a spray bottle with soapy water being brandished around every day or so for the foreseeable future.

That’s all for January this year! Not as productive as it could have been, but I’m pretty happy with what I got done! 😀

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