Sleet.

As I type, the Texas sky has opened up and sleet (sleet!) is dropping down out of it. I can hear it falling on the roof, the trees, the driveway....... of all things-- sleet! This has been one godforsaken never-ending winter and I can hardly wait for it to come to a blessed end. Wasn't it just this past Sunday that the sun was shining and it was 68 beautiful breezy degrees and you would have thought that winter had disappeared...

When my cousin F up in NY heard the weather we were expecting today, she eMailed me to ask if we had a snow shovel, snow boots, and an ice scraper. My answer was "no" to all three. I gave away the ice scraper that I always kept in my car before I had the vehicle shipped from NY to TX back in 1993. And I don't think I've ever seen a snow shovel in any of the house and garden stores down here. As for women's snow boots....... they sell boots in the shoe stores, but they're either high-heeled dress-up fashion boots, or they're hand-tooled leather western boots. (Note to Yankees-- they don't call them "cowboy boots" down here.) I do have a very nice pair of western boots, but I would never go out in the sleet and/or snow with them.

It has been cold and rainy and drippy and messy all day today-- perfect day for another pot of lentil soup. I have lost count of how many pots of soup I have made since November. If I knew how to knit, I would be making little sweaters for my poor chickens. On rainy days like today, they go underneath the guest cottage and search for bugs and worms without getting their feathers wet. But they still feel the cold wind as it blows across the pastures, and I'm sure they're just as sick of this winter as we all are. The hens are still giving me eggs every day--- two at the least, three at the most. I am so glad I left the heavy plastic up around their coop... it may look totally silly, but at least the plastic is keeping most of the wind out of the coop for them. (Our neighbors call it "the uptown coop.")

I took a break from painting today. The walls are all done, and I started on the trim the other day. All I have left to do is the bottom woodwork on two walls, plus two single doors. The three big windows are done, as is the big double door going out to the side porch. Slathering fresh white paint on the already white trim was the most boring part of the room. White on white..... couldn't see what I had done and what was left to do unless I got down on my knees and looked at the trim at an angle. Makes me wonder if I had to paint the trim at all, but once it was started, there was no going back. It won't take but a few hours to paint the rest, and then I will retire that paint brush for a good long while before I get to painting anything again.

Although... I have more than half a can of the peachy beige paint left........ I'm thinking of painting the fireplace wall in our bedroom with the rest of that paint. And there is some detail work on the fireplace itself which would look nice with a little touch of gold paint. See what happens? You paint just one thing and then you look around and your eyes see a bunch of things just screaming out Paint me! Paint me next! (Which is what keeps all of those house and garden stores up and running.)